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Off-topic
#62

You are wrong at so many levels. Firstly, you assume that #gamergate is trolling. This is simply not true and if you actually watched #gamergate hashtag on twitter or listened to the “leading” figures of #gamergate, you should have known. People are very serious about it.

Secondly, even if it were trolling (whatever you think it means in this case), it is still better to do at least something than nothing, beacuse as @Hellboy said, ignoring an issue will NEVER do good. Also sometimes humor is the best instrument to point out wrong and absurd things, but I don’t consider humor per se a trolling.

Thirdly, reason why there is almost no constructive discussion is because involved journalists don’t want it. It’s simple as that. TotalBiscuit speaks about it a lot, and he is not #gamergate person. And they refuse it by marginalizing #gamergate with arguments such as that we are just bunch of trolls and misogynist kids. So congratulation, stating that #gamergate is about trolling is way more damaging to the civil discussion than any “good and evil” labeling, because such separation is quite common in any discussion.

3 Likes
#63

At no point did i say everting on #gamergate = trolling. But I have been reading lot’s of Hellboy’s retweets from gamergate this month and I know that I definitly don’t like everthing that is going on there.

Of course “We are not all one big happy family” there are a lot of differences between gamers and there interests as well. The assumtion that gamers are one homogeneous group with a single identity is rediculous. I for exemple don’t care about consols and I am sick of early videogame nostalgia refernecing Mario, Zelda and Pong over and over agin.

And your “trolling SJW opposition” isn’t representetiv of all feminist movments.

#64

Then I genuinely think you are over-reacting. This is not a “good vs evil” thing. Just as it is not a “men vs women” thing.

It is an agenda thing.

And like any agenda, all it takes to put it down is to refuse to engage, respond, and validate it, thus give it the strength (through acknowledgement and response) to gather support and show up with them to say, “I belong at this discussion table.”

Of course, now that everyone has pretty much let this happen, it’s on you. Any other time, this would have gone the way of the decades of “metal bikini” discussions (which, frankly, should prove the point to anyone looking at it logically).

So I suppose you could say I strongly disagree with your strong disagreement and am now pondering why all of you seem to forget that these folks have been around all along and largely without comment or the ability to manage more than grumbling/complaining in a corner until now.

Indeed, I suspect what is happening here is not unlike “Trolling? Oh, no, brah, let me show you what real trolling looks like.”

So, no, it doesn’t surprise me that 4Chan, et al don’t like it. Or that those who participate in and actively enjoy a culture of “trolling for fun” don’t like it. But the hyperbole of “evil” is silly. If it’s not “evil” for all this time, then it certainly isn’t “evil” now, when the methods are the same and only the target has changed.

Oh, and let’s not forget that there’s the reality that most of the “good people” have BEEN the trolls for this last decade and it’s very likely that it is precisely that trolling that finally “broke” some of these folks badly enough that they were willing to do more than think about organizing.

So perhaps the lesson is, “Shame on you all for setting up an environment in which trolling ‘for the lulz’, doxing, swatting, and goodness knows what else is both rewarded with kudos and and encouraged” and where agenda and gender were so often used to do so that the road to letting gender and agenda become a driving topic in an industry supposedly about play and fun became not only possible, but smoothly paved.

#65

Well, when @Hellboy mentioned neccesity of #gamergate to stand up and oppose SJWs, your immediate raction was “trolling won’t help”, which is quite clear association. I don’t like many things he says either, that’s kinda normal between 2 individuals, but to highlight trolling above all things he has said towards #gamergate is very misleading. He made loads of serious points, and a few jokes. Are all #gamergate supporters supposed to be always serious and never joke, otherwise they are trolls? That’s how media see it, they concentrate on “trolling”, and ignore the real issue.

I don’t think anyone thinks that, “SJW” stands for the third wave feminists and other agresive far-left social engineers. The whole thing is not against feminism as such, but against its radical branches. People using the term are aware of that and proof of that is #gamergate support for TFYC, which is feminist organization. I would even go as far as to call myself a feminist in an orginal sense of the word as I’m pro-equality between men and women. However, SJW agenda is way different than that.

#66

Speaking about silly things, not many could compete this. Hitler’s agenda would surely die if western countries didn’t respond to it. Oh wait, they didn’t! Communists would never get in power in Eastern Europe if people ignored their agenda. Oh wait, they did! Ignoring people with political agenda is way to hell. I’M NOT COMPARING SERIOUSNESS OF THOSE AGENDAS, JUST PRINCIPLE. See what happened in comic industry where these SJWs where ignored. This is the result. http://www.crushable.com/2014/09/25/entertainment/marvel-cancels-milo-manara-variant-covers-after-over-sexualized-spider-woman/

Calling for ignoring them is just plain stupid.

edit: Here is a video about the whole spider-woman “controversy”. This is what happens when you ignore SJW lunatics.

1 Like
#67

true that wasn’t very clear, just wanted to say it still matter how you talk back and that there is a risk of futher escalation.

Most may not belive that but gamergate does give right-wing-evils the opurtunity to alter the facts and give it to an audience willing to accept things that reassure them in there belives. I am not saying all of gamergate is corrupted though.

The problem is it’s not just an equality yes/no question it’s also about the things that cause different perseption in the first place and seein one gender as the norm. I know from the retweets that Gamergate loves “proving” that it’s not sexist (and some times that the oposition is). To the comic book example I would say it’s really more a question of sexpositivism and I generally agree that it gets mixed too often but I care or know to little about comic books to have a strong opinion.

#68

this idea that you validate something by responding or engaging just simply doesn’t make sense. martin luther king did not validate the kkk or segregationists by fighting for civil rights. like freix’s example, i don’t claim parity, but this does demonstrates the falsity of the notion.

i think this misconception here is that sjws cannot pose a threat, yet examples are provided time and time again that they have infiltrated very deeply into the fabric of gaming culture, and their influences are harmful to ethics, honesty, free expression, and should be highlighted and exposed.

1 Like
#69

@phydra
If there is someone reacting inappropriately to the situation, I have to wonder who that really is.

You seem to keep completely omitting the most important points speaking against the anit-gamergate side of this conflict and arguing that this is nothing but a minor farce that will blow over if we ignore it enough. You make it sound like this is about nothing more that just a bunch of foolish people calling each other names on the web and there is no larger problem behind it at all. I have to ask. How much did you truly look into this matter?

I also have a request. I myself mostly hate when people do this as they usually go imperative about this, ordering people to do stuff. I’m just asking.
Before making your next post here, please do read at least this article if you haven’t done so already. Please read carefully with special attention to the links included in that text.
And then please ask yourself a question. Does this feel ok and no problem at all?

  • These “folks” made a lot of effort to get prominent and influential positions in gaming journalism (positions like editor-at-large at Gamasutra - a site regarded as the most professional and high-standing gaming site until recently).
  • They also made a lot of effort building personal ties to other people of important standing within the sphere of gaming journalism to have their ear when necessary.
  • They keep on using all this to increasingly promote their sometimes fairly extreme (way beyond decent effort for a reform or discussion) views on the wide public and back everything they do with the weight of their positions.
  • Some of these “folks” do not even shy away from using practices similar to those of criminal organizations, like using their influence (or an illusion of) on media for open threats, blackmailing, or coercing employers to fire or avoid employing certain people, possibly ruining entire careers and lives. For nothing more than a difference in an opinion or a viewpoint.

THIS is exactly what many people like Dan are standing up against in support of the gamersgate.
This is a way over making a reform in gender issues possible and absolutely unlike just “paving it smoothly”. This arguably is evil. This is despicable by the most basic standards of human morality and possibly even deserves to be pursued legally…
Sadly, noone seems willing to do such a step.

The fact that this countering Gamergate movement turned into a mindless bragging on both sides in many (if not most) discussions it spawned on the web does not mean that trolling is all that it’s about.
The trolling side of this conflict is even pretty much out of the question for most people speaking for gamersgate in this very topic as far as I could notice.

And trolling some evidently emotional and biased hogwash in a generic discussion is actually nothing compared to what some of the people forming the backbones of the anti-gamergate side are willing to do (with actual severe consequences) while others effectively cover them by suppressing any opposing reactions under claims that it’s all just about decency vs. trolling.

While people are being reassigned or fired from their jobs, gaming projects are being intentionally attacked even for very unreasonable issues and possibly forced into being altered or canceled completely.
Just because someone with influence (either through media or personal connections) didn’t like it and has the audacity to wage personal war on anyone who crosses him/her.

If you decide to remain silent, it’s only you who is silent. The others may still intend to remain vocal and these in particular already have all they need to remain so as much as they want.
And there are hundreds and thousands of people willing to back down to media dictate to avoid bad publicity for themselves.
If the shit hits someone else, who cares? At least it didn’t hit me…

#70

I think the thing you’re missing is that, until this, it wasn’t hitting you, was it?

And all this time, it was a joke to most; marginalized or derided and dismissed.

Now that the industry has acknowledged and given it space, it is much more.

What, you think people haven’t paid or traded favors or used influence inappropriately in the past? Can you truly be that naive?

No. The difference this time is that it is on an agenda that “hits you”.

Welcome to the other foot. This is what happens when you only react when it hits you.

Me? I don’t bother reacting unless it obviously crosses more than a selective agenda’s line. If this were about paid publicity in gaming journalism, I would be the first to the front line. But it isn’t.

It’s about a perspective taking attention and getting support precisely because of the very trolling and treatment that is “otherwise” not only considered “ok” but is lauded, applauded, and largely enjoyed by the “community” loosely known as gamers… Both men and women, in case that still needs emphasis.

The only “evil” here is that it wasn’t something anyone had problem with until it “hit them”, as this is obviously doing.

Physician, heal thyself.

#71

I think there are varying degrees to things like this. It’s easy to say “don’t react, ignore it, it will all go away eventually.” It doesn’t always work like that, though. There have been periods in history that are, arguably, much more important than this (not to say this is unimportant) that have become worse because people took the attitude of “ignore it and it’ll stop sooner or later.” It didn’t stop, though. It only grew.

It’s also easy to fire back, give people a dose of their own medicine, mock them, or whatever. Maybe it makes you feel good. Maybe it puts someone else in their place for the moment. Maybe it causes them to push back with even more. Does it help? Debatable. Does it present the other POV and let people on the fence have more to look at to help them make up their minds? Sure.

Point is, a method of dealing with anything like this that works for one does not automatically work for all, nor is it automatically the best way of handling a situation.

#72

I was pretty much unaware of this until recently and I find this revelation seriously disturbing, because an issue like this is fundamentally wrong no matter if I know about it.
Any thinkable precedence of this anywhere else doesn’t make it right or agreeable.
It’s like saying don’t care about vaccination, diseases don’t matter until you get them.

It could possibly hit me and you both as well if some of these equality-at-any-cost revolutionaries declared a war on KCD for sexism against women with female characters being considered for secondary roles only, with no respect to the fact that the authors may simply have a very specific story and characters in mind (just like Raymond Chandler decied to write about a male detective Phil Marlowe and did not exchange him for a female or had him transgendered… because he simply had the right to do so as an author), aside from any out of many other possible reasons, other than “freakin’ mysogyny!”

They theoretically could very effectively start putting media pressure on Warhorse or twist the wider public opinion against it to either force changes on the game just for the sake of it (even if it meant to say bye-bye to the very goal of historical authenticity) or to try prevent the game from succeeding commericially (or being produced at all).

Still ok with you? Still not concerning you? Still not a problem? And one more thing…

Sorry, but who is naive here? Today paid or unpaid doesn’t matter. People as a whole get equally influenced by all media available because they happen to share news and inform about one another. If a false information gets spread enough through free media, the paid ones will also start informing about that and spreading the word further way before someone starts asking questions in an equally public way. And in the meantime, people get fed with the false information and someone may for example get ruined by damage way beyond repair before anything gets clarified.

And again, the fact that it’s happening elsewhere already makes it neither right nor worth ignoring just because ti doesn’t concern me directly yet.

#73

Let me tell you a short story:

German TV station RTL published a short clip about the Gamescom and was asking one of the hostesses at the Gamescom what she thought about gamers. Most notable was that she called them sweaty, stinky geeks full of pickles and just … well … let’s say unattractive.

Of course every gamer was really pissed. The best campaign in my opinion about this clip came from a German games site called Spieletipps.de . They told their readers and gamers in general to do the following: Do lots of sports in one of your t-shirts that you can spare, have it literally soaked in sweat and send it to the TV station’s address so they know how gamers smell like. Hundreds of T-shirts arrived at this station and let alone this idea was like a positive reaction.

Interesting fact appeared later on in the media: The creator of that certain clip wasn’t intending to mock any gamers. He wanted to be funny and create some satirical segment for the Gamescom news coverage. Didn’t work out and someone had to pay… or smell.

This is more of a harmless situation, yet it shows that gamers are creative when it comes to criticism. I also contributed to #writeaPolygonreview which was more or less initiated by Daniel. Later on I just found that funny video:

And you could pick many other game titles that are somehow “wrong”, but… well… nobody cares about social justice in a Mario game, right? I mean, yeah, there was some crazy PETA campaign going on and even for this Dorkly had a nice response:

These videos just show how ridiculous the world has become about criticising games. You didn’t see any funny videos from the people who criticise gamers, did you? If so, please share them with us. I want to see creativity in other arts than journalism (which is a written art according to what we’re getting to see nowadays).

#74

This is somewhat my point, for all it seems everyone is adamantly refusing to acknowledge it.

Look, the gaming industry in particular IS among one of the most over-sexualized outlets of entertainment (the others being of course, movies, television, and print media). No one in the industry has as much as sniffed over it for decades, because, until recently, it was primarily a highly sex-specific audience (males).

The supporting media of the industry has largely acquiesced to this reality (why wouldn’t they? it sells.) and it has all rolled merrily along without much more than the occasional spat over “metal bikinis” and the like in so far as the whole “male / female” thing is concerned.

I don’t think anyone really considered it “an issue” (I know I didn’t) and pretty much all commentary from those who did was fairly quickly ridiculed into silence and then, ignored. Time has seen language and popular phrases demonstrating almost every aspect of this… it’s not like no one knows it exists; it’s certainly not as if there is anyone who can make a logical argument that the gaming industry is as interested or attentive to the desires of women in their games, particularly if it means changing something that men like… Not with a straight face, anyway.

The mistakes in this debacle are manifold and, at any point along the path, someone could have derailed it entirely by simply saying, “You know, I don’t quite see it as you do, but I can admit that most of us haven’t really thought about this… maybe we should at least have the conversation.”

Instead (and to use your example as the analogy), the indie segment and more importantly, their community, made the biggest pile of stink they could fabricate and dumped it onto the table with, “Smell that and then, go away.” Or worse, stepped up and said that it doesn’t matter… nor should it.

But the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back and set this off as more than another “metal bikini” argument was the throng of folk who erred in thinking that harassing someone over their opinion was better than heckling and then, ignoring it.

Now they want to scream “unfair” because they pretty much gave this group of extremists both the motivation and opening to present and justify their agenda as legitimate?

No, friend, that genie is out of the bottle and, if you’re gonna stuff it back in at all, it’s only going to happen by deciding this is a non-issue before this group convinces both the industry and the media supporting it that there’s more money to be made in sensationalizing and fostering its continuance than not.

When I say, “Ignore it or you’re helping it grow” I mean it quite, quite literally. These outlets are having a field day with your traffic, your arguments, your division, your drama, and your very mistaken belief that you are going to be able to shout this down or reason it away. If you haven’t figured out by now that you can’t reason with extremism, there’s really no help for you.

Point of note: Do you see ANY of the large publishers or game companies as much as BREATHING in this direction? Sony? Blizzard? Microsoft? Nintendo? EA? PC Magazine? PC Gamer? Edge? No. You do not. Take a moment and think about why that is. There is insight to be had.

The extremists you are angry with don’t care about you and the greater game industry or its media only cares if/when you’re buying what they’re selling. The only reason the mid-range game media cares at all is BECAUSE IT SELLS AD IMPRESSIONS and garners traffic.

Point: Nothing grows that isn’t nourished

As extreme as these folks are, even they can’t succeed if you fail to give them ongoing examples they can point to as “proof” to keep their own supporters engaged. If that doesn’t help you understand the wisdom behind “ignore this”, then you simply don’t want to understand… which is fine… I’ll just wait right here with my (now) registered “Told you so” at the ready.

#75

And it doesn’t seem to you that this is the point where you might be mistaken in something?
These people’s work has enough nourishment already even without any gamersgate and will continue to have it if the gamersgate stops and attempts to “ignore” them. Their agenda, their cause, will keep getting publicity and readers through the media they already have ties to and their influence will keep on spreading.

The thing that will not get any publicity, any readers and will therefore not have any influence anywhere would be the informations about their actions and practices they are using to get what they want. This would remain silent and will get forgotten for the very same reason while they remain vocal and shaping the industry by any means they see fit.

This is the very point and purpose of the gamersgate. The trolling and arguing is an unfortunate symptom of anything like this opening up in a public discussion. The point is to upkeep the awareness and discussion about the important controversial points so that they hopefully also do get some wider publicity and recognition and not get forgotten in the depths of the internet.

Gamersgate is not here to prevent progress and important questions getting resolved in the industry. It’s there mainly to open a parallel discussion about the other side of this coin, which otherwise does not have much support in media contrary to the extreme social justice vanguard.

That’s why what you propose, “to ignore”, will work for them and absolutely not for the gamersgate. Because they are already actively applying the very same practice on the gamersgate in the major gaming media.

If there is any simpler and more comprehensible way to explain this, I don’t know how.

#76

Wrong. If, in fact, any of you were capable of simply shutting up and letting your silence do the talking, their media connections would lose interest, most of their soft supporters would lose interest, and all that would be left are the extremists who were getting ignored just fine all this time, thankyouverymuch.

Hardly. More like indie media and subcultural media. Major media hasn’t been involved but in blips thus far. Keep going though, you’ll change that soon enough… but you sure won’t like the result.

And, to turn your phrase back to you…

If there is any simpler and more comprehensible way to explain this, I don’t know how.

#77

Kotaku, Polygon, or Gamasutra, generally concieved as major gaming media, btw.
Each previously both giving open space for pro-social-equality activists as well as intentionally avoiding the topic of Gamersgate.

Still, I’m glad to recognise that we managed to thoroughly prove your point here. :wink:
See ya!

#78

I am sorry, I thought I’d made this clear earlier, but perhaps it got lost in the stream. Games media would not by any means, ‘lose interest’. For some time now, there has been a co-ordinated action by a group of academics (Primarily using DiGRA) to push their own Postmodern/Relativist Radical distortion of Feminist Ideology into the gaming industry. THEY made it a war, most of us in #Gamergate wanted jack-all to do with it-

“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)”

Their goal is to tear down gaming as we know it-

http://pastebin.com/LAmZNVKn

Some choice quotes-

“The DiGRA panel addresses the movement of the DiGRA ideology from simply existing
within academia to within the industry itself, that industry being video games.”

So, they clearly want to move their ideology into videogames.

"SilverString Media is a backer of the Patreon “Critical Distance”, started on March 5,

2014 by Kris Ligman, the News editor at Gamasutra.com. Notable backers of Critical
Distance’s Patreon [6] are:
- SilverString Media – since June 13, 2014
-Jenn Frank – of Guardian fame
-Akira Thompson – Indiecade Gamemaker Relations
-Vlambeer – of which one member is Rami Ismail, a writer at Polygon
-Ben Kuchera – writer at Polygon
-Brenden Keogh – writer at Polygon, Gamasutra, Ars Techina and Critical Damage
(blog for Critical Distance)

Remember that SilverString media financially supports Critical Distance through Patreon
since June 13, 2014."

And what did Critical distance do after The Escapist changed their editorial policy? They
left.

“So yeah. Over on The Twitters we (as in yours truly, +Ian Miles Cheong, +Brendan Keogh,
+Rowan Kaiser, +Mattie Brice and +Annie Dennisdóttir Wright) started discussing our various
attempts to undermine the heteronormative hegemony. And now we continue it where we
don’t have wordcaps.”

Not ‘engage’, not ‘reason with’, but undermine. Very ethical.

“Adrienne: Why do we see such tension between academics and game designers? less of an
issue with indies, but there are always some people in industry that have similar questions
until industrial logic takes over later and how can we better intervene in industrial
logics to disturb that process. How can academics bridge the gap to the industry audience
to help them do different work? How can we disrupt the capitalist norms that facilitate
this?”

‘Disrupt the capitalist norms’? Didn’t they tell us they just want us to be more inclusive?

“Aaron: Peer review and publishing models. The corruption of the peer review system is
problematic. The reliance of peer review to get tenure and a job impacts us and slows us
down.”

This is extremely important. Here they admit that corrupting Peer Review is something
they want to do. Get that? They want to corrupt peer review.

One of the full DiGRA conferences is pasted here-

http://pastebin.com/X46rkJJu

Oh, and just for good measure-

" 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]"

And this will be implemented by, as they say, ‘undermining’, not dealing openly, honestly & ethically. One of Zoya Street’s personal implementation of this is a hit-piece on Totalbiscuit-

https://archive.today/fHNhn

Who incidently, tried and is STILL trying to remain neutral through all this.

There is much more evidence to this effect, I could fill every thread post made so far here with confirmation of it.So again, no I am sorry. If we did nothing, this group would force everyone to go in lockstep with their Ideology, taking it as far as they could go. If the accident of Quinn’s Sex Scandal hadn’t opened the door to discovery of this, things would have definitely gotten worse. Ignoring it is not an option.

#79

the nature of the problem isn’t something that can be addressed by ignoring it. simple as that.

#80

Just seems to me that some of these developers want some kind of cult celebrity status, like hollywood celeb level attention with people paying attention to them rather then their work.

There is most certainly a PR in the gaming industry.
One good example of this is Bethesda Softworks. They started off as a PC gaming company creating Arena and Daggerfall and created a hardcore dedicated base of PC gaming fans. Their PR was sky high, cult following level of dedication. The Oblivion came out with its console gaming focus, timed exclusive releases in favor of microsoft’s xbox.
Their PR went down the toilet instantly. Microsoft has done everything legally in its power for the last 20 years to ruin the gaming industry, other gaming platforms then it’s own, stomp on indie developers, and especially the modding community.
So here we have a developer well loved by its fans, just handing itself over to the anti-christ of the gaming industry. PR suicide.

If these developers want attention on them, they need to go out and make a great game. Gamers don’t care about the devs personal life or issues with other devs, the gaming industry is all about the games and nothing else.
A) make a great game. B) don’t sell out to some crap publisher like Microsoft. C) reap the rewards of a cult like fan base who will keep buying your games till you die.
or you can try this new strategy of D) create internet drama and alienate the vast majority of the gaming community, who will then have no respect for you or your games.

#81

It’s an industry like any other; subject to the same dramas and politics of any other. Until lately, most of the “dirty laundry” has remained behind the scenes. Don’t kid yourself, it’s been there all along.

© 2015 Warhorse Studios www.warhorsestudios.cz