SOOO... GAMERGATE

Posts

harmonic
It's like toothpicks against a tank
4142
author=Kel
But, you really have to ask yourself this question if you want to get at the heart of this whole movement:
Why are a large group of people raging on about it now when the deep level corruption has been apparent and out in the open for years?


This is a very fair question, and honestly, I don't think most gamers were privvy to that sort of thing. People are trusting of systems of authority by default. And people like me, for whom this is both life-long passion and now a profession, finding out about said corruption hits pretty close to home.
When it comes to just how widespread the corruption is, I agree, most people had no idea how far down things went.

So it just sucks that it had to take the harassment of a female developer for people to begin piecing together the relationship between some developers and the journalists that favor them.

People here bringing up those journalists aren't doing so because their reviews are biased (people can't help being at least a little biased), it's because gaming journalists are getting paid off by developers/publishers to give their games preferential treatment. This was fairly old news to some in AAA circles, but this whole scandal unearthed just how bad it is in indie game circles too.
I hate reading Film Critic Hulk because it's so damn difficult to read all caps but this was really worth a read.

http://badassdigest.com/2014/10/27/film-crit-hulk-smash-on-despair-gamergate-and-quitting-the-hulk/

EDIT:
People here bringing up those journalists aren't doing so because their reviews are biased (people can't help being at least a little biased), it's because gaming journalists are getting paid off by developers/publishers to give their games preferential treatment. This was fairly old news to some in AAA circles, but this whole scandal unearthed just how bad it is in indie game circles too.
Except of course that there hasn't been anything showing this to be true in indie circles beyond the simple fact that game devs and geme journalists work in the same field so obviously meet up from time to time both in professional and informal settings. This happens in all "specialist fields". A lot of game journalists also move into game development (See games like Gunpoint or Sir, You Are Being Hunted) and they obviously keep their old contacts.

Is this corruption? yeah I guess it is. But it's not serious conspiracy corruption, most of the time there's a fair bit of disclosure too. "This guy is my buddy so what I say might not be relevant" is not uncommon in articles.

I mean yes. I have no doubt the indie dev scene can be "cliquey" and hard to break into the "in-gang" as a fledgling developer. And not all things in life are fair. Some games get random expsoure (pom needs wifi :) and it snowballs while other projects are forever forgotten. But that's sort of the name of the game in entertainment.
Honestly, a lot of the reviews done on RMN are done by people who know each other and are friends. Gourd reviewed one of my games just the other day - and he's a friend. It's not corrupt that he did so, I think. I think it would be if I paid him in some way to up the review score, sure, but just knowing and being close to those who write reviews for you is not a bad thing unless they let that friendship influence their score (and quite frankly, it can be hard to rate a friend harshly, especially when you appreciate that friendship.)

That's why there's benefits in more than one review per game and averaging of scores (a la our system - sure it has it's issues but for the most part it's fair when there's more than one review on a game). That's the big issue with gaming, though - a lot of the people whose reviews get heard and seen are paid attention to more than those who review it on small sites and don't get heard. They're the ones who get 'paid' to give the good reviews. And thus, corruption.

The only way to combat that is to have a lot more people giving reviews for the games they play - a hell of a lot more. More than can be paid off. Because sometimes the 'corruption' isn't that - some people honestly love the shitty games (otherwise how do we explain ones like COD that sell amazingly well?).

We've seen that on this site too - the love of a game that just makes you scratch your head and ask why. Sure, some of that is some sort of 'corruption' in the form of fake reviews or comments, but there are a lot that aren't - they just either don't know better because it's the first game they played; like that particular kind of game; the game resonates with them in some way or whatever other reasons there are.

Having a glowing opinion of a game that most people think is shit doesn't necessarily mean corruption, even if the person reviewing it was paid. I think that while there is said issues, not all of it is as clean cut as people make it out to be.

Also, GG in it's current form needs to die for any of this to be considered properly by gamers as a whole because the controversy and way in which the whole shebang began makes the whole discussion null and void. "Nothing ever smells of roses that rises up from mud."
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
author=Liberty
Also, GG in it's current form needs to die for any of this to be considered properly by gamers as a whole because the controversy and way in which the whole shebang began makes the whole discussion null and void. "Nothing ever smells of roses that rises up from mud."


This. An honest discussion about journalism is certainly a discussion worth having, but the GoofyGopher movement isn't about that, it's just the excuse. And it has completely destroyed any possibility of a real, worthwhile conversation happening. It would be like having a demonstration to keep some valuable historic building from being demolished, and then the KKK shows up to support your rally and says that if the building isn't preserved they're gonna lynch some folks. At that point you really need to just pack up and go home. No meaningful communication is possible.
Zeigfried_McBacon
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
3820
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

-Einstein
author=Zeigfried_McBacon
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.-Einstein
What does that have to do with what they just stated, or the thread? Solitayre's example makes pretty good sense. If the KKK joins in with that group, that group cannot win because they will be demonized as being "allies with the KKK". Even if GG had some valid points (debatable - don't honestly know), they can't make them now because hateful people on their side make people generalize and hate ALL of them. Several of the posts here are good examples of that.

On a sidenote: Anita is keeping it classy through the threats, and luckily she's not blaming all men and masculinity for the actions of a few, or something silly like that: https://archive.today/BsDv6
Roden
who could forget dear ratboy
3857
author=EdgeOfChaos
On a sidenote: Anita is keeping it classy through the threats, and luckily she's not blaming all men and masculinity for the actions of a few, or something silly like that: https://archive.today/BsDv6


Anita Sarkeesian is a fucking moron. She seems to have difficulty actually analyzing things without resorting to broad scale defamation and blanket terms on entire groups of people.

Guess I better go bomb something, since I'm feeling pretty masculine right about now.
Roden
who could forget dear ratboy
3857
Seriously though it's fucking gross that barely anybody bothered to call her out about saying that. Like, extremely offensive. It makes me feel like all of my beliefs about gender equality are fucking pointless in the end.
TehGuy
Resident Nonexistence
1827
And here I thought this'd be the one place next to my facebook where I'd never have to see this thing..

>mainly cause I get overloaded by all the shite about it on fullchan

All I know is that I'm apparently dead to quite a few publications
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32388
author=TehGuy
And here I thought this'd be the one place next to my facebook where I'd never have to see this thing..

>mainly cause I get overloaded by all the shite about it on fullchan


Because now, it's directly affecting us just because we like games.
Zeigfried_McBacon
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
3820
author=EdgeOfChaos
author=Zeigfried_McBacon
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.-Einstein
What does that have to do with what they just stated, or the thread?

It wasn't directed at anyone person, but rather, the entire situation at large and how nothing is really going to go anywhere good at this rate.

author=TehGuy
And here I thought this'd be the one place next to my facebook where I'd never have to see this thing..

>mainly cause I get overloaded by all the shite about it on fullchan

All I know is that I'm apparently dead to quite a few publications

Grab a seat, have some cheesy popcorn with me, and watch the war get waged across the internet, kinda like the dominion war on DS9.
Roden
who could forget dear ratboy
3857
Boy gee am I sure glad we live in a shit tier society where all we can do about problems is watch them get fucking worse.

When's the world supposed to to fucking die again? Is it soon?
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
author=Pizza
Seriously though it's fucking gross that barely anybody bothered to call her out about saying that. Like, extremely offensive. It makes me feel like all of my beliefs about gender equality are fucking pointless in the end.

Pizza, I interpreted what Anita said as "because of the way we as a society treat and raise boys, and the pressures and ideas we force upon them, it is not surprising that we see these sorts of violent incidents". And I pretty much agree with that statement. I had the same thoughts immediately after that shooting where the kid blamed his life's problems on men being better than him and women rejecting him.

We raise guys to be hypercompetitive, to "win" at life. To succeed in life, as a man, you must score the most money, the most reputation, the most sex, as if our survival still depended on things like this. I remember being taught these things growing up and I know guys now who are over 30 and still think having sex is some sort of grand achievement. So when you fail at these things, you start to believe you're worthless and powerless... maybe you'd want to prove that you're not powerless at any cost.

I may have read this differently than others, but Anita's not blaming boys for this, she's blaming the shitty culture we instill into them. It's a culture that's been propagated by both men and women for a long time and it sucks and it harms a lot of people.

---

For what it's worth, I think all you can do is do your best as a person is fight toward making the world better. The world is ever so slightly improving and growing every day, even if it often doesn't feel like it.
Roden
who could forget dear ratboy
3857
@Slash: Personally I think you're giving her too much credit, but to each their own. Looking at her post, I'd like to think that there was some positive message- but if she intended there to be I believe she would have written it in plain, non-skewable English. The rampant SJWs, Gamergaters and Chauvinists on Twitter won't take anything positive from it. It'll create more problems and death threats, which she'll respond to in the same way, and the cycle will repeat again.

Also, I wasn't aware that people were brought up in such a shitty mindset. I knew it happened sometimes, but not that it's apparently the norm. I was raised to care about other people. Perhaps it didn't work that well though, since I hate Humanity in general and want the world to die and shit. But at least I'm really happy

As a final note, here's a video made by someone who actually attacks the topic with intelligence and doesn't resort to playing the fucking blame game:

EDIT: Yeah, I agree about making the world better yourself. That's the only way anything ever fucking gets done. That's why I've made several attempts on these discussions to say "Maybe we should mak some gams that are about equality? You know? On the site about making games, which are an excellent method of expressing ideas?"
author=slashphoenix
author=Pizza
Seriously though it's fucking gross that barely anybody bothered to call her out about saying that. Like, extremely offensive. It makes me feel like all of my beliefs about gender equality are fucking pointless in the end.
Pizza, I interpreted what Anita said as "because of the way we as a society treat and raise boys, and the pressures and ideas we force upon them, it is not surprising that we see these sorts of violent incidents". And I pretty much agree with that statement. I had the same thoughts immediately after that shooting where the kid blamed his life's problems on men being better than him and women rejecting him.

We raise guys to be hypercompetitive, to "win" at life. To succeed in life, as a man, you must score the most money, the most reputation, the most sex, as if our survival still depended on things like this. I remember being taught these things growing up and I know guys now who are over 30 and still think having sex is some sort of grand achievement. So when you fail at these things, you start to believe you're worthless and powerless... maybe you'd want to prove that you're not powerless at any cost.

I may have read this differently than others, but Anita's not blaming boys for this, she's blaming the shitty culture we instill into them. It's a culture that's been propagated by both men and women for a long time and it sucks and it harms a lot of people.

---

For what it's worth, I think all you can do is do your best as a person is fight toward making the world better. The world is ever so slightly improving and growing every day, even if it often doesn't feel like it.

This is one of the few times when word order is very, very important.
Compare:
"The pattern is connected to ideas of toxic masculinity" - her statement
"The pattern is connected to toxic ideas about masculinity" - words changed a bit
In the first case, the adjective "toxic" modifies masculinity, not the ideas about it. In the second, it modifies "society"'s ideas about masculinity. This isn't just squabbling over semantics, there's a genuine difference there. To put it more simply: the first one calls masculinity toxic, whereas the second calls the ideas toxic.

If it was the second, I would agree with you... Then again, it's possible that she did mean what you said and said it poorly, but given her history I am skeptical.

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Also: the "our society teaches ___ to ___" is a great way of stereotyping and generalizing a group while simultaneously saying that you're not criticizing the group, but rather some nebulous concept of "society". As if society is some random person who goes around and teaches men to be violent. Society is made up of the people inside of it, so at core you're generalizing people anyways. What gives people the knowledge to know that "society" as a whole teaches people to be violent?

------

author=slashphoenix
For what it's worth, I think all you can do is do your best as a person is fight toward making the world better. The world is ever so slightly improving and growing every day, even if it often doesn't feel like it.
I do agree with this though.
This thread is already larger than I care to read so I might be covering old territory.

Gaming journalism is a silly and untrustworthy industry, but I find it interesting that it took a relatively minor ethics violation to springboard the entire campaign. I say relatively minor because while it was a poor choice, it didn't result in any significant or meaningful conflict. It's the sort of mistake a journalist can easily get sucked into when you end up so close to the subject matter you're supposed to be covering. It's a problem that springs up every in every industry, but it's on an individual-to-individual basis, rather than being some pervasive problem where every single journalist is boning developers and producers left and right and putting up 10/10 reviews all over the place.

When I say it's interesting, what I'm insinuating is that a sizable, extremely vocal portion of the campaign is probably just using it as an excuse to be angry at and harass feminists. Because feminism... totally related to unethical journalism, right? Bayonetta reviews and Anita Sarkeesian have basically jack shit to do with it but seem to be the focal point of all the recent action.

It just seems very, very silly to complain about a handful of interpersonal conflicts of interest when an entire field of journalism is basically bought and paid for by the companies they're supposed to be providing unbiased coverage of. Gigantic Assassin's Creed advert stretching across the entire screen with a glowing review right below it. Paid-for review copies of games, invites to fancypants hotels to play and review a game under supervision, inflated review scores across-the-board to avoid upsetting the advertisers that keep their magazines/websites afloat, non-disclosure agreements to keep journalists in their favor, etc, etc. The only pervasive, systemic ethics problem facing gaming journalism is where the money comes from, and it almost never gets talked about except to make jokes about Geoff "Doritos Pope" Keighley... certainly never a massive, uproarious Twitter campaign that attracts attention from major media.
author=Jude
This thread is already larger than I care to read so I might be covering old territory.

Gaming journalism is a silly and untrustworthy industry, but I find it interesting that it took a relatively minor ethics violation to springboard the entire campaign. I say relatively minor because while it was a poor choice, it didn't result in any significant or meaningful conflict. It's the sort of mistake a journalist can easily get sucked into when you end up so close to the subject matter you're supposed to be covering. It's a problem that springs up every in every industry, but it's on an individual-to-individual basis, rather than being some pervasive problem where every single journalist is boning developers and producers left and right and putting up 10/10 reviews all over the place.

When I say it's interesting, what I'm insinuating is that a sizable, extremely vocal portion of the campaign is probably just using it as an excuse to be angry at and harass feminists. Because feminism... totally related to unethical journalism, right? Bayonetta reviews and Anita Sarkeesian have basically jack shit to do with it but seem to be the focal point of all the recent action.

It just seems very, very silly to complain about a handful of interpersonal conflicts of interest when an entire field of journalism is basically bought and paid for by the companies they're supposed to be providing unbiased coverage of. Gigantic Assassin's Creed advert stretching across the entire screen with a glowing review right below it. Paid-for review copies of games, invites to fancypants hotels to play and review a game under supervision, inflated review scores across-the-board to avoid upsetting the advertisers that keep their magazines/websites afloat, non-disclosure agreements to keep journalists in their favor, etc, etc. The only pervasive, systemic ethics problem facing gaming journalism is where the money comes from, and it almost never gets talked about except to make jokes about Geoff "Doritos Pope" Keighley... certainly never a massive, uproarious Twitter campaign that attracts attention from major media.

I'm fairly sure the accused reviewer never posted a review anyways. That's hardly the *only* thing they're mad about, but that issue seems bogus. It is interesting how easily this whole thing was set off though. I'm assuming they view this as the straw that broke the camel's back.

The feminists who receive attention are in the spotlight because they have put themselves there by giving speeches, speaking out, etc.. then people started sending them threats, which put them in the spotlight even more.
TehGuy
Resident Nonexistence
1827
author=Jude
stuff

Aye, it is kinda silly.

But I think the difference here is how it was handled at the beginning and how it's being handled now. Had publications been doing the stuff they've done now back then during Dorito Pope and all that I'm fairly certain something like this would've started then (size of the outrage being debatable). I mean, you don't just outright publish several "Gamers are Dead" articles across several outlets (within the same damn day) and then start flinging shit at companies that (at one point) advertised on your site and expect everyone else to sit there and take it

author=EdgeofChaos
Those people you mentioned are in the spotlight because they have put themselves there by giving speeches, speaking out, etc.. then people started sending them threats, which put them in the spotlight even more.

I think as much, too. Look at Mrs. Wu, for example: no one knew who the hell she was until she did one little thing on the hashtag and even then no one really paid any attention. Then she suddenly began getting death threats and now she's running around on media outlets

>and then she mentioned she literally knew every woman in the industry.. I'll see if I can't find that vid if anyone's interested on that

author=EdgeOfChaos
I'm assuming they view this as the straw that broke the camel's back

I have seen that statement many times on their board, so I'd say your assumption is partly correct at the very least