Gamergate - OP updated 27 October

[Eleccybubb]

Except you know, that isn't happening. Like many people are pointing out in that very thread, the only one who is trying to push reviews based on political reasons is the developer himself, y'know.

Come on edge.

This is literally the developer asking the playerbase to skew the reviews so new player's don't see that in fact, the expansion is just shit, wether it's for political reasons or not.

We don't want player's considering buying it to see negative reviews!

I'm gonna try coming in and out now but seriously? Asking people to post positive reviews to outweigh/wash out bad ones that might be critically vocal/knowledgeable well that kind of shit is scummy. Small dev or big dev it's a despicable fucking practice. I mean if they asked me to do that they would be told where to go shove it. Voice a game how it is from your opinion not some faux bullcrap made up fluff.

[Jofe]

I can't avoid to feel that this is an attempt to play victim by the dev in order to get more positive reviews. I went to the store page and the game is sitting at mostly positive, with the negative reviews talking about bugs, multiplayer not working, ui design choices and yes, bad writing. While its true that people are complaining because the "diversisty", it's not because they hate diversity, it's because they seem to be badly written. And when you have the writer making this statement.

I consciously add as much diversity as I can to my writing and I don't care if people think that's "forced" or fake. I find choosing to write from a straight default just as artificial. I'm happy to be an SJW and I hope to write many Social Justice Games in the future that reach as many different types of people as possible.

Is hard to not believe them because is the usual brand of "diversity", which is token minorities. The writer seems to be too focused into making a gay, black, trans, whatever character rather than writing a good character. The type of characters that if you stripped them of these characteristics you would have nothing to show. These people still understand that you don't write a character that is black/asian/latino/white/man/woman/gay/lesbian/trans/bi character, you write a character that happens to be any of those.

[klogaroth]

Gender in the Forgotten Realms is something of a weird thing when it's possible to magically become another gender. See Elminster in The Making Of A Mage (1994) or Edwin in Baldur's Gate 2 (2000) for a couple of examples that immediately spring to mind of magical gender changes.

That that can be done means that perhaps the most important part of transitioning, the transition itself, can be kinda skipped over.

The existence of the character is fine I guess, but the setting isn't one that really lends itself to a proper exploration of gender issues when magic can instantly change a person's gender. Sure you'll need someone like a very powerful wizard, a girdle of masculinity/femininity, Elminster, or Mystra to be involved, but the story would be of the journey to find them. Not a story of transition.

Feeling forced or fake isn't really what it feels like. It feels like lip service. Like a token character, rather than an exploration of the issues.

It's not really that big of a deal though. Minor side characters aren't going to make or break the entire game.

[urasim]

"Please consider", notice that he's not ordering/demanding? Notice that he's not offering rewards for doing so?

Game creators are always defensive about their games, they dump ludicrous amounts of time and money into it. I've not looked into things enough to get a complete picture, but I have already in this thread that they've been labeled as "kill" because of some things they've said/done that brand them as "SJW". I've not heard of the "dank memes" yet, but I have to call into question how many of the negative reviews are actually critical of the quality of the writing compared to those that are simply because "OMG SJW RUINED GAME!"

I have no problem with them asking people to post an honest review. It does seem pathetic, though. Like when Jeb Bush stopped speaking, shrugged, and then said "please clap". lol

[Simplex]

It's just your usual clusterfuck. Pendulum swings and each time brings an overreaction from one side or the other.

1. A person posts a line from Lorewalker Cho. It's not a big deal, some will smirk, some will cringe, some will OMG worst game ever.
2. Most reviews contain valid criticism like bugs, overall storytelling... and mention the stupid line as another negative.
3. Devs think the reviews are dishonest because of -isms and -phobias and are asking people, who enjoyed the game, to let the world know they exist too (if they do).
4. OMG the devs are trying to manipulate the scores. Better post a 0/10 fake review. (*cough*randiharper*cough*)
5. OMG someone is posting negative fake review. Better post a 10/10 fake review.

Good job making scoring systems even a bigger joke

[Post]

If they said "leave a good review" it'd be shitty, but they did say leave a good review if you are enjoying the game so I'm fine with it.

[Strangebrew]

Let me clarify my stance, yes the developers are allowed to try to brigade people into skewing the review scores, as long they don't pay for it, and it should continue being allowed, do i think it's a good thing to do? no quite the opposite, i think it's scummy as fuck and creates a pretty biased situation around the review scores, review's wont't stay true, and people considering buying it get's fooled.


And slightly GG relevant, thing's are starting to surface now, granted the tweets are a few years old now.
http://thegg.net/opinion-editorial/t...kagura-titles/

[Simplex]

i think it's scummy as fuck and creates a pretty biased situation around the review scores, review's wont't stay true, and people considering buying it get's fooled.

The metacritic won't stay true one way or the other, but steam requires you to actually own the game to review. How is that not true when it reflects experiences of actual customers? What's not true about those steam reviews is the "Did you find this helpful?" ratio, which is obviously being dogpiled

[satimy]

Blizzards all flustered that people think alpha is shit. You can tell celestation is one of those 19th place trophy victims. Guys never worked outside of a hugbox

[Edge-]

And slightly GG relevant, thing's are starting to surface now, granted the tweets are a few years old now.
http://thegg.net/opinion-editorial/t...kagura-titles/

How is this relevant, important, or newsworthy? Not only is it, as you note, years old information, but it's a dudes opinion. So what? He works on localizing Nintendo games, alright. But he's not localizing Marvelous games, in this case XSEED would have localized the game. Nor is he making decisions on what games do or don't get released.

This is the kind of shit that people point to when they talk about how GG goes on ideological witch hunts, FYI.

[barackopala]

http://archive.is/tlJCs
Congratulations beamdog you dun fukd it up. Never gonna support that kind of dev.

PS: You can kill the transgender character without any punishment, please anita save this game from this lack of moral compass! YOU CAN KEEL TRANSGENDERS WITHOUT PUNISHMENT!

You know you are a shitty dev when you have to go to a con artist to protect you... after you kick your customers and then vilify them.

[unholytestament]

How is this relevant, important, or newsworthy? Not only is it, as you note, years old information, but it's a dudes opinion. So what? He works on localizing Nintendo games, alright. But he's not localizing Marvelous games, in this case XSEED would have localized the game. Nor is he making decisions on what games do or don't get released.

This is the kind of shit that people point to when they talk about how GG goes on ideological witch hunts, FYI.

Man in the actual industry has spoken out against games he doesn't like. And not that he just doesn't like them, that he thinks they shouldn't be brought west at all.

How is that not relevant?

Besides, if the logic that it's old news means it isn't relevant how come you don't come in here and bitch at the people who bring up Zoe Quinn?

[Faroth]

Regarding the whole "Please post a positive review if you're enjoying the game":

That's not score manipulation. That's asking people to actually post their review if they're enjoying the game, which a lot of people DO NOT do. People tend to speak up when they're frustrated, upset, or angry. Negative reviews are more likely to get written. People who are enjoying the game as a whole tend to..... just enjoy the game and don't think to go online and post a review or opinion on it.

There's an image I've seen pop up lately that sums it up nicely:

Person A: Man, I really like that person's art. I see their stuff online all the time and it's really really good.
Person B: Why don't you go over and tell them that?
Person A: Nah.

Person A: That guy's art is horrible. HEY YOU! ARTIST! YOUR ART LOOKS LIKE CRAP AND YOU SHOULD QUIT DRAWING FOREVER!
Person B: ........


Personally, based on what I've read of the stuff they've put in, the changes they've apparently made to character, and the dismissive attitude of the original with "we made these characters better" vibe, I'm not super interested myself, but it's those comments that rub me wrong more than a couple out-of-place jokes in a game. Saying "your old version was a problem, we made it better" is never going to endear you to a massive fan base who truly adored the original.

[Edge-]

Man in the actual industry has spoken out against games he doesn't like. And not that he just doesn't like them, that he thinks they shouldn't be brought west at all.

How is that not relevant?

Because he has no power in that decision? He's a localizer, while you can quibble about poor localization work he's done (I've no clue what he's worked on), but he has precisely zero say in what games publishers bring to the West or what games Nintendo approves for their platforms.

Just because he works in the industry doesn't mean that he has to like/support all games, folks in the industry have just as many differing opinions (probably far more, actually) as those outside of it.

So until you can establish his relevancy, in that his opinion could actually have any impact, he's a completely inconsequential employee voicing an opinion that you don't like. An opinion which he has no power to force on others. And again, he doesn't work on localizing Senran Kagura games, that's XSEED/Marvelous EU.

This is the kind of ideological witch hunting for "bad think" that people blame GG for and GG continually pretends not to do.

Besides, if the logic that it's old news means it isn't relevant how come you don't come in here and bitch at the people who bring up Zoe Quinn?

I've been pretty quiet in this thread for a while hoping things would calm down, and they mostly have. As for Zoe, I still think she's irrelevant but she continues to involve herself in the whole nonsense (because it's her only way of being relevant) and she was involved in this at the start. Not that she's mentioned very often anyways.

This guy? Irrelevant and was never involved, and still isn't. At least beyond having an opinion that many in GG don't agree with, which paints him as a target.

Edit: http://i.imgur.com/gTZBFNm.png

To my point about people review bombing. This is kinda exactly what is happening, so when the dev complains about it it's not as if he's making shit up.

[unholytestament]

Because he has no power in that decision?

He doesn't need the power to make that decision to influence that decision. Have you not been paying attention this entire time?

The narrative that has been crafted and is continually perpetuated with misinformation from the game press and the others they can rope in to support them is what pressures the people with the power to make that decision.

I mean, look at what happened with Rapp. She was fired for moonlighting, right? Except there's multiple outlets saying GG is responsible even though the woman at the Wayne Foundation openly admits to directly contacting Nintendo about her and all of the evidence that was dug up about her was on the same twitter account she uses for work.

This is the kind of ideological witch hunting for "bad think" that people blame GG for and GG continually pretends not to do.

No one cares that he doesn't like the games. The concern arises when he preaches that they shouldn't be brought west.

I mean, we seriously have a guy who would love to take these games away and you're saying we can't criticize him or else we're engaging in ye olde Orwellianisms?

Nevermind the fact that we have this video from right after GG started where he is claiming that SJWs are no threat to our games and then just recently his studio is responsible for the butchering of Fire Emblem: Fates. Kind of funny how he's saying there's room for all kinds of games because gaming is so huge when his tweets have him decrying games he doesn't like getting released in the west, no?

I've been pretty quiet in this thread for a while hoping things would calm down, and they mostly have. As for Zoe, I still think she's irrelevant but she continues to involve herself in the whole nonsense (because it's her only way of being relevant) and she was involved in this at the start. Not that she's mentioned very often anyways.

Literally brought up a few pages ago. Brought up almost every time a new SJW makes their way here over from genOT.

Edit: http://i.imgur.com/gTZBFNm.png

To my point about people review bombing. This is kinda exactly what is happening, so when the dev complains about it it's not as if he's making shit up.

Then perhaps instead of crying about how mean the internet is being to them (in between banning people from their Steam forum for using the wrong words to criticize them) they should take to heart the way to hype a game is definitely not by insulting the original material and claiming social justice will make it better.

[Yarathir]

I've seen some positive reviews from people with 0.0 hours played. Not sure if that's a bug in Steam's system, or it just didn't update yet, or if those people legitimately hadn't even actually played.

If the latter, that's sad.

[Clymene]

This is kinda exactly what is happening, so when the dev complains about it it's not as if he's making shit up.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/22828...7275136476/#p4

We pretty quickly identified a thread on the KotakuInAction subreddit where they were discussing ways to disrupt the community.

>Citation needed.

Comments may have been deleted or modified at this point, but here's the thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAct..._baldurs_gate/

While I generally dislike most of KotakuInAction, nothing in that thread was about disrupting their community and Dee tries to pretend the plans were removed (things like undelete and modlog disprove this). His first statement is entirely pulled from his ass.

Are some people review bombing, no doubt. Does Dee make shit up, same deal. Fuck 'em both.

I have no sympathy for Beamdog or anyone else in this retarded internet slap-fight. They stuck their dick in the hornets' nest by invoking gamergate in the fucking DnD game. What did they expect, everyone would go "Excellent meme'ing, 10/10 game of the year". No, they wanted outrage and they got it.

Gamergate stopped being a thing a while ago. There are no more as they call them, ops. It won't fully die until people stop pretending everything wrong the internet is gamergate.

[Jester Joe]

Let me clarify my stance, yes the developers are allowed to try to brigade people into skewing the review scores, as long they don't pay for it, and it should continue being allowed, do i think it's a good thing to do? no quite the opposite, i think it's scummy as fuck and creates a pretty biased situation around the review scores, review's wont't stay true, and people considering buying it get's fooled.

How though?
Yet again, no one's asking for them to lie, just "If you're having a good time, please let us know". It's about the same as smartphone apps asking you to leave a positive review if you enjoy the app.

I mean, what's more likely to happen anyway, someone leaving a bad review in rage, or someone having leaving a good review?

[Edge-]

He doesn't need the power to make that decision to influence that decision. Have you not been paying attention this entire time?

Damn, so you're telling me that I've been wrong all my professional life and that low level employees really do shape company policy? Who knew!

The narrative that has been crafted and is continually perpetuated with misinformation from the game press and the others they can rope in to support them is what pressures the people with the power to make that decision.

Not sure what this has to do with...anything. I'm pointing out the irrelevance of a 3 year old tweet from a low level member of the localization team about his distaste for a specific game and how silly it is that people are blowing it way out of proportion. You know, the very kind of thing that actually gives it/him power rather than allowing him to continue to remain irrelevant and unknown.

I mean, look at what happened with Rapp. She was fired for moonlighting, right? Except there's multiple outlets saying GG is responsible even though the woman at the Wayne Foundation openly admits to directly contacting Nintendo about her and all of the evidence that was dug up about her was on the same twitter account she uses for work.

Considering she'd been a target of various GG-related groups for a while now, of course that's what media were going to jump on.

But guess what would have happened if people hadn't been shitfuck retarded and decided to label her as an important person and target while grossly misunderstanding her job (she's marketing, not PR) and what it entails (she doesn't handle localization)? Media wouldn't have made much notice of her getting fired and she'd have had nobody to blame. GG paying attention to her is what gave her media relevance and "power".

No one cares that he doesn't like the games. The concern arises when he preaches that they shouldn't be brought west.

Pretty sure he does like games, I mean, he works on localizing them. He doesn't like the Senran Kagura games, which is fine. He has literally zero say in whether or not Mavelous/Xseed decide to publish them in the West or in whether or not Nintendo approves them.

Seriously, this is dangerously close to "thought crime" type shit. Do I agree with him? Hell no. Do I care? No, because he's entitled to his opinion and he has no influence within the company to shape company policy.

So in the end, he's a low level employee who has an unpopular opinion, and nobody would know or care. Except that now he's being brought into the spotlight, which is the exact type of thing which gets him media attention and has the potential to give him some of the power you fear he already has (but doesn't).

I mean, we seriously have a guy who would love to take these games away and you're saying we can't criticize him or else we're engaging in ye olde Orwellianisms?

I'm saying that doing so benefits GG and their cause in no way, shape, or form. But instead provides ammo for a-GG and media to continue to portray GG as harassers to target people for holding "wrong opinions" etc. etc.

Nevermind the fact that we have this video from right after GG started where he is claiming that SJWs are no threat to our games and then just recently his studio is responsible for the butchering of Fire Emblem: Fates.

Oh boy, he sure told his whopping 33 subscribers! Damn! And considering the comments are disabled, I'm more than willing to bet the vast majority of the whopping 4200 (HOLY SHIT, SUCH REACH!) views are from the GG side of things and not folks who agree with him.

The whole FE thing still confuses the hell out of me, first people were outraged by censorship, then it ended up that what people thought was censored wasn't really in the Japanese version to begin with, then it was, then something else. What was so bad about the localization beyond the removal of the petting minigame? That's the only thing I can remember off the top of my head (though it's still in the game in another form) and honestly, that's a big load of "who the fuck cares" as far as I'm concerned.

Kind of funny how he's saying there's room for all kinds of games because gaming is so huge when his tweets have him decrying games he doesn't like getting released in the west, no?

Yup, it makes him a hypocrite. That's fine, he can be a hypocrite. It's not as if there's any shortage of them.

Literally brought up a few pages ago. Brought up almost every time a new SJW makes their way here over from genOT.

Yup, brought up, her irrelevance is pointed out, and then it's dropped. That's kinda how it should work : )

Then perhaps instead of crying about how mean the internet is being to them (in between banning people from their Steam forum for using the wrong words to criticize them) they should take to heart the way to hype a game is definitely not by insulting the original material and claiming social justice will make it better.

I'm not arguing that they're handling the whole situation poorly and they sorta walked into it by poking the GG hornets nest. Because they totally did. But at the end of the day, it's a bunch of really angry people getting angry of something that doesn't really matter that much.

Gamergate stopped being a thing a while ago. There are no more as they call them, ops. It won't fully die until people stop pretending everything wrong the internet is gamergate.

Yeah, I do get a chuckle of how it's referenced from time to time almost entirely at random as if it's the literal bogeyman : 3

[unholytestament]

Damn, so you're telling me that I've been wrong all my professional life and that low level employees really do shape company policy? Who knew!

Um, yes they can. And that wasn't even my point.

Not sure what this has to do with...anything.

Oh nothing, it's only one of the main things that Gamergate is against and it's why there is a literal cabal of game journalists still getting away with calling gamers misogynists and all that.

I'm pointing out the irrelevance of a 3 year old tweet from a low level member of the localization team about his distaste for a specific game and how silly it is that people are blowing it way out of proportion. You know, the very kind of thing that actually gives it/him power rather than allowing him to continue to remain irrelevant and unknown.

Oh, right, Edge is a firm believer of "if we ignore it then it will just go away". Nevermind you just got done missing my point about Zoe Quinn by explaining to me how she continually injects herself into things.

Bravo. Fucking bravo.

Considering she'd been a target of various GG-related groups for a while now, of course that's what media were going to jump on.

But guess what would have happened if people hadn't been shitfuck retarded and decided to label her as an important person and target while grossly misunderstanding her job (she's marketing, not PR) and what it entails (she doesn't handle localization)? Media wouldn't have made much notice of her getting fired and she'd have had nobody to blame. GG paying attention to her is what gave her media relevance and "power".

Yes, by poking the hornet nest you do get stung.

I mean, it's hilarious how you chose to ignore me pointing out how it actually went down and instead focused on GG talking about her yet fail to mention that the only reason GG knew anything about her was because of her tweeting at them.

Pretty sure he does like games

THE games. Meaning I'm talking about a specific group of games. The context would imply the games he's speaking out against.

Edge failing at English.

Seriously, this is dangerously close to "thought crime" type shit. Do I agree with him? Hell no. Do I care? No, because he's entitled to his opinion and he has no influence within the company to shape company policy.

And this seems like you saying a person's opinions are beyond reproach because you're choosing to ignore the narrative that is fueling antiGG.

So in the end, he's a low level employee who has an unpopular opinion, and nobody would know or care. Except that now he's being brought into the spotlight, which is the exact type of thing which gets him media attention and has the potential to give him some of the power you fear he already has (but doesn't).

Ignore it and it will go away.

Listen and believe!

I'm saying that doing so benefits GG and their cause in no way, shape, or form. But instead provides ammo for a-GG and media to continue to portray GG as harassers to target people for holding "wrong opinions" etc. etc.

It's called poking holes in their narrative. Remember when they tried to dismiss all criticism with the whole "no one is taking your games away" spiel? And now we have a man that openly declares he wants that and he plays a hand in censoring games that we want.

Oh boy, he sure told his whopping 33 subscribers! Damn! And considering the comments are disabled, I'm more than willing to bet the vast majority of the whopping 4200 (HOLY SHIT, SUCH REACH!) views are from the GG side of things and not folks who agree with him.

The reason this was pointed out was that it displays his views and his very poor perception of the situation. Who the message actually reached is irrelevant.

The whole FE thing still confuses the hell out of me, first people were outraged by censorship, then it ended up that what people thought was censored wasn't really in the Japanese version to begin with, then it was, then something else. What was so bad about the localization beyond the removal of the petting minigame? That's the only thing I can remember off the top of my head (though it's still in the game in another form) and honestly, that's a big load of "who the fuck cares" as far as I'm concerned.

Right. No reason to be upset about the removal of content, tons of dialogue, the outright change of multiple characters, changing the narrative of multiple characters' stories and interactions, etc. etc.

I'm not arguing that they're handling the whole situation poorly and they sorta walked into it by poking the GG hornets nest. Because they totally did. But at the end of the day, it's a bunch of really angry people getting angry of something that doesn't really matter that much.

HA! See earlier in the post.