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Thoughts on the Zoe Quinn controversy, "Gamergate", the "death of gamer culture", etc.
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Comments
Futrelle?
^^^Nah, it wasn't that particular post by itself. It's the way your posts tend to decry SJW, even when only tangentially related, that raises eyebrows. And false balance is a thing, since describing parody Zoe as "unstable" falls back on an old sexist cliche.
It's worth mentioning that "not screened for critics" is a common practice that happens a lot with movies as well, and most people already recognize this as a red flag indicating a bad movie or game. It's hardly corruption since the motives are so transparent. Also, yeah, that Polygon article was pretty bad, but again, hardly unique to game sites (e.g. Thought Catalog's very existence).
I still think the journalistic ethics complaints are based on a "not seeing the forest for the trees" mentality. Not saying they aren't valid, but journalistic integrity is a more general problem than a lot of GamerGate seems to think.
^of We Hunted the Mammoth fame.
We Hunted the Mammoth wha?
Huh, I think I take an even number of swings at altright crankery too, I'll pay attention to that a bit more. Perhaps it's a case of the narcissism of small differences, or actually taking the SJWs more seriously do to typical-mind fallacy(if everybody around you is leftish, the idea of leftie cranks taking hold seems a more likely scenario and thus right cranks are taken less seriously).
^These articles binge the chat logs: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/category/gamergate/
I had already read that log.
^^^ A site dedicated to mocking misogyny. Quite controversial, to say the least.
Hey, that guy got an interview with Vice about the harrassment, which woulc make me want to watch it if Vice hadn't bothered to do a hit piece on a fictional character.
Sometimes I wonder if it's better that you have a hobbyist tradition in the doujin game world, where people just make games, and let them spread by word of mouth, rather than trying to make a business out of it and thus making every little piece of press coverage and hype generation and twitter mention etc. a High-Tension Big Deal Important Serious Thing.
Maybe this is a bit short-sighted, and maybe also not very conducive to helping a fledgeling studio strike it big on a professional level (or help a developer go from hobbyism to full-time development), but on the other hand it also does avoid some pitfalls of professional game development.
I thought press embargoes are standard practice.
I think that so far one of the most level-headed people I've met in GG is Phil, a nonbinary feminist and trigger warning activist. A lot of people might be turned off by that, but so far they're probably the person who's made the most legitimate complaints about games journalism.
Like, one issue that no-one else in GG has raised so far is that Polygon and Kokaku tend to be very vocal about social justice but the majority of writers are white males, which apparently leads to a lot of allies that don't really know what they're doing.
Or at least that's my understanding of it based on what they've said.
Meanwhile, back on the original topic: https://plus.google.com/app/basic/stream/z13fftyjopfahdvz504cdldh0zr1j52o12w
I can't help but notice some similarities between the people who do these "toxic, hateful" things, and climate change deniers. Between demanding police report numbers from Anita Sarkeesian and nitpicking through a batch of stolen e-mails (in the "climategate" event), both groups are basically reactionaries against what other people are saying about them and the things they believe are true, and are basically doing whatever they can to overwhelm, harass, discredit, and intimidate those people who voice a different view of how things are.
And they defend their actions as fair journalism or muck-raking, without regard to standards of ethics or decency or how one-sided they are.
I decided to write up my final thoughts on this topic.
Gamergate is an attack by misogynistic, immature people on feminists....was what I believed until I read further. I'll elaborate later, but this has been eye opening to me on how one wrong doing covered up larger wrong doings.
I had no idea what gamergate was until yesterday, and after several hours of reading, I have composed a list of lists I will follow as the event develops, it's really eye opening to me who was on the fence until now: An introduction to the coverup, List of events, a reddit that documents these events, a list of companies to boycott, and for good measure a tumblr that documents how so-called proponents of social justice can be just as cruel as the 4chan and similar hordes who exposed the corruption to begin with.
I am posting this as an impartial source of information I found relevant amidst all the mud slinging on both sides. I will try to keep my info relevant and without agendas, I post solely out of interest in human behaviour.
Also, this post would be what convinced me there were genuinely nice dedicated people involved in gamergate. Adam Baldwin is pretty cool too, though.
^^ Yeah, as I mentioned elsewhere, there's quite a lot of missing one's own faults while pointing out others'.
ninja'd
ninja'd by ninja. XD
Yeah, when I read that "gamer manifesto" thingy, I noticed one item that is a significant part of the debate over prejudice and sexism and the role of these things in the game industry:
Well, the problem is, if we assume that you have game devs just going by what they know and making plot and setting premises that contain the same basic ingredients (which is a common criticism of the game industry), then how exactly is that going to change? Well, to be fair, the game industry isn't static and there's a lot of innovation going on, though innovation is sort of like a random number generator and you also need directed selection past that.
Directed selection is ideally presumed to occur by means of consumer choices. However, consumer choices don't themselves exist in a vacuum, and are influenced by availability, retrievability, and social relevance -- and the press can directly influence the latter two and indirectly influence the first. That said, some people feel that it's a social responsibility of the press to wield some of that influence -- such as to warn people of particularly bad games, or to introduce people to good games that haven't gotten a lot of attention.
The videogame press is still not all that "mature" in the sense of figuring out the right way of doing things. There's also a lot of people going about their own journalistic activities, thanks to low barrier of entry (which can be both a good and bad thing simultaneously), leading to a lot of gonzo reporting on what's going on. While this can be a good thing when it comes to having a diversity of viewpoints, it can also lead to an overwhelming number of choices with little in the way of evaluating them (who guards the guardsmen?) for quality or bias, which is what I'm feeling here as someone looking into this from the outside.
I think the whole games journalism business as not maturing to the state of other journalism that cover older media like movies is a big part of the mess, which makes it easy to engage in smear campaigns from both sides. There are (probably that I know of) no 60+ reporters or critics of video games because the industry just isn't that old yet.
Also, it's pretty clear -- but not something that crosses people's minds often enough, it seems -- that "gaming" (i.e. playing videogames) or being a "gamer" can mean a large variety of different things, to different people.
BTW that Daemonpro article is a good read. Thanks.
I knew it would be an eye-opener, it's what caused me to seriously consider that gamergate has a point about stifling creativity through oppressive tactics done in the name of "social justice", and how some people can hide under social justice to attack those who had creative differences. It was so warped in practice from the well intentions it began with, I just couldn't stop reading.
Yeah, the Daemonpro article was good. I agree that the social justice approach he mentioned just confuses people into not knowing what they did wrong or if they would do something wrong, and there needs to be more of a dialogue with regards to social issues. But aside from social justice trolls, I think it's a case of not assuming malice when stupidity is sufficient, because that kind of attitude describes a lot of well-intentioned, but ignorant social liberals.
Frankly, if he was the face of GamerGate, I would be more inclined to support them. Unfortunately, being misogynistic and having a point are not mutually exclusive.
Also, that GamerGateHarassment tumblr is false balance. Being mocked is not the same weight as receiving death threats. Worth mentioning:
>Gamergate folks
>not getting death threats
Wrong: http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/457741/GamerGatethe_free_ride_is_over
This is just speculation, but the reason you hear less about this is that dudes get inoculated more to this type of threat due to gender roles("As a man, expect violence, be able to defend yourself"). Rape threats would be a far more effective point in what makes the invective against Quinn so nasty: acquiantance rape statistics+Schwyzer types surrounding her+reputation as unstable and promiscuous due to Arin's story+anonymous hurr I wanna take her down a peg=an excellent cocktail to make you distrust any dudes in your vicinity.
Read further into the tumblr: almost no-one's equating the harassment with death threats, but it is an excellent illustration of people fucking up on social justice. Internalized oppression bullcrap whenever a non-male/non-white/non-straight person is pro-Gamergate and a fucking hissyfit when called out on it, endless use of virgin as an insult when the whole thing sprang up from series of vids arguing against women-as-achievement and plenty evidence of /pol/ trolls riling up both sides of the argument on the same account, among other things.
So, the conflict's about misogynes who have a point versus SJWs who have a point?
I am also reminded of this article.
Which dudes are being specifically targeted for death threats in the flame war? That's the biggest issue with Zoe Quinn et al.
I have little patience for PETA-level bullshit myself. But PETA doesn't invalidate the cause of treating animals properly, and neither does overzealous liberals invalidate the real concern of misogyny in gaming. Also, people seem confused as to what GamerGate is really about, and I feel that the ones genuinely concerned about ethics haven't done enough to dissociate themselves from the manufactroversy that started it.
Yes, I admit I didn't read it thoroughly. That's why I'd appreciate a summary or key points within a document dump, because I don't have the interest to wade through Tumblr posts to get the general idea. I'm becoming increasingly tired of this topic and arguing in an endless tu quoque circle, so of course I'd rather do other things with my time than wait for Tumblr to load 100 posts.
>on death threats
A 10-year old for defending a video making fun of Sarkeesian(the context is unclear, though-this was before Gamergate, but within the timespan for the Women As Background Decoration pt. 1: https://bigotwatcher.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/trolls-attack-13-year-old-boy/ ). It's possible this might be him defending another comedian and someone posted it as vidya gender wars related.
>internalized oppression bullcrap, not dealing with callouts well
http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/image/97737795311
>standard virgin insults(possibility of /pol/ trolls, though, looking at the WelfareFTW title of the first one)
http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/image/97515664688
>also, prominent 'gamers r kill' writers being not so intersectional themselves:
https://twitter.com/FartToContinue/status/511340606527119360/photo/1 (phrase pops up in Google results, so it's no shoop)
Both sides have little time to weed out the assholes, probably because these discussions take place in places where a)everyone's either horribly tilted to one end or the other, b)the quality of the discussion is absolute shite due to the fact that anyone can jump in or c)the comments section/forum is actually well-moderated and we never get to see the shit comments from either end of the spectrum.
This is a good introduction to Gamergate, and for additional document dumps go here.
This article has a partial run down of Zoe Quinn's actions leading to causing GamerGate.
Oh my, Milo is really biting into this one(even though the hack considered gamers manchildren until a few weeks ago), and Bawkins is also weighing in.
Futrelle made this: goo.gl/mwP5x5
So have one for the other side: goo.gl/4VB5KF (a bit strawwy, and some things that are easily refuted/just plain stupid, but it's a bingo card, so I let it slide)
Also, 4chan is in happening mode: Watch live video from kingofpol on www.hitbox.tv
And the NeoGAF dude turns out to be even more of a sadsack: http://i.imgur.com/bHMgaM9.jpg
>Linking to breitbart as a credible source.
>Expecting me to take your post seriously
Why? Breitbart is know for concentrated American Right Wing BS.
Now with that bit of Irony out of the way, my actual thoughts, in no real order, on gamergazhi. It has some minor nuggets of good wrapped up in a big ball of crap. It's comes across as way too focused on the personal relations between various game journalists and indie devs and very little focus on the power imbalance between big game companies and various game sites. I treat generic complaining about SJW as a sign that I should not take you seriously as well which has been coming out of the gamergazhi crowd.
ah yes, this sounds like an unbiased account