Gamergate - OP updated 27 October

[Edge-]

Umm... Isn't that from a satire website? http://archive.is/BWmxh

Heh wow...the title of the site alone "Point and Clickbait" should raise about a hundred red flags, not to mention the rest of their articles.

This is why links are always better than screenshots that don't provide context : P

[Strangebrew]

Umm... Isn't that from a satire website? http://archive.is/BWmxh

Yeah, it's satire. This is the author: https://www.patreon.com/timcolwill?ty=h

Heh wow...the title of the site alone "Point and Clickbait" should raise about a hundred red flags, not to mention the rest of their articles.

This is why links are always better than screenshots that don't provide context : P

Disregard that one then, my bad and i apologize.

But gotta admit, it's hard to separate satire from real articles nowadays.

[zealo]

And the narrative continues


These people have no shame.

There's a thread over at the beamdog forums where someone gave advice on how to avoid a further PR disaster, that including replacing the nudge at GG with some other line in the same style that isn't politically charged, like his usual "buttkicking for goodness!", although their forums seem to be down right now so can't really find it.

[unholytestament]

Just Google author + article title and the truth is usually revealed. Unless you get directed to one of those blog type sites (like Medium), then you have to dig some more.

[Edge-]

Disregard that one then, my bad and i apologize.

But gotta admit, it's hard to separate satire from real articles nowadays.

Poe's Law and all that. But between stuff like this and all the shooped tweets etc., this is why I stopped taking any screencap seriously years ago. Direct link/archive or gtfo : P

There's a thread over at the beamdog forums where someone gave advice on how to avoid a further PR disaster, that including replacing the nudge at GG with some other line in the same style that isn't politically charged, like his usual "buttkicking for goodness!", although their forums seem to be down right now so can't really find it.

Would be good, no clue why there would be contemporary references in the game to begin with. Then again, we've had random GG references in Thor, Prison School (or whatever the animu is called), this, and I'm surely missing at least one or two others. And in none of them has it made a lick of sense in the context of the world it takes place in and more often than not fans appear to be annoyed by it.

[unholytestament]

Would be good, no clue why there would be contemporary references in the game to begin with. Then again, we've had random GG references in Thor, Prison School (or whatever the animu is called), this, and I'm surely missing at least one or two others. And in none of them has it made a lick of sense in the context of the world it takes place in and more often than not fans appear to be annoyed by it.

To be fair, there were pop culture references in the original game. We had obvious allusions to Wolverine, as well as references to Star Wars, Star Trek, Looney Tunes, and many others.

And, being honest, Minsc is the kind of oddball to say something weird in any given situation.

[Strangebrew]

Poe's Law and all that. But between stuff like this and all the shooped tweets etc., this is why I stopped taking any screencap seriously years ago. Direct link/archive or gtfo : P

Yep, lesson learned, i am a bit too quick on taking screenshots like that at facevalue when they pop up on my feed.

we've had random GG references in Thor, Prison School.

Yeah, as a huge Prison School fan i especially remember that one.
Obviously the original version don't have it, it was purely funimation and their 4kids tier "translations"
Good thing i stick to fan subs, who actually take the translating more seriously than these people most of the time.

And the irony is that Prison school is basically all about fanservice, everything these people are against.
http://i8.mangapanda.com/prison-scho...ol-4181907.jpg Slightly NSFW, but that is mild compared to the rest of the series.

[Edge-]

To be fair, there were pop culture references in the original game. We had obvious allusions to Wolverine, as well as references to Star Wars, Star Trek, Looney Tunes, and many others.

And, being honest, Minsc is the kind of oddball to say something weird in any given situation.

Ah, didn't know that, interesting!

[Simulacrum]

Yeah, the original games were pretty meta at times, with throwaway lines like (when you click on Jaheira to give her an order) "Yes, oh omnipresent authority figure?", Edwin complaining about being mystified by your ability to order him around with your "mouse magic", the stuff unholytestament mentions, and a bunch of other stuff. That can work if it's done well. For example, I think the joke in Siege of Dragonspear with the goblin quipping about you being a racist is pretty funny (if it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek, which I assume it is). The 'it's about ethics in heroic adventuring' could be a mildly funny joke as well, if the politics of the author didn't make it so plainly obvious that it was probably put in there to piss people off.

- - - Updated - - -

http://i8.mangapanda.com/prison-scho...ol-4181907.jpg Slightly NSFW, but that is mild compared to the rest of the series.

What is even happening here?

[Deleted]

Well.. it seems to me every "press" (if its possible to call fansites press) and every review is biased nowadays. Streamers get payed to make positive statements. Game companies grow armies of fanboys and bootlickers and reward their loyalty with publicity.. while they ignore their critics to death.

At the end, its about selling computer games. And every positive review is welcome. And every negative review is punished by ignorance.

[klogaroth]

The 'it's about ethics in heroic adventuring' could be a mildly funny joke as well, if the politics of the author didn't make it so plainly obvious that it was probably put in there to piss people off.

That bit is something that I find somewhat distasteful.

Mizhena is fine. Is it odd for a character to mention their personal history after one question? In real life, yes. If we're talking real life though people generally wouldn't task you with finding their lost relative/loved one/important item after you've just barged in to their house uninvited. As I mentioned before the Forgotten Realms is an alright place to explore gender, but transgender is considerably different there when it's possible to magically alter your gender in an instant. Maybe a quest to assist with that could be used as metaphor for transition, but an instant physical switch at the end doesn't make it a good metaphor in my opinion.

Sure it's not gender issues, but rather sexuality that's touched upon, but if people want an example of a progressive game that works without loads of back story look at Undertale. A game that sets up a romance between two royal guards, using a handful of speech bubbles, that fits perfectly in the setting and works well within the game world.

The Minsc line though is purely there to be hostile, and only serves to highlight the current mindset of some that journalists should not be questioned. Any questions will be met with accusations of either direct bigotry or bigotry by association.

Even the likes of Jack Thompson, someone who pretty much unified game devs, journalists and gamers, didn't receive as much hostility.
When it's the customers that start asking questions that people don't like, and in some cases have infinitely more weight behind them, they're met with considerable hostility from some corners.

Guess you can only ask questions if you've got a law firm to back you up....

[unholytestament]

Blizzard you cheeky bastards.

[dope_danny]

Well.. it seems to me every "press" (if its possible to call fansites press) and every review is biased nowadays. Streamers get payed to make positive statements. Game companies grow armies of fanboys and bootlickers and reward their loyalty with publicity.. while they ignore their critics to death.

The thing that always surprises me is how many people started saying this when gamergate started when it had obviously been the case ever since the whole 'gerstgate' situation where gerstman was fired from gamespot for giving a game paying for banner add space a low review.

Gaming medias been crooked and in bed with the publishers for a loooong time. Now the streamers are just as bad. Look at the big Destiny streamers for a good example. I like that game but it objectively shat the bad the last 7 months with no pve updates at all bar a two week halloween mini event, yet the streamers kept having to put positive spin on it to keep those invites to bungies studios rolling in to keep the audience numbers up.

The only videogame opinion you can trust is those by people with no monetary investment/income ties whatsoever and even then you have to deal with fanboyism, brand indoctrination, social justice political shoehorning and platform bias to boot.

At the end of the day the only thing games media is good for is checking release dates, technical information and thats about it. Anything else? well that when the old 'try before you by' phrase rings true. Even then though demos are often named betas now to soften any critical reactions because "its just a beta".

Its the big thing games media and SJW's have in common. terms like "Massaging the truth" or "selectively signal boosting the correct narrative" are very nice ways to say "lie until the average consumer believes what you want them to believe, who cares what bridges are burnt in the longterm for shortterm rewards" and its a sign of someone who cares more about the media than the medium.

You just gotta trust your own opinion, ensure it remains informed and assume everything is a marketing push/agenda enforcement in some fashion or another. None of which has anything to do with your own personal enjoyment of videogames and to the singular consumer is irrelevant white noise unrelated to the product.

[nextormento]

Update on the baldursgate-gate thing:

Beamdog statement on Siege of Dragonspear

We’ve received feedback around Mizhena, a supporting character who reveals she is transgender. In retrospect, it would have been better served if we had introduced a transgender character with more development. This is a lesson we will be carrying forward in our development as creators and we will be improving this character in a future update.

We’ve received valuable feedback around some bugs we failed to catch for ship. We're hard at work right now patching up the issues that slipped through and we're striving to ship fixes and improvements quickly. We will provide a complete list of the issues we plan to address in our next update. Issues of note we are addressing are:

Minsc has a line which generated controversy. Looking back on the line, we agree with the feedback from our community, it has nothing to do with his character and we will be removing the line.

Later in the feedback thread:

Ultimately, we received feedback from our community around the Minsc line and when we went back and reviewed it. The line just doesn't make the game better, it doesn't add to Minsc and it does in fact, detract from him. As such, the removal of the line was the only logical outcome.
I care about making our games better and I care about our community feedback.

-Trent

Dee (I think he's CM, or producer), who was catching some fire for these tweets batsignalling Sarkeesian/Jezebel, also weighted in on the GG line (check the OP for a chuckle).

I'll say that to me it's pretty clear what the line is in reference to. But that doesn't mean it's meant as an attack.

He also addressed the tweets in the feedback thread:

I've apologized for this a couple times here on the forums. The tweet you're referring to was deleted shortly after it was posted.
[...]
I'm apologizing because I realized that I was giving the controversy more light than it needed or deserved--which wasn't fair to the fans who had legitimate concerns about the writing or the bugs, nor to the people I work with.

My take is they're taking the high road, instead of adding more fuel, and I'm happy about that. They're reflecting on the feedback, and patching stuff. Maybe late, but there's that.
I didn't mind the ethics jab, but I think they should have stayed clear from it. In any case, this is removing content -self sensor ship if you will- so expect some flak for it (deserved, I think, for anyone that actually campaigned for its removal).

I know people were upset about bad writing in general, too much of an on rails experience, bugs. I've read all kinds of things, but I haven't played it yet, so I'm not sure what pieces are colored by the controversy. I'm hoping this can put the exchange past the warring, and have people reviewing the game and the company separately.

[Strangebrew]

Snip Snap

Yeah i did not expect this from them, knowing how these people operate, but i am pleasantly surprised.
Like the article itself states, get rid of the mainsplaining dialogue and the refugee shit, which are also pretty obviously political driven amongst other technical issues(like the deletion of save files) and they are on the right path, people should be happy about this.

I fear the damage is done though, they poked the hornet's nest and have gotten a few trolls attached that i don't think will let go anytime soon, but atleast this should calm down the outrage and the little war between developers and their customers/GG a fair bit.

[Clymene]

Snip

Well, the games media has their next headline, "GG censors video game". Nevermind, I never saw a call to remove the line from Minsc or remove Mizhena, but facts were never important to media. Voicing that something is done poorly isn't the same as asking for it to be removed.

[Strangebrew]

Well, the games media has their next headline, "GG censors video game". Nevermind, I never saw a call to remove the line from Minsc or remove Mizhena, but facts were never important to media. Voicing that something is done poorly isn't the same as asking for it to be removed.

Well, we can just tout the old line that SJW's use all the time.
"it's not censorship if it's not by the government" or any of that bullshit.

[Simulacrum]

Not happy with how the intent behind the line wasn't clarified any more than "that doesn't mean it's meant as an attack", which also conspicuously doesn't deny that it was meant as an attack. I think it matters a lot whether or not the line was meant as an attack. Which, when they have people like Allison Scott flying around bragging about how she's going out of her way to push her regressive ideology into her writing (and the indications are that she does so successfully), then that context does kind of make it look a lot like it was meant as an attack.

Unsure how I feel about the line being removed. On one hand, I don't like how it's probably a consequence of the overwhelming negative press they've been getting from it. On the other hand, I really dislike the line for being of such a high level of meta that it sounds like something Deadpool would say, which is so inappropriate for the setting that it shouldn't have gotten through quality control in the first place. If they had maybe weaved the line into a part of the dialogue where it made sense in context then that would at least have been more on the level of meta that would fly in a Baldur's Gate game.

...but I guess just removing the line and handwaving the intend behind it away is the easiest way to try to deal with the situation. No reason to acknowledge that people were right about their assumptions when you can simply avoid addressing them and give in to complaints in other areas to make it seem like you're dealing with the problem.

On the upside, I didn't expect them to backpedal on this at all. At least it's a positive surprise that they seem to have realized this shit's actually unpopular with more people than just a loud and insignificant minority that can simply be dismissed.

[erthwjim]

Not happy with how the intent behind the line wasn't clarified any more than "that doesn't mean it's meant as an attack", which also conspicuously doesn't deny that it was meant as an attack. I think it matters a lot whether or not the line was meant as an attack. Which, when they have people like Allison Scott flying around bragging about how she's going out of her way to push her regressive ideology into her writing (and the indications are that she does so successfully), then that context does kind of make it look a lot like it was meant as an attack.

Amber Scott by the way, you're mixing her up with Alison Rapp

[tehealadin]

Bioware had done a good job with sexuality. Take Dorian in DA:I, when you first meet him he isn't like "HAI IM GAY!!!", it wasn't rammed down anyone's throat, it was just a part of him, but not the defining part, it was normalised. I wasn't aware of much, if any, comments going "FUCK THIS GAY SHIT!", he was a good character, who just so happened to be gay. Same with all of the bi characters in the Dragon Age games. They weren't tokens, they weren't shoe horned in, there was no overt, in your face pushing of anything. I think in general, gamers don't care if a character is gay, or bi etc, what gamers do care about is character types being shoe horned in, virtue signalling and general "tumblrisation" of games. I am pretty sure that if a trans character was introduced in a way similar to what Bioware does, there wouldn't be anything like the response we see here. No doubt some will still be annoyed, some will still fear the "tumblrisation" of games, but I don't think it would be anywhere near as vocal.