Intel Pulls out from Gamasutra

Off-topic
#42

This whole thing is bizarre to me.

Two unrelated and valid arguements that have somehow become conflated.

Crap ‘journalism’ and publications that cater to the people that pay them… advertisers… have nothing but nothing to do with misogyny. Misogyny in gaming, the gamers ‘boys club’ is also a real problem.

Only through the unfortunate details of ONE weird instance that only a handful of people were involved in are these issues joined. The bad journalist crowd attacked when they saw occlusion. They attacked a woman who was outed by an ex for sleeping with a journalist for a review. A literal ‘get in bed with whom you are covering’ scenario. Thing is, apparently it was the BS ranting of an angry Ex. So an innocent woman was attacked by gamers.

Actually, I don’t think she is innocent, I DO think she got cozy with the guy for a good review. That is what these rags do. I say ‘rag’ because I won’t use ‘magazine’ or something that implies actual journalism.

btw, this isn’t just a gaming thing. Ever read a guitar magazine gear review? It’s comical. Those reviewers must have the best luck on the planet, all they ever review is amazing equipment. It’s great, it’s stellar, you should go buy one now.

That’s not a review, it’s ad copy paid for by the manufacturer who takes out several full page ads in that mag every month.

So this whole ‘tainted review’ thing is nothing new, and not at all unique to gaming.

But now it’s strange. You can’t argue about journalistic occlusion with game companies… without being accused of being a misogynist… .what!!! Likewise you can’t talk about women being under represented in games without someone accusing you of being in bed with the dirty journalists.

These are two separate arguments people. And frankly, I agree with both.

Bizarre to me that these unrelated issues have entered into some strange war.

1 Like
#43

You should probably recognize that there is no proof of them being blacklisted just because techraptor thinks it’s so.

#44

Well, not directly but at least indirectly. First, he wore this special shirt in the last video update. That wouldn’t have been that a big deal if he hadn’t explained its purpose/meaning a few days before on twitter. Second, he more then once brought Kingdom Come up himself on twitter in this discussion about gamergate. He repeatedly teased the US gaming press along the lines that “they certainly don’t cover his game anymore because he’s a gamergate activist and because he accuses them of being biased, unethical and corrupt”. As I said before, it’s one thing to state your opinion but I don’t see the reasoning here why he feels this kind of stronge urge to connect the success (or at least its coverage on US gaming media sites) of his game with his personal opinion of this specific matter. I see that it’s a gaming issue but nevertheless it’s not directly connected since I can’t recall ANY journalist blaming Warhorse for any social issues so far (or at least before this whole gamergate thing started)…

#45

it’s not like what he’s saying hasn’t been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. journalists and developers who do not toe the line and collude with the social advocacy agenda are punished. and you’ll notice with people who are truthful and honest, it’s not a strong urge to say controversial things, it comes naturally.

#46

You did. By stating that it’s “partly” Daniel’s reponsibility that journalists take revenge on him, you are saying it’s “party” his responsibility that they are revengeful politicaly bias scum, because only such journalists would punish a game dev because he has a different opinion.

I read it very carefuly. Here it is.

It basicaly just says “I want to add that imo the rape of that woman is also very sad and not nice. Dispite her mini-skirt and challanging behavior towards a rapist, he should not let his lust guide his actions. As a man, he shoud never have sex with a woman without her consent, and there is no excuse for raping her, at least as long as she is not showing her tits to him (which e.g. might be an issue with John)”.

You said it’s party his responsibility that journalists behave imoraly, that they deliberately don’t cover his game. You can talk around whatever you like. It’s exemplary showcase of victim-blaming (what an irony). You consider his T-shirt childish, someone else might consider sarcasm a best weapon against absurd ideology.

“The world isn’t black and white. You cannot expect to flirt with people and later expect them they won’t rape you. That doesn’t work no matter how right or wrong it is.” You should realize he doesn’t want them to work for him. How did you come up with that? He only wants them to do their job with reasonable ethical standards and morality. That’s HUGE difference. Expecting from a journalist with different opinion that he will do his work is not that much shocking.

Yes, of course, everyone undestands that standing for own opinion might hurt. Some people just sacrifice their opinion and learn how to shut up and listen. This is the silent majory that is always watching and allowing totalitarian regimes to be made. Then there is the second group, those who actually stands for something and have some dignity. These sometimes help to bring dictatorships down, somtimes they are burned alive. It’s on everyone’s personal preference which kind of responsibility he chooses, and it absolutely doesn’t matter whether you are CEO or a cleaning lady. You let others to shit on you or you can stand for what you believe. I can see what’s your preference. If you don’t undestand what’s the purpose, then I feel sorry for you. I will be always grateful for people in history who thought differently. There are few whom I personaly owe.

I’m not trying to silence you, feel free to write whatever you want. If you say that Dan is partly responsible for the fact that some journalists have political agenda and won’t cover his game because he has different opinion, than you are victim-blaming. Simple as that.

Journalists’ work is being objective. Game dev’s work is to make games, not to be objective. Journalists are screwing their job, because they are not objective. Game dev does his job, because he makes a game. He is by no mean doing the same as journalist. Dan does compromise his game in the same way as raped woman compromised herself by wearing mini-skirt.

Game devs’ work is to make games, but it doesn’t mean they have to just shut up. Who exactly can speak about political issues, according to you? Shopkeeper’s work is to sell stuff. How he dare to speak about public affairs! It’s his responsibility if journalists with different opinion will decide to punish him!!! Saying that he is a game dev and therefore he should not speak about political issues because some asshole journalist mind damage his game (i.e. work) is mindblowingly absurd.

There is only one person who is responsible for fucked up journalism, and that is a journalist who doesn’t do his job. If he did, Dan wouldn’t “compromise” his work by publicly saying his political opinion, which he is entitled to have. Journalist is not entitled to punish everyone who doesn’t agree with him.

#47

Excuse me, does “objective” and “corruption” look like same words? You can’t read or you are just plain stupid? I can see you have huge problems with logic. If you can compare on same level a legitimately expressed opinion on public matter with journalists deliberately misusing their position in order to harm someone with different opinion, you should probably consider some treatment.

#48

There are a number of posters here who have derided Daniel for making this ‘political’ but, here’s the thing- He didn’t start that. Gamergate was a consumer revolt. We didn’t view it as a ‘war’-

“September 8, 2014
This is a culture war. The right side is winning, at great cost. At great personal costs to people like Anita Sarkeesian, Leigh Alexander, Zoe Quinn and even Jennifer Lawrence, and countless others who are on the frontlines of creating new worlds for women, for girls, for everyone who believes that stories matter and there are too many still untold. We are winning. We are winning because we are more resourceful, more compassionate, more culturally aware. We’re winning because we know what it’s like to fight through adversity, through shame and pain and constant reminders of our own worthlessness, and come up punching. We know we’re winning because the terrified rage of a million mouthbreathing manchild misogynists is thick as nerve gas in the air right now.
Us Social Justice Warriors – this is me, stealing that word in order to use it against my enemies- are winning the culture war by tearing up the rulebook, and there’s nothing the sad, mad little boys who hate women and queers and people of colour can do about it. Nothing, at least, that doesn’t sabotage their strategy, because they can win their game from day to day, but they’re losing the war. They can punish me for writing this, and I’m sure they will, but that will only prove my point. I’m not afraid anymore.
Every time they make an example of one of us, ten more stand up in outrage to hold her up or take her place.
We are stronger, smarter and more numerous than anyone imagined, and we are not to be fucked with.
Excerpt from WHY WE’RE WINNING: SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS AND THE NEW CULTURE WAR by Laurie Penny (via femfreq)”

They did. So Daniel is at this point perfectly justified in reacting the way he is.

#49

And here I thought how cool it is that our community managed to keep our own discussions on the matter civil so far.
Guys, how about trying to cool it down before anyone continues agan?

The GG flamewar is the one very thing that everyone around here could agree on disagreeing with. Yes, even those voicing pro-GG opinions, as they only say that GG is about a bit more than just a mere made-up foolish flamewar - yet, due to a mix of vigorous contributions from every side, we are slowly getting there as well.

Just for clearance - do not draw any lines, or point fingers like * “it’s their fault, not mine” *.
If you put your personal opinion aside and read through this thread carefully, you will see that almost everyone involved is throwing a cup of gasoline into the fire in his own way.

It’s all right to spread information about anything (that’s what Internet is for). Especially if that anything contains information about some questionable stuff going on that wider public neither does know about, nor deals with it in any way. Lots of people all around the world being incapable to discuss this properly and instead delving into a flamewar doesn’t devalue the very message that’s behind the word being spread.

It’s equally all right to voice your opinion, especially against something that’s dangerously heading your way anyway. The statements Dan Vávra has made on this (at least those that I came across so far) were actually a bit too decent to be just thrown into the same bag with aggressive trolls.
Dan’s statements may not be outright diplomatic, or politically correct, but are actually mostly defensive, essentially saying something like:

  • “I do support this, but not for the reasons some other people claim. They make it sound like everyone supporting this is a monster.* I am not a monster and I do not really support those. *I support issues that are only being seriously discussed in the back rows behind the shouting mob, because those are what really matters.” *
#50

What a polite reasonable and non-aggressive way to argue.

However yes, “objective” is tightly connected to “corruption”. When journalists are corrupted, they will probably not be very objective, they will act in the way of the individual or group, which corrupted them. If I remember it well, it was one of the main concerns of this GamerGate movement. That game journalism is corrupted and non-ethical. I can’t see any other reason why objectiveness shall be questioned, if corruption is not concerned. First of all, if someone deliberately prevents to inform about something, it isn’t about objectiveness, it is about censorship and it shall be criticized, because it has nothing to do with democratic media. However regarding objectiveness videogame journalism isn’t objective at all and will never be. The only type of article, which is objective are news articles, which just gather all the facts. Nonetheless reviews depend hugely on the authors preferences, experiences, cultural origin and his overall opinion. Corruption could make the review more subjective than before, but even without corruption it will never be absolutely objective. Also the content of most videogame websites usually depends on their chief editors and their preferences. Chief editors are responsible for the choices of topics and authors influencing the way the medium is presented. For example Polygon from its start tend to be very liberal and pro-feminist medium. You can track it to their first reviews. And there is nothing wrong with it, there is no rule, which says you can’t inform about something in this way. And now to the main issue. Internet is huge and most of us has freedom to choose what we will read or watch. If you don’t like Polygon, Kotaku or RPS and their pro-feminist agenda, that’s absolutely ok, there are tens of other big websites focused on videogames. And moreover thousand of small sites and blogs, which can be as good or even better, because they are independent. If you want to express your opinion, you can and if you do it in polite and reasonable way, I can assure you that clever and reasonable people will not ignore you. As for me, I’m also not keen about some too hysterical articles and journalist being eager to find anything to prove that games are sexist. For example the issue with non-playable female character in the new Assassin’s Creed game is nothing but hysteria. Firstly game journalist made this a huge topic, then PR department of UbiSoft in their cowardice did the most stupid thing ever and instead of being honest, they said the lamest lie to cover themselves. Yes, this was bullying from the game journalists in some way and yes, It shall be questioned whether it was necessary to make it such a huge topic. But the right way to react is to ignore those “activist sites” and choose some different place. That way the site cease to have any profit from your views and from views of others with the same opinion. But to fight against site with opinion by spamming advertisers is not democratic nor mature. And it is the same lame way which GG criticize, thus oppressing majority by some fringe minority movement. GameGate is minority, it is not voice of all gamers, it is the same size as anti-GG or SJW group, nothing more than vocal minority. Majority of people don’t care, and they have no reason to care, because this is just one huge flame war.

#51

How’s that blacklist going?

1 Like
#52

I still don’t understand how #gamergate conspiracy theorists explain something like the 9.5/10 score for GTA V on Polygon. Isn’t that the perfect rebuttal of the “activists are going to ruin games” theory? :stuck_out_tongue:

If these “anti-male left wing agenda” is so popular and powerful how can it be that a game like GTA V got these almost perfect scores on sites which are allegedly controlled by these “social justice warriors”?

The real reason why this #gamergate thing (and the whole discussion on which this campaign was founded…) is something most gamers or people aren’t even remotedly interested in is that it’s something that doesn’t affect AAA games AT ALL. I can’t recall a single review of one of the big US sites in wihch a big game was scored down because of any political agenda. There is only indication or speculation that some journalists unethically promoted a few tiny little indie games from personal friends, games that are so small and unimportant that the vast majority of gamers don’t even know them, not even talking about buying or playing them.

Let’s break it down: #gamergate is about

  1. A very little fraction of the gaming industry, namely specific small indie games.
  2. An alleged political agenda that has no proven influence on mainstream gaming so far.
  3. A few very specific “activist” journalists who dared to write about their opinion/agenda.
  4. A vocal minorty of gamers who think that they have to defend themselves for whatever reason.
  5. A rhetorical flamewar without the actual interest of starting a discussion (hint: giving your “opponents” names/categories or using sarcasm/irony on a greater scale isn’t a good way to start a serious mature discussion…)

In the end, I don`t get why people are so upset about all this. I could undertstand it IF you were personally involved in it. I could understand it IF some journalists approached Dan saying that they won’t cover his game on their sites until he changes some parts of his game. But nothing like that has happened (or at least there is no proof for it). If you ask me most people participate in this flamewar because they are bored, because they want to seek attention or because they overestimate the whole issue. I talked to a longtime games journalists from a major German PC magazine yesterday and asked him whether #gamergate is of any importance for them and whether they internally discuss the topic. Guess what: he didn’t even know the hashtag before I came up with it. So much to the relevance of this whole thing… :wink:

Anyway, Erik Kain from Forbes wrote a very thoughtful and reasonable piece on this topic again. I can only recommend reading it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/10/04/why-it-makes-sense-for-intel-to-pull-ads-from-gamasutra-over-gamergate-and-why-its-still-the-wrong-move/

It’s hard to find anyone talking about the issue without taking sides and without falling into the war rhetorics. Luckily, Erik Kain is one of them.

2 Likes
#53

Thanks for applause, I’m proud of my non-agressive tone despite facing such ignorance.

I appreciate that you don’t even try to deny an absurdity and ridiculousness of your previous comparision and rather focus on continuous derailing of the discussion and disproving straw-man arguments.

No one in this thread suggested that journalists don’t cover KC: D because of bribery. You posted some wannabe funny picture suggesting how it is ridiculous to presume they are corrupted by doritos. Well guess what, no one claims that, so good job in derailing. Now you are mumbling something about how non-objective means corrupted and giving semantics lessons. You made a shitty post about how I suggest journalists are being bribed and now you pretend how thoughtful it was. At least stand for what you said. Lack of objectivity may be caused by many things, corruption among others. If you can’t think of other reasons why wouldn’t journalists be objective than because they are corrupted by doritos, then I guess you really need social justice more than others.

Jesus, when your reporting as a journalist is not balanced, you are not being objective. When you deliberately omit someone due to your personal ideology, you are not being objective. You can call it censorship, unbalanced reporting, biased journalism, whatever. When speaking about journalist objectivity, every sane person can understand broader meaning. Your semantics lesson is useless.

WTF? No one speaks about objective reviews. Why you just can’t stick to the topic and focus on arguments which someone actually made. It seems like you are arguing with yourself. Of course that reviews are subjective per se. The only objection against reviews is to keep politics out of it, not objectivity. There is no difference between game journalism and any other journalism, so claiming that gaming journalism can’t be objective is quite crazy. Reporting on games independently of their authors’ political view, balanced reporting on industry affairs, opinion pieces based on facts rather than ideology-based lies, giving opportunity to dissent voices. This is objective journalism.

Yep, political profiling is common for other mainstream media, it’s less logical for media covering unpolitic entertainment business, but acceptable. However, if you completly ignore oposing side, publish blatant lies and attack your customers, it’s not journalism, it’s merely blogging, and it’s only logical that consumers will fight you back. I don’t think anyone would have problem with them if they stoped pretending they do journalism.

Yep, and it’s already happening. But you can’t just ignore the biggest media shaping public opinion that create false narrative. Saying that we should just ignore the biggest gaming media spreading lies is like saying to a person falsely labeled as rapist in biggest daily newspapers that he should just ignore it and read other newspapers…Ridiculous. These gaming sites are harming game developers and gamers and it’s absolutely legitimate to fight them and want them to do their job properly.

An ignoring is happening, but it’s not enough. Spamming advertisers is nothing like what #GG fights against for various reasons and it’s highly democratic. Firstly, it’s journalists’ job to not be a biased scum. Secondly, you basicaly just say “stop censoring their right for censorship”. Funny. Thirdly, there is that difference in position between customer and journalist site you know. If customer is not satisfied with service, he will say it. If gamesite ignore it, customer will be more loud. And if gamesite completely shit all over its customers, they are going to be really fucking loud. Lastly, customers don’t lie in these e-mails, they don’t need it unlike those gamesites.

Not true. There is WAY more #gamergate supporters than SJWs. You can tell just by looking at any #GG or SJW video dicussion and rating.

1 Like
#54

so you put out one site to prove there is no blacklist? :smile: lets see how many other american sites you can find…we can wait :wink:

why did multiple sites which in the past covered the game enthusiastically suddenly have a blackout of coverage? this is the real interesting quesition

and the reason gamespot covered it is because in their press functions, they’re more like ap or reuters. they just report news.

#55

You can’t prove the opposite neither. Innocent as long as not proven guilty, don’t you think?

It’s weekend. Let’s have a look whether some of them cover it next week.

Sorry, but that’s BS. Gamespot is a gaming site like any other. There is no difference between Gamespot and let’s say IGN. They are not a press agency like Reuters.

#56

Until I see proof of an actual Warhorse/KCD blackout - as in, evidence of sites conspiring to ignore it - then as far as I’m concerned there is no blackout, especially when we don’t know how many of those sites are even aware Warhorse has put out a new video with an alpha date. Besides, that’s pretty minor news in the gaming world as it is.

Someone claiming there’s a blackout is in no way proof alone of the existence of one.

#57

As for the rest of this, my POV is a pretty simple one.

To the creators of games: make whatever you want, so long as you can fund it yourself or get the necessary funding to bring it to release. If someone is willing to put up the money to help you make it, you deserve the chance to succeed or fail like anyone else when it hits the market.

To the consumers: buy whatever you want. There’s undoubtedly something for everyone if you look hard enough. If you like this, knock yourself out. If you don’t like that, don’t spend your money on it. If you want to tell me why a game sucks and how sexist, racist, or whatever it is, be prepared for me to ignore you or tell you off if I think you’re going too far with it.

To the gaming sites, journalists, reviewers, and so on: report on the games you’re aware of. Present what you know. If you’re reviewing a game, tell me if you think the gameplay works well or not, if the game is buggy or not, if the story seems well-written or not, if the characters make sense or not, etc. If you liked the game or hated it, base it on those things specifically. Do NOT try to tell me what I should think of a game because your own morals or ethics may or may not agree with the content of the game itself. That is MY choice, MY decision. If you feel the need to tell me “there are a lot of boobs in this game and women are portrayed as blah,” leave it at that. You are not there to be Officer Morals from the Bad Taste Police. Take that sort of thing too far, and I will ignore you and your site.

#58

To anyone attempting to claim there is a “blacklist of sites that support GG”, the following challenge:

Present hard evidence of executives or editors-in-chief stating that “support of GG” places the outlet on said blacklist.

Otherwise, you’re merely speculating without any proof whatever and, frankly, encouraging drama. You see, as the maker of the assertion, the onus is upon you to prove it as factually correct.

On the other hand, evidence of attempts to blacklist sites that do not support GG is readily had and has been posted several times through this and other topics related to this upon these forums.

Just because you and those you know engage in the practice doesn’t mean that media outlets with far more experience are foolish enough to do so. Why would they bother when sites on both sides are earning CTR (click through revenue) on all of you and a blacklist would reduce that revenue?

A blacklist is, of itself, an agenda. Personally, I don’t need an agenda; I just do not give my time and clicks to sites that continue to foster this ridiculous argument.

Media outlets get paid for placing articles, product, and advertising on their sites. The more “native” they can make them appear, the better the likelihood that someone will engage with it and they will earn revenue from it.

This means that these media outlets really DO NOT CARE WHICH “SIDE” YOU ARE ON so long as you will visit and click on this content.

Do you understand how completely ludicrous that makes your assertion that there is (or would ever be) a “blacklist”? If anything, you’ll see an increase of cross-site links and references as most sites will mutually link to those who link to them (since doing so ensures greater exposure).

Next time you read an article that you feel “supports” GG, note how many links to “anti-GG” content you find in it. Ditto for the “anti GG” sites. If you’re paying attention at all, this will become obvious very quickly.

This next little tidbit is probably going to sting, but I’ll set it out here anyway… Warhorse gains beneficial exposure for their efforts and offering even when the “coverage” itself is seemingly negative. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that whomever is guiding WH PR has done their best to ensure that ANY mention of GG in any media, on either side of the argument, references or links to WH or their people when possible.

That in mind, review all the articles you believe to be “negative” and note those references. There is a reason why Rule #1 in PR is: “There is no such thing as bad publicity.” (Caveat and Rule #2: Unless it reveals illegal activity, deliberate consumer predation, or knowingly exposing the consumer to loss.)

Edit to add this aside: Intel hasn’t “blacklisted” Gamasutra, before anyone attempts the conflation. They simply say that they don’t want to be associated with a site that allows active bashing of one of their primary consumer bases. They basically say by pulling their ad business, “Gamasutra, you will not make revenue on us AND WE DO NOT WANT TO MAKE REVENUE VIA YOU as long as you continue to support an argument that says consumers of our products are anything less than good.”

1 Like
#59

Even Dan tweeted something to the effect that his PR guy doesn’t like him doing what he’s doing with his mocking of the SJWs out there. He’s well aware of that side of the coin. Hell, the Techraptor “blacklist” claim piece even has people saying they’d support the game because of all this.

#61

Let me react on your analysis of my post by mere quoting Vávra’s tweet

Its kinda hard to argue with deaf and blind people who only repeat something that is absolutely not true.

I have no more time which I want to waste in this useless discussion. I said what I wanted to say and everyone now can read it and make their own opinion either on me (how stupid, manipulative SJW scum I’m) or on the topic as a whole. If you’re right and GamerGate movement is so big, we will probably see big sites like Polygon, Kotaku and RPS closing or at least lots of lay-offs and staff changes in the upcoming months.

#62

Well, I suspect he would have to issue that statement for PR’s sake. You have no idea the intricacies and esoterica of PR. It’s likely the closest thing to public facing psyops that exists. chuckle

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