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Perhaps the biggest story in gaming has been happening now for a month and has not been talked about from.

• Secret groups where gaming journalists meet and discuss pushing stories and agendas
• Payola or pay to play in which gaming journalists get money to talk about or give good reviews to developers who pay will or give good gifts.
• An EA Account breach where gaming journalists found out but never said anything in Australia where it happened because those journalists were getting sweet perks from EA
• An indie developer sleeping around with other journalists for good reviews or mention for her Depression Quest game.


I could go on and on but all the gaming press has had to say about the matter is how Anita Sarkeesian and others are being harassed and gamers should not have a voice. If you’re lucky you might find poll trying to gauge how many people on the site know about it or some like boogie will trying to remain neutral and not mention it but talk about it very cryptically but blame people harassing the feminists.

What’s funny is again the real media is finding out about the story because now it includes Jimmy Wales and Julian Assuage who was asked about this situation and censorship in which the person who asked Julian was shadow banned from reddit in which Julian exposed. It’s like what happened during the Mass Effect 3 release but bigger only difference is unlike last time the gaming news press is not going full on bull dog mode at consumers though some are but the censorship surrounding the situation is getting worse.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/...ournalism-elite

For a quick recap for those who do not know about the situation watch this video its pretty interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCExXie1XB4

If you all heard of Gamergate?

EDIT: Some of the sites I go to are involved in this incident and honestly for me its time to leave them. This is the biggest scandal I think the gaming industry ever had.

EDIT 01/01/2014

Intel has dropped advertising for Gamesutra and is planning on dropped other Gaming News sites involved the backlash with #Gamergate

This post has been edited by His Shadow on 2nd October 2014 04:17

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His Divine Shadow

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"One of the most radical things you can do is listen and believe women when they talk about their experiences." - Anita Sarkeesian

I want you to know that I believe you're being sincere. In other words, I'm not assuming you're a malevolent troll looking to recruit, or whatever. I believe you when you present journalistic integrity as something you care about.

But that's not what "Gamer Gate" is about. Yes, there are people who are legitimately roused by the issue and who don't see the issues of privilege at all. That's what "Gamer Gate" is about. Being blind to the effects of privilege is one of the main mechanisms of oppression.

"Gamer Gate" is a manufactured controversy. There is no "Gamer Gate", only a continued assault on women in technology. To think this started with Zoe Quinn is to come late to the scene; this is just the latest salvo in a continuous stream of harassment and violence. The goal of the attacks is to silence women. The means of this attack is to foment a broad base of ill will against women journalists and game developers by pushing a line about integrity and ethics in games journalism.

Ironically, one of the biggest victims here has been journalistic integrity and ethics. Just today we had Intel pulling ads from Gamersutra because "Gamer Gate" supporters complained about the content of their articles on the subject. That's textbook decay of journalistic integrity. I'm also trying to find the article where a female games journalist promises to never report of games ever again, after the amount of harassment she recently received. I apologize, but I can't back up that one with a URL (can't find it). Journalists see that games are toxic, that the readers of games related material are the worst group of human beings imaginable, and they stay out of the field.

Powerful criticism from a variety of viewpoints, such as what Anita Sarkeesian has been hitting games with, is the realm of high culture. Cinema, Music, and Literature all stand up to continual barrages of criticism and come out stronger on the other end. Journalists see the reaction of "gamers" to a little criticism, and conclude that games aren't mature as a media form. "GamerGate" is literally the worst thing to happen to gamers in recent history. All our credibility within culture at large, all our work to be recognized as an art form, all of this is being undermined. Our medium, Gaming, is being abused and dragged through the mud by a vocal group of misogynists who care about neither games nor journalism.

"GamerGate" is "Teach the Controversy", games edition. There is no controversy, only the harnessing of ignorance and anger to serve an agenda. It's nothing more than a manufactured controversy, intended as a weapon.

And even if we were to assume for a moment, rhetorically, that all the accusations levied at Zoe Quinn and others were true, "GamerGate" still misses the important point. It still fails to even acknowledge the huge issue at hand. Sure the Gestahl empire is evil, but Kefka just stole the power of the three statues; there's a larger more important context here that "Returner vs Empire" is tragically inadequate when it comes to addressing. People are bravely standing up and pointing out the horrible abuse and violence they face everyday just for daring to speak, but we're supposed to ignore that to focus on the real story: that two people in the same industry had a relationship?

I read an article the other day which listed the ways in which "GamerGate" had already undermined integrity and ethics in games journalism. I've been unable to relocate the URL to that article, but this one covers the same topic:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014...-gamergate.html

I'll end with the same quote I started with, because it is truly what this is all about, and the only end we can hope to have against all the hate and ignorance that fuels it. The radicalism Anita speaks about is radical specifically because we have been trained to do the opposite. To not listen. To automatically doubt the experiences of women. In our culture, when a man speaks, the role of other men is to listen; when a woman speaks, the role of men is to silence her. "One of the most radical things you can do is listen and believe women when they talk about their experiences."

This post has been edited by Iain Peregrine on 2nd October 2014 06:06

Quote (Iain Peregrine @ 1st October 2014 22:15)

"Gamer Gate" is a manufactured controversy. There is no "Gamer Gate", only a continued assault on women in technology.

So there's no evidence indicating the integrity of games journalism has been compromised? Absolutely none at all? Everything related to Gamergate - every, single, article, comment, tag, and forum post - has 100% nothing to do with the problems raised if games journalism cannot be trusted to remain objective and impartial. Nope. All of it is entirely and exclusively about hating women.

Look, the zero sum attitude is cute and all, but it's not particularly useful for solving a problem. Not that anyone ever took journalism in the games industry all that seriously, least of all games journalism. This shit was well understood and established back with DoritoGate, so in that respect, yeah, this 'controversy' is manufactured.

Are the majority of gamers entitled lil white boys? Yeah, that's even more well known, so getting all surprised when internet monkeys starting flinging their feces like they always have also strikes me as counter productive. Apply 'em to the whole culture if you want, because whether it's right or wrong won't change the fact that the original problem is still there.

But really, it only matters if you think gaming 'culture' is something to take seriously.

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Arts

Farts

Twarts

Iain, I like what you said and agree with your sentiments.

There's a big issue at play of the gaming community losing credibility because of the manner in which it as a whole reacts to these stories.

As for gaming journalism, I can't think of a single time that I depended on a professional game review to tell me whether or not to buy a game. I tend not to get the big name releases anyway. That said, it never once occurred to me that the people who write reviews weren't tied to the people who make them in any significant way. It seems fairly naive to believe that official reviews are completely impartial. The idea that one game designer made a freeware game and got a positive review by sleeping around (a claim that may or may not be true) is grounds for a re-examination of the entire industry is kind of ridiculous to me.

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Wha? Thanks to me?

I'd been sitting on this thread a while before having time to properly write a post, as I wanted to see if what I'd previously been thinking was backed up by anything or if it was just an impression that I got. It's interesting that posts arguing near-diametric opposites of the story combine pretty well to say everything I was thinking.

First off, it's hard for me to accept anything from breitbart.com as valid and/or virtuous, but that I'll leave that aside. You all can call me a dumb liberal sheeple at your leisure.

Anyway, I don't actually find either group compelling as a reliable narrator in this. With regards to how women in the industry are treated, well, I'm connected to that industry well enough, I suppose. Probably not as much as Iain is, but I've seen enough to know that women do get short shrift. I don't know of a single female game developer in my company; in fact, I know firsthand of only a couple female designers and QA folks that have any connection to actual game development in the organization. The people who are out there screaming about how the feminists are ruining gaming have no concept as to the reality of the industry, in my opinion, and it's indefensible.

I also can't buy into, at least not fully, the entire stories of the Zoe Quinns and Anita Sarkeesians of the world. Again, I've seen enough to know that this industry is painfully bro-centric to its own detriment, but there's a small part of me who has to believe that things can't possibly be as bad for women as they are sometimes painted, if for no other reason than the fact that I can't really stomach that world existing. It frustrates me as a person, especially as a person with a daughter who will likely grow into the "gamer" culture; the whole world frustrates me in this way, but it somehow feels more pointed when it is cast in such sharp relief upon a hobby that I already share with my kid on a limited basis. Maybe that's my own failing; I don't know these people at all myself, so in my mind I can't take their word as gold either. I can commit to saying that I find tales of abuse and harassment against women in gaming to be a far more believable narrative in general, and I can say I consider people who assume that such a thing has never happened to be idiots. I have seen it happen in industries that are more woman-friendly than gaming, so I have little trouble believing that it's worse here.

I'm also in the camp that agrees that gaming journalism by and large seems to operate with a more lax set of ethics than journalism covering other industries - or, perhaps it's just not as good at covering them up. I feel that gaming journalism is a lot more yellow than more mainstream journalism, though I have to admit that the thin line between opinion-blogging and journalism that seems to have come to gaming first is certainly making its presence known in other spheres as well. I think that games-heavy journalism was one of the first to embrace the democracy of the internet as a medium due to the obvious crossover between those who picked up the internet early and those who consider themselves "gamers;" I suspect a similar phenomenon occurred long ago with general computing journalism as well. Journalism in general seems to be a race to the bottom these days, but that's not really a big surprise, nor is it really the overall point.

I think that the most interesting thing about this entire scandal is that no part of it is new. Every aspect of it has happened time and again in journalism or even society at large for years. Cabals of journalists getting together to push, distort or kill stories? Spanish-American War. Media payola? 1950's rock and roll in America. Sexual favors for money or status or publicity? Good Lord, throw a dart at a timeline of human history. So, why is this scandal, or a similar one connected to the original, or none at all (depending on who you believe) blowing up the way it is? I think there are a lot of reasons.

• The aforementioned democracy of communication. Zoe Quinn can tell her side of the story without having to look too hard. Couldn't have happened 20 years ago.
• The sheer virulence of "gamers." I use that word in quotes specifically there, because the gamers to which I refer are the insanely vocal minority, I believe. The democracy of communication extends to them as well, and if anything it allows them to generate critical mass over reddit or Twitter to express some pretty brutal opinions just because they can find an audience for them.
• The mainstream media's ability to point fingers, especially at an industry that it has proven time and again to not understand. Combine this with the first two points, and everyone involved has every opportunity to express their own personal and institutional biases in a loud, shrill way.
• The fact that when this first broke, it was a potential sex scandal, not just a cash-for-publicity thing. Sex sells.

So what really makes this special is how public it all is. Women have had to fight for their place in industry after industry, just rarely under such a spotlight as they must now. Some journalists have always been less ethical than others, but again, just not always under such a spotlight. Gamers, I just don't know. I guess an analogy that comes to mind would be that they fill the role of the anti-suffragettes where women in gaming would be those aiming to get the right to vote. An angry group, likely on the wrong side of history, but again blown up by the fact that anyone in the world can see their actions now.

And all this just makes me think. I just compared video games to the right to vote. And that is ridiculous. I should never have been able to even come close to drawing that comparison, and the sole fact that I can without feeling completely stupid is a joke. If this story gained traction just because of money, and didn't involve a developer who had a relationship with a games journalist - and was a woman! - people would have complained for a few days but the story wouldn't have blown up the way it did.

To me, this shouldn't have been an issue. Speaking solely for myself, though I see a couple comments in the same vein already, I never saw the games journalism industry as something particularly trustworthy, especially in terms of reviews. Maybe that's because I started reading games journalism via the factory shills of the official Sega and Nintendo magazines - maybe I was overly precocious, but even in my late single-digit years I could see that getting your game information from the same company that sells you your game console isn't completely up-and-up. As for gamers, well, gamers should really know better. It seems like when we (yes, because all of us get lumped into that group by someone at some point) feel we're being treated unfairly, we're up in arms about it. However, the very act of getting up in arms about it allows the worst of us to dictate the message, which only reinforces the unfair treatment down the line. That's two groups tied up in this mess that should have known better and should have behaved like adults. If you want to believe that all this is Zoe Quinn's fault and that she was some sort of Jezebel luring game journalists down a dark path, I guess, that gives you all three points of this ludicrous little triangle. Not only do I not believe such a thing occurred, I also think that even if it were true, it's shocking that anyone could hang a woman out to dry for playing a power game in the the same way that so many men have done and continue to do.

Short version - I don't really know who's telling the most truth in this whole debacle. But I do know it would be better for everyone if anyone looking to assign blame to one person rather than the industry as a whole would just shut the hell up and help get everyone's house in order, and I have to include myself in that even though I don't feel any single person is at fault.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

I knew nothing about this 'scandal' until I read this thread. I'm not compelled to care now that I have. As has been said by several people already, it's just an utter non-story.

A woman dared to have sex with a man, and got her back scratched in return!? She must be the devil incarnate. Journalists have limited scruples!? My world view is suddenly shattered.

It's pathetic. I would argue that my flippancy is down to Rangers51 having already covered most of my points to the extent that I have little to add; but in fact, I'd be doing my disgust a disservice. I'm angry at the fact this even appears to be a 'scandal'. It's hardly Watergate. It shouldn't even really be news.

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We apologise for the inconvenience

Quote (Iain Peregrine @ 2nd October 2014 01:15)

"One of the most radical things you can do is listen and believe women when they talk about their experiences." - Anita Sarkeesian

I want you to know that I believe you're being sincere. In other words, I'm not assuming you're a malevolent troll looking to recruit, or whatever. I believe you when you present journalistic integrity as something you care about.

But that's not what "Gamer Gate" is about. Yes, there are people who are legitimately roused by the issue and who don't see the issues of privilege at all. That's what "Gamer Gate" is about. Being blind to the effects of privilege is one of the main mechanisms of oppression.

"Gamer Gate" is a manufactured controversy. There is no "Gamer Gate", only a continued assault on women in technology. To think this started with Zoe Quinn is to come late to the scene; this is just the latest salvo in a continuous stream of harassment and violence. The goal of the attacks is to silence women. The means of this attack is to foment a broad base of ill will against women journalists and game developers by pushing a line about integrity and ethics in games journalism.

Ironically, one of the biggest victims here has been journalistic integrity and ethics. Just today we had Intel pulling ads from Gamersutra because "Gamer Gate" supporters complained about the content of their articles on the subject. That's textbook decay of journalistic integrity. I'm also trying to find the article where a female games journalist promises to never report of games ever again, after the amount of harassment she recently received. I apologize, but I can't back up that one with a URL (can't find it). Journalists see that games are toxic, that the readers of games related material are the worst group of human beings imaginable, and they stay out of the field.

Powerful criticism from a variety of viewpoints, such as what Anita Sarkeesian has been hitting games with, is the realm of high culture. Cinema, Music, and Literature all stand up to continual barrages of criticism and come out stronger on the other end. Journalists see the reaction of "gamers" to a little criticism, and conclude that games aren't mature as a media form. "GamerGate" is literally the worst thing to happen to gamers in recent history. All our credibility within culture at large, all our work to be recognized as an art form, all of this is being undermined. Our medium, Gaming, is being abused and dragged through the mud by a vocal group of misogynists who care about neither games nor journalism.

"GamerGate" is "Teach the Controversy", games edition. There is no controversy, only the harnessing of ignorance and anger to serve an agenda. It's nothing more than a manufactured controversy, intended as a weapon.

And even if we were to assume for a moment, rhetorically, that all the accusations levied at Zoe Quinn and others were true, "GamerGate" still misses the important point. It still fails to even acknowledge the huge issue at hand. Sure the Gestahl empire is evil, but Kefka just stole the power of the three statues; there's a larger more important context here that "Returner vs Empire" is tragically inadequate when it comes to addressing. People are bravely standing up and pointing out the horrible abuse and violence they face everyday just for daring to speak, but we're supposed to ignore that to focus on the real story: that two people in the same industry had a relationship?

I read an article the other day which listed the ways in which "GamerGate" had already undermined integrity and ethics in games journalism. I've been unable to relocate the URL to that article, but this one covers the same topic:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014...-gamergate.html

I'll end with the same quote I started with, because it is truly what this is all about, and the only end we can hope to have against all the hate and ignorance that fuels it. The radicalism Anita speaks about is radical specifically because we have been trained to do the opposite. To not listen. To automatically doubt the experiences of women. In our culture, when a man speaks, the role of other men is to listen; when a woman speaks, the role of men is to silence her. "One of the most radical things you can do is listen and believe women when they talk about their experiences."

It's funny, I wanted to make a topic about this on these forums, but the Caves is a highly liberal site since Gozaru, Hamedo, MetroidMorph, and Silverlancer have all been either banned or disappeared, so I pretty much expected IP's opinion to be the dominant narrative here.

That said, I'm highly surprised and impressed with some of the other opinions expressed here, particularly in terms of the neutrality of the viewpoints (Rangers and NP, namely.)

What annoys me about this attitude, IP, is it doesn't address the larger points that His Shadow pointed out, and it's a canned ham response to the canned ham points OP is also using.

It also ignores facts.

1) The anti-GG side of this is equally guilty of silencing. This is not equality.
2) Shrugging aside a whole movement, and not addressing anything they say, simply because you don't like them, or your general narrative categorically denies any GG people the right to question strikes me as dishonest prevarication.
3) The reason such broad strokes are ALLOWED against GG in general is because the movement is inclusive, and not exclusive. Therefore, the better heads that prevail on the GG side are ignored, because the democracy of the movement allows even the worst opinions to be expressed.

The reason ad hominem tends to take off with the skiddies in these groups is that the adults aren't going to tell them to pipe-down, since the adults tried rational discourse and debate, only to have it frustratingly taken down and silenced.

There's screencaps aplenty, and tons of sources to back up GG claims. If the anti-GG people aren't addressing what the intellectual branch of the GG movement is fielding, I can only imagine it's because:
a) Dealing with the worst idiots the movement has to offer (which are basically wangsty teenagers) allows them to continue the fractured narrative they've offered as their side of the debate.
b ) They are unequal to dealing with the actual concerns, and so fall to arguing from their level of highest competence, which is like wangsty teenagers. And these are the HEADS of anti-GG, not just the dregs.

I understand you'll probably hate this post IP, since you seem to have a vested interest in Gamasutra, so it's unlikely my point will reach you. But no, this isn't vitriolic trolling, this is just the way I see it.

And of course, GG is filled with raging basement dwelling white-kid nerds, but that's unfair in the extreme, when you consider how much proof has been offered to show that it is in fact NOT all those people, but also a lot of women and other minorities, who aren't acne-riddled, rage-filled, and ready to shoot up the nearest school.

Nobody is trying to destroy video-games as an artform, they're trying to pull a black snake out of their throat that suffocates artistic visions, if anything. Art needs less censorship, and not more. By trying to control the content of that art, you're setting the medium back. This isn't the dark-ages, and we need not be confined to certain subjects-- overtly sexist, overtly feminist, or otherwise.

It's a grass-roots anarchist movement on the internet, so sure there's people telling Anita, or Leigh Alexander for that matter, to shut-up; but by only hearing them, you're missing the larger body, who don't care what Anita says, or do care and are even amenable to some of their points (such as myself), and/or are perfectly willing to ignore it, heed it, or just discuss it, except that the anti-GG people do not just want to speak their minds, they wants to make it law. It's tyrannical, and it isn't something I am willing to accept. If you don't think that's the case, I'm perfectly willing to PM you a pile of screencaps of some of their rhetoric that show the contrary, but I'm not here to shove copy-pasta down the throats of the Caves.

I've lived with women all my life. It was my mother and two sisters with no father from the age of 11 on, and before that, all the kids on my street were girls. My best friend from Kindergarten to 5th grade was a girl. I've always lived with at least one woman. I've read enough philosophy to know with a large degree of certainty, what feminism actually entails, having read the gauntlet of literature from Valerie "Castrate-Every-Male-And-Shoot-Andy-Warhol" Salonas, to Friedrich "He-Man-Woman-Hater" Nietzsche. I'm absolutely for equality of the sexes, to a blind fault. I've just seen the capability of the human mind to bypass societal barriers too often to demean women (as I see it anyway) by pitying them with the demand for removal of said obstacles. One doesn't pity their equals, and whatever society says, women are my equal, in terms of achievable heights, if not exact capability.The Jim-Crow laws of nature are kinder than the one's the USA enacted, if you'll allow me a slight joke.

What Game Journalists seem to not understand is that gaming is an industry, and the large body of the people who regularly play video games for more than just an hour or two a week are men, and teenage boys, who think sex and violence is cool. If the object is to make them think other-things are cool, the methods employed currently couldn't be doing a worse job. This is just the way of it. There's an incredible lack of understanding if you think Gamasutra is getting sponsors pulled just because the meanies from 8chan are misogynist jerks-- it's because the publication isn't meeting the standards of it's viewership, regardless of what one might wish the viewership to be. It's very simple economics, before anything else: don't ostracize your audience. Unless you're trying to be Andy Kauffmann, anyway, who I might add was as vicious a troll as you could hope to find online or off. Publications are an entertainment, and the audience has ceased to be entertained.

There's nothing wrong with a dialectic, but for that to reasonably occur there must be two sides allowed to represent themselves, with facts, and logic, and not just mudslinging, and harassment, which both sides of this are guilty as hell of throwing around.

I really don't want to argue it here, or to provoke outrage. I don't even want to be agreed with necessarily. I should very much prefer to be disagreed with, in fact, if only what I've written has been thought over first.

I've always had a respect for you IP, and it doesn't end because of what I've just written, nor your post that provoked it, and that's the note I'd like to finish on.

This post has been edited by MogMaster on 3rd October 2014 01:46

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

Just saw this over on Gawker - if you're anti-Kotaku, you'll probably not like this perspective, but it does make a pretty good point in my opinion: if you side with the 'Gaters, you might be on the side of 4Chan, the grim part of Reddit, and the commenters of YouTube. Also any other place where "Men's Rights Activists" come out to play. To me, that's not a group with whom I'd look to associate. For the people who have a real desire to get at the question of ethics, they first need to distance themselves from the lowest common denominator - this situation was never going to work for pushing an ethics discussion, in my opinion.

http://gawker.com/what-is-gamergate-and-wh...eeks-1642909080 (note - typical Gawker here, NSFW language abounds)

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

From what I've seen and read #Gamergate started off as attacking a woman and her sex life, escalating to making death threats against her and publishing her address and telephone number online forcing her out of her home.

This trend then continued with other women in the games industry receiving rape and death threats, there have also been bomb threats and a threat of the biggest school shooting in history.

Why any sane person would want to be associated with these actions I don't know. As far as I'm concerned it's a hate group.
If your real agenda is ethics and integrity in games journalism, I would suggest standing with people who make death threats, rape threats and terrorism threats is not the best way to do it.

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'Let that be a lesson to all oppressive vegetable sellers.'

My biggest frustration with this whole mess is that it puts the 'average' person who participates in the videogaming community between Scylla and Charybdis.

I would be willing to go so far to admit that Kotaku didn't create the mess. But they - and many other media outlets - have fanned the flames from the beginning in such a blatant and thoughtless way that they were sure to draw out all sorts of trolls. It's not a very effective way to make dialogue, and it's an outright terrible way to bring about change.

Change that is actually needed. Women are treated awfully in many circles of the gaming world. Josh raises a crucial point - that you can't side with the "Gaters" without being implied in all sorts of disreputable crap. As much as I am annoyed with the first side of this argument, the second is equally distasteful.

And in between these two poles, so many of us get completely obscured. Forums like the one we're on now, that have always promoted open and accepting atmospheres, are slandered by Gamergate's construction of a binary that says you either hate women or hate the gaming community (minus Kotaku of course).

Kotaku republished an article a couple weeks back called The End of Gamers. Gamergate is hailed as the death mark for the hateful gaming community of yesteryear and the birth of a new inclusive world (think of this as the late-late capitalism on the eve of Marx's revolution). What this use of the term "gamer" is doing, however, is shallowing out something that was never so one-dimensional by rewriting history so that we all look like middleschool-minded online Halo players.

Sure, that is a real type and there are many people who fit it. But making that the central definition of "gamer" excises the rest of us from the picture, and writes off whatever progress we encouraged in our own circles. Gaming has never been so simple or so uniform, and neither have the individuals who belong to it. Just because trolls are loud doesn't mean they speak for everyone. When you preach as if they do and always have, you alienate would-be supporters from your ranks. Like me.

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen!

This is absurd!

A public call out for cheating has turned into a gaming scandal?

First thing is- publicly calling someone out for cheating is a classless move, for anyone who does it. This should be a non issue in that regard. It's none of my business and frankly, I don't care.

Journalism and integrity? When has that ever been widespread?

Rarely has there been some real journalist in any forum that would be considered truly honest or clean. there's always an axe to grind in any forum, anywhere, at any time. Sports, politics, food, you name it, there's always some sort of axe to grind somewhere. Why should gaming be any different at all?

Tell you what, since this is a personal opinion, but my solution is this:

Man, woman, child, adult, any race, creed, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing feature, I have 4 words for all of us:

Shut up and play.

There's always going to be some -please forgive the word usage- asshole who disparages who you are, but that makes them less of a person, not you. We live in a world of victims, a bunch of histrionics who single out a moronic few in a crowd of reasonable, intelligent people and attaches a label to that entire group. I'm so sick of it. This is something we all enjoy. Doesn't matter what color the fingers on the buttons, as long as they are there!

Shut up and play.

We are made equal in our hearts and minds, and once the game boots up, we have a chance to transcend all of the world's stupidity and just be. Now we have to squabble over something we use to escape all the crap in this world? Count me out. I'm still a gamer, and always will be. That's what the bottom line is.

Shut up and play.

I may be wrong about why you play, but mentioned above is why I play. To immerse myself in these things. So, after this post, my intention (we'll see if I get any replies to this) is to take my own advice and just play the game.

We can sit and bark at each other and claw each others' eyes out, but all that'll ever do is make us blind.

That's it, folks, you can play with me, and let me join you on your journeys, or you can let it all destroy the thing you dearly love. I, for one, refuse to let that happen. I don't care who you are- pull up your keyboard, sidle up next to me on my couch, grab your chips (crisps if you're so inclined) and your drink and...

-as if I didn't say it enough-

shut up and play.

This post has been edited by chevleclair on 24th October 2014 16:48

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"So, are you a fan of the Fett?"

"Nah, I'm more of a Star Wars guy."

Ohhh my. This topic. Well, at least it's a good thing that this is on CoN, and this discussion has actually stayed pretty civil. Sure, it may only be ten posts, but...let's keep it that way. Please. And thank you. I'm doing this pre-emptively because I've already had to lock a thread on a forum I run, dealing with this issue.

Also, this is a complicated issue, with some pretty ugly details, so I hope and trust that this is an appropriately mature audience. If you're, like, under 18 or so, you might want to stop reading. Or I guess you could also continue reading, with an open mind, and learn what kind of mess has recently been plaguing the internet and the world of videogames.

I'm late to this whole issue. As usual, of course. It blindsided me when people started asking me for my opinion on it, and started posting their thoughts on which side they thought was more right or justified. And they started heaping onto me piles of "evidence". Stories about who got threats of rape or murder directed at them, who got doxxed (i.e. private/personal information posted publicly/online), who doxxed themselves and made it look like they got doxxed, who's said which unreasonable statements, who's been harassing who, who's allegedly had an improper relationship (romantic, professional, or otherwise) with whom, who's allegedly lied about who having an improper relationship with whom, who's behind what, who's done what wrong thing when and how, etc..

I'm also a very infrequent consumer of videogame journalism. Sorry, but I just rarely check out Escapist/Siliconera/Kotaku/etc., so I don't have much of an opinion of them. Then again, they're usually talking about things that I've little to no interest in...

Anyway, at this point, I have this to say: everyone's credibility is shot. That applies to both (or all) "sides". It was shot along time ago. It was shot when this became the latest and greatest in internet flamewarring.

Well, here's my take on this. And I'm going to write most of this new from whole cloth, rather than copy-pasting stuff from any of the other several times I've written up something about all this.

The whole argument appears to be people "arguing past each other". The pro-GG side has ideals of integrity and ethics in game journalism, but there are too many among them who just can't stop complaining about "SJWs" and "feminists"/"feminazis" etc.. The anti-GG side rightfully holds the ideal of gender equality, and supports good journalism too, but to them, GG is about harassment, threats, and misogyny. Well, it's actually more complicated than this. But that's because both sides are basically unorganized mobs, some of whose members may be engaged in...shall we say, poor behavior on the internet. Such poor behavior ranges from pushing their opinions in inelegant, flame-baity ways, through the usual internet trash-talking and comment sniping and misrepresenting quotes and painting with broad brushes much more, all the way up to threatening rape, homicide, and mass murder. Though this poor behavior appears to have not been equally distributed -- at least not in severity. That said, just because your opponent behaves poorly, or your opposition is associated with poor behavior, does not mean that you get any more credibility.

Coming in late, as I did, I really can't say who to trust. There is a severe lack of trustworthiness -- partly because this is a thing that sort of happened on the internet, which is home to one-sided (is "gonzo" the right term?) reporting and has basically flown under the radar. But honestly, though, at this point, there are a bunch of accusations flying around. So that's why I say no one has any credibility anymore.

That's not to say this isn't horrible. Death threats are horrible. Rape threats are horrible. People being scared into not wanting to talk about this, or not wanting to enter the videogame industry, is horrible. The chilling effects this has caused are horrible.

What this controversy really needs now is to die, preferably quickly. So that the people with legitimate grievances and causes can be heard. Preferably using a different nametag and banner. Sexism and toxic behavior among videogamers is a real and serious issue. Journalistic integrity and ethics in videogame industry reporting is a real and serious issue. They both need to be addressed. And those people who have done the harassment ought to be brought to justice (though let's be honest, this is probably gonna be harder to do).

In some ways, I don't think it's really that new. There's been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction, especially among the "hardcore" crowd, for a while now. LIke it or not, videogaming has been predominantly a hobby of teenaged and young adult males, or at least perceived to be such, for quite a long time now. It's been like this since the 1990s, if not earlier. Complaints about "social justice warriors" and "feminists" changing and "politicizing" games has been a thing for at least a few years now, too. Add to this the wave of "casuals" coming into the market, with the popularization of new styles of games on platforms ranging from cell phones to the Wii. Cross this with a backlash against some vague category of games that has been described by various terms -- "indie"/"casual"/"cell phone"/"retro"/"small"/"simple"/"pixel"/"2D"/"voxel"/"artsy"/"walking simulator"/"not a game"/etc. -- whose common trait is simply that they're not the sorts of games that modern "hardcore" mainstream gamers think of as videogames, and add in a few things like Steam's Greenlight and Early Access programs, which have produced a good deal of controversy over their lack of "curation". I mean, you've got the rise of indie gaming -- which isn't bad by itself, but it's a means for people who aren't "real gamers" to suddenly stick their nose in and make "games" that shouldn't even be called games, or trying to push their agenda with them. So I can see why there's a strongly "conservative"/"reactionary" response to what they perceive as waves of change hitting a videogames -- especially since videogames are, to a number of people, a refuge where they've felt they can avoid being judged and can just enjoy themselves.

But despite Anita Sarkeesian expressing her opinions in annoying ways, or Zoe Quinn possibly having some dirt on her hands, or the gaming press reacting with hyperbole in announcing and/or calling for the "death of gamer culture", or anything else that could be wrong with the anti-GG side...telling people that they should kill themselves or threatening to rape them is both abhorrent and entirely counterproductive. If anything, that's like confirming every negative stereotype that gamers have been trying to shed for years. (That said, I guess such a reaction comes as no surprise, according to the "greater internet fuckwad theory"...)

Not to mention that, while the pro-GG has said that their movement is about journalistic ethics and integrity, they've focused quite a lot on Quinn and the whole "five guys" thing, as well as on Phil Fish and some indie competition or something, and I've heard far, far less about instances of big-name publishers paying for reviews or reviewers being fired for giving bad reviews to games. I've also heard pretty much no similarly strident criticism of how the gaming press as a whole acts as basically a "hype machine" for games, rather than an actually critical source. Sure, there may be scandals that blow up once in a while that get reported on, but is the standard of quality we want for our journalism that low -- basically the level of gossip tabloids? I damn well hope it isn't.



TL;DR:

1. No one has any credibility anymore. At least, I'm not willing to trust you no matter which side you're on. Telling me the other side is worse doesn't help you.
2. There's a lot wrong with video game journalism.
3. There's a lot wrong with the videogaming fanbase/community, regarding both gender issues and coming to terms with change and mainstreaming of our hobby.
4. Things that are NOT OK, anytime, anywhere, to anyone, from anyone, for any reason: harassment, doxxing, threatening violence, threatening rape, threatening murder, threatening mass murder, or outright committing any of those things, as well as other obnoxious and hurtful behaviors.
5. There are people who feel that this controversy has had serious chilling effects. They may be scared to get into the industry, or scared to speak their opinions openly. This is a tragedy.
6. I think the best thing now is for everyone to lay low and wait for the flamewar to dissipate, then those people with legitimate grievances and causes should draw attention to those grievances and causes under a different name/hashtag/etc., WITHOUT people conflating any of that with the mess that is GamerGate.

Feel free to let me know what I've failed to address here.



PS: I'm the actual conservative in the room, you little gits. I still play 2D and regard them fancy 3D graphics as newfangled (though they are pretty!). The SNES is best gen, the N64 is newer-gen, the Cube is current-gen, the PS3's a waste of money, the JRPG is still booming and still brings us the most epic of adventures and doesn't yet contain too many FMVs, the 2D platformer is still alive and well, and music still sounds great with just four or eight sound channels of stylized instruments. So you can take your tea-bagging, terrorists, and topless mods and shove it.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Anyone who issues threats online is being a goon. The massive inferiority complex such a person must have truly boggles the mind.

Gaming journalism is the butt monkey of the journalism world. It's impossible to be taken seriously as a critic, when the subject of your analysis and critical reaction is regarded as an overgrown child's plaything by popular thought. The only way to change that image is for gamers to grow up and stop being rude, arrogant, competition-obsessed braggarts.

I have (almost) never played videogames online, for the sole reason that people are not required to be polite or in any way accommodating to each other, AT BEST. At worst, people are cesspits of hatred and vitriol with hair-trigger tempers that will take any offense, no matter how minor or imagined, and jump on it like a dog on horsemeat.

It's bad enough having to deal with forum trolls and generally rude people. When you combine that with competitive play, it just becomes far more trouble than any enjoyment derived from playing is worth.

This attitude is starting to seep into the real world. People are so used to the toxic culture of online play that their manners towards actual people are suffering.

Maybe I'm drawing a connection here that doesn't actually exist, but the parallels in the language and aggressiveness are somewhat interesting, at any rate.

The short version:

TEMPER, TEMPER. Nobody likes a hothead.

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X is blue.

I was just reminded in chat of a simple thought I had on this topic a couple weeks ago. With Boston being a central location for Gamergate controversy, due to the inclusion of Giant Spacekat and Brianna Wu, I was extremely pleased to note that there were no visible signs of anti-women 'Gaters that I could find.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 3rd April 2015 11:48)

I was just reminded in chat of a simple thought I had on this topic a couple weeks ago. With Boston being a central location for Gamergate controversy, due to the inclusion of Giant Spacekat and Brianna Wu, I was extremely pleased to note that there were no visible signs of anti-women 'Gaters that I could find.

That's really good to hear. Now, I wonder, were they talking about issues with women and games, or was it just about games?

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Praise Be To Helix!

Is this whole controversy/flamewar/etc. over yet?

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 3rd April 2015 18:32)

Is this whole controversy/flamewar/etc. over yet?

One would hope. And one would hope that we're not bringing it up again!!

I haven't heard anything from Gamergate in a while. But anti-feminist bias is certainly not gone. Then again, I just saw that Anita Sarkeesian made a few new videos, and I haven't heard much controversy come out of that.

Now, in one way, I think that's what we should hope for, for someone to say the things that she and Brianna Wu have said and it not turn into a flamewar. But in another way, we don't want it to go by unsaid, meaning that people aren't reacting at all. That's why I think it's great that Brianna Wu is continuing to speak and make appearances.

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Praise Be To Helix!

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 3rd April 2015 17:32)

Is this whole controversy/flamewar/etc. over yet?

Far from it. In Canada a female gaming group who went to CalgaryExpo and paid for a booth were kicked out for putting up a support for gamergate sign. This caused them to be chased out after Social Justice Warriors had complained. This was followed up with Social Justice Warriors at the expo keeping an eye on them and noticed these girls were picnicking at a park nearby so the expo had called 9/11 on them for political reasons. So if you were needing emergency or non emergency services you had to wait a little longer due to this.

A GamerGate meet up was scheduled in DC however anti GamerGate called in a bomb threat well anti GamerGate cheered on Twitter. The jepeordy guy Arthur Chu who has been doxxing GamerGate and harassing people sort of like Brianna Wu was praised the bomb threat but heat was put on him due to everyone thinks he did this.

Being it was the month in which we observe ethics in journalism GamerGate has been posting in the hashtag pointing out what the gaming journalists are doing which has caused a reaction to real journalists

http://journoterrorist.com/2015/05/04/gamergate/

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His Divine Shadow

Got Lexx?

Click to vist FFF.

What is a social justice warrior, exactly? I've never understood that. And what do people who care about social justice have to do with ethics in journalism?

I'm asking because the use of that term by many supporters of gamergate confirms my belief that it was mostly about the perceived growth of progressivism or feminism in game journalism. That's perfectly fine. I'm not a conservative by any stretch, but if you are conservative and you don't like that progressivism is encroaching into game journalism then that's fine. But I think it's disingenuous to call it a movement about journalistic ethics.

This post has been edited by BlitzSage on 10th May 2015 21:12

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Praise Be To Helix!

From what little I've read before I turned away in disgust, the main motivations of Gamergate on both sides are attention and ego. Going to call a spade a spade and believe that the ones who claim a stance of social justice are lying or deluded.

Quote (DragonKnight Zero @ 10th May 2015 20:07)

From what little I've read before I turned away in disgust, the main motivations of Gamergate on both sides are attention and ego. Going to call a spade a spade and believe that the ones who claim a stance of social justice are lying or deluded.

Except this all started when a group of people made the obvious and uncontroversial (it should be uncontroversial) that women make up half the audience but are misrepresented and under-represented quite regularly. Maybe many people don't really support social justice, and maybe they are delusional, but if they say what I just said then they are also right.

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Praise Be To Helix!

So I realize that the term "social justice warrior" is used sarcastically to mock people who fight against sexism, racism, and other marginalizing isms. The sarcasm comes from the fact that they're not literal warriors but maybe view themselves metaphorically as such. That said, doesn't calling the opposition SJWs imply that Gamergaters are against social justice and therefore are pro-misogyny (and pro-racism, etc.)? Also, none of that has anything to do with journalistic integrity (which I still don't believe has anything do do with "gaming journalism").

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Wha? Thanks to me?

First of all, what sane person is pro-misogyny or pro racist? There are a few extremists out there, but mostly when those remarks are made, they're used to get a rise out of the one it's being used on. Yes, it is wrong, and no, I don't do it.

These supposed "SJW" people that are mocked simply profit, either for their 14:59 of fame, or for money. They actually bait the issue and exacerbate them for the common mass, and cause people to attack and bully those who don't comply with them.

I've never been a "get me a sandwich" guy, I'm more the "get out of my kitchen while I'm making you a sandwich" kind of guy. I'm not going to spoil someone on the basis of gender or race, I do so because I like them. I'm not going to mistreat someone on these vary same bases. I'm a live and live kind of person.

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"So, are you a fan of the Fett?"

"Nah, I'm more of a Star Wars guy."

Quote (ElPanachino @ 11th May 2015 06:20)

So I realize that the term "social justice warrior" is used sarcastically to mock people who fight against sexism, racism, and other marginalizing isms. The sarcasm comes from the fact that they're not literal warriors but maybe view themselves metaphorically as such. That said, doesn't calling the opposition SJWs imply that Gamergaters are against social justice and therefore are pro-misogyny (and pro-racism, etc.)? Also, none of that has anything to do with journalistic integrity (which I still don't believe has anything do do with "gaming journalism").

To be fair, most are not racist or sexist, but I think that most are anti-progressive or anti-liberal. And I'll say it again, that's perfectly fine. No one's telling you that you have to be a feminist, and you can make whatever conservative movement that you want, just like I can make a movement for my left-wing views. But like ElPanachino said, it has nothing to do with journalistic integrity or journalistic ethics. Journalists can give their opinions all they want without violating any ethics code, as long as they say that it is their opinion.

I have only seen a few cases where people have talked about the nature of the relationship between developers and game journalists, and I have seen even less about the corporate and the advertising structure of game journalism and how it negatively affects objectivity. I have no doubt that it's there, but it has been overshadowed, or even co-opted, by a conservative movement that is not being honest.

Even if you're interested in journalism and ethics, I think you have to admit that your movement was taken from you in order for a group of people ideologically motivated to pretend that they're doing something else. You don't have to do that. Just say, "I'm a conservative gamer, and I don't like that progressivism is creeping into my games and into game coverage." I don't agree with that, but I can respect that.

Quote (chevleclair)

These supposed "SJW" people that are mocked simply profit, either for their 14:59 of fame, or for money. They actually bait the issue and exacerbate them for the common mass, and cause people to attack and bully those who don't comply with them.

I want to say this, chevleclair, because you know better than anyone else here how serious I am about politics and activism. As I have told you and others I'm pretty much as far left as anyone can get. With that in mind, I agree with you. I have been in several organizations and clubs, and I've seen people who are truly dedicated and people who are there just for appearances. This is especially true on social media, and that's why I am not on Twitter and limit my facebook usage. Now, I'm not sure how that profit monetarily, but I can see how someone might say something that is pro-feminist to get a like.

While I agree that there are some that use social justice issues to antagonize and get their 14:59.47 minutes of fame, just like there are those in gamergate that just care about ethics. But let's not generalize. There are many people that are just interested in social justice, so not all of them are just in it for appearances.

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Praise Be To Helix!

Quote (chevleclair @ 11th May 2015 08:33)

First of all, what sane person is pro-misogyny or pro racist?

Bigots (Yes they do exist). Many people are sexist or racist without really realizing it or while being in denial of it (yes, this includes marginalized groups themselves). People think that because they don't take part in overt acts of bigotry that they are not themselves bigots even though they passively consent to bigotry or hold bigoted opinions.

Nobody wants to admit to being a bigot because there's a social stigma against it. Instead, they make excuses as to why they hold a bigoted opinion. This is especially evident whenever you see victim blaming. "I'm not sexist, she shouldn't have led him on" or "I'm not racist, he shouldn't have dressed like a thug" are common examples of ways bigots justify their bigoted opinions to themselves.



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Wha? Thanks to me?

Quote (ElPanachino @ 11th May 2015 15:03)

Quote (chevleclair @ 11th May 2015 08:33)

First of all, what sane person is pro-misogyny or pro racist?

Bigots (Yes they do exist). Many people are sexist or racist without really realizing it or while being in denial of it (yes, this includes marginalized groups themselves). People think that because they don't take part in overt acts of bigotry that they are not themselves bigots even though they passively consent to bigotry or hold bigoted opinions.

Nobody wants to admit to being a bigot because there's a social stigma against it. Instead, they make excuses as to why they hold a bigoted opinion. This is especially evident whenever you see victim blaming. "I'm not sexist, she shouldn't have led him on" or "I'm not racist, he shouldn't have dressed like a thug" are common examples of ways bigots justify their bigoted opinions to themselves.

I grew up in the South, and so I know really well what that's like from firsthand experience. I am no stranger to the "I'm not racist, but..." argument. I do think that anti-female bias is extremely pervasive in our society; in fact, it often appears in the pro-feminist crowd. I think it's clear that this controversy wouldn't have blown up like it did had it not been for sexism against Leigh Alexander, Zoe Quinn, and Anita Sarkeesian.

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Praise Be To Helix!

That's rationalization. "Dressing like a thug" has been applied to just as many whites as blacks (just never gets the press)

I have also acknowledge that extremes do exist. The majority, however, are not racist people, nor are they misogynists.

Again, there are those who want you to believe that, because it leads to a pack mentality and it's also a good way to bury anyone that might not agree with them in one case or another.

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"So, are you a fan of the Fett?"

"Nah, I'm more of a Star Wars guy."

Quote (chevleclair @ 11th May 2015 19:30)

That's rationalization. "Dressing like a thug" has been applied to just as many whites as blacks (just never gets the press)

I have also acknowledge that extremes do exist. The majority, however, are not racist people, nor are they misogynists.

Again, there are those who want you to believe that, because it leads to a pack mentality and it's also a good way to bury anyone that might not agree with them in one case or another.

But come on, it's used with a different connotation. A white person tends to be called a thug when they act in an illegal or disruptive manner. But when thug is applied to a black person, it often is a euphemism for the n word.

But it's not about racist, sexist, or homophobic people. In that way, I'd agree with you that most people are decent. I know many people who are racist and homophobic and are nice people. But it's about societal structure and culture that leads to pervasive racism, sexism, and many other prejudices. Many decent people are taught on a daily basis that homosexuality is sinful or unnatural, and they assume the traditional views with many other prejudices. Those ideas are propagated, making entirely decent people act and speak in quite terrible ways, almost unconsciously.

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Praise Be To Helix!

Quote (chevleclair @ 11th May 2015 19:30)

I have also acknowledge that extremes do exist. The majority, however, are not racist people, nor are they misogynists.

I would actually argue that most people if not all people have some bigoted thoughts. Again, many don't even realize it. Sometimes that's because it's engrained in our culture. The idea that men who have lots of sex are studs or players (with a mostly positive connotation) while women who have lots of sex are sluts is pervasive in our society and that is VERY sexist. It's a double standard that treats women unfairly. If you hear someone call a girl a slut for being promiscuous, they are perpetuating a sexist belief. Sure, you might find people who call men sluts for the same thing, but you'd be naive to think that's the majority of people and not the exception.

The point is, when a person accepts that biases exist, they can work toward correcting them, but saying that it's just a fringe thing downplays how real it is and does an injustice to marginalized groups. Rationalizing bigotry is still bigotry. It's just making excuses so people can continue to be bigots without feeling bad about it.

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Wha? Thanks to me?

Biases exist in both directions. If a woman marries and chooses not to work, she's a good wife, if a man does the same thing, he's a deadbeat. Men are automatically assumed to be child molesters or rapists.

I totally agree about acknowledging the existence of bias, but to use them to push your own agenda or to bully others is wrong. Regardless of why, people have a right to think how they want to. The best way to beat these stereotypes is to show as many examples of that particular profile to not be true. These people force their agendas on others in order to empower themselves, or to retain any power they might have. They push it to the extremes.

Also, one must know the difference between involuntary bias, and outright acts based on these biases. If someone is startled by a smart black man, that's a bias, when that same man has his family attacked or his person harmed based on those thoughts, that's true bigotry.

These people aim to treat the person who believes that women should do the cooking the same way you treat say, Ed Gein or Ted Bundy. Is that really called for? Should someone who made a quick glance at an erogenous zone be treated the same as a serial rapist?

I saw a 21 year old black man try to lure an 11 year old girl into his car and make sexual advances to her. He thought he should get away with it because he was black, and I had no right to intervene.

Seriously?

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"So, are you a fan of the Fett?"

"Nah, I'm more of a Star Wars guy."