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.
So I truly hope this thread doesn't get closed. I read Breaker's post about Gamergate that just recently was closed, and wrote a long response. By the time I could publish my reply, TL mods closed it.
Prior to seeing this thread, I had no idea what gamergate was, so I followed the link provided and read the article. It mentioned "Zoe Quinn". I heard about the name "Zoe Quinn" but I never bothered to search out who is she, until now. I was curious, so I continued to do some research.
It seems this gamergate started when accusations that developers were buying articles from journalists to promote games in advertorials, but disguised as editorials. A lot of people got upset, and most of them were men. This lead to death threats to females in the gaming industry like Zoe Quinn.
Now Zoe Quinn is being targeted specifically because rumors grew that she had slept with a video game journalist, in return the game she was involved in developing would receive praise.
So it seems gamergate started when rumors sprouted of corrupt journalists receiving paychecks or handjobs for positive reviews. Because there was a female involved in these rumors, some sexist men took this as an opportunity to lash out at these women.
So it seems that the original intent of gamergate was to stamp out the corruption in video game journalism, but was contorted by sexist and misogynist men into a tool for threats and harassment, by a fucking rumor.
Breaker, I know you mean well when you posted the closed thread, and I appreciate you sharing this. However, I was hoping you would have provided more content for me to digest. It took me a very long time to search and understand gamergate, and I am sure I still know a lot less.
It isn't just about harassment and sexist threats, but also about advocating for honest journalism. Its unfortunate that the noble goal of honesty is maligned into death threats and sexist remarks.
I don't want to start a full discussion, because a lot has already been said, but if someone wants to add more to my comments, I would gladly hope I could learn more.
So, do you truly know what gamergate is? I don't, and I have many questions.
If TL mods also want to close this thread, I can accept that.
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 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. I mean a male developer could be offering an undisclosed sum of money to a male journalist for favourable reviews, and it would still amount to the same corruption.
The outrage grew when this form of corruption incorporated a male and female counterpart. Now we have male gamers lashing out at females in the gaming industry, meanwhile female feminists are accusing all male gamers as being misogynistic assholes that want gaming to stay in the "old boys club".
Things have gotten out of hand, and its hard to discern a possible solution.
On October 15 2014 16:47 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: A similar thread got closed literally like 30 minutes ago.
If you read my thread, I addressed closed thread. I wanted to just start a more meaningful discussion. That thread offered little information, and was thusly closed. I want to create a discussion.
On October 15 2014 16:47 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: A similar thread got closed literally like 30 minutes ago.
If you read my thread, I addressed closed thread. I wanted to just start a more meaningful discussion. That thread offered little information, and was thusly closed. I want to create a discussion.
I saw it mate and I understand you. I'm just apprehensive of what the Red Hammer Gods will do with this thread :o.
On October 15 2014 16:47 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: A similar thread got closed literally like 30 minutes ago.
If you read my thread, I addressed closed thread. I wanted to just start a more meaningful discussion. That thread offered little information, and was thusly closed. I want to create a discussion.
I saw it mate. I'm just apprehensive of what the Red Hammer Gods will do with this thread :o.
It hasn't been closed yet. What do you know/understand of this gamergate? Can you add more or your opinion?
And sorry about the "if you read my thread". That can sound kind rude.
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.
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.
On October 15 2014 16:40 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: The heart of the problem lies not within the sexes, but in honesty in journalism, which is taught in every journalist class.
it seems rather hard to identify a singular base problem given how this developed (hell, half the stuff I've seen on the topic is titled some variant of "this is what gamergate is really about", and yes, I clicked almost every time tt)
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.
On October 15 2014 16:40 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: The heart of the problem lies not within the sexes, but in honesty in journalism, which is taught in every journalist class.
it seems rather hard to identify a singular base problem given how this developed (hell, half the stuff I've seen on the topic is titled some variant of "this is what gamergate is really about", and yes, I clicked almost every time tt)
I only heard of this nonsense today, after the closed post, but have recently read a lot. I was hoping others could add their opinions so I can gain another perspective.
I too have read those topic titles, but they are usually written from one side of the coin.
Its difficult to gain an unbiased discussion on it because essentially it boils down to a battle of the sexes, and between males and females discussions can easily turn into heated debates.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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
Edit: to your edit: i agree with the first sentence but after that you're just being dishonest because you don't factor in the competitive nature of this, where the one with more to offer will always get the deal.
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.
I'm going to give OP the benefit of doubt, and assumes he really doesnt know anything about GamerGate, and is not just trying to make it sound positive, because -spoiler alert- it's really not.
On October 15 2014 16:01 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: It isn't just about harassment and sexist threats, but also about advocating for honest journalism. Its unfortunate that the noble goal of honesty is maligned into death threats and sexist remarks.
Nope. Gamergate has never been about advocating for honest journalism. It has only and ever been about harassing women in the game industry. "Honest Journalism" is only an excuse they gave, but they really dont care about it.
Corruption in game journalism exist. Youtubers are paid by the game industry to give good review. Reviewing magazines only have pre-access to certain game if they agree to give it a good review ( Doesnt mean the game is really bad. Batman: Arkham Asyleum was only available for review if you agreed to rate it 90%+ ). Do gamerGate condem/insult these companies : Nope.
But they do care about Zoe Quinn and women in general, because they have the option of dating/ having sex with other people in the industry ( spoiler alert 2 : Women are free to have sex with whoever they want, there is NO PROOF she 'bougth' a good review with sex). The only guy at fault here is the journalist that decided to review a game made by a women he slept with, because obvious conflict of interest. But once again GG doesnt care about that. Its all ZoeQuinn's and women fault for corrupting our pure industry ( this is sarcasm).
Not to mention that Zoe Quinn's "Corruption" ( I honestly doubt there was even one) would be one of the most INSIGNIFICANT corruption of the gaming industry journalism to date. The mere fact that GamerGate keeps targeting women and not EA/Activision/Ubisoft/Game review website proves that they dont care about coruption at all.
TL:DR : GamerGate is a pure mysoginist movement with no other aim than harrassing women out of the video game industry. "Journalism integrity" is a mere excuse, they dont really care about it at all.
This is entirely the issue in my previous post. This person here has seen (most likely on the media that are pushing it down their throat) the message that they want them to see.
GamerGate is nothing about this in the slightest. Some people have taken it upon themselves as a crusade, but they are not what the movement is or should be about.
This is exactly what I was mentioning. The media and, as such, this person here has branded an ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE based on the actions of a loud, dangerous minority from within it. Most likely any further research (I even linked a video! - The idea that it's against women is ridiculous, we raised $70k for women to make game content and NO NEWS SITE MENTIONED THAT!) was just not done, because it's drowned out by the multitude of "HAY THIS GROUP IS DANGER AND EVIL AND IF YOU DON'T THINK SO YOU HATE WOMEN YOU SCUM" posts and articles on the matter.
Yes, some people have done shitty things under the banner. For the same reason we laugh what 4chan is labeled a hate group, I laugh at the idea that GG is sexism. 100% of what the group was about was the idea that we want the better journalists to do well. That's it. Anything else is someone else's agenda and I'll thank you to not tar the group with the brush you bought from the media store.
On October 15 2014 18:45 Tyrran wrote: I'm going to give OP the benefit of doubt, and assumes he really doesnt know anything about GamerGate, and is not just trying to make it sound positive, because -spoiler alert- it's really not.
On October 15 2014 16:01 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: It isn't just about harassment and sexist threats, but also about advocating for honest journalism. Its unfortunate that the noble goal of honesty is maligned into death threats and sexist remarks.
Nope. Gamergate has never been about advocating for honest journalism. It has only and ever been about harassing women in the game industry. "Honest Journalism" is only an excuse they gave, but they really dont care about it.
Corruption in game journalism exist. Youtubers are paid by the game industry to give good review. Reviewing magazines only have pre-access to certain game if they agree to give it a good review ( Doesnt mean the game is really bad. Batman: Arkham Asyleum was only available for review if you agreed to rate it 90%+ ). Do gamerGate condem/insult these companies : Nope.
But they do care about Zoe Quinn and women in general, because they have the option of dating/ having sex with other people in the industry ( spoiler alert 2 : Women are free to have sex with whoever they want, there is NO PROOF she 'bougth' a good review with sex). The only guy at fault here is the journalist that decided to review a game made by a women he slept with, because obvious conflict of interest. But once again GG doesnt care about that. Its all ZoeQuinn's and women fault for corrupting our pure industry ( this is sarcasm).
Not to mention that Zoe Quinn's "Corruption" ( I honestly doubt there was even one) would be one of the most INSIGNIFICANT corruption of the gaming industry journalism to date. The mere fact that GamerGate keeps targeting women and not EA/Activision/Ubisoft/Game review website proves that they dont care about coruption at all.
TL:DR : GamerGate is a pure mysoginist movement with no other aim than harrassing women out of the video game industry. "Journalism integrity" is a mere excuse, they dont really care about it at all.
First, thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I don't want it to sound positive, or even negative. I am truly trying to root out the problems on both sides of this gamergate.
While its true the gamergate movement was used as a vehicle for misogynist assholes to lash out at women and feminist, I don't see everything quite as black and white.
That doesn't mean I condone the actions of death threats and harassment, I just feel that some people are truly upset that the game publishers and developers are sitting too closely to the gaming news outlets.
You have to remember, a movement is purely contextual. Gamergate can mean different things; at the moment to you it means an excuse for assholes to be a bigger asshole. To another, it means journalistic integrity.
On October 15 2014 18:45 Tyrran wrote: I'm going to give OP the benefit of doubt, and assumes he really doesnt know anything about GamerGate, and is not just trying to make it sound positive, because -spoiler alert- it's really not.
On October 15 2014 16:01 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: It isn't just about harassment and sexist threats, but also about advocating for honest journalism. Its unfortunate that the noble goal of honesty is maligned into death threats and sexist remarks.
Nope. Gamergate has never been about advocating for honest journalism. It has only and ever been about harassing women in the game industry. "Honest Journalism" is only an excuse they gave, but they really dont care about it.
Corruption in game journalism exist. Youtubers are paid by the game industry to give good review. Reviewing magazines only have pre-access to certain game if they agree to give it a good review ( Doesnt mean the game is really bad. Batman: Arkham Asyleum was only available for review if you agreed to rate it 90%+ ). Do gamerGate condem/insult these companies : Nope.
But they do care about Zoe Quinn and women in general, because they have the option of dating/ having sex with other people in the industry ( spoiler alert 2 : Women are free to have sex with whoever they want, there is NO PROOF she 'bougth' a good review with sex). The only guy at fault here is the journalist that decided to review a game made by a women he slept with, because obvious conflict of interest. But once again GG doesnt care about that. Its all ZoeQuinn's and women fault for corrupting our pure industry ( this is sarcasm).
Not to mention that Zoe Quinn's "Corruption" ( I honestly doubt there was even one) would be one of the most INSIGNIFICANT corruption of the gaming industry journalism to date. The mere fact that GamerGate keeps targeting women and not EA/Activision/Ubisoft/Game review website proves that they dont care about coruption at all.
TL:DR : GamerGate is a pure mysoginist movement with no other aim than harrassing women out of the video game industry. "Journalism integrity" is a mere excuse, they dont really care about it at all.
can't this also be blamed on that they're targeting small individuals rather than big company's they have no chance of hurting?
This is entirely the issue in my previous post. This person here has seen (most likely on the media that are pushing it down their throat) the message that they want them to see.
GamerGate is nothing about this in the slightest. Some people have taken it upon themselves as a crusade, but they are not what the movement is or should be about.
This is exactly what I was mentioning. The media and, as such, this person here has branded an ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE based on the actions of a loud, dangerous minority from within it. Most likely any further research (I even linked a video! - The idea that it's against women is ridiculous, we raised $70k for women to make game content and NO NEWS SITE MENTIONED THAT!) was just not done, because it's drowned out by the multitude of "HAY THIS GROUP IS DANGER AND EVIL AND IF YOU DON'T THINK SO YOU HATE WOMEN YOU SCUM" posts and articles on the matter.
Yes, some people have done shitty things under the banner. For the same reason we laugh what 4chan is labeled a hate group, I laugh at the idea that GG is sexism. 100% of what the group was about was the idea that we want the better journalists to do well. That's it. Anything else is someone else's agenda and I'll thank you to not tar the group with the brush you bought from the media store.
I am not sure if you are referring to me when you say "This person here has seen", but I am not trying to see any messages, or spout any message of my own. I truly want to understand this problem.
I read your previous post, and would like to reply.
I agree that only a part of the movement is in the "misogynist" group, and maybe a larger part is actually advocating for journalistic integrity. I don't know either way though, because I only learned of this gamergate today.
The video you posted offered a lot of insight, but I want to comment on the last part.
You can't ignore the fact that gamergate was used as a tool to spread violence and hate. Whether this was done by a radical group, or majority vote is entirely debatable. The videos last comment to laugh at the face of others who think gamergate is about misogynist is quite rude and abrasive. Essentially that video wants you to totally disregard the horrible actions done to Zoe Quinn.
Is gamergate about journalism integrity or misogyny? I don't know yet, but that video didn't particularly sway me either way.
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:
You are linking to articles written by the parent website of polygon.com, a gaming site that released one of those horribly generalizing articles about gamers/gamer culture. Also linking to Leigh Alexanders own website. This person wrote the most controversial article about gamers on Gamasutra.com and said pretty nasty stuff on Twitter about people just calling for better ethics in journalism. Gamasutra is also the website Intel pulled it's adds from after consumers rightfully complained about that piece. So yeah not really unbiased sources you have there.
Talk with Total Biscuit, Greg Tito (Editor in Chief of the Escapist, the website that allows for #GG discussion in their forum, though people opposing GamerGate often flame him for allowing discussion on that subject, even other journalists), Janelle Bonnano (Editor in Chief of GameFront) + Show Spoiler +
I also recommend watching the beginning of The Late Game Episode 4.
Keep in mind that those videos are not up to date anymore because many more things happened in the past weeks. But it will give you a general idea.
And please, please keep in mind: Don't condemn a whole movement because of the actions of a few. Mainstream media and pro 3rd wave feminism gaming websites like Polygon and Kotaku do this because it fits their narrative/agenda. The people of #GG actually emphasize to stay civil and call out harassment when they see it.
After participating a bit in #GG and #notyourshield, a hashtag about minority gamers siding with #GG - look it up, I try to stay out of this mess because I have to concrentrate on more important stuff IRL. But there is something worth fighting for and true about #GG. Yes I support women in the games industry and yes I want to see more female protagonists. But I don't support people pointing out the obvious and get a fuck ton of money and praise for that (Anita Sarkeesian) and I don't want to be silenced critizising that. I don't want to have a shaming culture in gaming that wants to prevent games like Bayonetta or Dragons Crown to be made. I don't want journalists to donate to developers and then write articles about their games without a disclosure concerning that. I don't want to be told how oppressed I am as a female gamer every two weeks and I don't want all my fellow male gamers to be painted as misogynists - this generalizations need to fucking stop. I mean yes I too have encountered some nasty messages while playing that insult me because of my gender. But you know what: It is the fucking Internet. They would probably insult me for another reason when I'd be a man. Just learn to not care about trolls and BM people. What I value more is visiting gaming/eSports conventions. Because there I see the people who enjoy the same interest as me in real fucking life. And what did I encounter? Kind, welcoming and passionate people. That is how I see gamer culture.
Ok fuck it, I could go on and on and on... I just wanted to say: Be carefull whose stuff you read/watch about this subject. There are really smart and honest people in #GG who have good arguments/intentions. Sadly, I don't have the energy to help them, so I walked away. This is probably the last post I will write about GamerGate.
One lesson I learned the last couple of months: I don't want to call myself a feminist anymore.
This is entirely the issue in my previous post. This person here has seen (most likely on the media that are pushing it down their throat) the message that they want them to see.
GamerGate is nothing about this in the slightest. Some people have taken it upon themselves as a crusade, but they are not what the movement is or should be about.
This is exactly what I was mentioning. The media and, as such, this person here has branded an ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE based on the actions of a loud, dangerous minority from within it. Most likely any further research (I even linked a video! - The idea that it's against women is ridiculous, we raised $70k for women to make game content and NO NEWS SITE MENTIONED THAT!) was just not done, because it's drowned out by the multitude of "HAY THIS GROUP IS DANGER AND EVIL AND IF YOU DON'T THINK SO YOU HATE WOMEN YOU SCUM" posts and articles on the matter.
Yes, some people have done shitty things under the banner. For the same reason we laugh what 4chan is labeled a hate group, I laugh at the idea that GG is sexism. 100% of what the group was about was the idea that we want the better journalists to do well. That's it. Anything else is someone else's agenda and I'll thank you to not tar the group with the brush you bought from the media store.
I am not sure if you are referring to me when you say "This person here has seen", but I am not trying to see any messages, or spout any message of my own. I truly want to understand this problem.
I read your previous post, and would like to reply.
I agree that only a part of the movement is in the "misogynist" group, and maybe a larger part is actually advocating for journalistic integrity. I don't know either way though, because I only learned of this gamergate today.
The video you posted offered a lot of insight, but I want to comment on the last part.
You can't ignore the fact that gamergate was used as a tool to spread violence and hate. Whether this was done by a radical group, or majority vote is entirely debatable. The videos last comment to laugh at the face of others who think gamergate is about misogynist is quite rude and abrasive. Essentially that video wants you to totally disregard the horrible actions done to Zoe Quinn.
Is gamergate about journalism integrity or misogyny? I don't know yet, but that video didn't particularly sway me either way.
I meant the person I quoted. I can't ignore the fact that gamergate was used as a tool to spread violence, true. I can't ignore that in the past other seemingly peaceful and progressive ideas have been used in the same way. You DO NOT tar the message with those that take it to the extreme. It's made it really convenient for the gaming sites that the movement was trying to hold accountable to just squash it with the notion that "You wouldn't want to side with these sexist morons, would you?"
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:
You are linking to articles written by the parent website of polygon.com, a gaming site that released one of those horribly generalizing articles about gamers/gamer culture. Also linking to Leigh Alexanders own website. This person wrote the most controversial article about gamers on Gamasutra.com and said pretty nasty stuff on Twitter about people just calling for better ethics in journalism. Gamasutra is also the website Intel pulled it's adds from after consumers rightfully complained about that piece. So yeah not really unbiased sources you have there.
Talk with Total Biscuit, Greg Tito (Editor in Chief of the Escapist, the website that allows for #GG discussion in their forum, though people opposing GamerGate often flame him for allowing discussion on that subject, even other journalists), Janelle Bonnano (Editor in Chief of GameFront) + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmosgPNXmNc
I also recommend watching the beginning of The Late Game Episode 4.
Keep in mind that those videos are not up to date anymore because many more things happened in the past weeks. But it will give you a general idea.
And please, please keep in mind: Don't condemn a whole movement because of the actions of a few. Mainstream media and pro 3rd wave feminism gaming websites like Polygon and Kotaku do this because it fits their narrative/agenda. The people of #GG actually emphasize to stay civil and call out harassment when they see it.
After participating a bit in #GG and #notyourshield, a hashtag about minority gamers siding with #GG - look it up, I try to stay out of this mess because I have to concrentrate on more important stuff IRL. But there is something worth fighting for and true about #GG. Yes I support women in the games industry and yes I want to see more female protagonists. But I don't support people pointing out the obvious and get a fuck ton of money and praise for that (Anita Sarkeesian) and I don't want to be silenced critizising that. I don't want to have a shaming culture in gaming that wants to prevent games like Bayonetta or Dragons Crown to be made. I don't want journalists to donate to developers and then write articles about their games without a disclosure concerning that. I don't want to be told how oppressed I am as a female gamer every two weeks and I don't want all my fellow male gamers to be painted as misogynists - this generalizations need to fucking stop. I mean yes I too have encountered some nasty messages while playing that insult me because of my gender. But you know what: It is the fucking Internet. They would probably insult me for another reason when I'd be a man. Just learn to not care about trolls and BM people. What I value more is visiting gaming/eSports conventions. Because there I see the people who enjoy the same interest as me in real fucking life. And what did I encounter? Kind, welcoming and passionate people. That is how I see gamer culture.
Ok fuck it, I could go on and on and on... I just wanted to say: Be carefull whose stuff you read/watch about this subject. There are really smart and honest people in #GG who have good arguments/intentions. Sadly, I don't have the energy to help them, so I walked away. This is probably the last post I will write about GamerGate.
One lesson I learned the last couple of months: I don't want to call myself a feminist anymore.
That is all.
Galika, thank you for sharing your point of view, and providing some more resources.
I think you give an honest opinion on gamergate. It truly is a mess, and something I kind of regret getting involved in.
Honestly, part of me wants the mods to close this thread now so I can stop discussing it, but I know that it won't go away just because one soul in the vast internet has decided to put on the blinders.
I intended to fall asleep a couple of hours ago, but instead I stayed up all night discussing this gamergate fiasco because I wanted to learn more about it.
Now I regret being more informed. Ignorance can sometimes be bliss.
This is entirely the issue in my previous post. This person here has seen (most likely on the media that are pushing it down their throat) the message that they want them to see.
GamerGate is nothing about this in the slightest. Some people have taken it upon themselves as a crusade, but they are not what the movement is or should be about.
This is exactly what I was mentioning. The media and, as such, this person here has branded an ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE based on the actions of a loud, dangerous minority from within it. Most likely any further research (I even linked a video! - The idea that it's against women is ridiculous, we raised $70k for women to make game content and NO NEWS SITE MENTIONED THAT!) was just not done, because it's drowned out by the multitude of "HAY THIS GROUP IS DANGER AND EVIL AND IF YOU DON'T THINK SO YOU HATE WOMEN YOU SCUM" posts and articles on the matter.
Yes, some people have done shitty things under the banner. For the same reason we laugh what 4chan is labeled a hate group, I laugh at the idea that GG is sexism. 100% of what the group was about was the idea that we want the better journalists to do well. That's it. Anything else is someone else's agenda and I'll thank you to not tar the group with the brush you bought from the media store.
I am not sure if you are referring to me when you say "This person here has seen", but I am not trying to see any messages, or spout any message of my own. I truly want to understand this problem.
I read your previous post, and would like to reply.
I agree that only a part of the movement is in the "misogynist" group, and maybe a larger part is actually advocating for journalistic integrity. I don't know either way though, because I only learned of this gamergate today.
The video you posted offered a lot of insight, but I want to comment on the last part.
You can't ignore the fact that gamergate was used as a tool to spread violence and hate. Whether this was done by a radical group, or majority vote is entirely debatable. The videos last comment to laugh at the face of others who think gamergate is about misogynist is quite rude and abrasive. Essentially that video wants you to totally disregard the horrible actions done to Zoe Quinn.
Is gamergate about journalism integrity or misogyny? I don't know yet, but that video didn't particularly sway me either way.
I meant the person I quoted. I can't ignore the fact that gamergate was used as a tool to spread violence, true. I can't ignore that in the past other seemingly peaceful and progressive ideas have been used in the same way. You DO NOT tar the message with those that take it to the extreme. It's made it really convenient for the gaming sites that the movement was trying to hold accountable to just squash it with the notion that "You wouldn't want to side with these sexist morons, would you?"
I do agree, some outlets have skewed gamergate into just a group of sexist morons, but the question is how do you distance yourself from the misogynist but still advocate for journalistic integrity? The goal is admirable, but the road laid is littered with trash and refuse.
I posted this on the MMO-Champion forum yesterday:
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.
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.
I really need to sleep, but your comment has riled my fingers into typing a response. I am not misinformed. Infact, I would say I am relatively uninformed, which is why I started this discussion.
I want to be informed, I want to know the opinions on both sides of this heated debate. And I thank you for commenting and giving me your point of view.
You bring up excellent points though. If gamergate was truly advocating for journalistic integrity, why didn't they also attack the alleged writer Nathan Greyson with death threats? Why was Zoe Quinn the focal point?
Was Nathan Greyson also targeted with threats? I am not sure, but if anyone can provide resources I would greatly appreciate it.
But there are still many that do not condone the actions of the few misogynist yet still support gamergate. I don't know the original intent when all this gamergate fiasco started, but it is clear that others are embracing the journalistic integrity and admonishing the actions of the misogynist.
We have to understand gamergate can be taken in very different context, and it can't benefit when one side totally generalizes the other side.
On one side, we have pro gamergate. They believe that gamergate was created because game journalist and publishers are too often caught holding hands. They believe that the misogynist is only a small minority in the whole movement. They also believe that certain news media outlets have demonized the entire group as misogynist.
On the other side, we have anti gamergate. They believe gamergate was used as a means to slander, harass, and threaten females and feminists. They believe the journalistic integrity is just a cover so that they can gain more supporters, when the real goal is to oust women from video games.
Both sides have to realize that things aren't black and white, on either side of the argument.
On October 15 2014 19:47 SatedSC2 wrote: We just need to go back to playing games and let it die.
This. So much this.
Many people in #GG mean well and say things I fully support, but they are talking to a brick wall at this point. You can't reason with everyone, sadly.
I feel the best thing one can do is just keep buying games and visiting websites that really value games as a medium, not a certain agenda.
On October 15 2014 19:23 SatedSC2 wrote: Misogyny is bad. This is obvious.
Lying in reviews is bad. This is also obvious.
Violent threats are bad. Also obvious.
Perpetuating the stereotype that gamers are somehow linked by anything other than a common hobby is bad. Obvious.
Nothing about this debate is productive because both sides are ignoring the obvious points made by the other.
This whole debate is bad. This is super fucking obvious.
#JustPlayGames
I just wish it was that simple.
It is that simple.
None of the points either side have made are interesting or new. All this debate is doing is making the people heavily involved in either #GamerGate or #StopGamerGate look like petty cunts and this is a shame because the majority of these people are only interested in one of the self-evident points I mentioned. Gowerly would be a good example; only interested in the journalism side of this and yet seemingly lumped in with a load of misogynistic twats. People on both sides eventually just end up lumped in with misogyny or other such stereotyping by members of the other side, none of which is productive and none of which is conductive to an actual debate. Nothing will get solved by this debacle.
The whole thing is stupid in the extreme.
We need to go back to playing games and let it die.
I totally agree, we have to let this die and just enjoy the games made.
And I have said it before, I regret starting this thread and secretly hope it gets closed. And it is stupid.
But it won't just die. It will metastasize into a bigger problem.
Eventually it will die down, and perhaps be forgotten in the annals of the internet. But if it does quietly die, then what was all the commotion about? Was this just an excuse for people to have a raging debate on the internet? What was it all for?
Up to this day i wasnt aware of such a thing as #GG. Its funny reading various people claiming that it is thing A and others claiming its B. Does it really matter what is it about? Like WTF????? If You want to talk about honesty in gaming jurnalism talk about it, if You want to talk about feminism in gaming industry talk about it. Who cares about this hashtag?I tell You what, i think that people who talk about #GG rather than actual issues only care about them monies. This hashtag is bringing drama and therfore money, so a lot of people want to post their opinion on this get viewers and cash out of it. If You really care about those issues You can easily discuss them without it.
If You ask me, i want to good games, nothing more. In that regard i can see bad jurnalism hurting me, i can buy shitty game cause of it. I want this to stop. I dont care what hashtag something like this have i can support that.
It's going back to labels, again. #GamerGate is this, #GamerGate is that. Some people DO want journalistic reform. Some people enjoy doxxing other users and sending death threats. I, as both a gamer and developer, would like to remove as much corruption from both sides of the dev/journo coin and remove as much of the "Old Boy's Club" mentality that's going on. It's detrimental to having a fair and open discussion on the content being produced. There were legitimate points raised by all of the talking. They were drowned out by a bunch of bullshit. As. Always. Then people focus on the bullshit and use it to further push the legitimate responses down because it's much easier to keep things the way they are.
On October 15 2014 20:11 Silvanel wrote: Up to this day i wasnt aware of such a thing as #GG. Its funny reading various people claiming that is thing A and others claiming its B. Does it really matter what is it about? Like WTF????? If You want to talk about honesty in gaming jurnalism talk about it, if You want to talk about feminism in gaming industry talk about it. How cares about this hashtag?I tell You whhat, i think that people how talk about #GG rather than actual issues only care about them monies. This hashtag is bringing drama and therfore money, so a lot of people want to post their opinion on this get viewers and cash out of it. If You really care about those issues You can easily discuss them without it.
If You ask me, i want to good games, nothing more. In that regard i can see bad jurnalism hurting me, i can buy shitty game cause of it. I want this to stop. I dont care what hashtag something like this have i can support that.
I was like you before today, and now I have started a discussion that I am unable to handle.
I have learned what both sides have argued, and I don't like either side.
But you are absolutely right about one thing, its all about the monies. No matter which side is right or wrong, this drama is bringing traffic to many websites.
On October 15 2014 20:14 Gowerly wrote: It's going back to labels, again. #GamerGate is this, #GamerGate is that. Some people DO want journalistic reform. Some people enjoy doxxing other users and sending death threats. I, as both a gamer and developer, would like to remove as much corruption from both sides of the dev/journo coin and remove as much of the "Old Boy's Club" mentality that's going on. It's detrimental to having a fair and open discussion on the content being produced. There were legitimate points raised by all of the talking. They were drowned out by a bunch of bullshit. As. Always. Then people focus on the bullshit and use it to further push the legitimate responses down because it's much easier to keep things the way they are.
It is truly sad that so many has to label others on the other side of the fence. I am trying to wade through the bullshit to find the nuggets of honest truth. I don't think I will find it, but at least I tried.
Ignoring the problem will certainly not solve it. It's about grabbing attention and increasing awareness to the general public that the review/gamesites have become utterly untrustworthy. We're not having a discussion with Quinn/Sarkeesian, we're spreading awareness. Because right now it's almost only their voices being heard in the media.
On October 15 2014 19:23 SatedSC2 wrote: We need to go back to playing games and let it die.
The games of the future will be made to fit what Quinn/Sarkeesian stand for. Thats what you will go back to playing if you keep quiet.
On October 15 2014 20:32 adwodon wrote: So basically journalists need to get some professional standards and gamers need to pay them for it to prevent them being forced into the hands of businesses and advertisers who would pay their salaries...
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.
I'm sure some people do. The problem is, the discussion within Gamergate is almost never about "journalistic reform". If it was about "journalistic reform", one would expect them to talk about "journalistic reform" (whatever that means), rather than spending virtually all of their energy attacking "social justice warriors".
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.
As usual, a great post by paralleluniverse. Thanks.
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 19:45 paralleluniverse wrote: The OP is misinformed about Gamergate.
I posted this on the MMO-Champion forum yesterday:
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.
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.
...and as usual, misogynistic rubbish by xM)Z.
Parallel's post did offer value, but is still as biased as xM)Z's "misogynistic rubbish".
Not saying I agree with either of them, but just that they have their opinions. Calling another opinion rubbish because you don't agree is why this problem has expanded into the clusterfuck it is.
We can't denounce another's opinion just because we don't agree with it. All that does is antagonize them into becoming more aggressive and really solves nothing.
Gamergate is just the lack of understanding on both sides.
'Gamers' seem to expect professional quality journalism in their interests without paying for it.
Games journalists don't realise they are basically glorified hobbyists because there is no money in games journalism, there are no standards and no established ethics because they are hobbyists and no one cares about the integrity of hobbyists.
So basically journalists need to get some professional standards and gamers need to pay them for it to prevent them being forced into the hands of businesses and advertisers who would pay their salaries... but whats actually happening is harassment and bullshit because no one understand the situation on the other side of the fence and we all just enjoy flinging shit.
If you want professional journalism, look to the major publications which aren't hobbyist. WSJ, New Statesman, Guardian, Metro etc etc They have professional journalists and reviewers who will be controlled by an editor who doesn't have ties to the industry and will prevent their journalists attending 'press' events with shady practices.
Otherwise you'd better understand that you're reading the opinions and reviews of hobbyists, which is not a bad thing but if they are getting a salary they aren't getting it from you, but from the people who's products they're reviewing thus creating a conflict of interest (as its a hobbyist publication so scope for ad revenue is limited).
On October 15 2014 20:21 WakaDoDo wrote: Ignoring the problem will certainly not solve it. It's about grabbing attention and increasing awareness to the general public that the review/gamesites have become utterly untrustworthy. We're not having a discussion with Quinn/Sarkeesian, we're spreading awareness. Because right now it's almost only their voices being heard in the media.
On October 15 2014 19:23 SatedSC2 wrote: We need to go back to playing games and let it die.
The games of the future will be made to fit what Quinn/Sarkeesian stand for. Thats what you will go back to playing if you keep quiet.
Your focus may be on game media news outlets become utterly untrustworthy, and raising awareness that the video game journalists might be coerced into writing favourable reviews, but you state "We're not having a discussion with Quinn/Sarkeesian" yet in the same post you advocate against what Quinn/Sarkeesian stand for.
Your post confuses me. What does Quinn and Sarkeesian stand for? I kind of understand it, from the research and comments on this thread, but I would like to know your opinion more.
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.
I'm sure some people do. The problem is, the discussion within Gamergate is almost never about "journalistic reform". If it was about "journalistic reform", one would expect them to talk about "journalistic reform" (whatever that means), rather than spending virtually all of their energy attacking "social justice warriors".
Many did. Wrote the advertisers explaining what they found and that they expected more from them. In those instances, great. Some also went and sent death threats because they're super cool dudes, which was less great.
On October 15 2014 20:32 adwodon wrote: Gamergate is just the lack of understanding on both sides.
'Gamers' seem to expect professional quality journalism in their interests without paying for it.
Games journalists don't realise they are basically glorified hobbyists because there is no money in games journalism, there are no standards and no established ethics because they are hobbyists and no one cares about the integrity of hobbyists.
So basically journalists need to get some professional standards and gamers need to pay them for it to prevent them being forced into the hands of businesses and advertisers who would pay their salaries... but whats actually happening is harassment and bullshit because no one understand the situation on the other side of the fence and we all just enjoy flinging shit.
If you want professional journalism, look to the major publications which aren't hobbyist. WSJ, New Statesman, Guardian, Metro etc etc They have professional journalists and reviewers who will be controlled by an editor who doesn't have ties to the industry and will prevent their journalists attending 'press' events with shady practices.
Otherwise you'd better understand that you're reading the opinions and reviews of hobbyists, which is not a bad thing but if they are getting a salary they aren't getting it from you, but from the people who's products they're reviewing thus creating a conflict of interest (as its a hobbyist publication so scope for ad revenue is limited).
Every time I reply to someone, another person chimes in and adds a bit more to the discussion.
I agree gamergate is the lack of understanding, but I would take out the "just". That word implies it isn't that complicated, when in fact it is quite complicated.
Beyond understanding, we need mutual respect to foster any meaningful discussions. But the problem is that any chance of mutual respect went out the window when trolls on the internet started harassing and threaten Quinn and others.
Now understanding and respect is even harder to attain because the discussion has been tainted.
I dont have interests in gaming jurnalism. But doesnt the same laws as normal jurnalism apply to it? You know laws of many countries cover it, and in most places You cant write baseless shit and disquise advertising as unbiased review.
I know right now is probably more of guarilla and wildwest in gaming jurnalism, but perhaps thats the way to go? Use jurnalism laws agaisnt dishonest jurnalism.
On October 15 2014 19:45 paralleluniverse wrote: The OP is misinformed about Gamergate.
I posted this on the MMO-Champion forum yesterday:
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.
As usual, a great post by paralleluniverse. Thanks.
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.
...and as usual, misogynistic rubbish by xM)Z.
Parallel's post did offer value, but is still as biased as xM)Z's "misogynistic rubbish".
Not saying I agree with either of them, but just that they have their opinions. Calling another opinion rubbish because you don't agree is why this problem has expanded into the clusterfuck it is.
We can't denounce another's opinion just because we don't agree with it. All that does is antagonize them into becoming more aggressive and really solves nothing.
1. No, paralleluniverse's post is not "as biased" as xM)Z's post. paralleluniverse's post is a demonstration based on facts highlighting that GamerGate has clear sexist roots and treats the actors involved differently based on their gender. xM)Z's post is a completely misogynistic claim that women have an "unfair advantage" over men because they can offer sexual favours to men. Please do not attempt to equate the two. 2. No, calling another opinion rubbish because it is has literally nothing to do with "why this problem has expanded into the clusterfuck it is". Nothing. If someone made a blatantly racist comment and someone else called that statement rubbish, would you be arguing that racist statements can't be called rubbish? Is calling a racist or misogynistic statement "rubbish" the problem, or is the problem the racist or misogynistic statement in the first place? 3. We can absolutely denounce statements when they are racist, misogynistic, etc. Especially when the author of the statement has a history of misogynistic posts on these forums.
On October 15 2014 20:44 Silvanel wrote: I dont have interests in gaming jurnalism. But doesnt the same laws as normal jurnalism apply to it? You know laws of many countries cover it, and in most places You cant write baseless shit and disquise advertising as unbiased review.
I know right now is probably more of guarilla and wildwest in gaming jurnalism, but perhaps thats the way to go? Use jurnalism laws agaisnt dishonest jurnalism.
Yes laws do govern it in USA and Canada, but there needs to be undeniable proof before anything can happen, and I rather doubt the big boys would ever fess up to buying positive reviews.
Well You can also denounce feminst, or egalitarian statments. You can denounce whatever You like. Racism, bigotery, feminism and such are in a sphere of values not truths and objectivity (if You belive in such things). Statments doesnt become false ot true cause it sounds racist or feminist.
Your post confuses me. What does Quinn and Sarkeesian stand for? I kind of understand it, from the research and comments on this thread, but I would like to know your opinion more.
That there is structural misogyni in all parts of video games and that this has real influence peoples everyday lives.
On October 15 2014 20:43 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: So basically journalists need to get some professional standards and gamers need to pay them for it to Beyond understanding, we need mutual respect to foster any meaningful discussions. But the problem is that any chance of mutual respect went out the window when trolls on the internet started harassing and threaten Quinn and others.
Now understanding and respect is even harder to attain because the discussion has been tainted.
There was never any chance of a real meaningful discussion through the internet. This is something I think we all have somewhat know. There can only be witch hunts or hastagspams, with the occasional factual video/text. Im gonna go on a limb and say that Quinn/Sarkeesian perhaps knew this better then we did.
It is impressive how the doxxing of pro-GG'ers has gone completely unreported. There was a twitter which leaked SSN, adresses et.c. of anyone who would criticize Quinn and Sarkeesian. Or that Quinn supporters managed to shut down an otherwise pretty great initiative by The Fine Young Capitalists. Or that Quinn threatened TB with a DMCA (probably the most hilarious part of the entire ordeal). Seriously, both sides have had their share of idiots and this entire ordeal is altogether rather disgraceful for everyone involved.
The best thing that can be said for this entire ordeal is how clear media manipulation has become.
It's not a discussion, it's a 4chan campaign. Sheesh. It has pretty clear hateful roots and the accusations against Quinn and the idea that women have an unfair advantage in software development/tech journalism is laughable. Come on, TL. You know better than this, right?
It's like the manufactured voter fraud controversy in the US. Republican politicians stir up fears about voter fraud so they can pass restrictive voting laws, which disenfranchise certain groups. In actually, voter fraud is absurdly rare and doesn't make an impact in the US (although it does elsewhere.)
Should gaming journalism be improved? Sure, why not (although I'm not sure entertainment media of any type has particularly high journalistic standards.) Does Quinn's game and the unfounded accusations around it warrant that discussion? No.
Consider this: it's been openly known for over a decade that video games journalists are often bribed by publishers. We know for a fact that Jeff Gerstmann was fired for giving a low-scoring review, and we have dozens of confirmed cases of games journalists reviewing games, without playing any more than a couple hours of said game. None of this is new or surprising. The only differentiating factor right now is that there's a made up story about a woman taking advantage of men.
I googled Zoe Quinn. I'm sorry if this sounds horrible but I don't see her as the type to possess any significant sexual influence on the opposite sex. Some people, jouranlists included, simply liked her quirky game?
But someone somewhere sucked some dick to get IGN and the likes give Middle-earth a 9.3. Seems to me like gaming journalism in general is pretty full of shit and has been for 10+ years now. But all this gamergate nonsense is stupid.
Lol, "pre-existing misogynistic corruption conspiracy" thats a good one.
I dont really know why people keep bringing in Zoe "WhateverHerNameIs". I do want to talk about gaming jurnalism. Not her. If she had her account hacked and life threatend she should go to police, nothing i can do about it.
On October 15 2014 21:13 Jibba wrote: It's not a discussion, it's a 4chan campaign. Sheesh. It has pretty clear hateful roots and the accusations against Quinn and the idea that women have an unfair advantage in software development/tech journalism is laughable. Come on, TL. You know better than this, right?
It doesn't matter where it came from! Fact is: There are real issues in journalism today! And I mean that at a whole, nut just the gaming industry. But in the "normal" press ethical standards say, that journalists should reveal any connections they have to the article they wrote! And even there this is not followed through. In gaming journalism and criticism it's even worse! People are doing favors for money, early game copies or maybe actually even sex, ... and nobody knows where a good review came from! And we should talk about that! If that is "#gamergate" or "#wubdiwoop" or "#journalism" doesn't matter! So basically nobody should be either pro or con #gamergate, because it's always what you interpret and connect with that! It's a real mess!
On October 15 2014 21:27 Silvanel wrote: I dont really know why people keep bringing in Zoe "WhateverHerNameIs". I do want to talk about gaming jurnalism. Not her..
This is the issue. Big sites will talk about her and the so called SJWs agendas in their gaming pieces. If they talk about it, it will have an impact on future games being developed/released. We are in this unfortunate situation where we actually have to talk about something thats in reality dosent deserve this ammount of attention.
On October 15 2014 21:13 Jibba wrote: It's not a discussion, it's a 4chan campaign. Sheesh. It has pretty clear hateful roots and the accusations against Quinn and the idea that women have an unfair advantage in software development/tech journalism is laughable. Come on, TL. You know better than this, right?
Again with the labeling. It was not "4chan", it was some users that go on 4chan. that's like me saying all TLers are PUAs because there was a couple of pages about that in the Dating thread. What I can't understand is: If it started off as this, then how and where did the evidence of actual collusion and corruption come from? It makes little sense. It's not fabricated and the response of 14 articles all stating "Gamers are Dead" is not a particularly clever response. All seems slightly fishy to me, there.
On October 15 2014 21:13 Jibba wrote: It's not a discussion, it's a 4chan campaign. Sheesh. It has pretty clear hateful roots and the accusations against Quinn and the idea that women have an unfair advantage in software development/tech journalism is laughable. Come on, TL. You know better than this, right?
It doesn't matter where it came from! Fact is: There are real issues in journalism today! And I mean that at a whole, nut just the gaming industry. But in the "normal" press ethical standards say, that journalists should reveal any connections they have to the article they wrote! And even there this is not followed through. In gaming journalism and criticism it's even worse! People are doing favors for money, early game copies or maybe actually even sex, ... and nobody knows where a good review came from! And we should talk about that! If that is "#gamergate" or "#wubdiwoop" or "#journalism" doesn't matter! So basically nobody should be either pro or con #gamergate, because it's always what you interpret and connect with that! It's a real mess!
Do you think gaming journalism is any more or less corrupt than it was 10 years ago? I'd argue it's cleaned up a whole lot.
There's a whole other thread (and plenty of other places for discussion) if you want to talk about journalism as a whole. The catalyst for this specific movement right now is a story about a woman, and the group fanning the flames are chantards. Gamergate should be isolated entirely from any discussion on journalistic standards, in gaming or anything else.
I mean honestly, Metacritic makes it incredibly simple to detect "logrolling" among journalists and websites. You could run statistical analysis on this stuff and pinpoint which developer/publisher gets abnormally higher scores and from whom. But none of that data has been presented. The only thing spurring this is a fictional anecdote.
If there's truly a trend going on, then there's raw data that will support it. Luckily gaming journalists' opinions are easily traceable and comparable, and the whole situation should be easy to report. I've yet to see that report.
Considering gaming journalists are essentially amateurs, I highly doubt any logrolling that exists is concealed.
On October 15 2014 21:13 Jibba wrote: It's not a discussion, it's a 4chan campaign. Sheesh. It has pretty clear hateful roots and the accusations against Quinn and the idea that women have an unfair advantage in software development/tech journalism is laughable. Come on, TL. You know better than this, right?
Again with the labeling. It was not "4chan", it was some users that go on 4chan. that's like me saying all TLers are PUAs because there was a couple of pages about that in the Dating thread. What I can't understand is: If it started off as this, then how and where did the evidence of actual collusion and corruption come from? It makes little sense. It's not fabricated and the response of 14 articles all stating "Gamers are Dead" is not a particularly clever response. All seems slightly fishy to me, there.
How about this: The type of idiots who do dumb shit on /b/ for the lulz manufactured this current "controversy." They openly discussed the dumb shit they hoped to accomplish by running it. It doesn't matter what site they came from, but they made their intentions entirely clear - it's not about journalism.
I have no beefs with your post Jett.Jack.Alvir. I've seen everything you have denoted in the post you were warned about in real life. And the fact of the matter is, I am painfully new to the industry of eSports.
However, if we snap back to the reality of the present situation, with death threats getting in everyone's inbox every time they want to hold a summit about what is happening or give a speech about their role in - insert form of media outlet here - it makes me think that we have reached a point where the damage we are trying to control is becoming more and more out of control...
Right now, I want all of it to stop - corrupt media giving 5 stars to something that is lack luster in quality, and people emailing death threats to people who think they are doing their jobs. I have no doubt that both lines of people - pure and corrupt - are being targetted in this campaign.
On October 15 2014 21:48 Jibba wrote: Do you think gaming journalism is any more or less corrupt than it was 10 years ago? I'd argue it's cleaned up a whole lot.
Not just Journalism, but sometimes the companies that make the games themselves...
True story - a friend of mine used to work for Ion Storm. For those of you who heard all the rumors about those guys, chances are they weren't just rumors. Rampant parties, John Romero driving ferraris, used to have a playboy playmate girlfriend that was previously a pro gamer without make up, and after it all collapsed he was lucky to break even.
However, nowadays John does delve in to other projects. One that I can think of off the top of my head was The Walking Dead game on Steam.
This has gotten so far beyond bullshit. And for those people talking about "both sides", fuck that. This level of idiocy is NEVER justified. Period.
Seeing how I was one of the people talking about both sides I'm going to tell you to stop trying to put words in my mouth. I had hoped we here at TL could refrain from this sort of ridiculous strawmanning. Just because I point out that both sides have been flinging shit does not mean I condone either sides shit-flinging. In fact it means the exact opposite despite what you attempt to imply. And this sort of thing is obviously never justified - and no one has claimed it to be.
On October 15 2014 21:13 Jibba wrote: It's not a discussion, it's a 4chan campaign. Sheesh. It has pretty clear hateful roots and the accusations against Quinn and the idea that women have an unfair advantage in software development/tech journalism is laughable. Come on, TL. You know better than this, right?
Again with the labeling. It was not "4chan", it was some users that go on 4chan. that's like me saying all TLers are PUAs because there was a couple of pages about that in the Dating thread. What I can't understand is: If it started off as this, then how and where did the evidence of actual collusion and corruption come from? It makes little sense. It's not fabricated and the response of 14 articles all stating "Gamers are Dead" is not a particularly clever response. All seems slightly fishy to me, there.
How about this: The type of idiots who do dumb shit on /b/ for the lulz manufactured this current "controversy." They openly discussed the dumb shit they hoped to accomplish by running it. It doesn't matter what site they came from, but they made their intentions entirely clear - it's not about journalism.
Jibba, I don't want to accuse you of being misinformed, because that has been used too much.
However, I do want to point towards the language used in the article you linked.
If you read it carefully, all the words used do not explicitly state "it's a 4chan campaign". Let me put in some quotes to give you some context on what I mean.
A set of IRC logs released Saturday appear to show that a handful of 4chan users were ultimately behind #GamerGate,
The opening statement of the article uses the word "appear". There is no explicit statement that says "it was the 4chan users".
Discussion logs, however, suggest that #notyourshield didn't begin as a broad movement but was a campaign manufactured and orchestrated by 4chan users via sockpuppet Twitter accounts.
Again the word "suggest" which implies that it could be true. However, when someone is already biased, they will read it as the definite truth.
And, according to screenshots recently released by Quinn, so was the original #GamerGate.
So according to someone being the target of the harassment (i.e. Quinn), gamergate was started by these 4chan users?
You have to really dig deep and read each word used when reading any news.
That article is full of words like "alleged", "appears", "suggest". All of this doesn't explicitly state that the 4chan users are the cause of gamergate, but only suggest they could be the cause.
Please remember I am not advocating for either side of this debate, I am only trying to understand both sides of the discussion. To understand it, I need to dig deep and actively think about why each person used specific words.
In the age of social media, the words chosen can have an astounding impact on the audience at large.
Some random trolls sends threats the whole argument is therefore invalid.... Theres alot of content already covereing gamergate that infact shows how fucked the games "journalists" have been.
Blatant corruption seems to be fine with feminists though
On October 15 2014 21:56 BreAKerTV wrote: I have no beefs with your post Jett.Jack.Alvir. I've seen everything you have denoted in the post you were warned about in real life. And the fact of the matter is, I am painfully new to the industry of eSports.
However, if we snap back to the reality of the present situation, with death threats getting in everyone's inbox every time they want to hold a summit about what is happening or give a speech about their role in - insert form of media outlet here - it makes me think that we have reached a point where the damage we are trying to control is becoming more and more out of control...
Right now, I want all of it to stop - corrupt media giving 5 stars to something that is lack luster in quality, and people emailing death threats to people who think they are doing their jobs. I have no doubt that both lines of people - pure and corrupt - are being targetted in this campaign.
On October 15 2014 21:48 Jibba wrote: Do you think gaming journalism is any more or less corrupt than it was 10 years ago? I'd argue it's cleaned up a whole lot.
Not just Journalism, but sometimes the companies that make the games themselves...
True story - a friend of mine used to work for Ion Storm. For those of you who heard all the rumors about those guys, chances are they weren't just rumors. Rampant parties, John Romero driving ferraris, used to have a playboy playmate girlfriend that was previously a pro gamer without make up, and after it all collapsed he was lucky to break even.
However, nowadays John does delve in to other projects. One that I can think of off the top of my head was The Walking Dead game on Steam.
I want it to all stop also. Everything is an exercise in futility. Corruption being weeded out through use of death threats is not the community I want to be involved in.
The two wrongs are not making anything right, but ultimately this will only stop when everyone puts aside their bias; stops stamping the other party with labels; and learns to respect each other.
Even in TL we get many people smacking down the label on other TL users. Hell, TL is supposed to be a small community, yet we have camps and factions already dividing TL into the pro and anti gamergate.
Everyone needs to stop generalizing each other and listen closely to what the other has to say.
On October 15 2014 22:15 Celadan wrote: Some random trolls sends threats the whole argument is therefore invalid.... Theres alot of content already covereing gamergate that infact shows how fucked the games "journalists" have been. http://youtu.be/_dbi-8rPShE Blatant corruption seems to be fine with feminists though
The video was already posted, and no one is arguing about video game journalist being corrupt. Many probably agree, on both sides of the discussion.
However, your comment about feminists being fine with corruption is asinine. There have been no statements from the feminist camp that stated "we are ok with corruption". They just believe the corruption angle was used as a veil to conceal the real intent of gamergate, which was to slander Quinn and other women.
I don't agree either way, but your comment already shows where your bias lies, and you don't defend it very well.
edit: Your video was not posted, I mistaken it for another video posted. Regardless, it tells nothing new so far. At least nothing I can glean from it.
This has gotten so far beyond bullshit. And for those people talking about "both sides", fuck that. This level of idiocy is NEVER justified. Period.
Seeing how I was one of the people talking about both sides I'm going to tell you to stop trying to put words in my mouth. I had hoped we here at TL could refrain from this sort of ridiculous strawmanning. Just because I point out that both sides have been flinging shit does not mean I condone either sides shit-flinging. In fact it means the exact opposite despite what you attempt to imply. And this sort of thing is obviously never justified - and no one has claimed it to be.
Because when insanity at this level (terrorism) is on sale (on one side, mind you), it makes sense to keep covering that shit up with a pleasant discussion of game reviews and conflicts of interest. I'll point you to paralleluniverse's post, which said it better than I could. link The nonexistent scandal somehow metastasized into a shitstorm because the majority of people involved in it are reasonable people that just wanted to talk about conflicts of interest in video game reviews? That's like saying that neo-nazi parties are reasonable political parties because hey, they highlight issues I'm interested in. Add that to the fact that absolutely nothing has been accomplished or even attempted in the name of cleaning up video game journalism standards (no, "awareness" does not count), while people have been forced from their homes. See also:
If you want to campaign against corruption in video game journalism, fantastic! You've chosen the most luxurious righteousness on Earth. But joining #gamergate is like marching under Sauron's flag because you're worried about Minas Tirith's feudal inheritance of rulership. Even if you're claiming more enlightened motivations, you're charging with a stinking mob intent on ruining everything, unleashed by a raging asshole.
On October 15 2014 18:45 Tyrran wrote: I'm going to give OP the benefit of doubt, and assumes he really doesnt know anything about GamerGate, and is not just trying to make it sound positive, because -spoiler alert- it's really not.
On October 15 2014 16:01 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: It isn't just about harassment and sexist threats, but also about advocating for honest journalism. Its unfortunate that the noble goal of honesty is maligned into death threats and sexist remarks.
Nope. Gamergate has never been about advocating for honest journalism. It has only and ever been about harassing women in the game industry. "Honest Journalism" is only an excuse they gave, but they really dont care about it.
Corruption in game journalism exist. Youtubers are paid by the game industry to give good review. Reviewing magazines only have pre-access to certain game if they agree to give it a good review ( Doesnt mean the game is really bad. Batman: Arkham Asyleum was only available for review if you agreed to rate it 90%+ ). Do gamerGate condem/insult these companies : Nope.
But they do care about Zoe Quinn and women in general, because they have the option of dating/ having sex with other people in the industry ( spoiler alert 2 : Women are free to have sex with whoever they want, there is NO PROOF she 'bougth' a good review with sex). The only guy at fault here is the journalist that decided to review a game made by a women he slept with, because obvious conflict of interest. But once again GG doesnt care about that. Its all ZoeQuinn's and women fault for corrupting our pure industry ( this is sarcasm).
Not to mention that Zoe Quinn's "Corruption" ( I honestly doubt there was even one) would be one of the most INSIGNIFICANT corruption of the gaming industry journalism to date. The mere fact that GamerGate keeps targeting women and not EA/Activision/Ubisoft/Game review website proves that they dont care about coruption at all.
TL:DR : GamerGate is a pure mysoginist movement with no other aim than harrassing women out of the video game industry. "Journalism integrity" is a mere excuse, they dont really care about it at all.
First, thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I don't want it to sound positive, or even negative. I am truly trying to root out the problems on both sides of this gamergate.
While its true the gamergate movement was used as a vehicle for misogynist assholes to lash out at women and feminist, I don't see everything quite as black and white. That doesn't mean I condone the actions of death threats and harassment, I just feel that some people are truly upset that the game publishers and developers are sitting too closely to the gaming news outlets.
You have to remember, a movement is purely contextual. Gamergate can mean different things; at the moment to you it means an excuse for assholes to be a bigger asshole. To another, it means journalistic integrity.
On October 15 2014 20:32 adwodon wrote: Gamergate is just the lack of understanding on both sides.
'Gamers' seem to expect professional quality journalism in their interests without paying for it.
Games journalists don't realise they are basically glorified hobbyists because there is no money in games journalism, there are no standards and no established ethics because they are hobbyists and no one cares about the integrity of hobbyists.
So basically journalists need to get some professional standards and gamers need to pay them for it to prevent them being forced into the hands of businesses and advertisers who would pay their salaries... but whats actually happening is harassment and bullshit because no one understand the situation on the other side of the fence and we all just enjoy flinging shit.
If you want professional journalism, look to the major publications which aren't hobbyist. WSJ, New Statesman, Guardian, Metro etc etc They have professional journalists and reviewers who will be controlled by an editor who doesn't have ties to the industry and will prevent their journalists attending 'press' events with shady practices.
Otherwise you'd better understand that you're reading the opinions and reviews of hobbyists, which is not a bad thing but if they are getting a salary they aren't getting it from you, but from the people who's products they're reviewing thus creating a conflict of interest (as its a hobbyist publication so scope for ad revenue is limited).
So, yes, some people under the GamerGate tag have been harassing, sending death threats, etc, to women via the medium of the internet. People have been doing this ANYWAY. ALL THE TIME. FOR YEARS. Suddenly "Gamers" are involved and now we can puff our chests and say that we're against a group called GamerGate! Hooray! An emeny with a name! Now we can go to war!
Except you can't. Because in this group you've got a whole bunch of people that want different things. Yes, a lot of games journalists are hobbyists that are getting paid not much at all to review and preview games. Still, if there's underhanded-ness going on in there, it should be brought out where possible.
Saying that all of GamerGate now is out to fire women into the Sun or whatever, to use the above neo-nazi analogy (huehue Godwin's law!) is like saying all of Islam is part of ISIS. There's nothing more a lot of people that are part of GamerGate (and especially #NotYourShield, who have been exploited by those very news sites when they were claiming that it's a bunch of privileged white dudes whining about them) want to do other than distance themselves from the heinousness that has been going on.
Say GamerGate dies and that all goes from twitter and whatever. WOMEN WILL BE SAFE FOREVER! Except they won't. Still. Because harassment and death threats are sent all the time and will still be sent all the time. Suggesting that GamerGate is all about this is ridiculous. This treatment of others on the internet will continue by the same people until something, if anything can be, is done about the people themselves. Not about some twitter tag, not about ideas about games journalism. Not about news sites, about the people doing this.
You can #StopGamerGate2014 all you like. What you need to do is #StopBeingAwfulToEachOther
Edit: For clarity this is still an argument about the use of labels/tags for these kinds of things, rather than a criticism of stopping harassment.
On October 15 2014 22:58 Gowerly wrote: So, yes, some people under the GamerGate tag have been harassing, sending death threats, etc, to women via the medium of the internet. People have been doing this ANYWAY. ALL THE TIME. FOR YEARS. Suddenly "Gamers" are involved and now we can puff our chests and say that we're against a group called GamerGate! Hooray! An emeny with a name! Now we can go to war!
Except you can't. Because in this group you've got a whole bunch of people that want different things. Yes, a lot of games journalists are hobbyists that are getting paid not much at all to review and preview games. Still, if there's underhanded-ness going on in there, it should be brought out where possible.
Saying that all of GamerGate now is out to fire women into the Sun or whatever, to use the above neo-nazi analogy (huehue Godwin's law!) is like saying all of Islam is part of ISIS. There's nothing more a lot of people that are part of GamerGate (and especially #NotYourShield, who have been exploited by those very news sites when they were claiming that it's a bunch of privileged white dudes whining about them) want to do other than distance themselves from the heinousness that has been going on.
Say GamerGate dies and that all goes from twitter and whatever. WOMEN WILL BE SAFE FOREVER! Except they won't. Still. Because harassment and death threats are sent all the time and will still be sent all the time. Suggesting that GamerGate is all about this is ridiculous. This treatment of others on the internet will continue by the same people until something, if anything can be, is done about the people themselves. Not about some twitter tag, not about ideas about games journalism. Not about news sites, about the people doing this.
You can #StopGamerGate2014 all you like. What you need to do is #StopBeingAwfulToEachOther
Except that ISIS has been so thoroughly reviled even within Islam. They don't want anything to do with that shit. The association between GG and video game journalism should be called out for what it is, a transparent ploy. It's very telling that the "being awful" by GG has resulted in far greater damage than anything done to anyone in GG. Again, there is no equivalency.
EDIT: About that first paragraph. Yes, people have been doing it for years. Whom, you might ask, are frequent recipients of such ridiculously over the top behavior? These people. See a connection?
On October 15 2014 21:13 Jibba wrote: It's not a discussion, it's a 4chan campaign. Sheesh. It has pretty clear hateful roots and the accusations against Quinn and the idea that women have an unfair advantage in software development/tech journalism is laughable. Come on, TL. You know better than this, right?
It doesn't matter where it came from! Fact is: There are real issues in journalism today! And I mean that at a whole, nut just the gaming industry. But in the "normal" press ethical standards say, that journalists should reveal any connections they have to the article they wrote! And even there this is not followed through. In gaming journalism and criticism it's even worse! People are doing favors for money, early game copies or maybe actually even sex, ... and nobody knows where a good review came from! And we should talk about that! If that is "#gamergate" or "#wubdiwoop" or "#journalism" doesn't matter! So basically nobody should be either pro or con #gamergate, because it's always what you interpret and connect with that! It's a real mess!
Do you think gaming journalism is any more or less corrupt than it was 10 years ago? I'd argue it's cleaned up a whole lot.
There's a whole other thread (and plenty of other places for discussion) if you want to talk about journalism as a whole.
I don't know if it got better or worse. Because most "irregularities" in journalism standards on my "radar" for the last years were about politics, economy, maybe travel, ... but gaming was not in the "mainstream press". You hear bits and pieces, but it never "got out" like gamergate now.
The catalyst for this specific movement right now is a story about a woman, and the group fanning the flames are chantards. Gamergate should be isolated entirely from any discussion on journalistic standards, in gaming or anything else.
Which woman? Zoe? Quinngate (which was waaaaaay before gamergate) was exactly about journalism standards. "Too bad" she was a woman, so that sexist accusations also found their way into the discussion. Which is the same as now: YOU (and many others) say, that gamergate is NOT about journalism standards but about sexism and misogyny and females in the gaming industry. OTHERS (and there are also many) say, that gamergate is EXACTLY about journalism standards, especially in the gaming industry and NOT about sexism!
So, tell me: You all are talking about different things with the same hashtag! Which "side" is right? And if you answer please add a "why" that is above "because I say so!"
Seeing how you continously try to put words in my mouth this will be my last reply to you:
None of what I have said can even remotely closely be equated to:
On October 15 2014 hummingbird23 wrote: That's like saying that neo-nazi parties are reasonable political parties because hey, they highlight issues I'm interested in.
To be 100% clear: I do not consider myself part of GamerGate, nor do I consider myself part of the anti-GamerGate. I am a bystander thoroughly sick of the entire ordeal. Leaking the SSN, adresses and contacting employers of people who disagree with you is deplorable and has been done by both sides.
I also find it kinda funny that you decide to link to cracked.com in a thread discussing integrity of journalism... Not really a shining beacon (and the article has been discussed in plenty on Reddit and was debunked entirely).
With regards to the hobbyist argument: I think most people would accept the biased reporting if the gaming sites would actually disclaim their vested interests. The issue arises when sites like IG try to pass a funded review off as an objective review. If they had a disclaimer stating that they were financially supported there would be little argument.
From now on you can argue with yourself - you don't seem to actually need me anyway.
I don't want to jump into the discussion because I'm really not part of that whole Twitter thing and most stuff I read is from articles and sites like TL, so I have some catching up to do.
One thing I do wanna point out though is this article which I find really interesting. I don't want to make a judgement here or a statement on what I do or don't agree, but I feel like it is one of the more worthy blog posts out there: http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-point/
That's like saying that neo-nazi parties are reasonable political parties because hey, they highlight issues I'm interested in.
To be 100% clear: I do not consider myself part of GamerGate, nor do I consider myself part of the anti-GamerGate. I am a bystander thoroughly sick of the entire ordeal. Leaking the SSN, adresses and contacting employers of people who disagree with you is deplorable and has been done by both sides.
I also find it kinda funny that you decide to link to cracked.com in a thread discussing integrity of journalism... Not really a shining beacon (and the article has been discussed in plenty on Reddit and was debunked entirely).
With regards to the hobbyist argument: I think most people would accept the biased reporting if the gaming sites would actually disclaim their vested interests. The issue arises when sites like IG try to pass a funded review off as an objective review. If they had a disclaimer stating that they were financially supported there would be little argument.
From now on you can argue with yourself - you don't seem to actually need me anyway.
Because of course the paragraph I quoted was too long to actually read. :p I did not reference any facts from Cracked, simply their words expressing that the whole claim of association of journalistic integrity and GG was bunk and that people who only wished to talk about journalistic integrity shouldn't associate themselves with GG. Regarding the revealing of personal addresses and SSN, that's deplorable. Contact of employers is less so, if you have made death threats on twitter to someone, I can see why that might make you less of an asset to your employer. There is a precedent that when people say really racist things, they get not-so-favourable treatment from people around them. There are of course other considerations, but in this case, this mere "disagreement" has resulted in people getting forced from their homes and universities getting bomb threats. Or for the sake of taking a more representative example, this. Being that abusive might make you less respected in your workplace, who would've thought?
This article is a really good, unbiased look at the whole situation and should probably be edited into the OP, maybe even with a mod note ordering people to read it.
This isn't really one issue, which is why reducing down to "it's THIS THING" normally is a sign of the uninformed. Which is how the Media operates.
This starts years ago with a rolling set of "themes" or "narratives" that popped up within Gaming. You see this in normal Media. It is the "topic of the year" journalism, where everyone feels a need to mention it. It's actually a sign of specific coordination and influence by activists, but it's so common no one really thinks much about it. (In politics, it's the Talking Point of the Day, which everyone seems to be talking about)
But the real kicker is the "Cover Up is Worse than the Crime" scenario that played out. The "Zoe Quinn" story was something none of us would have heard about, given it's pretty much "TMZ, the obscure Developer" version. But someone went around crushing & removing any discussion of the topic at all. And that's what started the Firestorm.
4Chan, that hive of scum & villainy, was actively suppressing any discussion, eventually. You simply don't see anyone with that reach. If you know *ANYTHING* about the way Internet forums work, attempting to shut down discussion, by orders from on high, you're going to get a revolt. And that's mostly what was going on.
But, that was pretty small peanuts until the "Gamer is Dead" articles all drop. 14? over 48 hours, across multiple media companies, all mostly saying the same thing. That's when the "#GamerGate" tag came about. Something very fishy was up, and the Zoe Quinn blow up gave a template to connect everything. But, from there, this very much isn't a movement; it's simply a response.
If you want a better analogy, look at the Arab Spring. It started because a guy was prevented from selling apples, and, for whatever reason, decided to set himself on fire as a protest. In Tunisia. I doubt anyone in Egypt cared about his apples, but that government fell. Does the catalyst mean much to the resulting forest fire? No. It's what got it started. The forest is already set to burn, it just needs a trigger.
The catch is, in this case, the "Media" is much of the story. So they lie, obstruct, ignore, beat Strawmen or otherwise belittle their audience. This is standard practice any time they are ever questioned. So what's going on today isn't that surprising.
The only good thing to come out of this is the knowledge that the most influential name in Game Journalism is our own TotalBiscuit. Which always brings a large, British laugh to my mind.
The fact that GamerGate isn't an official organized group is what's hurting it more than anything. Since it's basically just a consumer riot, there's no accountability. Any random troll can send a death threat and claim that it's on behalf of the entire group when it's always just a very small minority that nobody else supports. The shooting threat against Anita appears to be done by a single individual, most responses I've seen from the GG-side is that they had no idea about it until it actually happened, and nobody supports the threat itself. But since the movement is leaderless and unorganized, any threat is going to be linked to them no matter what, especially since many people on the other side WANT GG to look as bad as possible.
It's almost identical to what's happening in the Ferguson riots. People are protesting for valid reasons, but because certain individuals use the protest as an excuse to loot, the bad parts get highlighted by its detractors and the valid messages get distorted.
On October 16 2014 00:15 Spawkuring wrote: The fact that GamerGate isn't an official organized group is what's hurting it more than anything. Since it's basically just a consumer riot, there's no accountability. Any random troll can send a death threat and claim that it's on behalf of the entire group when it's always just a very small minority that nobody else supports. The shooting threat against Anita appears to be done by a single individual, most responses I've seen from the GG-side is that they had no idea about it until it actually happened, and nobody supports the threat itself. But since the movement is leaderless and unorganized, any threat is going to be linked to them no matter what, especially since many people on the other side WANT GG to look as bad as possible.
It's almost identical to what's happening in the Ferguson riots. People are protesting for valid reasons, but because certain individuals use the protest as an excuse to loot, the bad parts get highlighted by its detractors and the valid messages get distorted.
People take internet threats too seriously. It seems like any time anyone does anything, they get death threats on twitter. I recall some baseball player getting death threats because he wasn't doing well in a fantasy league.
The anonymity of the internet breeds hyperbole, which no one seems to realize. If you haven't gotten a death threat online, you must not have posted anything anywhere.
On October 16 2014 00:15 Spawkuring wrote: The fact that GamerGate isn't an official organized group is what's hurting it more than anything. Since it's basically just a consumer riot, there's no accountability. Any random troll can send a death threat and claim that it's on behalf of the entire group when it's always just a very small minority that nobody else supports. The shooting threat against Anita appears to be done by a single individual, most responses I've seen from the GG-side is that they had no idea about it until it actually happened, and nobody supports the threat itself. But since the movement is leaderless and unorganized, any threat is going to be linked to them no matter what, especially since many people on the other side WANT GG to look as bad as possible.
It's almost identical to what's happening in the Ferguson riots. People are protesting for valid reasons, but because certain individuals use the protest as an excuse to loot, the bad parts get highlighted by its detractors and the valid messages get distorted.
People take internet threats too seriously. It seems like any time anyone does anything, they get death threats on twitter. I recall some baseball player getting death threats because he wasn't doing well in a fantasy league.
The anonymity of the internet breeds hyperbole, which no one seems to realize. If you haven't gotten a death threat online, you must not have posted anything anywhere.
I have gotten death threats for canon-rushing (admittedly that is almost warranted).
Those are "I hope you die" or "I'll kill you hue". Not "I know you live at X and I will be there with an axe to cut off your hands tomorrow", which are more detailed and, therefore, terrifying.
We've also had:
Which is interesting.
It doesn't detail much on the subsequent treatment of these individuals, because it goes without saying that it's wrong. I'd forgotten about the many DMCA requests to take down even the most rational criticism of her critique.
On October 16 2014 00:15 Spawkuring wrote: The fact that GamerGate isn't an official organized group is what's hurting it more than anything. Since it's basically just a consumer riot, there's no accountability. Any random troll can send a death threat and claim that it's on behalf of the entire group when it's always just a very small minority that nobody else supports. The shooting threat against Anita appears to be done by a single individual, most responses I've seen from the GG-side is that they had no idea about it until it actually happened, and nobody supports the threat itself. But since the movement is leaderless and unorganized, any threat is going to be linked to them no matter what, especially since many people on the other side WANT GG to look as bad as possible.
It's almost identical to what's happening in the Ferguson riots. People are protesting for valid reasons, but because certain individuals use the protest as an excuse to loot, the bad parts get highlighted by its detractors and the valid messages get distorted.
People take internet threats too seriously. It seems like any time anyone does anything, they get death threats on twitter. I recall some baseball player getting death threats because he wasn't doing well in a fantasy league.
The anonymity of the internet breeds hyperbole, which no one seems to realize. If you haven't gotten a death threat online, you must not have posted anything anywhere.
I have gotten death threats for canon-rushing (admittedly that is almost warranted).
I was about to say that I had never received death threats, but then I remember all those years I played FPS and Strategy games... I guess if they posted my address along with it, might be a bit more frightening though.
As far as journalists go, it's rather annoying to see some of the blatant bias in reporting and defense of criticism that is seen from the consumer standpoint.
On October 16 2014 00:15 Spawkuring wrote: The fact that GamerGate isn't an official organized group is what's hurting it more than anything. Since it's basically just a consumer riot, there's no accountability. Any random troll can send a death threat and claim that it's on behalf of the entire group when it's always just a very small minority that nobody else supports. The shooting threat against Anita appears to be done by a single individual, most responses I've seen from the GG-side is that they had no idea about it until it actually happened, and nobody supports the threat itself. But since the movement is leaderless and unorganized, any threat is going to be linked to them no matter what, especially since many people on the other side WANT GG to look as bad as possible.
It's almost identical to what's happening in the Ferguson riots. People are protesting for valid reasons, but because certain individuals use the protest as an excuse to loot, the bad parts get highlighted by its detractors and the valid messages get distorted.
I was going to comment with a comparison to the Ferguson riot also. In both there's an initial spark, that sets off a longstanding discontent. Then in one view, the facts of the intial spark don't really matter, the fact remains that there is a systemic problem to be solved. In another view, the details of the initial incident come to be at the heart of a controversy, because detractors of the movement make accusations that "the riots are just an excuse to loot" or "this is just an excuse to harass women" and support their claim by citing that the initial incident did not in fact happen as the movement says it did. In other words, their argument is that the story of the initial spark was fabricated by the rioters, and therefore the intentions of the rioters must be different from what they claim.
I do not find this argument compelling. All this does is obfuscate an already complicated matter, twisting the debate into one that is inconsequential.
On October 15 2014 21:13 Jibba wrote: It's not a discussion, it's a 4chan campaign. Sheesh. It has pretty clear hateful roots and the accusations against Quinn and the idea that women have an unfair advantage in software development/tech journalism is laughable. Come on, TL. You know better than this, right?
It doesn't matter where it came from! Fact is: There are real issues in journalism today! And I mean that at a whole, nut just the gaming industry. But in the "normal" press ethical standards say, that journalists should reveal any connections they have to the article they wrote! And even there this is not followed through. In gaming journalism and criticism it's even worse! People are doing favors for money, early game copies or maybe actually even sex, ... and nobody knows where a good review came from! And we should talk about that! If that is "#gamergate" or "#wubdiwoop" or "#journalism" doesn't matter! So basically nobody should be either pro or con #gamergate, because it's always what you interpret and connect with that! It's a real mess!
Do you think gaming journalism is any more or less corrupt than it was 10 years ago? I'd argue it's cleaned up a whole lot.
There's a whole other thread (and plenty of other places for discussion) if you want to talk about journalism as a whole.
I don't know if it got better or worse. Because most "irregularities" in journalism standards on my "radar" for the last years were about politics, economy, maybe travel, ... but gaming was not in the "mainstream press". You hear bits and pieces, but it never "got out" like gamergate now.
The catalyst for this specific movement right now is a story about a woman, and the group fanning the flames are chantards. Gamergate should be isolated entirely from any discussion on journalistic standards, in gaming or anything else.
Which woman? Zoe? Quinngate (which was waaaaaay before gamergate) was exactly about journalism standards. "Too bad" she was a woman, so that sexist accusations also found their way into the discussion. Which is the same as now: YOU (and many others) say, that gamergate is NOT about journalism standards but about sexism and misogyny and females in the gaming industry. OTHERS (and there are also many) say, that gamergate is EXACTLY about journalism standards, especially in the gaming industry and NOT about sexism!
So, tell me: You all are talking about different things with the same hashtag! Which "side" is right? And if you answer please add a "why" that is above "because I say so!"
On October 15 2014 22:58 Gowerly wrote: So, yes, some people under the GamerGate tag have been harassing, sending death threats, etc, to women via the medium of the internet. People have been doing this ANYWAY. ALL THE TIME. FOR YEARS. Suddenly "Gamers" are involved and now we can puff our chests and say that we're against a group called GamerGate! Hooray! An emeny with a name! Now we can go to war!
Except you can't. Because in this group you've got a whole bunch of people that want different things. Yes, a lot of games journalists are hobbyists that are getting paid not much at all to review and preview games. Still, if there's underhanded-ness going on in there, it should be brought out where possible.
Saying that all of GamerGate now is out to fire women into the Sun or whatever, to use the above neo-nazi analogy (huehue Godwin's law!) is like saying all of Islam is part of ISIS. There's nothing more a lot of people that are part of GamerGate (and especially #NotYourShield, who have been exploited by those very news sites when they were claiming that it's a bunch of privileged white dudes whining about them) want to do other than distance themselves from the heinousness that has been going on.
Say GamerGate dies and that all goes from twitter and whatever. WOMEN WILL BE SAFE FOREVER! Except they won't. Still. Because harassment and death threats are sent all the time and will still be sent all the time. Suggesting that GamerGate is all about this is ridiculous. This treatment of others on the internet will continue by the same people until something, if anything can be, is done about the people themselves. Not about some twitter tag, not about ideas about games journalism. Not about news sites, about the people doing this.
You can #StopGamerGate2014 all you like. What you need to do is #StopBeingAwfulToEachOther
Edit: For clarity this is still an argument about the use of labels/tags for these kinds of things, rather than a criticism of stopping harassment.
The whole problem with this crap is that never had been any kind of real journalism on gaming, and internet only made it worse with shit ton of white noise that prevented anyone who tries to stay objective.
About the rest, mysoginy or however it is spelled, i don't even want to comment, the same crap can be said about basically anything, from music to movies, calling it a "gamer" thing is just stupid.
On October 16 2014 01:35 Godwrath wrote: I just have to facepalm at this crap.
That's all you can do, really. I've done my best to avoid all this stuff but every time I see something about it, it seems to get more and more insane.
Kinda new to this whole GamerGate thing, much like the OP was. But his original post got me interested and I spend quite some time on reading the whole thread now. What I gather so far is:
So basically, everyone here seems to be in agreement that there is a serious problem in (gaming) journalism that needs to be addressed. There may or may not be an undefined group called GamerGate that wants to address this problem.
There are women involved. Some people, that may or may not belong to GamerGate, have threatened them claiming they are operating for GG. Said women lashed back at GG. Shit got out of hand.
Mainstream media is mostly reporting the juicy "shit hit the fan" things and are (as always) writing gamers of as assholes with too much time on their hands hating women.
So basically, this is pretty much like anything that was ever attributed to 4chan and got on the media? But now the people responsible call themself "gamers".
Not to shit on the valid topics of gender equality and journalistic standards. Because I believe these are actually valid concerns and should be discussed somewhere. I just feel any rational discussion is out of the window with this whole shitstorm. You can't state your opinion on anything related to this without being written of as secretly advocating pro- or contra- the whole "lololol we are cool and we hate women"-thing.
So euhm. There is no side to take here, this whole ordeal is just a (possibly orchestrated??) distraction from the actual issues?
On October 16 2014 00:15 Spawkuring wrote: The fact that GamerGate isn't an official organized group is what's hurting it more than anything. Since it's basically just a consumer riot, there's no accountability. Any random troll can send a death threat and claim that it's on behalf of the entire group when it's always just a very small minority that nobody else supports. The shooting threat against Anita appears to be done by a single individual, most responses I've seen from the GG-side is that they had no idea about it until it actually happened, and nobody supports the threat itself. But since the movement is leaderless and unorganized, any threat is going to be linked to them no matter what, especially since many people on the other side WANT GG to look as bad as possible.
It's almost identical to what's happening in the Ferguson riots. People are protesting for valid reasons, but because certain individuals use the protest as an excuse to loot, the bad parts get highlighted by its detractors and the valid messages get distorted.
I was going to comment with a comparison to the Ferguson riot also. In both there's an initial spark, that sets off a longstanding discontent. Then in one view, the facts of the intial spark don't really matter, the fact remains that there is a systemic problem to be solved. In another view, the details of the initial incident come to be at the heart of a controversy, because detractors of the movement make accusations that "the riots are just an excuse to loot" or "this is just an excuse to harass women" and support their claim by citing that the initial incident did not in fact happen as the movement says it did. In other words, their argument is that the story of the initial spark was fabricated by the rioters, and therefore the intentions of the rioters must be different from what they claim.
Thanks for this; summarizes my thoughts in a way I haven't been able to in the past few days when people ask me why I'm upset/confused about this whole thing.
It all sucks, and there's real problems, but it's such a shitstorm that nothing productive is going to come from either side anymore until the craze and attention dies down (which is ironic considering that's usually a good thing or the whole point)
I have read about and seen people talk about this a lot. And I still don't understand what this has to do with gender politics, or anything else. I would try to form an opinion of some sort, but I just don't get why any of this is important or interesting. I normally wouldn't post just to say I think its a non-issue, but the complete lack of meaning in all this is quite remarkable in itself.
Oh gross. This finally made it to TL. I've followed this thing from pretty much the beginning on Escapist where they pretty much have 3 threads per week on this topic- eclipsing the weekly Anita thread, but somehow even pulling her into the whirlpool that is GG.
What I found most baffling is how the concern over 'journalistic integrity' began over Kotaku because I was not aware that people thought they had journalistic integrity in the first place. For those of you newer to TL, here is how we spoke of Kotaku in the past: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/240814-response-to-kotaku-article-on-progaming-downswing Highlight-
On July 06 2011 08:59 Kennigit wrote: I wouldn't even click the link. Kotaku is a rag of a blog and exists only to spew traffic-generating sensationalism,....there isn't an ounce of journalism here. She interviewed 1 person and wrote an article on it???? You would actually fail an assignment in any journalism program trying to pull that off.
Her point is quite literally "Waaah this is boring i don't like it".
But I have seen the weirdest conspiracies spun out of this 'movement.' Whenever there was, in essence, breaking news of another website banning Zoe discussions, posters were unironically wondering how 'deep this went.' That is, suspecting even Reddit as being part of the conspirarcy to hush up Zoe critics.
They've tried to move on with the whole GamerGate thing, but to me they still largely miss the mark in not dealing with the rampant corruption between big video game industry and the press. I mean, it was TB and the Jimquisition (not the GG movement) that brought up the really shady contract that you had to sign to review Shadows of Mordor.
Apparently tumblr has been doing some really crummy stuff, but because I never go there, I don't know. For myself, just hearing directly and unfilitered from the pro-GG side was enough to turn me off. There are good ideas buried in there somewhere, but the tipping point was the wrong tipping point. Right idea, wrong reason if you will. And of course the internet is the internet, so then crummy people get involved on both sides and here we are today.
As I've seen this progress since the original flash point, I am even more confirmed that twitter is a crappy method of communication. I wrote this yesterday on Escapist and I think it is very true:
I largely dislike twitter and this sort of thing only confirms my antipathy. I'm reminded of a bumper sticker: Except I would replace it with "Twitter is an ineffectual means of communicating my nuanced views on a variety of issues that cannot be reduced to a simple pithy tweet.
Twitter is best geared to create hype, but by the same measure it is also best geared to create firestorms.
The internet struggles with proportionality. It is difficult for people on the internet to collectively create a moderate and proportionate response to a hot topic. We've seen this even within our own community on TL. Some person flames out on the internet, and everyone feels the need to chime in on the person's behaviour. Whereas many of the comments were moderate in nature, because everyone needs to say their piece, in aggregate the response is disproportionate to the behaviour. (And then, of course, the trolls and/or the insensitive hateful people get involved.) Maybe the so-called Quinnspirarcy (the original name) needed commentating on, but when everyone piles on, attracting the dregs of the internet and their hateful comments, and with everyone using an inadequate method of communication (twitter). . .you have the makings of a perfect storm.
It's a lot of reading and I haven't gotten through all the male developer's interviews yet. There are a variety of opinions. But in my opinion it cuts through the timelines of who did what when, and hear how this affects real people. Especially in the female game developers, you can hear genuine fear over the incident. I know a lot of comments on the article immediately jumped to try and defend the movement and correct misconceptions, but in the process, I'm not sure that they truly heard the fear. The fear is real and it isn't good.
I am happy that this thread has brought a lot of meaningful posts, and I have read both sides of the issue. As well, those that are passionate about their belief on gamergate has remained level headed, and we did not have many insults or trolls ruining a great discussion.
However, there is still a lot more to read, and I really want to get a deeper understanding.
With that said, I plan on reading/watching all relevant resources on gamergate, and I will rewrite the original post to incorporate both sides of the discussion.
As I have said many times, I am not choosing any sides in this heated debate. I just merely want to be informed on what was said; who it was said too; and why it was said.
Please if anyone has more to add to the discussion, I will read it all.
On October 16 2014 01:35 Godwrath wrote: I just have to facepalm at this crap.
The whole problem with this crap is that never had been any kind of real journalism on gaming, and internet only made it worse with shit ton of white noise that prevented anyone who tries to stay objective.
About the rest, mysoginy or however it is spelled, i don't even want to comment, the same crap can be said about basically anything, from music to movies, calling it a "gamer" thing is just stupid.
Sexism is far, far worse in the gaming community than any of the places you mentioned.
Please, be my guest and explain me why that is truth Stratos. I had watched many AAA movies were the female cast is just a support who does absolutely nothing but stay at home or being "pretty" decoration. Same with music themes. If you are talking about women harassment, it happens exactly the same, from studies to work, in my opinion, being able to be completely anonymous on internet gives people the chance to say/do things they wouldn't do in real life due to blacklash, it is not "gaming" the one at fault, but inherent flaws of our society yet to be fixed.
Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
Funny how the movement is all about the "ethics of gaming journalism" but the issue of the massive controlling corporate influence and the cultivation of this "Mountain Dew and Doritos" strawman identity by the hand of the companies - which is, in fact, the identity that the "death of the gamer" articles were saying was dead - isn't even touched on by #GG. It's all about Kotaku and indie developers. Because man, those indie developers really do control the industry, don't they?
This has been my one and only opinion on the entire fiasco.
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
Twitch and reddit.
People who just spam meme's and try to be funny by not being funny at all ? This is no indication of "gaming", but internet communities and the speed and volume of "communication" they move indicating than the more text and the faster it gets on, the worse it gets. A 30 person stream can have a decent chat. A 5.000 person stream is just trash.
You can find that trash in any subreddit, it doesn't need to be only about gaming by the way.
I don't really consider this "GamerGate" thing important because everyone knows that reviewers and such are almost all paid by the companies whose game they review. I never took them seriously, except maybe when I was under 10 and got nintendo power. I ignore any and all such companies. I never buy games on day 1 (exception being Blizzard and ArenaNET games, although I've been burned with D3 so that's done for Blizzard) and ALWAYS look up real gameplay of any game before I touch it (streams, let's plays, etc from people I know are just playing the game so never the biggest streamers).
I do this because, there is 0 trust in the gaming industry as a whole (from content creators to reviewers to even let's players that get paid...). As such, I buy very few games because I don't end up buying into any hype for any game. Example, Dragon Age 3 I think will be great. I will still wait 2-3 weeks after it's out to read about bugs, issues with the game ,etc before I make any decision.
I was there for the Zoe Quinn blow up. The only thing I got from it is that she's a terrible person that I really, really dislike; and that way too many moderators from different websites (reddit, 4chan, kotaku, etc etc) have links to her. I wish I could run a campaign banning any discussion about my wrongdoings across the internet's biggest forums just by fucking a few thirsty losers. But as awful a person as she is (especially the fake victimization on some forums to get attention and the crazy amount of people she cheated on her bf with), shit doesn't bother me. She can go rot in a hole and I'll keep doing things the way I have : make intelligent purchases.
All this Gamergate thing shows, is that people that aren't getting laid will do a lot of things to get laid.
*Edit : Oh and as far as the hate on Zoe being sexism... don't even try. She's a downright awful person no matter which way you look at it. Some people just have to stop being blinded and defending awful people just because they're women. Women are capable of just as much wrongdoing as men. It's not sexism to hate a PERSON.
On October 16 2014 00:15 lichter wrote: i don't feel affected by any of this or by game journalism trends in general
is it because i'm not important enough
the only games i play or buy are either because: my friends play it or it was a steam sale. Gaming journalism seems like a rather irrelevant topic given the events happening around the world right now.
Some people just have to stop being a SJW and defending awful people just because they're women.
As soon as you start throwing around pejorative labels, you can hear the intelligence of a forum debate rushing down the drain. Please refrain from using these labels on TL. SJW has become a completely meaningless term, analogous to Obamabots and Paultards in political 'debates.'
Some people just have to stop being a SJW and defending awful people just because they're women.
As soon as you start throwing around pejorative labels, you can hear the the intelligence of a forum debate rushing down the drain. Please refrain from using these labels on TL. SJW has become a completely meaningless term, analogous to Obamabots and Paultards in political 'debates.'
Fair enough but it's just sad to see people blindly defend any woman on the internet, deservedly or not. Some people are just bad people and don't deserve to get defended.
Some people just have to stop being a SJW and defending awful people just because they're women.
As soon as you start throwing around pejorative labels, you can hear the the intelligence of a forum debate rushing down the drain. Please refrain from using these labels on TL. SJW has become a completely meaningless term, analogous to Obamabots and Paultards in political 'debates.'
Fair enough but it's just sad to see people blindly defend any woman on the internet, deservedly or not. Some people are just bad people and don't deserve to get defended.
She might have blind defenders on Kotaku, but from my experience on Escapist, people are not so much FOR Zoe so much as against the giant Zoe dog-pile.
Some people just have to stop being a SJW and defending awful people just because they're women.
As soon as you start throwing around pejorative labels, you can hear the the intelligence of a forum debate rushing down the drain. Please refrain from using these labels on TL. SJW has become a completely meaningless term, analogous to Obamabots and Paultards in political 'debates.'
Fair enough but it's just sad to see people blindly defend any woman on the internet, deservedly or not. Some people are just bad people and don't deserve to get defended.
Plenty of women take flak on the Internet, including from feminists. Don't believe me? Stop by Jezebel on any particular day and spend 5 minutes browsing headlines, you're guaranteed to find something.
What makes it sexism isn't that a woman is being attacked, it's how viciously she's being attacked for something which she was only alleged to do (there is a certain irony in a movement about promotion journalistic integrity who's complaints are largely based on the allegations of a jilted ex-bf). And then of course what also makes it sexist is that it's assumed that even if she did have these other relationships, that they were expressly for promoting her career, despite there not even being a clear link to what exactly she obtained by her alleged actions.
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
Using Twitch chat as an indication of...anything is silly at best.
And besides, if the reddit posts end up downvoted, then what's the problem? Downvotes mean that the majority don't share that posters opinion. It's unreasonable to attack a community over the actions of a couple haters, especially when said community is already vocally disapproving of said haters.
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
Using Twitch chat as an indication of...anything is silly at best.
And besides, if the reddit posts end up downvoted, then what's the problem? Downvotes mean that the majority don't share that posters opinion. It's unreasonable to attack a community over the actions of a couple haters, especially when said community is already vocally disapproving of said haters.
It is not really about any one of these things in isolation, but about the whole picture. All these verbal attacks may seem ridiculous if you look at them in isolation, but the amount of trash talk that women (or a lot of other "minorities" for that matter) have to take in these communities is staggering. This simply doesn't happen a lot outside of these specific internet communities.
I think it's mostly sad that people seem to care so much about this. Having the presence of mind to sidestep drama snowballs should be a first commandment of the internet. This debate is basically founded on nothing, hard to reach a meaningful conclusion when there's nothing of substance to discuss,
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
Using Twitch chat as an indication of...anything is silly at best.
And besides, if the reddit posts end up downvoted, then what's the problem? Downvotes mean that the majority don't share that posters opinion. It's unreasonable to attack a community over the actions of a couple haters, especially when said community is already vocally disapproving of said haters.
It is not really about any one of these things in isolation, but about the whole picture. All these verbal attacks may seem ridiculous if you look at them in isolation, but the amount of trash talk that women (or a lot of other "minorities" for that matter) have to take in these communities is staggering. This simply doesn't happen a lot outside of these specific internet communities.
I wouldn't blame a specific internet community for that however. You can find utterly unreal levels of harassment for any celebrity or semi-famous person who for whatever reason has said or done something political or shocking or whatever.
It's a valid issue, don't get me wrong. But I disagree with assertions that act like this is a video game issue rather than an asshole issue.
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
Using Twitch chat as an indication of...anything is silly at best.
And besides, if the reddit posts end up downvoted, then what's the problem? Downvotes mean that the majority don't share that posters opinion. It's unreasonable to attack a community over the actions of a couple haters, especially when said community is already vocally disapproving of said haters.
It is not really about any one of these things in isolation, but about the whole picture. All these verbal attacks may seem ridiculous if you look at them in isolation, but the amount of trash talk that women (or a lot of other "minorities" for that matter) have to take in these communities is staggering. This simply doesn't happen a lot outside of these specific internet communities.
Have you seen the amount of trashtalk a white heterosexual male receives on tumblr? The internet is filled with cesspools - it is really just a question of where you are in the minority whether it will look like a nice spa or a cesspool.
The internet gave everyone a voice, sadly the most vocal people don't have anything productive to say and have too much time; hence we end up with what we have today.
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
Using Twitch chat as an indication of...anything is silly at best.
And besides, if the reddit posts end up downvoted, then what's the problem? Downvotes mean that the majority don't share that posters opinion. It's unreasonable to attack a community over the actions of a couple haters, especially when said community is already vocally disapproving of said haters.
It is not really about any one of these things in isolation, but about the whole picture. All these verbal attacks may seem ridiculous if you look at them in isolation, but the amount of trash talk that women (or a lot of other "minorities" for that matter) have to take in these communities is staggering. This simply doesn't happen a lot outside of these specific internet communities.
Internet trolls jump on the easiest insults that provide the greatest reaction. And as long as racism and sexism are talking points, it's not very surprising that racist and sexist comments will garner the most attention.
Case in point, if you can get dozens of websites and writers in an uproar about "misogyny in gaming", why would you ever start using less effective insults?
Some people just have to stop being a SJW and defending awful people just because they're women.
As soon as you start throwing around pejorative labels, you can hear the the intelligence of a forum debate rushing down the drain. Please refrain from using these labels on TL. SJW has become a completely meaningless term, analogous to Obamabots and Paultards in political 'debates.'
Fair enough but it's just sad to see people blindly defend any woman on the internet, deservedly or not. Some people are just bad people and don't deserve to get defended.
Plenty of women take flak on the Internet, including from feminists. Don't believe me? Stop by Jezebel on any particular day and spend 5 minutes browsing headlines, you're guaranteed to find something.
What makes it sexism isn't that a woman is being attacked, it's how viciously she's being attacked for something which she was only alleged to do (there is a certain irony in a movement about promotion journalistic integrity who's complaints are largely based on the allegations of a jilted ex-bf). And then of course what also makes it sexist is that it's assumed that even if she did have these other relationships, that they were expressly for promoting her career, despite there not even being a clear link to what exactly she obtained by her alleged actions.
She's admitted to having sex with the people her ex said she did. Also even if sex was not used as a bribe for favorable reviews, the reviewer and Zoe are friends. Clearly a conflict of interest any way you look at it.
Yeah there are insult towards women on the internet.
There are insult towards COD players, towards any color except white (maybe), towards every other countries, etc. It's the internet, and it's also part of the fun to insult everyone - like you didn't do it when you were playing SC BW and insulting everything and everybody in chat. The problem is that this culture - which is a young culture, mainly masculine and not very refined in facade (the deepness is not what meets the eye at first glance) - is facing another culture, the newly found "geek" culture, "bourgeois", boring as fuck and feminist in facade - because everybody needs some good arguments to get laid (boys and girls).
Now it's the "affair", when some random girl, who says she is feminist but in fact is moved by her own interest (and her vagina) like every other guy, is publicly revealed to be what she truly is in private.
And I'll add that there is a class racism, from those feminist girls, who gain their life doing god knows what, and who constantly judge the gaming community without knowing or understanding.
this is still going? i "read" like 400 pages of the first escapist threads mostly during smoke breaks or stuff like that checking for newest "GAMERS ARE WORSE THEN ISIS" nonsense. lost interest after awhile tho.
if there is one thing to say about it: dont judge without actually looking up what happened and where this came from. else whatever you think or write about this topic will be pointless.
lots of interesting stuff was dug out and some people have shown their true faces. if you are bored,havent heared of this before and enjoy internet drama then damn grab your popcorn.
First time i hear about this. I should know by now that news with the "-gate" suffix are usually completely overblown dramas that I would expect 50yo moms to discuss at the hairdresser...
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
Using Twitch chat as an indication of...anything is silly at best.
And besides, if the reddit posts end up downvoted, then what's the problem? Downvotes mean that the majority don't share that posters opinion. It's unreasonable to attack a community over the actions of a couple haters, especially when said community is already vocally disapproving of said haters.
It is not really about any one of these things in isolation, but about the whole picture. All these verbal attacks may seem ridiculous if you look at them in isolation, but the amount of trash talk that women (or a lot of other "minorities" for that matter) have to take in these communities is staggering. This simply doesn't happen a lot outside of these specific internet communities.
I wouldn't blame a specific internet community for that however. You can find utterly unreal levels of harassment for any celebrity or semi-famous person who for whatever reason has said or done something political or shocking or whatever.
It's a valid issue, don't get me wrong. But I disagree with assertions that act like this is a video game issue rather than an asshole issue.
It is a videogame issue in that our beloved hobby sadly attracts a disproportionate amount of real life losers who don't know how to deal with females (they don't know how to deal with other males either). And outside of heavily moderated sites such as TL, the industry and community is generally very permissive about such misanthropic behavior. Even as the average age of gamers steadily goes up, videogame makers still target the young teenage male demographic disproportionately and Internet communities revolving around videogames are still designed to cater to that demographic above all else.
People compare this to movies, music and other entertainment industries. Sorry, but this community is just very slow to clean up. There's more of an effort in the sports, comic book and other entertainment industries to clean up their communities. It's really sad. Nobody is going to be perfect but that's not an excuse to be behind the curve.
I don't trust gaming journalism. Compare their reviews to movie reviews. AAA games get more favorable reviews than AAA movies. But this seems to be more of an excuse for certain people to act out their misogynistic views than a proper criticism of gaming journalism.
Some people just have to stop being a SJW and defending awful people just because they're women.
As soon as you start throwing around pejorative labels, you can hear the the intelligence of a forum debate rushing down the drain. Please refrain from using these labels on TL. SJW has become a completely meaningless term, analogous to Obamabots and Paultards in political 'debates.'
Fair enough but it's just sad to see people blindly defend any woman on the internet, deservedly or not. Some people are just bad people and don't deserve to get defended.
Plenty of women take flak on the Internet, including from feminists. Don't believe me? Stop by Jezebel on any particular day and spend 5 minutes browsing headlines, you're guaranteed to find something.
What makes it sexism isn't that a woman is being attacked, it's how viciously she's being attacked for something which she was only alleged to do (there is a certain irony in a movement about promotion journalistic integrity who's complaints are largely based on the allegations of a jilted ex-bf). And then of course what also makes it sexist is that it's assumed that even if she did have these other relationships, that they were expressly for promoting her career, despite there not even being a clear link to what exactly she obtained by her alleged actions.
She's admitted to having sex with the people her ex said she did. Also even if sex was not used as a bribe for favorable reviews, the reviewer and Zoe are friends. Clearly a conflict of interest any way you look at it.
Maybe, maybe not. It is possible that she had sex with people without an ulterior motive. Was there an actual review of her game provided by the male journalist in question? My understanding was no, in which case there wouldn't be any conflict of interest.
In any case, Zoe is not the one who has an obligation to maintain journalistic integrity. That's the responsibility of the journalists. How many death threats have they received?
Some people just have to stop being a SJW and defending awful people just because they're women.
As soon as you start throwing around pejorative labels, you can hear the the intelligence of a forum debate rushing down the drain. Please refrain from using these labels on TL. SJW has become a completely meaningless term, analogous to Obamabots and Paultards in political 'debates.'
Fair enough but it's just sad to see people blindly defend any woman on the internet, deservedly or not. Some people are just bad people and don't deserve to get defended.
Plenty of women take flak on the Internet, including from feminists. Don't believe me? Stop by Jezebel on any particular day and spend 5 minutes browsing headlines, you're guaranteed to find something.
What makes it sexism isn't that a woman is being attacked, it's how viciously she's being attacked for something which she was only alleged to do (there is a certain irony in a movement about promotion journalistic integrity who's complaints are largely based on the allegations of a jilted ex-bf). And then of course what also makes it sexist is that it's assumed that even if she did have these other relationships, that they were expressly for promoting her career, despite there not even being a clear link to what exactly she obtained by her alleged actions.
She's admitted to having sex with the people her ex said she did. Also even if sex was not used as a bribe for favorable reviews, the reviewer and Zoe are friends. Clearly a conflict of interest any way you look at it.
Was there an actual review of her game provided by the male journalist in question? My understanding was no, in which case there wouldn't be any conflict of interest.
Yes
In any case, Zoe is not the one who has an obligation to maintain journalistic integrity. That's the responsibility of the journalists.
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
How is that a problem specific to gaming communities? That's more on how people act on the internet as a whole, I don't see why you mention the two separately. When people have the option to speak anonimously, you're bound to hear a lot of shit. I remember following the Chess World Championship on a youtube stream and the chat was full of sexual comments aimed at a female commentator. And that's chess we're talking about! A game with a supposedly intelligent and civil audience had tons of people acting like idiots in chat. You could be streaming the smartest content you can think of, science, art, you name it, as soon as you give an anonymous voice to everyone watching, the same thing is very likely to happen.
Also, the herd mentality is very strong on the Internet, a big part of the shit posters are just trolls trying to get a reaction by doing what others start. That's easily done through offensive behavior. How many of the people spamming "OMG GRILL!!" or sexual remarks in twitch do you think do it because of their sexist beliefs? And how many of the genuine sexists on the internet would dare say the same things in real life? While I definetely agree there's a lot sexism in gaming, I think it's naive to act as if the majority of the audience is guilty of it and that the terrible attitude is more due to gaming itself than the medium where they are discussed. It happens a lot outside of the gaming communities as well, you must be quite lucky to not stumble across it.
Some people just have to stop being a SJW and defending awful people just because they're women.
As soon as you start throwing around pejorative labels, you can hear the the intelligence of a forum debate rushing down the drain. Please refrain from using these labels on TL. SJW has become a completely meaningless term, analogous to Obamabots and Paultards in political 'debates.'
Fair enough but it's just sad to see people blindly defend any woman on the internet, deservedly or not. Some people are just bad people and don't deserve to get defended.
Plenty of women take flak on the Internet, including from feminists. Don't believe me? Stop by Jezebel on any particular day and spend 5 minutes browsing headlines, you're guaranteed to find something.
What makes it sexism isn't that a woman is being attacked, it's how viciously she's being attacked for something which she was only alleged to do (there is a certain irony in a movement about promotion journalistic integrity who's complaints are largely based on the allegations of a jilted ex-bf). And then of course what also makes it sexist is that it's assumed that even if she did have these other relationships, that they were expressly for promoting her career, despite there not even being a clear link to what exactly she obtained by her alleged actions.
She's admitted to having sex with the people her ex said she did. Also even if sex was not used as a bribe for favorable reviews, the reviewer and Zoe are friends. Clearly a conflict of interest any way you look at it.
Was there an actual review of her game provided by the male journalist in question? My understanding was no, in which case there wouldn't be any conflict of interest.
In any case, Zoe is not the one who has an obligation to maintain journalistic integrity. That's the responsibility of the journalists.
That's what Gamergate is about.
Source? Because I'm pretty sure it has been cleared up for a while that Nathan Grayson did not in fact write a review for her game at any time. So which review are you referring to?
If gamer gate was about demanding journalistic integrity, why has the lions share of the vitriol been aimed at non-journalists?
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
How is that a problem specific to gaming communities? That's more on how people act on the internet as a whole, I don't see why you mention the two separately. When people have the option to speak anonimously, you're bound to hear a lot of shit. I remember following the Chess World Championship on a youtube stream and the chat was full of sexual comments aimed at a female commentator. And that's chess we're talking about! A game with a supposedly intelligent and civil audience had tons of people acting like idiots in chat. You could be streaming the smartest content you can think of, science, art, you name it, as soon as you give an anonymous voice to everyone watching, the same thing is very likely to happen.
yeah it probably wasn't warranted to single the gaming community out, but the flaming and sexism seems especially strong in communities which aren't very diverse. (which probably isn't very surprising). It's kind of a vicious circle where people stay away from it because the atmosphere is so terrible and then it gets even worse.
I'm just always baffled how indifferent most people are to it because it's really embarrassing, and keeps people that aren't really familiar with it out of it.
A lot of people just like to stir shit up and fuck around. Just because someone says something to joke around or be inflammatory doesn't mean they're part of some seething misogynist underbelly. Not saying those people don't exist, but people just like to fuck around and talk shit. People bust balls with their friends ruthlessly and no one takes any of it seriously. They're less inclined to to it in front of total strangers who can take things out of context or interpret it as something that it isn't. But online with the anonymity thing they feel more free to just goof around. I don't think the "OMG GRILL" stuff is by and large anything more than people dicking around and being jackasses, I don't think its coming from some dark area generally.
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:
You are linking to articles written by the parent website of polygon.com, a gaming site that released one of those horribly generalizing articles about gamers/gamer culture. Also linking to Leigh Alexanders own website. This person wrote the most controversial article about gamers on Gamasutra.com and said pretty nasty stuff on Twitter about people just calling for better ethics in journalism. Gamasutra is also the website Intel pulled it's adds from after consumers rightfully complained about that piece. So yeah not really unbiased sources you have there.
Stuff to watch about #GG:
That is all.
Straw man.
Contest what the articles say, not who they're connected to. I'm sure after actually reading them, you would find that they are factually correct, and when viewed together, give an accurate portrayal of 1.) the main points of the controversy 2.) What has happened more recently 3.) Actual ethical concerns in the video game industry.
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:
You are linking to articles written by the parent website of polygon.com, a gaming site that released one of those horribly generalizing articles about gamers/gamer culture. Also linking to Leigh Alexanders own website. This person wrote the most controversial article about gamers on Gamasutra.com and said pretty nasty stuff on Twitter about people just calling for better ethics in journalism. Gamasutra is also the website Intel pulled it's adds from after consumers rightfully complained about that piece. So yeah not really unbiased sources you have there.
Stuff to watch about #GG:
That is all.
Straw man.
Contest what the articles say, not who they're connected to. I'm sure after actually reading them, you would find that they are factually correct, and when viewed together, give an accurate portrayal of 1.) the main points of the controversy 2.) What has happened more recently 3.) Actual ethical concerns in the video game industry.
K, thx
Not strawman, because the places where all those posts were posted are echo-chambers and either don't provide the entire story or downright lie and they are able to do this by banning diverting opinions.
I've somewhat stayed clear of this. It strikes me as titillating gossip, with a healthy dose of poor journalistic ethics from a bunch of websites that I didn't particularly trust anyway.
I can understand a backlash against some of these people. Take a generation who valued their niche hobby and the shared experiences they felt as 'gamers', start depicting the entire group as misogynist when it assumes a mainstream position and of course people will get pissed off.
Frankly I would prefer for some of these people to be ignored rather than flamed and threatened. Do people do that ok the internet anymore? It's a more powerful tool than you'd think!
On October 16 2014 21:01 Wombat_NI wrote: I've somewhat stayed clear of this. It strikes me as titillating gossip, with a healthy dose of poor journalistic ethics from a bunch of websites that I didn't particularly trust anyway.
I can understand a backlash against some of these people. Take a generation who valued their niche hobby and the shared experiences they felt as 'gamers', start depicting the entire group as misogynist when it assumes a mainstream position and of course people will get pissed off.
Frankly I would prefer for some of these people to be ignored rather than flamed and threatened. Do people do that ok the internet anymore? It's a more powerful tool than you'd think!
Things like video game journalists not covering thousands of EA accounts being hacked because they didn't want to endanger their relationship with the company is what is the problem here. Everyone is connected with everyone and they all cover each others asses. It is appalling just how low these people have fallen, and that they can get away with it because there are people who defend their blanket-ban on any disscusion.
Where can you have a serious disscusion about this within big game sites? Even TL banned all threads imidietly before this one.
Game companys buy good revieuws, every company in the world buys good revieuws. The car magazines get sponsored by the car manufacturers,it realy is common practice in all kinds of business. Now sex was paid instead of money and its a big scandal? o well.
People open your eyes, this happens everywhere in life!! Objective and neutral journalism did extinct about 10 years ago if not more.
I just assumed most people trusted peer reviews and opinions on sites like TL than commercial game coverage sites.
I can see why TL banned threads to, as they oft degenerate into the worst kind of misogynist discourse. I would personally have trusted the userbase rather than pre-emptively close though (if indeed what you said was correct)
On October 16 2014 04:48 Nyxisto wrote: Ever seen the twitch chat of a huge Esports event when a woman enters the stage? I mean okay it's the Twitch chat so the bar is already lowered by a few magnitudes but it is just disgusting. Also take a look through the downvoted comments on the Starcraft subreddit when a Scarlett post comes up. Sexism in gaming and on the internet in general is just completely out of control.
Using Twitch chat as an indication of...anything is silly at best.
And besides, if the reddit posts end up downvoted, then what's the problem? Downvotes mean that the majority don't share that posters opinion. It's unreasonable to attack a community over the actions of a couple haters, especially when said community is already vocally disapproving of said haters.
It is not really about any one of these things in isolation, but about the whole picture. All these verbal attacks may seem ridiculous if you look at them in isolation, but the amount of trash talk that women (or a lot of other "minorities" for that matter) have to take in these communities is staggering. This simply doesn't happen a lot outside of these specific internet communities.
I wouldn't blame a specific internet community for that however. You can find utterly unreal levels of harassment for any celebrity or semi-famous person who for whatever reason has said or done something political or shocking or whatever.
It's a valid issue, don't get me wrong. But I disagree with assertions that act like this is a video game issue rather than an asshole issue.
It is a videogame issue in that our beloved hobby sadly attracts a disproportionate amount of real life losers who don't know how to deal with females (they don't know how to deal with other males either). And outside of heavily moderated sites such as TL, the industry and community is generally very permissive about such misanthropic behavior. Even as the average age of gamers steadily goes up, videogame makers still target the young teenage male demographic disproportionately and Internet communities revolving around videogames are still designed to cater to that demographic above all else.
People compare this to movies, music and other entertainment industries. Sorry, but this community is just very slow to clean up. There's more of an effort in the sports, comic book and other entertainment industries to clean up their communities. It's really sad. Nobody is going to be perfect but that's not an excuse to be behind the curve.
I don't trust gaming journalism. Compare their reviews to movie reviews. AAA games get more favorable reviews than AAA movies. But this seems to be more of an excuse for certain people to act out their misogynistic views than a proper criticism of gaming journalism.
No, there isn't. Movies, music, and other entertainment industries are all the same. The only difference is the consumers of those industries have good, trustworthy journalism sources. If Zoe Quinn was a film director, this whole scandal wouldn't have been anything, because film journalists have the integrity to call her out on it. And even if she gets one, she won't get any more.
Also, the only study that ever reported that young males are no longer the main demographic in videogaming was disingenuous. It counted things like Windows Solitaire and Farmville. Somehow I don't see Activision ever attracting the demographic that only plays Minesweeper and Text Twist. The only demographic that has ever spent significant sums of money on videogames are young males.
On October 16 2014 22:09 Millitron wrote:No, there isn't. Movies, music, and other entertainment industries are all the same. The only difference is the consumers of those industries have good, trustworthy journalism sources. If Zoe Quinn was a film director, this whole scandal wouldn't have been anything, because film journalists have the integrity to call her out on it. And even if she gets one, she won't get any more.
There was nothing* worth calling Zoe Quinn out for that has any real relevance to a serious publication.
On October 16 2014 22:09 Millitron wrote:No, there isn't. Movies, music, and other entertainment industries are all the same. The only difference is the consumers of those industries have good, trustworthy journalism sources. If Zoe Quinn was a film director, this whole scandal wouldn't have been anything, because film journalists have the integrity to call her out on it. And even if she gets one, she won't get any more.
There was nothing* worth calling Zoe Quinn out for that has any real relevance to a serious publication.
I can't tell if you are serious or not....
Journalists accepting bribes and favors to write favorable reviews is a no no
On October 16 2014 22:09 Millitron wrote:No, there isn't. Movies, music, and other entertainment industries are all the same. The only difference is the consumers of those industries have good, trustworthy journalism sources. If Zoe Quinn was a film director, this whole scandal wouldn't have been anything, because film journalists have the integrity to call her out on it. And even if she gets one, she won't get any more.
There was nothing* worth calling Zoe Quinn out for that has any real relevance to a serious publication.
I can't tell if you are serious or not....
Journalists accepting bribes and favors to write favorable reviews is a no no
video related.
Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving "bribes and favors" from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
I just read all this thinking yes, finally gaming has broken through. Just like everything else, we're fucking retarded too. We made it boys and gals, we made it.
On October 16 2014 22:27 zeo wrote: I can't tell if you are serious or not....
I am. All accusations I've heard against here were perfectly false. She did not sleep with people for good reviews or other favors. She did not publish personal information of people involved with TFYC or request a DDOS attack on their site.
so loud mouthed 12-14 year old's on 4chan acting like they're loud mouthed 12-14 year old's on 4chan becomes and excuse to call the gaming community misogynistic, great...
so loud mouthed 12-14 year old's on 4chan acting like they're loud mouthed 12-14 year old's on 4chan becomes and excuse to call the gaming community misogynistic, great...
That was always going to be the problem with GamerGate. One side is full of professional victims; they profit from every attack on them. Every time someone attacks them, they get more media coverage, more patreon backers and more hits to their site. Anita Sarkeesian owes her entire livelihood to 4chan sending death threats. The other side is intrinsically tied to a group who legitimately doesn't give a shit about any sort of movement and enjoys attacking people, because they both shared an "Anonymous" banner at some point. GamerGate outgrew the *chans pretty much instantly, the name itself being coined by Adam Baldwin who I'm pretty sure isn't a neckbeard, but they're an easy face to attack so no one cares. Even then, 8chan legitimately spammed doxx off their front page for hours because the admin was asleep, purely to separate themselves from people making personal attacks. Fucking /v/ funded a feminist game to try and be "the good guys" for some reason. There's a choice screenshot making rounds of someone making an aggressive post about Quinn on /pol/, that conveniently cuts off the 20 responses all telling them to fuck off and calling them a shill. But none of that matters, because 4chan is 4chan, and it only takes one person to do it all for the lulz to paint an entire side as wannabe murderers, rapists and sociopaths. Hell, they're fucking anonymous, it's not even that far of a stretch to say some of them were "false flags" deliberately attacking their side for the PR, because it's been done before and it sure will happen again (probably by Something Awful, again). The original Wizard-chan thing is basically accepted to be that at this point from what I can see. It's like people have forgotten the concept of "lulz", because the term isn't used any more and the shitty Fox segment was half a decade ago. There are people who will attack easy targets, who will deliberately make it harder for GamerGate and take a shot at public figures, who are part of neither party, all because they feel like it. In saying that, I'm not claiming that everyone who posts anything aggressive is No True Gamer, there probably are people who support GamerGate who are harassing people. This minority of people are rightly being publicly crucified by both sides. But that won't change the fact that they're being shoe-horned as the face of one side, while the extremists on the other side are being ignored.
fully agree with RockIronrod the problem is people taking the internet serious. "death threats" are more like "death threads" it's only WORDS. the internet is full of trolls and there are no women on the internet. people victimizing themselves publicly over the internet are just pathetic. it's only attention whoring and/or money begging most of the time anyway.
At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
the problem is people taking the internet serious. "death threats" are more like "death threads" it's only WORDS. the internet is full of trolls and there are no women on the internet. people victimizing themselves publicly over the internet are just pathetic. it's only attention whoring and/or money begging most of the time anyway.
They're only words until they're not only words anymore. It takes only one dismissal of a serious threat to make ignoring threats wholesale an incredibly stupid idea.
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
the problem is people taking the internet serious. "death threats" are more like "death threads" it's only WORDS. the internet is full of trolls and there are no women on the internet. people victimizing themselves publicly over the internet are just pathetic. it's only attention whoring and/or money begging most of the time anyway.
They're only words until they're not only words anymore. It takes only one dismissal of a serious threat to make ignoring threats wholesale an incredibly stupid idea.
she did her best to keep the fire burning. yet, i doubt ANY threats against her were serious. the one she linked herself in public to look like a viction looked like a joke.
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
See, this is the funniest thing. #StopGamerGate2014 is a hash tag now. One that HAS doxxed and death threatened people. Someone said that all supporters should be castrated.The irony that followed is palpable.
There's a fundamental difference though. #GamerGate, from the very beginning, was about Zoe Quinn's alleged attempts to get her game covered by the gaming press through sexual relations with journalists. Zoe Quinn got an enormous amount of abuse over this. That, and nothing else was what the hashtag was about from the very beginning.
When this was disproven many people, as far as I could follow, asserted that while this whole affair had little meaning, there was in fact a problem in gaming journalism that was worth talking about. Which is a fair opinion to have, as far as I'm concerned.
Them continuing to use that hashtag though gives me the impression that they were part of the same movement - whatever that word is worth in this context - as those involved with harrassing Zoe Quinn. Attempts to drop that baggage with arguments like "but that's not what we're about anymore" seem weak to me, especially when there's still people aligned with the label that are about that. The logical thing to do seems to break away, start anew, adopt a new name and clarify what you are about. That didn't really happen. Which to me implies that those people don't think that baggage is that bad.
I think StopGamerGate has much of the same problems as its adversary - unclear goals, open for cooption - but what it doesn't have is a history of harrassment. To me that makes the situation significantly different.
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
the problem is people taking the internet serious. "death threats" are more like "death threads" it's only WORDS. the internet is full of trolls and there are no women on the internet. people victimizing themselves publicly over the internet are just pathetic. it's only attention whoring and/or money begging most of the time anyway.
They're only words until they're not only words anymore. It takes only one dismissal of a serious threat to make ignoring threats wholesale an incredibly stupid idea.
she did her best to keep the fire burning. yet, i doubt ANY threats against her were serious. the one she linked herself in public to look like a viction looked like a joke.
Please do tell me how you can distinguish real threats from the "jokes." Should we just not take any threat serious just because they might not be real? There's been plenty threats that "looks" real.
the problem is people taking the internet serious. "death threats" are more like "death threads" it's only WORDS. the internet is full of trolls and there are no women on the internet. people victimizing themselves publicly over the internet are just pathetic. it's only attention whoring and/or money begging most of the time anyway.
They're only words until they're not only words anymore. It takes only one dismissal of a serious threat to make ignoring threats wholesale an incredibly stupid idea.
I'm don't really know anything about this GamerGate thing, but when I would receive death threats I would do anything but retweet them.
Report them to the police, block the account on the media (report them to twitter?) and according to the police's advice leave my home. I would _not_ say that I would leave my home, out of the fear alone that other people would copycat (sic?) that shit.
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
See, this is the funniest thing. #StopGamerGate2014 is a hash tag now. One that HAS doxxed and death threatened people. Someone said that all supporters should be castrated.The irony that followed is palpable.
The threats overwhelmingly comes from people using gamergate tag and they also HAVE doxxed people (not sure why you capitalized HAS as if that haven't happened). Yes there's idiots from all sides and directions, which is all the stronger incentive not to use the hashtag when you try to make your point. Argue the issues.
On October 17 2014 00:22 Stijn wrote: There's a fundamental difference though. #GamerGate, from the very beginning, was about Zoe Quinn's alleged attempts to get her game covered by the gaming press through sexual relations with journalists. Zoe Quinn got an enormous amount of abuse over this. That, and nothing else was what the hashtag was about from the very beginning.
When this was disproven many people, as far as I could follow, asserted that while this whole affair had little meaning, there was in fact a problem in gaming journalism that was worth talking about. Which is a fair opinion to have, as far as I'm concerned.
Them continuing to use that hashtag though gives me the impression that they were part of the same movement - whatever that word is worth in this context - as those involved with harrassing Zoe Quinn. Attempts to drop that baggage with arguments like "but that's not what we're about anymore" seem weak to me, especially when there's still people aligned with the label that are about that. The logical thing to do seems to break away, start anew, adopt a new name and clarify what you are about. That didn't really happen. Which to me implies that those people don't think that baggage is that bad.
I think StopGamerGate has much of the same problems as its adversary - unclear goals, open for cooption - but what it doesn't have is a history of harrassment. To me that makes the situation significantly different.
To say however that Gamer Gate is is caused by Zoe Quinn is like saying World War One was caused by Arch Duke Ferdinand. It was not that a female game developer had a series of affairs. This became something more than the escapades of an unfaithful lover. It was the revelation of who some of these men were that she was having affairs with.
GamerGate was never about harassing Zoe Quinn. Even the two youtube links in the tweet you link are about the censorship surrounding the issue of impropriety. Hell, the second is literally about how the entire thing is because of the Streisand effect. Did you even watch the videos? Your "evidence" that it's all about Zoe Quinn's affairs is saying that it's all about censorship and lack of journalistic integrity. The only point in your favour is that these issues began with Zoe Quinn, but there's a large leap from that to harassment being a focal issue.
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
See, this is the funniest thing. #StopGamerGate2014 is a hash tag now. One that HAS doxxed and death threatened people. Someone said that all supporters should be castrated.The irony that followed is palpable.
The threats overwhelmingly comes from people using gamergate tag and they also HAVE doxxed people (not sure why you capitalized HAS as if that haven't happened). Yes there's idiots from all sides and directions, which is all the stronger incentive not to use the hashtag when you try to make your point. Argue the issues.
Except the people who used the hashtag for threats are an obvious minority, why would the majority cave to that? It's like saying feminism should change its name to distance themselves form Tumblr social justice warriors and SRS. You don't judge a group by their most vocal and hateful minority. That's fucking retarded.
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
the problem is people taking the internet serious. "death threats" are more like "death threads" it's only WORDS. the internet is full of trolls and there are no women on the internet. people victimizing themselves publicly over the internet are just pathetic. it's only attention whoring and/or money begging most of the time anyway.
They're only words until they're not only words anymore. It takes only one dismissal of a serious threat to make ignoring threats wholesale an incredibly stupid idea.
she did her best to keep the fire burning. yet, i doubt ANY threats against her were serious. the one she linked herself in public to look like a viction looked like a joke.
Please do tell me how you can distinguish real threats from the "jokes." Should we just not take any threat serious just because they might not be real? There's been plenty threats that "looks" real.
i have to be a retard, faggot, some hundred people raped my mother and i should be dead 1000x if i believe things people say to me on the internet.
and i can tell that posting those screenshots like she did to look like a victim is for sure NOT the way to go. if there are serious threats i go to the police and not the public. especially as an internet personality knowing and even condemning witch hunts (because she experienced it herself) she is just another hypocryte sending people on another target for their witch hunt.
On October 17 2014 00:22 Stijn wrote: There's a fundamental difference though. #GamerGate, from the very beginning, was about Zoe Quinn's alleged attempts to get her game covered by the gaming press through sexual relations with journalists. Zoe Quinn got an enormous amount of abuse over this. That, and nothing else was what the hashtag was about from the very beginning.
When this was disproven many people, as far as I could follow, asserted that while this whole affair had little meaning, there was in fact a problem in gaming journalism that was worth talking about. Which is a fair opinion to have, as far as I'm concerned.
Them continuing to use that hashtag though gives me the impression that they were part of the same movement - whatever that word is worth in this context - as those involved with harrassing Zoe Quinn. Attempts to drop that baggage with arguments like "but that's not what we're about anymore" seem weak to me, especially when there's still people aligned with the label that are about that. The logical thing to do seems to break away, start anew, adopt a new name and clarify what you are about. That didn't really happen. Which to me implies that those people don't think that baggage is that bad.
I think StopGamerGate has much of the same problems as its adversary - unclear goals, open for cooption - but what it doesn't have is a history of harrassment. To me that makes the situation significantly different.
To say however that Gamer Gate is is caused by Zoe Quinn is like saying World War One was caused by Arch Duke Ferdinand. It was not that a female game developer had a series of affairs. This became something more than the escapades of an unfaithful lover. It was the revelation of who some of these men were that she was having affairs with.
GamerGate was never about harassing Zoe Quinn. Even the two youtube links in the tweet you link are about the censorship surrounding the issue of impropriety. Hell, the second is literally about how the entire thing is because of the Streisand effect. Did you even watch the videos? Your "evidence" that it's all about Zoe Quinn's affairs is saying that it's all about censorship and lack of journalistic integrity. The only point in your favour is that these issues began with Zoe Quinn, but there's a large leap from that to harassment being a focal issue.
On October 17 2014 00:29 gruff wrote:
On October 17 2014 00:01 RockIronrod wrote:
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
See, this is the funniest thing. #StopGamerGate2014 is a hash tag now. One that HAS doxxed and death threatened people. Someone said that all supporters should be castrated.The irony that followed is palpable.
The threats overwhelmingly comes from people using gamergate tag and they also HAVE doxxed people (not sure why you capitalized HAS as if that haven't happened). Yes there's idiots from all sides and directions, which is all the stronger incentive not to use the hashtag when you try to make your point. Argue the issues.
Except the people who used the hashtag for threats are an obvious minority, why would the majority cave to that? It's like saying feminism should change its name to distance themselves form Tumblr social justice warriors and SRS. You don't judge a group by their most vocal and hateful minority. That's fucking retarded.
The page you linked titled "A people's history of GamerGate" is written from a biased, GamerGate-centric perspective and I therefore think it's not a good source of information.
The tweet I linked is, literally, the first use of the hashtag. It links to a video that (amongst other things) accuses Zoe Quinn of sleeping with gaming journalists for favourable coverage of her games and doxxing TFYC. As a result of these and similar accusations (which were not true) and other things said about her personal life that were irrelevant to gaming journalism, Zoe Quinn got a lot of abuse. The video itself is thinly veiled slander.
GamerGate may not have been "about harrassing Zoe Quinn" but it started with a lot of people harrassing Zoe Quinn (and others). It still involves, for some people, harrassing Zoe Quinn (and, it's worth repeating, others). Why don't people get away from that? Why are they okay with campaigning under a flag that was originally used for such vile things?
On October 17 2014 00:22 Stijn wrote: There's a fundamental difference though. #GamerGate, from the very beginning, was about Zoe Quinn's alleged attempts to get her game covered by the gaming press through sexual relations with journalists. Zoe Quinn got an enormous amount of abuse over this. That, and nothing else was what the hashtag was about from the very beginning.
When this was disproven many people, as far as I could follow, asserted that while this whole affair had little meaning, there was in fact a problem in gaming journalism that was worth talking about. Which is a fair opinion to have, as far as I'm concerned.
Them continuing to use that hashtag though gives me the impression that they were part of the same movement - whatever that word is worth in this context - as those involved with harrassing Zoe Quinn. Attempts to drop that baggage with arguments like "but that's not what we're about anymore" seem weak to me, especially when there's still people aligned with the label that are about that. The logical thing to do seems to break away, start anew, adopt a new name and clarify what you are about. That didn't really happen. Which to me implies that those people don't think that baggage is that bad.
I think StopGamerGate has much of the same problems as its adversary - unclear goals, open for cooption - but what it doesn't have is a history of harrassment. To me that makes the situation significantly different.
To say however that Gamer Gate is is caused by Zoe Quinn is like saying World War One was caused by Arch Duke Ferdinand. It was not that a female game developer had a series of affairs. This became something more than the escapades of an unfaithful lover. It was the revelation of who some of these men were that she was having affairs with.
GamerGate was never about harassing Zoe Quinn. Even the two youtube links in the tweet you link are about the censorship surrounding the issue of impropriety. Hell, the second is literally about how the entire thing is because of the Streisand effect. Did you even watch the videos? Your "evidence" that it's all about Zoe Quinn's affairs is saying that it's all about censorship and lack of journalistic integrity. The only point in your favour is that these issues began with Zoe Quinn, but there's a large leap from that to harassment being a focal issue.
On October 17 2014 00:29 gruff wrote:
On October 17 2014 00:01 RockIronrod wrote:
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
See, this is the funniest thing. #StopGamerGate2014 is a hash tag now. One that HAS doxxed and death threatened people. Someone said that all supporters should be castrated.The irony that followed is palpable.
The threats overwhelmingly comes from people using gamergate tag and they also HAVE doxxed people (not sure why you capitalized HAS as if that haven't happened). Yes there's idiots from all sides and directions, which is all the stronger incentive not to use the hashtag when you try to make your point. Argue the issues.
Except the people who used the hashtag for threats are an obvious minority, why would the majority cave to that? It's like saying feminism should change its name to distance themselves form Tumblr social justice warriors and SRS. You don't judge a group by their most vocal and hateful minority. That's fucking retarded.
The page you linked titled "A people's history of GamerGate" is written from a biased, GamerGate-centric perspective and I therefore think it's not a good source of information.
The tweet I linked is, literally, the first use of the hashtag. It links to a video that (amongst other things) accuses Zoe Quinn of sleeping with gaming journalists for favourable coverage of her games and doxxing TFYC. As a result of these and similar accusations (which were not true) and other things said about her personal life that were irrelevant to gaming journalism, Zoe Quinn got a lot of abuse. The video itself is thinly veiled slander.
GamerGate may not have been "about harrassing Zoe Quinn" but it started with a lot of people harrassing Zoe Quinn (and others). It still involves, for some people, harrassing Zoe Quinn (and, it's worth repeating, others). Why don't people get away from that? Why are they okay with campaigning under a flag that was originally used for such vile things?
because it's the internet and there will always be trolls, so most people don't care about it. also it's the popular hashtag NOW so it get's attention in any case for people who think their opinion is worth noticing. though most are wrong about that. also, if you use another hash tag the trolls will follow when it becomes popular. btw: it's only a hashtag
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
the problem is people taking the internet serious. "death threats" are more like "death threads" it's only WORDS. the internet is full of trolls and there are no women on the internet. people victimizing themselves publicly over the internet are just pathetic. it's only attention whoring and/or money begging most of the time anyway.
They're only words until they're not only words anymore. It takes only one dismissal of a serious threat to make ignoring threats wholesale an incredibly stupid idea.
she did her best to keep the fire burning. yet, i doubt ANY threats against her were serious. the one she linked herself in public to look like a viction looked like a joke.
yeah shes definitely just looking for attention. I mean what kind of responsible adult would really take a death threat seriously? Shame on her for trying to bring attention towards people who try to silence her. surely that makes her just as bad as them. Do you live on another planet?
On October 17 2014 00:22 Stijn wrote: There's a fundamental difference though. #GamerGate, from the very beginning, was about Zoe Quinn's alleged attempts to get her game covered by the gaming press through sexual relations with journalists. Zoe Quinn got an enormous amount of abuse over this. That, and nothing else was what the hashtag was about from the very beginning.
When this was disproven many people, as far as I could follow, asserted that while this whole affair had little meaning, there was in fact a problem in gaming journalism that was worth talking about. Which is a fair opinion to have, as far as I'm concerned.
Them continuing to use that hashtag though gives me the impression that they were part of the same movement - whatever that word is worth in this context - as those involved with harrassing Zoe Quinn. Attempts to drop that baggage with arguments like "but that's not what we're about anymore" seem weak to me, especially when there's still people aligned with the label that are about that. The logical thing to do seems to break away, start anew, adopt a new name and clarify what you are about. That didn't really happen. Which to me implies that those people don't think that baggage is that bad.
I think StopGamerGate has much of the same problems as its adversary - unclear goals, open for cooption - but what it doesn't have is a history of harrassment. To me that makes the situation significantly different.
To say however that Gamer Gate is is caused by Zoe Quinn is like saying World War One was caused by Arch Duke Ferdinand. It was not that a female game developer had a series of affairs. This became something more than the escapades of an unfaithful lover. It was the revelation of who some of these men were that she was having affairs with.
GamerGate was never about harassing Zoe Quinn. Even the two youtube links in the tweet you link are about the censorship surrounding the issue of impropriety. Hell, the second is literally about how the entire thing is because of the Streisand effect. Did you even watch the videos? Your "evidence" that it's all about Zoe Quinn's affairs is saying that it's all about censorship and lack of journalistic integrity. The only point in your favour is that these issues began with Zoe Quinn, but there's a large leap from that to harassment being a focal issue.
On October 17 2014 00:29 gruff wrote:
On October 17 2014 00:01 RockIronrod wrote:
On October 16 2014 23:53 Stijn wrote: At this point I'm more and more convinced that talking about this in terms of GamerGate and anti-GamerGate is useless. GamerGate right now covers so many opinions that if you single out two individuals tweeting under the hashtag they'd probably not agree with each other on what the label stands for. Anti-GamerGate isn't even a thing, there's no hashtag, board, whatever, it's just people who disagree with those flying the GamerGate banner.
The only opinion I honestly have on GamerGate at this point is that it's really not smart to declare yourself to be part of it because, want it or not, you're gonna be associated with the idiots involved with it that hound Zoe Quinn over nonsensical accusations or send death threats and other forms of harassment. If you're really not about that, stop using a label that doesn't really stand for anything definite at this point and has been linked to harassment and bigotry since day one. Come up with a new hashtag, introduce it by writing a clear manifesto outlining your goals and distancing yourself from the GamerGate nonsense and try to make a change that way.
See, this is the funniest thing. #StopGamerGate2014 is a hash tag now. One that HAS doxxed and death threatened people. Someone said that all supporters should be castrated.The irony that followed is palpable.
The threats overwhelmingly comes from people using gamergate tag and they also HAVE doxxed people (not sure why you capitalized HAS as if that haven't happened). Yes there's idiots from all sides and directions, which is all the stronger incentive not to use the hashtag when you try to make your point. Argue the issues.
Except the people who used the hashtag for threats are an obvious minority, why would the majority cave to that? It's like saying feminism should change its name to distance themselves form Tumblr social justice warriors and SRS. You don't judge a group by their most vocal and hateful minority. That's fucking retarded.
The page you linked titled "A people's history of GamerGate" is written from a biased, GamerGate-centric perspective and I therefore think it's not a good source of information.
The tweet I linked is, literally, the first use of the hashtag. It links to a video that (amongst other things) accuses Zoe Quinn of sleeping with gaming journalists for favourable coverage of her games and doxxing TFYC. As a result of these and similar accusations (which were not true) and other things said about her personal life that were irrelevant to gaming journalism, Zoe Quinn got a lot of abuse. The video itself is thinly veiled slander.
GamerGate may not have been "about harrassing Zoe Quinn" but it started with a lot of people harrassing Zoe Quinn (and others). It still involves, for some people, harrassing Zoe Quinn (and, it's worth repeating, others). Why don't people get away from that? Why are they okay with campaigning under a flag that was originally used for such vile things?
By the time Adam Baldwin started the #gamergate tag, the discussion left Zoe Quinn behind. Adam Baldwin tweeted about a week or so old video from Internet Aristocrat. Nobody in gamergate is harassing Zoe Quinn or Anita Hatesgamers, the ones doing the harassing ARE ANONYMOUS INDIVIDUALS. Gamers, and now specifically gamergate, are used as scapegoats, becuase it is the low hanging fruit. When has the media ever NOT demonized gamers? And now there is a consumer revolt consisting of gamers, who are now gathering under a hashtag, that hashtag is an easy target.
Lets all be real, the underlying fact is that gamergate is not, at the base level, about ethics in journalism, nor a hate movement, it is gamers pissed off at the disrespect and outright scorn being directed at them from game "news" sites and publishers. Ethics in journalism and a push back against cultural marxists trying to crap all over video games got rolled up in the giant Katamari ball of gamers fighting back as consumers.
But this is convenient, aren't we gamers constantly being tasked with rooting out the toxic elements in gaming? Well... lets start with the corrupt "journalists" and cultural marxists calling themselves social justice warriors. Later we can worry about fighting against anonymous trolls.
Also, Total Biscuit has given his open support for gamergate.
On October 17 2014 02:09 valium wrote: By the time Adam Baldwin started the #gamergate tag, the discussion left Zoe Quinn behind. Adam Baldwin tweeted about a week or so old video from Internet Aristocrat. Nobody in gamergate is harassing Zoe Quinn or Anita Hatesgamers, the ones doing the harassing ARE ANONYMOUS INDIVIDUALS. Gamers, and now specifically gamergate, are used as scapegoats, becuase it is the low hanging fruit. When has the media ever NOT demonized gamers? And now there is a consumer revolt consisting of gamers, who are now gathering under a hashtag, that hashtag is an easy target.
Lets all be real, the underlying fact is that gamergate is not, at the base level, about ethics in journalism, nor a hate movement, it is gamers pissed off at the disrespect and outright scorn being directed at them from game "news" sites and publishers. Ethics in journalism and a push back against cultural marxists trying to crap all over video games got rolled up in the giant Katamari ball of gamers fighting back as consumers.
But this is convenient, aren't we gamers constantly being tasked with rooting out the toxic elements in gaming? Well... lets start with the corrupt "journalists" and cultural marxists calling themselves social justice warriors. Later we can worry about fighting against anonymous trolls.
I've been talking to some people tweeting GamerGate-related stuff. Some are adamant about the fact that it's about the ties between journalists and the games industry. Others mention having problems with feminist critique. Still others are angry at articles about the "death of gamers".
The point is, you cannot make a sweeping statement like "at a base level, gamergate is about gamers pissed off at disrespect". GamerGate is about too many things to be about anything specific at this point. Everyone has their own interpretation. Which makes it very hard to debate the merits of the thing as a whole, because if I point out that a lot of the things they're saying about feminism are wrong or don't hold up, someone else will point out that it's not actually about that. And if I argue about journalist ethics, someone will point out that the real problem is feminist critique.
So the label is no longer useful as a basis of discussion, if it ever was. Arguing for or against GamerGate comes down to arguing for or against a weakly linked array of opinions that is probably unique for the one arguing (or the conception of that person of what GamerGate is).
I'm fine with debating issues on their own. But when people tag their argument with GamerGate, they tag it with a hashtag that started out as a label for a really toxic discussion about an indie developer's sex life, in which many people got abusive messages and a lot of people published arguments and videos that were very poorly articulated and inflammatory (don't say that didn't happen). If two months later they're still gonna put that tag on your post, I'm gonna assume they're okay with that kind of discourse and I'll have a hard time taking them seriously.
Plus, if people want their arguments to gain any traction, it's just bad PR to do it under a moniker that gets such media flak. It really doesn't speak for you.
On October 17 2014 02:09 valium wrote: By the time Adam Baldwin started the #gamergate tag, the discussion left Zoe Quinn behind. Adam Baldwin tweeted about a week or so old video from Internet Aristocrat. Nobody in gamergate is harassing Zoe Quinn or Anita Hatesgamers, the ones doing the harassing ARE ANONYMOUS INDIVIDUALS. Gamers, and now specifically gamergate, are used as scapegoats, becuase it is the low hanging fruit. When has the media ever NOT demonized gamers? And now there is a consumer revolt consisting of gamers, who are now gathering under a hashtag, that hashtag is an easy target.
Lets all be real, the underlying fact is that gamergate is not, at the base level, about ethics in journalism, nor a hate movement, it is gamers pissed off at the disrespect and outright scorn being directed at them from game "news" sites and publishers. Ethics in journalism and a push back against cultural marxists trying to crap all over video games got rolled up in the giant Katamari ball of gamers fighting back as consumers.
But this is convenient, aren't we gamers constantly being tasked with rooting out the toxic elements in gaming? Well... lets start with the corrupt "journalists" and cultural marxists calling themselves social justice warriors. Later we can worry about fighting against anonymous trolls.
I've been talking to some people tweeting GamerGate-related stuff. Some are adamant about the fact that it's about the ties between journalists and the games industry. Others mention having problems with feminist critique. Still others are angry at articles about the "death of gamers".
The point is, you cannot make a sweeping statement like "at a base level, gamergate is about gamers pissed off at disrespect". GamerGate is about too many things to be about anything specific at this point. Everyone has their own interpretation. Which makes it very hard to debate the merits of the thing as a whole, because if I point out that a lot of the things they're saying about feminism are wrong or don't hold up, someone else will point out that it's not actually about that. And if I argue about journalist ethics, someone will point out that the real problem is feminist critique.
So the label is no longer useful as a basis of discussion, if it ever was. Arguing for or against GamerGate comes down to arguing for or against a weakly linked array of opinions that is probably unique for the one arguing (or the conception of that person of what GamerGate is).
I'm fine with debating issues on their own. But when people tag their argument with GamerGate, they tag it with a hashtag that started out as a label for a really toxic discussion about an indie developer's sex life, in which many people got abusive messages and a lot of people published arguments and videos that were very poorly articulated and inflammatory. If two months later they're still gonna put that tag on your post, I'm gonna assume they're okay with that kind of discourse and I'll have a hard time taking you seriously.
Plus, if people want their arguments to gain any traction, it's just bad PR to do it under a moniker that gets such media flak. It really doesn't speak for you.
Again, the hashtag was never a "really toxic discussion." Unless of course, you are talking about people against gamergate, who then label it a "really toxic discussion," while lacking any substantial proof of it being so.
I can label myself the queen of England, does not make it true.
I've read through the thread a bit and let me get some things cleared up.
"gamergate" has nothing to do with sexism, racism or misogyny, this has been dragged in to defame the people supporting "gamergate".
The whole thing essentially kicked off when it became clear that this Zoey Quinn had been fabricating lies about being harassed by Wizardchan on top of performing certain favours in order to get her game promoted (keep this in mind whenever you read anything about these people being harassed).
Discussion of this was widely shut down everywhere. Which was weird.
Later it was found that pretty much all the major "gaming news" sites are really just one big syndicate playing the market.
Shitstorm ensues as the "gaming press" scrambles to save face not giving two shits about lying and manipulating via god knows how many outlets, it's even been on mainstream media a couple days ago with the entire situation being twisted and turned around.
On October 17 2014 02:45 HeatEXTEND wrote: I've read through the thread a bit and let me get some things cleared up.
"gamergate" has nothing to do with sexism, racism or misogyny, this has been dragged in to defame the people supporting "gamergate".
The whole thing essentially kicked off when it became clear that this Zoey Quinn had been fabricating lies about being harassed by Wizardchan on top of performing certain favours in order to get her game promoted (keep this in mind whenever you read anything about these people being harassed).
Discussion of this was widely shut down everywhere. Which was weird.
Later it was found that pretty much all the major "gaming news" sites are really just one big syndicate playing the market.
Shitstorm ensues as the "gaming press" scrambles to save face not giving two shits about lying and manipulating via god knows how many outlets, it's even been on mainstream media a couple days ago with the entire situation being twisted and turned around.
Sick shit imo.
To clear up one of your points, it was established that there was no sex in exchange for game review scores. Nathan Grayson never reviewed her game, BUT, he did focus 2 articles on Steam Greenlight on Quinn's game, which was also brought up as strange at the time as her "game" was not technically a game. It was originally declined from Greenlight, then she "harassed" by wizardchan, then her supporters raised hell. Even though she never exchanged sex for favors, as it were, she did have an existing relationship with Grayson that was never disclosed when he gave her "game" publicity. Grayson also covered a game jam that Quinn purposefully sunk, slanting the article to show her in a good light.
This is part of the corruption that is being brought up, no transparency.
On October 17 2014 02:34 valium wrote: Again, the hashtag was never a "really toxic discussion." Unless of course, you are talking about people against gamergate, who then label it a "really toxic discussion," while lacking any substantial proof of it being so.
I can label myself the queen of England, does not make it true.
I guess it depends on your definition of "really toxic discussion". When, in a small window of time, a substantial amount of people put videos, threads, tweets, and whatnot online that slander people and insult them for reasons unrelated to the question at hand, I call that really toxic.
I watched videos by people like thunderf00t and MundaneMatt, I read /r/KotakuInAction for a while, I tried to keep track of things via Twitter and followed people like Milo Yiannoupoulos. If their style of discussing these things seems alright to you - especially the name calling and jumping to conclusion on false grounds - then I guess we're just too far apart on the definition of civility and good journalism to ever agree on any of these things.
On October 17 2014 02:34 valium wrote: Again, the hashtag was never a "really toxic discussion." Unless of course, you are talking about people against gamergate, who then label it a "really toxic discussion," while lacking any substantial proof of it being so.
I can label myself the queen of England, does not make it true.
I guess it depends on your definition of "really toxic discussion". When, in a small window of time, a substantial amount of people put videos, threads, tweets, and whatnot online that slander people and insult them for reasons unrelated to the question at hand, I call that really toxic.
I watched videos by people like thunderf00t and MundaneMatt, I read /r/KotakuInAction for a while, I tried to keep track of things via Twitter and followed people like Milo Yiannoupoulos. If their style of discussing these things seems alright to you - especially the name calling and jumping to conclusion on false grounds - then I guess we're just too far apart on the definition of civility and good journalism to ever agree on any of these things.
The small window of time you mention, was before the gamergate tag was even a thing, when all discussion was being censored across the internet, so people were talking while being in the dark. Most of that ended rather quickly, when places like Escapist actually allowed discussion and people started having an actual discussion. That discussion led AWAY from Zoe Quinn, and the people constantly bringing Zoe Quinn back into the conversation were those who are considered anti-gamergate.
You are assuming, then seeking to find evidence to support your assumption.
Like with my first post, you ignored any discussion points I was bringing up, and argued semantics. You are not interested in a discussion, you are only interested in spinning a narrative.
On October 17 2014 03:10 valium wrote: The small window of time you mention, was before the gamergate tag was even a thing, when all discussion was being censored across the internet, so people were talking while being in the dark. Most of that ended rather quickly, when places like Escapist actually allowed discussion and people started having an actual discussion. That discussion led AWAY from Zoe Quinn, and the people constantly bringing Zoe Quinn back into the conversation were those who are considered anti-gamergate.
You are assuming, then seeking to find evidence to support your assumption.
Like with my first post, you ignored any discussion points I was bringing up, and argued semantics. You are not interested in a discussion, you are only interested in spinning a narrative.
Okay, let's put aside whether GamerGate is a good label to put on your opinions. What discussion points you brought up do you think I ignored? I'll try to respond to those, then.
As my original argument was about semantics in a way (paraphrased, I asked what the GamerGate really meant at this point), I tried to focus on that in my posts because I wanted to keep the discussion focused. But if you'd rather talk about the issues at hand (e.g. what you think is wrong with the gaming industry and community) I'm happy to do that, that was my original point anyway.
On October 17 2014 03:05 HeatEXTEND wrote: Oh, and one more thing, if you get serious death threats, you go to the authorities and get that stuff sorted out. Seems obvious, right ?
not anymore in todays world. nowadays you go to reddit, twitter, tumblr, etc and get the hivemind to hunt that witch down that dares to threaten your life.
On October 17 2014 03:10 valium wrote: The small window of time you mention, was before the gamergate tag was even a thing, when all discussion was being censored across the internet, so people were talking while being in the dark. Most of that ended rather quickly, when places like Escapist actually allowed discussion and people started having an actual discussion. That discussion led AWAY from Zoe Quinn, and the people constantly bringing Zoe Quinn back into the conversation were those who are considered anti-gamergate.
You are assuming, then seeking to find evidence to support your assumption.
Like with my first post, you ignored any discussion points I was bringing up, and argued semantics. You are not interested in a discussion, you are only interested in spinning a narrative.
Okay, let's put aside whether GamerGate is a good label to put on your opinions. What discussion points you brought up do you think I ignored? I'll try to respond to those, then.
As my original argument was about semantics in a way (paraphrased, I asked what the GamerGate really meant at this point), I tried to focus on that in my posts because I wanted to keep the discussion focused. But if you'd rather talk about the issues at hand (e.g. what you think is wrong with the gaming industry and community) I'm happy to do that, that was my original point anyway.
Points I was bringing up is that gamergate moved beyond Zoe Quinn well before there was even a gamergate. Gamergate started as a consumer revolt against game blogging sites like rock paper shotgun and kotaku that took to attacking gamers for click-bait, and publishers who are extremely anti-consumer. Which brings it back to these corrupt games "journalists" who instead of being the voice of gamers and talk about actual games and the crap publishers are pulling, they attack gamers too.
There is no single "label" for gamergate, it is a mass of individuals all fighting similar battles. Game blog sites and game bloggers pretending to be journalists are pretending things like gamergate and 4chan/8chan/v/whatever are hive minds. We are not Zerg, we are individuals. We all might all be focusing on minor differences in what we want, but we all seem to be fighting the same things.
Gamergate started as a consumer revolt against game blogging sites like rock paper shotgun and kotaku that took to attacking gamers
Can't speak for Kotaku, but can you actually prove that RPS 'attacked gamers'? They linked to a few of the "gamers are dead" pieces and commented that they were interesting pieces that do not necessarily reflect their views, but that's about it.
On October 17 2014 03:37 valium wrote: Points I was bringing up is that gamergate moved beyond Zoe Quinn well before there was even a gamergate. Gamergate started as a consumer revolt against game blogging sites like rock paper shotgun and kotaku that took to attacking gamers for click-bait, and publishers who are extremely anti-consumer. Which brings it back to these corrupt games "journalists" who instead of being the voice of gamers and talk about actual games and the crap publishers are pulling, they attack gamers too.
There is no single "label" for gamergate, it is a mass of individuals all fighting similar battles. Game blog sites and game bloggers pretending to be journalists are pretending things like gamergate and 4chan/8chan/v/whatever are hive minds. We are not Zerg, we are individuals. We all might all be focusing on minor differences in what we want, but we all seem to be fighting the same things
I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one. I still see ZQ cited as a "prime example" of "corruption" often enough that I don't believe everyone has moved on from that. Similarly, in my experience people are not all arguing for similar things. But let's leave that at that.
---
I read RPS daily and I really never saw them attacking gamers. They linked Leigh Alexander's piece in their Sunday Papers, which is a weekly digest of notable articles on gaming from other sites. In a later editorial they actuallynoted that they didn't fully agree with the article. How is that "attacking gamers"? I mean, RPS does write about the crap publishers are pulling. They had multiple articles on how EA handled SimCity's release, they've published articles about how pre-ordering is a scheme that hurts consumers, a lot of stuff like that. I really think it's unfair to say they're against gamers, i.e. people who play games. As for clickbait, I found their own response convincing (just ctrl+f for clickbait, though I found the whole article worth a read).
I don't read Kotaku as often, but I assume you're talking about this article (please link me if not). I also have a really hard time seeing that as an attack on gamers. It even has a disclaimer: "Note they're not talking about everyone who plays games, or who self-identifies as a "gamer", as being the worst. It's being used in these cases as short-hand, a catch-all term for the type of reactionary holdouts that feel so threatened by gaming's widening horizons. If you call yourself a "gamer" and are a cool person, keep on being a cool person.". Can you tell me why you think it is an attack on gamers?
On October 17 2014 04:08 Wombat_NI wrote: Why can't more of the internet be like TL?
We have our trolls on TL.
I have to say, the discussion here has been very productive. I am glad that this thread managed to stay open, and everyone has had some very insightful input on the issue.
I have learned a lot about this gamergate, and it seems so has many others.
Gamergate started as a consumer revolt against game blogging sites like rock paper shotgun and kotaku that took to attacking gamers
Can't speak for Kotaku, but can you actually prove that RPS 'attacked gamers'? They linked to a few of the "gamers are dead" pieces and commented that they were interesting pieces that do not necessarily reflect their views, but that's about it.
granted, I should have went with gamasutra or polygon or neogaf or any gawker site really, who more overtly attacked gamers. RPS was more subtle, if you followed the gamejournopros thing.
On October 17 2014 03:37 valium wrote: Points I was bringing up is that gamergate moved beyond Zoe Quinn well before there was even a gamergate. Gamergate started as a consumer revolt against game blogging sites like rock paper shotgun and kotaku that took to attacking gamers for click-bait, and publishers who are extremely anti-consumer. Which brings it back to these corrupt games "journalists" who instead of being the voice of gamers and talk about actual games and the crap publishers are pulling, they attack gamers too.
There is no single "label" for gamergate, it is a mass of individuals all fighting similar battles. Game blog sites and game bloggers pretending to be journalists are pretending things like gamergate and 4chan/8chan/v/whatever are hive minds. We are not Zerg, we are individuals. We all might all be focusing on minor differences in what we want, but we all seem to be fighting the same things
I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one. I still see ZQ cited as a "prime example" of "corruption" often enough that I don't believe everyone has moved on from that. Similarly, in my experience people are not all arguing for similar things. But let's leave that at that.
---
I read RPS daily and I really never saw them attacking gamers. They linked Leigh Alexander's piece in their Sunday Papers, which is a weekly digest of notable articles on gaming from other sites. In a later editorial they actuallynoted that they didn't fully agree with the article. How is that "attacking gamers"? I mean, RPS does write about the crap publishers are pulling. They had multiple articles on how EA handled SimCity's release, they've published articles about how pre-ordering is a scheme that hurts consumers, a lot of stuff like that. I really think it's unfair to say they're against gamers, i.e. people who play games. As for clickbait, I found their own response convincing (just ctrl+f for clickbait, though I found the whole article worth a read).
I don't read Kotaku as often, but I assume you're talking about this article (please link me if not). I also have a really hard time seeing that as an attack on gamers. It even has a disclaimer: "Note they're not talking about everyone who plays games, or who self-identifies as a "gamer", as being the worst. It's being used in these cases as short-hand, a catch-all term for the type of reactionary holdouts that feel so threatened by gaming's widening horizons. If you call yourself a "gamer" and are a cool person, keep on being a cool person.". Can you tell me why you think it is an attack on gamers?
It wasn't just one article, there were more than 10 similar articles on various other sites all released on the same day. Not just kotaku and RPS, those were just 2 examples, it was a mass of game news sites. Later it turns out the "conspiracy theory" of collusion was factual with the existence of gamejournopros. Also with ties to a PR firm Silverstring media.
Before the Zoe Quinn thing, there were also articles about "white males are the lowest common denominator," and "male gamers are not your target audience." These all added to the boiling point of the mass censorship of any discussion of Zoe Quinn blowing the top of the issue.
This did not stem from what was coined "the quinnspiracy," that was just the straw that broke the camels back as it were.
gamergate was a long time coming, it was going to happen sooner or later, just so happened to happen sooner.
also, the disclaimer, if it exists, came after the article was released. there was no disclaimer when I read the article.
Gamergate started as a consumer revolt against game blogging sites like rock paper shotgun and kotaku that took to attacking gamers
Can't speak for Kotaku, but can you actually prove that RPS 'attacked gamers'? They linked to a few of the "gamers are dead" pieces and commented that they were interesting pieces that do not necessarily reflect their views, but that's about it.
granted, I should have went with gamasutra or polygon or neogaf or any gawker site really, who more overtly attacked gamers. RPS was more subtle, if you followed the gamejournopros thing.
So subtle it doesn't actually exist at all.
That's some fucking houdini level shit right there eh?
Gamergate started as a consumer revolt against game blogging sites like rock paper shotgun and kotaku that took to attacking gamers
Can't speak for Kotaku, but can you actually prove that RPS 'attacked gamers'? They linked to a few of the "gamers are dead" pieces and commented that they were interesting pieces that do not necessarily reflect their views, but that's about it.
granted, I should have went with gamasutra or polygon or neogaf or any gawker site really, who more overtly attacked gamers. RPS was more subtle, if you followed the gamejournopros thing.
So subtle it doesn't actually exist at all.
That's some fucking houdini level shit right there eh?
I guess you missed the whole gamejournopros thing then.
On October 17 2014 04:26 valium wrote: It wasn't just one article, there were more than 10 similar articles on various other sites all released on the same day. Not just kotaku and RPS, those were just 2 examples, it was a mass of game news sites. Later it turns out the "conspiracy theory" of collusion was factual with the existence of gamejournopros. Also with ties to a PR firm Silverstring media.
But why are you calling it an attack on gamers? Kotaku was just linking to other articles that were pretty relevant given the discussions at the time. Same for RPS. And I think you're not characterizing the articles in question correctly by calling them an "attack on gamers". As I understood them they argued that the idea of a "gamer" as an out-of-the-mainstream misunderstood teenager, basically the 90s conception, is no longer relevant. Now that's a position I don't actually agree with it ("Gamers are over, that's why they're so mad" is pretty much in contradiction with itself as far as I'm concerned) but it's an opinion piece! One that was spread widely and disseminated and discussed and agreed with and disagreed with. And then the sites that did that continued reporting on games and writing things for gaming enthusiasts. Why would you be angry at that? What's wrong with publishing articles you don't agree with?
On October 17 2014 04:26 valium wrote: Before the Zoe Quinn thing, there were also articles about "white males are the lowest common denominator," and "male gamers are not your target audience." These all added to the boiling point of the mass censorship of any discussion of Zoe Quinn blowing the top of the issue.
I would appreciate some links. I don't know what articles you're referring to.
ETA: As for gamejournopros, where's the smoking gun? I saw the news, I read the mails. I didn't see a "let's kick off this anti-gamer campaign" signal in there. What I saw was people discussing what was happening, and people proposing how to handle it and then other people disagreeing with that and then... nothing, really. Can you elaborate how the e-mails point at a wider anti-gamer initiative?
On October 17 2014 04:57 ROOTiaguz wrote: yea, links is what I was asking for. wtf's gamejournospros
Mailing list for game industry journalists. Breitbart published a sensationalist article on it but I'd recommend scrolling through the actual mails and forming your own opinion (though it's badly formatted).
holy shit this is enormous. Point out the part that shows RPS is corrupt or something please.
I'm also confused at the idea that RPS hates gamers. Like what is gamer if not "person who devotes a lot of time playing/thinking/enjoying games. Has a passion for games", and how can RPS be said to hate these people when it's made up of them.
I don't think you understand their idea of "handling it" is to ruin the image of their critics before they ruin theirs. And yes, colluding to generalize gamers as male, sexist, and misogynist is smearing and shady as hell. Why not address the issue head on? How was that in any way supposed to handle it diplomatically or reasonably?
You can frame it as an opinion piece, but when you get you and your friends all get together to make fun of the nerdy kid because he tattled on you... That's kindergarten shit.
And considering this is the opinion of Gawker (who owns Kotaku) I don't find it hard to believe there's an anti-gamer notion at all. http://i.imgur.com/6ssdX8x.jpg (also at LEAST two other gawker higher ups that agree with this sentiment)
As someone who was naive enough to side against #Gamergate at the beginning, allow me to explain why there's simply too much to ignore to me:
1: The blatant nepotism, corruption, and agenda pushing/blackballing is suppressing freedom of expression and that has no place in an art form. They've been holding the entire western gaming world back with their personal baggage.
2: EVEN IF you can't find issue with what they did there, colluding to collectively silence and refuse anyone to have a dissenting view is crazy. Neogaf, Reddit, even 4chan mass banned people who dared bring up their concerns due to connections with Gawker. I mean 4chan is a site where you can post decapitations and be racist as hell, but discussion on journalistic ethics? Oh you're out of here you little troublemaker!
3: All this "sexism" "misogyny" and crap trying to be smeared onto them as a whole is laughable. It's pure bigotry, it's what the people do with terrorists and muslims, homophobes and christians, rapists and men! There's simply no way people actually concerned with equality, feminism, and ethics, or familiar with the aspects of marginalization would resort to this unless they were just immersed in their own self-protection, developing a narrative out of nothing to protect themselves. It's doubly annoying when they're getting plenty of danger too! Syringes tto homes, death threats, jobs being forced to fire supporters.
The thing I don't get about all of this is this...
I've read all of the evidence and all of the information and claims of the extreme stuff being fringe. Even if I just accept all of it at face value and thinking about it I have decided that I still want to read Gamasutra and RPS (and to a lesser extent Kotaku). So my question is who the hell are you [gamergate and its members] to try and take that away from me? You are not engaging me or attempting to change my mind on what constitutes a good site or proper journalism. You trying to circumvent people's ability to vote with their traffic by going straight to advertisers and subverting sites that way. By going to advertisers you are saying that a site is so toxic that readers who make an informed choice to read said site are SO WRONG that you need to step in and prevent it. That you have the authority and knowledge to determine defacto that a site is beyond just being uninteresting or unoriginal that the readers of said site must be stopped by your force of will. It's been decided by you that you cannot engage said readers or attempt to educate them, but rather you must go and appeal to a higher power because the site is causing a distressing amount of harm. My enjoyment of a site, even knowing its potential flaws or misdoings, is not something I am allowed to have based on your opinion of a website and that I am not thoughtful enough to make the correct choices on my own so you have to do it for me.
So again I ask who the hell are you to tell me that? Who the hell are you to say I can't evaluate the journalism on a website and decide if it's worth my readership?
On October 17 2014 05:28 Logo wrote: The thing I don't get about all of this is this...
I've read all of the evidence and all of the information and claims of the extreme stuff being fringe. Even if I just accept all of it at face value and thinking about it I have decided that I still want to read Gamasutra and RPS (and to a lesser extent Kotaku). So my question is who the hell are you [gamergate and its members] to try and take that away from me? You are not engaging me or attempting to change my mind on what constitutes a good site or proper journalism. You trying to circumvent people's ability to vote with their traffic by going straight to advertisers and subverting sites that way. By going to advertisers you are saying that a site is so toxic that readers who make an informed choice to read said site are SO WRONG that you need to step in and prevent it. That you have the authority and knowledge to determine defacto that a site is beyond just being uninteresting or unoriginal that the readers of said site must be stopped by your force of will. It's been decided by you that you cannot engage said readers or attempt to educate them, but rather you must go and appeal to a higher power because the site is causing a distressing amount of harm. My enjoyment of a site, even knowing its potential flaws or misdoings, is not something I am allowed to have based on your opinion of a website and that I am not thoughtful enough to make the correct choices on my own so you have to do it for me.
So again I ask who the hell are you to tell me that? Who the hell are you to say I can't evaluate the journalism on a website and decide if it's worth my readership?
You do know you can contact the advertisers too? And they can still do their articles. Their reviews, their editorials. You seem to be under the impression this is censorship, it isn't. It's simply taking our business and the power that came with it away from them so we can invest it into what we actually want.
It's been decided by you that you cannot engage said readers or attempt to educate them, but rather you must go and appeal to a higher power because the site is causing a distressing amount of harm.
You're full of crap lmao. We tried to discuss this, in their comments, on major gaming discussion platforms. We were silenced and ignored instantly. It's not the consumer revolt's fault the lines of communication were cut at ll.
On October 17 2014 05:34 Dunnobro wrote: You're full of crap lmao. We tried to discuss this, in their comments, on major gaming discussion platforms. We were silenced and ignored instantly. It's not the consumer revolt's fault the lines of communication were cut at ll.
Random websites owe you no platform for free speech that they don't wish to give. That does not mean you cannot voice your opinions as the movement has clearly demonstrated through Twitter and other platforms. If you were ignored you were ignored because people disagree with you. There is no question about whether or not gamergate is being heard. It's just in the face of being ignored they have decided they should start trying to make decisions for other people and have gone to the advertisers. It's ridiculous to expect people to have to actively defend a website they visit in some sort of shouting match to advertisers. I voice my support to advertisers every time I visit the site, I'm not going to threaten boycotts or disapproval as some strong arm tactic to get people to advertise on websites I like, that's an extreme and totally reprehensible action.
I also never called contacting the advertisers censorship, it's not. It's attempting to force people into an action by circumventing the people that disagree with you. Even if I contact advertisers I am not dealing directly with the people who are opposing my viewpoint, I am being forced to appeal to a third party.
On October 17 2014 05:34 Dunnobro wrote: You're full of crap lmao. We tried to discuss this, in their comments, on major gaming discussion platforms. We were silenced and ignored instantly. It's not the consumer revolt's fault the lines of communication were cut at ll.
Random websites owe you no platform for free speech that they don't wish to give. That does not mean you cannot voice your opinions as the movement has clearly demonstrated through Twitter and other platforms. If you were ignored you were ignored because people disagree with you. There is no question about whether or not gamergate is being heard. It's just in the face of being ignored they have decided they should start trying to make decisions for other people and have gone to the advertisers. It's ridiculous to expect people to have to actively defend a website they visit in some sort of shouting match to advertisers.
Random websites are the very sites we were complaining about? What? And twitter is in no way conducive to the debate or discussion environment.
And no, we weren't just ignored. WE WERE SILENCED. DISALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT. And when the sites in question who did the censoring all have ties to the ones we were criticizing, what are we supposed to think? If you don't want to talk about how you maybe did something wrong, it's likely cause you did. So we'll go over your heads.
They brought it on themselves, don't blame us for not caving. And again, we're not making anyone's decision for them. Their power directly comes from their consumers, we're their consumers. All that's happening is we're taking back the power we gave by consuming their product.
You act like a consumer boycott is in any way unethical. Do you not support capitalism, the free market? Because regardless of your answer that's what we are.
Overall you're placing the blame on the consumers. And that's the mistake they made.
On October 17 2014 05:22 Dunnobro wrote: I don't think you understand their idea of "handling it" is to ruin the image of their critics before they ruin theirs. And yes, colluding to generalize gamers as male, sexist, and misogynist is smearing and shady as hell. Why not address the issue head on? How was that in any way supposed to handle it diplomatically or reasonably?
You can frame it as an opinion piece, but when you get you and your friends all get together to make fun of the nerdy kid because he tattled on you... That's kindergarten shit.
That's a false analogy. What happened was that two high-profile writers published an article with the premise that the gamer identity wasn't relevant anymore (if there are more that are not somehow a reaction to these, let me know, I haven't been able to find a good list). These tied in to a wider discussion (GamerGate). So other sites reported on it and added their own thoughts. Some agreed. Some didn't, or only partly, or added nuances. I think that's not bullying, but simply discussing the current issues in the gamer community.
And considering this is the opinion of Gawker (who owns Kotaku) I don't find it hard to believe there's an anti-gamer notion at all. http://i.imgur.com/6ssdX8x.jpg (also at LEAST two other gawker higher ups that agree with this sentiment)
Seems a perfectly reasonable article to me. Why is explaining the concept of "privilege" to an audience that hears the word often but (to me) often seems to have a flawed conception of it a bad thing?
I don't know what to do with that Twitter screenshot. I'm missing the context. I'm annoyed by the reliance of everyone involved in this debate on twitter screenshots, which rob tweets (fragmentary by nature) of any context and are super easy to fake. Not saying this is fake, but it's very hard to check if screenshots are real. I wish people would use Webcite or ArchiveToday for things like this.
On October 17 2014 05:22 Dunnobro wrote: As someone who was naive enough to side against #Gamergate at the beginning, allow me to explain why there's simply too much to ignore to me:
1: The blatant nepotism, corruption, and agenda pushing/blackballing is suppressing freedom of expression and that has no place in an art form. They've been holding the entire western gaming world back with their personal baggage.
2: EVEN IF you can't find issue with what they did there, colluding to collectively silence and refuse anyone to have a dissenting view is crazy. Neogaf, Reddit, even 4chan mass banned people who dared bring up their concerns due to connections with Gawker. I mean 4chan is a site where you can post decapitations and be racist as hell, but discussion on journalistic ethics? Oh you're out of here you little troublemaker!
3: All this "sexism" "misogyny" and crap trying to be smeared onto them as a whole is laughable. It's pure bigotry, it's what the people do with terrorists and muslims, homophobes and christians, rapists and men! There's simply no way people actually concerned with equality, feminism, and ethics, or familiar with the aspects of marginalization would resort to this unless they were just immersed in their own self-protection, developing a narrative out of nothing to protect themselves. It's doubly annoying when they're getting plenty of danger too! Syringes tto homes, death threats, jobs being forced to fire supporters.
1. I don't know what to do with this. I've not seen any convincing evidence of endemic corruption or nepotism. I agree that the relation between press and publishers should be examined and that there's room for improvement. I'm happy that some sites are taking steps to improve things on that front. But "holding back the entire western gaming world"? Please. This is exaggerating things enormously.
2. It sounds really unlikely to me that Gawker is so powerful that they have editorial control over NeoGAF, Reddit and 4chan (as for Reddit, why is /r/kotakuinaction still going strong?). What I think happened is that admins/mods thought the whole doxxing and slandering going on was not good to have on their boards, and got triggerhappy with regards to the topic.
On October 17 2014 05:34 Dunnobro wrote: You're full of crap lmao. We tried to discuss this, in their comments, on major gaming discussion platforms. We were silenced and ignored instantly. It's not the consumer revolt's fault the lines of communication were cut at ll.
Random websites owe you no platform for free speech that they don't wish to give. That does not mean you cannot voice your opinions as the movement has clearly demonstrated through Twitter and other platforms. If you were ignored you were ignored because people disagree with you. There is no question about whether or not gamergate is being heard. It's just in the face of being ignored they have decided they should start trying to make decisions for other people and have gone to the advertisers. It's ridiculous to expect people to have to actively defend a website they visit in some sort of shouting match to advertisers.
Random websites are the very sites we were complaining about? What? And twitter is in no way conducive to the debate or discussion environment.
And no, we weren't just ignored. WE WERE SILENCED. DISALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT. And when the sites in question who did the censoring all have ties to the ones we were criticizing, what are we supposed to think? If you don't want to talk, fine. We'll go over your heads.
They brought it on themselves, don't blame us for not caving. And again, we're not making anyone's decision for them. Their power directly comes from their consumers, we're their consumers. All that's happening is we're taking back the power we gave by consuming their product.
You act like a consumer boycott is in any way unethical. Do you not support capitalism, the free market? Because regardless of your answer that's what we are.
You're attempting to use your influence over a third party to exert influence over something you have problems with. It's a serious action, you are quite literally saying that no one should have access to something regardless of how they feel about that thing. You are going to extreme lengths to exert your influence on these sites. That's the issue. It's extreme, yet the explained harm is quite mild by comparison. You are taking one of the most extreme actions to silence a website and the best arguments for it are that said website doesn't care for the word 'gamers' and has some potentially lax ethical standard. That sounds excessively disproportionate of a response. Again you are saying the infractions of these websites is SO EXTREME that the general readership should not be entrusted with the responsibility to make up their own minds on whether or not the sites should continue to exist (via their readership support).
The stuff on capitalism is just strawman, I have not brought into question the legality of any part of the system nor would I. Just because something is capitalist doesn't make it moral or immoral. I also don't see how wanting the ability to directly participate in the free market of what websites I view (rather than having to negotiate with advertisers) is anti-capitalist. For the most part I want advertisers to be largely agnostic to where they advertise so the websites can behave autonomously and I (and others) can participate in a free market interaction with said websites (those that are good get my readership, those that aren't won't).
That's a false analogy. What happened was that two high-profile writers published an article with the premise that the gamer identity wasn't relevant anymore (if there are more that are not somehow a reaction to these, let me know, I haven't been able to find a good list). These tied in to a wider discussion (GamerGate). So other sites reported on it and added their own thoughts. Some agreed. Some didn't, or only partly, or added nuances. I think that's not bullying, but simply discussing the current issues in the gamer community.
Two...? Uh, try ten.
Seems a perfectly reasonable article to me. Why is explaining the concept of "privilege" to an audience that hears the word often but (to me) often seems to have a flawed conception of it a bad thing?
I was just pointing out the article.
I don't know what to do with that Twitter screenshot. I'm missing the context. I'm annoyed by the reliance of everyone involved in this debate on twitter screenshots, which rob tweets (fragmentary by nature) of any context and are super easy to fake. Not saying this is fake, but it's very hard to check if screenshots are real. I wish people would use Webcite or ArchiveToday for things like this.
Gawker employee who supports bullying. (direct link to tweet)
1. I don't know what to do with this. I've not seen any convincing evidence of endemic corruption or nepotism. I agree that the relation between press and publishers should be examined and that there's room for improvement. I'm happy that some sites are taking steps to improve things on that front. But "holding back the entire western gaming world"? Please. This is exaggerating things enormously.
Not really, when you blackball game developers like TFYC because you're friends with another female game designer who got into a fight with her, that's holding us back. You play politics instead of games, how is it going to do anything but?
2. It sounds really unlikely to me that Gawker is so powerful that they have editorial control over NeoGAF, Reddit and 4chan (as for Reddit, why is /r/kotakuinaction still going strong?). What I think happened is that admins/mods thought the whole doxxing and slandering going on was not good to have on their boards, and got triggerhappy with regards to the topic.
If you think it's reasonable to contact advertisers to pull their ads from websites that published basically harmless pieces you disagree with and for not giving you a platform (which they are under no obligation to do so), then you're fucking mad. It really is that simple. And I have no more reason to engage with you.
They are not under obligation to provide me a platform to speak, nor am I to not take my business elsewhere, and make that known for them and potentially new avenues of business for me.
On October 17 2014 05:34 Dunnobro wrote: You're full of crap lmao. We tried to discuss this, in their comments, on major gaming discussion platforms. We were silenced and ignored instantly. It's not the consumer revolt's fault the lines of communication were cut at ll.
Random websites owe you no platform for free speech that they don't wish to give. That does not mean you cannot voice your opinions as the movement has clearly demonstrated through Twitter and other platforms. If you were ignored you were ignored because people disagree with you. There is no question about whether or not gamergate is being heard. It's just in the face of being ignored they have decided they should start trying to make decisions for other people and have gone to the advertisers. It's ridiculous to expect people to have to actively defend a website they visit in some sort of shouting match to advertisers.
Random websites are the very sites we were complaining about? What? And twitter is in no way conducive to the debate or discussion environment.
And no, we weren't just ignored. WE WERE SILENCED. DISALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT. And when the sites in question who did the censoring all have ties to the ones we were criticizing, what are we supposed to think? If you don't want to talk, fine. We'll go over your heads.
They brought it on themselves, don't blame us for not caving. And again, we're not making anyone's decision for them. Their power directly comes from their consumers, we're their consumers. All that's happening is we're taking back the power we gave by consuming their product.
You act like a consumer boycott is in any way unethical. Do you not support capitalism, the free market? Because regardless of your answer that's what we are.
You're attempting to use your influence over a third party to exert influence over something you have problems with. It's a serious action, you are quite literally saying that no one should have access to something regardless of how they feel about that thing. You are going to extreme lengths to exert your influence on these sites. That's the issue. It's extreme, yet the explained harm is quite mild by comparison. You are taking one of the most extreme actions to silence a website and the best arguments for it are that said website doesn't care for the word 'gamers' and has some potentially lax ethical standard. That sounds excessively disproportionate of a response. Again you are saying the infractions of these websites is SO EXTREME that the general readership should not be entrusted with the responsibility to make up their own minds on whether or not the sites should continue to exist (via their readership support).
The stuff on capitalism is just strawman, I have not brought into question the legality of any part of the system nor would I. Just because something is capitalist doesn't make it moral or immoral. I also don't see how wanting the ability to directly participate in the free market of what websites I view (rather than having to negotiate with advertisers) is anti-capitalist. For the most part I want advertisers to be largely agnostic to where they advertise so the websites can behave autonomously and I (and others) can participate in a free market interaction with said websites (those that are good get my readership, those that aren't won't).
Why do you assume this will kill the sites? If there's still people willing to read they will be fine. And honestly I don't see how this ridiculously palpable level of nepotism is a "potentially lax ethical standard"
On October 17 2014 05:34 Dunnobro wrote: You're full of crap lmao. We tried to discuss this, in their comments, on major gaming discussion platforms. We were silenced and ignored instantly. It's not the consumer revolt's fault the lines of communication were cut at ll.
Random websites owe you no platform for free speech that they don't wish to give. That does not mean you cannot voice your opinions as the movement has clearly demonstrated through Twitter and other platforms. If you were ignored you were ignored because people disagree with you. There is no question about whether or not gamergate is being heard. It's just in the face of being ignored they have decided they should start trying to make decisions for other people and have gone to the advertisers. It's ridiculous to expect people to have to actively defend a website they visit in some sort of shouting match to advertisers.
Random websites are the very sites we were complaining about? What? And twitter is in no way conducive to the debate or discussion environment.
And no, we weren't just ignored. WE WERE SILENCED. DISALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT. And when the sites in question who did the censoring all have ties to the ones we were criticizing, what are we supposed to think? If you don't want to talk, fine. We'll go over your heads.
They brought it on themselves, don't blame us for not caving. And again, we're not making anyone's decision for them. Their power directly comes from their consumers, we're their consumers. All that's happening is we're taking back the power we gave by consuming their product.
You act like a consumer boycott is in any way unethical. Do you not support capitalism, the free market? Because regardless of your answer that's what we are.
You're attempting to use your influence over a third party to exert influence over something you have problems with. It's a serious action, you are quite literally saying that no one should have access to something regardless of how they feel about that thing. You are going to extreme lengths to exert your influence on these sites. That's the issue. It's extreme, yet the explained harm is quite mild by comparison. You are taking one of the most extreme actions to silence a website and the best arguments for it are that said website doesn't care for the word 'gamers' and has some potentially lax ethical standard. That sounds excessively disproportionate of a response. Again you are saying the infractions of these websites is SO EXTREME that the general readership should not be entrusted with the responsibility to make up their own minds on whether or not the sites should continue to exist (via their readership support).
The stuff on capitalism is just strawman, I have not brought into question the legality of any part of the system nor would I. Just because something is capitalist doesn't make it moral or immoral. I also don't see how wanting the ability to directly participate in the free market of what websites I view (rather than having to negotiate with advertisers) is anti-capitalist. For the most part I want advertisers to be largely agnostic to where they advertise so the websites can behave autonomously and I (and others) can participate in a free market interaction with said websites (those that are good get my readership, those that aren't won't).
Why do you assume this will kill the sites? If there's still people willing to read they will be fine. And honestly I don't see how this ridiculously palpable level of nepotism is a "potentially lax ethical standard"
I don't believe it's nearly strong enough of a force to kill a site at the moment and with the current duration, but what is the intention of contacting advertisers if not to harm or dismantle the website that gets its funding from those advertisers? If the action is taken to its logical end of contacting and getting all advertisers to pull their advertisements what do you think will happen to the website?
The only possible intention behind contacting a websites advertisers to try and get them to pull advertisements is an attempt to dismantle the website in question, unless you'd care to enlighten us on other motivations?
I disagree with the levels of nepotism as something that conflicts with the media I wish to consume so I don't feel it's a strong argument. If you want to engage me on that argument that's fine, but instead that's not the action being taken as gamergate would rather appeal to third parties.
Also you all seem to think this is all about Zoe quinn or the "Gamers are dead" articles. It isn't, this crap has been going on for years. They push their friends games, blackball others if they don't like the person or their beliefs, or just a personal beef with the game.
and a whole bunch of other crap. my personal outrage was dewrito's pope. here's a laundry list of other crap since the most recent stuff hasn't been enough for you:
Which of those links have anything to do with Gamasutra? Gamasutra does not review games, nor is it a site where it is possible to push games, the content there is focused on spreading knowledge of how to develop and market games. The site have very little to do with pushing the consumerism of games other than informing people on how to do that.
IGF potentially has issues and that's somewhat related to Gamasutra, but it's unclear exactly how IGF is going to setup a system for proper judgement without bias considering the whole point of the awards is that it's judged by industry people. Certainly a point worthy of a nuanced discussion, but it has no parity to the extreme response. Even IGF itself has tried to improve the judging process year over year.
On October 17 2014 06:02 Dunnobro wrote: Two...? Uh, try ten.
So please link me to them! As I said, as far as I can see, there were two main articles (Leigh Alexander's and Dan Golding's) and then others as a response/report on those two. Maybe I've missed some, so help me out here.
And what if there's ten? Is it bad if ten similarly-minded articles you don't agree with are released, but not if it's only two?
Okay, looks like an asshole. It also looks like he writes for Valleywag, not Kotaku. Saying that "this is the opinion of Gawker" (and by extension Kotaku?) is nonsense in my opinion. Or did they retweet this with their company account? As far as I can see it's just an unpleasant guy who happens to work for Kotaku's parent company and plays big boy on his Twitter feed.
On October 17 2014 06:02 Dunnobro wrote: Not really, when you blackball game developers like TFYC because you're friends with another female game designer who got into a fight with her, that's holding us back. You play politics instead of games, how is it going to do anything but?
I don't know what you're referring to exactly. I saw allegiations that Zoe Quinn doxxed someone involved with TFYC, or DDOSsed them, but I also read an article by TFYC themselves saying that didn't actually happen.
On October 17 2014 06:02 Dunnobro wrote: Overview of reddit's gamergate censorship: http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2gekjz/comprehensive_overview_of_gamergate_censorship_on/ (the reason it's allowed in r/kia is as a containment board and to prevent further backlash as the thing really blew up when they first censored it) Owner of 4chan has relationship with gawker employee: http://nypost.com/2011/06/21/meet-the-click-chicks/ And NeoGaf itself boasts a relationship with journalists and developers. Journalists from all over post there, so not sure why you'd think it odd for them to be invested keeping one of their main draws
That KotakuInAction thread tells me nothing about ties between Gawker and Reddit or anything like that. It just highlights how many people talking about the issues were banned or their posts deleted. Reading it it seems to me that many bans and deletions weren't all that unreasonable either.
Moot being friends with someone employed by Gawker doesn't prove anything as far as I'm concerned. Please explain to me how it follows from that that 4chan posts about GamerGate were deleted from 4chan. Same goes for NeoGAF. It's all circumstantial at best. Given the way people involved with this cause happen to converse I'm inclined to believe that people just got sick of the doxxing and insulting the discussions brought with them and banned the topic wholesale. Which might not be a smart move, but doesn't warrant conspiracy theories either.
On October 17 2014 06:29 Dunnobro wrote: IIRC i think the big hits to Gamasutra were for Leigh's dumb tweets and racist to go with supporting the recent stuff too.
And game journalism =/= Game reviewer. Gamasutra is just as capable of making or breaking careers for devs.
Will edit my post when i find somethin, gettin ready to leave work now though.
So then it comes back to Leigh saying some stuff not cared for being a worthy catalyst for the wholesale bombardment of a website? Is what Leigh said offensive enough that no one should be able to make up their own mind about whether or not they want to continue reading Gamasutra? If people do deserve that choice why engage advertisers rather than the readership?
I bring up game reviewer because the vast majority of your mass linking had to do with problems with game reviews and nothing that seemed to relate to Gamasutra directly. Gamasutra only has the power to make or break devs insofar as the readership has entrusted it with that power (and even then far less than other websites since it appeals directly to developers rather than consumers). If the readership continues to agree with Gamasutra having that power even with all of the facts laid bare than who are you to try and circumvent that choice?
Moot didn't try to censor GG stuff. It was taking over 4chan. It was spammed on every board, and /v/, the videogame board was almost nothing but GG shit. He had mods clean the place up and try to keep it to one thread in /v/. Idiots freaked out and took any deleted threads as fascist oppression.
As proof, you can still discuss GG on 4chan. But only on /v/, and you have to keep it to one thread.
Honestly, the more extreme GG crowd are just as bad as the SJW's they decry. They both love playing the victim.
Note I said "to go with", not because of entirely. Tweets just made it much harder to defend her unlike other sites. I don't really care about what she said though when you claim to be fighting for minorities and are racist to blacks it kind of delivers a message of insincerity.
Here's intel's official reasoning: http://i.imgur.com/h5WqpM1.png Essentially, seems like they give the same reason they all do. Don't want to be affiliated with the politics of those sites, and #Gamergate's main issue is politicizing games. The gaming media is supposed to be the middleman between player and developer, and they're screwing up our signals with their personal agenda.
On October 17 2014 06:41 Dunnobro wrote: Note I said "to go with", not because of entirely. Tweets just made it much harder to defend her unlike other sites. I don't really care about what she said though when you claim to be fighting for minorities and are racist to blacks it kind of delivers a message of insincerity.
Here's intel's official reasoning: http://i.imgur.com/h5WqpM1.png Essentially, seems like they give the same reason they all do. Don't want to be affiliated with the politics of those sites, and #Gamergate's main issue is politicizing games. The gaming media is supposed to be the middleman between player and developer, and they're screwing up our signals with their personal agenda.
If an advertiser pulls their advertisement because an article is considered controversial that would be an example of a negative aspect of gaming journalism, not one to claim as a victory. That is the primary worry at the center of any journalism operation: how do you keep advertising influence from affecting your ability to create content free from influence.
Also of note is a lack of any sort of critique of Gamasutra's content other than calling it controversial making the whole action appear to be little more than Intel worrying about losing business. If a website takes a stance and you pull out of advertising because you disagree with that stance that's taking a stance for the opposite, something Intel is very clear that they don't want to do (they say so in their official apology they issue later).
On October 17 2014 06:37 Millitron wrote: Moot didn't try to censor GG stuff. It was taking over 4chan. It was spammed on every board, and /v/, the videogame board was almost nothing but GG shit. He had mods clean the place up and try to keep it to one thread in /v/. Idiots freaked out and took any deleted threads as fascist oppression.
As proof, you can still discuss GG on 4chan. But only on /v/, and you have to keep it to one thread.
Honestly, the more extreme GG crowd are just as bad as the SJW's they decry. They both love playing the victim.
Except he did. We've had that issue before, you make a sticky and punish people who don't post in it. He disallowed it entirely. (After allowing it after another mod banned it) OF course he'd backtrack after everyone fucking left. Because what's different? It's only even more widespread and talked about. What's different now than then? 4chan's traffic is down.
And I was fucking there, it didn't overrun shit. Especially not when it was on /pol/ and /vg/
"It was everywhere" is pure grade horse shit. You couldn't even say gamergate. Or 8chan. I can guarantee the energy used silencing all discussion about it wouldn't come anywhere near just dedicating a /v/ sticky to it and pruning straggler threads.
On October 17 2014 06:37 Millitron wrote: Moot didn't try to censor GG stuff. It was taking over 4chan. It was spammed on every board, and /v/, the videogame board was almost nothing but GG shit. He had mods clean the place up and try to keep it to one thread in /v/. Idiots freaked out and took any deleted threads as fascist oppression.
As proof, you can still discuss GG on 4chan. But only on /v/, and you have to keep it to one thread
You make it sound like 4chan is a nice place for discussion. With clearly structured rules thoroughly up-held by moderators. It is not. Expect when content threatens the sites continuation, or #GamerGate.
On October 17 2014 06:41 Dunnobro wrote: Note I said "to go with", not because of entirely. Tweets just made it much harder to defend her unlike other sites. I don't really care about what she said though when you claim to be fighting for minorities and are racist to blacks it kind of delivers a message of insincerity.
Here's intel's official reasoning: http://i.imgur.com/h5WqpM1.png Essentially, seems like they give the same reason they all do. Don't want to be affiliated with the politics of those sites, and #Gamergate's main issue is politicizing games. The gaming media is supposed to be the middleman between player and developer, and they're screwing up our signals with their personal agenda.
If an advertiser pulls their advertisement because an article is considered controversial that would be an example of a negative aspect of gaming journalism, not one to claim as a victory. That is the primary worry at the center of any journalism operation: how do you keep advertising influence from affecting your ability to create content free from influence.
Also of note is a lack of any sort of critique of Gamasutra's content other than calling it controversial making the whole action appear to be little more than Intel worrying about losing business. If a website takes a stance and you pull out of advertising because you disagree with that stance that's taking a stance for the opposite, something Intel is very clear that they don't want to do (they say so in their official apology they issue later).
"Controversial" and "Inflammatory" are a little different. The fact is, you collude to get all these writers to smear gamers after they find all this evidence to their corruption, things are a little more than "Controversial" and if you want to fault intel for not wanting to be associated with that kind of shady behavior, I don't know what to tell you.
You keep acting like it was the disagreement with the article that sparked this. It wasn't, it was the reasoning and meaning for it.
Overall, #Gamergate wants gaming media it can trust. When they all get together to call us racist misogynists, call us crazy but I don't think they have our best interest at heart. Really, it seems they're more concerned with clicks than objective review.
On October 17 2014 06:37 Millitron wrote: Moot didn't try to censor GG stuff. It was taking over 4chan. It was spammed on every board, and /v/, the videogame board was almost nothing but GG shit. He had mods clean the place up and try to keep it to one thread in /v/. Idiots freaked out and took any deleted threads as fascist oppression.
As proof, you can still discuss GG on 4chan. But only on /v/, and you have to keep it to one thread.
Honestly, the more extreme GG crowd are just as bad as the SJW's they decry. They both love playing the victim.
Except he did. We've had that issue before, you make a sticky and punish people who don't post in it. He disallowed it entirely. (After allowing it after another mod banned it) OF course he'd backtrack after everyone fucking left. Because what's different? It's only even more widespread and talked about. What's different now than then? 4chan's traffic is down.
And I was fucking there, it didn't overrun shit. Especially not when it was on /pol/ and /vg/
"It was everywhere" is pure grade horse shit. You couldn't even say gamergate. Or 8chan. I can guarantee the energy used silencing all discussion about it wouldn't come anywhere near just dedicating a /v/ sticky to it and pruning straggler threads.
I was there too. A mod banned it, Moot overruled him, and just demanded it be kept to one thread.
It WAS everywhere. I saw posts that were nothing more than ads for 8chan spammed on /a/, /k/, /co/, even fucking /sci/.
I don't know where you get the idea that everyone left. 4chan seems as fast as ever. And if statistics show that 4chan IS receiving lower traffic, this whole thing started right as school started. Every year there's a dip in traffic when school starts in the US.
On October 17 2014 06:37 Millitron wrote: Moot didn't try to censor GG stuff. It was taking over 4chan. It was spammed on every board, and /v/, the videogame board was almost nothing but GG shit. He had mods clean the place up and try to keep it to one thread in /v/. Idiots freaked out and took any deleted threads as fascist oppression.
As proof, you can still discuss GG on 4chan. But only on /v/, and you have to keep it to one thread
You make it sound like 4chan is a nice place for discussion. With clearly structured rules thoroughly up-held by moderators. It is not. Expect when content threatens the sites continuation, or #GamerGate.
I don't know about "nice place for discussion"; its a pretty abrasive place thats definitely not for everyone. But there are rules that are upheld that have to do with the quality of the content. Remember when getting "dubs" (a post number ending in repeating digits) took over /v/? And then they instituted the no-dubs spam rule and banned for it? Remember when off-topic My Little Pony crap was spammed everywhere? They got a containment board and posting MLP stuff anywhere but /mlp/ will get your post deleted.
On October 17 2014 06:37 Millitron wrote: Moot didn't try to censor GG stuff. It was taking over 4chan. It was spammed on every board, and /v/, the videogame board was almost nothing but GG shit. He had mods clean the place up and try to keep it to one thread in /v/. Idiots freaked out and took any deleted threads as fascist oppression.
As proof, you can still discuss GG on 4chan. But only on /v/, and you have to keep it to one thread.
Honestly, the more extreme GG crowd are just as bad as the SJW's they decry. They both love playing the victim.
Except he did. We've had that issue before, you make a sticky and punish people who don't post in it. He disallowed it entirely. (After allowing it after another mod banned it) OF course he'd backtrack after everyone fucking left. Because what's different? It's only even more widespread and talked about. What's different now than then? 4chan's traffic is down.
And I was fucking there, it didn't overrun shit. Especially not when it was on /pol/ and /vg/
"It was everywhere" is pure grade horse shit. You couldn't even say gamergate. Or 8chan. I can guarantee the energy used silencing all discussion about it wouldn't come anywhere near just dedicating a /v/ sticky to it and pruning straggler threads.
I was there too. A mod banned it, Moot overruled him, and just demanded it be kept to one thread.
It WAS everywhere. I saw posts that were nothing more than ads for 8chan spammed on /a/, /k/, /co/, even fucking /sci/.
I don't know where you get the idea that everyone left. 4chan seems as fast as ever. And if statistics show that 4chan IS receiving lower traffic, this whole thing started right as school started. Every year there's a dip in traffic when school starts in the US.
Uh, I think you got the timeline mixed up.
>Gamergate starts > Discussion is banned by mod > People bitch > Moot undoes it > Stuff goes on as normal > Then he bans it himself
He doesn't justify it as "it's everywhere!" he justifies it as "it's a raid! holy shit it's a raid!" like he hasn't been apart of 4chan all this time to know the difference.
All the #Gamergaters hype the hell out of Jenny but honestly she stammered a lot, i swear there was like a minute where she said "ideology" 10 times and acted kind of immature. Georgina's testimony was most valuable to me, but that might be because I came from neutrality/anti.
Damn I don't wanna hop into this to inform the uninformed, it's kinda silly to do this over a topic that is so misconstrued in the media, and TeamLiquid users linking to sources complicit in the entire ordeal is asinine...(arstechnica, cracked, gamasutra....). Man this place sources information worse than reddit at times. So much misinformation in here i'm just gonna leave you some places to go for information.
Just get your information there if you're lazy, a lot better than the sources i've seen liquid users post in this tread, atrocious. Don't use sources that are obviously complicit in this entire mess, it's fine to be uniformed, but when you're informed hopefully you do something with the truth you've uncovered. I really expected better from Liquid users in terms of sourcing.
Sad part is while liquid is great for discussions, the rate of information travel is a lot slower than reddit which is all it's good for except memes, funny images/gifs, and more memes.
Please drown out all the mouths trying to sway you, and find out for yourself. I think every person is capable of making their own opinion, it's either or not it has a chance to surface before you're swayed by outside forces.
There WERE posts doxxing Zoe Quinn and others. I wonder how many large pizzas got delivered to ZQ's house, and how many times she got asked if she had battletoads.
This idea that he's some SJW pawn or something is patently ridiculous. Have you ever been on /pol/? He allows /pol/ to exist. How about /r9k/?
On October 17 2014 07:07 deadmau wrote: Damn I don't wanna hop into this to inform the uninformed, it's kinda silly to do this over a topic that is so misconstrued in the media, and TeamLiquid users linking to sources complicit in the entire ordeal is asinine...(arstechnica, cracked....). Man this place sources information worse than reddit at times. So much misinformation in here i'm just gonna leave you some places to go for information.
Just get your information there, but don't use sources that are obviously complicit in this entire mess. I really expected better from Liquid users in terms of sourcing.
All the #Gamergaters hype the hell out of Jenny but honestly she stammered a lot, i swear there was like a minute where she said "ideology" 10 times and acted kind of immature. Georgina's testimony was most valuable to me, but that might be because I came from neutrality/anti.
I agree, but interviews like that can be nerve wrecking I am sure. Especially considering the scrutiny you subjugate yourself to when you represent GG.
On October 17 2014 07:07 Millitron wrote: There WERE posts doxxing Zoe Quinn and others. I wonder how many large pizzas got delivered to ZQ's house, and how many times she got asked if she had battletoads.
This idea that he's some SJW pawn or something is patently ridiculous. Have you ever been on /pol/? He allows /pol/ to exist. How about /r9k/?
On October 17 2014 07:07 deadmau wrote: Damn I don't wanna hop into this to inform the uninformed, it's kinda silly to do this over a topic that is so misconstrued in the media, and TeamLiquid users linking to sources complicit in the entire ordeal is asinine...(arstechnica, cracked....). Man this place sources information worse than reddit at times. So much misinformation in here i'm just gonna leave you some places to go for information.
Just get your information there, but don't use sources that are obviously complicit in this entire mess. I really expected better from Liquid users in terms of sourcing.
Zoe Quinn doxxed herself, giving out fake addresses and fake phone numbers to play the victim card when she was found out.
And there's nothing wrong with /pol/ nor /r9k/. Denying those 2 places are denying freedom of speech (and most non-SJW people left half chan anyways due to the overflood of SJW mods)
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
Ugh.. Don't make me care about Zoe again. Today she sued internet aristocrat too. I just wanted to forget about her, why is she so obsessed with attention?
I mean she complains about the attention from "evil gamergate" but when they make a concerted effort to get people to stop talking about her, referring to her as "Literally Who" she changes her name to "Literally Boo."
EDIT: WOWWW Nick Riddle favorited the Gawker guy's bullying comments lol.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn: [...]
What does any of that have to do with the integrity of game journalism other than attempting to discredit someone? If the so called point of this shitfest is to point out a problem in the gaming press, this would correspond to someone trying to analyze the personal life and personality of someone at EA for being in contact with IGN, rather than focusing on discussing the ethics of the people doing the actual writing. I don't see what this is supposed to accomplish.
On October 17 2014 09:44 OhDearGod wrote: As someone who has come into this whole thing late, Its amazing to see how out of hand its gotten and how extreme both sides are.
I came into it early and I feel the same way. Neither side is playing with the decency gloves on. But the sad part is that I understand both sides now and I really don't feel strongly either way.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn: [...]
What does any of that have to do with the integrity of game journalism other than attempting to discredit someone?
Ben Kuchera works for Polygon. So he has an invested interest in Zoe's image and success rather than objective coverage revolved around her or her game.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn: [...]
What does any of that have to do with the integrity of game journalism other than attempting to discredit someone? If the so called point of this shitfest is to point out a problem in the gaming press, this would correspond to someone trying to analyze the personal life and personality of someone at EA for being in contact with IGN, rather than focusing on discussing the ethics of the people doing the actual writing. I don't see what this is supposed to accomplish.
the list of articles decrying the death of their reader base and insisting that they're the terrible stereotype that they are bullied for is what its really about. before that it was just a werid SJW MRA shitfest.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
On October 17 2014 09:44 OhDearGod wrote: As someone who has come into this whole thing late, Its amazing to see how out of hand its gotten and how extreme both sides are.
I came into it early and I feel the same way. Neither side is playing with the decency gloves on. But the sad part is that I understand both sides now and I really don't feel strongly either way.
I really have no sympathy for them. If they just made an ethics code of conduct like the Escapist (who got DDoS'd and attacked like crazy for it all over!) saying "Hey, uh. We won't be corrupt anymore. Ok?" it'd all be over. No, instead they radicalize themselves against the idea like it'd be negotiating with terrorists. Their consumers! Terrorists!
Unless you're referring to the harassment/death threats on both sides. Then yea, that sucks and both sides have my complete sympathy. Games aren't THAT serious.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Yea, if you go to more popular Gamergate areas they really restrict discussion of Zoe. Shaming users who talk about her going "Who? No, literally who?" because there's only a few aspects of her that are relevant. And they all involve someone else involved and the situation can be explained without mentioning her name at all because it isn't relevant.
Like on 8chan her name and renditions of her name are filtered.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
You obviously missed the point of my post. Its about perception and legitimacy. Gamergate is so unfocused that everyone just zerod in on how much bad shit they have done to certain female figures in the industry. As was said above people in the Gamergate movement are trying to move past Zoe because they know its hurting their cause quite a bit. You can say the misogynistic origins of the massive outcry that made attention focus on the issue (the rant on Zoe Quinn that led to a bunch of stupid shit being done) has somewhat poisoned the well for any actual dialogue to come to fruition.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
So I tried to read up on this shit. Can someone who is more into the topic inform if I got the gist of it?
It basically started with that Zoe Quinn girl, who did/did not sleep with journalists who wrote positive articles (not reviews?) for her. She also attacked some woman friendly company over a game jam?
Then the gaming press did not only not side with the accusers, but attacked them, by announcing this "gamers are dead"-stuff (hey I'm a gamer )? Then the whole story shifted more to journalist ethics, nepotism etc etc and now it's being pushed into mainstream media? And people who are pro gamergate support this notion, while they would like to forget the beginning (attack ZQ for sleeping with guys?). Anti-gg guys don't believe this and focus only on the attacks against people and ignore the rest?
And idiots on both sides (or 3rd parties) attack/threaten/doxx each other & mail each other syringes/dead rabbits?
So GamerGate is about 2 issues. Media being shit and people attacking people?
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
You obviously missed the point of my post. Its about perception and legitimacy. Gamergate is so unfocused that everyone just zerod in on how much bad shit they have done to certain female figures in the industry. As was said above people in the Gamergate movement are trying to move past Zoe because they know its hurting their cause quite a bit. You can say the misogynistic origins of the massive outcry that made attention focus on the issue (the rant on Zoe Quinn that led to a bunch of stupid shit being done) has somewhat poisoned the well for any actual dialogue to come to fruition.
Like any diseases, there will be symptoms.
What has been posted are an autopsy of all the symptoms that lead to this point. Why? To prevent it from occurring the next time.
Next time similar stunt happens when a figure (female or otherwise) gains popularity w/ load of websites giving praise to the particular project. One have to examine whether or not the websites have some personal affiliation w/ the said figure. And that's why it is an utmost importance of having a blueprint for smell nepotism as early as possible.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
On October 17 2014 10:49 Zocat wrote: So I tried to read up on this shit. Can someone who is more into the topic inform if I got the gist of it?
It basically started with that Zoe Quinn girl, who did/did not sleep with journalists who wrote positive articles (not reviews?) for her. She also attacked some woman friendly company over a game jam?
Then the gaming press did not only not side with the accusers, but attacked them, by announcing this "gamers are dead"-stuff (hey I'm a gamer )? Then the whole story shifted more to journalist ethics, nepotism etc etc and now it's being pushed into mainstream media? And people who are pro gamergate support this notion, while they would like to forget the beginning (attack ZQ for sleeping with guys?). Anti-gg guys don't believe this and focus only on the attacks against people and ignore the rest?
And idiots on both sides (or 3rd parties) attack/threaten/doxx each other & mail each other syringes/dead rabbits?
So GamerGate is about 2 issues. Media being shit and people attacking people?
Gamergate can't really address the issue of people attacking people. Who can? It's just being pushed real hard now.
Ex. Anita said she canceled some university speech because of a bomb threat. Apparently the school gets these often and FBI, and experts told her it was a hoax. So, instead she canceled because people were allowed to bring guns on campus. And tried to blame #Gamergate for it being canceled.
The only issue is trying to dispel the narrative that gamergate is ABOUT attacking and silencing people before we can even discuss the corruption on a proper platform.
The 60 seconds GG video about covers it. (Notice how it doesn't mention Zoe fucking Quinn!)
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
Except that Gamergate people keep trying to tell me that it had nothing to do with Zoe with first place. I think several post in this thread makes me lean towards that was simply GG going into damage control mode with a ret-con.
Like many others here, I had only heard about this and had no idea it blew up this hard over the past two weeks-month. It's hard to feel anything for either side, on the one hand of course companies are going to be paying out websites to give their games favorable reviews, games journalism isn't an actual profession or is recognized as one so why would there be any ethical constraints? (Not saying this is good, just what is basically true)
As for the attacks or non attacks or whatever, it doesn't really matter because now GG is associated with these actions even if they never happened. It's better to just focus on the actual journalism side of things because lord knows the rabbit hole that we'll keep going down if we have to wade through the slime that has been posted on the attacks side of things (on both sides).
@Ret-con: A lot of Quinnspiracy people turned into #Gamergate, but #Gamergate was specifically about the corruption. It started with Adam Baldwin tweeting about it, no mention of Zoe. So I guess you could argue for it either way, I don't really care about the past or how people choose to perceive it though. It's just not the time for that.
According to this, it was essentially the reaction of the media to the concerns of the Quinnspiracy that sparked #Gamergate. So... Involved but irrelevant?
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
Who the fuck is penalizing the media by proving how awful Zoe is. Certainly not me except users like "sushiman", "Slaughter", and "Dunnobro" that penalized myself for bringing the pretext to light.
More public shaming/punishment to her should be welcomed by sending a message out there to everybody that you can't get away scamming the gaming community by trading sexual favors and faking being a victim.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
Who the fuck is penalizing the media by proving how awful Zoe is. Certainly not me except users like "sushiman", "Slaughter", and "Dunnobro" that penalized myself for bringing the pretext to light.
More public shaming/punishment to her should be welcomed by sending a message out there to everybody that you can't get away scamming the gaming community by trading sexual favors and faking being a victim.
So do you believe that the online response to Zoe was proportional to her behaviour? And further, "More public shaming... should be welcomed" do you think more is needed? More beyond what she already received?
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
Who the fuck is penalizing the media by proving how awful Zoe is. Certainly not me except users like "sushiman", "Slaughter", and "Dunnobro" that penalized myself for bringing the pretext to light.
More public shaming/punishment to her should be welcomed by sending a message out there to everybody that you can't get away scamming the gaming community by trading sexual favors and faking being a victim.
Apparently you can get away with it, the rest of gaming media covered for her pretty hardcore.
And it makes sense. Their corruption keeps the cash flowing for them. Devs sell games to idiots that still read IGN and the like, reviewers keep getting early access to big-name games which keeps their ad revenue up.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
Who the fuck is penalizing the media by proving how awful Zoe is. Certainly not me except users like "sushiman", "Slaughter", and "Dunnobro" that penalized myself for bringing the pretext to light.
More public shaming/punishment to her should be welcomed by sending a message out there to everybody that you can't get away scamming the gaming community by trading sexual favors and faking being a victim.
Corruption in gaming journalism has nothing to do with her faking being a victim. About the only relevance is trading sexual favors for favorable press, which is on the asshats in gaming journalism much more than her. Truly, if she is a compulsive liar and still has a large following, there's no good reason to keep attacking her because she'll just keep deflecting it just the same. Treat Zoe like the bullet point she is, as a quick example of how fucked up the whole sector is, right next to the catered meals and VIP events given to "journalists" that are supposed to rate and inform us about games.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
Who the fuck is penalizing the media by proving how awful Zoe is. Certainly not me except users like "sushiman", "Slaughter", and "Dunnobro" that penalized myself for bringing the pretext to light.
More public shaming/punishment to her should be welcomed by sending a message out there to everybody that you can't get away scamming the gaming community by trading sexual favors and faking being a victim.
Then you don't get Gamergate. Smearing and shaming is their game, we're about the facts. And they stop being relevant as far as Zoe goes beyond the journalists side of corruption.
This is not the time or platform to shame her. That undermines the whole message man, please I want #gamergate to succeed and giving them ammo isn't helping.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
Who the fuck is penalizing the media by proving how awful Zoe is. Certainly not me except users like "sushiman", "Slaughter", and "Dunnobro" that penalized myself for bringing the pretext to light.
More public shaming/punishment to her should be welcomed by sending a message out there to everybody that you can't get away scamming the gaming community by trading sexual favors and faking being a victim.
So do you believe that the online response to Zoe was proportional to her behaviour? And further, "More public shaming... should be welcomed" do you think more is needed? More beyond what she already received?
Well there are some variables at play here.
There is a concept called karma.
The primary concern would be the emotional discontent from her supporters caused by her lying manipulative behaviors either in terms of marketing support and/or monetary support. That being said, the level of punishment that she deserves should equate to the level of emotional discontent and monetary dissatisfaction of the people.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
Who the fuck is penalizing the media by proving how awful Zoe is. Certainly not me except users like "sushiman", "Slaughter", and "Dunnobro" that penalized myself for bringing the pretext to light.
More public shaming/punishment to her should be welcomed by sending a message out there to everybody that you can't get away scamming the gaming community by trading sexual favors and faking being a victim.
So do you believe that the online response to Zoe was proportional to her behaviour? And further, "More public shaming... should be welcomed" do you think more is needed? More beyond what she already received?
Well there are some variables at play here.
There is a concept called karma.
The primary concern would be the emotional discontent from her supporters caused by her lying manipulative behaviors either in terms of marketing support and/or monetary support. That being said, the level of punishment that she deserves should equate to the level of emotional discontent and monetary dissatisfaction of the people.
Karma is served by the heavens, not by hundreds+ of angry gamers. It's much better to serve the cause by collecting trash on the journalists (in regards to their ethical misconduct).
Look, I really don't like Zoe either. And this harassment angle is mostly bullshit, but even if you think she deserves it or you're some envoy of karma, it's still harassment. There's no point man and it really hurts the message.
I'm pro gamergate man, I'm not trying to defend Zoe at all. Just please consider what you're doing, what needs to be done. We need to convince neutral people #Gamergate isn't actually evil, and has a focus on the corruption. Zoe has nothing to do with the corruption, she's was just facilitated by it. You focus on proving how bad she is then the message is lost.
It's the same pitfall others have fallen into. They thought this was about rejecting liberalism/feminism and not being apolitical against corruption that happens to be leftist. So they lost interest. (Or being progressive and tried to get us to infight against Milo who's just a conservative journalist who reported on #Gamergate. He isn't even really apart of it)
Focus on the corruption. There is NOTHING to gain by proving Zoe is bad, and everything to gain proving the media is bad.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
Who the fuck is penalizing the media by proving how awful Zoe is. Certainly not me except users like "sushiman", "Slaughter", and "Dunnobro" that penalized myself for bringing the pretext to light.
More public shaming/punishment to her should be welcomed by sending a message out there to everybody that you can't get away scamming the gaming community by trading sexual favors and faking being a victim.
So do you believe that the online response to Zoe was proportional to her behaviour? And further, "More public shaming... should be welcomed" do you think more is needed? More beyond what she already received?
Well there are some variables at play here.
There is a concept called karma.
The primary concern would be the emotional discontent from her supporters caused by her lying manipulative behaviors either in terms of marketing support and/or monetary support. That being said, the level of punishment that she deserves should equate to the level of emotional discontent and monetary dissatisfaction of the people.
Karma is served by the heavens, not by hundreds+ of angry gamers. It's much better to serve the cause by collecting trash on the journalists (in regards to their ethical misconduct).
If you kill someone, whether or not this "heaven" exist, it will still be the court system, the mob, and the people putting you in the cell.
While yes Zoe Quinn don't deserve the full blame regarding nepotism (the journalists do too) but she enabled the entire fiasco. Notice how I've also placed information regarding the journalist up there. Funny how people can choose to ignore things.
If we were to be fair, she deserves 50% of the blame for gaming nepotism. So saying that she is completely irrelevant in this case is the equivalency of attempting the steal a bell and covering your ears by thinking that just because you can't hear it, the ringing isn't there.
BOTH sides should be chastised, BOTH sides are equally to blame. BOTH sides are accomplices.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
No it isn't. Zoe is irrelevant. It's what the media allowed her to do that is the issue. You can't penalize the media by proving how awful a person who doesn't work in the media is.
Who the fuck is penalizing the media by proving how awful Zoe is. Certainly not me except users like "sushiman", "Slaughter", and "Dunnobro" that penalized myself for bringing the pretext to light.
More public shaming/punishment to her should be welcomed by sending a message out there to everybody that you can't get away scamming the gaming community by trading sexual favors and faking being a victim.
You mean rehashing the same stuff over again is "bringing pretext to light"? This type of stuff is old news, even among Gamergaters who want to MOVE PAST this whole thing with Zoe. Your not bringing anything to the table except prolonging the image that this is more about some random developer whose actions are shrouded in BS that basically no one except insiders actually knows the truth? I mean where is your condemnation on the journalist side? I don't see you calling out and posting a bunch of image macros about any of them.
The whole point of my posts was to point out how counter productive bringing Zoe into it STILL at this point in time is pointless. Outside perception on its side is something that it needs on its side if Gamegate wants to go anywhere. People with no clue about gaming mostly just kind of nod their heads at each other as their previous negative conceptions about gamers get reinforced because Gamergate has utterly failed to control the narrative because it lacks coherency and that the fact that what sparked this whole thing DID in fact come from a bad place that contained a lot of half truths to it (seriously people got outraged by an EX ranting and took it at face value).
I can tell you right now that Gamergate isn't winning over people on the outside. I know of at least 4 different people on my Facebook feed who have posted things that basically paint Gamergate in the worst possible way, and these are people who have Master's and PhD degrees. The narrative has already changed and most of the headlines I see now are about threats/harrassment against various bloggers/critics/developers who are women within the gaming world. Its less than tasteful origins has completely tainted it in the eyes of the public. It just can't shake this image unless it actually has a clear focus and organization that changes the perception of it.
Not sure how you can claim #Gamergate isn't winning people over on the outside, I mean they just had Georgina speak on Huffpo who was anti-gg until she got banned for not being anti enough. A few "converted" posts on r/kotakuinaction too. And no stories about it, but many neutrals were harassed for not taking a side against gamergate like boogie.
People with degrees are just as susceptible to lies and the spins of the media as anyone else, but they can't keep spinning forever. Also #Gamergate can't really be blamed alone for people getting a false perception of them. Their enemy is the one who controls information, they withhold the good and magnify the bad. What do you expect to happen when your enemy is LITERAL BULLIES:
Glorifying bullying during bullying prevention month... And then you have the guardian threatening people for being non-biased against #Gamergate.
But yea, move past Zoe god dammit. These issues are way more important, Zoe has been discussed to death. She's on max signal boost, obviously more isn't gonna help. She's an INDIE DEVELOPER. An individual, focusing on her is like focusing on who was murdered, when you already know who did it, why, and how. She is merely a reoccurring nonfactor.
On one side are the so-called hardcore gamers, most of them male, who make and play adrenaline-fueled games such as the "Halo" and "Call of Duty" shooter series. On another side are a new wave of gaming enthusiasts, many of them women, who are making and playing games that don't involve a shootout, a chase or sometimes even a quest of any kind.
I just have to facepalm at the "professional and objective coverage."
On October 17 2014 12:55 Dunnobro wrote: Not sure how you can claim #Gamergate isn't winning people over on the outside, I mean they just had Georgina speak on Huffpo who was anti-gg until she got banned for not being anti enough. A few "converted" posts on r/kotakuinaction too. And no stories about it, but many neutrals were harassed for not taking a side against gamergate like boogie.
People with degrees are just as susceptible to lies and the spins of the media as anyone else, but they can't keep spinning forever. Also #Gamergate can't really be blamed alone for people getting a false perception of them. Their enemy is the one who controls information, they withhold the good and magnify the bad. What do you expect to happen when your enemy is LITERAL BULLIES:
Glorifying bullying during bullying prevention month... And then you have the guardian threatening people for being non-biased against #Gamergate.
But yea, move past Zoe god dammit. These issues are way more important, Zoe has been discussed to death. She's on max signal boost, obviously more isn't gonna help. She's an INDIE DEVELOPER. An individual, focusing on her is like focusing on who was murdered, when you already know who did it, why, and how. She is merely a reoccurring nonfactor.
Signal boost THIS.
Is that $10,000 offer real? I'd like the free money, would make my upcoming move very stress free.
On October 17 2014 09:21 Xiphos wrote: Here's the basics we know regarding Zoe Quinn:
Liar, manipulator, hypocrite. Screwed her boss and a Kotaku journalist, as well as someone who got her game into a game jam: http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/
Bullying and lying about a depressed community while promoting her game about depression: http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx
From what I understand from what people who defend the gamergate movement, almost none of this should actually be relevant. Stop focusing on things like this is you want to be taken seriously, because to the outside world it looks bad, like real bad. Gamergate just looks like a movement that is antiwomen who have members extreme enough to severely harass certain female developers/journalists/critics in the game world.
So while Gamergate might have some good elements to it, it needs to clean its own house and clarify its position to the rest of the world before any actual change can go on.
Expressing Zoe Quinn's misdemeanor != anti-women.
Unless you mean that all women are manipulators by elevating themselves through the ranks with sex and faking the victim role to garner sympathies.
To be fair how awful a person she is isn't relevant and harping on it can be seen as anti women.
I mean yea, you can convince all the people in the world she's a terrible person. How does that help video games? Just focus on the nepotism, which is sourced from the journalists side. Make it about Zoe and you just give yourself a narrative hurdle before you can get to your point.
No, this is the perfect narrative.
GamerGate went viral because of Zoe Quinn. You don't start the discussion w/o knowing the context behind it.
Except that Gamergate people keep trying to tell me that it had nothing to do with Zoe with first place. I think several post in this thread makes me lean towards that was simply GG going into damage control mode with a ret-con.
The damage control ret-con is super weird to me... if GG cares about the issues it claims to, why use a banner that's origins are in harassing a woman? It's easy to trace the first use of gamergate and see it all about ZQ with a bunch of already debunked info. I've still yet to see the kotaku review of DQ that everyone claims she slept with someone to get. Forgot who said it first, but it's like gamergate only exists to defend gamergate at this point.
tbh, I don't like that the biggest proponent of GG in this thread is a brand new acount that has only ever posted in this thread. I don't have anything specifically against you, dunnobro, but when controversial issues pop up and new accounts are doing the arguing it feels like the forum is being or is going to be jumped on by outsiders as a new marketing battleground. Stick around here and prove me wrong!
She didn't sleep with Naython to get a review, the accusation is she slept with him for coverage and pushed for her game to get greenlit on steam because of it. Which he did give her. And Kotaku makes a habit of giving coverage of people they are in relationships with too.
Also, there were two different types of main problems had with Zoe.
1: "She was a slut and needed to be harassed" 2: "She and this group of men were morally corrupt and this needed to be addressed by the gaming media. "
You can consider these people the same exact group if you want, and both went onto become #Gamergate but I personally think it's disingenuous to lump genuinely concerned people to assholes who for the most part do not control the narrative. And I don't think those really concerned with harassing her would've bothered to expand their horizons.
And no prob. I'm a smasher, after all. I'm powerhouse on smashboards in case you think I'm some absolute random. (I am a random, but an old random)
The fact that GG hasn't even attempted to pick up where Doritogate left off and is just targeting indie developers and the Gawker network dooms it to never getting anywhere.
The close relationship between AAA publishers and gaming media outlets is the real problem, but GG started in reaction to Quinn stuff and in the end, it's going to be completely impossible to separate it from the extremists who just want Anita and other "SJWs" out of their lives. 'cause apparently any time a review points out that a game treats women or minorities poorly, they were paid for in money or sexual favors to go along with the "SJW agenda." And apparently this is an even bigger deal than the decades-long partnership between gaming news and game developers that render real "games journalism" impossible.
If GG had just picked up where Doritogate left off and stopped talking about how much it hates feminism and Social Justice Strawmen it might've actually done something worthwhile. As it is, it's just gonna be a bunch of angry people who get other people angry and in the end, nothing is going to change except maybe the Gawker network takes a hit.
Gawker is pretty much the worst one so that'd be a pretty big accomplishment honestly.
Mostly that's a relative privation fallacy though, backtracking information is hard. Fresh information gets people riled up, we can slam them with it later of course. Do note though, the big reason Doritogate failed was because the gaming journalists refused to cover it. So there was a barrier between us and them, we get an objective gaming journalism on our side...? Well we get an ally in that fight instead of a big fat hurdle.
Also real talk Doritogate is one of the main examples of the corruption what the fuck? The biggest issue is even being able to talk about the examples of corruption
You seem to be under the impression that just because people aren't talking as much about OLD news as they are about NEW news that it's completely ignored. The fact is, no one is even defending Doritogate, it's just getting ignored completely by the opposition because they don't feel it applies to them.
Also the main reason the "SJW Agenda" is so talked about is because that's the narrative they're using to deflect criticism, more than the agenda itself being the issue.
On October 17 2014 13:58 ShiroKaisen wrote: The fact that GG hasn't even attempted to pick up where Doritogate left off and is just targeting indie developers and the Gawker network dooms it to never getting anywhere.
The close relationship between AAA publishers and gaming media outlets is the real problem, but GG started in reaction to Quinn stuff and in the end, it's going to be completely impossible to separate it from the extremists who just want Anita and other "SJWs" out of their lives. 'cause apparently any time a review points out that a game treats women or minorities poorly, they were paid for in money or sexual favors to go along with the "SJW agenda." And apparently this is an even bigger deal than the decades-long partnership between gaming news and game developers that render real "games journalism" impossible.
If GG had just picked up where Doritogate left off and stopped talking about how much it hates feminism and Social Justice Strawmen it might've actually done something worthwhile. As it is, it's just gonna be a bunch of angry people who get other people angry and in the end, nothing is going to change except maybe the Gawker network takes a hit.
I remember reading gaming magazines back in the early to mid 90s as a kid that clearly inflated the scores of the AAA titles. It's been going on for over 20 years, and it needs to stop.
On October 17 2014 13:58 ShiroKaisen wrote: The fact that GG hasn't even attempted to pick up where Doritogate left off and is just targeting indie developers and the Gawker network dooms it to never getting anywhere.
The close relationship between AAA publishers and gaming media outlets is the real problem, but GG started in reaction to Quinn stuff and in the end, it's going to be completely impossible to separate it from the extremists who just want Anita and other "SJWs" out of their lives. 'cause apparently any time a review points out that a game treats women or minorities poorly, they were paid for in money or sexual favors to go along with the "SJW agenda." And apparently this is an even bigger deal than the decades-long partnership between gaming news and game developers that render real "games journalism" impossible.
If GG had just picked up where Doritogate left off and stopped talking about how much it hates feminism and Social Justice Strawmen it might've actually done something worthwhile. As it is, it's just gonna be a bunch of angry people who get other people angry and in the end, nothing is going to change except maybe the Gawker network takes a hit.
I think there's a lot of issues at hand here. Games journalism is one part.
The other is picking up where things like Jack Thompson or the "Sex simulator" white-washing of Mass Effect left off. People have been trying to demonize video games and video game culture (and movies, music, tabletop games, etc. before it), usually with poorly done research or outright ignorance. Misogyny and sexism seem like the latest buzzwords, and unlike Jack Thompson where every video game website was happy to lampoon the idiot, this time they're jumping onto the bandwagon.
Also, biggest difference between this and something like Doritogate or Geirstmangate (you damn Americans shoving "-gate" onto everything) is that you generally have one site screwing up, and all their competitor happily dog-piling on the offender.
This time around most major game websites seems happy to either stir the pot or invoke the Streisand Effect, which apparently is what it takes for one of these things to hit critical mass. It's actually kind of fascinating, purely from an overview of social interaction.
But in both of those instances, the violence and the sexism, there's a very real, important conversation to be had that the extremists on both sides are obscuring. During the Jack Thompson days in the early 2000s, there was still a very interesting, important discussion about violence in video games. It ultimately didn't go very far, and obviously Jack Thompson himself was completely off-base with an irrational vendetta, but there were a few interesting little things that came out of it - like the whole controversy around the Columbine RPG. Likewise, with sexism, the majority acknowledges that games don't generally treat women very well. It's just a question of how we want to go about talking about that and making it better.
The louder GGers don't seem to be interested in having that conversation and lash out on people trying to have it as "SJWs," such as when a GameSpot reviewer so much as mentions sexism in a review, and the loud anti-GGers keep resorting to really unnecessary harsh, inflammatory language when discussing the GG crowd. Both sides have people who are making their side look bad, the only difference is that the GG crowd has such a confused, muddled message that everything about it has been overtaken by the existence of the death threats.
I want to be having these conversations, and that's really what incenses me about this whole thing. It's making both viewpoints less willing to discuss them.
Very little will be done in the end. Most people who read these trashsites wont suddenly realize they're trashsites. They either don't know about the problems inherent in their journalists or they don't care. Either way, they aren't bothered by the controversy and it will stay that way. The people pushing back against Gamergate don't really have a leg to stand on. "Harassment is bad." Well, no shit. I'm pretty sure everybody already agrees. But that is the only message that they're trying to put out and even if somehow no trolls, shills, or just plain assholes ever posted something harassing for weeks they still wouldn't change their 1 stance: "Harassment is bad."
The people making the push for better ethics/coverage have hit a rather obvious road block but haven't really seemed to acknowledge it... These aren't individual journalists but entire "news" sites and their editors/founders/entire staff. At this point, why do they continue to campaign for reform in an obviously broken area? Migrate to a place that does do actual journalism if that's what you want. There's clearly none to be found in the options you used to use. It doesn't mean the "sjws" win if you move because your "space" is simply the gaming industry and they can't force you out. You can simply ignore them and let them talk to themselves while you take no part in their 1-way discussion.
Then have those discussions, don't penalize games for not adhering to it. Don't be corrupt as fuck about pushing your agenda, and don't make people like Anita the flagship when her points have been debunked to hell and back and is in general full of crap because it undermines any sense that you're really interested in the discussion instead of just forcing your ideology onto people when you refuse actual discussion, and only dictate.
Also studies have shown there is no link to video games and violence, and in fact areas of crime seem to decrease from some video game genres. (Though it's mostly correlation)
And no, I don't believe GG has a confused and muddled message at all. You're just not actually getting the message from the source, you're getting it filtered from the one who stands to lose if you get it unfiltered. Go to youtube, or http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/ for basic gamergate news.
Really though, this idea that a group got together to discuss their ideas to make a good feminist video game for women for them to donate to is somehow the same group of people responsible for death threats en large is ridiculous. If they hated feminists so much, why donate nearly 100 grand to one to help women in gaming?
And here's the majority of #Gamergate's take on sexism in gaming:
It isn't that they don't want to discuss it, it's just they don't want to discuss what isn't there(misogyny. Sexism is there, but sexism is not an absolute evil. Often you find them saying "This is sexist, therefore bad. But they can't go into further detail, just alluding to some far-off culture it contributes to that it actually doesn't) There's very obviously a perversion in our media to find offense with whatever they can to generate revenue, and being offended for women is a big one.
On October 17 2014 15:21 ShiroKaisen wrote: But in both of those instances, the violence and the sexism, there's a very real, important conversation to be had that the extremists on both sides are obscuring. During the Jack Thompson days in the early 2000s, there was still a very interesting, important discussion about violence in video games. It ultimately didn't go very far, and obviously Jack Thompson himself was completely off-base with an irrational vendetta, but there were a few interesting little things that came out of it - like the whole controversy around the Columbine RPG. Likewise, with sexism, the majority acknowledges that games don't generally treat women very well. It's just a question of how we want to go about talking about that and making it better.
The louder GGers don't seem to be interested in having that conversation and lash out on people trying to have it as "SJWs," such as when a GameSpot reviewer so much as mentions sexism in a review, and the loud anti-GGers keep resorting to really unnecessary harsh, inflammatory language when discussing the GG crowd. Both sides have people who are making their side look bad, the only difference is that the GG crowd has such a confused, muddled message that everything about it has been overtaken by the existence of the death threats.
I want to be having these conversations, and that's really what incenses me about this whole thing. It's making both viewpoints less willing to discuss them.
Eh, internet mobs are internet mobs, no matter what they're rabbling about. If you refuse to have a conversation because of those people, then you might as well not do anything on the internet to begin with.
As for "women not being treated well" in games, that's a topic I frequently find muddied by far too many presuppositions from people starting the discussions. There's a lot of interesting things to talk about, like how to approach the targeting of demographics, or the origins and meanings of certain tropes.
The complaints about sexism in GG specifically I see as a response to a few overarching issues. One is backlash to being insulted looked down on, just like with Jack Thompson. The other is problems with undue attention to certain games that only standout for being "progressive", or certain games getting negative press because a writer takes personal issue with it.
"Corruption" seems like a rather broad term used to encompass a lot of things. Some of the issues I see floating around aren't so much about ethical breaches, as they are about amateur writers being treated as professionals by the industry, or writers treating official websites as their own personal blogs.
"Corruption" seems like a rather broad term used to encompass a lot of things. Some of the issues I see floating around aren't so much about ethical breaches, as they are about amateur writers being treated as professionals by the industry, or writers treating official websites as their own personal blogs.
I'm more than willing to admit some, even most of what we've seen might not actually be "corruption" and I understand personally it's hard to vocalize, categorize, etc what we're seeing and why we think it's wrong. But concerns just keep building up, and up. And they're digging themselves deeper graves by avoiding them, so I do hope some paranoia on my and others parts doesn't come off as too tinfoil when we see them just avoiding the issue entirely, it makes us think they're avoiding it because they know it's wrong.
Seeing even how the tops act in Gawker, maybe some of it is just amateur hour and not a meeting of the third Reich.
No one thinks that video games actually CAUSE violence, but that doesn't mean the portrayal of violence isn't or wasn't worth talking about. Saying "video games don't cause violence" doesn't make the conversation over. There are plenty of great modern games, like Spec Ops: The Line for instance, that have continued to advance this conversation by using the violence in the game as a tool for storytelling.
The basic messages of that video are "hardcore gamers are mostly men, and men like sexy girls and male heroes, and that's fine, so games aren't sexist" and "just because a few gamers harassed women, doesn't make all gamers harassers." The second is true, but the first is a non-sequitur. Games are obviously made for an audience, and that's fine. No one thinks people who like sexy girls and male heroes should be punished or shamed for liking those games, just that there ought to be more alternatives out there and more people ought to be included and represented. Women not being "hardcore gamers" is chalked up by that video as something that can't be helped. It doesn't even attempt to explain why. People trying to improve female representation in games are trying to understand why girls don't play "hardcore" games and make games that would appeal to them.
...and wait, did you actually just say that sexism isn't bad?
Sexism is there, but sexism is not an absolute evil.
what.
Also that video deliberately makes fun of people with sociology degrees, and if that's not pandering to the crowd that's getting confirmation bias out of it, I don't know what is. People need to stop crapping on people who study stuff like sociology and communication, and that's coming from an engineer.
let it be said though that the bullying comments from the head of gawker are absolutely inexcusable.
Personally feel like one major part of the movement is a backlash at the SJW types that sent angry letters to EG, etc over things like Stephano's jokes on stream or got Orb frozen out when that could have been something positive (Less sympathy for orb to be fair).
Combine that with some gender narratives being pushed that look a bit dodgy here and there (wage gap/ sexual assault) and you have the grounds for a general reaction to a sort of culture war going on this time from the left. It's interesting looking at the biases and acceptable language being thrown about when discussing gamergate. ( I mean Adam Sessler talked about his fanbase as being worse than chemical weapons buyers.)
IMO if the movement lasts out the election we might start seeing something more conciliatory come out from the anti-side and maybe that will beget some rapprochement. Curious and a little worried by the out side conservative groups circling like vultures.
On October 17 2014 16:08 ShiroKaisen wrote: Also that video deliberately makes fun of people with sociology degrees, and if that's not pandering to the crowd that's getting confirmation bias out of it, I don't know what is. People need to stop crapping on people who study stuff like sociology and communication, and that's coming from an engineer.
Probably worth noting that Christina Sommers was philosophy professor, and seems to have a lot of books that would probably be considered sociology.
Not that I know anything about the quality of her work, the posted video is the first I've actually seen of her. Just saying that any criticism against sociology probably isn't about the field as a whole.
On October 17 2014 16:08 ShiroKaisen wrote: No one thinks people who like sexy girls and male heroes should be punished or shamed for liking those games,
That's actually where you're wrong and has caused a lot of the backlash against SJWs. There have been journalists, industry people, and outsiders who have all commented and painted either GG supporters or gamers in general with broad-strokes like that.
When somebody runs a youtube series based entirely around sexism in games and doesn't prove any of it, but still continues to push the idea that games are sexist and cause inherent sexism in gamers... do you expect them to just sit quietly and accept it? "Oh man, your video providing no facts and entirely dishonest examples sure makes me feel like the woman-hating piece of shit you think I've been programmed to be." That's one area I wish there was more outrage; putting up with bullshit because GG has been doing its best to not shitsling at the moment. A lie aint another side of a story; it's just a lie.
On October 17 2014 16:08 ShiroKaisen wrote: Also that video deliberately makes fun of people with sociology degrees, and if that's not pandering to the crowd that's getting confirmation bias out of it, I don't know what is. People need to stop crapping on people who study stuff like sociology and communication, and that's coming from an engineer.
Probably worth noting that Christina Sommers was philosophy professor, and seems to have a lot of books that would probably be considered sociology.
Not that I know anything about the quality of her work, the posted video is the first I've actually seen of her. Just saying that any criticism against sociology probably isn't about the field as a whole.
Well sure, but the way she threw in the jibe about "hipster sociology graduates" or whatever felt like something straight out of the mouth of your average internet gamer, and really took me out of the video. It both felt super out of place, and like it undermined her argument by attempting to paint the opposition as silly or not worth listening to. You can't have a discussion if you just throw out the opinions of one side.
On October 17 2014 16:08 ShiroKaisen wrote: No one thinks people who like sexy girls and male heroes should be punished or shamed for liking those games,
That's actually where you're wrong and has caused a lot of the backlash against SJWs. There have been journalists, industry people, and outsiders who have all commented and painted either GG supporters or gamers in general with broad-strokes like that.
When somebody runs a youtube series based entirely around sexism in games and doesn't prove any of it, but still continues to push the idea that games are sexist and cause inherent sexism in gamers... do you expect them to just sit quietly and accept it? "Oh man, your video providing no facts and entirely dishonest examples sure makes me feel like the woman-hating piece of shit you think I've been programmed to be." That's one area I wish there was more outrage; putting up with bullshit because GG has been doing its best to not shitsling at the moment. A lie aint another side of a story; it's just a lie.
And those guys are in the wrong. People in the gaming industry and consumers of games do and say some sexist or hateful stuff, but that doesn't give them the right to paint everyone in those colors.
What I just don't understand is why people are so fixated on Anita's videos. They're just some videos on Youtube made by one person, and people chose to give her money to make them. If you don't like them, don't watch them?
Don't try to say that "sexism exists in games" is a lie though, because that's blatantly not true. Just because Anita's videos weren't very good doesn't mean the idea that games could portray women better isn't also true.
As a note on Sommers, she firmly believes that women should be stay at home mothers and anything else is oppression towards men because evolution. I would take anything she says with a large bucket of salt.
On October 17 2014 16:08 ShiroKaisen wrote: Also that video deliberately makes fun of people with sociology degrees, and if that's not pandering to the crowd that's getting confirmation bias out of it, I don't know what is. People need to stop crapping on people who study stuff like sociology and communication, and that's coming from an engineer.
Probably worth noting that Christina Sommers was philosophy professor, and seems to have a lot of books that would probably be considered sociology.
Not that I know anything about the quality of her work, the posted video is the first I've actually seen of her. Just saying that any criticism against sociology probably isn't about the field as a whole.
Well sure, but the way she threw in the jibe about "hipster sociology graduates" or whatever felt like something straight out of the mouth of your average internet gamer, and really took me out of the video. It both felt super out of place, and like it undermined her argument by attempting to paint the opposition as silly or not worth listening to. You can't have a discussion if you just throw out the opinions of one side.
Oh, didn't really pay attention to that. I see your point.
Though, it's probably not about pandering to the gamer audience. Apparently she's an "anti-feminist feminist", if that makes any sense, and seems to have an issue with radical feminism in general. Not sure if that makes her better or worse in your mind.
On October 17 2014 16:08 ShiroKaisen wrote: No one thinks people who like sexy girls and male heroes should be punished or shamed for liking those games,
That's actually where you're wrong and has caused a lot of the backlash against SJWs. There have been journalists, industry people, and outsiders who have all commented and painted either GG supporters or gamers in general with broad-strokes like that.
When somebody runs a youtube series based entirely around sexism in games and doesn't prove any of it, but still continues to push the idea that games are sexist and cause inherent sexism in gamers... do you expect them to just sit quietly and accept it? "Oh man, your video providing no facts and entirely dishonest examples sure makes me feel like the woman-hating piece of shit you think I've been programmed to be." That's one area I wish there was more outrage; putting up with bullshit because GG has been doing its best to not shitsling at the moment. A lie aint another side of a story; it's just a lie.
And those guys are in the wrong. People in the gaming industry and consumers of games do and say some sexist or hateful stuff, but that doesn't give them the right to paint everyone in those colors.
What I just don't understand is why people are so fixated on Anita's videos. They're just some videos on Youtube made by one person, and people chose to give her money to make them. If you don't like them, don't watch them?
Don't try to say that "sexism exists in games" is a lie though, because that's blatantly not true. Just because Anita's videos weren't very good doesn't mean the idea that games could portray women better isn't also true.
I don't care about Sarkeesian. I don't even care about any of these shitty websites because I've never read their trash to begin with. The problem is there are people who DO read those site. And when all those sites conform to the narrative that she and a few select others want to talk about the whole thing looks like a farce. Sexism does exist in games. So does every other "bad" thing you can probably think of. Art immitates life and there's plenty of it to go around.
You want gamers to talk about sexism? Go right ahead. Nobody would stop you. You want to LIE about sexism in games? Good look having actual discourse with your supposed audience.
On October 17 2014 16:31 Gowerly wrote: As a note on Sommers, she firmly believes that women should be stay at home mothers and anything else is oppression towards men because evolution. I would take anything she says with a large bucket of salt.
Sigh... Either discuss the merits of her points or not at all. I don't like 90% of the politics of random people I read on either side of this whole thing... that shouldn't sway your opinion. The merits of their arguments are what matter. And I'm also not even saying that's a great video; it's better than most, but that's only because the bar is set so low it's almost impossible to fail.
[QUOTE]On October 17 2014 16:38 I_Love_Bacon wrote: [QUOTE]On October 17 2014 16:29 ShiroKaisen wrote: [QUOTE]On October 17 2014 16:28 I_Love_Bacon wrote: [QUOTE]On October 17 2014 16:08 ShiroKaisen wrote: [QUOTE]On October 17 2014 16:31 Gowerly wrote: As a note on Sommers, she firmly believes that women should be stay at home mothers and anything else is oppression towards men because evolution. I would take anything she says with a large bucket of salt.[/QUOTE]
Sigh... Either discuss the merits of her points or not at all. I don't like 90% of the politics of random people I read on either side of this whole thing... this that shouldn't sway your opinion. The merits of their arguments are what matter. And I'm also not even saying that's a great video; it's better than most, but that's only because the bar is set so low it's almost impossible to fail.[/QUOTE] Her points are subjective and ingrained into her beliefs. Everything you say is swayed by what you believe. Because of her beliefs she has kept the video largely one sided. Because of her beliefs you need a set of points from someone that believes the opposite.
No one thinks that video games actually CAUSE violence, but that doesn't mean the portrayal of violence isn't or wasn't worth talking about. Saying "video games don't cause violence" doesn't make the conversation over. There are plenty of great modern games, like Spec Ops: The Line for instance, that have continued to advance this conversation by using the violence in the game as a tool for storytelling.
The basic messages of that video are "hardcore gamers are mostly men, and men like sexy girls and male heroes, and that's fine, so games aren't sexist" and "just because a few gamers harassed women, doesn't make all gamers harassers." The second is true, but the first is a non-sequitur. Games are obviously made for an audience, and that's fine. No one thinks people who like sexy girls and male heroes should be punished or shamed for liking those games, just that there ought to be more alternatives out there and more people ought to be included and represented. Women not being "hardcore gamers" is chalked up by that video as something that can't be helped. It doesn't even attempt to explain why. People trying to improve female representation in games are trying to understand why girls don't play "hardcore" games and make games that would appeal to them.
...and wait, did you actually just say that sexism isn't bad?
Sexism is there, but sexism is not an absolute evil.
what.
Also that video deliberately makes fun of people with sociology degrees, and if that's not pandering to the crowd that's getting confirmation bias out of it, I don't know what is. People need to stop crapping on people who study stuff like sociology and communication, and that's coming from an engineer.
let it be said though that the bullying comments from the head of gawker are absolutely inexcusable.
-Never said it wasn't worth talking about. Just that we need to actually talk about it and not talk at people.
-sexism has multiple meanings, and I was mostly referring to this one:
"attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles."
Can be both a good and bad thing, especially in an art form. Ex. It'd be technically sexist to make a male muscular, testosterone-fueled lunkhead, but what if that's how the developer feels he can best express his character in the game? If it's a bad character, why not objectively explain why then go "Well it's sexist, so bad" If they want to make a stereotypical badass, let them. If they want to make an air-headed girly-girl, let them.
-She has a sociology degree herself. It seems to be a critique of her own field that she's familiar with, or a delightful ribbing. Didn't really notice it personally.
-The explanation why isn't really understood, though there are some theories. (Women aren't as naturally competitive being the main factor, and men's minds are able to focus on single-tasks better, which would be why women like phone games where they can watch tv/talk to friends or the like as they play. But it's all theory as far as I know)
-The video does not claim that there should be no alternatives, or reach-outs made to women in gaming. Just that hindering the male side of things is the improper manner to go about it. (Hence why GG donated to women to get them to actually make games for women instead of whining about other games)
On October 17 2014 16:42 Gowerly wrote: Her points are subjective and ingrained into her beliefs. Everything you say is swayed by what you believe. Because of her beliefs she has kept the video largely one sided. Because of her beliefs you need a set of points from someone that believes the opposite.
Then either refute her statements or accept you're basically just saying she's said stupid things before. Congrats, a lot of people do and they still are able to make coherent arguments at time. I'm sure you've been wrong in your life before, guess that means nobody can ever take your opinion seriously again?
She offers her take as well as an attempt to find scholarly articles talking about the supposed problems. She might only offer a cursory glance but none of it is really patently untrue. A bit opaque at times and, like I said, I don't even like it that much but the basics are there. It's also ironic that you mention her points are subjective. You know why, because she was offered almost no facts to actually refute. She refuted the ones she could (as some others have done) and beyond that there's so little actual discussion to be had it seems like her own argument is weak because of it. She offers her opinion because that's what experts are allowed to do. Actually, anybody is allowed to do that. You can then read their opinion and think of it what you will or you can summarily dismiss it because that's clearly the intellectual thing to do when somebody says something you don't want to hear.
On October 17 2014 16:31 Gowerly wrote: As a note on Sommers, she firmly believes that women should be stay at home mothers and anything else is oppression towards men because evolution. I would take anything she says with a large bucket of salt.
On October 17 2014 16:31 Gowerly wrote: As a note on Sommers, she firmly believes that women should be stay at home mothers and anything else is oppression towards men because evolution. I would take anything she says with a large bucket of salt.
Citation needed.
Was about to say that, because I had to Google it up myself.
Closest things I can find are topics about biological differences that can lead to statistical differences in priorities between men and women. Which really has nothing to do with what women should do, just providing analysis for numbers that are currently happening.
Read a few accusations saying she believes as much, but that's about it.
Only finding the general "if women want to work, great. wanna stay at home? great" you'd get from pretty much any feminist.
Closest thing is here: http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/791/print/all She talks about how Dutch women prefer working part-time/staying home. Real talk though who the hell who wouldn't? Lol i wonder if the male figure was different.
But she never says it'd oppress men, just that women seem to prefer the idea and presents the idea that some might be too concerned with the "sexist" idea of stay-at-home moms to actually hear what women want.
Reminds me of this okcupid thing i saw. Of the 15 guys who mentioned gamergate all were negative about it except one(he just mentioned it, not positive or negative) of the three girls two were positive and the one which wasn't was a journalist lol
I despair sometimes, the media as a whole is getting pretty terrible, substituting poorly researched or deliberately polemic opinion pieces for well-researched, non-titillating stuff.
What hope is there of reform of the gaming media if it exists in an overall shitty media culture?
Does it even really matter reforming the existing big hitters? Create a new, non-corrupt site and its numbers and whatnot should be solid, if gamergate is about improved gaming journalism rather than discussing lying hacks and harassing them as nauseam.
The studies that say as many men as women play games have serious issues and I'm annoyed that people still use them as an argument. Christina Sommers is absolutely right in making the point that even if the 50/50 ratio is right, it ignores the fact that there's still a clear gender divide if you look at types of games (AAA $50 games vs. $3 iPad games). Both types have players from either genre, but I think there's a clear disbalance.
That said, though, what doesn't follow from that is that sexism is not a problem in games. And I think that's where Sommers is wrong. She makes a segue like that at the beginning of her video when talking about these studies: "Feminist tech writers have seized on the study that video games have fallen behind the times. Too many games, they say, perpetuate a culture of sexism and misogyny."
The one is unrelated to the other. Games can perpetuate a culture of sexism and misogyny regardless of how many men or women play them. Just the fact that more men than women play AAA dudebro shooters (for example) has no bearing on how significant it is that AAA dudebro shooters usually show women in a limited and often sexist selection of roles.
Either way, Sommers misrepresents data just as much as the studies she cites. She extrapolates from a study on freshmen students at one college campus in the United States that there is a gender gap among adult gamers in general. There very well could be, but it does not follow from that study.
Gender gap aside, Sommers asserts that games do not perpetuate a "culture of misogyny and violence" (though she said "misogyny and sexism" a few sentences earlier). Her argument is that there is no proven connection between violence and gaming. I do not agree that you can from that draw the conclusion that sexism in games has no effect (she makes that same assertion again later). Violence and sexism are two different things and manifest themselves differently in games. It also ignores that there is a large body of research that found that sexist portrayal of women does in fact have effects on how people subsequently see women.
Next comes an accusation of cherry-picking on feminist's part. I think that by "cherry-picking" she means that Anita Sarkeesian (because she's obviously talking about her, considering the clips of her videos shown in Sommers' video) left out games that didn't fit her argument, and that if she'd have included those, it would have been apparent that sexist portrayals of female characters only happened in a small minority of games.
I don't agree with that, because Anita Sarkeesian has highlighted literally hundreds of games in her videos, many of them high-profile and well-regarded. Even if this is in fact a minority of games, it still means that a significant amount of high-profile games portray women in stereotypical roles.
Alternatively, "cherry-picking" could mean that the examples chosen out of the games don't represent the games. I often see Hitman cited as a prime example. To go into that specific example would take more text than would be useful for this argument, though I found this an excellent rebuttal. It's hard to say much about this argument without discussing individual examples, though. What I think it comes down to is that from Anita Sarkeesian's videos it is clear that in many games, women fill stereotypical roles that men typically do not fill, or far less often. Whether they also fill other roles (and they do, but far less often) should not be ignored, but the fact remains that there are a lot of female strippers, pole-dancers, helpless victims, etc in games, and comparatively little male variants of people in those roles. I think that's where the crux of the problem lies. It's not that these roles should not exist - the issue is that women get other roles far less often.
Then there's a comparison with women's shows or women's magazines, and how they get criticism from feminist critics for not catering at men. That does happen, in fact, but the analogy is clear. I don't agree with it though. There are tons of tv shows that are either not really focused on one specific gender (late night shows, some drama series, game shows, what have you) or shows focused at men (Top Gear, some sports shows, stuff like that). The landscape in games is far less diverse, which is the problem feminist critics often attempt to expose. If there's a rich offering of men-focused games alongside games catering to diverse audiences or maybe a more female-oriented audience, that would be cool. But it's not like that right now.
All in all, I don't think Sommers has a solid case.
For more in-depth rebuttal to Anita's videos, refer to thunderf00t. This is one of the big recent ones: She goes out of her way to kill women in this game and claim the game encourages it when it does everything but. She very much cherrypicks and what isn't cherrypicked is mostly just made up or attributed to unproven pseudo-sciences.
Here's the refutation of her flagship iirc:
Overall she's really inconsistent and began this project without much, if any experience in games(admitted to not liking games and having to learn to play post kickstarter) with the preconception that video games are sexist, so she has a confirmation bias and has a goal she has to get to. Of course this will produce less than objective results. If women in gaming really feel they need this, can they get someone who knows what they're talking about?
That's funny, in my previous post I linked a video that was a reply to the exact same "Anita Sarkeesian - BUSTED" video you just linked. To me it was a really convincing rebuttal of thunderf00t's video. Maybe you want to watch it too:
I saw that one a long time ago, essentially over half the video creates a strawman and explains it was a strawman and that's bad but that's what thunderf00t did. It doesn't really address his points at all, it just shames him and deflects the argument to where one wasn't made.
"Victim blaming" "Anti-feminism"
There's maybe 2 minutes of him addressing any actual points made by thunder's busted videos to anita's videos and none of it being very relevant to the whole discussion. I mean you can see him getting BTFO in the comments. I realize numbers don't equal rightness but there's good points being made there.
Edit: Wait I think I'm blurring it with his Sarkeesian Conspiracy video a bit.
I do remember he tried to pin the hitman trope really hard and it was just ridiculous as the game discouraged the hell out of it which makes it unappealing, it isn't really a damn trope.
also remember he got pissy about ad hominem and then insulted him instead of addressing the point lol
All of the videos are bad. Not like, completely without merit, but you should be able to view any of their videos and point flaw after flaw. This applies to literally every single video I've seen about GamerGate at this point (both sides).
You're having a serious discussion but doing so in a youtube video where no rebuttal is actually possible. This leads them to cramming in point after point and using as many bad ones as good ones in hoping it sticks. Then rather ever engage in dialogue, it's just more cop-out arguments from both sides that basically state, "Yeah, but" or "you're misrepresenting what I said/did." It's all boring. Trying to have a serious discussion through youtube videos is absurd. Sit down and discuss facts at a table or a message board. Which, for what it's worth, I've hardly seen anybody able to do. People have tried to organize actual discussions or interviews but they turn into either hatchet jobs or never get made at all because a party backs out.... which I think humorously enough almost proves GG's point completely by accident.
And all of this; all of this, is still a debate that can be had at anytime and isn't even what GG is about. Videos and discussions about Anita are something that only the (I hate all these fucking stupid terms) Anti-GG'ers want to keep pressing on because it will still draw out hatred from some viewers that the SJW's can then use to continue to spin their narrative. I'd love to have all the serious discussions about gaming when the dust settles (about anything, feminism deserves no more special treatment than any other serious topic though and that's part of the reason so many gamers get mad seeing it repeatedly brought up) but having it NOW is stupid. It simply creates a new conflicting discussion that muddles the message GG'ers continue to push for.
Fuck, it's so muddled I can hardly remember what I started typing at the top of this post. It's just all bull shit. Everybody wants to use this current GG vs Anti-GG and discuss anything tangentially related. That can be fun for sure if something strikes you as interesting or awry and you want to comment, but then it happens too often and now suddenly that's the new discussion instead of the one that's supposed to be going on. The goal post hasn't shifted for a while now and moving discussion back to Anita or ZQ or anybody else is pointless. (apologies for the rambling, it's 4:45am and I'm too tired to be proofreading this mess)
This is why people are making out that gamergate is misogynist, in that Anita Sarkeesian keeps getting invoked, despite as far as I can see being only tangentially connected. As it's ostensibly against corruption in the professional games media, somebody who (despite me thinking she's an idiot) crowd funded her video series and whatnot.
Or am I reading this wrong?
On an added note, not just in the world of gaming, but I think a feeling of utter saturation and tiredness over the increasing prevalence of 'SJW's is stifling the actual debates and interesting discussion to be bad. Discounting trolls, I see a generation of people who are withdrawing into apathy because they couldn't be fucked with the drama and engaging into these kind of discussions.
I do genuinely feel it's a real problem moving forwards.
On October 17 2014 18:46 Wombat_NI wrote: This is why people are making out that gamergate is misogynist, in that Anita Sarkeesian keeps getting invoked, despite as far as I can see being only tangentially connected. As it's ostensibly against corruption in the professional games media, somebody who (despite me thinking she's an idiot) crowd funded her video series and whatnot.
Or am I reading this wrong?
On an added note, not just in the world of gaming, but I think a feeling of utter saturation and tiredness over the increasing prevalence of 'SJW's is stifling the actual debates and interesting discussion to be bad. Discounting trolls, I see a generation of people who are withdrawing into apathy because they couldn't be fucked with the drama and engaging into these kind of discussions.
I do genuinely feel it's a real problem moving forwards.
Oh it's a very real thing. OWS is perhaps the best example of that mentality. You had a movement with real ideas that would've realistically been impossible to avoid and would've been backed by virtually everybody in the country (the 99% they claim they spoke for). Then the SJWs basically co-opted the message and movement and took it over to push their own agenda. They don't care what platform they abuse; they've only got 1 tune and they'll play it anywhere they think they can get people to listen. Which is also one of the reason people hate to see it happen to gaming. While I don't like Sommers' video her last (I think) point is the one that made gamers fall in love with it:
"Now if If you love games they don't really care about your age, your race, your ethnicity, your gender, your sexual preference; they just want to game." That didn't mean we can't talk about those things, but it does mean that our discussions should be about the medium FIRST and the other stuff a distant, distant second.
I wouldn't put it so distant, I just don't want to enforce or suppress the art of games while we experiment on how to make games better for women. I'd rather just have the discussion of what women actually want, quantify that for developers, and hopefully enough women show their support for it to get the attention of developers to fill that vacuum of demand.
There's just a lot of assumptions on what women want and trying to shield them from games instead of embracing them. "Oh no, we can't let this woman see another pair of breasts..."
My sister for example really liked the Vivian James idea, or her character bio anyway. Still kind of hazy on the genre/story/etc. And I did too, I just feel like people are so concerned with critiquing they're forgetting they still need to create. Telling devs what not to do instead of what to do.
On October 17 2014 18:35 Dunnobro wrote: I saw that one a long time ago, essentially over half the video creates a strawman and explains it was a strawman and that's bad but that's what thunderf00t did. It doesn't really address his points at all, it just shames him and deflects the argument to where one wasn't made.
"Victim blaming" "Anti-feminism"
There's maybe 2 minutes of him addressing any actual points made by thunder's busted videos to anita's videos and none of it being very relevant to the whole discussion. I mean you can see him getting BTFO in the comments. I realize numbers don't equal rightness but there's good points being made there.
Edit: Wait I think I'm blurring it with his Sarkeesian Conspiracy video a bit.
I do remember he tried to pin the hitman trope really hard and it was just ridiculous as the game discouraged the hell out of it which makes it unappealing, it isn't really a damn trope.
also remember he got pissy about ad hominem and then insulted him instead of addressing the point lol
What do you think of my post about Christina Hoff Sommers' video?
I speak as somebody who got stuck online, had my partner's name tagged and had our son mentioned and was called a horrible parent.
My crime in this instance was to dispute a moron's assertion that she as a straight woman could adequately (in fact better) represent the views of gay males in a campus LGBT community, because patriarchal power structures still saw gay men more rewarded than any female.
I don't wish to diverge from the subject at hand too much, but I think people (especially in mainstream media) don't get it. There will always be a background noise of trolls in anything, but some of the unsavoury tactics are a response in kind to such shouting down of dissenting opinion via ad hominem attacks and techniques I view as harassment.
On October 17 2014 19:02 Stijn wrote: What do you think of my post about Christina Hoff Sommers' video?
Only point of real contention yet unaddressed was her use of the study, there was an article version of the view vetting that study for those kinds of claims actually iirc. Going to bed now though.
And that I feel discussion on sexism/misogyny/misandry in games should be approached carefully and avoid sweeping generalizations towards all those involved.
Really, I don't think a lot of the discussion is about sexism when the title is "Artists should stop being 13-year olds" and "if you like this art you're literally a pedophile" so much as using women's issues as click-bait.
There's just so much negativity around that topic, it doesn't seem like any decent ideas stem from it lately. Just a bunch of fallacies, and ideals for games to mold themselves around.
What has this whole discussion about sexism in videogames to do with the topic at hand ? I don't know why it's been brought up here seeing as that's a different issue.
The Zoe thing which got the whole thing started is not an outcry against women in gaming. It's not about people caring about her personal life as long as it's just personal, it's about the corruption in the gaming industry she took part in with her actions. It just happens that she's a woman so the conversation easily sidetracked into stereotyping gamers as misogynysts.
The whole thing took over because what it revealed about gaming media, the fact that "journalists" act by nepotism and other interests that do not respect the consumer.
On October 17 2014 19:02 Stijn wrote: What do you think of my post about Christina Hoff Sommers' video?
Only point of real contention yet unaddressed was her use of the study, there was an article version of the view vetting that study for those kinds of claims actually iirc. Going to bed now though.
And that I feel discussion on sexism/misogyny/misandry in games should be approached carefully and avoid sweeping generalizations towards all those involved.
Really, I don't think a lot of the discussion is about sexism when the title is "Artists should stop being 13-year olds" and "if you like this art you're literally a pedophile" so much as using women's issues as click-bait.
There's just so much negativity around that topic, it doesn't seem like any decent ideas stem from it lately. Just a bunch of fallacies, and ideals for games to mold themselves around.
It's click-bait because there's not much to actually talk about. That's why people were so bothered by it in the first place. There's sexism, sure. There's also racism, classism, and basically any other type of 'ism' you can think of in games. But that doesn't mean they represent games as a whole or the gamers who play them. I can go watch American History X but that suddenly doesn't make me, Ed Norton, Tony Kaye, or anybody else who saw the movie a racist.
What happens though is exactly what I talked about earlier. They want to have the discussion so they'll spin the narrative anyway they can so they can talk about the only issue that matters to them. It doesn't matter if it involves incredible leaps of logic or outright lies; they need a platform. My response anytime they try to shift the debate like that I'd simply say, "I didn't know the creator/s suddenly had to tell the story YOU want them to tell. It's their game and their story. Feel free to make, finance, or help develop your own or one that tells the story YOU want to tell then. God speed and good luck, sincerely."
Then you pivot back to the actual point about journalism and standards about a Media you love/care about. You address the issue that they seem to take the most umbrage out without actually giving them new material to come back at you with. They they either have to repeat themselves or shutup. edit: Although you still also then hit the roadblock I mentioned. The sites that are being called into question have shown little to no interest in cleaning up. That just means it's time to ignore that shit and start your own/go to one that isn't shit. If you want to continue to engage them go ahead but I don't expect anything to come of it anymore. They're thoroughly entrenched and retreat for them isn't really an option as none have anywhere to go seeing as they're already the bottom of the totem-pole.
I don't care about Sarkeesian. I don't even care about any of these shitty websites because I've never read their trash to begin with. The problem is there are people who DO read those site. And when all those sites conform to the narrative that she and a few select others want to talk about the whole thing looks like a farce. Sexism does exist in games. So does every other "bad" thing you can probably think of. Art immitates life and there's plenty of it to go around.
You want gamers to talk about sexism? Go right ahead. Nobody would stop you. You want to LIE about sexism in games? Good look having actual discourse with your supposed audience.
This is my 5000th post. So it's long as hell. Sorry.
First off, if you haven't watched a Sarkeesian video, or read any of the 'trash' on these 'shitty sites,' than you're argument pretty much ends there. You're admitting you have no idea what you're talking about, because you don't know what you're arguing against. You might want to rethink that position if you expect people to take you seriously.
I've done A LOT of reading the past two days on GamerGate, ranging from mainstream (Vox, Deadspin) to more independent (Briebert, The Escapist, Vice) to the downright fetishistic (the kotakuinaction wiki).
One of the things I also did was actually watch one of Sarkeesian's videos. I wanted see who this fear-mongering, deceitful, self-aggrandizing, self-victimizing man-eating harpie was that was dragging gamers and developers through the mud. Because hey, maybe GamerGate had a point that they weren't articulating well.
Imagine my surprise when I ended watching a well-produced, even-toned (to the point of being dry), thoughtful analysis on the representation of women NPCs in popular, triple-A games.
Yes, some of her opinions are just that — opinions — but they are all supported by game footage with multiple examples. She has catalogued and commented on [b]content[/b] she finds sexist, or at the very least, cliché, but she NEVER accuses developers or gamers themselves of being sexist. She never calls anyone a nerd, a neckbeard, a misogynist or a loser. Her most 'controversial' view is that the content, whether intentional or not, reinforces the sexual objectification of women, and that can negatively shape perceptions of women overall, for both male and female gamers.
It's a pretty non-nonsense video that offers a feminist perspective on game content and promotes media literacy. It's not exhaustive, nor does it cover everyone's perspective. But a) that's not it's intent b) she, or any media critic, has no obligation to do and c) nothing does.
Even though gamers might disagree with Sarkeesian, there is a lot they can learn from her. Namely, how to present your arguments in a clear and cogent, backed by examples, without digressing to lulz-humour, strawman arguments, heresay or inflammatory language.
That there's people out there that find Sarkeesian's mere existence dangerous or oppressive is ridiculous. She's just a media critic. At most, her work might potentially draw new gamers and critics to the field, inspire more women to enter the gaming industry, or prompt developers to be less lazy and clichéd with how they design their game worlds. That's the 'worst case scenario,' if you consider those things bad. Her influence on games will never-ever-ever-ever be greater than, say, Bill Maher's influence on organized religion, or Naomi Klein's influence on the global economy. In other words, her direct influence on games will almost always be ZERO.
There's a few ironies I experienced watching this video.
First, I realized that her most controversial assertion — that the objectification of women in games can result in gamers objectifying women in real life — is probably the kind of comment that 4chan/8chan would most likely dismiss as PC-bs. But that exact 'theory' has been absolutely validated by the nature of harassment and threats levelled at her by her enemies themselves. She actually lists all the characteristics of sexual objectification — interchangeability, disposability vioability, etc — and almost everyone of the characteristics have been demonstrated in the language the trolls have using to attack her. It's like she's shot-calling her own harassment! It's pretty funny, and it actually adds to her credibility as an authority on sexism.
Second, all the serious attempts to threaten, and hence censor and marginalize Sarkeesian have boosted her profile considerably. Originally, her series on games was simply one project out of many, which covered pop culture in general. Taken at face value, she would be just another media critic, with a feminist bent and a niche audience. She should have been just another fish in an sea of Youtubers. But attempts to terrorize Sarkeesian have turned her into a martyr for women in gaming. She now more intrenched in the industry than ever before; because trolls tried so hard to scare her away.
Anyway, I guess I can thank trolls for introducing me to Feminist Frequency. I had know idea who the hell she was or what she did two days ago, but I actually found her videos pretty entertaining. At the very least, they reveal how laaaaaazzy and trend-based the major developers are. All this made me think the best and most productive action GamerGate could take is to produce their own series of videos, on how 'the Gamer' or 'the nerd' stereotype has been perpetuated in the media. Like, they could point out how in the movie The Incredibles, the character of Syndrome is a jealous, petty nerd when he should be celebrated as an industrious, hard-working, self-made man. Honestly, if someone started a Kickstarter they would get tons of money instantly. I'd watch it.
GamerGate was a term that takes its name from Watergate. C'mon boys this is silly. We're talking about video games and 100% disposable income. This is not a corrupt President of a 1st world country.
"video game journalism" is an unimportant profession right up there with "sports journalism".
When a video game giant like EA or BLizzard sends 10s of thousands of 19 year olds to their certain death in Vietnam in a war created on propaganda let me know..
GamerGate was a term that takes its name from Watergate. C'mon boys this is silly. We're talking about video games and 100% disposable income. This is not a corrupt President of a 1st world country.
"video game journalism" is an unimportant profession right up there with "sports journalism".
When a video game giant like EA or BLizzard sends 10s of thousands of 19 year olds to their certain death in Vietnam in a war created on propaganda let me know..
I don't care about Sarkeesian. I don't even care about any of these shitty websites because I've never read their trash to begin with. The problem is there are people who DO read those site. And when all those sites conform to the narrative that she and a few select others want to talk about the whole thing looks like a farce. Sexism does exist in games. So does every other "bad" thing you can probably think of. Art immitates life and there's plenty of it to go around.
You want gamers to talk about sexism? Go right ahead. Nobody would stop you. You want to LIE about sexism in games? Good look having actual discourse with your supposed audience.
This is my 5000th post. So it's long as hell. Sorry.
First off, .... Kickstarter they would get tons of money instantly. I'd watch it.
its hilarious how reasonable stuff gets flamed so hard. happens on TL.Net all the time.
see that Clutch interview at the last WCS-NA event? Kerrigan's ass was right beside his face... that was hilarious.. the giant poster behind him.. Kerrigan's ass was the same size as Clutch's head. it was great stuff. its stuff like this that will make Blizzard reduce its contribution to eSports. Producing proper content is too time consuming. that WCS-NA interview was hardly "proper content".
the biggest influence on how women are viewed is how women are treated within your family. Actions within your family unit speak louder than the words video games are trying to feed us. Video games are a small factor. However small the influence happens to be; Sarkesian's theories are worthy of exploration.
@Defacer I think there should be a debate about better written female characters in video games. (Since this also leads to better written male characters and thus better games overall). I also think that should be done via "equal opportunity" (which exists). I don't think it's a financial save decision to spent those 100million for your company's next AAA game on something only in theory exists by now. No one knows if the market of "equality" games is large enough; that's speculation. A lot of small indie devs push into that direction, time will tell if they're able to gain as much traction as other successful indie-devs, thus supporting the theory that it's financial viable.
I think a lot of people's problem with Sarkeesian is that she uses a lot of hyperbole and highlights things which are basically a non issue. i.e. the Hitman video. She is basically using the "You only shoot men as enemies in video games, thus vg are against men!"-level of argumentation.
I cannot take a person seriously when he/she argues on such a level. I personally believe her point could be made without having to resort to hyperbole examples.
On October 17 2014 19:47 Defacer wrote: First, I realized that her most controversial assertion — that the objectification of women in games can result in gamers objectifying women in real life — is probably the kind of comment that 4chan/8chan would most likely dismiss as PC-bs. But that exact 'theory' has been absolutely validated by the nature of harassment and threats levelled at her by her enemies themselves. [...] It's pretty funny, and it actually adds to her credibility as an authority on sexism.
Following this logic and looking at what insults/threats pro-GamerGate supporters suffered also leads to the conclusion that being against the objectification of women in games leads to the same result. I also don't really agree that "objectifying women in real life" is happening, but more like idiots insulting people.
First, I realized that her most controversial assertion — that the objectification of women in games can result in gamers objectifying women in real life — is probably the kind of comment that 4chan/8chan would most likely dismiss as PC-bs. But that exact 'theory' has been absolutely validated by the nature of harassment and threats levelled at her by her enemies themselves.
That doesn't even make sense. People think she is spinning a fabricated narrative so they are objectifying women ? What ? I could go on and on about your post but it would just be a lot more "what ?", so I'll spare you all .
First off, if you haven't watched a Sarkeesian video, or read any of the 'trash' on these 'shitty sites,' than you're argument pretty much ends there. You've just admitted you have no idea what you're talking about, because you don't know what you're arguing against. You might want to rethink that position if you expect people to take you seriously.
False. I don't read those shitty sites often because they offer little of value to me. That doesn't mean I categorically have never read any of their posts. And, unless I'm mistaken, I don't think I ever said I haven't watched Anita's videos. On the contrary, I have seen every single one of them She makes good points but her bad points are so disingenuous and insulting that it basically invalidates her correct points. Writing in a lot of video games is dog shit. That's why tropes become prevalent and that's what she picks on well.
The writing should be better but that doesn't suddenly make the game evil and pushing their mysgonist agenda... it means it had a bad writer. Shocking. She doesn't always go that hard on the game, but people then use her work as a reason to do so.
Imagine my surprise when I ended watching a well-produced, even-toned (to the point of being dry), thoughtful analysis on the representation of women NPCs in popular, triple-A games.
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
Yes, some of her opinions are just that — opinions — but they are all supported by game footage with multiple examples. She has catalogued and commented on [b]content she finds sexist, or at the very least, cliché, but she NEVER accuses developers or gamers themselves of being sexist. She never calls anyone a nerd, a neckbeard, a misogynist or a loser. Her most 'controversial' view is that the content, whether intentional or not, reinforces the sexual objectification of women, and that can negatively shape perceptions of women overall, for both male and female gamers.
I feel you're misrepresting various arguments. There are a lot of moving pieces so I don't blame you. Anita has said a lot of things but she has at least tried in the public eye to not make scathing, personal insults to gamers. Others have not been as cautious and that's where you're confusing narratives. Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
It's a pretty non-nonsense video that offers a feminist perspective on game content and promotes media literacy. It's not exhaustive, nor does it cover everyone's perspective. But a) that's not it's intent b) she, or any media critic, has no obligation to so and c) nothing does.
Even though gamers might disagree with Sarkeesian, there is a lot they can learn from her. Namely, how to present a clear and cogent argument, backed by examples, without resorting to lulz-humour, strawman arguments, heresay or inflammatory language.
Sounding level headed while spouting half-truths and your narrative doesn't make it more truthful. It makes it sound that way to the listener who doesn't know any better. Her videos are intellectually dishonest and there are plenty of videos out there (mostly shitty ones, but they usually make some points) that go more indepth about the specifici issues. Like I said, a lot of her discussion (mainly tropes) are a good thing to have. They might make a developer learn to write characters better or at least bring something to light. Then she overreaches and people criticize her. More on that in a minute.
That people find Sarkeesian's mere existence dangerous or oppressive is ridiculous. She's just a media critic. At most, her work might potentially draw new gamers and critics to the field, inspire more women to enter the gaming industry, or prompt developers to be less lazy and clichéd with how they design characters. That's the 'worst case scenario,' if you consider those things bad. Her influence on games will never-ever-ever-ever be greater than, say, Bill Maher's influence on organized religion, or Naomi Klein's influence on the global economy. In other words, her direct influence on games will almost always be ZERO.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
First, I realized that her most controversial assertion — that the objectification of women in games can result in gamers objectifying women in real life — is probably the kind of comment that 4chan/8chan would most likely dismiss as PC-bs. But that exact 'theory' has been absolutely validated by the nature of harassment and threats levelled at her by her enemies themselves. She actually lists all the characteristics of sexual objectification — interchangeability, disposability vioability, etc — and almost everyone of the characteristics have been demonstrated in the language the trolls have using to attack her. It's like she's shot-calling her own harassment! It's pretty funny, and it actually adds to her credibility as an authority on sexism.
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
And if you now decide to say you can't categorically dismiss all of the tweets/comments then what about all of the ones that have been leveled at pro-gg people? Fair game? Deserved? When a dozen opinion pieces all spring up within 24 hours talking about how "gamers" are dead, who is truly the one who is being looked at as disposable? Fuck these gamers/consumers; we'll get newer and better ones with blacjack and hookers!
Second, all the serious attempts to threaten, and hence censor and marginalize Sarkeesian have boosted her profile considerably. Originally, her series on games was simply one project out of many, which covered pop culture in general. Taken at face value, she would be just another media critic, with a feminist bent and a niche audience. She should have been just another fish in an sea of Youtubers. But attempts to terrorize Sarkeesian have turned her into a martyr for women in gaming. She now more intrenched in the industry than ever before; because trolls tried so hard to scare her away.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
Or is this just a way to say people who criticize her videos? So bad criticism can stand? People are expected to sit there, shut up, and eat the story she is trying to tell them? They should be allowed to point out the glaring inconsistencies/inaccuracies without being looked at as some sort of mysgonist. They're just a gamer who can see through some of the bull she's shoveling. The fact that there's, oh, hundreds of videos who all give their spin at debunking her videos that doesn't mean it's censorship; it's criticism.
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
Anyway, I guess I can thank trolls for introducing me to Feminist Frequency. I had know idea who the hell she was or what she did two days ago, but I actually found her videos pretty entertaining. At the very least, they reveal how laaaaaazzy and trend-based the major developers are. All this made me think the best and most productive action GamerGate could take is to produce their own series of videos, on how 'the Gamer' or 'the nerd' stereotype has been perpetuated in the media. Like, they could point out how in the movie The Incredibles, the character of Syndrome is a jealous, petty nerd when he should be celebrated as an industrious, hard-working, self-made man. Honestly, if someone started a Kickstarter they would get tons of money instantly. I'd watch it.
And Like I said. Good. I have no issues if you want to watch her videos and for a good section of them she does point out lazy writing. I wouldn't hold your breath about that kickstarter because Gamers don't like anybody speaking for them... well unless he wears a top hat and speaks with a British accent it seems.
[/b]
But now, onto the real issue:
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
The post of mine you quote I state that you can feel free to talk about sexism. Talk about it until you're blue in the face and I'm sure you'll find people from many different avenues and viewpoints to discuss it with. Hell, I'd join you if I wasn't at the end of a 20 hour day. Is there overlap from people who think her videos are intellectually dishonest with people who also want journalism ethics to be cleaned up in the games-media? Of course there is. But don't let that overlap and the origins of GG be at all focused on. There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
edit: also, while I don't love this I would at least say it's one of the better things I've read on the issue as a whole http://pastebin.com/1uXMhWXT very late edit: Was about to shut everything down when I forgot to mention something that you initially brought up and I think another person has... I don't really care very deeply about any of this. I don't actually care about the sites that discuss it, the youtubers garnering views, the people receiving threats, the clueless gamers, or the bad journalists. I do however find the whole thing extremely entertaining/fascinating. It's unlikely any of this will effect any game I will play or any site I will visit. But hey, if things change for the better maybe I'll find something that doesn't suck.
On October 17 2014 20:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote: GamerGate was a term that takes its name from Watergate. C'mon boys this is silly. We're talking about video games and 100% disposable income. This is not a corrupt President of a 1st world country.
"video game journalism" is an unimportant profession right up there with "sports journalism".
When a video game giant like EA or Blizzard sends 10s of thousands of 19 year olds to their certain death in Vietnam in a war created on propaganda let me know..
LOL.
The -Gate part bothers me, too because it encourages paranoia implies everything is a conspiracy. I mean, it attracts and encourages the worst supporters to some legitimate issues worth talking about. And it implies that somehow, anyone on the other side of the issue has been brainwashed.
Conflicts of interest arise in all forms of journalism, particularly sports and entertainment. ESPN is going through that right now with their partnership with the NFL. Almost all content in fashion is sponsored or traded for. Does anyone seriously think that Team Liquid, EG, MLG, Blizzard, ESL etc don't coordinate efforts and talk on a regular basis? Do you think Team Liquid reports every behind-the-scenes controversy? Of course not. They're all friends.
Part of the job of journalism is developing a network with your peers and the players in the industry you're covering. Sometimes you form relationships, make friends, and yes, have sex with people. That can lead to biased or favorable reporting, but it's not exactly 'a conspiracy'.
A real conspiracy is a major developer paying or trading access for good reviews to larger publications. The GameJournosPros 'scandal' just seems like a bunch of freelance journalists feeling shitty for one of their friends that got slut-shamed, and felt like doing something 'nice' by offering a letter of support.
For the record, Quinspiracy wasn't coined by "the gamergate community". It was already there ripe for the picking and after doritosgate, gamergate was an obvious shoe-in. Simple as that.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
this all reeks of one of Zoes' toolbags coming out of the woodwork to defend her.
fucking trash thread, shes a whore and deserved to be called out for it. her game is shit shes a shit developer, and when she couldn't deal with that she needed white knights to swoop in and make her feel wanted.
these are the same women who honestly believe GTA will make me go out, beat up a hooker, and absolutely love it because my games teach me to objectify women!
Fucking bullshit, we've gone over how many times that different forms of media (movies, music, video games) has no direct correlation to violence? If you were gonna beat a woman you would probably have done it way before you even picked up a controller, because you are a douchebag. not because of video games
All these woman involved in spouting this bullshit are just Liberal Arts majors who got out of college and realized they're fucking worthless. So they stir up a gigantic shit storm for their attention whore personality.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
Do enlighten us. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving "bribes and favors" from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
You didn't answer my question. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
You didn't answer my question. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Obviously you haven't read the thread, if you seek it, you will find it.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
Sure, go ahead, paint all of these people with the same brush. This is how you bring about your own demise. I've done quite a bit of reading over gamergate these past few days, and while I still consider myself a neutral on the issue, posts like these just make me rage a little bit on the inside. The nerve, really.
The few people I've come to respect are @LadyFuzztail on the Anti-GG side, and TotalBiscuit who is leaning more towards the mature GG crowd.
Can't help but feel that underlying all this is just a huge shitstorm between hipsters and nerds though, with trolls sprinkled here and there.
Whatever's going on, it can't possibly worse than adding "gate" to the end of something to signify a scandal. Fucking. Stop. Doing. That. Turning on the news in America and hearing about some new "gate" makes me want to kill myself.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
You didn't answer my question. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Obviously you haven't read the thread, if you seek it, you will find it.
I've seen things posted and debunked. Can you please indicate where exactly you saw evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
IIRC the conference she had canceled was going to talk about "What if Mario, was Maria?" and by every objective measure that fit her criteria for the Ms. Male character trope and considering the time slot it didn't look like she was going to just point that out.
She has a very palpable bias. She started with the assumption video games were sexist, based on no experience in gaming or studies. Now she's forced to find that conclusion under law to fulfill the kickstarter. Can her supporters at least agree that this has lead to A LOT of crap on her part?
Furthermore, she isn't even the one writing those videos. It's this Jack Thompson 2.0 guy called Jon Macintosh who thinks Camo Colored controllers link to military collusion, and that players being able to control aspects in a game is patriarchal and wrong
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
You didn't answer my question. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Obviously you haven't read the thread, if you seek it, you will find it.
I've seen things posted and debunked. Can you please indicate where exactly you saw evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
On October 18 2014 01:52 Millitron wrote: I feel like "Racist" and "Misogynist" are this generation's "Communist". Everyone you don't agree with is one.
except for the fact that all the pick up guys, mensrights and redpill people actually are a bunch of idiots that fit exactly your description. That otherwise very smart people like TB pour oil on the fire by using the same jargon that is very typical of these communities really goes to show that there really is a problem inside the internet/gaming culture.
On October 18 2014 01:52 Millitron wrote: I feel like "Racist" and "Misogynist" are this generation's "Communist". Everyone you don't agree with is one.
except for the fact that all the pick up guys, mensrights and redpill people actually are a bunch of idiots that fit exactly your description. That otherwise very smart people like TB pour oil on the fire by using the same jargon that is very typical of these communities really goes to show that there really is a problem inside the internet/gaming culture.
And there really were communists back in the 50's, but we still call McCarthy a witchhunt leader.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
You didn't answer my question. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Obviously you haven't read the thread, if you seek it, you will find it.
I've seen things posted and debunked. Can you please indicate where exactly you saw evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Top of page 13.
Unsurprisingly, not one of those links is evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews. Anything else?
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
You didn't answer my question. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Obviously you haven't read the thread, if you seek it, you will find it.
I've seen things posted and debunked. Can you please indicate where exactly you saw evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
"Bribes" or "favours" seems like an unfortunate choice of words that paints a picture of someone actually explicitly doing one thing for another in return.
The reality seems more like a small clique of people who will jump to help their friends without a second thought, using whatever channels they have. In direct relation to Zoe Quinn, that basically amounts to a bad game getting a lot of praise and media attention, and several websites basically reblogging things she posts.
Personally, I wouldn't say that she has bribed anyway or exchanged any favours. More like she's someone who's much more adept at networking than she is at actually making games, which has led to a lot of people have a much more vested interest in her work than is professional.
On October 17 2014 21:00 Defacer wrote: Conflicts of interest arise in all forms of journalism, particularly sports and entertainment. ESPN is going through that right now with their partnership with the NFL. Almost all content in fashion is sponsored or traded for. Does anyone seriously think that Team Liquid, EG, MLG, Blizzard, ESL etc don't coordinate efforts and talk on a regular basis? Do you think Team Liquid reports every behind-the-scenes controversy? Of course not. They're all friends.
Part of the job of journalism is developing a network with your peers and the players in the industry you're covering. Sometimes you form relationships, make friends, and yes, have sex with people. That can lead to biased or favorable reporting, but it's not exactly 'a conspiracy'.
I think you're confusing a few things. The fact that connections and networking exist is not a problem. The issue arises when those connections lead to conflicts of interest that have adverse effects on other people/organizations.
If organizations were doing things like rigging brackets for teams they're close with, or showing scheduling favouritism (for reasons not related to timezones and viewership numbers), then you'd have a seriously problem. Or if the few reporters we do have in the scene were involved in covering up issues in the scene, whether explicitly or implicitly, then that would also cause problems.
Actually, it's good that you brought up the whole Esports angle into this, because we have plenty examples of amateur journalists who are friendly with players, teams and organizations, but will still tread over toes without a second thought. Slasher and Richard Lewis come to mind. Granted, both of them are still very much amateurs, and they may fall into the tabloid-style clickbaiting a few too many times, but neither of them have a single care about pissing off people that they're regular in contact with.
On October 18 2014 01:52 Millitron wrote: I feel like "Racist" and "Misogynist" are this generation's "Communist". Everyone you don't agree with is one.
except for the fact that all the pick up guys, mensrights and redpill people actually are a bunch of idiots that fit exactly your description. That otherwise very smart people like TB pour oil on the fire by using the same jargon that is very typical of these communities really goes to show that there really is a problem inside the internet/gaming culture.
Well now you are getting into very gray area.
You can't put PUA, MRA, and redpiller into one bunch.
While I agree that PUA does contain many men that utilizes the skills taught there to pyschologically torment the girls they've picked up, most of the guys in the field just want to learn skills on how to properly get a girl to like him.
If you are going to blame MRA for being extremely "misogynistic", then you should look at the modernized feminist with "#killallmen" and how writers like Ezra Klein wants all men to live in fear against women.
There is nothing inherent wrong with learning how to get a girl to like you, or want to advocate for men's right because equality there nor is it wrong to fight for women's right. But everything to moderation is the key.
So we have to look at this objectively, are the hates warranted directed to Anita + Zoe? Absolutely! They are bad human beings that didn't to where they are because of their product but due to their questionable marketing ethics.
Unless you think that all women manipulate the system in this manner, those who criticize those two are NOT saying that all women are like that. It is important to not call them undeserved names such as "misogynistic" or "women-hating".
And listen the feminism movement shouldn't even support those two because this actually hurt their credibility!
Now every time someone call themselves "feminist" would be labeled as manipulators that scams people to get to their place.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
You didn't answer my question. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Obviously you haven't read the thread, if you seek it, you will find it.
I've seen things posted and debunked. Can you please indicate where exactly you saw evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Top of page 13.
Not one of those links is evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews. Anything else?
There doesn't need to be evidence to it beyond shadow of a doubt really. There were concerns raised about this because it's been done before and to dismiss it they lied about it (says they weren't gf/bf at the time. but they were verrry close the entire time and it's still nepotism) Now the issue is about how they dealt with those concerns, though really it's pretty obvious he was shilling for his friend. You don't need to find a signed contract to notice the difference in coverage she got after she became friends with people.
@MRA, Redpill: These are counter cultures dedicated to undoing what they perceived to be wrong. PUA are just assholes trying to get laid with the most hurtful methods.
@Feminists shouldn't support Literally Whos: Zoe sure, Anita eh. I mean she does at least present the facade of contributing to discussion, it'd be nice if we could get more ingroup discussion on their part so we didn't have to deal with faulty points. Anita has bit off more than she could chew, but she isn't inherently a bad person I believe, unlike Zoe.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
[quote]
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
You didn't answer my question. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Obviously you haven't read the thread, if you seek it, you will find it.
I've seen things posted and debunked. Can you please indicate where exactly you saw evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Top of page 13.
Not one of those links is evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews. Anything else?
There doesn't need to be evidence to it beyond shadow of a doubt really. There were concerns raised about this because it's been done before and to dismiss it they lied about it (says they weren't gf/bf at the time. but they were verrry close the entire time and it's still nepotism) Now the issue is about how they dealt with those concerns, though really it's pretty obvious he was shilling for his friend. You don't need to find a signed contract to notice the difference in coverage she got after she became friends with people.
Of course there needs to be evidence. I've read plenty of posts, including in this thread, accusing her of using sex in order to get good reviews. That goes way beyond being friends with someone who happens to write reviews and might be influenced by your friendship. The burden of proof lies with the one making the accusation. If the person she slept with didn't even review any of her games afterwards, that should be a good indication of those accusations being likely wrong. So again, I'm asking those who claim she did exchange sex for good reviews - where's your evidence?
On October 18 2014 01:52 Millitron wrote: I feel like "Racist" and "Misogynist" are this generation's "Communist". Everyone you don't agree with is one.
except for the fact that all the pick up guys, mensrights and redpill people actually are a bunch of idiots that fit exactly your description. That otherwise very smart people like TB pour oil on the fire by using the same jargon that is very typical of these communities really goes to show that there really is a problem inside the internet/gaming culture.
So we have to look at this objectively, are the hates warranted directed to Anita + Zoe? Absolutely! They are bad human beings that didn't to where they are because of their product but due to their questionable marketing ethics.
I do not know Zoe Quinn, but how the hell is Anita Sarkeesian a "bad human being" who didn't get where she is because of her product but thanks to her "questionable marketing ethics"? You seem to be spouting off angry accusations without the slightest fact to back them up.
On October 18 2014 02:47 Xiphos wrote: If you are going to blame MRA for being extremely "misogynistic", then you should look at the modernized feminist with "#killallmen" and how writers like Ezra Klein wants all men to live in fear against women.
Don't be hating on Ezra Klein. Yes, he has a staff (at Vox) that seem to reside solely on Tumblr, and they've seemed to rub off on him a bit, but he's definitely one of the best journalists out there right now.
As for the rest of your post, all those groups are deplorable, but in the same way that "dating psychology" is deplorable on all sides. In general, the whole this is misogynistic to a degree that is leaps and bounds beyond anything in the gaming community.
On October 18 2014 02:47 Xiphos wrote: If you are going to blame MRA for being extremely "misogynistic", then you should look at the modernized feminist with "#killallmen" and how writers like Ezra Klein wants all men to live in fear against women.
Don't be hating on Ezra Klein. Yes, he has a staff (at Vox) that seem to reside solely on Tumblr, and they've seemed to rub off on him a bit, but he's definitely one of the best journalists out there right now.
As for the rest of your post, all those groups are deplorable, but in the same way that "dating psychology" is deplorable on all sides. In general, the whole this is misogynistic to a degree that is leaps and bounds beyond anything in the gaming community.
On October 15 2014 18:45 Tyrran wrote: I'm going to give OP the benefit of doubt, and assumes he really doesnt know anything about GamerGate, and is not just trying to make it sound positive, because -spoiler alert- it's really not.
On October 15 2014 16:01 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: It isn't just about harassment and sexist threats, but also about advocating for honest journalism. Its unfortunate that the noble goal of honesty is maligned into death threats and sexist remarks.
Nope. Gamergate has never been about advocating for honest journalism. It has only and ever been about harassing women in the game industry. "Honest Journalism" is only an excuse they gave, but they really dont care about it.
Statements like this are pretty ridiculous. So are all women in the industry being harassed or is the harassment limited to a select few, who are promoting a certain worldview? If gamergate were just about harassing women, then why did the whole thing start after an overt example of corrupt journalism? Moreover, what about all the women in the industry that agree with the whole gamergate thing?
The problem with the side for righteousness is that it always seems to oversimplify everything. Yes, some women are being harassed. Yes, some of the harassment is over the line (although much of what's being dubbed harassment is, as usual, nothing more than criticism). But there's more going on here than merely a pretext for everyone to be a misogynist. Dismissing people as haters and misogynists guarantees a vigorous response.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
You didn't answer my question. Where exactly did you see evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Obviously you haven't read the thread, if you seek it, you will find it.
I've seen things posted and debunked. Can you please indicate where exactly you saw evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews?
Top of page 13.
Not one of those links is evidence of a journalist receiving bribes/favors from Zoe Quinn to write favorable reviews. Anything else?
There doesn't need to be evidence to it beyond shadow of a doubt really. There were concerns raised about this because it's been done before and to dismiss it they lied about it (says they weren't gf/bf at the time. but they were verrry close the entire time and it's still nepotism) Now the issue is about how they dealt with those concerns, though really it's pretty obvious he was shilling for his friend. You don't need to find a signed contract to notice the difference in coverage she got after she became friends with people.
Of course there needs to be evidence. I've read plenty of posts, including in this thread, accusing her of using sex in order to get good reviews. That goes way beyond being friends with someone who happens to write reviews and might be influenced by your friendship. The burden of proof lies with the one making the accusation. If the person she slept with didn't even review any of her games afterwards, that should be a good indication of those accusations being likely wrong. So again, I'm asking those who claim she did exchange sex for good reviews - where's your evidence?
Again, saying she exchanged sex for reviews is probably a mispainting of the situation. At most she intentionally made a lot of close personal connections knowing it would be good for media attention.
Still, it's publicly acknowledged that she did have an affair with someone who wrote articles on her (within the same time frame), and that several other writers have an overly vested interest in what she says or does.
But really, the reason why that issue is about journalism and not her is that it's not a developer or producer's job to police their connections and interactions. Schmoozing people is part of any business, unfortunately. But it is the job of journalists not to allow personal connections to influence their coverage, or at the very least draw a very public line to show when you're blogging on a personal basis and when you're writing official articles.
On October 18 2014 01:52 Millitron wrote: I feel like "Racist" and "Misogynist" are this generation's "Communist". Everyone you don't agree with is one.
except for the fact that all the pick up guys, mensrights and redpill people actually are a bunch of idiots that fit exactly your description. That otherwise very smart people like TB pour oil on the fire by using the same jargon that is very typical of these communities really goes to show that there really is a problem inside the internet/gaming culture.
And there really were communists back in the 50's, but we still call McCarthy a witchhunt leader.
To be really accurate: McCarthy, as we would find out far later, was both Correct and *underestimated* the influence the Soviet Union had within the USA.
The catch is that he trampled over all decorum in the process. The Soviets then were very good at holding Americans to their own ideals, while having 0 morals of their own. Evil can get a lot done, when it's well organized.
It does give the feel of a culture war between the hipsters who've recently decided that gaming is cool and the natives that don't understand why things need to change.
The whole issue just boils down to a problem of generalizing and stereotypes.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
Sure, go ahead, paint all of these people with the same brush. This is how you bring about your own demise. I've done quite a bit of reading over gamergate these past few days, and while I still consider myself a neutral on the issue, posts like these just make me rage a little bit on the inside. The nerve, really.
The few people I've come to respect are @LadyFuzztail on the Anti-GG side, and TotalBiscuit who is leaning more towards the mature GG crowd.
Can't help but feel that underlying all this is just a huge shitstorm between hipsters and nerds though, with trolls sprinkled here and there.
So you're neutral towards a group that sends death and rape threats and drives people out of their homes, who threatens to shoot up schools just to silence their opposition?
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
Sure, go ahead, paint all of these people with the same brush. This is how you bring about your own demise. I've done quite a bit of reading over gamergate these past few days, and while I still consider myself a neutral on the issue, posts like these just make me rage a little bit on the inside. The nerve, really.
The few people I've come to respect are @LadyFuzztail on the Anti-GG side, and TotalBiscuit who is leaning more towards the mature GG crowd.
Can't help but feel that underlying all this is just a huge shitstorm between hipsters and nerds though, with trolls sprinkled here and there.
So you're neutral towards a group that sends death and rape threats and drives people out of their homes, who threatens to shoot up schools just to silence their opposition?
When the other side are scam artists that actually scammed money out of people's pocket and defaming the industry that I grew up and loved AND my entire gender?
You know where I would place my money on.
Nobody is exactly the 'hero' here but you gotta chose the lesser of the two evils accordingly.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
Sure, go ahead, paint all of these people with the same brush. This is how you bring about your own demise. I've done quite a bit of reading over gamergate these past few days, and while I still consider myself a neutral on the issue, posts like these just make me rage a little bit on the inside. The nerve, really.
The few people I've come to respect are @LadyFuzztail on the Anti-GG side, and TotalBiscuit who is leaning more towards the mature GG crowd.
Can't help but feel that underlying all this is just a huge shitstorm between hipsters and nerds though, with trolls sprinkled here and there.
So you're neutral towards a group that sends death and rape threats and drives people out of their homes, who threatens to shoot up schools just to silence their opposition?
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
Sure, go ahead, paint all of these people with the same brush. This is how you bring about your own demise. I've done quite a bit of reading over gamergate these past few days, and while I still consider myself a neutral on the issue, posts like these just make me rage a little bit on the inside. The nerve, really.
The few people I've come to respect are @LadyFuzztail on the Anti-GG side, and TotalBiscuit who is leaning more towards the mature GG crowd.
Can't help but feel that underlying all this is just a huge shitstorm between hipsters and nerds though, with trolls sprinkled here and there.
So you're neutral towards a group that sends death and rape threats and drives people out of their homes, who threatens to shoot up schools just to silence their opposition?
Its not a group though. There's no chain of command, no organization at all. Anybody can claim to be a gamergater.
I bet some of those who sent death threats have Team Liquid accounts. Does that mean we're all horrible psychos?
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
Sure, go ahead, paint all of these people with the same brush. This is how you bring about your own demise. I've done quite a bit of reading over gamergate these past few days, and while I still consider myself a neutral on the issue, posts like these just make me rage a little bit on the inside. The nerve, really.
The few people I've come to respect are @LadyFuzztail on the Anti-GG side, and TotalBiscuit who is leaning more towards the mature GG crowd.
Can't help but feel that underlying all this is just a huge shitstorm between hipsters and nerds though, with trolls sprinkled here and there.
So you're neutral towards a group that sends death and rape threats and drives people out of their homes, who threatens to shoot up schools just to silence their opposition?
Inidividuals sending threats does not equal the group sending threats. By the same logic, those people are gamers, you are a gamer, therefore you're also a horrible person.
PS: Since you're obviously unaware, threats went both ways. People criticizing Zoe were harassed and doxxed too.
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita [...] is overall a horrible human being.
That seems just a tad harsh. Maybe misguided would be a better term, but that's just my suggestion.
I would actually love to have reasoned discussion about a lot of the tropes she covers. Damsel in distress is always a fun one, because it always seems to be treated as objectification of women and treatment of them as some plot MacGuffin, whereas the origins that have led to it are a lot more nuanced.
But it seems to be a fairly loaded topic right now.
On October 18 2014 00:04 eits wrote: this all reeks of one of Zoes' toolbags coming out of the woodwork to defend her.
fucking trash thread, shes a whore and deserved to be called out for it. her game is shit shes a shit developer, and when she couldn't deal with that she needed white knights to swoop in and make her feel wanted.
these are the same women who honestly believe GTA will make me go out, beat up a hooker, and absolutely love it because my games teach me to objectify women!
User was temp banned for this post.
This comment is the epitome of the worst of discussion. It's just some random gamer swooping in, and projecting their out self-pity, defensiveness and insecurity onto a situation.
This is like someone going to a restaurant, saying, "Wow, there's a lot of meat on the menu, and no vegetables or sides What's that say to vegetarians or anyone that might want a balanced diet" And the chef coming out and saying, "WHAT! STOP CALLING ME A MEAT EATER! Why are you trying to ruin my restaurant? Why are you trying to force feed me vegetables?"
The reactionary is completely disproportional to the actual criticism, and taken way too personally.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So that's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit piled up on her after that. Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So that's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit piled up on her after that. Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
First of all, calm down.
Secondly, read up on black panther, please.
And lastly while there are real hates since she posted misinformation and scammed people.
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
That "interview" on Ezra is like the worst piece of periodism i had read on years. Probably because it isn't.
Do you see an interview ? No you fucking don't, you just the read author telling you how you should feel about some answers the interviewed gave while we don't know the fucking context. Seriously, how can you even read that crap and post it here?
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So that's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit piled up on her after that. Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
This is a very clever way of sidestepping an argument. Nobody is actually making the claim that they are a suppressed minority. They are making far more specific claims than that. You are creating a strawman and then responding to it. Perhaps more to the point, however, your statement isn't necessarily even true; any consensus status assigned to a group of people by definition makes dissenters among that group a suppressed minority.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So taht's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit pile up on her after that the evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, ... Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
There were African Americans that advocated violence toward white people during the civil rights movement. You are correct in that they don't represent King or his supporters. Just like the harassers in this case don't represent the group of people who are not involved in harassment.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So that's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit piled up on her after that. Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
First of all, calm down.
Secondly, read up on black panther, please.
And lastly while there are real hates since she posted misinformation and scammed people.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So that's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit piled up on her after that. Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
First of all, calm down.
Secondly, read up on black panther, please.
And lastly while there are real hates since she posted misinformation and scammed people.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So that's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit piled up on her after that. Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
This is a very clever way of sidestepping an argument. Nobody is actually making the claim that they are a suppressed minority. They are making far more specific claims than that. You are creating a strawman and then responding to it. Perhaps more to the point, however, your statement isn't necessarily even true; any consensus status assigned to a group of people by definition makes dissenters among that group a suppressed minority.
It's no strawman if it's real. Plenty of people are making the claim that they're a suppressed group. Go read some posts on 8 chan and reddit. It's the basis of their whole spiel. "Woe is us, the poor suppressed male gamer. They're trying to take our toys away! Our culture!"
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So that's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit piled up on her after that. Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
First of all, calm down.
Secondly, read up on black panther, please.
And lastly while there are real hates since she posted misinformation and scammed people.
"She's lying about us setting up an harassment campaign. Let's set up a harassment campaign! That'll show them how righteous we are!"
Its not a harassment campaign, as the picture indicated (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0J5FlpIQAA7GRA.png), its a trolling campaign.
If she did do what was written there, then she deserves to be chastised and this campaign would be the least harmful way to punish her.
Its entirely fair.
You say tomato, I say tomato. How is an organised attempt to undermine a person's work, to derail her career anything other than harassment? You think that's harmless fun? Just a little bit of light trolling?
*If* she did do what was written there, then no it still wouldn't be fair, and since she *didn't* do what was written there it is not just unfair, it is beyond vile.
On October 18 2014 00:14 Xiphos wrote: If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
Oh, do go on ... this should be interesting.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
Oooooookay. But all media criticism is subjective and inherently biased. From Siskel & Ebert to Marshall McLuhan. There is no such thing as 'purely objective' interpretation of art. There's different opinions, some better than others. That's assuming you consider gaming an art form, which I hope you do, considering how much you care about it.
You'll never eliminate bias, nor try to. There is plenty of room for a diversity of perspectives, and you get to vote with your time and attention which media fails and which doesn't. Diversity equals a competitive market. So when you use a word like wholesome, it makes me wonder if you just want media to be homogenized to your personal taste.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
Nepotism is pervasive, and part of every industry. To be surprised or shocked by this is pretty silly. Most triple-A game developers are young men, and they actively play politics to get ahead and benefit from maintaining a boys club. Ask anyone working from EA for instance, and they will chew you out.
Everyone has leveraged personal relationships to get ahead. It's not that I support Zoe Quinn or anything she did, but for any one sit on a high horse to claim moral superiority over her is just begging for double-speak and hypocrisy.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
Okay. But you realize that small publications like Team Liquid probably wouldn't survive, or have to scale back their coverage significantly, if teams, tournaments and they they themselves didn't have a direct relationship with Blizzard.
And again: this kind of shoulder rubbing is not unique to games. Journalist are expected to develop a network of contacts and peers, and inevitably, there is a conflict of interest. It happens in most trade publications, particular sports and entertainment, and more and more people are starting to openly admit it.
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Let's simplify this — some people made a game. It was different from other games and some people supported it for being different, or aligned with their political world view. They may have even their connections in the media to publicize it.
None this these things are illegal. AND all of these things are basically what a lot of new start-ups do to get off the ground, aligning themselves with political or ideological goals as part of their brand. And you can point to any mobile or casual game out there and you'll find out how they knew a guy that knew a guy and got pick-uped by mashable.
I mean, is that 'just' or 'fair'? Well, I guess not. But that is hardly exclusive to SJW-LGBT issues.
That's what's clouding the GamerGate argument, and makes it sound disingenuous and dishonest. There has ALWAYS been collusion and favoritism in games journalism. (secret: Nintendo Power wasn't a real magazine). It's people that point fingers and labels anyone with a different opinion as a SJW, or 'not-having-the-facts' (while producing almost no new information) is what is hurting any efforts GamerGate to gain legitimacy.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So that's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit piled up on her after that. Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
This is a very clever way of sidestepping an argument. Nobody is actually making the claim that they are a suppressed minority. They are making far more specific claims than that. You are creating a strawman and then responding to it. Perhaps more to the point, however, your statement isn't necessarily even true; any consensus status assigned to a group of people by definition makes dissenters among that group a suppressed minority.
It's no strawman if it's real. Plenty of people are making the claim that they're a suppressed group. Go read some posts on 8 chan and reddit. It's the basis of their whole spiel. "Woe is us, the poor suppressed male gamer. They're trying to take our toys away! Our culture!"
This is a complete exaggeration of what's happening, so much so that I don't even know why I'm bothering to respond.
Again, there are many females associated with the gamergate fiasco, so it's hardly "woe is us, the poor suppressed male gamer." You're oversimplification is at odds with easily verifiable data. The gamergate thing is attacking the ongoing damsel-in-distress elevator to hell facilitated by media corruption in gaming. Yes, some women are being harassed for their views. Yes, some of these culture critics like Sarkeesian have made valid points. But for the most part they're just a bunch of sophists who take themselves far too seriously, and end up attacking people for disagreeing with them even on the most trivial point, dismissing them, and then the gaming culture at large as misogynist etc.
You can't cherry pick the most egregious examples of opposition and then paint the entire social phenomenon with that same brush.
First, I realized that her most controversial assertion — that the objectification of women in games can result in gamers objectifying women in real life — is probably the kind of comment that 4chan/8chan would most likely dismiss as PC-bs. But that exact 'theory' has been absolutely validated by the nature of harassment and threats levelled at her by her enemies themselves.
That doesn't even make sense. People think she is spinning a fabricated narrative so they are objectifying women ? What ? I could go on and on about your post but it would just be a lot more "what ?", so I'll spare you all .
Basically: trolls claims all her videos are fabrications and have no basis in reality. Trolls then proceed to validate every one of her claims by demonstrating the behaviours she has describes in the videos.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
I think the problem here is that people feel she did not gain her perspective on video games from playing video games, but went into it with that perspective and then cherry picked examples out of context that would support that perspective.
She may be entitled to her opinion, but people are entitled to be pissed off when she uses poor journalism to try to get other people to adopt that opinion.
And using your analogies, you don't think people would get a little miffed if an influential atheist YouTuber started making religious videos under the pretense that they were not an atheist, and started making videos that make religion look bad by leaving out any of its redeeming qualities? Because that is a more specific analogy to what we are dealing with here, and I think people would get pretty pissed off, and rightfully so.
Still, like most other people have said, it's a shame that the trolls happen to be all on the same side of the fence, because it is clouding any real discussion of issues.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
I think the problem here is that people feel she did not gain her perspective on video games from playing video games, but went into it with that perspective and then cherry picked examples out of context that would support that perspective.
She may be entitled to her opinion, but people are entitled to be pissed off when she uses poor journalism to try to get other people to adopt that opinion.
And using your analogies, you don't think people would get a little miffed if an influential atheist YouTuber started making religious videos under the pretense that they were not an atheist, and started making videos that make religion look bad by leaving out any of its redeeming qualities? Because that is a more specific analogy to what we are dealing with here, and I think people would get pretty pissed off, and rightfully so.
Still, like most other people have said, it's a shame that the trolls happen to be all on the same side of the fence, because it is clouding any real discussion of issues.
If that's the argument, than I think you have a point about her misrepresenting herself. But that doesn't necessarily negate the entirety of her perspective or arguments.
But I think one of the things that this 'culture war' is about, if you want to go there, is what defines a gamer, and who is entitled to having an opinion. To Anita, being a gamer might mean playing games on the weekends, and include board games and role playing games with her friends. To a hardcore gamer, it might mean following every trade magazine, buy every major release, playing 12 hours straight, etc.
In Anita's mind, perhaps she believes she's being honest — but then hit the cultural barrier of truly hardcore, rabid gamers. But her perspective, not only as a feminist, but as and entry-level gamer, DOES have value, in highlighting some of the issues and pain points that might prevent women from becoming hardcore gamers.
Personally, I think the answer to who gets to and doesn't get to have an opinion should be much broader than a hardcore gamer. Not because I am a PC-SJW warrior and want to impose my values onto you. But because that's how much I respect Gaming as an art form. It deserves wider appreciation, more diversity and a bigger audience. It deserves 'an art scene', even if you find it pretentious or douchey or no-fun (trust me, I'm designer and have to put up with hipster-douches all the time so I can relate).
The op-ed on game culture from The Escapist presents this view more clearly (see below). Not every car has be a Ferrari, and not only Ferrari owners should dictate what the market should be, because there's obviously potential for everyone to have and enjoy the benefits of cars. And if the car market just pandered to one demographic exclusively, there's a good chance that market wouldn't sustain itself. The cost of producing a triple-A game is just getting higher and higher with advance in technology, which is why there is interest in seeing whether or not there are aways to appeal to a broader demographic, and convert casual gamers (mostly women) to hardcore ones to justify the risk. That isn't a conspiracy, this is just good business. Maybe more developers should be stepping up to become the Pixar or Marvel of videogames.
On October 18 2014 04:58 WolfintheSheep wrote: Well, I see this thread has gone to the shitter already...
I think its halarious. the pro gamer game people think its about journalism and websites shitting on their readership while the anti gamer game people think its about sexism.
I thought the whole problem was about "game journalists" rating Volvos as Ferraris because of the wrong reasons, not about "gamers" not getting enough attention. I may be wrong, since i really don't follow this silly thing, specially the mysoginy part which looks obviously as a hardcore attempt to redirect attention out of the very biased "game journalists".
On October 18 2014 04:58 WolfintheSheep wrote: Well, I see this thread has gone to the shitter already...
I think its halarious. the pro gamer game people think its about journalism and websites shitting on their readership while the anti gamer game people think its about sexism.
I've spent a stupid amount of time reading this thread and related articles to figure out what the hell this is all about. I feel like I haven't learned anything. God knows that I'm not some paragon of feminism who has it out for Gamergate sympathizers, but this Gamergate stuff is just so incomprehensibly stupid in its utter lack of focus and internal logic. Seriously, what is this really about? Gamer identity? Loudmouth feminist assholes? Ethics in gamer journalism? None of these reasons presents a satisfying answer. Only the third reason is implicated by the instigating incident (Quinn doing whatever she did), but that particular incident is simply ridiculous in its significance when compared with the plethora of other examples of bad gamer journalism that are out there.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
On October 18 2014 06:31 xDaunt wrote: I've spent a stupid amount of time reading this thread and related articles to figure out what the hell this is all about. I feel like I haven't learned anything. God knows that I'm not some paragon of feminism who has it out for Gamergate sympathizers, but this Gamergate stuff is just so incomprehensibly stupid in its utter lack of focus and internal logic. Seriously, what is this really about? Gamer identity? Loudmouth feminist assholes? Ethics in gamer journalism? None of these reasons presents a satisfying answer. Only the third reason is implicated by the instigating incident (Quinn doing whatever she did), but that particular incident is simply ridiculous in its significance when compared with the plethora of other examples of bad gamer journalism that are out there.
I missed you. Because I agree with you entirely. It's a hot mess and I'm ashamed that I've invested as much time and written as much as I have.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
I think the problem here is that people feel she did not gain her perspective on video games from playing video games, but went into it with that perspective and then cherry picked examples out of context that would support that perspective.
She may be entitled to her opinion, but people are entitled to be pissed off when she uses poor journalism to try to get other people to adopt that opinion.
And using your analogies, you don't think people would get a little miffed if an influential atheist YouTuber started making religious videos under the pretense that they were not an atheist, and started making videos that make religion look bad by leaving out any of its redeeming qualities? Because that is a more specific analogy to what we are dealing with here, and I think people would get pretty pissed off, and rightfully so.
Still, like most other people have said, it's a shame that the trolls happen to be all on the same side of the fence, because it is clouding any real discussion of issues.
If that's the argument, than I think you have a point about her misrepresenting herself. But that doesn't necessarily negate the entirety of her perspective or arguments.
But I think one of the things that this 'culture war' is about, if you want to go there, is what defines a gamer, and who is entitled to having an opinion. To Anita, being a gamer might mean playing games on the weekends, and include board games and role playing games with her friends. To a hardcore gamer, it might mean following every trade magazine, buy every major release, playing 12 hours straight, etc.
In Anita's mind, perhaps she believes she's being honest — but then hit the cultural barrier of truly hardcore, rabid gamers. But her perspective, not only as a feminist, but as and entry-level gamer, DOES have value, in highlighting some of the issues and pain points that might prevent women from becoming hardcore gamers.
Personally, I think the answer to who gets to and doesn't get to have an opinion should be much broader than a hardcore gamer. Not because I am a PC-SJW warrior and want to impose my values onto you. But because that's how much I respect Gaming as an art form. It deserves wider appreciation, more diversity and a bigger audience. It deserves 'an art scene', even if you find it pretentious or douchey or no-fun (trust me, I'm designer and have to put up with hipster-douches all the time so I can relate).
The op-ed on game culture from The Escapist presents this view more clearly (see below). Not every car has be a Ferrari, and not only Ferrari owners should dictate what the market should be, because there's obviously potential for everyone to have and enjoy the benefits of cars. And if the car market just pandered to one demographic exclusively, there's a good chance that market wouldn't sustain itself. The cost of producing a triple-A game is just getting higher and higher with advance in technology, which is why there is interest in seeing whether or not there are aways to appeal to a broader demographic, and convert casual gamers (mostly women) to hardcore ones to justify the risk. That isn't a conspiracy, this is just good business. Maybe more developers should be stepping up to become the Pixar or Marvel of videogames.
Funny that you should mention Marvel, considering the latest "scandal" about the Spider Woman cover art.
The thing about demographic targeting is that it's extremely circular. You can have the exact same argument with genres and game types. The reason why AAA developers keep making the same style of FPS or 3rd party action game is because those keep selling in the millions. Or, oppositely you could say those are the only genres that sell in the millions because those are the only types of games AAA developers make.
Telling game companies that they would make more money by "broadening their appeal" is just as easily countered by saying that their focus is so narrow because decades of sales have shown where the money is. It's a chicken and the egg problem.
Which, really, is why the Indie scene is such a big deal right now in games. People who are looking for that broader appeal, or games that are outside of the AAA box, are turning to these small studios who are more willing to experiment and can make a living with tens-of-thousands of sales instead of millions. And when some of these niche games explode, like Minecraft, Bastion, or Super Meat Boy, the AAA developers are suddenly ready to jump back in as they see the money potential again.
And of course, the problem with the current Indie scene is that there are just too damn many of them being pumped out, and far too many of them are terrible. Which leads to a need for reviewers to point people to the quality.
Which leads to current problems, where the people who are supposed to be weeding out the diamonds in the rough are directing everyone's attention to unpolished, unprofessional work like Depression Quest or giving near perfect scores to games like Gone Home without any mention of its bloated price (a game which I loved, just as an aside, but would've been royally pissed if I'd paid the full $20 release cost).
Of course, I think the whole GamerGate thing is overblown. There do seem to be a lot of "professional" writers who shouldn't be treated as professionals anymore, and a lot of websites with low standards that will probably die off. But I don't think a consumer revolt is necessary for that, it's just something that will happen in the next few years because of natural market shifts.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
[quote]
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
I think the problem here is that people feel she did not gain her perspective on video games from playing video games, but went into it with that perspective and then cherry picked examples out of context that would support that perspective.
She may be entitled to her opinion, but people are entitled to be pissed off when she uses poor journalism to try to get other people to adopt that opinion.
And using your analogies, you don't think people would get a little miffed if an influential atheist YouTuber started making religious videos under the pretense that they were not an atheist, and started making videos that make religion look bad by leaving out any of its redeeming qualities? Because that is a more specific analogy to what we are dealing with here, and I think people would get pretty pissed off, and rightfully so.
Still, like most other people have said, it's a shame that the trolls happen to be all on the same side of the fence, because it is clouding any real discussion of issues.
If that's the argument, than I think you have a point about her misrepresenting herself. But that doesn't necessarily negate the entirety of her perspective or arguments.
But I think one of the things that this 'culture war' is about, if you want to go there, is what defines a gamer, and who is entitled to having an opinion. To Anita, being a gamer might mean playing games on the weekends, and include board games and role playing games with her friends. To a hardcore gamer, it might mean following every trade magazine, buy every major release, playing 12 hours straight, etc.
In Anita's mind, perhaps she believes she's being honest — but then hit the cultural barrier of truly hardcore, rabid gamers. But her perspective, not only as a feminist, but as and entry-level gamer, DOES have value, in highlighting some of the issues and pain points that might prevent women from becoming hardcore gamers.
Personally, I think the answer to who gets to and doesn't get to have an opinion should be much broader than a hardcore gamer. Not because I am a PC-SJW warrior and want to impose my values onto you. But because that's how much I respect Gaming as an art form. It deserves wider appreciation, more diversity and a bigger audience. It deserves 'an art scene', even if you find it pretentious or douchey or no-fun (trust me, I'm designer and have to put up with hipster-douches all the time so I can relate).
The op-ed on game culture from The Escapist presents this view more clearly (see below). Not every car has be a Ferrari, and not only Ferrari owners should dictate what the market should be, because there's obviously potential for everyone to have and enjoy the benefits of cars. And if the car market just pandered to one demographic exclusively, there's a good chance that market wouldn't sustain itself. The cost of producing a triple-A game is just getting higher and higher with advance in technology, which is why there is interest in seeing whether or not there are aways to appeal to a broader demographic, and convert casual gamers (mostly women) to hardcore ones to justify the risk. That isn't a conspiracy, this is just good business. Maybe more developers should be stepping up to become the Pixar or Marvel of videogames.
Funny that you should mention Marvel, considering the latest "scandal" about the Spider Woman cover art.
The thing about demographic targeting is that it's extremely circular. You can have the exact same argument with genres and game types. The reason why AAA developers keep making the same style of FPS or 3rd party action game is because those keep selling in the millions. Or, oppositely you could say those are the only genres that sell in the millions because those are the only types of games AAA developers make.
Telling game companies that they would make more money by "broadening their appeal" is just as easily countered by saying that their focus is so narrow because decades of sales have shown where the money is. It's a chicken and the egg problem.
Which, really, is why the Indie scene is such a big deal right now in games. People who are looking for that broader appeal, or games that are outside of the AAA box, are turning to these small studios who are more willing to experiment and can make a living with tens-of-thousands of sales instead of millions. And when some of these niche games explode, like Minecraft, Bastion, or Super Meat Boy, the AAA developers are suddenly ready to jump back in as they see the money potential again.
And of course, the problem with the current Indie scene is that there are just too damn many of them being pumped out, and far too many of them are terrible. Which leads to a need for reviewers to point people to the quality.
Which leads to current problems, where the people who are supposed to be weeding out the diamonds in the rough are directing everyone's attention to unpolished, unprofessional work like Depression Quest or giving near perfect scores to games like Gone Home without any mention of its bloated price (a game which I loved, just as an aside, but would've been royally pissed if I'd paid the full $20 release cost).
Of course, I think the whole GamerGate thing is overblown. There do seem to be a lot of "professional" writers who shouldn't be treated as professionals anymore, and a lot of websites with low standards that will probably die off. But I don't think a consumer revolt is necessary for that, it's just something that will happen in the next few years because of natural market shifts.
I ... agree. Yaaaaay!
I do think triple-A games are caught in a recursive, creative loop that needs to be broken. The industry is so unstable and high risk. For every cash-cow there is a game that falls flat on its face and shutters a studio. Which is why I can see why triple-A studios might want to broaden their appeal, or attempt to explore alternative times of lower-risk, easier to produce games.
This has nothing to do with anything, but I can understand why game journalist (and even serious developers) might applaud Depression Quest. It offers an alternative model to an interactive experience. I work in interactive books, and I do think there is a potential opportunity between books and text-based adventure that could be addressed. The greater sin journalists made, I feel, is categorizing it as 'a game'.
That shit happens all the time in art circles. Trust me, most CG and effects artists would balk at what is considered good 'video art'. I don't blame 'em. I don't hate on people trying to do something weird or quirky either.
On October 18 2014 01:52 Millitron wrote: I feel like "Racist" and "Misogynist" are this generation's "Communist". Everyone you don't agree with is one.
except for the fact that all the pick up guys, mensrights and redpill people actually are a bunch of idiots that fit exactly your description. That otherwise very smart people like TB pour oil on the fire by using the same jargon that is very typical of these communities really goes to show that there really is a problem inside the internet/gaming culture.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
[quote]
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
You keep using the word criminal as if positioning herself as an expert is illegal.
Newsflash: the world is not a meritocracy. People misrepresent themselves as experts to get gain traction an every profession. As a designer, do you know how many 'social media' and 'sustainability' experts I come across now? Some are better than others. Some know their shit. Some are faking it until they make it, so to speak.
You're coming off as an eighth grader that just realized life isn't fair, and that some people are more successful than other because of their salesmanship. And that's A CRIME.
Something like this was bound to happen after all the crap that feminists (with Anita Sarkeesian on the forefront) have thrown on gamers and the gaming industry lately.
Anita made her videos and got a lot of opposition for it, simply because her ideas were idiotic. Then she made it seem like she was a victim. She made a lot of harsh accusations against video game developers and gamers in her videos, questioning their morals, calling them sexist etc, so it was she who started all the antagonizing. A lot of ppl obviously got offended by it, and obviously a few bad apples went a bit far, but it had nothing to do with her gender. Ppl like her and her supporters seems to believe that women can't simply be "victims", like men can. In their world, when a woman gets opposition, it's because she's a woman, and not because of her opinions. That's the story that they're trying to sell, and it's all bullshit.
Anita receiving that award solidified that the video game media was not on the side of the gamers and the developers, so there's a lot of ppl out there who feel betrayed. This is a war and wars tend to get ugly.
InternetAristocrat made a good point here in the beginning of this video about the hypocrisy between how a male developer who was accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour was treated, compared to how the Zoe Quinn controversy was silenced.
I haven't paid attention to all of this since it started like 2 months ago, and even then I only took a glance at it, but it's not only about her cheating on her boyfriend, there's corruption as well, similar to Anita if I remember correctly, ie money donated to her "projects" going directly into her pockets. InternetAristocrat talks about most of it all in his videos. It's all out there for everybody to form your own opinions.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
I think the problem here is that people feel she did not gain her perspective on video games from playing video games, but went into it with that perspective and then cherry picked examples out of context that would support that perspective.
She may be entitled to her opinion, but people are entitled to be pissed off when she uses poor journalism to try to get other people to adopt that opinion.
And using your analogies, you don't think people would get a little miffed if an influential atheist YouTuber started making religious videos under the pretense that they were not an atheist, and started making videos that make religion look bad by leaving out any of its redeeming qualities? Because that is a more specific analogy to what we are dealing with here, and I think people would get pretty pissed off, and rightfully so.
Still, like most other people have said, it's a shame that the trolls happen to be all on the same side of the fence, because it is clouding any real discussion of issues.
If that's the argument, than I think you have a point about her misrepresenting herself. But that doesn't necessarily negate the entirety of her perspective or arguments.
But I think one of the things that this 'culture war' is about, if you want to go there, is what defines a gamer, and who is entitled to having an opinion. To Anita, being a gamer might mean playing games on the weekends, and include board games and role playing games with her friends. To a hardcore gamer, it might mean following every trade magazine, buy every major release, playing 12 hours straight, etc.
In Anita's mind, perhaps she believes she's being honest — but then hit the cultural barrier of truly hardcore, rabid gamers. But her perspective, not only as a feminist, but as and entry-level gamer, DOES have value, in highlighting some of the issues and pain points that might prevent women from becoming hardcore gamers.
Personally, I think the answer to who gets to and doesn't get to have an opinion should be much broader than a hardcore gamer. Not because I am a PC-SJW warrior and want to impose my values onto you. But because that's how much I respect Gaming as an art form. It deserves wider appreciation, more diversity and a bigger audience. It deserves 'an art scene', even if you find it pretentious or douchey or no-fun (trust me, I'm designer and have to put up with hipster-douches all the time so I can relate).
The op-ed on game culture from The Escapist presents this view more clearly (see below). Not every car has be a Ferrari, and not only Ferrari owners should dictate what the market should be, because there's obviously potential for everyone to have and enjoy the benefits of cars. And if the car market just pandered to one demographic exclusively, there's a good chance that market wouldn't sustain itself. The cost of producing a triple-A game is just getting higher and higher with advance in technology, which is why there is interest in seeing whether or not there are aways to appeal to a broader demographic, and convert casual gamers (mostly women) to hardcore ones to justify the risk. That isn't a conspiracy, this is just good business. Maybe more developers should be stepping up to become the Pixar or Marvel of videogames.
Funny that you should mention Marvel, considering the latest "scandal" about the Spider Woman cover art.
The thing about demographic targeting is that it's extremely circular. You can have the exact same argument with genres and game types. The reason why AAA developers keep making the same style of FPS or 3rd party action game is because those keep selling in the millions. Or, oppositely you could say those are the only genres that sell in the millions because those are the only types of games AAA developers make.
Telling game companies that they would make more money by "broadening their appeal" is just as easily countered by saying that their focus is so narrow because decades of sales have shown where the money is. It's a chicken and the egg problem.
Which, really, is why the Indie scene is such a big deal right now in games. People who are looking for that broader appeal, or games that are outside of the AAA box, are turning to these small studios who are more willing to experiment and can make a living with tens-of-thousands of sales instead of millions. And when some of these niche games explode, like Minecraft, Bastion, or Super Meat Boy, the AAA developers are suddenly ready to jump back in as they see the money potential again.
And of course, the problem with the current Indie scene is that there are just too damn many of them being pumped out, and far too many of them are terrible. Which leads to a need for reviewers to point people to the quality.
Which leads to current problems, where the people who are supposed to be weeding out the diamonds in the rough are directing everyone's attention to unpolished, unprofessional work like Depression Quest or giving near perfect scores to games like Gone Home without any mention of its bloated price (a game which I loved, just as an aside, but would've been royally pissed if I'd paid the full $20 release cost).
Of course, I think the whole GamerGate thing is overblown. There do seem to be a lot of "professional" writers who shouldn't be treated as professionals anymore, and a lot of websites with low standards that will probably die off. But I don't think a consumer revolt is necessary for that, it's just something that will happen in the next few years because of natural market shifts.
I ... agree. Yaaaaay!
I do think triple-A games are caught in a recursive, create loop that needs to be broken. The industry is so unstable and high risk. For every cash-cow there is a game that falls flat on its face and shutters a studio. Which is why I can see why triple-A studios might want to broaden their appeal, or attempt to explore alternative times of lower-risk, easier to produce games.
This has nothing to do with anything, but I can understand why game journalist (and even serious developers) might applaud Depression Quest. It offers an alternative model to an interactive experience. I work in interactive books, and I do think there is a potential opportunity between books and text-based adventure that could be addressed. The greater sin journalists made, I feel, is categorizing it as 'a game'.
That shit happens all the time in art circles. Trust me, most CG and effects artists would balk at what is considered good 'video art'. I don't blame 'em. I don't hate on people trying to do something weird or quirky either.
Except the Visual Novel industry has been going strong for like a decade, so it's not like Depression Quest broke any ground.
And really, my complaints about it aren't really about the fact that it exists and that people have interest in it (even if I think it's a fairly poor representation of depression). It's that any text-based game that's full of grammatical errors and typos should be called out for lacking any professional polish.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
You keep using the word criminal as if positioning herself as an expert is illegal.
Newsflash: the world is not a meritocracy. People misrepresent themselves as experts to get gain traction an every profession. As a designer, do you know how many 'social media' and 'sustainability' experts I come across now? Some are better than others. Some know their shit. Some are faking it until they make it, so to speak.
You're coming off as an eighth grader that just realized life isn't fair, and that some people are more successful than other because of their salesmanship. And that's A CRIME.
No, that's life dude. Deal with it.
No I recognize that life is not fair. But it doesn't have to be unfair for the gaming community. No, it should be totally unfair for the criminal.
By supporting a criminal like Anita Sarkessian, you are an accomplice yourself.
This is what you are doing, you are advocating that a murder can be caught red-handed with hard evidence but hey because life is unfair, she/he can't be prosecuted.
Again, you are not helping the gaming community with that stance. So why are you still posting here? If you want to wreak the industry, do it elsewhere because TL isn't the place to do so.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
You keep using the word criminal as if positioning herself as an expert is illegal.
Newsflash: the world is not a meritocracy. People misrepresent themselves as experts to get gain traction an every profession. As a designer, do you know how many 'social media' and 'sustainability' experts I come across now? Some are better than others. Some know their shit. Some are faking it until they make it, so to speak.
You're coming off as an eighth grader that just realized life isn't fair, and that some people are more successful than other because of their salesmanship. And that's A CRIME.
No, that's life dude. Deal with it.
Yeah I have to agree with Defacer here re: Anita. Being wrong is not illegal (thank fuck). At BEST, presenting herself as a gamer when she doesn't appear to be, is misrepresenting her product and frankly in the US you can get away with that a great deal. She embellished the truth in that regard (and I base that information on the footage in which she stated during a lecture that she was not in fact a gamer and didn't like games because she didn't like blowing peoples heads off).
Thing is, her not being a gamer is irrelevant. She could make perfectly salient arguments without it and it's best to criticise her work based on the points she makes rather than ad hominem. From watching her videos, some of the gaps in her arguments could be attributed to a lack of gaming experience. She does seem to have this annoying habit of ignoring the mechanics of the games themselves if they contradict her narrative, which is to me the sign of someone that doesn't play games all that much. Thing is who cares? If there's a problem with the argument, attack the argument, don't attack the person making it.
Except the Visual Novel industry has been going strong for like a decade, so it's not like Depression Quest broke any ground.
And really, my complaints about it aren't really about the fact that it exists and that people have interest in it (even if I think it's a fairly poor representation of depression). It's that any text-based game that's full of grammatical errors and typos should be called out for lacking any professional polish.
Yeah it's also not the first game to touch on issues of depression either (you could argue Actual Sunlight did a better job). I support DQ due to its message, I think that's important, but simultaneously it is a terrible videogame and if I were to critique it I'd shred it. I'm choosing not to because I can't be arsed with the hassle that would come from it.
On October 18 2014 07:03 Xiphos wrote: This is what you are doing, you are advocating that a murder can be caught red-handed with hard evidence but hey because life is unfair, she/he can't be prosecuted.
Today I've learned that having ill-informed opinions on a public platform is the equivalent of being a murderer. Should I suppose that sending death threats to silence Anita is the gamer equivalent of social justice? Or do the rights of the "gaming community" somehow transcend the limitations of the law?
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
You keep using the word criminal as if positioning herself as an expert is illegal.
Newsflash: the world is not a meritocracy. People misrepresent themselves as experts to get gain traction an every profession. As a designer, do you know how many 'social media' and 'sustainability' experts I come across now? Some are better than others. Some know their shit. Some are faking it until they make it, so to speak.
You're coming off as an eighth grader that just realized life isn't fair, and that some people are more successful than other because of their salesmanship. And that's A CRIME.
No, that's life dude. Deal with it.
I think it's fairly safe to just ignore Xiphos. He tends to be quite inflammatory on a lot of subjects.
On October 18 2014 07:03 Xiphos wrote: This is what you are doing, you are advocating that a murder can be caught red-handed with hard evidence but hey because life is unfair, she/he can't be prosecuted.
Today I've learned that having ill-informed opinions on a public platform is the equivalent of being a murderer. Should I suppose that sending death threats to silence Anita is the gamer equivalent of social justice?
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
You keep using the word criminal as if positioning herself as an expert is illegal.
Newsflash: the world is not a meritocracy. People misrepresent themselves as experts to get gain traction an every profession. As a designer, do you know how many 'social media' and 'sustainability' experts I come across now? Some are better than others. Some know their shit. Some are faking it until they make it, so to speak.
You're coming off as an eighth grader that just realized life isn't fair, and that some people are more successful than other because of their salesmanship. And that's A CRIME.
No, that's life dude. Deal with it.
No I recognize that life is not fair. But it doesn't have to be unfair for the gaming community. No, it should be totally unfair for the criminal.
By supporting a criminal like Anita Sarkessian, you are an accomplice yourself.
This is what you are doing, you are advocating that a murder can be caught red-handed with hard evidence but hey because life is unfair, she/he can't be prosecuted.
Again, you are not helping the gaming community with that stance. So why are you still posting here? If you want to wreak the industry, do it elsewhere because TL isn't the place to do so.
Please, do go on and tell me how I'm an accomplice to murder and am wrecking the gaming community. I was not aware I was this powerful.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
You keep using the word criminal as if positioning herself as an expert is illegal.
Newsflash: the world is not a meritocracy. People misrepresent themselves as experts to get gain traction an every profession. As a designer, do you know how many 'social media' and 'sustainability' experts I come across now? Some are better than others. Some know their shit. Some are faking it until they make it, so to speak.
You're coming off as an eighth grader that just realized life isn't fair, and that some people are more successful than other because of their salesmanship. And that's A CRIME.
No, that's life dude. Deal with it.
No I recognize that life is not fair. But it doesn't have to be unfair for the gaming community. No, it should be totally unfair for the criminal.
By supporting a criminal like Anita Sarkessian, you are an accomplice yourself.
This is what you are doing, you are advocating that a murder can be caught red-handed with hard evidence but hey because life is unfair, she/he can't be prosecuted.
Again, you are not helping the gaming community with that stance. So why are you still posting here? If you want to wreak the industry, do it elsewhere because TL isn't the place to do so.
Please, do go on and tell me how I'm an accomplice to murder and am wrecking the gaming community. I was not aware I was this powerful.
You are not.
Here is what you are doing:
Anita clearly scammed people into buying her narrative or rather, completely spurious narrative. She got money from bunch of people by brainwashing them. Then not only did she not fulfill her end of the bargain, she went on to fake death threat to gain sympathy points to frame herself as the victim. And later, it was found out that she lied about even reporting the case to any police.
Now legally speaking, the only criminal activity that she is the process of committing is being a scam artist.
But morally speaking, she denigrated an entire community of industry and also an entire gender.
So by supporting her, you are indeed covering up for her criminal activity and also supporting her case to tear down the industry.
Anita clearly scammed people into buying her narrative or rather, completely spurious narrative. She got money from bunch of people by brainwashing them. Then not only did she not fulfill her end of the bargain, she went on to fake death threat to gain sympathy points to frame herself as the victim. And later, it was found out that she lied about even reporting the case to any police.
Dude, your metaphors suck. When you're accusing someone of something, don't use hyperbole. No one will take you seriously. I've edited them out because I feel sorry for you and you're just hurting your own case.
Show me the link or evidence of her fabricating threats to her life.
Anita clearly scammed people into buying her narrative or rather, completely spurious narrative. She got money from bunch of people by brainwashing them. Then not only did she not fulfill her end of the bargain, she went on to fake death threat to gain sympathy points to frame herself as the victim. And later, it was found out that she lied about even reporting the case to any police.
Dude, your metaphors suck. When you're accusing someone of something, don't use hyperbole. No one will take you seriously. I've edited them out because I feel sorry for you and you're just hurting your own case.
Show me the link or evidence of her fabricating threats to her life.
Not a metaphor, its what actually happened.
People bought in on her ideal that games are sexists (this is called brainwashing) even though it have been debunked numerous times by YouTubers.
If you would read the thread, you would definitely find the evidence not too far from here. Go to pg 19.
I know it might be very hard for you to understand why she would do that, you are appearing more and more surprised at every turn. And I get it! How could a person do such things?
But it is important to accept them and find ways to prevent it from happening next time.
Except the Visual Novel industry has been going strong for like a decade, so it's not like Depression Quest broke any ground.
And really, my complaints about it aren't really about the fact that it exists and that people have interest in it (even if I think it's a fairly poor representation of depression). It's that any text-based game that's full of grammatical errors and typos should be called out for lacking any professional polish.
Yeah it's also not the first game to touch on issues of depression either (you could argue Actual Sunlight did a better job). I support DQ due to its message, I think that's important, but simultaneously it is a terrible videogame and if I were to critique it I'd shred it. I'm choosing not to because I can't be arsed with the hassle that would come from it.
Except the Visual Novel industry has been going strong for like a decade, so it's not like Depression Quest broke any ground.
And really, my complaints about it aren't really about the fact that it exists and that people have interest in it (even if I think it's a fairly poor representation of depression). It's that any text-based game that's full of grammatical errors and typos should be called out for lacking any professional polish.
Yeah it's also not the first game to touch on issues of depression either (you could argue Actual Sunlight did a better job). I support DQ due to its message, I think that's important, but simultaneously it is a terrible videogame and if I were to critique it I'd shred it. I'm choosing not to because I can't be arsed with the hassle that would come from it.
Huh, haven't actually heard of that game before.
Worth checking out at all?
Short interactive story that deals with suicide. Do not expect a pleasant experience.
The idea that something as complicated and multi-faceted as the possibility of sexist portrayal of women in video games could be debunked by a YouTube video is hilarious. I love how you keep coming out and saying "nope these youtubers said Anita was wrong, so sexism in video games doesn't exist" as though Anita is the only person who thinks games can be problematic, and this entire thing only is a conversation because Anita made it one.
People were talking about sexism in video games for decades before Anita even thought of the idea to make a video, and will continue to do it long after people have forgotten she exists.
Continuing to beat the dead horse on Anita and Quinn just feeds the idea that GG is about harassing feminists.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
[quote]
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
Think about this: if he has nothing to gain by 'white knighting', as you so tactlessly put it, why would he bother at all? I've looked at her material, and she has not demonized or defamed men, and has not presented herself as a 'gamer expert'. While I strongly disagree with her opinions, she also is not a criminal or a scam artist until it is proven in a court of law. If there is so much evidence to the contrary, why has she not been taken to court? Perhaps it's because of the 'brainwashing'?
Except the Visual Novel industry has been going strong for like a decade, so it's not like Depression Quest broke any ground.
And really, my complaints about it aren't really about the fact that it exists and that people have interest in it (even if I think it's a fairly poor representation of depression). It's that any text-based game that's full of grammatical errors and typos should be called out for lacking any professional polish.
Yeah it's also not the first game to touch on issues of depression either (you could argue Actual Sunlight did a better job). I support DQ due to its message, I think that's important, but simultaneously it is a terrible videogame and if I were to critique it I'd shred it. I'm choosing not to because I can't be arsed with the hassle that would come from it.
Huh, haven't actually heard of that game before.
Worth checking out at all?
Short interactive story that deals with suicide. Do not expect a pleasant experience.
Except the Visual Novel industry has been going strong for like a decade, so it's not like Depression Quest broke any ground.
And really, my complaints about it aren't really about the fact that it exists and that people have interest in it (even if I think it's a fairly poor representation of depression). It's that any text-based game that's full of grammatical errors and typos should be called out for lacking any professional polish.
Yeah it's also not the first game to touch on issues of depression either (you could argue Actual Sunlight did a better job). I support DQ due to its message, I think that's important, but simultaneously it is a terrible videogame and if I were to critique it I'd shred it. I'm choosing not to because I can't be arsed with the hassle that would come from it.
Huh, haven't actually heard of that game before.
Worth checking out at all?
Short interactive story that deals with suicide. Do not expect a pleasant experience.
I'm afraid to try this game now. LOL.
It's mainly just boring from my experience. The biggest issue with DQ is one of principle: it's impossible to accurately portray and simulate depression by giving the player control. One of the debilitating symptoms of long-term depression is a perceived lack of autonomy over one's life.
Except the Visual Novel industry has been going strong for like a decade, so it's not like Depression Quest broke any ground.
And really, my complaints about it aren't really about the fact that it exists and that people have interest in it (even if I think it's a fairly poor representation of depression). It's that any text-based game that's full of grammatical errors and typos should be called out for lacking any professional polish.
Yeah it's also not the first game to touch on issues of depression either (you could argue Actual Sunlight did a better job). I support DQ due to its message, I think that's important, but simultaneously it is a terrible videogame and if I were to critique it I'd shred it. I'm choosing not to because I can't be arsed with the hassle that would come from it.
Huh, haven't actually heard of that game before.
Worth checking out at all?
Short interactive story that deals with suicide. Do not expect a pleasant experience.
I'm afraid to try this game now. LOL.
It's mainly just boring from my experience. The biggest issue with DQ is one of principle: it's impossible to accurately portray and simulate depression by giving the player control. One of the debilitating symptoms of long-term depression is a perceived lack of autonomy over one's life.
I think they were talking about Actual Sunlight at the end.
now some quick thoughts on the actual topic. .
arguing over something where you can't tell what's real and what's not seems pointless. TB said it perfectly when he said it's impossible to know the truth.
as to Anita or whatever her name is there's sexism in video games but it seems she's making a bigger deal of it than it actually is.
as for video game journalism it's never been objective and I don't see why it's as big of a deal as anyone's making it. I'm sure you can find independent reviews if you want. It's like movie critics you try to find one that has similar taste to what you have, or just wait a few days and find youtube reviews. anyway have fun arguing.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
Think about this: if he has nothing to gain by 'white knighting', as you so tactlessly put it, why would he bother at all? I've looked at her material, and she has not demonized or defamed men, and has not presented herself as a 'gamer expert'. While I strongly disagree with her opinions, she also is not a criminal or a scam artist until it is proven in a court of law. If there is so much evidence to the contrary, why has she not been taken to court? Perhaps it's because of the 'brainwashing'?
Its like the Sons of StarCraft situation where people know that they have been scammed but the money they've invested in it isn't worth hiring a computer savvy lawyer to fight for it.
Perhaps some people will take action against her given time that she ran out of credibility.
Not explicitly she didn't, she gave example of a Nintendo male designer as a proponent for "wrongful portrayal" here: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q
at 1:40.
And regarding nothing to gain, I was just assuming that at the moment because he seemed to be proponent for journalistic integrity and wasn't sure if he was actually trying to protect Anita and is just confused and/or mis-communication have occurred b/w us. But now I no longer hold that position.
Except the Visual Novel industry has been going strong for like a decade, so it's not like Depression Quest broke any ground.
And really, my complaints about it aren't really about the fact that it exists and that people have interest in it (even if I think it's a fairly poor representation of depression). It's that any text-based game that's full of grammatical errors and typos should be called out for lacking any professional polish.
Yeah it's also not the first game to touch on issues of depression either (you could argue Actual Sunlight did a better job). I support DQ due to its message, I think that's important, but simultaneously it is a terrible videogame and if I were to critique it I'd shred it. I'm choosing not to because I can't be arsed with the hassle that would come from it.
Huh, haven't actually heard of that game before.
Worth checking out at all?
Short interactive story that deals with suicide. Do not expect a pleasant experience.
I'm afraid to try this game now. LOL.
It's mainly just boring from my experience. The biggest issue with DQ is one of principle: it's impossible to accurately portray and simulate depression by giving the player control. One of the debilitating symptoms of long-term depression is a perceived lack of autonomy over one's life.
Oops, wrong game. XD
Yeah 'RL' is one tough motherfucker of a game.
God, another 4 pages since I last logged about Anita Sarkeesian? Really?
Except the Visual Novel industry has been going strong for like a decade, so it's not like Depression Quest broke any ground.
And really, my complaints about it aren't really about the fact that it exists and that people have interest in it (even if I think it's a fairly poor representation of depression). It's that any text-based game that's full of grammatical errors and typos should be called out for lacking any professional polish.
Yeah it's also not the first game to touch on issues of depression either (you could argue Actual Sunlight did a better job). I support DQ due to its message, I think that's important, but simultaneously it is a terrible videogame and if I were to critique it I'd shred it. I'm choosing not to because I can't be arsed with the hassle that would come from it.
Huh, haven't actually heard of that game before.
Worth checking out at all?
Short interactive story that deals with suicide. Do not expect a pleasant experience.
I'm afraid to try this game now. LOL.
It's mainly just boring from my experience. The biggest issue with DQ is one of principle: it's impossible to accurately portray and simulate depression by giving the player control. One of the debilitating symptoms of long-term depression is a perceived lack of autonomy over one's life.
Oops, wrong game. XD
Not to get too off topic here, but you know what game is good at that hopeless feeling? Neverending nightmare. That guy nailed it. Really hits the whole "you kinda forget whats going in your life and lose control" thing.
I also want to poke my head in here and say we've added a mod note.
Read it, learn it, love it. The quality of this thread has dropped drastically, and rather than close it before it gets worse (I've personally avoided most of this GamerGate stuff online because of the hateful shit it always seems to devolve into) we decided to try and stop at the very least personal attacks. I tried to make it clear as mud so please note, this is the one and only warning the posters in this thread will have.
On October 17 2014 20:51 I_Love_Bacon wrote: It's hard to separate it. Hell I know because I still talk about it at times when I probably shouldn't because keeping one's mouth shut is not easy.
First of all, relax. You must of written 300 words per minute. + Show Spoiler +
This is all bull shit. GG isn't about Anita no matter how much you seem to think it is. She is background noise at best and is used to deflect from the actual issue at hand.
Dude, you brought her up. And I was just commenting to how absurd it is that people are so upset she exists. And you kind of proved my point ...
You're setting the bar for success pretty low. You're basically stating that because she wasn't frothing at the mouth and calling for male game devs to be castrated that her criticisms have more merit.
All her points, whether you agree with her or not, are explicitly illustrated and supported with examples. Her argument is reasoned and well-researched. It's structured, and builds towards an actually conclusion. You can bitch and complain that it's not exhaustive, but it's not meant to be. She has a thesis and she defends it well. It's certainly not lazy. That's more than can you say than most of her detractors, who rely on heresay or empty accusations or dismiss entire 3000 word articles with links and annotations simply because they think the publisher is a shill.
I'm sorry, but there's nothing intellectually dishonest about it, no matter how loud you shout it from the roof tops. Intellectual dishonest implies she's not earnest. She believes what she says. You just disagree with her.
Like I said, I don't blame you because there's a metric shit ton of them out there. Others use Anita's videos to justify THEIR hatred and then take to articles/twitter/whateverthefuckever. I can hate her work but, as I've said countless times, GG isn't about Anita.
Alright, I think I understand what you're saying here. You're issue isn't with Anita's argument. It's the idiots that amplify it and take it out of context. It happens on both sides. I absolutely agree. I do not condone stupidity.
Oh-so-false. Saying "she just a media critic" means you haven't done nearly as much research as you think you have. I'm not going to bring up the personal things about how she lies about being a gamer and some of the other talks she's given because I don't want my own opinion of them to taint them if you ever get around to them.
The "worst case scenario" is that a woman who has admitted she doesn't like games and doesn't play games has now been consulted by major studios about their games where she'll continue to push her biased/questionable message. As somebody on a site that was dedicated to hard core gaming I hope you can at least appreciate the absolute ridiculousness of that. Oh, and it should be more exhaustive given how much money she was given but I'll let that slide for now.
... aaannnd you're losing me. This is coming off as sour grapes, to be honest.
Maybe she lied about being a gamer. I have no idea what this accusation really means. The definition of being a gamer is very, very broad and means different things to different people. To someone like Anita, it probably meant playing a game a few hours on the weekend and even included roleplaying or board games with her friends. I don't really give a shit about her personal life, so I honestly don't know. But to a hardcore gamer, it literally means BUY EVERY MAJOR RELEASE AND PLAY NON-STOP UNTIL COMPLETION NEED MONSTER ENERGY DRINK. These people exist. That's a massive spectrum there.
Consultants from other industries and fields get hired all the time. Gaming is an expensive, high-risk business. Sometimes celebrity or creative consultants are brought on to boost the profile of a game. Sometimes they are actually technical consultants, like cinematographers or architects.
There is an obvious lack of realistic or even interesting representation of women in triple-A games. Maybe she'll get paid to consult on content. Maybe a developer will hire her as a token creative consultant, the way Will.i.am or Pharell seems to be the creative consultant on everything, in the hopes it will provide a halo effect around the game and attract a broader demographic.
In either sense, trust me — her influence will be smaller than you think. Games are not build by consultants. They're built by 50 to 100 people working 60 hours a week. I know a lot of people that work in triple-A gaming.
I know it sucks, but you're resenting her for identifying an issue in gaming that is rarely addressed, building a case for it's importance, representing herself as an expert on that particular issue, and being rewarded because it. That happens in almost industry because that's how society works. Trust me, as a designer, I have seen many younger, stupider people position themselves as experts on sustainability or social media experts — despite having very superficial knowledge — and fast tracking their careers.
You're resenting a person for carving a niche and building a name for herself. The world isn't a meritocracy. Her getting gigs you wish you had — or think other people should have — is your problem, not hers.
Now let's move on before we start bitching about Ben Affleck as Batman.
This is where your tinfoil hat is showing even more than before. Show me serious attempts to threaten Sarkeesian. Oh, the one that she screen capped 20 seconds after it was posted while not logged into twitter? The one at the university yesterday that the police deemed as not-credible? Know how many journalists/critics/developers have been killed over their opinion on games? 0
I'm going to pretend to be your conscience for a second:
"Threatening to shoot up a lecture hall is a serious offense. It is not a trivial threat, even if it's a lie. If you get caught you will get arrested.
"Also, if someone threatens to murder you, encourages others to harass or hurt you, and publicizes you're home address, it is perfectly rational to not feel safe. If you are driven out of your own home out of fear, it's okay to feel like you're being violated, because you are."
Trolls exist on the internet. This... surprises you? We live in a world where assholes "swat" people on Twitchtv and you're surprised that some shitheads leveled deaththreats and say stupid, vitriolic things on twitter? Once again, you're on a gaming website and you're surprised there exists people who make it their goal to push other people's buttons? Nobody after a game of SC told you to die in a fire or call you a faggot?
Why yes!
I know you're trying to dismiss the significance of online threats or abuse as trivial or 'less real', but that's a weak argument. And you're just admitting that games can lead to anti-social behaviour. As if stupidity is an excuse. Are you sure you're not an SJW at-heart?
This also falls into the main point of GG is the inability to criticize "these people" (journalists, SWJs, and everybody in between). Comments are deleted/disabled, reddit threads are deleted, people are shadow banned, and entire pieces are forced to be taken down and yet somehow GG are the ones who are being accused of censorship. Virtually every single person who writes above the 5th grade reading level and supports GG also calls for NO CENSORSHIP. Let her have here views; then let others rebut them if that's what they want to do. Isn't that's what supposed to happen? Why did this suddenly become a bad thing that bad reporting/criticism is pointed out? You know the other thing that Pro-GGs aren't doing? Making a gigantic production out of every threat posted to them on twitter despite their being plenty of choose from. They're not trying to play victims and garner attention/sympathy, they're trying to have an actual discussion.
HAHAHA! BULL! SHIT! Are you serious dude?
The one's complaining and whining the loudest have been the GG community. Check out KotakuInAction. In the past four hours, some Gawker reporter made a joke about bullying nerds, and they turned it into a witch hunt, had a little non-stop pity party, and now have a 'nerd' challenging the reporter to $10,000 boxing match!
How's that for production and spectacle? And what does it have to do with journalistic integrity? NOTHING.
I would never accuse GG of censorship. I would never do that. I'm accusing a subset of trolls using GamerGate as a political shield to threaten, intimidate and harass three women until they were forced to leave their homes and go into hiding. That's worse then censorship. It's the literal definition of terrorism. For two of them the only 'crime' they committed, technically, is having an fucking opinion. And now other female developers are afraid to speak out out of fear of reprisal. That's sad.
GG has been censored and blocked on several sites. No dispute here. I'm sure the publications have different reasons. But if I had to guess, I think the most common reason is that most sites, particularly online magazines, don't have the time or energy to moderate the inevitable fucking shitstorm. Nor are they obligated to. We're having a reasonable discussion, but if a bunch of turds took over the thread Team Liquid would shut our asses down and there's nothing they could do about it.
Reddit? My theory would be they were in the middle of catching a bunch of shit for their facilitation of Fappening, it hurt their reputation, put them in an embarassing legal situation, and because of the ties of misogyny to GamerGate (justified or not) they didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. You got screwed by pervs.
The only way for GamerGate to have completely autonomy and control over the discourse is to have their own platform. And so far, the quality and presentation of GamerGates concerns have been scattered and amatuerish.
There's a time and a place to discuss these things, but that's not what GG is. The people who claim it is only do so for 2 options: Either they're misinformed or they do it to push their own narrative.
Are you accusing me of being part of a conspiracy, or a secret dick? If it makes you feel better, it's the latter.
I can honestly say I am not anti-GamerGate, because I still don't know what the hell GamerGate is. The issues that actually seem worth discussing — the representation of women in games (both on and behind the scenes), the integrity of game journalism, and the future of gamer-culture as gaming becomes more and more significant to mainstream culture — have absolutely nothing to do with each other. They really don't. And it's the conflation of this issues by people that support GamerGate is what makes their perspective so easy to dismiss. A lot of their arguments and discussion is tainted with allegations, innuendo, or incessant lulz-humor that simply diminishes whatever legitimate point or grievance they might have.
Here's an example from the kotakuinaction reddit of one guy who thinks he's spitting truth bombs. He opens the article by whining while congratulating himself.
Written by @JamieBworth, rejected by Cracked for stupid reasons, and published here, with permission. Because fuck Cracked, this shit is hilarious and genius.
In actuality his writing is rushed and lazy; mostly editorial; and offers no new information that contradicts basic facts reported by mainstream source — thus rendering his premise of revealing 'misinformation' pretty much pointless.
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
If you don't know what GamerGate is, none of your opinions matters.
On topic:
A lot of misconception about GamerGate.
To put it in the most basic form: GamerGate is the gaming consumers' reactionary force to dissipate any biases in gaming reviews for a more wholesome competitive market.
A lot of you guys think that GamerGate requires some special membership to participate in. However, with the assumption that we all hope for a meritocracy system in the gaming industry, most of us are already, intentionally or not and even if you don't want to rally behind the hash tag or not, part of the GamerGate "movement".
However, this movement will mostly likely be a lost cause and let me tell y'all why.
In order to get rid of any media nepotism in the gaming community, we must look at all the parties involved that created nepotism in the first place. They are:
1. Producer of the game. Ex: Zoe Quinn. Laughing my ass off at people being ignorant on this one.
2. Game reviewer outlets. Ex: IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot that gave out favorable reviews because of sexual, monetary, and/or other reasons.
and lastly:
3. Any other people that support the gaming producer to further their own personal agendas. They are termed as "Social Justice Warriors", SJWs for short, basically the radical pro-feminism, pro-LGBT crowds that supported a certain game because both the game producers and their political beliefs aligns with each other for mutual benefit. Ex: Anita Sarkessian.
For corruption and nepotism to fully dispel in our industry, we have to get rid of ALL 3 parties. But here is the thing though, you can shame characters Zoe Quinn and Game reviewers/journalist all you want, the main beast you have to deal with are #3 of the list.
The question remains whether or not the integrity of gaming development can be saved w/ enough manpower in our side to get rid of all the parties or not.
So far, there have been a lot in-fighting in the community about who to blame it on. A lot of apologist by saying "Woah, you can't possibly go after X, Y, and Z. You have to go after A, B, and C instead!"
No the correct approach is to go after EVERYBODY involved, you can't afford to cherry pick the target.
Talk about misconceptions ...
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
Dem right! Those bitches deserved it! Talking in public instead of making me a sandwich.
So taht's you're excuse? They deserved it because they were faking it? Sarkeesian started getting shit years ago, I saw it as far back as her Kickstarter campaign.This whole mess took form after what's-his-name's screed against Zoe Quinn, and the shit pile up on her after that the evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, ... Various other people, journalist, authors, game developers, mostly women, but some men too, who dare to speak out against this have heaps of crap piled upon them. The evidence is all over the place, Kickstarter, Youtube, Twittter, Look in the Redpill Reddit (or whatever it's called) for some truly awe inspiring circle jerks and vileness, or other MRA forums on reddit and 4chan and were ever else they hide. ... But they are faking it. Sure.
And did you really just compare the American civil rights movement with GamersGate? Even if all they did actually was for "fair journalism in gaming" instead of harassing and threating and other asshattery that would be preposterous. You are not a suppressed minority. King didn't threaten to shoot up schools or rape people for speaking their minds.
There were African Americans that advocated violence toward white people during the civil rights movement. You are correct in that they don't represent King or his supporters. Just like the harassers in this case don't represent the group of people who are not involved in harassment.
That's a very good comparison, wonder why I haven't seen it before.
Also very upset to see people still focusing on attacking Zoe. I really feel like they are just as hurtful to Gamergate as the opposition is. I don't see that in the larger gamergate communities, but i got in later. I wonder if it's because of some rules or self-policing in place.
On October 18 2014 07:55 ShiroKaisen wrote: The idea that something as complicated and multi-faceted as the possibility of sexist portrayal of women in video games could be debunked by a YouTube video is hilarious. I love how you keep coming out and saying "nope these youtubers said Anita was wrong, so sexism in video games doesn't exist" as though Anita is the only person who thinks games can be problematic, and this entire thing only is a conversation because Anita made it one.
People were talking about sexism in video games for decades before Anita even thought of the idea to make a video, and will continue to do it long after people have forgotten she exists.
Continuing to beat the dead horse on Anita and Quinn just feeds the idea that GG is about harassing feminists.
I don't recall the rebuttals including "Sexism in video games doesn't exist" but rather "your evidence to try to prove it is faulty" Also there's many many refutations to Anita's points beyond youtube videos. The fact she never addresses these refutations and just continues to fabricate more evidence should be very telling to the fact that if there is sexism, and it is a problem... Anita isn't the one who will convince people of it.
This is the woman who criticized people who questioned her, and created the motto "Listen, and believe" in her XOXO speech. You're not going to convince objective, debate-minded people by talking at them.
Furthermore, people have been talking about the moon landing being faked for a while. The "Hologoax" too. The length of time a subject is talked about says nothing on it's validity.
People bought in on her ideal that games are sexists (this is called brainwashing) even though it have been debunked numerous times by YouTubers.
If you would read the thread, you would definitely find the evidence not too far from here. Go to pg 19.
.
Do you understand what a metaphor or a simile is? Do you realize that people agreeing with one position or another doesn't constitute brainwashing? And that you're using the 'term' brainwashing as a metaphor in this instance?
All this proves is that this screen cap was doctored before it was published. It could be a grand conspiracy. It could also be someone logged out, and copy and pasted the menu bar at the top to hide the amount of emails and notifications she had. Sometimes those numbers get embarrassing. I have 2610 unread emails popping up on my phone, for instance.
"account made solely to make these tweets."
Well, of course. If I wanted to threaten someone with rape and murder without getting caught, I would make a dummy account too. Doesn't prove anything.
"this was scripted"
Well, no shit. If I was knowingly going to be blocked for violating Twitter's terms and service, I would carefully plan my message ahead of time and get my posts out as quickly as possible. Doesn't prove anything.
"screen cap taken 12s after last tweet"
So what? Did you know that if you take a screen cap 12s after something happens, time moves forward in a linear fashion? That means a five, ten, fifteen minutes or a WHOLE DAY can go by and the screen cap will still say 12s! HOLY SHIT! Is Anita a time lord?
I'm sorry, but this is not evidence of anything. You can choose to believe it's a fabrication, but it isn't proof she's lying. It's all just random speculation leading in a irrational, non-sequitor hypothesis to dupe people that enjoy conspiracy theories.
Yea there's no proof Anita "scammed" or faked anything to any extent that would be acceptable in a court of law. Suspicion sure, but remember discrediting Anita herself wouldn't even help gamergate. This has been discussed at end, stop focusing on individuals. They represent themselves, focus on the media's overall bias which happens to include them.
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
Think about this: if he has nothing to gain by 'white knighting', as you so tactlessly put it, why would he bother at all? I've looked at her material, and she has not demonized or defamed men, and has not presented herself as a 'gamer expert'. While I strongly disagree with her opinions, she also is not a criminal or a scam artist until it is proven in a court of law. If there is so much evidence to the contrary, why has she not been taken to court? Perhaps it's because of the 'brainwashing'?
Its like the Sons of StarCraft situation where people know that they have been scammed but the money they've invested in it isn't worth hiring a computer savvy lawyer to fight for it.
Perhaps some people will take action against her given time that she ran out of credibility.
Not explicitly she didn't, she gave example of a Nintendo male designer as a proponent for "wrongful portrayal" here: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q
at 1:40.
And regarding nothing to gain, I was just assuming that at the moment because he seemed to be proponent for journalistic integrity and wasn't sure if he was actually trying to protect Anita and is just confused and/or mis-communication have occurred b/w us. But now I no longer hold that position.
I'm a computer-savvy, enterprising plaintiff's attorney. What exactly do you think the claim is? What contract was broken? What fraud was perpetrated?
Around the turn of the millennium gamers were trying to stop journalist to blame games for school shootings. This week "gamers" threatened with a school shooting to prevent a journalist from speaking out in public.
GamerGate is a toxic movement, a hate group, started by a sad little man who felt the need to get back at his failed relationship in public. Any sort of valid point it might have had went out of the window a long time ago. If you affiliate yourself with gamersgate, you stand with racists and mysoginists, you excuse harassers and abusers, you're a willing patsy and a horrible human being.
See none of those harassment would have occurred in the first place if characters such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkessian didn't go out of their way to scam everybody by faking the victimhood.
Its saying that African american folks in the civil right strike are "a toxic movement, a hate group" because they are harassing the the cacausian folks for their misdemeanor even though some slave owners do exactly deserve what was coming to them.
This is definition of self-delusion and victim-blaming folks. He's comparing Zoe Quinn and Anita to being slave owners. And that gamers are being persecuted by them. Like black people. For making a game about depression and having an alternative opinion on games.
Seriously.
Okay let's go down that road, yeah that's exactly what they did!
Anita have been broadcasting how egregious the gaming communities are with the women topic which have been debunked! She have been adamant in persecuting the entire industry.
Subsequently, the feminism media swallowed the wrong pill and presented it as fact and with their heavy hitter journalist on their side, furthered that damage.
You simple can't deny that and for that reason, one can definitely argue that an entire community have been dragged down to the dirt by these malevolent individuals with sufficient evidence to back up.
No one has 'debunked' anything because there is nothing to 'debunk.' She made a video series on games from a feminist perspective. This would be no different than an atheist making a video series on religious topics, or a 'nerd' doing a series on music and fashion.
These are all just perspectives folks. You can choose to ignore them or not. They actually are really valuable, because they broaden the reach of what you love, and depth or richness to it's discussion, and validate the significance of what you love to society and culture.
Yes, her videos made people extremely, extremely defensive. But that is not her problem. People need to grow up and realize having a differing opinion or perspective on something you like is not a personal attack.
The GamerGate community is so insulated and insecure that they have to play the victim card faster and more loosely more than any SJW so far. How's that for irony?
No, you are attempting to separate her and her perspective. And by the way, she isn't using exactly looking things through a traditional feminist point of view. Traditional feminist fights for women's equal rights as men not to denigrate men w/o malicious intent. That's not being a feminist, traditionally speaking but that's simply bullying and defamation.
So she needs to grow up, she needs to know that putting yourself out w/ malicious intent and false information will gets you bad rep. She needs to learn to cease scamming people out of their cash.
She has never denigrated men. With malicious intent. Unless you define being 'malicious' as having a point of view. She has probably gotten more and more defensive as trolls harass her. But who can fucking blame her?
She's not scamming anyone out of cash. Are you really that blindly arrogant that you believe everyone that agrees with her — and disagrees with you — is a mindless zombie? Who's prejudiced now?
This kind of rhetoric is why no mainstream media is picking up the GamerGate perspective. Because it's riddled with doublespeak, innuendo, pettiness and condescension. If these are GamerGates idea of 'facts' than the mainstream media is omitting, than the mainstream has done a bang-up job reporting on this issue, separating actual facts from subjective, editorial opinions.
After all, she is the criminal here.
This is literally, and figuratively, and categorically not true. She is a lady that carved a niche around an under-represented topic and audience and built a career around it. Whoopty-fricking-doo.
There are wrong opinions and right opinions much like right perspective and wrong perspectives.
She have the wrong opinion and the wrong perspective and brainwashed people to join her.
By presenting herself as a gamer expert while she is not, that's lying to the public.
So she lied to sell her product, that's scamming right there. She deliberately went out of her way to paint the entire industry and men in defamation.
You have nothing to gain by white knighting her only to perpetuate such criminal behavior. So stop it before you embarrass yourself.
Think about this: if he has nothing to gain by 'white knighting', as you so tactlessly put it, why would he bother at all? I've looked at her material, and she has not demonized or defamed men, and has not presented herself as a 'gamer expert'. While I strongly disagree with her opinions, she also is not a criminal or a scam artist until it is proven in a court of law. If there is so much evidence to the contrary, why has she not been taken to court? Perhaps it's because of the 'brainwashing'?
Its like the Sons of StarCraft situation where people know that they have been scammed but the money they've invested in it isn't worth hiring a computer savvy lawyer to fight for it.
That's really apples and oranges. Just because someone else did something bad doesn't mean someone else is also doing something bad simply because the cases sound similar.
I thought the link was going to be interesting. This is rubbish. The author even goes so far as to ask "What model of car is she driving these days?" which indicates to me that the piece is biased. There are no facts involved in regards to the money. If you care about "journalistic integrity" at all, I would consider not linking stuff like this. :/
This whole situation seems like a case of the lower classes fighting amongst themselves while the upper classes sit back and laugh while they fly around in jets having fun living extravagant lifestyles.
The focus should be on the source of these issues. Why is western society the way it currently is? The video game industry and video game journalism is just a small reflection of the broader system. It's just a small part of the larger culture industries and industry practices.
Why do games portray certain populations in certain ways? Why female league of legend characters portrayed in certain ways? What aspects of the video game industry reflect other industries? Why do we continue to support content/game providers that may be spreading more negative values than positive values. Of course the audience also has the capacity to interpret things differently than just what is presented in front of them.
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.
Really with all this damage control bigger non-gaming media is playing for gaming journalists it's exposing their corruption too. (All of gawker is losing sponsors now, mercedes being the biggest)
I'm interested to see if #Gamergate can become a call for journalistic integrity everywhere. Probably won't fix everything but if it can frame media in general of being less reliable to force them to work harder that'd be swell
Honestly, for a movement so worked up about journalism ethics, GG is really, really bad at investigations. Oh sure they have caches of screenshots of accounts and chat logs. However, most of it either centred around either defending GG or else targetting a handful of people such as disproving Anita was ever harassed. Very little of it targets corruption in big video game companies.
But regardless of their choice of targets, there is a rampant problem of stacking assumption on top of assumption that leads to really lously conclusions. People hear Anita called the authorities, assume she called the local cops, then call her harassment BS. Turns out she called the FBI. But so many claims of the first week are suddenly turned into facts the second week to prove the next round of claims. But once we've moved on to the new evidence, we can refer back to the old as proof of a past history. Too many of the established facts, I have yet to see established.
It reminds me a lot of people's assertions on Tower 7. This MUST have happened exactly this way or else it is faked. Not alternative is possible because everyone knows exactly how how buildings collapse when a passenger jet hits a building. But maybe there is a faulty conclusion, a different alternative. Presuppositions colour the analysis into dogma and the dogma is used to prove new 'facts.'
Directly at you Xiphos. Probably half of your claims, if not more, I have never seen properly proved. I've read chat logs, I have looked at screenshots circled and arrows pointing this way and the other. Very little of it is convincing. Some of it is possible, but possible is not the same thing as 'this actually happened.' But as soon as I turn around and with no new information, it's suddenly a known fact, rather than the much more cautious, but truthful: it's still only a possibility.
On October 18 2014 10:30 Dunnobro wrote: Really with all this damage control bigger non-gaming media is playing for gaming journalists it's exposing their corruption too. (All of gawker is losing sponsors now, mercedes being the biggest)
I'm interested to see if #Gamergate can become a call for journalistic integrity everywhere. Probably won't fix everything but if it can frame media in general of being less reliable to force them to work harder that'd be swell
Yeah, I learned that even big journalism sites like CNN, The Guardian, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and many others will publish clearly biased articles that make us gamers seem like a bunch of misogynist neckbeards.
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.
Sexism is usually associated with something that needs to be done away with, which is usually the most off-putting aspect of discussion for a lot of people.
Saying that it's "limiting" or that "we can improve" are far too generic and unspecific to be meaningful. The fact of the matter is that the very large majority of console and PC gamers are males, and the market targeting will tend to reflect that.
And really, how "limiting" is it, really? WoW and LoL are two Triple-A games that have attracted a lot more female players than the norm, and both are absolutely infamous for female characters that are disproportionately sexualized compared to the male characters.
And when you think about it, if there really is a boom in female consumers for the "hardcore" gaming market, do you really think the end result will be a decrease in fanservice for men? Personally, I think we'd see the exact opposite, with a very sharp increase in fanservice for women.
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?
On October 18 2014 10:30 Dunnobro wrote: We need to come together as a gaming community and prove that we are not the stereotype that society wants to put on us.
They believe we should just abandon the term "Gamer" but any objective review of that suggestion might find this is just a veil to deconstruct the sense of community, and power of a consumer group they fear. It's a well-known fact if people feel isolated, they feel weak. I doubt if people didn't en masse consider themselves "Gamers" they'd feel safe speaking out or each other as they are here.
It could just be an ignorant, harmless suggestion but they've expressed clear anti-consumerism so removing the identity of their consumers, and thus their power to resist them would be in their financial best interest.
Also, don't see anyone denying sexism in gaming. I really don't, and if some are I doubt they're going far with that assumption. Remember though, sexism is not an absolute evil. (Portraying a character that's a gentle, caring stay-at-home mom would be sexist. I'd rather review things as Problematic = bad. Not sexist = problematic = bad. )
And generally if they are actually problematic, the free market notices and it fixes itself.
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.
Sexism should be done away with and I totally would like for lots of unnecessary sexist stuff to be removed from a medium which I love.
I dont get the points that market should be geared at the largest demographic, or that since no girls play games it's okay to cater to male fantasy trips. Why do we need girls to be present to clear up sexism? Shouldn't we clean up the house since sexism is generally bad whether or not girls are here?
And also so what if movies or the rest other world has sexism issues too. As gamers we can look at the one area we can make better.
"discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially, such discrimination directed against women. "
This one is pretty much an absolute evil. However that's actually the second definition, not primary.
"attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles."
What if someone was just naturally rather traditional? Should they be "done away with"? should they be forced to change because of some arbitrary decision that decided all aspects of sexism are evil? I don't think so. Why can't we more objectively review things instead of needing everything to be black/white?
On October 18 2014 11:28 levelping wrote: Sexism should be done away with and I totally would like for lots of unnecessary sexist stuff to be removed from a medium which I love.
I dont get the points that market should be geared at the largest demographic, or that since no girls play games it's okay to cater to male fantasy trips. Why do we need girls to be present to clear up sexism? Shouldn't we clean up the house since sexism is generally bad whether or not girls are here?
And also so what if movies or the rest other world has sexism issues too. As gamers we can look at the one area we can make better.
How are game developers going to make money if they don't aim for the largest demographic? They sell the product that their consumers want. Supply and demand. That's not sexist - that's just life.
If/when girl gamers become more "hardcore" on average and that demographic expands, the design of games will shift to accommodate them better. Though I doubt we'll see less sexy/vulnerable women in games - we'll just see more powerful female characters to balance out the powerful male characters.
And actually, if you look back at the last ten years of gaming, I think you can clearly see a trend of that very thing happening. Eventually, we'll get there - but it just hasn't happened yet. People are just overreacting.
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.
Okay I think I get your point better, and actually I could totally get behind that. Should there be games with goofy sexual objectification of both sexes? Yeah of course. I actually find the Metal Gear Solid series to be awesome because it makes both males and females sexual objects, and is completely self aware of the kooky 80s porno vibe it sometimes gives off. As adults, we should be able to take our entertainment in the right context, and so long as we take it in that context and not a statement of sexual norms, then sure.
But let's look at gaming generally, and it becomes pretty obvious that games like MGS are pretty rare. More often than not, it is only the female who is presented as a sexual object, and as very real ones.
And when you think about it, if there really is a boom in female consumers for the "hardcore" gaming market, do you really think the end result will be a decrease in fanservice for men? Personally, I think we'd see the exact opposite, with a very sharp increase in fanservice for women.
I think you see a sharp increase in fan service to women, which will fail, because most women hate being pandered to. That's really not what women gamers want either. And then some developer that actually knows what they're doing will make the equivalent of The Dark Knight Rises, which will appeal to everyone, and has female characters — both good, bad and gasp! sexy — with some actual personality. This game will win awards and a bazillion dollars, and everyone will be wondering what the fuss was about.
You know what would really help balance this debate and quell people's nervers? If Anita Sarkeesian reviewed or recommended games that she liked, that she felt were not sexist or pandering. I think that's a very fair criticism of her work — it's entirely based around things she doesn't like. It makes her seem very joyless and academic. Not only that, contrasting positive and negative depictions of women in game would help her illustrate her point.
Can you guys make suggestions of games she should play with strong or compelling representations of women? Metroid comes to mind. HOTS has a pretty badass female lead.
It appears that you are not familiar with how Twitters works or having trouble with deduction.
Tweeter updates the time after tweet dynamically afterward. So it will continually updates the time such as "Posted 5 minutes ago", "now 6 mintues.." and so fourth.
Screen capping something merely after 12s after the last tweet means that the screen capper was anticipating the tweet to take place especially when the tweeter are not followed or following anyone.
If you attempt to search for a particular tweet or person, it will show up in the search bar.
So who in the right mind would have found these tweets w/o using the search bar? You have to know the person's twitter ID preemptively such as entering https://twitter.com/InsertNameHere in order to pay attention to it.
I'll give you that account was solely created for this doesn't exactly prove anything but the rest of your debunkings are rubbish, so the blue conclusions still stands very firmly.
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.
To xDaunt:
As of now, she didn't fulfill her end of the bargain in Kickstarter:
On the topic of sony and female representation in games, sony just announced a ridiculous sale with female protagonists. Really freaking good games like project diva, skull girls and portal for like <$5
I'd love more games like those, there are female gamers and I don't think ignoring them is the answer. Men do have a lot and females are rather hungry, if you can make a good female game for them it can do well I would think due to the demand vacuum. Do note though, attacking developers for catering to men is wrong. It solves nothing. It tells them what not to do and provides no solution, just hurts people.
Though really it seems like developers try to cater to both a lot these days and people just point out when they do it to men.
On October 18 2014 11:28 levelping wrote: Sexism should be done away with and I totally would like for lots of unnecessary sexist stuff to be removed from a medium which I love.
I dont get the points that market should be geared at the largest demographic, or that since no girls play games it's okay to cater to male fantasy trips. Why do we need girls to be present to clear up sexism? Shouldn't we clean up the house since sexism is generally bad whether or not girls are here?
And also so what if movies or the rest other world has sexism issues too. As gamers we can look at the one area we can make better.
How do you propose not gearing any industry towards the largest demographic?
Young males buy the most videogames, ergo there is the most incentive for developers to design games with their preferences in mind.
And I'm not saying I'm happy with the current target demographic for videogames. I love serious, realistic, difficult games, and those are simply few and far between now. Call of Duty sold so well because it targeted the biggest demographic, which is people with short attention spans. I don't like the series, but I don't hold it against them or try to change it. I accept that I am not the target demographic.
On October 18 2014 11:28 levelping wrote: Sexism should be done away with and I totally would like for lots of unnecessary sexist stuff to be removed from a medium which I love.
I dont get the points that market should be geared at the largest demographic, or that since no girls play games it's okay to cater to male fantasy trips. Why do we need girls to be present to clear up sexism? Shouldn't we clean up the house since sexism is generally bad whether or not girls are here?
And also so what if movies or the rest other world has sexism issues too. As gamers we can look at the one area we can make better.
How are game developers going to make money if they don't aim for the largest demographic? They sell the product that their consumers want. Supply and demand. That's not sexist - that's just life.
If/when girl gamers become more "hardcore" on average and that demographic expands, the design of games will shift to accommodate them better. Though I doubt we'll see less sexy/vulnerable women in games - we'll just see more powerful female characters to balance out the powerful male characters.
And actually, if you look back at the last ten years of gaming, I think you can clearly see a trend of that very thing happening. Eventually, we'll get there - but it just hasn't happened yet. People are just overreacting.
Sorry but supply and demand is an incredibly lazy argument. It is just a descriptive explanation of what is happening, whereas the conversation which being had on the Internet is how games should be - a normative issue and not a descriptive one. Just because market forces have produced the current demographic does not mean it is desireable socially. Just think about it - if we had a situation where the largets demographic of movie goers were from a particular religion, or race, and so the big movie studies continue to cast other races or religions as caricatures, how would this be in any way palatable just because of supply and demand?
In any event, the entire point of the discussion which is happening now is to make people more aware to how women are presented in gaming, so that demand for scantily clad damsels goes down.
Supply and demand is not lazy. You can't present the argument that the market PRODUCED the demographic with no proof. There are many studies specifically on gaming which prove women aren't as interested in games. And then biological studies which support theories as to why. (male brains are more competitive, single-minded, etc)
The market was always this way, looooong before we could even really sexualize games. Your egg-chicken theory also ignores that there is an entire industry dedicated to investigating demographics and not to target to them. Guess how they determine the best way to target women? Phone games.
Race and religion have no such studies or wild differences in biology between them.
On October 18 2014 11:28 levelping wrote: Sexism should be done away with and I totally would like for lots of unnecessary sexist stuff to be removed from a medium which I love.
I dont get the points that market should be geared at the largest demographic, or that since no girls play games it's okay to cater to male fantasy trips. Why do we need girls to be present to clear up sexism? Shouldn't we clean up the house since sexism is generally bad whether or not girls are here?
And also so what if movies or the rest other world has sexism issues too. As gamers we can look at the one area we can make better.
How do you propose not gearing any industry towards the largest demographic?
Young males buy the most videogames, ergo there is the most incentive for developers to design games with their preferences in mind.
And I'm not saying I'm happy with the current target demographic for videogames. I love serious, realistic, difficult games, and those are simply few and far between now. Call of Duty sold so well because it targeted the biggest demographic, which is people with short attention spans. I don't like the series, but I don't hold it against them or try to change it. I accept that I am not the target demographic.
I think the point of the discussion now is to make young males a little more aware of how women and portrayed in games, and hopefully change the views of the largest demographic. Or alternatively, to convince big studios to take a risk and stop pandering to its existing audience, but instead try and expand the market by being more inclusive.
On October 18 2014 11:28 levelping wrote: Sexism should be done away with and I totally would like for lots of unnecessary sexist stuff to be removed from a medium which I love.
I dont get the points that market should be geared at the largest demographic, or that since no girls play games it's okay to cater to male fantasy trips. Why do we need girls to be present to clear up sexism? Shouldn't we clean up the house since sexism is generally bad whether or not girls are here?
And also so what if movies or the rest other world has sexism issues too. As gamers we can look at the one area we can make better.
How do you propose not gearing any industry towards the largest demographic?
Young males buy the most videogames, ergo there is the most incentive for developers to design games with their preferences in mind.
And I'm not saying I'm happy with the current target demographic for videogames. I love serious, realistic, difficult games, and those are simply few and far between now. Call of Duty sold so well because it targeted the biggest demographic, which is people with short attention spans. I don't like the series, but I don't hold it against them or try to change it. I accept that I am not the target demographic.
Or alternatively, to convince big studios to take a risk and stop pandering to its existing audience, but instead try and expand the market by being more inclusive.
You seem to be under the impression they don't already do this. You're focusing on when they DON'T do this instead of when they do.
See the list of ps3 games on sale for a good example of great games which do this.
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.
And when you think about it, if there really is a boom in female consumers for the "hardcore" gaming market, do you really think the end result will be a decrease in fanservice for men? Personally, I think we'd see the exact opposite, with a very sharp increase in fanservice for women.
I think you see a sharp increase in fan service to women, which will fail, because most women hate being pandered to. That's really not what women gamers want either. And then some developer that actually knows what they're doing will make the equivalent of The Dark Knight Rises, which will appeal to everyone, and has female characters — both good, bad and gasp! sexy — with some actual personality. This game will win awards and a bazillion dollars, and everyone will be wondering what the fuss was about.
The same can be said for all forms of fan service, though. A game is a game, and it still needs to be good. Fan service alone doesn't sell copies. But you can you really say that the appearance of males in series like Final Fantasy don't help to push the female fandom?
Saying that women don't want to be pandered to is basically ignoring entire sections of the internet devoted to slash fanfics and yaoi porn.
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 want or insulting them for it, they investigate overlap in what men and women want
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.
On October 18 2014 11:47 Dunnobro wrote: Supply and demand is not lazy. You can't present the argument that the market PRODUCED the demographic with no proof. There are many studies specifically on gaming which prove women aren't as interested in games. And then biological studies which support theories as to why. (male brains are more competitive, single-minded, etc)
The market was always this way, looooong before we could even really sexualize games. Your egg-chicken theory also ignores that there is an entire industry dedicated to investigating demographics and not to target to them. Guess how they determine the best way to target women? Phone games.
Race and religion have no such studies or wild differences in biology between them.
I never said that the market produced the demographic, so I'm not sure where you got that from. The market just reflects what is the existing purchasing preference in society at a given time. So it's just descriptive since it just well, describes what is happening. It does not offer reasons, nor is it really interested in reasons. That's why it is a lazy argument, it essentially boils down to "well things are this way, it is very difficult to change them, so why bother".
Like let's take everything you say as being true. The question remains - why should we keep portraying women in the way they are being portrayed in gaming now?
The analogy to racism is to show how the argument falls apart. If the market favours the production of racist material, then it just shows that people like to see racist movies. It does not address the more important question of whether racism is a desireable thing to have in our societ.
Edit: and yes, the industry is changing to have less sexual objectification of women, and that's great. But just because some improvement has been made does not mean this conversation becomes redundant. I thought the newest tomb raider was pretty awesome, and it was a nice example of having a strong, motivated woman as the main character who was also attractive to men. And from tomb raider too! The character that used to be one of the worst examples of "guns and boobs".
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) ?
On October 18 2014 11:47 Dunnobro wrote: Supply and demand is not lazy. You can't present the argument that the market PRODUCED the demographic with no proof. There are many studies specifically on gaming which prove women aren't as interested in games. And then biological studies which support theories as to why. (male brains are more competitive, single-minded, etc)
The market was always this way, looooong before we could even really sexualize games. Your egg-chicken theory also ignores that there is an entire industry dedicated to investigating demographics and not to target to them. Guess how they determine the best way to target women? Phone games.
Race and religion have no such studies or wild differences in biology between them.
I never said that the market produced the demographic, so I'm not sure where you got that from. The market just reflects what is the existing purchasing preference in society at a given time. So it's just descriptive since it just well, describes what is happening. It does not offer reasons, nor is it really interested in reasons. That's why it is a lazy argument, it essentially boils down to "well things are this way, it is very difficult to change them, so why bother".
Like let's take everything you say as being true. The question remains - why should we keep portraying women in the way they are being portrayed in gaming now?
The analogy to racism is to show how the argument falls apart. If the market favours the production of racist material, then it just shows that people like to see racist movies. It does not address the more important question of whether racism is a desireable thing to have in our societ.
...People do like seeing racist movies though lol. White girls, Borat, White castle, etc.
So does that mean problematic views in media might actually not effect or reflect problems in our society?
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) ?
Yes, this is referred to as "disposable male" trope.
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.
On October 18 2014 11:28 levelping wrote: Sexism should be done away with and I totally would like for lots of unnecessary sexist stuff to be removed from a medium which I love.
I dont get the points that market should be geared at the largest demographic, or that since no girls play games it's okay to cater to male fantasy trips. Why do we need girls to be present to clear up sexism? Shouldn't we clean up the house since sexism is generally bad whether or not girls are here?
And also so what if movies or the rest other world has sexism issues too. As gamers we can look at the one area we can make better.
How do you propose not gearing any industry towards the largest demographic?
Young males buy the most videogames, ergo there is the most incentive for developers to design games with their preferences in mind.
And I'm not saying I'm happy with the current target demographic for videogames. I love serious, realistic, difficult games, and those are simply few and far between now. Call of Duty sold so well because it targeted the biggest demographic, which is people with short attention spans. I don't like the series, but I don't hold it against them or try to change it. I accept that I am not the target demographic.
I think the point of the discussion now is to make young males a little more aware of how women and portrayed in games, and hopefully change the views of the largest demographic. Or alternatively, to convince big studios to take a risk and stop pandering to its existing audience, but instead try and expand the market by being more inclusive.
I don't want to expand the market. The last time the market expanded, i.e. with Call of Duty, every dev out there tried to cater to the CoD audience, and many franchises I loved got dumbed down to fall in with the low attention span style of play CoD players want. I miss when all games were hard.
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.
This brings up another big problem. I can't imagine what gameplay a game targeted at female demographics would have. I can't imagine it being much more than a visual novel, which isn't much more than a book. It'd be ridiculous to call the VN version of Twilight a videogame. There'd be no actual gameplay in it whatsoever.
On October 18 2014 11:47 Dunnobro wrote: Supply and demand is not lazy. You can't present the argument that the market PRODUCED the demographic with no proof. There are many studies specifically on gaming which prove women aren't as interested in games. And then biological studies which support theories as to why. (male brains are more competitive, single-minded, etc)
The market was always this way, looooong before we could even really sexualize games. Your egg-chicken theory also ignores that there is an entire industry dedicated to investigating demographics and not to target to them. Guess how they determine the best way to target women? Phone games.
Race and religion have no such studies or wild differences in biology between them.
I never said that the market produced the demographic, so I'm not sure where you got that from. The market just reflects what is the existing purchasing preference in society at a given time. So it's just descriptive since it just well, describes what is happening. It does not offer reasons, nor is it really interested in reasons. That's why it is a lazy argument, it essentially boils down to "well things are this way, it is very difficult to change them, so why bother".
Like let's take everything you say as being true. The question remains - why should we keep portraying women in the way they are being portrayed in gaming now?
The analogy to racism is to show how the argument falls apart. If the market favours the production of racist material, then it just shows that people like to see racist movies. It does not address the more important question of whether racism is a desireable thing to have in our societ.
...People do like seeing racist movies though lol. White girls, Borat, White castle, etc.
So does that mean problematic views in media might actually not effect or reflect problems in our society?
Well there's racism and then there's racist movies. Like for example we can both agree that there's a big difference between White Girls and The Triumph of the Will. Racist movies like white castle etc are actually great because it shows a maturity of the medium to deal with issues of race in an irreverent way. And it's also fairly clear that the way race is being handled in those movies are in the context of a comedy, and so that's a space for people to just laugh at how silly race can be.
I mentioned Metal Gear Solid a few posts back as being the gaming equivalent of this in terms of gender roles, since it objectifies both genders, is fully aware of what it is doing, and does not take itself seriously. MGS is great and my quarrel is not with MGS. It is to games where women serve no other purpose than to show some skin, and this isn't being presend in a funny or ironic way.
On October 18 2014 11:47 Dunnobro wrote: Supply and demand is not lazy. You can't present the argument that the market PRODUCED the demographic with no proof. There are many studies specifically on gaming which prove women aren't as interested in games. And then biological studies which support theories as to why. (male brains are more competitive, single-minded, etc)
The market was always this way, looooong before we could even really sexualize games. Your egg-chicken theory also ignores that there is an entire industry dedicated to investigating demographics and not to target to them. Guess how they determine the best way to target women? Phone games.
Race and religion have no such studies or wild differences in biology between them.
I never said that the market produced the demographic, so I'm not sure where you got that from. The market just reflects what is the existing purchasing preference in society at a given time. So it's just descriptive since it just well, describes what is happening. It does not offer reasons, nor is it really interested in reasons. That's why it is a lazy argument, it essentially boils down to "well things are this way, it is very difficult to change them, so why bother".
Like let's take everything you say as being true. The question remains - why should we keep portraying women in the way they are being portrayed in gaming now?
The analogy to racism is to show how the argument falls apart. If the market favours the production of racist material, then it just shows that people like to see racist movies. It does not address the more important question of whether racism is a desireable thing to have in our societ.
...People do like seeing racist movies though lol. White girls, Borat, White castle, etc.
So does that mean problematic views in media might actually not effect or reflect problems in our society?
Well there's racism and then there's racist movies. Like for example we can both agree that there's a big difference between White Girls and The Triumph of the Will. Racist movies like white castle etc are actually great because it shows a maturity of the medium to deal with issues of race in an irreverent way. And it's also fairly clear that the way race is being handled in those movies are in the context of a comedy, and so that's a space for people to just laugh at how silly race can be.
I mentioned Metal Gear Solid a few posts back as being the gaming equivalent of this in terms of gender roles, since it objectifies both genders, is fully aware of what it is doing, and does not take itself seriously. MGS is great and my quarrel is not with MGS. It is to games where women serve no other purpose than to show some skin, and this isn't being presend in a funny or ironic way.
They're still racist though. The point I'm trying to make is that yea, the way those movies are racist isn't bad. But then shouldn't there be ways to be sexist that isn't bad?
Edit: OH you totally explained that. Yea, but personally i think pointless character additions are bad regardless of sexism. Which is why i feel we should be more focused on pointing out poor decisions than sexist decisions. If they're sexist too, yea cool. But let's not make it about that.
This leads to people going into why a character is being objectified, and leaves it at that. Objectification is synonymous with bad, and for the most part it is as far as culture goes. But sometimes the character itself isn't really objectified and if they had to objectively explain why the character was bad they couldn't do this.
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.
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.
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.
Aren't most JRPG males rather Bishie? Or is this more pronounced?
On October 18 2014 11:47 Dunnobro wrote: Supply and demand is not lazy. You can't present the argument that the market PRODUCED the demographic with no proof. There are many studies specifically on gaming which prove women aren't as interested in games. And then biological studies which support theories as to why. (male brains are more competitive, single-minded, etc)
The market was always this way, looooong before we could even really sexualize games. Your egg-chicken theory also ignores that there is an entire industry dedicated to investigating demographics and not to target to them. Guess how they determine the best way to target women? Phone games.
Race and religion have no such studies or wild differences in biology between them.
I never said that the market produced the demographic, so I'm not sure where you got that from. The market just reflects what is the existing purchasing preference in society at a given time. So it's just descriptive since it just well, describes what is happening. It does not offer reasons, nor is it really interested in reasons. That's why it is a lazy argument, it essentially boils down to "well things are this way, it is very difficult to change them, so why bother".
Like let's take everything you say as being true. The question remains - why should we keep portraying women in the way they are being portrayed in gaming now?
The analogy to racism is to show how the argument falls apart. If the market favours the production of racist material, then it just shows that people like to see racist movies. It does not address the more important question of whether racism is a desireable thing to have in our societ.
...People do like seeing racist movies though lol. White girls, Borat, White castle, etc.
So does that mean problematic views in media might actually not effect or reflect problems in our society?
Well there's racism and then there's racist movies. Like for example we can both agree that there's a big difference between White Girls and The Triumph of the Will. Racist movies like white castle etc are actually great because it shows a maturity of the medium to deal with issues of race in an irreverent way. And it's also fairly clear that the way race is being handled in those movies are in the context of a comedy, and so that's a space for people to just laugh at how silly race can be.
I mentioned Metal Gear Solid a few posts back as being the gaming equivalent of this in terms of gender roles, since it objectifies both genders, is fully aware of what it is doing, and does not take itself seriously. MGS is great and my quarrel is not with MGS. It is to games where women serve no other purpose than to show some skin, and this isn't being presend in a funny or ironic way.
They're still racist though. The point I'm trying to make is that yea, the way those movies are racist isn't bad. But then shouldn't there be ways to be sexist that isn't bad?
I don't think that you can call them racist since they make fun of the idea of being racist in the first place. Sure they feature racism as an issue or a theme, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the movie racist.
I don't want to get caught up in a definitional argument though - I think it is common ground between us that there are ways of presenting sexist issues which are not sexist, and there are ways which are sexist. And really I'm pointing to the second area as what we should change.
As for your second point, I 've already mentioned MGS (twice) as a good way of how a game has made light of sexist tropes in the industry, and how I have no problems with that.
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?
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.
Games like mirror's edge and switch force only have male enemies/unimportants though. I'm sure there are others too.
Bully 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.
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.
Aren't most JRPG males rather Bishie? Or is this more pronounced?
Not really. Just look at Wakka, Balthier, Snow or Sazh in the last few Final Fantasies.
Then again, I might have been exaggerating a bit, but I just remembered it being fairly notable in the trailer.
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?
Hard to say, really.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's more of a difference in aesthetic appeal. Asian culture seems to promote the "pretty-boy" look a lot more than Western culture.
Western culture is a lot bigger on the "ruggedly handsome" appearance.
With that said, Western media probably pushes the ruggedly handsome male protagonists as much as Eastern media pushes the Bishie males. Maybe it's just the cross-examination of culture preferences that makes it seem more obvious.
Though I am in no way a GGer, I totally don't mind that Mercedez pulled out of Gawker. That guy was stupidly over the line, and the Gawker network was never exactly a good standard for quality content.
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.
On October 18 2014 12:21 Dunnobro wrote: Oh wow mercedes pulled advertising from all gawker sites: https://i.imgur.com/gLoJFYw.png
Bully 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.
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".
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.
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]
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.
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.
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)
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 13:01 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 13:01 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
On October 18 2014 15:23 plogamer wrote: 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.
But GG only seems to care if it can tie it to "SJWs" or feminists influencing the press. When you have documented, well-demonstrated cases of large companies influencing gaming websites or content providers, like the Shadows of Mordor thing, #GG is ignoring it because the narrative is inherently, inseparably tied the existence of Anita and Quinn. Even active pro-GG writers like Erik Kain have raised this issue, but the masses of GG supporters have completely ignored it because they don't care.
You can't call a whole movement about "corruption in gaming journalism" if you only care about very specific instances of it and gloss over the decades-old rotting stench of old Doritos and dried up Mountain Dew that everyone knows is there, but is harder to attack than someone who got on Youtube and said your favorite game was sexist.
On October 18 2014 15:23 plogamer wrote: 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.
But GG only seems to care if it can tie it to "SJWs" or feminists influencing the press. When you have documented, well-demonstrated cases of large companies influencing gaming websites or content providers, like the Shadows of Mordor thing, #GG is ignoring it because the narrative is inherently, inseparably tied the existence of Anita and Quinn. Even active pro-GG writers like Erik Kain have raised this issue, but the masses of GG supporters have completely ignored it because they don't care.
You can't call a whole movement about "corruption in gaming journalism" if you only care about very specific instances of it and gloss over the decades-old rotting stench of old Doritos and dried up Mountain Dew that everyone knows is there, but is harder to attack than someone who got on Youtube and said your favorite game was sexist.
GG isn't ignoring it. TotalBiscuit was the first one to talk about the Shadows of Mordor thing, and while he was neutral-leaning-pro-GG at the time he's on board now. GG also talked a lot about EA being outed for covering up 40,000 users being hacked.
On October 18 2014 15:23 plogamer wrote: 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.
But GG only seems to care if it can tie it to "SJWs" or feminists influencing the press. When you have documented, well-demonstrated cases of large companies influencing gaming websites or content providers, like the Shadows of Mordor thing, #GG is ignoring it because the narrative is inherently, inseparably tied the existence of Anita and Quinn. Even active pro-GG writers like Erik Kain have raised this issue, but the masses of GG supporters have completely ignored it because they don't care.
You can't call a whole movement about "corruption in gaming journalism" if you only care about very specific instances of it and gloss over the decades-old rotting stench of old Doritos and dried up Mountain Dew that everyone knows is there, but is harder to attack than someone who got on Youtube and said your favorite game was sexist.
Maybe you should look into "gamergate" a bit more before making assumptions like these. They are simply not true. It might be what is being portrayed all over the place but that doesn't make it, you know, true.
On October 18 2014 15:23 plogamer wrote: 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.
But GG only seems to care if it can tie it to "SJWs" or feminists influencing the press. When you have documented, well-demonstrated cases of large companies influencing gaming websites or content providers, like the Shadows of Mordor thing, #GG is ignoring it because the narrative is inherently, inseparably tied the existence of Anita and Quinn. Even active pro-GG writers like Erik Kain have raised this issue, but the masses of GG supporters have completely ignored it because they don't care.
You can't call a whole movement about "corruption in gaming journalism" if you only care about very specific instances of it and gloss over the decades-old rotting stench of old Doritos and dried up Mountain Dew that everyone knows is there, but is harder to attack than someone who got on Youtube and said your favorite game was sexist.
Maybe you should look into "gamergate" a bit more before making assumptions like these. They are simply not true. It might be what is being portrayed all over the place but that doesn't make it, you know, true.
Would it be fair to say that Gamergate movement needs to take care to direct it's messaging, and how it's message is being handled and perceived?
Might be a bit tin-foil to suggest this, but distracting from the core issues is of the biggest benefit for those who wish to keep the public's eye averted from the sausage-factory that is video-game journalism.
Shirokaisen brings up a very valid notion that Gamergate movement loses some of it's steam when it gets tangled in age-old, hot-button issue (especially for the interwebs) like feminism. See any discussion on feminism online. It's always a quagmire.
If there is a perception being propagated that Gamergate is complaining about feminism in video-game journalism, there needs to be a serious PR effort to correct it.
I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Agreed Shiro. It's petty as fuck and does smack of disproportionate response, a 'how dare she raise her head above the parapet'
Funnily enough pretty identical to how feminism has become a tradition associated in the minds of many with it's very worst and most unreasonable adherents.
On October 18 2014 15:23 plogamer wrote: 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.
I would even hesitate to call it journalism in the first games. Most of those people are just gamers who got lucky and get to write for a website. Calling them journalists is an insult to the profession.
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
As an addendum, all those guys listed have all taken risks on their part. Perhaps the computer field will just be flash in the bang and/or they will be wasting their time on an short-lived industry. But today, the gaming market is well established already with many examples of a female lead that succeed.
So those women calling sexism in the games should be more productive. With the amount of time they are complaining about it, they could have made couple of games already. Instead they need to get some coding done.
On October 18 2014 19:17 Wombat_NI wrote: Agreed Shiro. It's petty as fuck and does smack of disproportionate response, a 'how dare she raise her head above the parapet'
Funnily enough pretty identical to how feminism has become a tradition associated in the minds of many with it's very worst and most unreasonable adherents.
You could say the same about both sides.
It's unnacceptable from both sides, but there are as always, rotten apples.
On October 18 2014 12:21 Dunnobro wrote: Oh wow mercedes pulled advertising from all gawker sites: https://i.imgur.com/gLoJFYw.png
Bully 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.
He was asked about it personally on twitter and continued. It was brought to the attention of his superiors who then glorified the fact and belittled those concerned. There were other Gawker employees making similar comments.
This was not knee-jerk at all. They were given ample time to explain it was a joke yet they continued adding fuel to the fire.
On October 18 2014 12:21 Dunnobro wrote: Oh wow mercedes pulled advertising from all gawker sites: https://i.imgur.com/gLoJFYw.png
Bully 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.
He was asked about it personally on twitter and continued. It was brought to the attention of his superiors who then glorified the fact and belittled those concerned.
This was not knee-jerk at all. They were given ample time to explain it was a joke yet they continued adding fuel to the fire.
Yeah Gawker Media and its affiliate (Kotaku, Jezebel, etc.) have always been the kind of organization that dish out smear pieces to downplay other dissension but when it comes to them, they find themselves unable to take the heat.
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
As an addendum, all those guys listed have all taken risks on their part. Perhaps the computer field will just be flash in the bang and/or they will be wasting their time on an short-lived industry. But today, the gaming market is well established already with many examples of a female lead that succeed.
So those women calling sexism in the games should be more productive. With the amount of time they are complaining about it, they could have made couple of games already. Instead they need to get some coding done.
So why aren't you making the games you are so afraid these people will stop being made? A customer have a right to complain if they're unhappy with the product being offered as is, and is in their right to attempt to change it into something they rather desire, without having to become part of the industry that offers it. This should be obvious to you as part of the gamer community, since noone is ever happy with how companies develop their games.
I think you're making an assertion that there's no segment of the market that enjoys material that others will decry as sexist.
It's not really my thing, it's probably not the MAIN reason for purchasing certain games for the vast majority of consumers, but it's probably an added benefit to some.
On October 18 2014 23:36 Wombat_NI wrote: I think you're making an assertion that there's no segment of the market that enjoys material that others will decry as sexist.
It's not really my thing, it's probably not the MAIN reason for purchasing certain games for the vast majority of consumers, but it's probably an added benefit to some.
Enjoys, sure. Essential to gameplay experience? No, not unless it's a purely erotic game.
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
As an addendum, all those guys listed have all taken risks on their part. Perhaps the computer field will just be flash in the bang and/or they will be wasting their time on an short-lived industry. But today, the gaming market is well established already with many examples of a female lead that succeed.
So those women calling sexism in the games should be more productive. With the amount of time they are complaining about it, they could have made couple of games already. Instead they need to get some coding done.
So why aren't you making the games you are so afraid these people will stop being made? A customer have a right to complain if they're unhappy with the product being offered as is, and is in their right to attempt to change it into something they rather desire, without having to become part of the industry that offers it. This should be obvious to you as part of the gamer community, since noone is ever happy with how companies develop their games.
Two things:
1. It does boil down to supply and demand. These women are complaining about not having "enough" strong female lead. If that was true, then that means the current market's climate/demand dictated that way. You think that those game devs are stupid. No, they are smart, if they feel that there will be more money to be made for a certain type of game, of course they will produce more of it.
Again that's assuming that there ARE really unequal sexism in video games as Anita puts it.
2. Based upon number 1, I'm not afraid of them stopping making those "type of games" (which by the way you should elaborate). If the market is there, then absolutely no reason for them to not produce them.
And for your information, that's what exactly I am doing. I major in computer science and in my free time, I make games that I WANT to play. Not necessarily to sell. Because if I learned that bitching is counter-productive and know that you have to put in the work to actually get what you want instead of being lazy about it.
I believe there's too much focus on "stop doing this" and not enough focus on finding out what to do instead. People are not only assuming what women don't want, or like, but they're not even catering to them or fixing the issue. They're just hurting the ability to cater to men.
And the fact is, women aren't really complaining en masse about sexism in video games. Not the ones who actually play games and would buy them if you actually "fixed" the issue anyway. That's why i think what TFYC was doing is so important, proper content creation and not content critique.
If we ended sexism/objectification in gaming RIGHT THIS SECOND, what's next? What really is next? Do you think women will magically start buying games? Do you think sex appeal couldn't have been used to appeal to them?
Focusing too much on what some want and others don't instead of the demand that's actually there is a silly way to go about developing a market.
Incidentally I'm for better, more relatable female and male characters across the board. The narrative side of things in the industry is still developing, indeed in the mainstream I don't see much improvement as a whole since I started gaming as a hobby.
On October 18 2014 23:48 Dunnobro wrote: I believe there's too much focus on "stop doing this" and not enough focus on finding out what to do instead. People are not only assuming what women don't want, or like, but they're not even catering to them or fixing the issue. They're just hurting the ability to cater to men.
And the fact is, women aren't really complaining en masse about sexism in video games. Not the ones who actually play games and would buy them if you actually "fixed" the issue anyway. That's why i think what TFYC was doing is so important, proper content creation and not content critique.
Ofc they aren't.
Only a small minority are complaining.
The rest don't care that much. And that's why the demand isn't there.
Here is the thing though, they are unwilling to actually code the games they want to play for some reason.
On October 18 2014 23:48 Dunnobro wrote: I believe there's too much focus on "stop doing this" and not enough focus on finding out what to do instead. People are not only assuming what women don't want, or like, but they're not even catering to them or fixing the issue. They're just hurting the ability to cater to men.
And the fact is, women aren't really complaining en masse about sexism in video games. Not the ones who actually play games and would buy them if you actually "fixed" the issue anyway. That's why i think what TFYC was doing is so important, proper content creation and not content critique.
Ofc they aren't.
Only a small minority are complaining.
The rest don't care that much. And that's why the demand isn't there.
I wouldn't say there isn't demand, just less. Certainly not so little it should go ignored. Really it wouldn't be much different than making a game a specific genre to aim it towards women. Women seem to like PC and MMO games most, though. I don't think they'll ever get into FPS and Action beatemups like guys do. Which is a bit of a catch22 as those are the most popular games generally and get the most flack.
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
But you see, this thread is in no means part of the "gamergate "movement"", it just shows the little piece people latch onto when discussing it. And any 3rd party discussing anything should be held accountable for it's actual knowledge on the subject, as to keep people from talking out their ass imo.
On October 18 2014 23:48 Dunnobro wrote: I believe there's too much focus on "stop doing this" and not enough focus on finding out what to do instead. People are not only assuming what women don't want, or like, but they're not even catering to them or fixing the issue. They're just hurting the ability to cater to men.
And the fact is, women aren't really complaining en masse about sexism in video games. Not the ones who actually play games and would buy them if you actually "fixed" the issue anyway. That's why i think what TFYC was doing is so important, proper content creation and not content critique.
Ofc they aren't.
Only a small minority are complaining.
The rest don't care that much. And that's why the demand isn't there.
I wouldn't say there isn't demand, just less. Certainly not so little it should go ignored. Really it wouldn't be much different than making a game a specific genre to aim it towards women. Women seem to like PC and MMO games most, though. I don't think they'll ever get into FPS and Action beatemups like guys do. Which is a bit of a catch22 as those are the most popular games generally and get the most flack.
Yeah, didn't mean to be absolute about it.
This still end up being a supply and demand problem.
It explains why there are less games that those minority of women are complaining about.
So the reason why there aren't as many of those video games that these minority of women are complaining about is purely based upon the forces of a competitive market.
Can't force the producers to make those type of games that want to play when in the end, the producers will get way less revenue.
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
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?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects which are often found in the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
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?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down.
You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
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?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:
On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:
On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:
On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:
On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote:
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: [quote]
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down.
You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam.
With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
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?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:
On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:
On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:
On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:
On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote:
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?
[quote]
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down.
You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam.
With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
2 Points here
1. You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint).
2. It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
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?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:
On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:
On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:
On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:
On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 14:20 ZeromuS wrote: [quote]
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down.
You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam.
With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
2 Points here
1. You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint).
No, I am not. You claimed she scammed people. I explained why she didn't. Period. You have no factual basis to claim she scammed people.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
"Other youtubers" have certainly not invalidated decades of research in social sciences, and gender studies in particular, on the representation of men and women in the media (including in video games - see the study I referenced earlier). Again, nitpicking about some of the individual examples selected by Sarkeesian certainly does not invalidate her broader points on sexist elements present in many video games. I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be when you say "it's about a matter of respect". There is nothing in Sarkeesian's discours which shows a lack of respect for men in general or for particular individuals. What she doesn't respect is sexism, and she's fighting to improve video games in general.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
She is very much assertive. She is trying to point out and explain certain problematic aspects of video games in order to induce a change at the systemic level. There is absolutely nothing cowardly or lazy about that, as I explained to you repeatedly.
Look, kwizach, I'll say this. If everything you are saying is true; that sexist tropes in gaming are long overboard, then change will happen, and it will have been a long time coming. With the enormous exposure gamergate has had on the industry, there isn't any reason change for the "better" wouldn't happen if it was meant to.
If, however, it doesn't happen at a reasonable pace, for whatever reason, then perhaps you should acknowledge that gamers just aren't as bothered about sexist tropes in gaming as you think they should be, at least in this point in time. You and others like you could continue to fight, and likely in the future, most sexist tropes will be abolished.
OR progress could happen in tangential directions, and sexism could cease to become an issue in gaming. For myself, I have faith in most of the gaming industry. I just hope people are open to the fact that whatever they perceive to be morally unjust could be something else in the eyes of another. Do not be so conceited to think that your own particular world-view is the right one, and that progress can only happen in one direction, or that your particular problem is of utmost priority.
Perhaps, even, gamers may feel that a lack of quality game journalism (not even ethics) is the main problem in gaming right now. Maybe. Gawker could be forced to change before sexist tropes are. Why not?
Out of all the media, if anything gaming being sexist is probably the least impactful on the lives of others.
Hyper-sexualised they may often be, but bear in mind that the characters depicted are made of polygons. In other entertainment industries the way you look actual impacts upon your ability to find employment within said industries, or in what capacity.
Gossip magazines and women's/men's interest magazines are worse by a large margin when it comes to pigeonholing genders and trashing the way people look.
This is not of course to say that gaming cannot do better by any means.
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
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?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:
On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:
On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:
On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:
On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote: [quote]
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down.
You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam.
With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
2 Points here
1. You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint).
No, I am not. You claimed she scammed people. I explained why she didn't. Period. You have no factual basis to claim she scammed people.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
"Other youtubers" have certainly not invalidated decades of research in social sciences, and gender studies in particular, on the representation of men and women in the media (including in video games - see the study I referenced earlier). Again, nitpicking about some of the individual examples selected by Sarkeesian certainly does not invalidate her broader points on sexist elements present in many video games. I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be when you say "it's about a matter of respect". There is nothing in Sarkeesian's discours which shows a lack of respect for men in general or for particular individuals. What she doesn't respect is sexism, and she's fighting to improve video games in general.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
She is very much assertive. She is trying to point out and explain certain problematic aspects of video games in order to induce a change at the systemic level. There is absolutely nothing cowardly or lazy about that, as I explained to you repeatedly.
3 Points
1. Scamming is cheating/lying to someone for monetary gains. That's what exactly she did, period. No questions about that.
Why is she leaving the fates of her belief on other developer's hands?
Why can't she enroll to classes to help her make games?
Why can't she learn the concept of classes, methods, loops, conditions, arrays, action listeners, GUI, which protocols to utilize when designing an online game, what kind of service to use, and how to utilize SQL to store data and information pertaining to the game?
Because making a 20 minutes slide show on the internet is that MUCH easier. She isn't willing to start like the rest of the developers out there by studying the mechanism of how computer works, get a regular job, then climb up the ladder.
If you ain't willing to be the change that you want to see, don't expect others to follow you.
Can someone explain to me the logic behind the idea that if games portray women as being attractive, then it necessarily means that their only useful role is as some kind of sex object? Just walking around Toronto I see many beautiful girls who are dressed in pretty tight clothes that makes them look better, but it doesn't follow as a logical consequence that I think their only value is in their looks. It is simply one dimension among many; unless the argument is that this dimension shouldn't exist at all which I feel is extreme.
Unless the women are being specifically portrayed and described as people who have no other useful role except to look good, I don't really see this criticism as making sense. I don't want to have to read a pages long article/study right now so a brief explanation would be useful
edit: Similarly overly muscularized men is fine. It doesn't affect me at all to see that, I think its attractive to have muscles and I like it too. But it doesn't somehow mean that a man's only value is in being a giant hulk!
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
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?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:
On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:
On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:
On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:
On October 18 2014 14:37 Xiphos wrote: [quote]
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.
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down.
You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam.
With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
2 Points here
1. You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint).
No, I am not. You claimed she scammed people. I explained why she didn't. Period. You have no factual basis to claim she scammed people.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
"Other youtubers" have certainly not invalidated decades of research in social sciences, and gender studies in particular, on the representation of men and women in the media (including in video games - see the study I referenced earlier). Again, nitpicking about some of the individual examples selected by Sarkeesian certainly does not invalidate her broader points on sexist elements present in many video games. I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be when you say "it's about a matter of respect". There is nothing in Sarkeesian's discours which shows a lack of respect for men in general or for particular individuals. What she doesn't respect is sexism, and she's fighting to improve video games in general.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
She is very much assertive. She is trying to point out and explain certain problematic aspects of video games in order to induce a change at the systemic level. There is absolutely nothing cowardly or lazy about that, as I explained to you repeatedly.
So why did she not remain locked up with her studies in some obscure college faculty and publish her studies to her own audience (people that self identify as what we would call "SJW")? She confessed not being interested in video gaming. Why the urge to fight for a change in the gaming scene then? Isn't this controversial, a lot?
No one gamer would care, nobody would send threats, if she published her ideology-fuelled works to her own audience and not made any effort to CHANGE game developers' minds. Instead they launched a bandwagon that wasn't asked for, and make a living off being a professional victim at the expense of other people's hobbies. And this victimisation is now a shield against any criticism aimed at that side of the industry. It can be used to fend off, literally any point that's raised against them.
I could certainly point out a lot of problems with gamers and video game development. Problems such as poor support, lack of innovation and annual titles, customer relations, DRM and a dozen others. Issues that actually concern the subject and not twist it with my own, personal political/religious/whatever creed that 99% of the other gamers don't identify with.
Really my biggest issue with Anita isn't because of scamming, how she plays up her victimization, or anything like that. It's just how she doesn't address the points made against her, and tries to push this "Listen and believe" narrative where her bullshit shouldn't be questioned. It's a very palpable anti-intellectualism and avoidance of objectivity that turns me away from her. Most people not already of her very radical beliefs will likely not be convinced by this method either, there's no compromise from her end.
And of course the utterly ridiculous things the guy who actually does her writing says on twitter. How he goes ignored makes me feel like he's just using Anita as a vagina-shield.
But again, she's not Gamergate. So let's try to find a new topic, hmm? I think some are overplaying how much we talk about her, but i share their sentiment we should stop as it's simply not constructive.
Apparently there's some talk from those in the advertising industry on this topic, how scolding an advertiser for dropping support like with what happened with Intel is very rare and considered a huge red flag to other advertisers, not just for Gamasutra but for others that supported them.
Could you please stop painting the entirety of women in gaming or people who support women in gaming as unwilling to "walk the walk".
The thing is some people who are debating this issue are outside of the gaming development community. Regardless of how you view Anita Sarkeesian from an ethical perspective regarding her kickstarter the following fact remains:
Many of her points are consistent within the discourse of feminism and while at times they border on hyperbole, you need to remember that the purpose of the production is critique. I mean she effectively sold her kickstarter on the premise that she will critique gaming from the perspective of a feminist discourse. Just because you choose to be critical and critique something doesn't mean you can't accept the antithesis of your position however at the same time, the critique needs to be front and foremost otherwise the entire production and its purpose becomes questionable.
At its core, there are problematic representations of women in gaming - this cannot be argued as false.
Are there also positive representations? Yes, but when the critique is examining the negative, then you focus on the negative because the purpose isn't to discredit the positive, rather to draw attention to the negative.
Now why isn't she going out learning to code etc? Well its not her place, its not her interest. Her intention is to inform people and help them understand so that when they make a decision and when they go out and code or buy a game, maybe the notion of negative female representation in gaming impacts the way they view things.
Every single person can not go out and code or make their game their way, for some people its about informing and helping to further the world without specifically doing the work directly. I mean the women's movement in the 20s for the vote didn't involve women writing the laws they wanted to see (they did get petitions and made their voices heard though!). And the overall improvement of equality for women over the last 70 years also wasn't just women going out and doing it it was a broadening of everyone's minds as a society over time alongside women trying to do what they could when they could. I mean we are seeing this now with more and more female developers coming up. Are all their games gonna be good? Nope. But not every game is good in general.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that i hope you understand that
1) women in gaming aren't lazy because they aren't doing and instead are discussing 2) that the people who support the women in gaming aren't lazy because they aren't doing 3) that the market alone is to blame (this discussion being had is effectively a way to influence the market by influencing the people who buy games) 4) regardless of the ethical concerns surrounding Sarkeesian, the core of her position isn't invalidated by her activities related to the ethics of fulfilling the backer rewards from Kickstarter
At its core, there are problematic representations of women in gaming - this cannot be argued as false.
It can actually, though it focuses on what denotes "problematic" rather than what's going on in gaming, and how there's lots of other potential "problematic" views if you use the same criteria to determine it's an issue for women alone. And that's entirely unrelated to #gamergate so I'm steering clear of that.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
On October 19 2014 03:14 ZeromuS wrote:At its core, there are problematic representations of women in gaming - this cannot be argued as false.
I don't see how it's even an arguable proposition. Define problematic. Your point rests on two presumptions: 1) that you're capable of defining what will and won't be problematic for other people, and 2) that representations of women in gaming translates to women somehow being abused or marginalized in the real world. Would you be as willing to tell girls on the street that the way they're representing themselves is "problematic?" Problematic for whom? And for the sake of whom?
Could you please stop painting the entirety of women in gaming or people who support women in gaming as unwilling to "walk the walk".
The thing is some people who are debating this issue are outside of the gaming development community. Regardless of how you view Anita Sarkeesian from an ethical perspective regarding her kickstarter the following fact remains:
Many of her points are consistent within the discourse of feminism and while at times they border on hyperbole, you need to remember that the purpose of the production is critique. I mean she effectively sold her kickstarter on the premise that she will critique gaming from the perspective of a feminist discourse. Just because you choose to be critical and critique something doesn't mean you can't accept the antithesis of your position however at the same time, the critique needs to be front and foremost otherwise the entire production and its purpose becomes questionable.
At its core, there are problematic representations of women in gaming - this cannot be argued as false.
Are there also positive representations? Yes, but when the critique is examining the negative, then you focus on the negative because the purpose isn't to discredit the positive, rather to draw attention to the negative.
Now why isn't she going out learning to code etc? Well its not her place, its not her interest. Her intention is to inform people and help them understand so that when they make a decision and when they go out and code or buy a game, maybe the notion of negative female representation in gaming impacts the way they view things.
Every single person can not go out and code or make their game their way, for some people its about informing and helping to further the world without specifically doing the work directly. I mean the women's movement in the 20s for the vote didn't involve women writing the laws they wanted to see (they did get petitions and made their voices heard though!). And the overall improvement of equality for women over the last 70 years also wasn't just women going out and doing it it was a broadening of everyone's minds as a society over time alongside women trying to do what they could when they could. I mean we are seeing this now with more and more female developers coming up. Are all their games gonna be good? Nope. But not every game is good in general.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that i hope you understand that
1) women in gaming aren't lazy because they aren't doing and instead are discussing 2) that the people who support the women in gaming aren't lazy because they aren't doing 3) that the market alone is to blame (this discussion being had is effectively a way to influence the market by influencing the people who buy games) 4) regardless of the ethical concerns surrounding Sarkeesian, the core of her position isn't invalidated by her activities related to the ethics of fulfilling the backer rewards from Kickstarter
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
Real talk Anita is neither connected to gamergate and is only a subject for gaming journalists. She isn't apart of the problem and certainly not worth the few but undeniable pages we've given her here.
I'm going to ignore all LW related posts unrelated to gamergate here from now on, I suggest if anyone actually cares they do the same.
Remember what Prof. Oak says, "There's a time and place for everything, but are you a girl or boy?"
Or something like that. Never actually played pokemon.
At its core, there are problematic representations of women in gaming - this cannot be argued as false.
It can actually, though it focuses on what denotes "problematic" rather than what's going on in gaming, and how there's lots of other potential "problematic" views if you use the same criteria to determine it's an issue for women alone. And that's entirely unrelated to #gamergate so I'm steering clear of that.
Well yes, of course, you can find analogues across the genders, but we need to remember that from the perspective of a critique, it needs to be focused. You can't argue every "negative" presentation of a human being in every game.
From the position of looking at the over sexualisation of women in gaming and their dis-empowerment then you can find that in spades. If your point is to examine that specifically then you can do that. Just because a men are presented as ultimate killing machines as a protagonist or meat shield fodder for enemies. The fact this exists doesn't invalidate the former as a critique.
Thats the one thing a lot of people seem to gloss over. This isn't a hard science, the opposite of one thing does not invalidate the other. They can both coexist. Strong female leads can coexist with weak females treated as objects. Both exist, and thats OK (from the perspective of having a discussion and discourse). But if I want to talk about how the latter is more common than the former I can do so, and its entirely valid.
And the definition of problematic is shaped by the position taken by the person claiming a problematic. Now you need to prove its problematic and if you make vast all encompassing claims that all women in gaming are being hurt by men and that all women are presented simply as objects could be disproved. But only when you make such wild claims that they apply as an absolute across every possible situation do you come into that kind of situation.
On October 19 2014 03:34 Dunnobro wrote: Real talk Anita is neither connected to gamergate and is only a subject for gaming journalists. She isn't apart of the problem and certainly not worth the few but undeniable pages we've given her here.
I'm going to ignore all LW related posts unrelated to gamergate here from now on, I suggest if anyone actually cares they do the same.
Remember what Prof. Oak says, "There's a time and place for everything, but are you a girl or boy?"
Or something like that. Never actually played pokemon.
This is true, I was trying to shut the door on it but might only be making things worse
If it derails the thread too much and others agree (PM me or post in here) we can limit the discussion to the issue of journalism in gaming.
However, that itself is difficult because the issue of gender is associated with the issue of journalistic integrity because of the history of the evolution of the debate surrounding it (beginning with the whole Zoe Quinn crap).
This is what confuses me so much about "gamergate" (hate the term btw).
How can anyone be against the notion of trying to apply journalistic integrity to the gaming press?
On October 19 2014 03:34 Dunnobro wrote: Real talk Anita is neither connected to gamergate and is only a subject for gaming journalists. She isn't apart of the problem and certainly not worth the few but undeniable pages we've given her here.
I'm going to ignore all LW related posts unrelated to gamergate here from now on, I suggest if anyone actually cares they do the same.
Remember what Prof. Oak says, "There's a time and place for everything, but are you a girl or boy?"
Or something like that. Never actually played pokemon.
Well, what she does is interesting to talk about at the very least, and off-topic derailing is kind of the norm for forum threads.
Although, she's relevant in that a lot of game writers seem to frequent her conferences and talks, for whatever reasons.
Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
As I have said before: her description of issues regarding the issues of the female gender and gaming should not be debated by discussing any perceived lack of ethics.
People bought in on her ideal that games are sexists (this is called brainwashing) even though it have been debunked numerous times by YouTubers.
If you would read the thread, you would definitely find the evidence not too far from here. Go to pg 19.
.
Do you understand what a metaphor or a simile is? Do you realize that people agreeing with one position or another doesn't constitute brainwashing? And that you're using the 'term' brainwashing as a metaphor in this instance?
I've been thinking about this and I realized it would be easier to just paint over sensitive information rather than copy/paste a blank header over the real header and align it correctly. That's why I think it was probably not doctored.
"screen cap taken 12s after last tweet"
So what? Did you know that if you take a screen cap 12s after something happens, time moves forward in a linear fashion? That means a five, ten, fifteen minutes or a WHOLE DAY can go by and the screen cap will still say 12s! HOLY SHIT! Is Anita a time lord?
If someone were a time lord, there would be no way to know, so it is possible that Anita Sarkeesian might hypothetically be a time lord, but I find this to be highly unlikely. I know this has also been pointed out, but twitter automatically updates the time stamps on posts. So if you do a screen cap 12 seconds after a tweet, the tweet will still update its time-stamp, but the actual screen capture image will only capture the activity on the screen at the time it was taken. This means that the person who took the screen capture made the tweet and immediately did a screen cap.
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
I certainly agree with you here, but shouldn't the same logic apply to the gaming world? Choose which companies and which products you want to associate with, and if you don't want to you don't need to? Shouldn't we apply the same judgement about questioning the ethics and marketing of gaming companies trying to sell a product?
If Sarkeesian's work is to be respected by invoking choice, why shouldn't that apply equally to the broader gaming world?
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
On October 19 2014 03:34 Dunnobro wrote: Or something like that. Never actually played pokemon.
A smasher that didn't play pokemon? Well now I've seen everything
They are raising awareness about a problem only they see in an industry they have no interest in. It's ridiculous that people pay any attention to what Sarkeesian and others like her say. They don't even play the genre's of videogames they complain about. It reminds me of Piers Morgan's many tirades against gun ownership in the US. He's a British citizen and lives in the UK, yet all he ever did when he still had his show on MSNBC was yell about how guns are evil. He had no interest in the US, and still believed his opinion on how the country should be run mattered.
On October 19 2014 03:51 Dunnobro wrote: People did post that video xiphos, I did and so did someone else lol This is why I feel like we're going in circles...
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
As I have said before: her description of issues regarding the issues of the female gender and gaming should not be debated by discussing any perceived lack of ethics.
Ethos, Pathos and Logos.
The 3 Triad of convincing others.
She used ethos to say that she is gaming expect = disproved.
She used logos to say that there are some patriarchal society being misogynistic = disproved with that video.
And most importantly, she rallied a whole bunch of people against the gaming industry. Its only natural to push back against that.
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
I certainly agree with you here, but shouldn't the same logic apply to the gaming world? Choose which companies and which products you want to associate with, and if you don't want to you don't need to? Shouldn't we apply the same judgement about questioning the ethics and marketing of gaming companies trying to sell a product?
If Sarkeesian's work is to be respected by invoking choice, why shouldn't that apply equally to the broader gaming world?
It totally can, but the conversation is about informing individuals to make that choice. I mean if you react to a critique of something with "if you don't like it then leave", well thats not very productive is it? The entire point of entering into debate and discussion is to learn about different viewpoints and trying to understand them so you can come to a conclusion for yourself while being respectful of the other side. If you do not want to take part in a discussion but rather hold your position steadfastly without considering the other you might as well not be discussing and its in that situation where I ask that you just avoid the things/people you don't like.
Please don't apply the "on a soapbox" thing I just mentioned to any sort of youtube shit. By its very nature a video or other form of media which is crafted is intended to be a one way form of communication. These aren't one offs, we didn't ask anyone on this board for only one post or for only one viewpoint. A forum is an interactive medium, so people can discuss and respond to one another. Posing questions to one another, describing perspectives is one thing, but to continually be inflammatory with regards to a personal opinion of one person and their ethical standing (without engaging on a discussion of the core position of said person) is another matter entirely.
My statement you quoted isn't a general application, it was intended as a direct response to Xiphos who is continually drudging up an off topic discussion and who continues to bring up the Anita Sarkeesian thing as a way to invalidate the positions of others through some sort of appeal. He's essentially taking things people say on one topic equating these views to those of Anita Sarkeesian, and then telling people they are wrong because she is a bad person.
This doesn't help the discussion on this board at all. Its akin to when people would call eachother brainwashed in the long ago closed threads on ukraine and russia.
On October 19 2014 03:51 Dunnobro wrote: People did post that video xiphos, I did and so did someone else lol This is why I feel like we're going in circles...
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
As I have said before: her description of issues regarding the issues of the female gender and gaming should not be debated by discussing any perceived lack of ethics.
Ethos, Pathos and Logos.
The 3 Triad of convincing others.
She used ethos to say that she is gaming expect = disproved.
She used logos to say that there are some patriarchal society being misogynistic = disproved with that video.
And most importantly, she rallied a whole bunch of people against the gaming industry. Its only natural to push back against that.
Right I can understand your concern but as I have said before:
This doesn't matter. People in this thread aren't saying gaming is evil because Anita said so.
So you can push back all you want against the people who are against gaming and think its evil, but thats not what this thread is about, its not what the discussion is about, and its not fair to continue telling people they are wrong because you are associating their position with a person you dislike.
As an FYI I am extremely, vehemently against the notion that games are inherently bad and that they create bad people. I disagree so much with that premise that I am doing my Master's Thesis as an antithesis to this perspective of gaming. But that doesn't mean I can't also agree that it would be nice to have more strong female protagonists in games and that there is a lot of unnecessary oversexualisation of women in games. At the same time though I can still also recognize that alongside the sexualisation of women in gaming you often find homoerotocism of men and expressions of extreme hegemonic masculinity (Duke Nukem, Gears of War).
I basically want to stop derailing the thread with discussions of ethics of a youtuber when the issue should be ethics of journalists and to a slightly broader extent a discussion of what has been called "gamergate" in general at this point which often comes up.
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
I certainly agree with you here, but shouldn't the same logic apply to the gaming world? Choose which companies and which products you want to associate with, and if you don't want to you don't need to? Shouldn't we apply the same judgement about questioning the ethics and marketing of gaming companies trying to sell a product?
If Sarkeesian's work is to be respected by invoking choice, why shouldn't that apply equally to the broader gaming world?
It totally can, but the conversation is about informing individuals to make that choice. I mean if you react to a critique of something with "if you don't like it then leave", well thats not very productive is it? The entire point of entering into debate and discussion is to learn about different viewpoints and trying to understand them so you can come to a conclusion for yourself while being respectful of the other side. If you do not want to take part in a discussion but rather hold your position steadfastly without considering the other you might as well not be discussing and its in that situation where I ask that you just avoid the things/people you don't like.
Please don't apply the "on a soapbox" thing I just mentioned to any sort of youtube shit. By its very nature a video or other form of media which is crafted is intended to be a one way form of communication. These aren't one offs, we didn't ask anyone on this board for only one post or for only one viewpoint. A forum is an interactive medium, so people can discuss and respond to one another. Posing questions to one another, describing perspectives is one thing, but to continually be inflammatory with regards to a personal opinion of one person and their ethical standing (without engaging on a discussion of the core position of said person) is another matter entirely.
My statement you quoted isn't a general application, it was intended as a direct response to Xiphos who is continually drudging up an off topic discussion and who continues to bring up the Anita Sarkeesian thing as a way to invalidate the positions of others through some sort of appeal. He's essentially taking things people say on one topic equating these views to those of Anita Sarkeesian, and then telling people they are wrong because she is a bad person.
This doesn't help the discussion on this board at all. Its akin to when people would call eachother brainwashed in the long ago closed threads on ukraine and russia.
No, I'm not continually bringing Anita Sarkessian, kz w/e ever his name is brought up my posts from pages ago and called me out.
What kind of man am I if I don't stand by my own words?
And I didn't say what kzw w/e his name is representing Anita, everything I brought up is actually attempting to helping her cause by saying:
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
I certainly agree with you here, but shouldn't the same logic apply to the gaming world? Choose which companies and which products you want to associate with, and if you don't want to you don't need to? Shouldn't we apply the same judgement about questioning the ethics and marketing of gaming companies trying to sell a product?
If Sarkeesian's work is to be respected by invoking choice, why shouldn't that apply equally to the broader gaming world?
It totally can, but the conversation is about informing individuals to make that choice. I mean if you react to a critique of something with "if you don't like it then leave", well thats not very productive is it? The entire point of entering into debate and discussion is to learn about different viewpoints and trying to understand them so you can come to a conclusion for yourself while being respectful of the other side. If you do not want to take part in a discussion but rather hold your position steadfastly without considering the other you might as well not be discussing and its in that situation where I ask that you just avoid the things/people you don't like.
Please don't apply the "on a soapbox" thing I just mentioned to any sort of youtube shit. By its very nature a video or other form of media which is crafted is intended to be a one way form of communication. These aren't one offs, we didn't ask anyone on this board for only one post or for only one viewpoint. A forum is an interactive medium, so people can discuss and respond to one another. Posing questions to one another, describing perspectives is one thing, but to continually be inflammatory with regards to a personal opinion of one person and their ethical standing (without engaging on a discussion of the core position of said person) is another matter entirely.
My statement you quoted isn't a general application, it was intended as a direct response to Xiphos who is continually drudging up an off topic discussion and who continues to bring up the Anita Sarkeesian thing as a way to invalidate the positions of others through some sort of appeal. He's essentially taking things people say on one topic equating these views to those of Anita Sarkeesian, and then telling people they are wrong because she is a bad person.
This doesn't help the discussion on this board at all. Its akin to when people would call eachother brainwashed in the long ago closed threads on ukraine and russia.
No, I'm not continually bringing Anita Sarkessian, kz w/e ever his name is brought up my posts from pages ago and called me out.
What kind of man am I if I don't stand by my own words?
And I didn't say what kzw w/e his name is representing Anita, everything I brought up is actually attempting to helping her cause by saying:
"Here is the road to what you want, walk on it."
I suggesting dropping it. Your posts have become a rather large annoyance on this thread.
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
I certainly agree with you here, but shouldn't the same logic apply to the gaming world? Choose which companies and which products you want to associate with, and if you don't want to you don't need to? Shouldn't we apply the same judgement about questioning the ethics and marketing of gaming companies trying to sell a product?
If Sarkeesian's work is to be respected by invoking choice, why shouldn't that apply equally to the broader gaming world?
It totally can, but the conversation is about informing individuals to make that choice. I mean if you react to a critique of something with "if you don't like it then leave", well thats not very productive is it? The entire point of entering into debate and discussion is to learn about different viewpoints and trying to understand them so you can come to a conclusion for yourself while being respectful of the other side. If you do not want to take part in a discussion but rather hold your position steadfastly without considering the other you might as well not be discussing and its in that situation where I ask that you just avoid the things/people you don't like.
You're right, and I agree with a few things Sarkeesian et. al. have mentioned, my objection is precisely the point you're trying to make; they are extremely unwilling to engage differing viewpoints with anything beyond accusations of misogyny etc. She isn't wrong to complain about some of the things she identifies, she's wrong to dismiss the culture as being misogynistic because things aren't being fine tuned to her specifications. In principle I can agree with the content of what Sarkeesian is saying while prioritizing liberty over "fixing" some of these problems, and in that sense be opposed to what she's promoting. Are some games childish? Absolutely, but let people make them, and let consumers buy them.
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
I certainly agree with you here, but shouldn't the same logic apply to the gaming world? Choose which companies and which products you want to associate with, and if you don't want to you don't need to? Shouldn't we apply the same judgement about questioning the ethics and marketing of gaming companies trying to sell a product?
If Sarkeesian's work is to be respected by invoking choice, why shouldn't that apply equally to the broader gaming world?
It totally can, but the conversation is about informing individuals to make that choice. I mean if you react to a critique of something with "if you don't like it then leave", well thats not very productive is it? The entire point of entering into debate and discussion is to learn about different viewpoints and trying to understand them so you can come to a conclusion for yourself while being respectful of the other side. If you do not want to take part in a discussion but rather hold your position steadfastly without considering the other you might as well not be discussing and its in that situation where I ask that you just avoid the things/people you don't like.
You're right, and I agree with a few things Sarkeesian et. al. have mentioned, my objection is precisely the point you're trying to make; they are extremely unwilling to engage differing viewpoints with anything beyond accusations of misogyny etc. She isn't wrong to complain about some of the things she identifies, she's wrong to dismiss the culture as being misogynistic because things aren't being fine tuned to her specifications. In principle I can agree with the content of what Sarkeesian is saying while prioritizing liberty over "fixing" some of these problems, and in that sense be opposed to what she's promoting. Are some games childish? Absolutely, but let people make them, and let consumers buy them.
To be fair though, the fact that there is no engagement on differing viewpoints is in part due to the medium chosen. Youtube is effectively television and the videos are in essence just a presentation. If there was an option to engage in debate and discussion at large nuance could be achieved, but in the medium and form of presentation chosen it just can't happen. Perhaps, in the future after the core of the position is fully explained more nuance can be added which would greatly improve the appeal to the masses imo. In the end just be critical of the critique and choose to understand (not necessarily accept) the position presented.
I can understand a lot of things while accepting very little of it.
On October 18 2014 18:05 ShiroKaisen wrote: I mean, look at how the last ton of pages in this thread are nothing but people arguing about Anita, with several people insisting that she's a "fraud" or a "criminal." Even TotalBiscuit had to pop in to set that straight. When a considerable amount of what's visible is something that isn't ostensibly part of the message, that's not the 3rd party's fault for misinterpreting, and you can't just blame it all away on a "smear campaign."
Several people is a bit of an overstatement. It's basically just Xiphos being overtly inflammatory, and I've been largely ignoring his posts because that's what he's like.
If some certain people aren't so misinformed about Anita, inflammation isn't needed.
I'm not saying that my opinions toward Anita won't change in the future but so far, her marketing ethics, work ethics, and her lack of game knowledge despite claiming to be a gaming expert proves that she definitely isn't someone that I personally would associate with.
And I'm surprised that nobody have posted up this crucial video regarding the topic here:
Choose you don't want to associate with her and thats great, you don't need to. But if the issue of women in gaming is brought up, and someone uses an example Ms. Sarkeesian uses can you not start derailing by questioning her ethics and marketing?
I certainly agree with you here, but shouldn't the same logic apply to the gaming world? Choose which companies and which products you want to associate with, and if you don't want to you don't need to? Shouldn't we apply the same judgement about questioning the ethics and marketing of gaming companies trying to sell a product?
If Sarkeesian's work is to be respected by invoking choice, why shouldn't that apply equally to the broader gaming world?
It totally can, but the conversation is about informing individuals to make that choice. I mean if you react to a critique of something with "if you don't like it then leave", well thats not very productive is it? The entire point of entering into debate and discussion is to learn about different viewpoints and trying to understand them so you can come to a conclusion for yourself while being respectful of the other side. If you do not want to take part in a discussion but rather hold your position steadfastly without considering the other you might as well not be discussing and its in that situation where I ask that you just avoid the things/people you don't like.
Please don't apply the "on a soapbox" thing I just mentioned to any sort of youtube shit. By its very nature a video or other form of media which is crafted is intended to be a one way form of communication. These aren't one offs, we didn't ask anyone on this board for only one post or for only one viewpoint. A forum is an interactive medium, so people can discuss and respond to one another. Posing questions to one another, describing perspectives is one thing, but to continually be inflammatory with regards to a personal opinion of one person and their ethical standing (without engaging on a discussion of the core position of said person) is another matter entirely.
My statement you quoted isn't a general application, it was intended as a direct response to Xiphos who is continually drudging up an off topic discussion and who continues to bring up the Anita Sarkeesian thing as a way to invalidate the positions of others through some sort of appeal. He's essentially taking things people say on one topic equating these views to those of Anita Sarkeesian, and then telling people they are wrong because she is a bad person.
This doesn't help the discussion on this board at all. Its akin to when people would call eachother brainwashed in the long ago closed threads on ukraine and russia.
No, I'm not continually bringing Anita Sarkessian, kz w/e ever his name is brought up my posts from pages ago and called me out.
What kind of man am I if I don't stand by my own words?
And I didn't say what kzw w/e his name is representing Anita, everything I brought up is actually attempting to helping her cause by saying:
"Here is the road to what you want, walk on it."
I suggesting dropping it. Your posts have become a rather large annoyance on this thread.
If defending one's word with logic and evidence = being annoying to you, then boy you must have a lot aneurysm.
I get that though.
I'm also annoyed by other people telling me stuff that I don't necessarily want to hear but need to hear. But the mature thing is to accept them and not run away from it.
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
...huh? Did you read the link? The changes you're scared of already happened, and you didn't even notice!
He also praised some of the decisions the studio had made in regard to the sex workers portrayed in the game.
"It's very minor but it means something to me. We never call a woman a 'ho' in Saints Row 4, we call them sex workers. We respect that that's their position and we don't take a cheap shot at them for that. It's a minor thing, but it's something ... It's the right thing to do," he explained.
In a game that has absolutely no connection to reality, I don't see that change as a big deal. Or like when you try to romance Kenzie repeatedly and she says "You have to wait til I want it." Establishes importance of consent and gives a female character agency over her sexuality. All in one line of dialogue that you probably didn't think twice about.
The main reason why Anita is so criticized is not the fact that she is advocating for less sexism in games, as I see many people who fell for her examples due to not playing the games presented say, but the way she is doing it. She is straight up lying about different aspects of those games, cherry picking examples and presenting them as representative for a whole game, arguing using double standards, all while ignoring everything in a game that is a proof against the conclusion she aims to reach all along. Her videos are purposely misleading and misrepresenting most of the games offered as examples.
She's someone who knew nothing about videogames, yet set up from the start to criticize the sexism found in them. She's been lying about being a gamer in order to get publicity and funding, she's been found to have never played the games she said are her favorites of all time, yet she's the voice to speak against sexism in gaming. She also continued to receive donations for her videos on top of the 159k dollars raised on kickstarter, so it makes you wonder if the very slow rate at which she's putting videos out isn't done in order to keep milking money from her fans. The quality of the videos isn't above what you can see hobbyist youtubers doing for free either.
People need to realize that criticizing sexism in videogames (which is a good cause) doesn't automatically make her right and noble. And people criticizing her aren't automatically misogynists that don't want out the sexism problems in gaming pointed out. They'd prefer a smart, honest female that actually plays games to speak about these issues as opposed to someone that tries to manipulate people into following her personal agenda. Posts that present her as someone just stating her opinion simply go against what her videos show. When she clearly lies about game mechanics, conveniently avoids those critical parts of games that, if shown, would disprove her whole point and makes ridiculous claims that can, in no realistic way, be deduced from any part of the game, there's no way you can say she is honest.
There are solid reasons to believe that she's an unethical person and it's understandable why the gaming community is not happy with the way someone from the outside approaches a problem in their medium. Do I think she's the devil? No, and she doesn't deserve all those threats and harassment. I just wish to see a gamer who can present a more honest and realistic view on these issues be the voice for this, not someone who doesn't care about games and only uses them to push their personal beliefs through extremely biased videos and make a ton of money in the process.
Despite falling in the trap of talking about her myself, Anita doesn't have anything to do with video game journalism, didn't expect to see the conversation go only towards her for so many pages. I'm gonna post a collection of links ordered by timeline, starting around the time this whole GG blew up.
God Kotaku enrages me so much, they're definitely the worst so thank god Gawker is getting hit hard as hell and Kotaku is the likeliest to fall at this point.
On October 18 2014 15:23 plogamer wrote: 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.
But GG only seems to care if it can tie it to "SJWs" or feminists influencing the press. When you have documented, well-demonstrated cases of large companies influencing gaming websites or content providers, like the Shadows of Mordor thing, #GG is ignoring it because the narrative is inherently, inseparably tied the existence of Anita and Quinn. Even active pro-GG writers like Erik Kain have raised this issue, but the masses of GG supporters have completely ignored it because they don't care.
You can't call a whole movement about "corruption in gaming journalism" if you only care about very specific instances of it and gloss over the decades-old rotting stench of old Doritos and dried up Mountain Dew that everyone knows is there, but is harder to attack than someone who got on Youtube and said your favorite game was sexist.
Maybe you should look into "gamergate" a bit more before making assumptions like these. They are simply not true. It might be what is being portrayed all over the place but that doesn't make it, you know, true.
And honestly the fact that it is being portrayed as such all over the place increases the point that pro-GG people are trying to make.
I have yet to come across a major news site that really portrays both sides of the issue in a fair and honest manner. Instead I have come across dozens of articles focusing on sexism, misogyny, and the harassing comments towards Zoe Quinn and Anita. The corruption is mentioned as more of an afterthought or not at all. So the non-gamer world is pretty much being fed that #Gamergate is a bunch of misogynists hating on women in gaming.
On October 18 2014 15:23 plogamer wrote: 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.
But GG only seems to care if it can tie it to "SJWs" or feminists influencing the press. When you have documented, well-demonstrated cases of large companies influencing gaming websites or content providers, like the Shadows of Mordor thing, #GG is ignoring it because the narrative is inherently, inseparably tied the existence of Anita and Quinn. Even active pro-GG writers like Erik Kain have raised this issue, but the masses of GG supporters have completely ignored it because they don't care.
You can't call a whole movement about "corruption in gaming journalism" if you only care about very specific instances of it and gloss over the decades-old rotting stench of old Doritos and dried up Mountain Dew that everyone knows is there, but is harder to attack than someone who got on Youtube and said your favorite game was sexist.
Maybe you should look into "gamergate" a bit more before making assumptions like these. They are simply not true. It might be what is being portrayed all over the place but that doesn't make it, you know, true.
And honestly the fact that it is being portrayed as such all over the place increases the point that pro-GG people are trying to make.
I have yet to come across a major news site that really portrays both sides of the issue in a fair and honest manner. Instead I have come across dozens of articles focusing on sexism, misogyny, and the harassing comments towards Zoe Quinn and Anita. The corruption is mentioned as more of an afterthought or not at all. So the non-gamer world is pretty much being fed that #Gamergate is a bunch of misogynists hating on women in gaming.
That's because the only major news sites that have reported on it have a large feminist readership. Nothing works quite as well when it comes to clickbait as claiming this or that group is oppressing this or that other group.
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
...huh? Did you read the link? The changes you're scared of already happened, and you didn't even notice!
He also praised some of the decisions the studio had made in regard to the sex workers portrayed in the game.
"It's very minor but it means something to me. We never call a woman a 'ho' in Saints Row 4, we call them sex workers. We respect that that's their position and we don't take a cheap shot at them for that. It's a minor thing, but it's something ... It's the right thing to do," he explained.
In a game that has absolutely no connection to reality, I don't see that change as a big deal. Or like when you try to romance Kenzie repeatedly and she says "You have to wait til I want it." Establishes importance of consent and gives a female character agency over her sexuality. All in one line of dialogue that you probably didn't think twice about.
SR4 is also entirely a VR simulator, and doesn't even have the same Gangster themes of the last 3. There aren't any prostitutes, along with pretty much everyone else, because the Earth blew up.
And it's also the only game where "romance" is even an option. And I put romance in quotes because it consists of "Wanna fuck?" "Okay" (which, iirc, is almost Kinzie's verbatim), and it applies to every character in your squad. So, I mean, sure, you can say that they were progressive by inserting some line about having to want sex first. But at the same time every female character is also treated as a cheap one-night-stand...along with every male character (of course, the whole thing parodies Mass Effect, so it's another thing entirely).
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
I think the idea is that there are a lot of stereotypes and unhealthy images (e.g. beautiful women are skinny with huge breasts) that historically show up a lot in games. Also, there are certain kinds of characters who don't get much screen time (e.g. gay or introspective male characters). The developer seems to be saying that they have perpetuated these stereotypes instead of undermining them, and that they regret this.
Also, sorry for bringing this back up, but I wanted to clarify:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
As an addendum, all those guys listed have all taken risks on their part. Perhaps the computer field will just be flash in the bang and/or they will be wasting their time on an short-lived industry. But today, the gaming market is well established already with many examples of a female lead that succeed.
So those women calling sexism in the games should be more productive. With the amount of time they are complaining about it, they could have made couple of games already. Instead they need to get some coding done.
I pointed out, as examples, 3 factors making it harder for women to just make the games they want to make. Two were linked to market demand, one was not. Women being made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry does not have a clear link to capitalism or market demand. Nor is it clear that women being more productive will resolve the issue.
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
...huh? Did you read the link? The changes you're scared of already happened, and you didn't even notice!
He also praised some of the decisions the studio had made in regard to the sex workers portrayed in the game.
"It's very minor but it means something to me. We never call a woman a 'ho' in Saints Row 4, we call them sex workers. We respect that that's their position and we don't take a cheap shot at them for that. It's a minor thing, but it's something ... It's the right thing to do," he explained.
In a game that has absolutely no connection to reality, I don't see that change as a big deal. Or like when you try to romance Kenzie repeatedly and she says "You have to wait til I want it." Establishes importance of consent and gives a female character agency over her sexuality. All in one line of dialogue that you probably didn't think twice about.
SR4 is also entirely a VR simulator, and doesn't even have the same Gangster themes of the last 3. There aren't any prostitutes, along with pretty much everyone else, because the Earth blew up.
And it's also the only game where "romance" is even an option. And I put romance in quotes because it consists of "Wanna fuck?" "Okay" (which, iirc, is almost Kinzie's verbatim), and it applies to every character in your squad. So, I mean, sure, you can say that they were progressive by inserting some line about having to want sex first. But at the same time every female character is also treated as a cheap one-night-stand...along with every male character (of course, the whole thing parodies Mass Effect, so it's another thing entirely).
And SR3 is a game where you literally play as a toilet at one point, so arguing that being respectful to women would kill the immersion is kinda suspect. My point is that if SR4 didn't seem like PC bull shit ruined by feminism, then the changes critics like Sarkeesian are asking for probably shouldn't be viewed as a problem.
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
I think the idea is that there are a lot of stereotypes and unhealthy images (e.g. beautiful women are skinny with huge breasts) that historically show up a lot in games. Also, there are certain kinds of characters who don't get much screen time (e.g. gay or introspective male characters). The developer seems to be saying that they have perpetuated these stereotypes instead of undermining them, and that they regret this.
Also, sorry for bringing this back up, but I wanted to clarify:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
As an addendum, all those guys listed have all taken risks on their part. Perhaps the computer field will just be flash in the bang and/or they will be wasting their time on an short-lived industry. But today, the gaming market is well established already with many examples of a female lead that succeed.
So those women calling sexism in the games should be more productive. With the amount of time they are complaining about it, they could have made couple of games already. Instead they need to get some coding done.
I pointed out, as examples, 3 factors making it harder for women to just make the games they want to make. Two were linked to market demand, one was not. Women being made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry does not have a clear link to capitalism or market demand. Nor is it clear that women being more productive will resolve the issue.
So what do you want instead of skinny, big-breasted women? Should devs put make Princess Peach and Zelda fat and flat? The PC police will call that fat shaming.
How do you have gameplay about being introspective?
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
...huh? Did you read the link? The changes you're scared of already happened, and you didn't even notice!
He also praised some of the decisions the studio had made in regard to the sex workers portrayed in the game.
"It's very minor but it means something to me. We never call a woman a 'ho' in Saints Row 4, we call them sex workers. We respect that that's their position and we don't take a cheap shot at them for that. It's a minor thing, but it's something ... It's the right thing to do," he explained.
In a game that has absolutely no connection to reality, I don't see that change as a big deal. Or like when you try to romance Kenzie repeatedly and she says "You have to wait til I want it." Establishes importance of consent and gives a female character agency over her sexuality. All in one line of dialogue that you probably didn't think twice about.
SR4 is also entirely a VR simulator, and doesn't even have the same Gangster themes of the last 3. There aren't any prostitutes, along with pretty much everyone else, because the Earth blew up.
And it's also the only game where "romance" is even an option. And I put romance in quotes because it consists of "Wanna fuck?" "Okay" (which, iirc, is almost Kinzie's verbatim), and it applies to every character in your squad. So, I mean, sure, you can say that they were progressive by inserting some line about having to want sex first. But at the same time every female character is also treated as a cheap one-night-stand...along with every male character (of course, the whole thing parodies Mass Effect, so it's another thing entirely).
And SR3 is a game where you literally play as a toilet at one point, so arguing that being respectful to women would kill the immersion is kinda suspect. My point is that if SR4 didn't seem like PC bull shit ruined by feminism, then the changes critics like Sarkeesian are asking for probably shouldn't be viewed as a problem.
Actually, my point was more that SR4 didn't make any of those changes. There are still "background females" in skimpy fetish outfits, all of the females are damsels in distress at one point, etc.
Not even sure that they actually avoided the word "ho", because I swear that word was still used plenty.
If someone's saying that SR4 was made to be more women-positive, I'd say that's just lip service after the fact, because you really don't see it at all in the game.
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
I think the idea is that there are a lot of stereotypes and unhealthy images (e.g. beautiful women are skinny with huge breasts) that historically show up a lot in games. Also, there are certain kinds of characters who don't get much screen time (e.g. gay or introspective male characters). The developer seems to be saying that they have perpetuated these stereotypes instead of undermining them, and that they regret this.
Also, sorry for bringing this back up, but I wanted to clarify:
On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
As an addendum, all those guys listed have all taken risks on their part. Perhaps the computer field will just be flash in the bang and/or they will be wasting their time on an short-lived industry. But today, the gaming market is well established already with many examples of a female lead that succeed.
So those women calling sexism in the games should be more productive. With the amount of time they are complaining about it, they could have made couple of games already. Instead they need to get some coding done.
I pointed out, as examples, 3 factors making it harder for women to just make the games they want to make. Two were linked to market demand, one was not. Women being made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry does not have a clear link to capitalism or market demand. Nor is it clear that women being more productive will resolve the issue.
So what do you want instead of skinny, big-breasted women? Should devs put make Princess Peach and Zelda fat and flat? The PC police will call that fat shaming.
How do you have gameplay about being introspective?
I think the idea is to have more "in addition to" and not "instead of." Nothing wrong with Peach and Zelda staying Peach and Zelda.
Boob sizes have been neatly separating the mistresses from wives, the sexy/trashy good-times-girls from the arty/pretentious hipsters, the ciphers from the plotlines. Video games have certainly fed the first part of the stereotype, that ‘e-cup women are playthings’, but wouldn’t only giving empathetic roles to C-cup-or-less women just reinforce that? (It’s also implying small-boobed women can’t be objectified because they’re insufficiently sexy. The beauty of this system is no-one wins!)
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
...huh? Did you read the link? The changes you're scared of already happened, and you didn't even notice!
He also praised some of the decisions the studio had made in regard to the sex workers portrayed in the game.
"It's very minor but it means something to me. We never call a woman a 'ho' in Saints Row 4, we call them sex workers. We respect that that's their position and we don't take a cheap shot at them for that. It's a minor thing, but it's something ... It's the right thing to do," he explained.
In a game that has absolutely no connection to reality, I don't see that change as a big deal. Or like when you try to romance Kenzie repeatedly and she says "You have to wait til I want it." Establishes importance of consent and gives a female character agency over her sexuality. All in one line of dialogue that you probably didn't think twice about.
SR4 is also entirely a VR simulator, and doesn't even have the same Gangster themes of the last 3. There aren't any prostitutes, along with pretty much everyone else, because the Earth blew up.
And it's also the only game where "romance" is even an option. And I put romance in quotes because it consists of "Wanna fuck?" "Okay" (which, iirc, is almost Kinzie's verbatim), and it applies to every character in your squad. So, I mean, sure, you can say that they were progressive by inserting some line about having to want sex first. But at the same time every female character is also treated as a cheap one-night-stand...along with every male character (of course, the whole thing parodies Mass Effect, so it's another thing entirely).
And SR3 is a game where you literally play as a toilet at one point, so arguing that being respectful to women would kill the immersion is kinda suspect. My point is that if SR4 didn't seem like PC bull shit ruined by feminism, then the changes critics like Sarkeesian are asking for probably shouldn't be viewed as a problem.
Actually, my point was more that SR4 didn't make any of those changes. There are still "background females" in skimpy fetish outfits, all of the females are damsels in distress at one point, etc.
Not even sure that they actually avoided the word "ho", because I swear that word was still used plenty.
If someone's saying that SR4 was made to be more women-positive, I'd say that's just lip service after the fact, because you really don't see it at all in the game.
I don't mean to give the impression that SR is the paragon of what games should be, I'm sure there's still plenty to be criticized about it. My argument is that these small time changes generally can noticeably improve the games for the people who care about the stuff without impacting the experience of those who don't.
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
I think the idea is that there are a lot of stereotypes and unhealthy images (e.g. beautiful women are skinny with huge breasts) that historically show up a lot in games. Also, there are certain kinds of characters who don't get much screen time (e.g. gay or introspective male characters). The developer seems to be saying that they have perpetuated these stereotypes instead of undermining them, and that they regret this.
Also, sorry for bringing this back up, but I wanted to clarify:
On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote:
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
As an addendum, all those guys listed have all taken risks on their part. Perhaps the computer field will just be flash in the bang and/or they will be wasting their time on an short-lived industry. But today, the gaming market is well established already with many examples of a female lead that succeed.
So those women calling sexism in the games should be more productive. With the amount of time they are complaining about it, they could have made couple of games already. Instead they need to get some coding done.
I pointed out, as examples, 3 factors making it harder for women to just make the games they want to make. Two were linked to market demand, one was not. Women being made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry does not have a clear link to capitalism or market demand. Nor is it clear that women being more productive will resolve the issue.
So what do you want instead of skinny, big-breasted women? Should devs put make Princess Peach and Zelda fat and flat? The PC police will call that fat shaming.
How do you have gameplay about being introspective?
I think the idea is to have more "in addition to" and not "instead of." Nothing wrong with Peach and Zelda staying Peach and Zelda.
Boob sizes have been neatly separating the mistresses from wives, the sexy/trashy good-times-girls from the arty/pretentious hipsters, the ciphers from the plotlines. Video games have certainly fed the first part of the stereotype, that ‘e-cup women are playthings’, but wouldn’t only giving empathetic roles to C-cup-or-less women just reinforce that? (It’s also implying small-boobed women can’t be objectified because they’re insufficiently sexy. The beauty of this system is no-one wins!)
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
...huh? Did you read the link? The changes you're scared of already happened, and you didn't even notice!
He also praised some of the decisions the studio had made in regard to the sex workers portrayed in the game.
"It's very minor but it means something to me. We never call a woman a 'ho' in Saints Row 4, we call them sex workers. We respect that that's their position and we don't take a cheap shot at them for that. It's a minor thing, but it's something ... It's the right thing to do," he explained.
In a game that has absolutely no connection to reality, I don't see that change as a big deal. Or like when you try to romance Kenzie repeatedly and she says "You have to wait til I want it." Establishes importance of consent and gives a female character agency over her sexuality. All in one line of dialogue that you probably didn't think twice about.
SR4 is also entirely a VR simulator, and doesn't even have the same Gangster themes of the last 3. There aren't any prostitutes, along with pretty much everyone else, because the Earth blew up.
And it's also the only game where "romance" is even an option. And I put romance in quotes because it consists of "Wanna fuck?" "Okay" (which, iirc, is almost Kinzie's verbatim), and it applies to every character in your squad. So, I mean, sure, you can say that they were progressive by inserting some line about having to want sex first. But at the same time every female character is also treated as a cheap one-night-stand...along with every male character (of course, the whole thing parodies Mass Effect, so it's another thing entirely).
And SR3 is a game where you literally play as a toilet at one point, so arguing that being respectful to women would kill the immersion is kinda suspect. My point is that if SR4 didn't seem like PC bull shit ruined by feminism, then the changes critics like Sarkeesian are asking for probably shouldn't be viewed as a problem.
Actually, my point was more that SR4 didn't make any of those changes. There are still "background females" in skimpy fetish outfits, all of the females are damsels in distress at one point, etc.
Not even sure that they actually avoided the word "ho", because I swear that word was still used plenty.
If someone's saying that SR4 was made to be more women-positive, I'd say that's just lip service after the fact, because you really don't see it at all in the game.
I don't mean to give the impression that SR is the paragon of what games should be, I'm sure there's still plenty to be criticized about it. My argument is that these small time changes generally can noticeably improve the games for the people who care about the stuff without impacting the experience of those who don't.
My point is that somebody out there could find practically anything "problematic". Have you seen how overused the concept of "triggering" is on tumblr?
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
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?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:
On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:
On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:
On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote: [quote]
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down.
You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam.
With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
2 Points here
1. You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint).
No, I am not. You claimed she scammed people. I explained why she didn't. Period. You have no factual basis to claim she scammed people.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
"Other youtubers" have certainly not invalidated decades of research in social sciences, and gender studies in particular, on the representation of men and women in the media (including in video games - see the study I referenced earlier). Again, nitpicking about some of the individual examples selected by Sarkeesian certainly does not invalidate her broader points on sexist elements present in many video games. I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be when you say "it's about a matter of respect". There is nothing in Sarkeesian's discours which shows a lack of respect for men in general or for particular individuals. What she doesn't respect is sexism, and she's fighting to improve video games in general.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
She is very much assertive. She is trying to point out and explain certain problematic aspects of video games in order to induce a change at the systemic level. There is absolutely nothing cowardly or lazy about that, as I explained to you repeatedly.
3 Points
1. Scamming is cheating/lying to someone for monetary gains. That's what exactly she did, period. No questions about that.
A scam is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a dishonest way to make money by deceiving people".
What did she announce she would do with the money? Let's see:
This video project will explore, analyze and deconstruct some of the most common tropes and stereotypes of female characters in games. The series will highlight the larger recurring patterns and conventions used within the gaming industry rather than just focusing on the worst offenders. [...]
With your help, I’ll produce a 5-video series (now expanded to 12 videos) entitled Tropes vs Women in Video Games, exploring female character stereotypes throughout the history of the gaming industry. [...]
Each video will be between 10 and 20 minutes long and available online for free for everyone and anyone to watch, share and use.[...]
Creating these videos take a lot of time and money to produce. I will be researching and playing hundreds of titles from across the gaming industry (including some truly awful games that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone!). [...]"
What did she do and what is she still doing? Exactly what she said she would. You can only argue she's going slower than initially announced (although there is no date in the kickstarter itself, only an "estimated delivery" for some gifts attached to donation amounts), but she clearly did not deceive or scam anyone.
How exactly is that youtube search supposed to address/rebut anything I've said? If your point was that there exist people who are critical of Sarkeesian, I'm not sure who's disputing that.
On October 19 2014 02:58 Xiphos wrote: 3. She is definitely not being assertive enough.
Why is she leaving the fates of her belief on other developer's hands?
Why can't she enroll to classes to help her make games?
Why can't she learn the concept of classes, methods, loops, conditions, arrays, action listeners, GUI, which protocols to utilize when designing an online game, what kind of service to use, and how to utilize SQL to store data and information pertaining to the game?
Because making a 20 minutes slide show on the internet is that MUCH easier. She isn't willing to start like the rest of the developers out there by studying the mechanism of how computer works, get a regular job, then climb up the ladder.
If you ain't willing to be the change that you want to see, don't expect others to follow you.
She's absolutely being assertive enough. She has a Master's degree in social and political thought, and she is making videos aiming to deconstruct media productions through a feminist perspective. She's not a video games developer and apparently does not want to be a video games developer. Why can't you understand this? Why do you keep repeating the same asinine critique in every single one of your posts? Like I said, imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your ridiculous standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
By providing commentary on video games in general, she's aiming to point out and explain some of the sexist aspects found at the systemic level in many video games, and help the industry address and fight against sexist stereotypes and gender roles. She wants to bring about systemic change, and as we've seen from comments from various professional video games developers what she says IS having some impact. She doesn't need at all to produce her own video game to induce the changes she's supporting, and there is no reason whatsoever she should have to produce her own video game before her message is taken seriously.
On October 18 2014 03:10 Xiphos wrote: Anita didn't produce her film with her Kickstarter. She scammed people w/ portraying video games are sexists.
This hurts our industry and defamation to men.
Then she goes on to get donations, only to end up making YouTube videos. Essentially cheating people a la Sons of StarCraft.
Whether or not she is equally as bad person a Zoe is debatable but she is overall a horrible human being.
First of all, she didn't scam people. She is clearly publishing the videos she said she would make with the money. You can argue that she should be making them faster, but going slower than expected is certainly not the same as scamming, so you can drop that asinine accusation.
Second, she doesn't argue that video games are inherently sexist. She denounces sexist tropes and gender roles that can often be found in plenty of video games, historically and currently. Plenty of other people have done the same thing for video games and a plethora of other media/productions, including theater plays, movies, and literature. You can criticize certain aspects of some of the individual examples that she uses to illustrate her points, but her argument pertains to the systemic level and is not limited to the individual examples she chooses. It's an accurate criticism of an underlying problem, and it is certainly not a "defamation to men". I don't see how being rightfully critical of problematic aspects of video game production hurts the industry - if anything, it's the right kind of approach that may help the industry gain popularity among some groups that may not have initially been attracted to video games because of such gender issues.
To sum up, not only is she not a "horrible human being", but you seem to completely miss the point of her argument, misunderstand her, and generally misunderstand issues of gender roles and feminism more broadly.
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?
What a ridiculously terrible argument. Since when can one not be critical of certain aspects of a type of production without having to engage him-/herself in that type of production? If you lived in a world where negative racial stereotypes were prevalent in movies, could you not be critical of that without having to start making movies yourself? Why the hell would someone have to become a video games developer just because that person is unhappy with some aspects of video games? What is supposed to be "lazy" about wanting to do something else in your life, and how exactly does not wanting to make video games yourself invalidate anything you might want to say about video games?
On October 18 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 01:56 trollcenter wrote:
On October 17 2014 23:14 Defacer wrote:
Like I said, if Gaters want to be taken seriously, they can learn a lot about how to present an argument by watching Sarkeesian's videos.
Are you for real? How informed are you about Sarkeesian and what she's talking? Have you played the games presented in her videos? I suggest you look her and her subjects up more.
From what I can tell, it looks like you do not know much about the titles she presents and are easily impressed by the fact that she supports her claims with examples. You don't seem to understand their context or have enough knowledge on the subject to decide if they are fair or cherry picked moments taken out of context in order to push towards a conclusion she was determined to reach even before doing any of her "research".
In her Hitman example, she presents a very specific moment of a very specific mission to make the claim that the game is sexist. She shows an abnormal way of playing, one that the game punishes you for, and falsely claims that the game "invites you to do so" while beating innocent strippers to death. She then reaches the disgusting conclusion that "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters", a very subjective interpretation which in no way can be realistically reached from any part of the game and only serves to push her personal agenda. All this while completely ignoring the fact that you can kill innocent men throughout the game the exact same way, while getting punished the exact same way. The way she's playing is as if you killed every guard in Thief, a stealth game where you're supposed to NOT do that, and then claim that the game is about a psychopath deriving sick pleasure from murdering innocent people.
And how about the claim that women are used as background decoration? You know who else is background decoration in Hitman? Men. And you can do the same things to them. That's the whole point of the game. Innocent people are the background decoration and you're supposed to get clean assassinations on designated targets while hurting nobody else. Taking away the option of killing innocent people would make the game easier and go against what the game series is about.
Now the issue is why are those women strippers, I guess. Hitman usually has location variety, this mission is in a strip club, all the others aren't. The only sexist thing I agree about is the fact that the game does indeed have scantily dressed women and not men. It feels like a cheap way to attract players, sex sells unfortunately. But to read so much into situations where the game treats them equally and only victimize the women while playing the game in a way that's discouraged...That's bullshit.
Even w/ the scantily dressed argument, that's not entirely true.
A lot of men in video games are designed topless with displayable muscle definitions. I would wage that there might be more games that the men are showing more skins than their female counterpart.
Men + Women are both demonstrated as the pinnacle of human physique in video games (and they are proud to show it off). No sexist there.
Sarkeesian (and feminists in general) also denounces negative gender roles and stereotypes associated with men, and in this case the tendency to present male characters as overly muscular. The point is, however, than being reduced to the sexual appeal you will have for other people can be considered worse than being the carrier a distorted idea of self-empowerment through musculature. Those muscles are linked to the idea of "being capable", which is a positive empowerment idea, while the sexual attributes are linked to the idea of "being desirable", which is there to satisfy other people and is not associated with competence (often quite the opposite). Huge muscles can also be linked to the context of the video games in question, in particular in games where violence and athletic abilities are used. This is not the same at all for the overly sexual depictions of female characters. In short, both types of depictions are problematic, but the differences between the two still have to be highlighted and the particularly negative aspects of the depiction of women in games (and elsewhere) cannot be overlooked. This is again not to say that you cannot find plenty of exceptions to such depictions, but the systemic problem is still there. Plenty of studies on the topic have been published - see for example Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433.
On October 19 2014 01:39 sevencck wrote:
On October 18 2014 23:31 sushiman wrote:
On October 18 2014 21:41 Xiphos wrote:
On October 18 2014 15:30 RuiBarbO wrote: [quote]
I think the point is:
Even if there are no technical restrictions, there are other factors that make this kind of project hard. Socio-economic factors, like "are consumers less likely to spend their money on a game with a complex realistic female lead?" or "do publishers want to risk breaking away from the tropes they know earn money?" or "are women made to feel unwelcome in the video game industry?" This last question can be particularly hard to answer, since it's difficult to know what effect one's language and actions can have on others.
So this entire thing boils down to supply and demand as many have said. When the market indicated that more people would enjoy a certain gaming narrative, then there are absolutely no controversy to be had regarding equality.
Its just how capitalism works.
No, it does not. It only boils down to supply and demand if you put hardcore laissez faire capitalism above every other aspect of society, which most people don't. What you're saying is that there's a demand for games that may portray women in a sexist way; this is nonsense. The vast majority of people will play games because of the gameplay experience, which a negative or stereotypical portrayal of women adds nothing to - if you go by the supply and demand principle, as long as the gameplay is still the same, there is no reason to have sexism in since its primary function is only as cheap marketing that adds little to the experience except discomfort to a large potential market segment.
The point that you're missing is that it's up to the individual consumer to decide both 1) whether or not it's sexist, and 2) whether that's a problem for them. You think it's sexist, as does Sarkeesian, and that's fine. Purchase games accordingly, and continue to pressure developers to make the kind of changes you want. But the bottom line is that since developers want to sell as many units as possible, creating something the consumer isn't interested in is not in their best interest. If they continue creating products you find objectionable, its because your peers have spoken with their dollars.
No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down.
You are saying a lot everything and a whole lot of nothing.
Don't make me laugh. I addressed all of your points and rebutted them - your utter incompetence at addressing the points raised by Sarkeesian and gender studies in general about gender roles in the media points to you needing to educate yourself more on the topic, period. I'm guessing you're not too interested in that, given your post history both in this thread and in the "Dating, how's your luck thread", in which you got temp banned for ridiculously accusing feminism of turning young women into drunk exhibitionist idiots.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Did you just ignored all those dubiousness from her Tweets saying that she was harassed and that part where she didn't hold her end of the bargain by a HUGE margin (which xDaunt said that you can definitely sue her)? Of course you didn't.
One could understand if they have done majority of the work and just need more time to finish the rest. In her case, she finished 0% of the work on time. Not only that, her quality of work have DECREASED after Kickstarte and she didn't give out any reason on her tardiness.
Utterly irresponsible.
Her saying that she was harassed is irrelevant to your claim that she scammed people. I addressed that claim and explained why it had no basis in reality. She is delivering on what she said she would do, only slower than initially announced in her kickstarter (and the quality of her work didn't decrease at all). How the hell can that be considered a "scam"? Also, a breach of contract is not necessarily a scam.
With regards to the harassment claims themselves, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of evidence that she has indeed been harassed repeatedly over the last few years.
On October 19 2014 02:05 Xiphos wrote: Many greats revolutionized the way we look at things in many industry by actually performing themselves instead of complaining that other people don't give them the stuff that they want.
There is a huge difference b/w talk the talk and walk the walk. Lazy attitude at its finest.
Again, terrible argument. Yes, you can find examples of people who were critical of certain aspects of a given type of production and who started to engage in that type of production in order to correct its faulty aspects. Why the hell would that invalidate the criticism of those who were saying the exact same thing but didn't change their entire lives to engage in that type of production themselves? How the hell is it "lazy" not to suddenly become a video games developer just because you're critical of certain aspects of video games? Imagine someone is critical of sexist tropes in movies and video games. Does that mean that to satisfy your asinine standard, that person would have to become both a video games developer and a movie director?
2 Points here
1. You are attempting to paint her as some saint. The dubious screenshots tell us that something fishy is going on. And contract breach just proves that (she isn't a saint).
No, I am not. You claimed she scammed people. I explained why she didn't. Period. You have no factual basis to claim she scammed people.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. It doesn't "invalidate" her criticism, other YouTubers have already done the invalidation. Its about a matter of respect. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
"Other youtubers" have certainly not invalidated decades of research in social sciences, and gender studies in particular, on the representation of men and women in the media (including in video games - see the study I referenced earlier). Again, nitpicking about some of the individual examples selected by Sarkeesian certainly does not invalidate her broader points on sexist elements present in many video games. I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be when you say "it's about a matter of respect". There is nothing in Sarkeesian's discours which shows a lack of respect for men in general or for particular individuals. What she doesn't respect is sexism, and she's fighting to improve video games in general.
On October 19 2014 02:34 Xiphos wrote: 2. Sure you may be a good "critics" but if you REALLY wan to change the way the world works according to your will, you have to assertive.
Otherwise, you are just a coward.
She is very much assertive. She is trying to point out and explain certain problematic aspects of video games in order to induce a change at the systemic level. There is absolutely nothing cowardly or lazy about that, as I explained to you repeatedly.
So why did she not remain locked up with her studies in some obscure college faculty and publish her studies to her own audience (people that self identify as what we would call "SJW")? She confessed not being interested in video gaming. Why the urge to fight for a change in the gaming scene then? Isn't this controversial, a lot?
No one gamer would care, nobody would send threats, if she published her ideology-fuelled works to her own audience and not made any effort to CHANGE game developers' minds. Instead they launched a bandwagon that wasn't asked for, and make a living off being a professional victim at the expense of other people's hobbies. And this victimisation is now a shield against any criticism aimed at that side of the industry. It can be used to fend off, literally any point that's raised against them.
I could certainly point out a lot of problems with gamers and video game development. Problems such as poor support, lack of innovation and annual titles, customer relations, DRM and a dozen others. Issues that actually concern the subject and not twist it with my own, personal political/religious/whatever creed that 99% of the other gamers don't identify with.
First of all, please stop trying to make it seem like she's glad to be receiving abuse and of being harassed.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote: Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant
Its not irrelevant. Why should she have any say on an industry she is not a part of? She's not a consumer or a developer in the industry. Should Canadians be able to vote in the US presidential election?
On October 19 2014 07:32 Doodsmack wrote: Yeah the things that gamers are willing to say behind the anonymity of their keyboards are sad and pathetic at the same time.
Need I remind you of all the things anti-GG people said? Plenty of them have sent death threats and been equally vile.
How about we don't generalize about our opposition hmm?
On October 19 2014 02:58 radscorpion9 wrote: Can someone explain to me the logic behind the idea that if games portray women as being attractive, then it necessarily means that their only useful role is as some kind of sex object? Just walking around Toronto I see many beautiful girls who are dressed in pretty tight clothes that makes them look better, but it doesn't follow as a logical consequence that I think their only value is in their looks. It is simply one dimension among many; unless the argument is that this dimension shouldn't exist at all which I feel is extreme.
Unless the women are being specifically portrayed and described as people who have no other useful role except to look good, I don't really see this criticism as making sense. I don't want to have to read a pages long article/study right now so a brief explanation would be useful
edit: Similarly overly muscularized men is fine. It doesn't affect me at all to see that, I think its attractive to have muscles and I like it too. But it doesn't somehow mean that a man's only value is in being a giant hulk!
Would reading two and a half pages be short enough (and by the way, the issue isn't simply attractive characters but overly sexualized characters and differentiated roles from male characters)? If so, take a look at pages 428-430 of Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433. Two short excerpts:
Additional research has demonstrated that exposure to media portrayals of women also influences teens’ and young adults’ perceptions of their desire of and suitability for various vocations (Anderson et al. 2001). Davies et al. (2002) provided some of the most disturbing evidence for a relationship between media exposure and vocational attitudes. They showed women commercials that portrayed women in either stereotypic ways or neutral ways and then asked them to rate interest in educational and vocational choices that required math. The women who viewed the stereotypic commercials indicated lower interest in those careers and higher interests in careers that were more in keeping with traditional, stereotypic female strengths such as teaching children.
It is perhaps in the area of establishing a secure physical identity that the literature is most critical of the media’s influence. A body of research demonstrates that both male and female teens and young adults who have greater exposure to media representations of male and female forms have a more negative self image (e.g., Ferron 1997; Aubrey 2006; Arbour and Ginis 2006; Slater and Tiggemann 2006; Labre 2005). Recent research has even suggested that exposure to objectifying media, such as that found in this analysis, can induce a self-objectified state in both men and women and that this state is associated with significant, negative psychological states (Roberts and Gettman 2004).
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote: Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant
Its not irrelevant. Why should she have any say on an industry she is not a part of? She's not a consumer or a developer in the industry. Should Canadians be able to vote in the US presidential election?
It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote: Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant
Its not irrelevant. Why should she have any say on an industry she is not a part of? She's not a consumer or a developer in the industry. Should Canadians be able to vote in the US presidential election?
It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?
And what the US does affects Canada. Should Canadians get to vote in the US presidential election?
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote: Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant
Its not irrelevant. Why should she have any say on an industry she is not a part of? She's not a consumer or a developer in the industry. Should Canadians be able to vote in the US presidential election?
It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?
And what the US does affects Canada. Should Canadians get to vote in the US presidential election?
Your analogy was terrible the first time and it still is. How about addressing what I said? Here it is:
"It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?"
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote: Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant
Its not irrelevant. Why should she have any say on an industry she is not a part of? She's not a consumer or a developer in the industry. Should Canadians be able to vote in the US presidential election?
It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?
And what the US does affects Canada. Should Canadians get to vote in the US presidential election?
Your analogy was terrible the first time and it still is. How about addressing what I said? Here it is:
"It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?"
I addressed what you said. You said someone who knows very little about gaming and cares even less about it should get to decide what's "problematic" with it.
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
Verdict: Still a fraud
2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote: Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant
Its not irrelevant. Why should she have any say on an industry she is not a part of? She's not a consumer or a developer in the industry. Should Canadians be able to vote in the US presidential election?
It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?
And what the US does affects Canada. Should Canadians get to vote in the US presidential election?
Your analogy was terrible the first time and it still is. How about addressing what I said? Here it is:
"It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?"
I addressed what you said. You said someone who knows very little about gaming and cares even less about it should get to decide what's "problematic" with it.
No. I said I don't see anything problematic about someone who knows a lot about gender roles in the media, and is interested in studying gender roles in a particular media (namely video games) after having already studied gender roles in other media (tv shows, movies), publishing her analysis of gender roles in that media after having done extensive research on the matter.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
Maybe I'm not being clear. There is no "sexist" or "non-sexist" anything, because there is no consumer monolith to make such a clear, easy distinction. Only you as an individual can make such a set of judgements, and of course some might agree with you. But it's one of the reasons this whole sexism debate raging online is so challenging at times. If sexism were so easy to define, surely there wouldn't be so much contention between individuals?
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
Maybe I'm not being clear. There is no "sexist" or "non-sexist" anything, because there is no consumer monolith to make such a clear, easy distinction. Only you as an individual can make such a set of judgements, and of course some might agree with you. But it's one of the reasons this whole sexism debate raging online is so challenging at times. If sexism were so easy to define, surely there wouldn't be so much contention between individuals?
There does not need to be a "consumer monolith" to make a distinction between sexist and non-sexist elements. Your argument could be made for virtually any word in the dictionary, and more specifically any discriminatory ideas, be it sexism, racism, homophobia, antisemitism, etc. Yes, "sexism" is a word whose definition leaves room for interpretation. The same is true of "racism" and of the others. You can, however, be convincing in arguing for the existence of sexism in certain representations by demonstrating that they perpetuate "stereotypes of social roles based on sex" (taken from the Merriam-Webster definition of "sexism").
Do you agree that the statement "women belong in the kitchen" is sexist? Well, you can be sure that there would be plenty of people that would be ready to buy products with that statement on them, which means that waiting for a "consumer monolith" which would not buy those products before calling the statement sexist is pointless. We can clearly go beyond "sexism is subjective" in analyzing the existence of sexism in our societies.
On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote: Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around.
Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row:
"I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with.
Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game.
So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both).
It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be.
...huh? Did you read the link? The changes you're scared of already happened, and you didn't even notice!
He also praised some of the decisions the studio had made in regard to the sex workers portrayed in the game.
"It's very minor but it means something to me. We never call a woman a 'ho' in Saints Row 4, we call them sex workers. We respect that that's their position and we don't take a cheap shot at them for that. It's a minor thing, but it's something ... It's the right thing to do," he explained.
In a game that has absolutely no connection to reality, I don't see that change as a big deal. Or like when you try to romance Kenzie repeatedly and she says "You have to wait til I want it." Establishes importance of consent and gives a female character agency over her sexuality. All in one line of dialogue that you probably didn't think twice about.
SR4 is also entirely a VR simulator, and doesn't even have the same Gangster themes of the last 3. There aren't any prostitutes, along with pretty much everyone else, because the Earth blew up.
And it's also the only game where "romance" is even an option. And I put romance in quotes because it consists of "Wanna fuck?" "Okay" (which, iirc, is almost Kinzie's verbatim), and it applies to every character in your squad. So, I mean, sure, you can say that they were progressive by inserting some line about having to want sex first. But at the same time every female character is also treated as a cheap one-night-stand...along with every male character (of course, the whole thing parodies Mass Effect, so it's another thing entirely).
And SR3 is a game where you literally play as a toilet at one point, so arguing that being respectful to women would kill the immersion is kinda suspect. My point is that if SR4 didn't seem like PC bull shit ruined by feminism, then the changes critics like Sarkeesian are asking for probably shouldn't be viewed as a problem.
Actually, my point was more that SR4 didn't make any of those changes. There are still "background females" in skimpy fetish outfits, all of the females are damsels in distress at one point, etc.
Not even sure that they actually avoided the word "ho", because I swear that word was still used plenty.
If someone's saying that SR4 was made to be more women-positive, I'd say that's just lip service after the fact, because you really don't see it at all in the game.
I don't mean to give the impression that SR is the paragon of what games should be, I'm sure there's still plenty to be criticized about it. My argument is that these small time changes generally can noticeably improve the games for the people who care about the stuff without impacting the experience of those who don't.
That seems rather silly. Like, what are the changes to those tiny things supposed to do when the game is full of far more offensive things that are far more prominent?
Which, again, makes me ask what "we can do better" is supposed to mean? If it's changing "hoes" to "sex workers" but still having strippers spinning on poles in their underwear, that is pretty much just lip service without actually doing anything. It's certainly not enough to make someone who was offended by the game to stop being offended by it.
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
The problem isn't when you ask "Why aren't there handicapped people in games?"
It's when you point at specific games and say "You don't have any handicapped characters who are depicted positively, your game is a problem."
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
The problem isn't when you ask "Why aren't there handicapped people in games?"
It's when you point at specific games and say "You don't have any handicapped characters who are depicted positively, your game is a problem."
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
Has it occured to you that yours and Anita's liking may be different to what the vast majority of people's liking is? You even go to admit that she's militant about changing video games to her own liking. What if I don't agree with her analysis, in fact, I think it's full of shit? Or I don't get a say because I haven't got a gender studies degree? I'm just a basement dweller peasant white hetero male nerd who does not get his chance for a moral highground, I guess.
Also, you might want to look into her background with pyramid schemes etc. just to see where her real motivation behind "studying games" may lie.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
There are many genres with simply no place for the disabled though. How do you have an FPS that includes positive representations of the disabled? Try being stuck in a wheelchair during a firefight, you won't last long. The PC police would say that that's mocking the disabled. But if the game is designed in such a way that being in a wheelchair is not a disadvantage in a firefight, it's plainly ridiculous. Its a huge plothole. The bad guy can just hide on a different floor in the building and turn the elevator off. If he loses to someone in a wheelchair when he himself is not in a wheelchair, its absurd. Now, you might say "Oh, but you could have a scientist or a commander in a wheelchair in the narrative". In which case the PC police will STILL say that the physically disabled are under represented. They're stuck hidden away behind the scenes while all the important things are done by the able.
It doesn't bother me that there are few representations of handicapped people in videogames, because there's pretty much no way to shoehorn them into games without hurting some other aspect of the game.
I'm reminded of this quote by Stephen Fry: “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
But thanks for linking me to a bunch of things I can't read without paying money. Sure convinced me.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
The problem isn't when you ask "Why aren't there handicapped people in games?"
It's when you point at specific games and say "You don't have any handicapped characters who are depicted positively, your game is a problem."
Sarkeesian's argument is systemic.
Wasn't really talking about Sarkeesian, more about the arguments you've been using.
All you've talked about how certain things are "problematic", and asking why wanting those things changed is such a bad thing.
But these kinds of things change by industry growth and shifts, not by pointing at specific issues and complaining about them. Princess Peach and Zelda will always be Damsel in Distress characters because its grandfathered into their storylines, and its part of the franchise that consumers expect. Duke Nukem will always be a crude, testerone filled caricature.
So when you ask what's so bad about female characters not fitting gender stereotypes, or not having female characters that aren't oversexualized, sometimes these things should remain, and are expected to remain, because of a lot of history and followings.
And sometimes things like handicapped character representation is entirely business related, because individual models, animations and physics can be expensive.
There's a lot more going on than just things being "problematic".
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
Has it occured to you that yours and Anita's liking may be different to what the vast majority of people's liking is? You even go to admit that she's militant about changing video games to her own liking. What if I don't agree with her analysis, in fact, I think it's full of shit? Or I don't get a say because I haven't got a gender studies degree? I'm just a basement dweller peasant white hetero male nerd who does not get his chance for a moral highground, I guess.
Also, you might want to look into her background with pyramid schemes etc. just to see where her real motivation behind "studying games" may lie.
Of course I admit that she's trying to change video games to her liking, since "her liking" is avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. I see that as positive changes, yes, and I'm sure plenty of people disagree. I'm also sure that plenty of people would not mind racist or homophobic stereotypes in games either, but cultural changes have made those less and less acceptable (although there is still much work to be done). Things are also moving positively for women, which is a good thing.
Who tried to deny you a say on the matter? You're posting right now, are you not?
Her background in terms of topics of study in her social science research activities clearly point to a genuine interest in the topic of sexism and a genuine desire to fight sexism. She may very well enjoy making money, but I'm not sure how the latter is supposed to invalidate the former.
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
Traditional feminism is about giving women the same level of responsibility as a man in the work field so as long they are qualified, no discrimination are allowed by law.
It isn't to artificially inject into a market w/ a certain type of product w/ no monetary incentive in demand for the producers to supply.
Anita Sarkessian have abused the hard fought sweat and blood of the early feminism to her advantage. She manipulated the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry. She mislead people into thinking that she is gaming expert when she clearly isn't and haven't done enough research to make her points valid.
In turn, she have gained both political and financial gains.
Much like how certain historical leaders have banded the entire country against a certain group of people for his personal gain, Anita, albeit a lesser version, is following those steps close at hearts.
If this isn't considered as the characteristic of being a horrible human being, then you and the average people have a very different definition of horror.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
There are many genres with simply no place for the disabled though. How do you have an FPS that includes positive representations of the disabled? Try being stuck in a wheelchair during a firefight, you won't last long. The PC police would say that that's mocking the disabled. But if the game is designed in such a way that being in a wheelchair is not a disadvantage in a firefight, it's plainly ridiculous. Its a huge plothole. The bad guy can just hide on a different floor in the building and turn the elevator off. If he loses to someone in a wheelchair when he himself is not in a wheelchair, its absurd. Now, you might say "Oh, but you could have a scientist or a commander in a wheelchair in the narrative". In which case the PC police will STILL say that the physically disabled are under represented. They're stuck hidden away behind the scenes while all the important things are done by the able.
It doesn't bother me that there are few representations of handicapped people in videogames, because there's pretty much no way to shoehorn them into games without hurting some other aspect of the game.
I'm reminded of this quote by Stephen Fry: “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
But thanks for linking me to a bunch of things I can't read without paying money. Sure convinced me.
You can read plenty of those articles and books without paying money. All you need to do is use google and online resources that I suppose I can't cite on TL.net. You could also look yourself for similar sources on google scholar, or go to your local university and check out their library/online resources. But yes, you not being provided with direct links sure invalidates the contents of those studies analyzing the social and individual impacts of negative representations in the media of people with disabilities.
Yes, I agree with you that any character cannot simply be replaced by a character with a disability. I'm not sure why you think anyone was arguing that. You tried to ridicule the idea that representations matter by invoking the underrepresentation of people with disabilities, while that topic doesn't invalidate the idea at all. Nobody is saying that you should have a character with a disability at every corner killing bad guys by the dozens, but instead that representations matter, and therefore that it would for example be positive to occasionally have characters with disabilities (possibly playable) perform tasks that their disability has no reason of preventing them from doing, and to avoid systematically attaching negative stereotypes to characters with disabilities.
The argument is not "I'm rather offended by that". If you think it is, it means you don't understand it.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
There are many genres with simply no place for the disabled though. How do you have an FPS that includes positive representations of the disabled? Try being stuck in a wheelchair during a firefight, you won't last long. The PC police would say that that's mocking the disabled. But if the game is designed in such a way that being in a wheelchair is not a disadvantage in a firefight, it's plainly ridiculous. Its a huge plothole. The bad guy can just hide on a different floor in the building and turn the elevator off. If he loses to someone in a wheelchair when he himself is not in a wheelchair, its absurd. Now, you might say "Oh, but you could have a scientist or a commander in a wheelchair in the narrative". In which case the PC police will STILL say that the physically disabled are under represented. They're stuck hidden away behind the scenes while all the important things are done by the able.
It doesn't bother me that there are few representations of handicapped people in videogames, because there's pretty much no way to shoehorn them into games without hurting some other aspect of the game.
I'm reminded of this quote by Stephen Fry: “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
But thanks for linking me to a bunch of things I can't read without paying money. Sure convinced me.
You can read plenty of those articles and books without paying money. All you need to do is use google and online resources that I suppose I can't cite on TL.net. You could also look yourself for similar sources on google scholar, or go to your local university and check out their library/online resources. But yes, you not being provided with direct links sure invalidates the contents of those studies analyzing the social and individual impacts of negative representations in the media of people with disabilities.
Yes, I agree with you that any character cannot simply be replaced by a character with a disability. I'm not sure why you think anyone was arguing that. You tried to ridicule the idea that representations matter by invoking the underrepresentation of people with disabilities, while that topic doesn't invalidate the idea at all. Nobody is saying that you should have a character with a disability at every corner killing bad guys by the dozens, but instead that representations matter, and therefore that it would for example be positive to occasionally have characters with disabilities (possibly playable) perform tasks that their disability has no reason of preventing them from doing, and to avoid systematically attaching negative stereotypes to characters with disabilities.
The argument is not "I'm rather offended by that". If you think it is, it means you don't understand it.
You might not be offended by that, but you're basically claiming other people are, else you wouldn't have brought up self-esteem.
I don't know why you even bothered citing a ton of books you know I cant read in time to make a response. By the time I go through all the effort of acquiring those books and reading those sections, the conversation will have moved on and anything I will have gleaned will be irrelevant.
I'm saying there are many games that simply have no place for a positive representation of the physically disabled. Either they're on the frontlines and disadvantaged, or they're behind the lines and hidden away and unimportant. There's no winning with the PC police.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote: [quote]
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
The problem isn't when you ask "Why aren't there handicapped people in games?"
It's when you point at specific games and say "You don't have any handicapped characters who are depicted positively, your game is a problem."
Sarkeesian's argument is systemic.
Wasn't really talking about Sarkeesian, more about the arguments you've been using.
All you've talked about how certain things are "problematic", and asking why wanting those things changed is such a bad thing.
But these kinds of things change by industry growth and shifts, not by pointing at specific issues and complaining about them. Princess Peach and Zelda will always be Damsel in Distress characters because its grandfathered into their storylines, and its part of the franchise that consumers expect. Duke Nukem will always be a crude, testerone filled caricature.
So when you ask what's so bad about female characters not fitting gender stereotypes, or not having female characters that aren't oversexualized, sometimes these things should remain, and are expected to remain, because of a lot of history and followings.
And sometimes things like handicapped character representation is entirely business related, because individual models, animations and physics can be expensive.
There's a lot more going on than just things being "problematic".
These kinds of things change by mentalities changing/people becoming aware of (or convinced that there are) issues that need to be addressed. What can change mentalities? Education, being persuaded by new ideas and demonstrations you're exposed to, integrating social norms, etc. Sarkeesian's videos is one example of something that can convince some people that there is a problem at the systemic level that needs to be addressed, and the exposure the videos have gotten may add to the tendency to move in that non-sexist direction.
Sarkeesian is not arguing that Princess Peach should never again be a Damsel in Distress. She's arguing that there's a problem when you can see that female characters tend to be systematically attached to these passive and helpless roles. There will always be plenty of exceptions - in fact, one of her upcoming videos is apparently set to be about existing positive representations of female characters. The point is that at the systemic level, female characters tend to be overly sexualized and tend to be assigned to stereotypical gender roles. Of course, individual clear instances of sexism can also be denounced as such, if the intent is to have the player adhere to sexist ideas/practices.
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
Traditional feminism is about giving women the same level of responsibility as a man in the work field so as long they are qualified, no discrimination are allowed by law.
It isn't to artificially inject into a market w/ a certain type of product w/ no monetary incentive in demand for the producers to supply.
Anita Sarkessian have abused the hard fought sweat and blood of the early feminism to her advantage. She manipulated the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry. She mislead people into thinking that she is gaming expert when she clearly isn't and haven't done enough research to make her points valid.
In turn, she have gained both political and financial gains.
Much like how certain historical leaders have banded the entire country against a certain group of people for his personal gain, Anita, albeit a lesser version, is following those steps close at hearts.
If this isn't considered as the characteristic of being a horrible human being, then you and the average people have a very different definition of horror.
You are repeating claims I have already rebutted without addressing what I said. You do not have the slightest idea about feminism and its evolution, as evidenced in the "Dating, how's your luck?" thread. Gender studies have existed for decades and many feminist authors have studied gender roles in the media, which is what Sarkeesian is doing here.
She did not "manipulate the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry". She pointed out problematic aspects found at the systemic level with regards to sexist representations of female characters, stressing that there were plenty of counter-examples. She is an expert on what she's doing, namely studying gender roles in the media.
She did make financial gains, just like you're making financial gains by doing your job (if you have any). You have no factual basis to claim that's the sole reason she engaged in that work. In fact, factual information on her previous work in academia suggests a genuine interest for the study of gender roles and a genuine feminist engagement.
Again, the only factual thing you have against her is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. That hardly makes her a "horrible human being".
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
Traditional feminism is about giving women the same level of responsibility as a man in the work field so as long they are qualified, no discrimination are allowed by law.
It isn't to artificially inject into a market w/ a certain type of product w/ no monetary incentive in demand for the producers to supply.
Anita Sarkessian have abused the hard fought sweat and blood of the early feminism to her advantage. She manipulated the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry. She mislead people into thinking that she is gaming expert when she clearly isn't and haven't done enough research to make her points valid.
In turn, she have gained both political and financial gains.
Much like how certain historical leaders have banded the entire country against a certain group of people for his personal gain, Anita, albeit a lesser version, is following those steps close at hearts.
If this isn't considered as the characteristic of being a horrible human being, then you and the average people have a very different definition of horror.
You are repeating claims I have already rebutted without addressing what I said. You do not have the slightest idea about feminism and its evolution, as evidenced in the "Dating, how's your luck?" thread. Gender studies have existed for decades and many feminist authors have studied gender roles in the media, which is what Sarkeesian is doing here.
She did not "manipulate the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry". She pointed out problematic aspects found at the systemic level with regards to sexist representations of female characters, stressing that there were plenty of counter-examples. She is an expert on what she's doing, namely studying gender roles in the media.
She did make financial gains, just like you're making financial gains by doing your job (if you have any). You have no factual basis to claim that's the sole reason she engaged in that work. In fact, factual information on her previous work in academia suggests a genuine interest for the study of gender roles and a genuine feminist engagement.
Again, the only factual thing you have against her is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. That hardly makes her a "horrible human being".
So now you are saying that "Oh, the definition of feminism can be almost anything! We can change (or evolve) it however we wish it too!"
No the term feminism have to have a rigid definition or else the word is useless. You need to grab a hold of one definition and the sentence I wrote is exactly on the most common description.
And oh you are just fixating on that one piece of evidence I've posted while ignoring how I've said that she is long passed overdue in her coming date, how she mislead the public with misinformation on her videos or how she lied to everybody on how credible it is.
Do you not understand that despite our great advances in the past couple of years, gaming is still actually a niche? And not everybody knows all about gaming?
Well now she basically smeared us all to dirts.
And while at it, it just happens that she is gaining fame + money from it.
At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there.
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote: [quote]
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
There are many genres with simply no place for the disabled though. How do you have an FPS that includes positive representations of the disabled? Try being stuck in a wheelchair during a firefight, you won't last long. The PC police would say that that's mocking the disabled. But if the game is designed in such a way that being in a wheelchair is not a disadvantage in a firefight, it's plainly ridiculous. Its a huge plothole. The bad guy can just hide on a different floor in the building and turn the elevator off. If he loses to someone in a wheelchair when he himself is not in a wheelchair, its absurd. Now, you might say "Oh, but you could have a scientist or a commander in a wheelchair in the narrative". In which case the PC police will STILL say that the physically disabled are under represented. They're stuck hidden away behind the scenes while all the important things are done by the able.
It doesn't bother me that there are few representations of handicapped people in videogames, because there's pretty much no way to shoehorn them into games without hurting some other aspect of the game.
I'm reminded of this quote by Stephen Fry: “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
But thanks for linking me to a bunch of things I can't read without paying money. Sure convinced me.
You can read plenty of those articles and books without paying money. All you need to do is use google and online resources that I suppose I can't cite on TL.net. You could also look yourself for similar sources on google scholar, or go to your local university and check out their library/online resources. But yes, you not being provided with direct links sure invalidates the contents of those studies analyzing the social and individual impacts of negative representations in the media of people with disabilities.
Yes, I agree with you that any character cannot simply be replaced by a character with a disability. I'm not sure why you think anyone was arguing that. You tried to ridicule the idea that representations matter by invoking the underrepresentation of people with disabilities, while that topic doesn't invalidate the idea at all. Nobody is saying that you should have a character with a disability at every corner killing bad guys by the dozens, but instead that representations matter, and therefore that it would for example be positive to occasionally have characters with disabilities (possibly playable) perform tasks that their disability has no reason of preventing them from doing, and to avoid systematically attaching negative stereotypes to characters with disabilities.
The argument is not "I'm rather offended by that". If you think it is, it means you don't understand it.
You might not be offended by that, but you're basically claiming other people are, else you wouldn't have brought up self-esteem.
I don't know why you even bothered citing a ton of books you know I cant read in time to make a response. By the time I go through all the effort of acquiring those books and reading those sections, the conversation will have moved on and anything I will have gleaned will be irrelevant.
I'm saying there are many games that simply have no place for a positive representation of the physically disabled. Either they're on the frontlines and disadvantaged, or they're behind the lines and hidden away and unimportant. There's no winning with the PC police.
Self-esteem goes way beyond being offended by something. Someone's self-esteem can very much be reduced because of being confronted with negative representations of the group(s) one belongs to, even if there is no direct feeling of being offended. The impacts of such representations (pertaining to sex, color, age, physical abilities, whatever) on the self-images and self-esteems of individuals are extremely well documented in social science research.
I bothered citing sources because that's how you give your interlocutor the opportunity to see and check, if he or she wants to, that you're not inventing things out of thin air. If you want to educate yourself on the topic, feel free to read them. If not, feel free not to read them. What's the problem exactly?
Sure, there are plenty of games that have no place for a positive representation of the physically disabled. "Pong", for example ,-) But the point is not that some games leave little room for such positive representations, the point is that at the systemic level you can often notice in the media that the disabled are underrepresented, and that when they are represented it's often negatively, which impacts perceptions of disabled people among both the disabled and the non-disabled.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote: [quote]
You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism.
No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote: [quote] No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
There are many genres with simply no place for the disabled though. How do you have an FPS that includes positive representations of the disabled? Try being stuck in a wheelchair during a firefight, you won't last long. The PC police would say that that's mocking the disabled. But if the game is designed in such a way that being in a wheelchair is not a disadvantage in a firefight, it's plainly ridiculous. Its a huge plothole. The bad guy can just hide on a different floor in the building and turn the elevator off. If he loses to someone in a wheelchair when he himself is not in a wheelchair, its absurd. Now, you might say "Oh, but you could have a scientist or a commander in a wheelchair in the narrative". In which case the PC police will STILL say that the physically disabled are under represented. They're stuck hidden away behind the scenes while all the important things are done by the able.
It doesn't bother me that there are few representations of handicapped people in videogames, because there's pretty much no way to shoehorn them into games without hurting some other aspect of the game.
I'm reminded of this quote by Stephen Fry: “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
But thanks for linking me to a bunch of things I can't read without paying money. Sure convinced me.
You can read plenty of those articles and books without paying money. All you need to do is use google and online resources that I suppose I can't cite on TL.net. You could also look yourself for similar sources on google scholar, or go to your local university and check out their library/online resources. But yes, you not being provided with direct links sure invalidates the contents of those studies analyzing the social and individual impacts of negative representations in the media of people with disabilities.
Yes, I agree with you that any character cannot simply be replaced by a character with a disability. I'm not sure why you think anyone was arguing that. You tried to ridicule the idea that representations matter by invoking the underrepresentation of people with disabilities, while that topic doesn't invalidate the idea at all. Nobody is saying that you should have a character with a disability at every corner killing bad guys by the dozens, but instead that representations matter, and therefore that it would for example be positive to occasionally have characters with disabilities (possibly playable) perform tasks that their disability has no reason of preventing them from doing, and to avoid systematically attaching negative stereotypes to characters with disabilities.
The argument is not "I'm rather offended by that". If you think it is, it means you don't understand it.
You might not be offended by that, but you're basically claiming other people are, else you wouldn't have brought up self-esteem.
I don't know why you even bothered citing a ton of books you know I cant read in time to make a response. By the time I go through all the effort of acquiring those books and reading those sections, the conversation will have moved on and anything I will have gleaned will be irrelevant.
I'm saying there are many games that simply have no place for a positive representation of the physically disabled. Either they're on the frontlines and disadvantaged, or they're behind the lines and hidden away and unimportant. There's no winning with the PC police.
Self-esteem goes way beyond being offended by something. Someone's self-esteem can very much be reduced because of being confronted with negative representations of the group(s) one belongs to, even if there is no direct feeling of being offended. The impacts of such representations (pertaining to sex, color, age, physical abilities, whatever) on the self-images and self-esteems of individuals are extremely well documented in social science research.
I bothered citing sources because that's how you give your interlocutor the opportunity to see and check, if he or she wants to, that you're not inventing things out of thin air. If you want to educate yourself on the topic, feel free to read them. If not, feel free not to read them. What's the problem exactly?
Sure, there are plenty of games that have no place for a positive representation of the physically disabled. "Pong", for example ,-) But the point is not that some games leave little room for such positive representations, the point is that at the systemic level you can often notice in the media that the disabled are underrepresented, and that when they are represented it's often negatively, which impacts perceptions of disabled people among both the disabled and the non-disabled.
It's whole genres though, not just individual games. Where could a wheelchair be in an FPS? How about a racing game? How about a sports game?
It's called self-esteem because its how you feel about yourself. You decide your own self-esteem. Anyone who has low self-esteem because some group they're in isn't represented exactly how they'd like didn't pay enough attention in nursery school. Sticks and stones.
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
Traditional feminism is about giving women the same level of responsibility as a man in the work field so as long they are qualified, no discrimination are allowed by law.
It isn't to artificially inject into a market w/ a certain type of product w/ no monetary incentive in demand for the producers to supply.
Anita Sarkessian have abused the hard fought sweat and blood of the early feminism to her advantage. She manipulated the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry. She mislead people into thinking that she is gaming expert when she clearly isn't and haven't done enough research to make her points valid.
In turn, she have gained both political and financial gains.
Much like how certain historical leaders have banded the entire country against a certain group of people for his personal gain, Anita, albeit a lesser version, is following those steps close at hearts.
If this isn't considered as the characteristic of being a horrible human being, then you and the average people have a very different definition of horror.
You are repeating claims I have already rebutted without addressing what I said. You do not have the slightest idea about feminism and its evolution, as evidenced in the "Dating, how's your luck?" thread. Gender studies have existed for decades and many feminist authors have studied gender roles in the media, which is what Sarkeesian is doing here.
She did not "manipulate the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry". She pointed out problematic aspects found at the systemic level with regards to sexist representations of female characters, stressing that there were plenty of counter-examples. She is an expert on what she's doing, namely studying gender roles in the media.
She did make financial gains, just like you're making financial gains by doing your job (if you have any). You have no factual basis to claim that's the sole reason she engaged in that work. In fact, factual information on her previous work in academia suggests a genuine interest for the study of gender roles and a genuine feminist engagement.
Again, the only factual thing you have against her is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. That hardly makes her a "horrible human being".
So now you are saying that "Oh, the definition of feminism can be almost anything! We can change (or evolve) it however we wish it too!"
No the term feminism have to have a rigid definition or else the word is useless. You need to grab a hold of one definition and the sentence I wrote is exactly on the most common description.
No, feminism as a social movement has evolved over the years and diversified itself, spawning different strands. That you seem to be unaware of this speaks volumes about your knowledge on the topic. This doesn't mean that feminism isn't still a "belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", and a support for the "political, economic, and social equality of the sexes" (Merriam-Webster). Sarkeesian subscribes to exactly that, and her work in her videos is aimed at working for the social equality of the sexes through their representations in the media. Such representations are notably analyzed in gender studies.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: And oh you are just fixating on that one piece of evidence I've posted while ignoring how I've said that she is long passed overdue in her coming date, how she mislead the public with misinformation on her videos or how she lied to everybody on how credible it is.
You're mixing your claim that she's scamming people with your claim that she's a terrible/horrible human being. I did not ignore that she was producing the videos slower than initially announced - in fact I addressed it by saying that being late could not be equated to scamming people when she was still doing exactly what she said she would be doing. The only calendar she put up on her kickstarter was about gifts to people having donated.
She did not mislead the public, the points she made in her videos stand. She didn't "lie to everybody on how credible it is", whatever that's supposed to mean.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: Do you not understand that despite our great advances in the past couple of years, gaming is still actually a niche? And not everybody knows all about gaming?
Well now she basically smeared us all to dirts.
And while at it, it just happens that she is gaining fame + money from it.
At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
Why exactly would being a niche (and that's debatable) prevent gaming from being subject to legitimate criticism? Addressing valid criticism is how you grow/get better. If anything, she's helping gaming, and the dumbasses who are harassing her (and whom you are supporting) are perpetuating negative stereotypes that we should all be fighting.
She didn't smear anyone, she pointed out sexist elements present in gaming, just like there are sexist elements present in movies, in tv shows, in literature, etc.
Good for her if she's gaining money while fighting for a worthy cause.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
The kind who understands what feminism is about, who understands what gender studies are about, who understands what Sarkeesian's point is, and who doesn't have a knee-jerk reaction against the messenger who dared point out that everything isn't perfect in the video games industry.
Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:
On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote: [quote] No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters.
Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote: [quote]
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
There are many genres with simply no place for the disabled though. How do you have an FPS that includes positive representations of the disabled? Try being stuck in a wheelchair during a firefight, you won't last long. The PC police would say that that's mocking the disabled. But if the game is designed in such a way that being in a wheelchair is not a disadvantage in a firefight, it's plainly ridiculous. Its a huge plothole. The bad guy can just hide on a different floor in the building and turn the elevator off. If he loses to someone in a wheelchair when he himself is not in a wheelchair, its absurd. Now, you might say "Oh, but you could have a scientist or a commander in a wheelchair in the narrative". In which case the PC police will STILL say that the physically disabled are under represented. They're stuck hidden away behind the scenes while all the important things are done by the able.
It doesn't bother me that there are few representations of handicapped people in videogames, because there's pretty much no way to shoehorn them into games without hurting some other aspect of the game.
I'm reminded of this quote by Stephen Fry: “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
But thanks for linking me to a bunch of things I can't read without paying money. Sure convinced me.
You can read plenty of those articles and books without paying money. All you need to do is use google and online resources that I suppose I can't cite on TL.net. You could also look yourself for similar sources on google scholar, or go to your local university and check out their library/online resources. But yes, you not being provided with direct links sure invalidates the contents of those studies analyzing the social and individual impacts of negative representations in the media of people with disabilities.
Yes, I agree with you that any character cannot simply be replaced by a character with a disability. I'm not sure why you think anyone was arguing that. You tried to ridicule the idea that representations matter by invoking the underrepresentation of people with disabilities, while that topic doesn't invalidate the idea at all. Nobody is saying that you should have a character with a disability at every corner killing bad guys by the dozens, but instead that representations matter, and therefore that it would for example be positive to occasionally have characters with disabilities (possibly playable) perform tasks that their disability has no reason of preventing them from doing, and to avoid systematically attaching negative stereotypes to characters with disabilities.
The argument is not "I'm rather offended by that". If you think it is, it means you don't understand it.
You might not be offended by that, but you're basically claiming other people are, else you wouldn't have brought up self-esteem.
I don't know why you even bothered citing a ton of books you know I cant read in time to make a response. By the time I go through all the effort of acquiring those books and reading those sections, the conversation will have moved on and anything I will have gleaned will be irrelevant.
I'm saying there are many games that simply have no place for a positive representation of the physically disabled. Either they're on the frontlines and disadvantaged, or they're behind the lines and hidden away and unimportant. There's no winning with the PC police.
Self-esteem goes way beyond being offended by something. Someone's self-esteem can very much be reduced because of being confronted with negative representations of the group(s) one belongs to, even if there is no direct feeling of being offended. The impacts of such representations (pertaining to sex, color, age, physical abilities, whatever) on the self-images and self-esteems of individuals are extremely well documented in social science research.
I bothered citing sources because that's how you give your interlocutor the opportunity to see and check, if he or she wants to, that you're not inventing things out of thin air. If you want to educate yourself on the topic, feel free to read them. If not, feel free not to read them. What's the problem exactly?
Sure, there are plenty of games that have no place for a positive representation of the physically disabled. "Pong", for example ,-) But the point is not that some games leave little room for such positive representations, the point is that at the systemic level you can often notice in the media that the disabled are underrepresented, and that when they are represented it's often negatively, which impacts perceptions of disabled people among both the disabled and the non-disabled.
It's whole genres though, not just individual games. Where could a wheelchair be in an FPS? How about a racing game? How about a sports game?
Come on, nobody is advocating having one of the players in each team in FIFA play in a wheelchair. It doesn't mean you can't have characters (playable or not) with a disability in plenty of games. In fact, you can already find plenty of such examples, including in FPS games.
On October 19 2014 10:19 Millitron wrote: It's called self-esteem because its how you feel about yourself. You decide your own self-esteem. Anyone who has low self-esteem because some group they're in isn't represented exactly how they'd like didn't pay enough attention in nursery school. Sticks and stones.
Self-esteem is not simply decided by your own "detached" will. You clearly have no idea whatsoever about the scientific studies done on self-images and self-esteem, so I'm not sure what else to tell you than go educate yourself on the topic. Social representations matter in how you perceive yourself and others, whether you realize it or not. It's something you learn in a Social psychology 101 class. If you want me to provide you with more sources, just ask.
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
Traditional feminism is about giving women the same level of responsibility as a man in the work field so as long they are qualified, no discrimination are allowed by law.
It isn't to artificially inject into a market w/ a certain type of product w/ no monetary incentive in demand for the producers to supply.
Anita Sarkessian have abused the hard fought sweat and blood of the early feminism to her advantage. She manipulated the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry. She mislead people into thinking that she is gaming expert when she clearly isn't and haven't done enough research to make her points valid.
In turn, she have gained both political and financial gains.
Much like how certain historical leaders have banded the entire country against a certain group of people for his personal gain, Anita, albeit a lesser version, is following those steps close at hearts.
If this isn't considered as the characteristic of being a horrible human being, then you and the average people have a very different definition of horror.
You are repeating claims I have already rebutted without addressing what I said. You do not have the slightest idea about feminism and its evolution, as evidenced in the "Dating, how's your luck?" thread. Gender studies have existed for decades and many feminist authors have studied gender roles in the media, which is what Sarkeesian is doing here.
She did not "manipulate the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry". She pointed out problematic aspects found at the systemic level with regards to sexist representations of female characters, stressing that there were plenty of counter-examples. She is an expert on what she's doing, namely studying gender roles in the media.
She did make financial gains, just like you're making financial gains by doing your job (if you have any). You have no factual basis to claim that's the sole reason she engaged in that work. In fact, factual information on her previous work in academia suggests a genuine interest for the study of gender roles and a genuine feminist engagement.
Again, the only factual thing you have against her is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. That hardly makes her a "horrible human being".
So now you are saying that "Oh, the definition of feminism can be almost anything! We can change (or evolve) it however we wish it too!"
No the term feminism have to have a rigid definition or else the word is useless. You need to grab a hold of one definition and the sentence I wrote is exactly on the most common description.
No, feminism as a social movement has evolved over the years and diversified itself, spawning different strands. That you seem to be unaware of this speaks volumes about your knowledge on the topic. This doesn't mean that feminism isn't still a "belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", and a support for" political, economic, and social equality of the sexes" (Merriam-Webster). Sarkeesian subscribes to exactly that, and her work in her videos is aimed at working for the social equality of the sexes through their representations in the media. Such representations are notably analyzed in gender studies.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: And oh you are just fixating on that one piece of evidence I've posted while ignoring how I've said that she is long passed overdue in her coming date, how she mislead the public with misinformation on her videos or how she lied to everybody on how credible it is.
You're mixing your claim that she's scamming people with your claim that she's a terrible/horrible human being. I did not ignore that she was producing the videos slower than initially announced - in fact I addressed it by saying that being late could not be equated to scamming people when she was still doing exactly what she said she would be doing. The only calendar she put up on her kickstarter was about gifts to people having donated.
She did not mislead the public, the points she made in her videos stand. She didn't "lie to everybody on how credible it is", whatever that's supposed to mean.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: Do you not understand that despite our great advances in the past couple of years, gaming is still actually a niche? And not everybody knows all about gaming?
Well now she basically smeared us all to dirts.
And while at it, it just happens that she is gaining fame + money from it.
At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
Why exactly would being a niche (and that's debatable) prevent gaming from being subject to legitimate criticism? Addressing valid criticism is how you grow/get better. If anything, she's helping gaming, and the dumbasses who are harassing her (and whom you are supporting) are perpetuating negative stereotypes that we should all be fighting.
She didn't smear anyone, she pointed out sexist elements present in gaming, just like there are sexist elements present in movies, in tv shows, in literature, etc.
Good for her if she's gaining money while fighting for a worthy cause.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
The kind who understands what feminism is about, who understands what gender studies are about, who understands what Sarkeesian's point is, and who doesn't have a knee-jerk reaction against the messenger who dared point out that everything isn't perfect in the video games industry.
So I get it, the term is useless.
You are only saying statements after statements with [...]her points still stand."
You are completely ignoring how much criticism is she getting right now w/ all her pseudo-theories debunked by various media and how she clearly mislead the public in presenting herself as someone of "expert" when she clearly doesn't play them.
Every of that have been disproved multiple of times over and over and over again, and you continually decide to ignore those.
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
Traditional feminism is about giving women the same level of responsibility as a man in the work field so as long they are qualified, no discrimination are allowed by law.
It isn't to artificially inject into a market w/ a certain type of product w/ no monetary incentive in demand for the producers to supply.
Anita Sarkessian have abused the hard fought sweat and blood of the early feminism to her advantage. She manipulated the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry. She mislead people into thinking that she is gaming expert when she clearly isn't and haven't done enough research to make her points valid.
In turn, she have gained both political and financial gains.
Much like how certain historical leaders have banded the entire country against a certain group of people for his personal gain, Anita, albeit a lesser version, is following those steps close at hearts.
If this isn't considered as the characteristic of being a horrible human being, then you and the average people have a very different definition of horror.
You are repeating claims I have already rebutted without addressing what I said. You do not have the slightest idea about feminism and its evolution, as evidenced in the "Dating, how's your luck?" thread. Gender studies have existed for decades and many feminist authors have studied gender roles in the media, which is what Sarkeesian is doing here.
She did not "manipulate the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry". She pointed out problematic aspects found at the systemic level with regards to sexist representations of female characters, stressing that there were plenty of counter-examples. She is an expert on what she's doing, namely studying gender roles in the media.
She did make financial gains, just like you're making financial gains by doing your job (if you have any). You have no factual basis to claim that's the sole reason she engaged in that work. In fact, factual information on her previous work in academia suggests a genuine interest for the study of gender roles and a genuine feminist engagement.
Again, the only factual thing you have against her is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. That hardly makes her a "horrible human being".
So now you are saying that "Oh, the definition of feminism can be almost anything! We can change (or evolve) it however we wish it too!"
No the term feminism have to have a rigid definition or else the word is useless. You need to grab a hold of one definition and the sentence I wrote is exactly on the most common description.
No, feminism as a social movement has evolved over the years and diversified itself, spawning different strands. That you seem to be unaware of this speaks volumes about your knowledge on the topic. This doesn't mean that feminism isn't still a "belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", and a support for" political, economic, and social equality of the sexes" (Merriam-Webster). Sarkeesian subscribes to exactly that, and her work in her videos is aimed at working for the social equality of the sexes through their representations in the media. Such representations are notably analyzed in gender studies.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: And oh you are just fixating on that one piece of evidence I've posted while ignoring how I've said that she is long passed overdue in her coming date, how she mislead the public with misinformation on her videos or how she lied to everybody on how credible it is.
You're mixing your claim that she's scamming people with your claim that she's a terrible/horrible human being. I did not ignore that she was producing the videos slower than initially announced - in fact I addressed it by saying that being late could not be equated to scamming people when she was still doing exactly what she said she would be doing. The only calendar she put up on her kickstarter was about gifts to people having donated.
She did not mislead the public, the points she made in her videos stand. She didn't "lie to everybody on how credible it is", whatever that's supposed to mean.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: Do you not understand that despite our great advances in the past couple of years, gaming is still actually a niche? And not everybody knows all about gaming?
Well now she basically smeared us all to dirts.
And while at it, it just happens that she is gaining fame + money from it.
At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
Why exactly would being a niche (and that's debatable) prevent gaming from being subject to legitimate criticism? Addressing valid criticism is how you grow/get better. If anything, she's helping gaming, and the dumbasses who are harassing her (and whom you are supporting) are perpetuating negative stereotypes that we should all be fighting.
She didn't smear anyone, she pointed out sexist elements present in gaming, just like there are sexist elements present in movies, in tv shows, in literature, etc.
Good for her if she's gaining money while fighting for a worthy cause.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
The kind who understands what feminism is about, who understands what gender studies are about, who understands what Sarkeesian's point is, and who doesn't have a knee-jerk reaction against the messenger who dared point out that everything isn't perfect in the video games industry.
So I get it, the term is useless.
You are only saying statements after statements with [...]her points still stand."
You are completely ignoring how much criticism is she getting right now w/ all her pseudo-theories debunked by various media and how she clearly mislead the public in presenting herself as someone of "expert" when she clearly doesn't play them.
Every of that have been disproved multiple of times over and over and over again, and you continually decide to ignore those.
What.a.guy.
or not to be sexist, a girl.
The term isn't useless. I just provided you with the Merriam-Webster definition and explained to you why Sarkeesian and her work fit right in.
Don't make me laugh - in this discussion, you're the one who's kept repeating his claims while I was rebutting them each time.
You don't seem to understand what "to dispove" means either, apparently. Again, it's one thing to dispute the relevancy/accuracy of individual examples, but her broader points about sexist tropes and problematic representations of female characters are well documented in social science research in the particular area of video games and more extensively with regards to other media. Those points have not been "disproved", they're factual.
Going to bed now, so I'll answer further comments tomorrow. You keep repeating yourself anyway.
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
Traditional feminism is about giving women the same level of responsibility as a man in the work field so as long they are qualified, no discrimination are allowed by law.
It isn't to artificially inject into a market w/ a certain type of product w/ no monetary incentive in demand for the producers to supply.
Anita Sarkessian have abused the hard fought sweat and blood of the early feminism to her advantage. She manipulated the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry. She mislead people into thinking that she is gaming expert when she clearly isn't and haven't done enough research to make her points valid.
In turn, she have gained both political and financial gains.
Much like how certain historical leaders have banded the entire country against a certain group of people for his personal gain, Anita, albeit a lesser version, is following those steps close at hearts.
If this isn't considered as the characteristic of being a horrible human being, then you and the average people have a very different definition of horror.
You are repeating claims I have already rebutted without addressing what I said. You do not have the slightest idea about feminism and its evolution, as evidenced in the "Dating, how's your luck?" thread. Gender studies have existed for decades and many feminist authors have studied gender roles in the media, which is what Sarkeesian is doing here.
She did not "manipulate the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry". She pointed out problematic aspects found at the systemic level with regards to sexist representations of female characters, stressing that there were plenty of counter-examples. She is an expert on what she's doing, namely studying gender roles in the media.
She did make financial gains, just like you're making financial gains by doing your job (if you have any). You have no factual basis to claim that's the sole reason she engaged in that work. In fact, factual information on her previous work in academia suggests a genuine interest for the study of gender roles and a genuine feminist engagement.
Again, the only factual thing you have against her is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. That hardly makes her a "horrible human being".
So now you are saying that "Oh, the definition of feminism can be almost anything! We can change (or evolve) it however we wish it too!"
No the term feminism have to have a rigid definition or else the word is useless. You need to grab a hold of one definition and the sentence I wrote is exactly on the most common description.
No, feminism as a social movement has evolved over the years and diversified itself, spawning different strands. That you seem to be unaware of this speaks volumes about your knowledge on the topic. This doesn't mean that feminism isn't still a "belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", and a support for" political, economic, and social equality of the sexes" (Merriam-Webster). Sarkeesian subscribes to exactly that, and her work in her videos is aimed at working for the social equality of the sexes through their representations in the media. Such representations are notably analyzed in gender studies.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: And oh you are just fixating on that one piece of evidence I've posted while ignoring how I've said that she is long passed overdue in her coming date, how she mislead the public with misinformation on her videos or how she lied to everybody on how credible it is.
You're mixing your claim that she's scamming people with your claim that she's a terrible/horrible human being. I did not ignore that she was producing the videos slower than initially announced - in fact I addressed it by saying that being late could not be equated to scamming people when she was still doing exactly what she said she would be doing. The only calendar she put up on her kickstarter was about gifts to people having donated.
She did not mislead the public, the points she made in her videos stand. She didn't "lie to everybody on how credible it is", whatever that's supposed to mean.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: Do you not understand that despite our great advances in the past couple of years, gaming is still actually a niche? And not everybody knows all about gaming?
Well now she basically smeared us all to dirts.
And while at it, it just happens that she is gaining fame + money from it.
At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
Why exactly would being a niche (and that's debatable) prevent gaming from being subject to legitimate criticism? Addressing valid criticism is how you grow/get better. If anything, she's helping gaming, and the dumbasses who are harassing her (and whom you are supporting) are perpetuating negative stereotypes that we should all be fighting.
She didn't smear anyone, she pointed out sexist elements present in gaming, just like there are sexist elements present in movies, in tv shows, in literature, etc.
Good for her if she's gaining money while fighting for a worthy cause.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
The kind who understands what feminism is about, who understands what gender studies are about, who understands what Sarkeesian's point is, and who doesn't have a knee-jerk reaction against the messenger who dared point out that everything isn't perfect in the video games industry.
/facepalm Yes, she finds sexist elements from Mario 64 to racing games, everywhere. That's moderate paranoia to say the least, in addition to having a very shallow previous gaming experience which undermines her credibility anyway. She's helping gaming towards what? Making the ultimate utopia simulator, or the most boring game ever? Because that's what the self-styled journalists are after now, and in large part thanks to the likes of Anita and her followers.
I don't want my hobbies thought policed for some shady "worthy cause" that exists only in some 0,01% minority's twisted minds. I don't want to read guilt inducing articles based on made up theories that did not exist 5 years ago, telling me what a terrible person I am. I'm not interested in seeing dozens of developers repent for their "sins" they've committed before Anita showed up. I want them to work on actual issues that concern games.
Extremes have always been called out (Postal, Carmageddon for example), but we've gone too far. Every second week there's a fabricated social justice controversy while gaming coverage and quality of new releases are hitting an all time low.
On October 19 2014 08:05 EtherealBlade wrote: [quote]
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote: [quote] You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote: [quote] And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
There are many genres with simply no place for the disabled though. How do you have an FPS that includes positive representations of the disabled? Try being stuck in a wheelchair during a firefight, you won't last long. The PC police would say that that's mocking the disabled. But if the game is designed in such a way that being in a wheelchair is not a disadvantage in a firefight, it's plainly ridiculous. Its a huge plothole. The bad guy can just hide on a different floor in the building and turn the elevator off. If he loses to someone in a wheelchair when he himself is not in a wheelchair, its absurd. Now, you might say "Oh, but you could have a scientist or a commander in a wheelchair in the narrative". In which case the PC police will STILL say that the physically disabled are under represented. They're stuck hidden away behind the scenes while all the important things are done by the able.
It doesn't bother me that there are few representations of handicapped people in videogames, because there's pretty much no way to shoehorn them into games without hurting some other aspect of the game.
I'm reminded of this quote by Stephen Fry: “It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
But thanks for linking me to a bunch of things I can't read without paying money. Sure convinced me.
You can read plenty of those articles and books without paying money. All you need to do is use google and online resources that I suppose I can't cite on TL.net. You could also look yourself for similar sources on google scholar, or go to your local university and check out their library/online resources. But yes, you not being provided with direct links sure invalidates the contents of those studies analyzing the social and individual impacts of negative representations in the media of people with disabilities.
Yes, I agree with you that any character cannot simply be replaced by a character with a disability. I'm not sure why you think anyone was arguing that. You tried to ridicule the idea that representations matter by invoking the underrepresentation of people with disabilities, while that topic doesn't invalidate the idea at all. Nobody is saying that you should have a character with a disability at every corner killing bad guys by the dozens, but instead that representations matter, and therefore that it would for example be positive to occasionally have characters with disabilities (possibly playable) perform tasks that their disability has no reason of preventing them from doing, and to avoid systematically attaching negative stereotypes to characters with disabilities.
The argument is not "I'm rather offended by that". If you think it is, it means you don't understand it.
You might not be offended by that, but you're basically claiming other people are, else you wouldn't have brought up self-esteem.
I don't know why you even bothered citing a ton of books you know I cant read in time to make a response. By the time I go through all the effort of acquiring those books and reading those sections, the conversation will have moved on and anything I will have gleaned will be irrelevant.
I'm saying there are many games that simply have no place for a positive representation of the physically disabled. Either they're on the frontlines and disadvantaged, or they're behind the lines and hidden away and unimportant. There's no winning with the PC police.
Self-esteem goes way beyond being offended by something. Someone's self-esteem can very much be reduced because of being confronted with negative representations of the group(s) one belongs to, even if there is no direct feeling of being offended. The impacts of such representations (pertaining to sex, color, age, physical abilities, whatever) on the self-images and self-esteems of individuals are extremely well documented in social science research.
I bothered citing sources because that's how you give your interlocutor the opportunity to see and check, if he or she wants to, that you're not inventing things out of thin air. If you want to educate yourself on the topic, feel free to read them. If not, feel free not to read them. What's the problem exactly?
Sure, there are plenty of games that have no place for a positive representation of the physically disabled. "Pong", for example ,-) But the point is not that some games leave little room for such positive representations, the point is that at the systemic level you can often notice in the media that the disabled are underrepresented, and that when they are represented it's often negatively, which impacts perceptions of disabled people among both the disabled and the non-disabled.
It's whole genres though, not just individual games. Where could a wheelchair be in an FPS? How about a racing game? How about a sports game?
Come on, nobody is advocating having one of the players in each team in FIFA play in a wheelchair. It doesn't mean you can't have characters (playable or not) with a disability in plenty of games. In fact, you can already find plenty of such examples, including in FPS games.
On October 19 2014 10:19 Millitron wrote: It's called self-esteem because its how you feel about yourself. You decide your own self-esteem. Anyone who has low self-esteem because some group they're in isn't represented exactly how they'd like didn't pay enough attention in nursery school. Sticks and stones.
Self-esteem is not simply decided by your own "detached" will. You clearly have no idea whatsoever about the scientific studies done on self-images and self-esteem, so I'm not sure what else to tell you than go educate yourself on the topic. Social representations matter in how you perceive yourself and others, whether you realize it or not. It's something you learn in a Social psychology 101 class. If you want me to provide you with more sources, just ask.
Going to bed now, so I'll answer further comments tomorrow.
None of these games are realistic portrayals of disabled people. They all either have amazing prosthetics, or psychic abilities/the Force that give them the exact same, or even better, abilities as anyone else. They may as well not be disabled. Unrealistic portrayals are no better than not portraying them at all. As for Joker, its a huge plothole. Why have someone who is so vulnerable on the front lines? It's completely unbelievable. You don't see any real fighter pilots with brittle bone disease. If there's an emergency and he's knocked down, suddenly your pilot is lying in crippling pain unable to do his duty.
Honestly, I think this is the same kind of bullcrap Jack Thompson fed the media for so long about videogame violence. He said videogames made kids into violent psychos, and Sarkeesian et. al. are saying they make gamers into sexist assholes. If someone believes women are sex objects because they're dressed scantily in Dead or Alive, they were never going to be a paragon of equality to begin with.
My self-esteem is decided by my own will because I'm an adult, not an emotionally stunted child that needs society's approval for everything.
Gamergate is the "thanksObama" video games. Its a worthless hash tag that has no meaning and is just used by anyone who wants it. Its not a movement any more that "thanksObama" is. If you search them both via twitter, you will find the same level of discordant non-sense.
Also, many of the people who try to debunk Anita Sarkeesian have never fully watched her work. The majority of people I have interacted with have only watched the "response videos" which are clearly bias and cherry pick from her videos the points they want to make. Its funny, because many of them do the exact same thing they accuse her of.
Anita Sarkeesian begins the majority of her videos with a phrase along the lines of "It is ok to love a game with problematic elements". And with this, all problems should be solved. We can criticize the things we love and its fine. I love the movie Hook, but I know its a terribly made movie and sort of bad(you can see boom mics in several shots and its a hot mess of a film). The same goes for video games, as we grow up with them, we see the problematic elements. Like Street Fight is sort of super racist, but its ok, because it was made in a different era. But that doesn't stop me from realizing that T-hawk is sort of a fuck up character.
The most amusing part about all of this is the only people scream about Anita Sarkeesian are players. The people she is criticizing, game developers, gave her an award for her work and thanked her for it. Many of them talk about how they made her look at how they make their games and how to change it to make them more welcoming to women. Because the people who make games want everyone to play them, because thats why they make games.
1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
Verdict: Still a fraud
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 2. So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote: 3. Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
Traditional feminism is about giving women the same level of responsibility as a man in the work field so as long they are qualified, no discrimination are allowed by law.
It isn't to artificially inject into a market w/ a certain type of product w/ no monetary incentive in demand for the producers to supply.
Anita Sarkessian have abused the hard fought sweat and blood of the early feminism to her advantage. She manipulated the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry. She mislead people into thinking that she is gaming expert when she clearly isn't and haven't done enough research to make her points valid.
In turn, she have gained both political and financial gains.
Much like how certain historical leaders have banded the entire country against a certain group of people for his personal gain, Anita, albeit a lesser version, is following those steps close at hearts.
If this isn't considered as the characteristic of being a horrible human being, then you and the average people have a very different definition of horror.
You are repeating claims I have already rebutted without addressing what I said. You do not have the slightest idea about feminism and its evolution, as evidenced in the "Dating, how's your luck?" thread. Gender studies have existed for decades and many feminist authors have studied gender roles in the media, which is what Sarkeesian is doing here.
She did not "manipulate the public's perception on the entirely of gaming industry". She pointed out problematic aspects found at the systemic level with regards to sexist representations of female characters, stressing that there were plenty of counter-examples. She is an expert on what she's doing, namely studying gender roles in the media.
She did make financial gains, just like you're making financial gains by doing your job (if you have any). You have no factual basis to claim that's the sole reason she engaged in that work. In fact, factual information on her previous work in academia suggests a genuine interest for the study of gender roles and a genuine feminist engagement.
Again, the only factual thing you have against her is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. That hardly makes her a "horrible human being".
So now you are saying that "Oh, the definition of feminism can be almost anything! We can change (or evolve) it however we wish it too!"
No the term feminism have to have a rigid definition or else the word is useless. You need to grab a hold of one definition and the sentence I wrote is exactly on the most common description.
No, feminism as a social movement has evolved over the years and diversified itself, spawning different strands. That you seem to be unaware of this speaks volumes about your knowledge on the topic. This doesn't mean that feminism isn't still a "belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", and a support for" political, economic, and social equality of the sexes" (Merriam-Webster). Sarkeesian subscribes to exactly that, and her work in her videos is aimed at working for the social equality of the sexes through their representations in the media. Such representations are notably analyzed in gender studies.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: And oh you are just fixating on that one piece of evidence I've posted while ignoring how I've said that she is long passed overdue in her coming date, how she mislead the public with misinformation on her videos or how she lied to everybody on how credible it is.
You're mixing your claim that she's scamming people with your claim that she's a terrible/horrible human being. I did not ignore that she was producing the videos slower than initially announced - in fact I addressed it by saying that being late could not be equated to scamming people when she was still doing exactly what she said she would be doing. The only calendar she put up on her kickstarter was about gifts to people having donated.
She did not mislead the public, the points she made in her videos stand. She didn't "lie to everybody on how credible it is", whatever that's supposed to mean.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: Do you not understand that despite our great advances in the past couple of years, gaming is still actually a niche? And not everybody knows all about gaming?
Well now she basically smeared us all to dirts.
And while at it, it just happens that she is gaining fame + money from it.
At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
Why exactly would being a niche (and that's debatable) prevent gaming from being subject to legitimate criticism? Addressing valid criticism is how you grow/get better. If anything, she's helping gaming, and the dumbasses who are harassing her (and whom you are supporting) are perpetuating negative stereotypes that we should all be fighting.
She didn't smear anyone, she pointed out sexist elements present in gaming, just like there are sexist elements present in movies, in tv shows, in literature, etc.
Good for her if she's gaining money while fighting for a worthy cause.
On October 19 2014 10:12 Xiphos wrote: At the same time, feminists wants to associate with that?
If this is the kind of feminism you want to associate with, what kind of sociopaths are you?
The kind who understands what feminism is about, who understands what gender studies are about, who understands what Sarkeesian's point is, and who doesn't have a knee-jerk reaction against the messenger who dared point out that everything isn't perfect in the video games industry.
So I get it, the term is useless.
You are only saying statements after statements with [...]her points still stand."
You are completely ignoring how much criticism is she getting right now w/ all her pseudo-theories debunked by various media and how she clearly mislead the public in presenting herself as someone of "expert" when she clearly doesn't play them.
Every of that have been disproved multiple of times over and over and over again, and you continually decide to ignore those.
What.a.guy.
or not to be sexist, a girl.
The term isn't useless. I just provided you with the Merriam-Webster definition and explained to you why Sarkeesian and her work fit right in.
Don't make me laugh - in this discussion, you're the one who's kept repeating his claims while I was rebutting them each time.
You don't seem to understand what "to dispove" means either, apparently. Again, it's one thing to dispute the relevancy/accuracy of individual examples, but her broader points about sexist tropes and problematic representations of female characters are well documented in social science research in the particular area of video games and more extensively with regards to other media. Those points have not been "disproved", they're factual.
Going to bed now, so I'll answer further comments tomorrow. You keep repeating yourself anyway.
I keep repeating myself because you keep run away.
Anyone can just go through the thread that is that the only quote you've posted disputing the rebuttals is this post:
How exactly is that youtube search supposed to address/rebut anything I've said? If your point was that there exist people who are critical of Sarkeesian, I'm not sure who's disputing that.
And subsequently you haven't touched upon any of them otherwise.
Quit lying.
And as others(EtherealBlade, Millitron, and WolfintheSheep) have shown here how ridiculous you are making yourself to be here.
On October 19 2014 10:54 Plansix wrote: Gamergate is the "thanksObama" video games. Its a worthless hash tag that has no meaning and is just used by anyone who wants it. Its not a movement any more that "thanksObama" is. If you search them both via twitter, you will find the same level of discordant non-sense.
Also, many of the people who try to debunk Anita Sarkeesian have never fully watched her work. The majority of people I have interacted with have only watched the "response videos" which are clearly bias and cherry pick from her videos the points they want to make. Its funny, because many of them do the exact same thing they accuse her of.
Anita Sarkeesian begins the majority of her videos with a phrase along the lines of "It is ok to love a game with problematic elements". And with this, all problems should be solved. We can criticize the things we love and its fine. I love the movie Hook, but I know its a terribly made movie and sort of bad(you can see boom mics in several shots and its a hot mess of a film). The same goes for video games, as we grow up with them, we see the problematic elements. Like Street Fight is sort of super racist, but its ok, because it was made in a different era. But that doesn't stop me from realizing that T-hawk is sort of a fuck up character.
The most amusing part about all of this is the only people scream about Anita Sarkeesian are players. The people she is criticizing, game developers, gave her an award for her work and thanked her for it. Many of them talk about how they made her look at how they make their games and how to change it to make them more welcoming to women. Because the people who make games want everyone to play them, because thats why they make games.
I don't WANT everyone to play games though. The last time a big group joined gaming was with Call of Duty 4: MW. And with it I saw many of my favorite franchises turned into CoD clones, or otherwise altered to grab the largest demographic, in this case, short attention spans.
Red Orchestra 1 was a fairly accurate simulation of WW2 combined arms warfare. Red Orchestra 2 was Red Orchestra: Call of Duty edition. They added levelling up, shortened the ranges to unrealistically close to speed up the action, and made it all about quick reactions and not about being smart. Ace Combat used to be a fun, goofy arcade flight sim. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon threw out everything that made the other AC games fun, and added quick time events and rail shooter sections, to be more like CoD. It was practically Call of Duty: Planes. Red Alert 2 is one of my top 5 games, and is my favorite RTS. EA saw how big the Starcraft audience was, and tried to nab it, and RA3 ended up being a pisspoor Starcraft clone. Every time I've seen a series try to attract a larger demographic, I've seen it alienate the core playerbase.
Of course devs thank Sarkeesian. If they do anything but kiss her feet, they'll be the next target of the witch hunt.
On October 19 2014 10:54 Plansix wrote: Gamergate is the "thanksObama" video games. Its a worthless hash tag that has no meaning and is just used by anyone who wants it. Its not a movement any more that "thanksObama" is. If you search them both via twitter, you will find the same level of discordant non-sense.
Also, many of the people who try to debunk Anita Sarkeesian have never fully watched her work. The majority of people I have interacted with have only watched the "response videos" which are clearly bias and cherry pick from her videos the points they want to make. Its funny, because many of them do the exact same thing they accuse her of.
Anita Sarkeesian begins the majority of her videos with a phrase along the lines of "It is ok to love a game with problematic elements". And with this, all problems should be solved. We can criticize the things we love and its fine. I love the movie Hook, but I know its a terribly made movie and sort of bad(you can see boom mics in several shots and its a hot mess of a film). The same goes for video games, as we grow up with them, we see the problematic elements. Like Street Fight is sort of super racist, but its ok, because it was made in a different era. But that doesn't stop me from realizing that T-hawk is sort of a fuck up character.
The most amusing part about all of this is the only people scream about Anita Sarkeesian are players. The people she is criticizing, game developers, gave her an award for her work and thanked her for it. Many of them talk about how they made her look at how they make their games and how to change it to make them more welcoming to women. Because the people who make games want everyone to play them, because thats why they make games.
I don't WANT everyone to play games though. The last time a big group joined gaming was with Call of Duty 4: MW. And with it I saw many of my favorite franchises turned into CoD clones, or otherwise altered to grab the largest demographic, in this case, short attention spans.
Red Orchestra 1 was a fairly accurate simulation of WW2 combined arms warfare. Red Orchestra 2 was Red Orchestra: Call of Duty edition. They added levelling up, shortened the ranges to unrealistically close to speed up the action, and made it all about quick reactions and not about being smart. Ace Combat used to be a fun, goofy arcade flight sim. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon threw out everything that made the other AC games fun, and added quick time events and rail shooter sections, to be more like CoD. It was practically Call of Duty: Planes. Red Alert 2 is one of my top 5 games, and is my favorite RTS. EA saw how big the Starcraft audience was, and tried to nab it, and RA3 ended up being a pisspoor Starcraft clone. Every time I've seen a series try to attract a larger demographic, I've seen it alienate the core playerbase.
Of course devs thank Sarkeesian. If they do anything but kiss her feet, they'll be the next target of the witch hunt.
Gaming is a 70 billion dollar industry, they are making more games, not less. People are coming if you want it or not. Girls are coming and they will have opinions and they may not agree that "boob armor" is super realistic, so we might see a little less of that. And that is totally ok. The games you like are not going to go away. There is away going to be a Red Orchestra, but it might not have that name(also, Red Orchestra was a mod, while 2 was a commercial release where people had to play the bills for health insurance and shit.) They are making more types of games, not less. Of course the hard core game are going to be a smaller market, but people still make them for you. Look at dark souls.
And I listen to numerous video games industry podcast with any number of people from all parts of the industry and they all have no problem with her. I have heard her on numerous podcast and she likes board games and does play games, and is no where near the monster out to destroy boy-games as we know it. They have no problem having their games criticized, since many of them are their own biggest critics. There isn't a single game developer that is afraid of her.
And I don't know why people think she is going to get rid of specific types of games. The movie industry has proven that any type of movie can be made, including unlimited Saw and Resident Evil movies. People are going to make dumb, weird games with sexist over tones and we will all survive.
On October 18 2014 11:38 levelping wrote: But let's look at gaming generally, and it becomes pretty obvious that games like MGS are pretty rare. More often than not, it is only the female who is presented as a sexual object, and as very real ones.
The rareness of MGS has nothing to do with the games aiming to portray both genders as sexual objects. The uniqueness of this series has more to do with that they try to be very realistic (for the most part). This is what I loved about the series, and it's also kind of why I don't like traditional action games (and movies). There's a lot of sexual undertones in the games for sure, but it's like that in the real world. I don't think there's a good claim for either of the genders being sexualized in that series.
Anyway, this is besides the point. What I really disagree with you with, is your claim that females being presented as sexual objects is a problem. Why do you care what kind of entertainment other ppl enjoys? Why is it your business whether the girls in the games that I play have full clothing as opposed to short skirts, or big unnatural breasts as opposed to medium sized ones? Why do you think either of that is any of your business? It really is none of your business and it is not the business of Anita or other feminists.
All of these discussions about gender representation in games are dumb, because we are supposed to live in a free world, a world where you are allowed to create the games you want to create, without anyone preventing you from releasing them, or trying to censor them or trying to pressure you into making adjustments. And as a consumer we're also free to consum whatever games we want. This is the liberty factor of the debate, and in the end it should be enough to kill this debate completely, and it's sad that it really doesn't. There's so many ppl who want to throw their own moral code upon others, and force them to obey the rules that they created. It's sickening to see so many ppl jumping on this band-wagon.
I'm not going to go into detail about the reasons why men might be inclined to buy games with oversexualized female main characters, but the simplified answer is that we all mostly play games because we want to immerse ourselves in them, and it's more tempting to be immersed in a game that has characters that you find attractive. There are many games where the main character gets romantically involved with a female main character, and there are many games that have incorporated dating-elements as side-elements to their games. Basically with dating-elements I mean you can choose what female main character that the protagonists goes for. Obviously having attractive female characters makes these games more appealing.
If you try to force or even just push and intimidate the gaming industry to change towards less sexualized female characters, then the demand that they meet would be decreased, which would result in decreasing sales. And do you honestly think that less sexy female characters woudl lead to more women being interested in games? I highly doubt that, maybe to a lesser extent, but you would lose a lot more than you would gain. I think you can make a good point in that having more female lead roles would attract more female gamers, but the gaming industry are simply just trying to meet the demands, and if there was a demand for female-led games, then a lot of ppl would have jumped on it already. And this is already happening. The ability to change the gender of the main character is becoming more and more common, and exclusively female leads are also becoming more common. This is a natural occurence of the industry looking to grab the attention of potential buyers, and it's not that games targeting men are decreasing, rather the industry is getting better and better at satisfying the demand of female gamers, and it's expanding the scene.
No one is saying you can't create a game with oversexualized female character that are clearly objectified. But be prepared to be called out on it if you do. Its not hard, other art has the same thing going on. There is bad art all over the place and its still getting made. Game developers wouldn't make games if they couldn't take some criticism. Its not bullying, like some people say. She has been doing shit for a while and games are still coming out with boob armor and combat high heels, so not much has changed.
As Anita said, its "ok to like a game with problematic elements." She is not saying these games are evil or you are evil for liking them. But she is saying that there are a lot of female characters that are written like shit in games, which isn't wrong. And maybe in the next batch of games they would write better female characters.
On October 19 2014 10:54 Plansix wrote: Gamergate is the "thanksObama" video games. Its a worthless hash tag that has no meaning and is just used by anyone who wants it. Its not a movement any more that "thanksObama" is. If you search them both via twitter, you will find the same level of discordant non-sense.
Also, many of the people who try to debunk Anita Sarkeesian have never fully watched her work. The majority of people I have interacted with have only watched the "response videos" which are clearly bias and cherry pick from her videos the points they want to make. Its funny, because many of them do the exact same thing they accuse her of.
Anita Sarkeesian begins the majority of her videos with a phrase along the lines of "It is ok to love a game with problematic elements". And with this, all problems should be solved. We can criticize the things we love and its fine. I love the movie Hook, but I know its a terribly made movie and sort of bad(you can see boom mics in several shots and its a hot mess of a film). The same goes for video games, as we grow up with them, we see the problematic elements. Like Street Fight is sort of super racist, but its ok, because it was made in a different era. But that doesn't stop me from realizing that T-hawk is sort of a fuck up character.
The most amusing part about all of this is the only people scream about Anita Sarkeesian are players. The people she is criticizing, game developers, gave her an award for her work and thanked her for it. Many of them talk about how they made her look at how they make their games and how to change it to make them more welcoming to women. Because the people who make games want everyone to play them, because thats why they make games.
I don't WANT everyone to play games though. The last time a big group joined gaming was with Call of Duty 4: MW. And with it I saw many of my favorite franchises turned into CoD clones, or otherwise altered to grab the largest demographic, in this case, short attention spans.
Red Orchestra 1 was a fairly accurate simulation of WW2 combined arms warfare. Red Orchestra 2 was Red Orchestra: Call of Duty edition. They added levelling up, shortened the ranges to unrealistically close to speed up the action, and made it all about quick reactions and not about being smart. Ace Combat used to be a fun, goofy arcade flight sim. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon threw out everything that made the other AC games fun, and added quick time events and rail shooter sections, to be more like CoD. It was practically Call of Duty: Planes. Red Alert 2 is one of my top 5 games, and is my favorite RTS. EA saw how big the Starcraft audience was, and tried to nab it, and RA3 ended up being a pisspoor Starcraft clone. Every time I've seen a series try to attract a larger demographic, I've seen it alienate the core playerbase.
Of course devs thank Sarkeesian. If they do anything but kiss her feet, they'll be the next target of the witch hunt.
Gaming is a 70 billion dollar industry, they are making more games, not less. People are coming if you want it or not. Girls are coming and they will have opinions and they may not agree that "boob armor" is super realistic, so we might see a little less of that. And that is totally ok. The games you like are not going to go away. There is away going to be a Red Orchestra, but it might not have that name(also, Red Orchestra was a mod, while 2 was a commercial release where people had to play the bills for health insurance and shit.) They are making more types of games, not less. Of course the hard core game are going to be a smaller market, but people still make them for you. Look at dark souls.
And I listen to numerous video games industry podcast with any number of people from all parts of the industry and they all have no problem with her. I have heard her on numerous podcast and she likes board games and does play games, and is no where near the monster out to destroy boy-games as we know it. They have no problem having their games criticized, since many of them are their own biggest critics. There isn't a single game developer that is afraid of her.
And I don't know why people think she is going to get rid of specific types of games. The movie industry has proven that any type of movie can be made, including unlimited Saw and Resident Evil movies. People are going to make dumb, weird games with sexist over tones and we will all survive.
The thing is, people like Sarkeesian don't really address what actually draws the female audience into gaming. They talk about sexist elements that drives certain people off.
And meanwhile it's WoW and LoL that have drawn in more female "hardcore" gamers than basically any other products on the market, even with the hyper sexualized female characters with boob plates for all.
As I said somewhere earlier in this thread, as the market grows and the female audience becomes a large demographic in console/PC gaming, I don't think the end result will be the removal of objectified women. It'll be an increase in the objectification of the male characters, specifically marketed towards women.
Sure, there's a small niche of people who will be driven off by fanservicey elements, but there are an overwhelmingly larger portion of consumers that are drawn in by the same things, men and women alike. It's called fanservice for a reason.
wow, I'm still reading that deadspin article so can't comment just yet but this is crazy so far. Don't understand how people can throw such accusations around without evidence based on an statement of an ex-lover seeing as he can easily be lying (or telling the truth), who knows.
On October 19 2014 10:54 Plansix wrote: Gamergate is the "thanksObama" video games. Its a worthless hash tag that has no meaning and is just used by anyone who wants it. Its not a movement any more that "thanksObama" is. If you search them both via twitter, you will find the same level of discordant non-sense.
Also, many of the people who try to debunk Anita Sarkeesian have never fully watched her work. The majority of people I have interacted with have only watched the "response videos" which are clearly bias and cherry pick from her videos the points they want to make. Its funny, because many of them do the exact same thing they accuse her of.
Anita Sarkeesian begins the majority of her videos with a phrase along the lines of "It is ok to love a game with problematic elements". And with this, all problems should be solved. We can criticize the things we love and its fine. I love the movie Hook, but I know its a terribly made movie and sort of bad(you can see boom mics in several shots and its a hot mess of a film). The same goes for video games, as we grow up with them, we see the problematic elements. Like Street Fight is sort of super racist, but its ok, because it was made in a different era. But that doesn't stop me from realizing that T-hawk is sort of a fuck up character.
The most amusing part about all of this is the only people scream about Anita Sarkeesian are players. The people she is criticizing, game developers, gave her an award for her work and thanked her for it. Many of them talk about how they made her look at how they make their games and how to change it to make them more welcoming to women. Because the people who make games want everyone to play them, because thats why they make games.
I don't WANT everyone to play games though. The last time a big group joined gaming was with Call of Duty 4: MW. And with it I saw many of my favorite franchises turned into CoD clones, or otherwise altered to grab the largest demographic, in this case, short attention spans.
Red Orchestra 1 was a fairly accurate simulation of WW2 combined arms warfare. Red Orchestra 2 was Red Orchestra: Call of Duty edition. They added levelling up, shortened the ranges to unrealistically close to speed up the action, and made it all about quick reactions and not about being smart. Ace Combat used to be a fun, goofy arcade flight sim. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon threw out everything that made the other AC games fun, and added quick time events and rail shooter sections, to be more like CoD. It was practically Call of Duty: Planes. Red Alert 2 is one of my top 5 games, and is my favorite RTS. EA saw how big the Starcraft audience was, and tried to nab it, and RA3 ended up being a pisspoor Starcraft clone. Every time I've seen a series try to attract a larger demographic, I've seen it alienate the core playerbase.
Of course devs thank Sarkeesian. If they do anything but kiss her feet, they'll be the next target of the witch hunt.
Gaming is a 70 billion dollar industry, they are making more games, not less. People are coming if you want it or not. Girls are coming and they will have opinions and they may not agree that "boob armor" is super realistic, so we might see a little less of that. And that is totally ok. The games you like are not going to go away. There is away going to be a Red Orchestra, but it might not have that name(also, Red Orchestra was a mod, while 2 was a commercial release where people had to play the bills for health insurance and shit.) They are making more types of games, not less. Of course the hard core game are going to be a smaller market, but people still make them for you. Look at dark souls.
And I listen to numerous video games industry podcast with any number of people from all parts of the industry and they all have no problem with her. I have heard her on numerous podcast and she likes board games and does play games, and is no where near the monster out to destroy boy-games as we know it. They have no problem having their games criticized, since many of them are their own biggest critics. There isn't a single game developer that is afraid of her.
And I don't know why people think she is going to get rid of specific types of games. The movie industry has proven that any type of movie can be made, including unlimited Saw and Resident Evil movies. People are going to make dumb, weird games with sexist over tones and we will all survive.
The thing is, people like Sarkeesian don't really address what actually draws the female audience into gaming. They talk about sexist elements that drives certain people off.
And meanwhile it's the WoW and LoL that have drawn in more female "hardcore" gamers than basically any other products on the market, even with the hyper sexualized female characters with boob plates for all.
As I said somewhere earlier in this thread, as the market grows and the female audience becomes a large demographic in console/PC gaming, I don't think the end result will be the removal of objectified women. It'll be an increase in the objectification of the male characters, specifically marketed towards women.
Sure, there's a small niche of people who will be driven off by fanservicey elements, but there are an overwhelmingly larger portion of consumers that are drawn in by the same things, men and women alike. It's called fanservice for a reason.
I don't particularly agree that it will end up that way, but I see the point. I don't think Anita is asking for fewer attractive, powerful women in games. Shes a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire slayer, which had no shortage of sexy ladies in it and was loved by guys and girls. If anythings, its about balance so all of them are not running around in their underwear that made of metal. Less Boob armor, more jackets like the new Batgirl. Maybe Laura Croft won't spend the entire game running around in a tank top and might find a jacket at some point during the whole thing. Maybe they will remove those creepy death animations.
It will be tiny things, not the death of attractive love interest in the new Dragon Age/Mass Effect. Maybe fewer form fitting jump suits and ass shots.(Mass Effect 2 is a weird game when it comes to one female character's ass).
On October 19 2014 12:59 BigFan wrote: wow, I'm still reading that deadspin article so can't comment just yet but this is crazy so far. Don't understand how people can throw such accusations around without evidence based on an statement of an ex-lover seeing as he can easily be lying (or telling the truth), who knows.
That article is pretty good and has a good time line and it has some of the more amazingly terrible chat logs. It also appropriately frames the really bad actors as the sub set of gaming culture. Like everything else in the world, there are some really shitty people who like the things we like. And yes, the people who went after Quinn are fucking animals. She may be a shitty person too, but I know a lot of shitty people I would never wish that on.
On October 19 2014 10:54 Plansix wrote: Gamergate is the "thanksObama" video games. Its a worthless hash tag that has no meaning and is just used by anyone who wants it. Its not a movement any more that "thanksObama" is. If you search them both via twitter, you will find the same level of discordant non-sense.
Also, many of the people who try to debunk Anita Sarkeesian have never fully watched her work. The majority of people I have interacted with have only watched the "response videos" which are clearly bias and cherry pick from her videos the points they want to make. Its funny, because many of them do the exact same thing they accuse her of.
Anita Sarkeesian begins the majority of her videos with a phrase along the lines of "It is ok to love a game with problematic elements". And with this, all problems should be solved. We can criticize the things we love and its fine. I love the movie Hook, but I know its a terribly made movie and sort of bad(you can see boom mics in several shots and its a hot mess of a film). The same goes for video games, as we grow up with them, we see the problematic elements. Like Street Fight is sort of super racist, but its ok, because it was made in a different era. But that doesn't stop me from realizing that T-hawk is sort of a fuck up character.
The most amusing part about all of this is the only people scream about Anita Sarkeesian are players. The people she is criticizing, game developers, gave her an award for her work and thanked her for it. Many of them talk about how they made her look at how they make their games and how to change it to make them more welcoming to women. Because the people who make games want everyone to play them, because thats why they make games.
I don't WANT everyone to play games though. The last time a big group joined gaming was with Call of Duty 4: MW. And with it I saw many of my favorite franchises turned into CoD clones, or otherwise altered to grab the largest demographic, in this case, short attention spans.
Red Orchestra 1 was a fairly accurate simulation of WW2 combined arms warfare. Red Orchestra 2 was Red Orchestra: Call of Duty edition. They added levelling up, shortened the ranges to unrealistically close to speed up the action, and made it all about quick reactions and not about being smart. Ace Combat used to be a fun, goofy arcade flight sim. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon threw out everything that made the other AC games fun, and added quick time events and rail shooter sections, to be more like CoD. It was practically Call of Duty: Planes. Red Alert 2 is one of my top 5 games, and is my favorite RTS. EA saw how big the Starcraft audience was, and tried to nab it, and RA3 ended up being a pisspoor Starcraft clone. Every time I've seen a series try to attract a larger demographic, I've seen it alienate the core playerbase.
Of course devs thank Sarkeesian. If they do anything but kiss her feet, they'll be the next target of the witch hunt.
Gaming is a 70 billion dollar industry, they are making more games, not less. People are coming if you want it or not. Girls are coming and they will have opinions and they may not agree that "boob armor" is super realistic, so we might see a little less of that. And that is totally ok. The games you like are not going to go away. There is away going to be a Red Orchestra, but it might not have that name(also, Red Orchestra was a mod, while 2 was a commercial release where people had to play the bills for health insurance and shit.) They are making more types of games, not less. Of course the hard core game are going to be a smaller market, but people still make them for you. Look at dark souls.
And I listen to numerous video games industry podcast with any number of people from all parts of the industry and they all have no problem with her. I have heard her on numerous podcast and she likes board games and does play games, and is no where near the monster out to destroy boy-games as we know it. They have no problem having their games criticized, since many of them are their own biggest critics. There isn't a single game developer that is afraid of her.
And I don't know why people think she is going to get rid of specific types of games. The movie industry has proven that any type of movie can be made, including unlimited Saw and Resident Evil movies. People are going to make dumb, weird games with sexist over tones and we will all survive.
Red Orchestra 1 was not a mod. There was a mod for Unreal Tournament 3 called Red Orchestra that won a contest which earned the modders an Unreal Engine 3 license, which they used to make Red Orchestra 1. It got a full commercial release, I have the disc. I never said they were making less games, I said they were making less good games. Back 10 years ago, every big budget game was tough, wasn't 1/3 tutorials, and they were mostly not clones. Now big devs try to attract bigger and bigger audiences, which means easy games, long tutorials, and lots of the same crap. It means leveling up will be shoehorned in where it doesn't belong, because the carrot-on-a-stick method is an effective way to keep fools playing. Yeah, Dark Souls is a challenging game. That doesn't mean that there are as many challenging games being released today as there was 10 years ago.
Please don't tell me you believe that study that said 50% of gamers are female. That counted things like Farmville and Minesweeper. They're hardly videogames. Females are not buying AAA games in huge numbers. Certainly nowhere near 50% of sales go to females.
On October 19 2014 12:59 BigFan wrote: wow, I'm still reading that deadspin article so can't comment just yet but this is crazy so far. Don't understand how people can throw such accusations around without evidence based on an statement of an ex-lover seeing as he can easily be lying (or telling the truth), who knows.
The fact that it got censored so hard lends some credence to it being true.
On October 19 2014 10:54 Plansix wrote: Gamergate is the "thanksObama" video games. Its a worthless hash tag that has no meaning and is just used by anyone who wants it. Its not a movement any more that "thanksObama" is. If you search them both via twitter, you will find the same level of discordant non-sense.
Also, many of the people who try to debunk Anita Sarkeesian have never fully watched her work. The majority of people I have interacted with have only watched the "response videos" which are clearly bias and cherry pick from her videos the points they want to make. Its funny, because many of them do the exact same thing they accuse her of.
Anita Sarkeesian begins the majority of her videos with a phrase along the lines of "It is ok to love a game with problematic elements". And with this, all problems should be solved. We can criticize the things we love and its fine. I love the movie Hook, but I know its a terribly made movie and sort of bad(you can see boom mics in several shots and its a hot mess of a film). The same goes for video games, as we grow up with them, we see the problematic elements. Like Street Fight is sort of super racist, but its ok, because it was made in a different era. But that doesn't stop me from realizing that T-hawk is sort of a fuck up character.
The most amusing part about all of this is the only people scream about Anita Sarkeesian are players. The people she is criticizing, game developers, gave her an award for her work and thanked her for it. Many of them talk about how they made her look at how they make their games and how to change it to make them more welcoming to women. Because the people who make games want everyone to play them, because thats why they make games.
I don't WANT everyone to play games though. The last time a big group joined gaming was with Call of Duty 4: MW. And with it I saw many of my favorite franchises turned into CoD clones, or otherwise altered to grab the largest demographic, in this case, short attention spans.
Red Orchestra 1 was a fairly accurate simulation of WW2 combined arms warfare. Red Orchestra 2 was Red Orchestra: Call of Duty edition. They added levelling up, shortened the ranges to unrealistically close to speed up the action, and made it all about quick reactions and not about being smart. Ace Combat used to be a fun, goofy arcade flight sim. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon threw out everything that made the other AC games fun, and added quick time events and rail shooter sections, to be more like CoD. It was practically Call of Duty: Planes. Red Alert 2 is one of my top 5 games, and is my favorite RTS. EA saw how big the Starcraft audience was, and tried to nab it, and RA3 ended up being a pisspoor Starcraft clone. Every time I've seen a series try to attract a larger demographic, I've seen it alienate the core playerbase.
Of course devs thank Sarkeesian. If they do anything but kiss her feet, they'll be the next target of the witch hunt.
Gaming is a 70 billion dollar industry, they are making more games, not less. People are coming if you want it or not. Girls are coming and they will have opinions and they may not agree that "boob armor" is super realistic, so we might see a little less of that. And that is totally ok. The games you like are not going to go away. There is away going to be a Red Orchestra, but it might not have that name(also, Red Orchestra was a mod, while 2 was a commercial release where people had to play the bills for health insurance and shit.) They are making more types of games, not less. Of course the hard core game are going to be a smaller market, but people still make them for you. Look at dark souls.
And I listen to numerous video games industry podcast with any number of people from all parts of the industry and they all have no problem with her. I have heard her on numerous podcast and she likes board games and does play games, and is no where near the monster out to destroy boy-games as we know it. They have no problem having their games criticized, since many of them are their own biggest critics. There isn't a single game developer that is afraid of her.
And I don't know why people think she is going to get rid of specific types of games. The movie industry has proven that any type of movie can be made, including unlimited Saw and Resident Evil movies. People are going to make dumb, weird games with sexist over tones and we will all survive.
Red Orchestra 1 was not a mod. There was a mod for Unreal Tournament 3 called Red Orchestra that won a contest which earned the modders an Unreal Engine 3 license, which they used to make Red Orchestra 1. It got a full commercial release, I have the disc. I never said they were making less games, I said they were making less good games. Back 10 years ago, every big budget game was tough, wasn't 1/3 tutorials, and they were mostly not clones. Now big devs try to attract bigger and bigger audiences, which means easy games, long tutorials, and lots of the same crap. It means leveling up will be shoehorned in where it doesn't belong, because the carrot-on-a-stick method is an effective way to keep fools playing. Yeah, Dark Souls is a challenging game. That doesn't mean that there are as many challenging games being released today as there was 10 years ago.
On October 19 2014 12:59 BigFan wrote: wow, I'm still reading that deadspin article so can't comment just yet but this is crazy so far. Don't understand how people can throw such accusations around without evidence based on an statement of an ex-lover seeing as he can easily be lying (or telling the truth), who knows.
The fact that it got censored so hard lends some credence to it being true.
This is really a different discussion for a different thread. People are coming to games and there is nothing any of us can do to stop it. There will be games out there for you, because there are more games. Just hunt for them, they are out there.
On October 19 2014 10:54 Plansix wrote: Gamergate is the "thanksObama" video games. Its a worthless hash tag that has no meaning and is just used by anyone who wants it. Its not a movement any more that "thanksObama" is. If you search them both via twitter, you will find the same level of discordant non-sense.
Also, many of the people who try to debunk Anita Sarkeesian have never fully watched her work. The majority of people I have interacted with have only watched the "response videos" which are clearly bias and cherry pick from her videos the points they want to make. Its funny, because many of them do the exact same thing they accuse her of.
Anita Sarkeesian begins the majority of her videos with a phrase along the lines of "It is ok to love a game with problematic elements". And with this, all problems should be solved. We can criticize the things we love and its fine. I love the movie Hook, but I know its a terribly made movie and sort of bad(you can see boom mics in several shots and its a hot mess of a film). The same goes for video games, as we grow up with them, we see the problematic elements. Like Street Fight is sort of super racist, but its ok, because it was made in a different era. But that doesn't stop me from realizing that T-hawk is sort of a fuck up character.
The most amusing part about all of this is the only people scream about Anita Sarkeesian are players. The people she is criticizing, game developers, gave her an award for her work and thanked her for it. Many of them talk about how they made her look at how they make their games and how to change it to make them more welcoming to women. Because the people who make games want everyone to play them, because thats why they make games.
I don't WANT everyone to play games though. The last time a big group joined gaming was with Call of Duty 4: MW. And with it I saw many of my favorite franchises turned into CoD clones, or otherwise altered to grab the largest demographic, in this case, short attention spans.
Red Orchestra 1 was a fairly accurate simulation of WW2 combined arms warfare. Red Orchestra 2 was Red Orchestra: Call of Duty edition. They added levelling up, shortened the ranges to unrealistically close to speed up the action, and made it all about quick reactions and not about being smart. Ace Combat used to be a fun, goofy arcade flight sim. Ace Combat: Assault Horizon threw out everything that made the other AC games fun, and added quick time events and rail shooter sections, to be more like CoD. It was practically Call of Duty: Planes. Red Alert 2 is one of my top 5 games, and is my favorite RTS. EA saw how big the Starcraft audience was, and tried to nab it, and RA3 ended up being a pisspoor Starcraft clone. Every time I've seen a series try to attract a larger demographic, I've seen it alienate the core playerbase.
Of course devs thank Sarkeesian. If they do anything but kiss her feet, they'll be the next target of the witch hunt.
Gaming is a 70 billion dollar industry, they are making more games, not less. People are coming if you want it or not. Girls are coming and they will have opinions and they may not agree that "boob armor" is super realistic, so we might see a little less of that. And that is totally ok. The games you like are not going to go away. There is away going to be a Red Orchestra, but it might not have that name(also, Red Orchestra was a mod, while 2 was a commercial release where people had to play the bills for health insurance and shit.) They are making more types of games, not less. Of course the hard core game are going to be a smaller market, but people still make them for you. Look at dark souls.
And I listen to numerous video games industry podcast with any number of people from all parts of the industry and they all have no problem with her. I have heard her on numerous podcast and she likes board games and does play games, and is no where near the monster out to destroy boy-games as we know it. They have no problem having their games criticized, since many of them are their own biggest critics. There isn't a single game developer that is afraid of her.
And I don't know why people think she is going to get rid of specific types of games. The movie industry has proven that any type of movie can be made, including unlimited Saw and Resident Evil movies. People are going to make dumb, weird games with sexist over tones and we will all survive.
Red Orchestra 1 was not a mod. There was a mod for Unreal Tournament 3 called Red Orchestra that won a contest which earned the modders an Unreal Engine 3 license, which they used to make Red Orchestra 1. It got a full commercial release, I have the disc. I never said they were making less games, I said they were making less good games. Back 10 years ago, every big budget game was tough, wasn't 1/3 tutorials, and they were mostly not clones. Now big devs try to attract bigger and bigger audiences, which means easy games, long tutorials, and lots of the same crap. It means leveling up will be shoehorned in where it doesn't belong, because the carrot-on-a-stick method is an effective way to keep fools playing. Yeah, Dark Souls is a challenging game. That doesn't mean that there are as many challenging games being released today as there was 10 years ago.
On October 19 2014 12:59 BigFan wrote: wow, I'm still reading that deadspin article so can't comment just yet but this is crazy so far. Don't understand how people can throw such accusations around without evidence based on an statement of an ex-lover seeing as he can easily be lying (or telling the truth), who knows.
The fact that it got censored so hard lends some credence to it being true.
I don't understand you're first argument. so apparently video games need to not appeal to more people because that would make games different from how you like them? The point of a company is to make money and they make money by making what appeals to more people. Just because you don't like something doesn't meant they shouldn't do it. Widening your audience is a key part of most companies and bands. There's still games out there that will fit your criteria the big companies just don't make them as much because they don't make as much money. It's how capitalism works.
and yeah as Plansix said this is really something for a different thread as it has gone off topic.
as to your second point.I'm sorry but how is stopping unfound accusations an implication that their true? If people started making threads about how your the worst person ever based on rantings of an ex would you be fine with leaving those threads up? It's kind of the same reason TL closes threads that accuse people of hacking without any significant evidence.
The purpose of this thread was to discuss game journalism and the ethics surrounding it.
The issue of feminism and the like is a part of this discussion because the impetus to the whole gamergate thing is a result of allegations associated with a female developer.
The issues surrounding games, gender, and journalism were all from one place. At its core though, gamergate as a topic of discussion is not about gender.
Alongside gamergate, and using gamergate individuals bring up issues of gender in gaming and a part of the whole debate online has taken on some aspects which are unrelated.
This thread began to get derailed, we should have put a stop to it immediately, but we thought TL could have honest mature discussions about the topic and get back to the topic at hand. Since often large topics get off topic for a bit and get back.
This was not the case here. This thread is falling apart, and the original intention is long gone. We don't think its possible to really discuss this on TL without the thread becoming low in quality and people just getting into circular debates.
For this reason we have decided its time to close this thread.
EPT
I guess if they posted my address along with it, might be a bit more frightening though.![[image loading]](http://s8.postimg.org/j41ii29cx/bumperstickers_are_ineffectual.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VcrNn8AiWMc/Tq2CavD4Y1I/AAAAAAAABCs/iv07lVmamsE/s1600/Someone+is+wrong+on+internet.png)
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![[image loading]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/listen_to_yourself.png)
