An interview with Daniel Vávra about #gamergate

Off-topic
#21

One of the results of this ‘Study’ from those involved, Zoya Street, was a ‘fair’ and ‘ethical’ hit-piece on Totalbiscuit-

https://archive.today/fHNhn

Totalbiscuit had tried to remain neutral & asked for calm, reasonable dialogue, but these people were having none of that.

Brad Wardell, a peer of the excellent Mr. Vavra, has also confirmed this kind of behavior is ‘par for the course’-

http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/457741/GamerGatethe_free_ride_is_over

These people definitely do not like what Daniel Vavra is doing and I’m glad he’s stood up to them. I’m also glad he’s making what looks to be a fantastic game. :smiley:

#22

Respect to Dan for this, he stands up for the freedoms of others. He wants to create something, and sticks to his vision, not being censored for the sake of political correctness.

whatever “political correctness” has become
to quote him:

And they will never be happy. If you don’t have a gay character in your game, you are homophobic, if you do have gay character in your game, you are homophobic, because they don’t like the character. If women in your game look good, you are sexist, if they look bad, you are sexist, if you can fight with them, you are misogynistic, if you can’t fight with them, you are using them as objects, if you don’t have any women, because there is no correct way how to have them, you are misogynistic.

It’s a witch hunt and it’s affecting my artistic freedom.

1 Like
#23

Don’t get me wrong. As I’ve said before I agree with many points Dan brought up in the interview. That’s not the core of my criticism.

But I also question the weight of your sources. ReAction was a small, unimportant magazine which was cancelled after only three issues. DiGRA is a purely academical (at least they call themselves so) institution with no direct ties to gaming journalism. In the end we talk about opinion pieces here and there have been a lot for both “sides” over the course of the past year (concering the feminism and diversity conflict). Of course I can’t speak about things that never gone public but what I’ve experienced so far in mainstream gaming media these issues have become more present and journalists talked about them much more than in the past. Imo that’s a good thing as long as it isn’t abused with editorial power. But even then it’s a thin line between just stating a personal opinion and using your power to promote a certain political agenda.

I though agree that the whole discussion led to a great deal of uncertainty in the industry and community and it’s harder than ever to not being criticized for stuff like misogyny or sexism or racism no matter what you do. But that’s not only to pin to journalists. That’s to pin on each of us gamers as well as part of the gaming community. Just look at the comments and forums of the big gaming sites and you’ll soon notice that many commenters have even stronger opinions on certain topics than journalists would ever dare - and that’s true for almost every opinion you could imagine…

#24

Hm, in my experience the hashtag itself doesn’t do anything other than signaling that you rallied up with others or follow a certain campaign. But in the end, it’s the people who use the hashtag or voice their opinion. If only anonymous people on the internet would use it there wouldn’t be any significant effect to the “outside”. But if more or less known people use it it gets coverage. They would also get coverage without using the hashtag. I’m quite sure that it would have had a similar external effect if Dan Vavra had relinquished using the hashtag and just spoke out his opinion in a blog/interview/whatever.

But of course it’s hard to measure external effects. It’s much like marketing. There is little you can do to measure something before it happens and it’s even harder to measure how much of the result can be followed back to what you put into it to strenghten it. I think the hashtag and the campaign could at least have two effects, one positive and one negative. Maybe you get more publicity and a bigger certain audience but maybe you also lose some of your credibility to another audience. It’s hard to tell if you ask me.

I don’t underestimate them, I just don’t like them. I think anarchic group movements of any kind are inherently dangerous and always on the edge of being abused for individual goals (which already happend here and then in this case). Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I think we should be able to raise our voice without taking part in such movement.
And I disagree with your latest sentence: there was already a discussion before #gamergate was even invented/became famous.

#25

this isn’t a popularity contest, it’s not about making people like you.

being especially nice makes no difference. anything can be perceived as misogynist. many of the comments sarkeesian and friends picked out as misogynist were highly reasonable and moderate.

you’re fighting a losing battle by curtseying to these people. don’t try to make friends with them.

1 Like
#26

Think as the key both for artistic freedom and for journalism in the literal sense. Both appeals to the alert mind of its reader / viewer / player, it is his free choice how he deals with the content. The reaction of the reader / viewer / player, depending on the imagination and personal character something dirty it or something beautiful. As long as the player remains the freedom to choose, criticism of the product is out of place.
Address for criticism could then be only the respective user. Just to put a knife available, is neutral. If the goal of “murder” is offered as the only option, justified criticism begins (bad journalism). If so can also do butter on bread or carving wood - where is there room for criticism?
The younger age groups have only to choose from a lack of meaningful options unlearned. Order to stay in the game industry, the perspective was evaporated down on possibilities more and more using the specialist press, Relation to reality replaced by “tricky”. Each outbreak rocked slightly as the worldview of unpretentious fellow runners.

(Sorry google-trans - s…t!) hope, u can understand…:slight_smile:

#27

Well I couldn’t throw everything in the post. People tend to look at a ‘wall of text’ and their eyes bleed. Just because ‘Reaction’ magazine was only around 3 issues, it seems to have hit in all the right places. Samantha Allen is an associate of Leigh Alexander. One of the most ‘Hostile to Gamers’ in games journalism that I’ve ever seen. Here’s some quotes that are not rare, they are nearly her Modus Operandi-

Leigh Alexander - “You don’t have to make games for the largest game purchasing
demographic, because they’re bad people and if you make games for them then you’re bad
too.”

“…you’re in our way, and the work I do specifically exists to dispossess you of your
sense of relevance. If you don’t like it, good. I’m much louder than you. And we have an
army.” -Leigh Alexander

“These obtuse s***slingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers
– they are not my audience… there is no ‘debate’ to be had.” -Leigh Alexander

  1. She has publicly threatened to ruin the careers of at least two people she argued/disagreed with on Twitter.

  2. She is editor at large at Gamasutra but her profile there (when last we checked) did not mentioned that also worked for Agency, a company that provides consultation and PR work for video game companies.

  3. She has at least occasionally promoted the games of her clients on Twitter.

  4. She went on her infamous expletive-laden, vitriol filled rant about gamers on Gamasutra, which is part of what poured gasoline on the GamerGate fire.

  5. A little over a week after the aforementioned rant on Gamasutra, she submitted an article to Time Magazine that was essentially a sanitized version of her rant which not only did not explicitly mention the role she played in jumpstarting this fiasco - even if a link to the article in question is present in the Time one - but also omitted certain key details that had developed in the interim, such as the #NotYourShield movement.

In the DiGRA analysis I posted above, she was a part of it, along with other influential gaming magazine owners & contributors-

" Why is Alan Williamson important? Well, in the about page he is associated with 5 out of 10 Magazine, where we find even more links in this whole debacle.

Alan Williamson is Editor-in-Chief at 5 out of 10 Magazine. [18a]
Leigh Alexander is a contributor, and also the editor-at-large of Gamasutra [18b]
Brendan Keogh is a contributor [18e]
Kris Ligman is a contributor [18d]
Zoya Street is a contributor [18c]"

As I said, Samantha Allen is associated with these people, so her single article in a small magazine had influence far beyond its initial appearance. Brad Wardell’s latest Blog that I posted above is also proof-positive that this bullying & slander/libel is not isolated, but widespread. They recently bullied one of the funniest, sweetest guys in the youtube reviewer realm to back out of #Gamergate-

That, is creepy as it gets.

1 Like
#28

Oh, and speaking of #Gamergate, Christina Summers has a fantastic rebuttal to the people who object to it-

4 Likes
#29

Can I respond to myself? :smile: I watch Kingdom Come’s exciting Game Dev videos to relax, and I’d love to actually have more time to game but this #Gamergate stuff just keeps getting nastier for the Anti-GG side:

This kind of stuff makes me even happier to support Daniel and his team.

#30

Guys! Daniel Vavra is on a Live Stream right now!

He comes out for #Gamergate again. Fantastic!

I’m sorry everyone. I am appearing as a total Fanboi aren’t I? :-/ But #Gamergate means a great deal to me personally, and then to come across a Developer who was willing to come out about the issue AND is making a game that is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for? I hope you’ll excuse me for the enthusiasm.

2 Likes
#31

Here’s the link to a youtube video if anyone has missed it but wants to see:

#32

I am really disturbed by the gamergate affair. Mostly because it really IS an agenda. It has nothing to do with discussion, it is all about denial. And this is always a bad thing.
edit:
Finally managed to watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MxqSwzFy5w

Exactly that. (It’s the video from ronin1325’s posting #28)
There are feminists like her, and I’d love to discuss with those people. But how many people know her, and how many people know Anita Sarkeesian? And why is that so?

It is sure a relevant topic, but this is the completely wrong and unfair approach - in fact, it hurts the discussion more than it could possibly help it. Anita Sarkeesian is attention grabbing. She got her own channel. She has ads running there. This is not about discussion.

In fact, after reading the interview, Vavra said more smart things about sexism and such than most of the sexism bloggers out there.

The best articles about sexism and the problems with sexism I’ve read so far have been written by men. What does this tell you?

Before I elaborate and start translating my ongoing, very serious (and unfortunately already very long) discussion with a friend who actual is an active and very intelligent (female) feminist I’ll leave a few links here.

First off, here is an example of what real misogynist sexism is:
http://badassdigest.com/2014/07/01/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs.-michael-bay/

I’ve had these moments too. You could throw up when you recognize them. The problem is, as he also notes, that most people don’t see it. They get the message, though. This is the really dangerous sexism. Using the trope of the “damsel in distress” is not. It’s a McGuffin. Of course the woman is objectified, but for the sake of the purpose, not out of the intention to degrade women. By the way, so is the “hero prince”… but no one complains about that.

Anyway.

When you read above article and understood the point, here’s something even worse:

http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2013/12/07/we-need-to-change-how-we-talk-about-rape/

And this is the problem with wrong sexism in a nutshell, presented by the example rape.
It’s not fun to read. If you don’t bother trying to understand other people, don’t do it. But it’s one of the best reads out there on that topic. I strongly recommend it.

#33

Based Daniel Is Based-

See, as some here have said, so nice to have guys like Daniel who lived the ‘Ultimate Dream’ of so many of these Ideologues & know exactly where it ends up!

#34

at last someone who’s not afraid to be honnest

#35

great interview, artistic freedom sounds like a resonable demand.

Not all communists wan’t opression and censorship in this fashion, the dictatorship part was originally only intended as a temporary solution for a phase of transition. Just because states like the Peoplesrepublic of Korea call itselfe communist doesn’t mean that’s what it should stand for. Libaritarians posting anti-socialist stuff compleatly alienates me from gamergate. For exemple the constant use of the term SJW, as if Social justice itselfe was a bad thing that needs to be antagonized.

#36

LOL, so these other communists want opression and censorship in some better fashion? You mean like ban people if they don’t agree with feminists? Or is there even better one? What a ridiculous claim.

Oh lord, people like you, who actually believe this shit, will cause that one day, this “transitional” dictatorship will be back. Just temporarily you know, to make the world better…

Edit: And one more thing. When soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, they also claimed it is just “temporary”. It ended up to be temporary for 20 years and it would last longer if it wasn’t for the Valvet revolution. Since then, we have this joke here in the Czech Republic. What is unit of a temporariness? 1 forever.

1 Like
#37

I said no opression in that sence because some people see any kind of state as a kind of opression. The existence of any form of police for exemple is obviously a nessessary opression yet arnachists don’t like it. Censorship is genarally stupid too but you could probably argue that there is always a form of censoreship lite, simple because some things don’t get publish or get as much attention.

I don’t belive the dictatorship part was a good Idea, i just wanted to point out that it wasn’t the actual goal and it should be clear that it’s obsolent now. Obviously things went very wrong in the Sowjetunion espacialy during stalins reign but if stalin rules autocratic like a Tsar, Kim-il-sung copies his style and his decendents end up inheriting the state that has nothing to do with Marx.

#38

See, now ‘true’ communism might not be a bad thing. However, to work it requires a commodity that just doesn’t exist in this world- Perfect People. We are all corruptible and the structure of communism invariably puts too much power into too few hands (The ‘transition’ stages that no nation has ever gotten past).

As far as SJW’s, I have taken to calling Ben Kuchera, Leigh Alexander, Zoya Street & the rest of that crowd, the Gaming Morality Force. They are not in the least truly interested in real Social Justice. They follow a Postmodernist/Relativist- Distorted version of Feminism where screeds like this-

“there is no such thing as misandry just like there is no such thing as 'racism against white people” -Leigh Alexander

Are completely normal for them. The ‘Heteronormative Hegemony’ which is their enemy, contains all the thought processes that most people take for granted. Ethics, Integrity, even Rationality Itself are all ‘Weapons of the Patriarchy’ and so cannot be trusted. It is an Ideology that puts feelings as the primary way in which one determines the rightness or wrongness of anything. Let me tell you, after nearly marrying a person who believed that, it is a self-destructive, egotistical system that takes the worst aspects of human nature & ramps them into overdrive.

Based on the 6 weeks I’ve been constantly engaged with other #Gamergate people at The Escapist, most agree that would be their definition of ‘SJW’ as well in regards to the above group. However, to avoid posting a wall of text 50+ names long, the term is used. What else could be done? :-/

#39

i use it like this “SJW” too when I refer to the “faction” (not that is properly defined). But if you read it in the context of what seems like anti-socialist and anti-feminist posts it sounds like a rejection of Social Justice and equality itself. Agin I am not saying that is what gamergate is about just that there are posts that alienate me.

nothing is true everthing is permitted, i don’t really want to go off topic any further.

#40

Hmm ok, so you differenciate between “marxist” communists and “real-world” communists. Yes, I know that what Marx taught has actually very little in common with marxism-leninism or any other state communism ideolgy as we know.

But here is the thing. No one ever tried to apply actual marxism (in a big scale), because it’s not possible. It’s just pure fiction, utopia which could never happen. People who believe in marxist comunism are simply delusional fools, they are on the same level as people who believe in ponies and fairies. And then there are “realworld” communists. These are aware of that and so they just take the idea of great world where everyone is happy and has everything what he needs, sell it to those fools who believes it’s possible, and then do exact oposite. Not a single politician who started a dictatorship had an intention “oh, I will do it just because it’s neccesary transmition phase before the communist heaven will start on the earth”. It’s total bullshit. It’s absolutely irelevant what intension Marx had, because not a single comunnist dictator give a fuck about that.

And these “marxist communists” who you are talking about are just useful idiots and with their “the intension was good, it was just badly executed” they just help to apologise all those terrible realworld communist dictatorships, because these dictatorships are the ONLY possible form of “communism” in reality. Let’s take a look what you just said.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how much “not good” that idea was according to you? I mean, what the fuck? Not a good idea?

Yes it was the actual goal of ALL people ever who started communist dictatorship and this is all that matters. It is completely irrelevant whether it was an intension of marx or his “actual” communists, because those intensions are impossible utopia. That’s why no one in history ever even tried it on a big scale and always terribly failed even in a small scale.

Like seriously? This is what you call tens of millions of people dying in working camps? Holy shit. I guess in the 2. WW things also went very wrong.

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