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#GamerGate: Stop Being Jerks on the Internet Edition
Cambiata
Commander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
Commander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
Ok guys, I got permission from @ElJeffe to start a new thread to discuss this topic, with the request that we please keep the topic completely civil and not be jerkos. I, and I'm sure others, would like for the thread to be able to remain open so that we can discuss new events as they occur.
I can't trust myself to write a "neutral" explanation of what GamerGate is for folks that are new to this business, so I'll link and copy Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy
I'm also going to borrow the following compiled facts from a poster on NeoGAF, because while he does leave some stuff out, I don't have the time to compile and post everything that's happened:
This is a list of actual things that GamerGate believes and has accomplished so far
Also since it may help, here is a thoughtful video about gamergate that explains the concept of base assumptions:
http://blip.tv/foldablehuman/s4e7-gamergate-7071206
REMEMBER ABOVE ALL:
I can't trust myself to write a "neutral" explanation of what GamerGate is for folks that are new to this business, so I'll link and copy Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy
Gamergate (sometimes referred to as GamerGate or as a hashtag #gamergate) is a controversy in video game culture which began in August 2014. It concerns ingrained[1] issues of sexism and misogyny in the gaming community, as well as journalistic ethics in the online gaming press, particularly conflicts of interest between video game journalists and developers.[2][3][4][5][6]
The controversy came to wider attention due to a sustained campaign of harassment that indie game developer Zoe Quinn was subjected to after an ex-boyfriend posted numerous allegations on his blog in August 2014, including that she had a "romantic relationship"[7] with a Kotaku journalist, which prompted concerns that the relationship led to positive media coverage for her game. Although these concerns proved unfounded,[8][a] allegations about journalistic ethics continued to clash with allegations of harassment and misogyny.[10] Other topics of debate have included perceived changes or threats to the "gamer" identity as a result of the ongoing maturation and diversification of the gaming industry
I'm also going to borrow the following compiled facts from a poster on NeoGAF, because while he does leave some stuff out, I don't have the time to compile and post everything that's happened:
This is a list of actual things that GamerGate believes and has accomplished so far
- GamerGate still today claims that Zoe Quinn slept around for coverage favors. This was debunked literally months ago. And yet it persists.
Kotaku shows that Nathan never wrote the articles he was accused of writing: http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346On March 31, Nathan published the only Kotaku article he's written involving Zoe Quinn. It was about Game Jam, a failed reality show that Zoe and other developers were upset about being on. At the time, Nathan and Zoe were professional acquaintances. He quoted blog posts written by Zoe and others involved in the show. Shortly after that, in early April, Nathan and Zoe began a romantic relationship. He has not written about her since. Nathan never reviewed Zoe Quinn's game Depression Quest, let alone gave it a favorable review.
RPS: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/08/admission-quest-valve-greenlights-50-more-games/#more-183169
This is the only article Nathan ever wrote on Rock Paper Shotgun that mentioned Depression quest. - Nathan Grayson is the journalist accused of this unethical behavior. He never actually wrote the articles he was accused of writing
- Despite Nathan Grayson being the journalist here, and GamerGate insisting this is about "ethics in journalism", they can't seem to stop talking about Zoe Quinn (not a journalist) and Anita Sarkeesian (also not a journalist)
- Zoe Quinn is still today accused of faking death, rape, and other threats. No evidence has ever been provided to back up why they think they're fake.
- Zoe Quinn was accused of lying about donating DQ proceeds to charity. Charity confirms the donations were actually received
- GamerGate first started donating to the charity when they thought Zoe did not. After the charity confirmed receiving the donations, GamerGate started harassing the charity and threatening it with legal action because they claim they "didn't disclose publicly" they had received donations from her (even though that is not actuall illegal). This is a charity is made up of volunteers and a part-time paid intern, helping people deal with depression
- Zoe Quinn is frequently accused of winning an award (instead of Papers Please) for Depression Quest because she slept with someone. These accusations still frequently fly around on Twitter. In actuality, her game didn't receive an award, but just an honorable mention. Papers Please did indeed win the award. No evidence backs up the claim she slept with someone to get the....honorable mention.
- Zoe Quinn was accused to have "deliberately sabotaged, DDOSed, doxxed, and shut down" TFYC because they were "competition" for Rebel Game Jam. When in reality she just ranted about them (and briefly argued with them) over Twitter about their policies (especially their trans policy, which was vague enough to be interpreted as something insanely extreme) and the site got temporarily overloaded with traffic. Apparently one of the project's sponsors pulled out over the trans concerns, but Zoe herself didn't do anything and Rebel Game Jam was never mentioned except as a imaginary motive for her imaginary crimes. The fact that she didn't remember how many times she tweeted about something earlier in the year was also supposed to be a scandal, somehow.
- Anita Sarkeesian was similarly accused of faking threats. Still happens regularly. The FBI confirmed the threats were real, currently under investigation.
- There is a mailing list in which games writers talk to each other. Warning: Breitbart link. This fact was presented as inherently controversial, but not really explained why. Absolutely nothing worthy of discussing was ever found on this mailing list. Just people who happen to share the same job, joking with each other, and asking each other uncontroversial questions.
- Jenn Frank was accused of failing to disclose a conflict of interest. She actually did disclose this in her initial draft, but before publication this was "removed by editors because [it] did not fulfill the criteria for a “significant connection” in line with the Guardian’s editorial guidelines."]Jenn Frank was accused of failing to disclose a conflict of interest. She actually did disclose this in her initial draft, but before publication this was "removed by editors because [it] did not fulfill the criteria for a “significant connection” in line with the Guardian’s editorial guidelines."
- Maya Kramer was accused of colluding/sleeping with the IGF chairman to secure an award for The Stanley Parable, a game she'd done PR for. This award was the Audience Award, decided by a public vote on the website and consequently immune to this alleged impropriety.
- The Escapist ran a horribly misguided attempt at interviewing GamerGate developers who are developers. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong.
- Titles of the articles are "game developers" and "female game developers". Um. What?
- None of the female game developers felt safe to share their actual identities
- Male game developers were sourced straight from 4chan. Seriously
- Ridiculously loaded questions
- One of the male developers interviewed happened to be directly involved in coordinated attacks against Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and others including baseless accusations like tax fraud.
INTERMISSION
Also remember: neither Anita Sarkeesian nor Zoe Quinn are journalists. Let's all remember that Nathan Grayson is the only actual journalist involved here, so even if the claims against him were true - they're not - they're for some reason still focusing on Zoe and Anita.
Definitely not misogyny tho.
END INTERMISSION
Escapist EIC removes his interview. - OOPS! Another guy The Escapist interviewed is a guy who literally wrote an article called "In Defense of Rape"
Also since it may help, here is a thoughtful video about gamergate that explains the concept of base assumptions:
http://blip.tv/foldablehuman/s4e7-gamergate-7071206
REMEMBER ABOVE ALL:
"excuse my French
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
Cambiata on
+82
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
There have been some people who have been steered to actually considering what problems there are in Gaming Journalism as a result of this. And that can be a positive, as if you take the time to look at it there is some shady stuff going on. Here's a partial list of things that would be worth discussing (in the whole gaming industry, not just journalism).
However, I believe GamerGate's latching onto the ethics angle is an ex post facto justification for the awful things lobbed at Zoe Quinn after the initial allegations from her ex. That awful leaves GamerGate irrevocably tainted in my eyes.
Actually, you know what: we, the Chordatae have acted inappropriately and hurtfully. I apologise on behalf of my phylum and although I was not involved I nonetheless feel associated with their actions. We hope that none of the (Acanthocephala through Xenoturbellida) will judge the great majority of Chordates by the behaviour of an unrepresentative few who are frankly a disgrace to their notochords.
To the idiots who decided that this was an apporiate way to act:Thanks a lot you fucking chumbuckets. Because of you I had to apologise to the goddamb Annelids. That's right, you made us look like creatues that a leech can look down on.
The comments sections are what you'd expect.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
but maybe it's the one we deserved
I think if anything extols the merits of avoiding comment sections, it's this kerfuffle.
I mean the accusations where leveled by Zoe Quinn's ex. That right there should be a huge warning sign that this was some personal drama being dragged out into the limelight for petty reasons. Ex-Boyfriends and Ex-Girlfriends are notoriously unreliable.
To the point that even MRAs should be going "we are real men, not whiners like that dude".
That is of course giving way to much credit to MRAs.
It survives by being controversial and being linked to high profile events, which fuel its need to be relevant. It's motives, from what I'm gathered, are vague but are about shutting down dialogue that's friendly to women and minorities in video-games that they fear will change the status quo (which has been occurring in various media like comics and sff), anti-women, anti-SJW and establishing a conservative strangle-hold politically over how gaming is reviewed.
Not every GGer is a misognist or in it for the reasons above, some want to reform gaming media so it isn't corrupt - an admiral goal in itself. Unfortunately this is not the movement for that, as those are excuses for the above reasons. GG is toxic not only for its members that harass, threaten and dox their targets it's how the majority act like MRA/Fedoras/right wing conspiracy theorists about the video-game industry. For the industry to thrive means these people will be getting less power over the games being made, like what the comic industry is going through, and they will not go quietly into the night.
I'm also appalled at how many false flags the gamergate movement started so as to claim they were the victims. That's some organized rat fucking on a level I didn't think those corners of the net were good at.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Like, Gone Home was great man. I cried! Why would it need a sinister conspiracy to be well-regarded? Even if said conspiracy had happened, why would that make it anything less than a great game that people should play? And the evidence was literally "someone had this person on their podcast before the review". Oh shit! Making the rounds on a podcast? Truly, there is no corruption too depraved for a games journalist.
There's this deep vein of being super pissed that "non-games" have gotten attention or praise, and I just cannot fathom it. I remember being a kid in the early 90's with an Apple II. I played Taskmaker and Strategic Conquest and Chess and Spectre for most of my early years playing anything because those four games were the entire library.
Once I got a slightly better computer, I played Dark Forces. Eventually I got Myth and StarCraft and Diablo. There were like 5 years where StarCraft and Diablo II were the end-all be-all of my electronic entertainment.
There are now 400+ games in my library, and literal tens of thousands of games new and old free and cheap and expensive and early access and kickstarter and etc and all that on which I can choose to spend time or money. Fuck, I still have some shit to do in Skyrim.
I can't understand the idea that anything is "invading" or overshadowing "real" games, when my experience has been nothing but an exponential increase in the amount of options in literally every genre and the creation of many new genres.
Also, did you all see this shit about Anil Dash? This style of grade-school "Well you say you don't like X but I said if you ate dirt I would stop and you didn't eat dirt so why do you love X?" is just fucking depressing.
And the professional ratfuckers were taking notes.
Seriously Karl Rove should take note of how the movement self persecuted and then blamed that persecution on their own victims. It was a masterful move of fuckery.
Honestly the most obvious example of how trumped up the gamergate stuff was, was how loudly they always proclaimed it wasn't about women or MRA shit right before they would launch into misogyny and MRA shit.
Besides it couldn't have ever been about games journalism ethics, because game journalism doesn't have any ethics!
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yeah, there's a reason every time I talked about gamergate online I made sure not to use any hashtag or link or whatever.
I would argue that most game journalism isn't even journalism, it's just copywriting.
The actual journalists are the people who started analyzing gaming on a social and political aspect.
You know, the people gamergate is actually trying to silence, while claiming to fight for journalism ethics.
Furthermore, the problems of ethics in journalism are old. Jeff Gerstmann's firing over the Kane & Lynch review will always be the biggest example of it in my mind.
http://uproxx.com/gammasquad/2014/10/why-gamergate-is-hurting-gamers/
pleasepaypreacher.net
That's tying them much more inextricably to the "gaming world" than just being a consumer would even as they feel underserved by it. Some people who feel that the point of games is to consume them in the most effective manner are put off by what they perceive as these people receiving bonus attention that is not deserved and have decided it is trickery or emotional manipulation on the part of the people making these odd new games. I think that's part of why most of the supposed corruption is based on the featuring of games on news sites that are considered outside the mainstream and made by new developers about odd topics.
That's an interesting article. It reminds me of Leigh Alexander's article that so many gamergate people have taken offense at.
Personally, I found it excellent. While the tone sounds a little aggressive, I do not feel that she is saying that the people we think of as "gamers" are bad people, or that they are dead and don't exist anymore. She is expressing perfectly that idea that gaming is evolving as a cultural item, that it's a serious medium that must be analyzed, criticized, treated like any other and that the gaming population has evolved beyond the stereotypical "bunch of white male nerds in a basement". For years now we've had the "hardcore vs casual" debate. Now the debate is expanding in scope. "Gamer" isn't a thing, or at any rate, doesn't NEED to be a thing. There's not only three groups of games and developers and players (gamers, casuals and non-gamers). Everyone is playing games to some non-binary degree. It's a huge medium. There's room for everyone. And there is room for social and political analysis and growth.
That article then reminded me of something Jerry said on PATV re: video games.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
He's expressed what I was trying to say for far better than I could.
People who got offended over the "death of the gamer" article have missed the point.
The death of the stereotype is fantastic news!
It's what Nintendo was going for during their E3 speech when they introduced the Wii. They said they wanted gaming to be as natural in a conversation and in a typical person's life as watching TV is.
pleasepaypreacher.net
- 2008: some dudes create a podcast in their spare time
- 2009: another dude joins them from time to time and eventually becomes a regular host in 2010
- 2010: the podcast ends and that dude moves away to make his own game with a small team
- July 2012: the podcast gets revived (sans the dude who has moved away, because he is still making a game)
- Oct 2012: Polygon is created
- August 2013: the game is finished
- August 2013: a lady from Polygon is assigned to review the game and gives it a high score (theoretically because she has been promised rewards to come)
- 2014: the lady guests on the podcast twice and eventually becomes a regular host of that podcast a year after the game comes out
Also at some point during this the lady and the dude tweet at each other over a joke a mutual friend had made.
Also the podcast hosting position is not paid.
Also apparently it was only important to the dude to get Polygon in his pocket, I guess??
Also here is a conversation developer Brett Douville had with a GG supporter. That he was eventually able to get through to the guy (with rather extreme effort) was impressive and good to see.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
I don't even.
pleasepaypreacher.net
So if you thought Intel might have pulled ads based on a misunderstanding, well, maybe rethink that position.
Have you come across the #notyourshield contingent before?
He's basically fallen completely into the whole ethics/journalistic integrity smokescreen. Decrying harassment and asking for civility while still using #gamergate in almost every single one of his tweets.
It's depressing.
That is disturbing. It's chilling when there are people in the movement that have resorted to actual crimes to get what they want.
Not really, though I can't stand the idea behind that hashtag like seriously it fills me with rage.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Well, fuck. Guess I'm not buying Intel processors after this.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
pleasepaypreacher.net