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Thoughts on the Zoe Quinn controversy, "Gamergate", the "death of gamer culture", etc.
So here's what I know:
1. A dev makes a (what seems to be relatively mediocre and not particularly notable) game. Subsequently, she allegedly sleeps with a few people (allegedly five of them), some of whom are allegedly game journalists, at least one of whom allegedly may have said something positive about the game.
2. Some people start going after her and various people considered to be allies, on the internet, using righteousness and journalistic integrity as their justifications. Mixed in with this may or may not be varying degrees of sexism and/or bigotry. Some other people start going after these people, on the internet, using righteousness and anti-bigotry as their justifications. Harassment, death threats, doxxing, hacking, public posting of personally identifiable information against the wishes of the owner of that information, cyberbullying, lying, and other acts ranging from minor villainy to very serious offenses are alleged to have been committed.
3. At some point someone starts decrying the "death of gamer culture" or something like that. The internet engages in a large flamewar about this.
First: truth seems to have been the first casualty of this internet argument/dispute/flamewar/etc., so I can no longer tell who really did what. Well, maybe I could with sufficient effort, but it's really not worth the effort.
Second: maybe it's just that I don't hang out in the right places, but...somehow, I just feel like I don't want to give a shit about any of this. Game journalism (or what can be called such) has far more problems anyway, and so-called "gamer culture" -- as in, the ways that some people who play games act in social situations where their playing videogames is most relevant -- has a ton of its own problems anyway. Besides...
Third: I'm going to bet that ten years down the road everyone will look back at this and wonder why people were so damn stupid.
Let's be frank here, the term "gamer" means diferent things to different people. To some people, such as myself, it just means "a person who plays (video)games" (at least in this context, we can talk about table-top gamers in another context). To others, it may mean other people with whom one shares a passionate personal interest. So this whole argument about who's got the social right to use it is kinda pointless. And it's especially pointless when it's used by people to complain that certain other people aren't "real" gamers (or anything along those lines). Y'know what, I really do hope (and almost even expect) that videogaming will become something as commonplace as owning a TV.
Now I won't say I can speak for everyone. As I said, I don't hang out in the right (wrong?) places, so I wouldn't say I'm in touch with the modern videogaming mainstream. I don't frequent Reddit, Tumblr, 4chan, SA, or other internet gathering-places where this controversy has been playing out. I don't follow gaming blog/news sites like Escapist, Kotaku, or Siliconera. I don't regularly follow the blogposts, Youtube channels, commentary, etc. that regularly discuss or report about the world of gaming -- including but not limited to Let's Plays, TotalBiscuit, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, etc.. The most I do is look around the Steam forums, and when I do, half the time I just facepalm at the number of people getting scammed by phishers.
I'm sorry, I just never gave enough of a crap. I'm content sitting here with my own games. Looking at my library, I'm enjoying them just as much as I did three weeks ago. Nothing has changed from what I can see. Just a bunch of loud squabbling idiots on the internet -- but those are a dime a dozen. If you want me to care, give me a reason to care. Though I'll warn you, I am somewhat more sympathetic to the side of the so-called "social justice warriors", because at least somewhere in the back of their minds they are fighting for something, rather than just throwing shit at stuff because they don't like it.
That said, I've already been through the entire world of gaming changing against my preferences -- from budget-breaking emphasis on hyper-realistic graphics (especially as used to visualize gratuitous violence and gore) and corresponding disdain for 2D and sprite-based visuals as "kiddy" or "casual" or generally undesirable, to excessively-competitive trash-talking and newbie-unfriendliness, to the pigeonholing of visual novels toward fans who want sexual content, to the hype machine coupled with the emphasis on the next new big thing -- and y'know what, I couldn't do a damn thing about any of this. Another way of putting this is that I am entirely accustomed to the Steam store's offerings being 90%+ uninteresting to me, and I really don't know that feel when people complain about the store being "clogged" by whatever sorts of games they don't like (be it indies, military shooters, "cell phone games", etc.).
So I think y'all squabblers should just shut up and maybe go back to playing your games or something. Well obviously I can't make you shut up...but then again, I'm not listening anyway.
Comments
Honestly, I believe most people playing games aren't the ones complaining on Internet forums. A good chunk of those are "few hours a week" types that consider it a secondary hobby and the rest are having too much fun. I'm sure those playing The Sims are exempted from the conflict.
This is actually the dumbest part of the whole thing. No one has ever been able to find the review or any traces of it, and if it existed, people would have been complaining long before the recent events took place. It's to #GamerGate what Weapons of Mass Destruction were to the Iraq War.
"An interesting game.
The only winning move is not to play."
IIRC, the "review" that people were complaining about was a list of 50 games released on Steam Greenlight that had Depression Quest mentioned at the beginning of the article.
"Though I'll warn you, I am somewhat more sympathetic to the side of the so-called "social justice warriors", because at least somewhere in the back of their minds they are fighting for something, rather than just throwing shit at stuff because they don't like it."
Everyone operates under the delusion that they're fighting for some grand principle(yes, even if they're using it as a cover to be assholes: they believe it comes across as legitimate to other people, or else they wouldn't use it that way). Freedom of expression, fighting harassment, changing the way videogames are conceptualized, change the way videogames are reported on(a desire for tourney-level breakdowns of gameplay mechanics), restoring oppressed majorities to grace, making majorities go through the same process of ridicule and doxxing to make them see what it feels like or simply the indulgence in drama as an end to itself: all valid motifs to their holders.
I'm with Glenn, I like these assholes better.
Wow, I'm...kind of disappointed. In a world where Fox News won a right to lie in a court case, this is tame. I still hold that most people crying corruption are either the astroturfers or never got exposed to general news on a regular basis.
It's difficult to pin down where most of the outrage came from, to be honest. The conflict of interest was really just a spark that ignited a whole mess of other insane flamewars, such as TFYC supposedly being doxxed, the mass deletion of comments threads on Reddit, the inflammatory remarks made by game journalists, etc.
Eh, it's a moot point now, since we have confirmation that #gamergate was an astroturfed stunt by 4chan in the same vein as the Tea Party.
This guy seems to have kept up on most of it, from even early on. His feelings on the subject change as things are revealed.
So it seems that the IGF and IndieCade could be guilty of racketeering.
Link does not work for me.
http://lordkat.com/igf-and-indiecade.html
Post was retitled.
Also a video of the IRC chat, note the contrast between what's she saying the chat says and what you can read when actually magnify the screen:
^^And IGF's response.
^In summary, something about a Hernadez infographic, something something corruption, something something PR. I'll have to read the context, (if I didn't have better things to do with my time) but it still sounds skeevy. And obviously, she can't use one screen to point out everything.
But the chat is all going to the FBI, so may as well wait to see what comes out of that.
Well, if IGF really is corrupt, you wouldn't expect them to be honest about it when responding, would you?
EDIT: Yeah, something about this seems kind of suspicious. This blog post from 2012 sheds some light on some of the broken judging practices and the lack of transparency way before this whole controversy even began, and one commenter on Reddit who claims to have been an IGF judge states that while there are rules for judges to recuse themselves from judging a game due to a potential conflict of interest, it is entirely up to the judge to decide if they want to do so.
I'm not saying to jump to any conclusions yet, but something about this smells.
>"nothing but bullshit designed to attack women"
>screencap shows people talking about keeping it respectable
It's a nitpick, but if they're trying to prove that the logs of incriminating material are unedited, it would be prudent to at least scroll towards the unedited material that is actually incriminating. Methinks the chat logs are probably going to point in the direction of two of the hackster blackhats, but those clowns probably use another not-public IRC channel for most of the incriminating material.
Corruption is really dramatic a term for friends probably voting on each other because they actually think the game is the best/deserves the platform the most due to the developer's potential. It's unprofessional, but not that weird for any art scene, really.
I admit it's a really strong term, but given how a lot of this is based on Twitter, you're probably going to need a buzzword to get the point across.
Which is stupid.
Buzzwords are stupid.
Twitter doesn't really work as a platform for social "activism" because of that sort of thing.
Also arguing on twitter is useless because by the time you've posted part three of your well thought out reply, your opponent has fired off half a dozen buzzword laden responses, retweeted you in a way that completely misconstrues you to their followers and has garnered a thousand likes and retweets for 'Saying what everyone is thinking'.
Fuck buzzwords.
QFT
"buzzword" is a buzzword
#fuckbuzzwords
#yesallbuzzwords
Some people have started saying that Zoe Quinn supposedly linked to a site which gave away the personal information of several people, including a young man who might actually be a trans woman.
Why is this shitstorm not over yet?
Inertia
People keep bringing it back up. It's really inconsequential in the bigger picture.
So I guess it's finally a good time to say that I hadn't had such a huge "oh, internet" feel in a long time.