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.
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.
EPT
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