I fully understand the intentions as expressed on both sides.
My point is that power in this situation is given, not taken.
It is possible to demonstrate though sheer avoidance precisely how legitimate or not the stances are… only those that gain the power to engender reaction will survive. This is a fundamental rule of both publicity and political battle… one that people should consider very carefully. The media at large only covers things that gain them readership and increase their ad impressions or brand.
Speak with your attention and wallet (or by withholding them). It is the most pointed means of being heard in this industry.
For example - I no longer visit or read any outlet that is supporting this divisive movement. Nor will I buy or play any game that has gone on record as supporting it. I don’t need to announce it (though the context of this discussion makes it necessary); I need only commit to it. If others do the same, the silence is far louder than any word could ever be.
Edit to add: this includes dropping all follows across all social media for said outlets and companies. believe me, if enough people do this, it WILL be noticed and it WILL bring results.
kain’s ability to be objective is forfeits due to his friendship with many social justice cohorts on twitter. he’s part of the problem related to conflicts of interest in journalism and the capitulation to aggressive agenda pushing.
gamergate arose due to the inability of even moderate voices like kain to honestly address the problem. it’s not engaging in war for the sake of conducting a war.
to take the war analogy, it makes no sense and sit idly by without defending yourself. the “pacificst” option very much resembles sadomasochism. like if you’re nice and friendly enough, your enemies will just leave you alone.
That might well be. But why would they think that? What makes women think it is like that?
And more importantly: why don’t some women address this in a civil way, like by creating serious games for women?
Instead, and this is what I strongly disagree with, they go with this in an aggressive, uncivilized way to the “media” which are obliged to collaborate due to political correctness or whatever agenda (most probably the plain old simple money making scheme by generating traffic).
Those parties planned this move (which is understandable if they felt neglected all their life). They exercised. They gathered experience. Thus they have networks and know how to “play the media”.
And when people like me say that neither the arguments are fair, nor the approach, that it’s not an attempt to drive a discussion but rather to kill any discussion we are retributet with the claims that “women simply are better at socializing and we are the same cellar nerds as twenty years ago”. This makes me angry and seems to cost me a dear friend right now.
No, definitely not. Even more so as I think it’s just an attempt in attention-grabbing - both her videos as well as the reaction to said threats.
What angers me most is that I see that there is bad sexism and that it needs to be addressed. I just watched “The other cops” with Mark Wahlberg and - it’s both a bad movie and it’s full of dangerous and bad sexism. No one wrote about that.
Rescuing a damsel in distress is sexism too - but is it bad? The hero having to rescue her is also a sexism. Is it bad? I think not. It’s a role. It could very much be the other way round. It’s just that until now probably most gamers and producers were men and it was easier to identify yourself with a man.
The metal bikini - right. Now this is something completely different, as it happens not only in games, but in almost any graphical media and most notably in any advertisement.
The reasons why they are there… is simply another discussion. Because they’re not there to degrade women or such, but out of a completely different reason.
Take Lara Croft. Is she a good role model or not? And why?
Then I have lost already. And I will not step down. We defend ourselves (not men, people in general) not enough today. We get everything taken - money, freedom and last but not least fun.
I have a lot of friends and many of them don’t agree with me on many things. There is no indication that Kain doesn’t have an own opinion on the issue, no matter who his friends are. If you read his articles you would probably easily find out for yourself that he in fact doesn’t like the “social justice cohorts” that much. That’s my suggestion to you: read his articles. Talk about his arguments instead of finding shallow reasons for discrediting him in advance. That’s just poor argumentation and actually the denial of the existence of any form of reason in general…
The problem is that there is no real reason for war. The problem is that there are people on two sides who don’t have any real interest in conversation or reasoning. They only care about conducting war (at least their rhetorics indicate that). The problem is that calling others out for bad behaviour and showing bad behaviour on the same level is poor and doesn’t help anyone or anything at all.
Gamergate arose because of the reasons Kain mentioned in the article and yes, deep scepticism towards gaming journalism is one of them. It’s a whole different question if this scepticism is justified or not. Single examples (out of dozends to hundreds of journalists writing in the industry) can’t claim universal proof for the corruption of gaming press. That’s basically also the core fallacy of the gamergate movement imo.
You miss one important point. The feminism/sexism culture war happened in movies decades ago. Movies are much more diversified today. Movies are also not “male-centric” anymore. That doesn’t mean that there is no sexism in movies anymore, not at all. But it means that for each female sexist movie there is probably another movie which is made for a different audience with typcially male stereotypes and male sexism.
The issue at hand is that the gaming industry and especially the gaming journalism is much “younger”. It’s indeed very much male-centric yet (casual games and mobile aside). It’s no wonder that it is attacked by fundamentalist feminists and other people following other fundamentalist equalization movements. If you really think about it: it’s a damn good target.
The good thing is: they already “failed” in movies. Movies like “the other cops” with Mark Wahlberg are the best proof of that and that’s the reason why I constantly say that the whole gamergate movement is unnecessary. These fundamentalists have no real power. They are loud, of course, but that’s about it. Everything else is offer and demand, offer and demand. As long as people want to play sexist, misogynistic or whatever games these games will be made. Business is business. Period. No journalist could change that (the only “real” power to change that is in the hand of the national governments but in the globalized world this isn’t much of an issue anymore).
Not at all; you’re missing several very salient points here, most of which Crash has already outlined:
The ONLY reason they are getting ANY traction what so ever is because of the reaction being given to them. Seriously:
QFT.
I certainly haven’t said that and I do sincerely hope you point your friend to my post. But I also hope you will understand that media coverage is far from being some definitive statement of “popular opinion”.
Let me put it to you this way… how much time or attention do you give to watching the videos and statements of the new ISL? How convinced are you that their movement will “change the world as we know it”?
Do they do ridiculous and horrifying things to get attention? Yes, they do.
Does it mean anything more than that they crave attention and through it, validation of their perspective?
Not at all.
The pattern and its purpose are PRECISELY the same.
By choosing to defend against what is obviously (on any count) and over-exaggerated and politically driven perspective, you are VALIDATING it and giving it MORE ATTENTION and FOUNDATION than it could or would EVER achieve on its own.
So, yes, if that’s your goal, by all means… continue. But don’t be surprised to find it only gets worse. That’s how this pattern unfolds, no matter where it is found.
I can sense this is beginning to drift to its inevitable point of impasse (since conviction in any form is its own indication of intent). We hold very different convictions in relation to this. I respect yours, even as I sincerely believe, feel, and think it is going to harm more than help the goal you state is imperative to you. I’m sure you feel the same in relation to my perspective and truly, that’s ok.
For me, it isn’t about the whole “convince or convert”; primarily because you don’t manage either through argument but also because the very act of trying indicates more interest in a dominant position than in common ground.
Because this is the case, for me, I hope you will forgive my exit from the discussion at this point. Regardless, I do hope this all settles sooner rather than later and that some of the things I’ve attempted to point out will become clearer in the process.
No, not at all. I didn’t think you did say that, nor do I point my friend towards anything here.
I also understand your reason to exit - and I think you’re partly right. Partly, because you’re right of what happens if everyone continues. I now understand a lot more of the issue. So, thanks a lot!
Yeah this kinda looks like what I saw the past few weeks. A small minorities on both side with no sense of perspective or reality starting an all engulfing fire.
It’s an excellent post but let’s say companies want to break into another market by catering big budget games to female gamers, what would these games be about and what would they feature? From what I can tell female gamers seem perfectly happy beating the shit out of other people in MMO’s and Wii games etc.
The entire manufactured saga of #LamerGate is a superb example of how distorted things become around stupid people.
If you’ve felt invested in this “story” or “movement” in any way, might I suggest you log off and go mix with people in social surroundings because your perspective is in need of urgent repair work.
how is it manufactured? you don’t think there is a serious problem in gaming media that affects the ability of journalist to be objective?
and can people stop saying both sides are the same extremists? gamergate doesn’t call for censorship or attacking people, taking down twitters, or doing ddos attacks on websites they don’t like.
This is simply not true. The only side that doesn’t want conversation is SJWs and their journalist friends. They avoid it as much as they can, labeling every critisism as sexist or harasment or other bullshit. And journalists in most big gamesites deliberately suppress voices of one side, baning people with opposite opinion and deleting every thread related to the issue. In oposite, #gamergate speakers desperately call for discussion, and not only them. People like MundateMat, InternetAristocrat, Daniel Vavra and even TotalBiscuit repeat again and again they want discussion, they want to confront SJWs in public discussion and their voices to be heard alongside with the voices of SJWs. But guess what? Still only oneside crap is published and they are ignored like “those agressive sexist from #gamergate”.
lol if you want to criticise fallacies, don’t use them yourself. No one claims all journalists are corrupt and it’s not the point. #gamergate would have meaning even if we were speaking only about 5% of journalists if they were in charge. I told you that in another thread and I really don’t get why are you still repeating this straw-man bullshit, because it’s nothing but this. There are only few who decide what will be published, no one cares about random freelance reviewers. And if you are still not convinced that there is HUGE bias in main gamesites even after the latest events, there is only one thing I can say - stop pretending that you are neutral.
Please, show me at least one article from recent days on gamesites like kotaku, gamespot, polygon, gamastura, RPS and such where is at least stated what #gamergate is about or where is ANY confrontaion of SJWs opinions. If you have read those nearly indentical articles about “conservative” C.H. Sommers’ video and leaked conversations of those mainly senior journalists and you still claim that it is a question whether scepticism towards journlists is justified, it’s not even funny. Don’t you think that an information about a group of senior journalists basicaly debating on how they should manipulate public opinion would deserve at least a little mention? It’s a pity that those gamsites don’t care. What a question! Article about 6 months old alleged bomb threat to their damsel in distress is apparentely more interesting.
it’s not an opinion issue. either there is a problem in game journalism or there isn’t.
also, i really don’t understand this “ignore them and they’ll go away” crowd. isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the past 4 years? you want to keep doing that until game journalism just flops over and dies? is that your plan? help me understand.
I sure as hell do, unless you want to consider youtube personalities and random blokes on web blogs “Journalists”, which I don’t. Seriously, you can tell that journalism has gone to hell when you can consitently get more reliable and honest information from absolutely random sources than from the professional ones.
Your problem is that you only know black and white. There is no “gaming journalism” entity. There are only individual people working in this industry. And like every other human beings gaming journalists are prone to human failures. Your “problem in game journalism” then it’s just how the world turns.
Call me when you have serious proof that a majority of important gaming media and press outlets violate business and journalism ethics on a great scale. Then we speak again about a serious problem we - as normal users interested in a product called video game - have to point out and try to fix. Until that it’ just business as usual, human beings and their individual failures. And yes, that’s really not an opinion issue. That’s a fact.
