Gamergate - OP updated 27 October

[Fenixhart]

What was the purpose of writing such an article about a few comments on Steam though? What other purpose did it serve except to incite some sort of a reaction? A defensive one from certain gamers that are tired of gamers being labeled as sexist, racist, misogynist and whatever other ist they can come up with, and then the typical reaction from the in-crowd of journalists and certain youtubers, propagating the message and ignoring all context to use it as an example of how horrible gamers are. And then when gamers become defensive and call out their bullshit, they just use it as more fuel to say how gamers harass people that are just trying to do good or some bs, while completely ignoring the context that most people didn't even notice the protagonist was black, they just saw it as a sequel to a game that disappointed many. Of all the things they could have written about when it came to Watch Dogs 2, why did anyone choose this?

If gamers are tired of being "labeled" as Mysognistic, Racist, and whatever else, maybe they should stop being Racist, Mysoginistic, or whatever else.

Nerd culture is pretty Clockwork in it's hot buttons. Anything scracthing the surface of progressiveness is going to catch hands from those who are so thoroughly entrenched in the status quo.

And it's not just at the consumer level either-When Developers have to wrestle with publishers just to get female characters on the cover of the games they are main characters of, or Only encounter one of myriad Publishers who don't want to make an alteration to a protagonist on the basis of it being a woman, Gaming industry and culture alike are no where near as inclusive as some people in this thread may profess.

[erthwjim]

If gamers are tired of being "labeled" as Mysognistic, Racist, and whatever else, maybe they should stop being Racist, Mysoginistic, or whatever else.

And your proof is? Because they had to cherry pick to find the racist comments about Watch Dogs 2, they weren't even prominent comments, just like all the other comments that are used to point out how bad gamers and nerd culture supposedly are. They find a handful and then extrapolate it to the whole group like you do.

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And it's not just at the consumer level either-When Developers have to wrestle with publishers just to get female characters on the cover of the games they are main characters of, or Only encounter one of myriad Publishers who don't want to make an alteration to a protagonist on the basis of it being a woman, Gaming industry and culture alike are no where near as inclusive as some people in this thread may profess.

And it's also nowhere near as bad as you would profess either

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Nerd culture is pretty Clockwork in it's hot buttons. Anything scracthing the surface of progressiveness is going to catch hands from those who are so thoroughly entrenched in the status quo.

And gaming and nerd culture in general was actually changing by itself without anyone needing to point it out, that's why it's grown in popularity over the last decade, among both males and females that hadn't typically been gamers or nerds in the past. That's why nerd culture has increasingly become a part of pop culture.

[AztechZero]

If gamers are tired of being "labeled" as Mysognistic, Racist, and whatever else, maybe they should stop being Racist, Mysoginistic, or whatever else.

Nerd culture is pretty Clockwork in it's hot buttons. Anything scracthing the surface of progressiveness is going to catch hands from those who are so thoroughly entrenched in the status quo.

And it's not just at the consumer level either-When Developers have to wrestle with publishers just to get female characters on the cover of the games they are main characters of, or Only encounter one of myriad Publishers who don't want to make an alteration to a protagonist on the basis of it being a woman, Gaming industry and culture alike are no where near as inclusive as some people in this thread may profess.

I think gamers and other folks are tired of being generalized in such a manner more than anything. That shit get's old.

[erthwjim]

I think gamers and other folks are tired of being generalized in such a manner more than anything. That shit get's old.

Yeah it extends outside of gaming too, just look at the broad strokes in the US being made about various supporters of Hillary, Trump, and Sanders. If you're not in my group then every stereotype I make of people outside of my group must be true of all those people. Forget that everyone is an individual and most everyone is probably good and has everyone else's best interest at hand, everyone is collectively the same and all are equally as bad, except for my peers of course. I believe this is what it is called: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity or this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_attribution_error among a few other ones.

[Strangebrew]

I think gamers and other folks are tired of being generalized in such a manner more than anything. That shit get's old.

Let alone when gaming is extremely inclusive and have the most inclusive communities out there, people just want to play fucking games, they don't give a shit what genitals you have or what color there is on them.
FGC and Pro RTS alone have a ton of female, trans and black people being some of the most popular and biggest players out there, and have so for 10 years +
Ricky Ortiz, Snake eyez, Kayo Satoh and Scarlett, just on the top of my head.

Then again, it was never about "inclusiveness" when it comes to feminists and SJW's, it was always about money, attention and trying to force developers into catering to their shitty ideology.

If you genuinely believe gaming isn't inclusive and is trying to "force women" out of it, you are simply in denial or just delusional, my pick on the latter one.
Then again, we do have us Gamergaters who is apparantly and literally hitler and is trying to murder women for wanting to play video games.

"B-but they don't show females on covers!"
Yeah sure, if you are going to ignore the hundreds of covers that do have female protagonist and the hundreds upon hundreds of games that feature some of the strongest and most popular characters ever made, which is female.

"B-but people say mean things on CoD or whatever else"
Wow, 16 year old kid's say mean things in a competitive setting? Who would have thought. Maybe, just maybe those games aren't for you when you can't handle the competitiveness then?

[unholytestament]

And it's not just at the consumer level either-When Developers have to wrestle with publishers just to get female characters on the cover of the games they are main characters of, or Only encounter one of myriad Publishers who don't want to make an alteration to a protagonist on the basis of it being a woman, Gaming industry and culture alike are no where near as inclusive as some people in this thread may profess.

Funny how this didn't really become an issue until gaming exploded into the huge world dominating business it is today. It's almost like becoming extremely popular and wanting to have the widest appeal caused more restrictive standards to be forced upon it.

[Deleted]

I think Gawker shutting down was a win condition for everyone, hopefully next we see Breitbart follow them.

I have Buzzfeed next on the list, then there's the Daily Mail.

I go by what spams the most on my FB.

[Dhrizzle]

And your proof is? Because they had to cherry pick to find the racist comments about Watch Dogs 2, they weren't even prominent comments, just like all the other comments that are used to point out how bad gamers and nerd culture supposedly are. They find a handful and then extrapolate it to the whole group like you do.

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And it's also nowhere near as bad as you would profess either

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And gaming and nerd culture in general was actually changing by itself without anyone needing to point it out, that's why it's grown in popularity over the last decade, among both males and females that hadn't typically been gamers or nerds in the past. That's why nerd culture has increasingly become a part of pop culture.

The problem is thin-skinned gamers who think criticisms of any aspect of the culture is some sort of personal slight or an attack on gamers as a whole. If you're not one of the people complaining that black people shouldn't be a protagonist, or that a black person wouldn't be smart enough to be a high-tech computer hacker, then the article isn't being aimed at you.

Articles calling out the less desirable aspects of gamer culture, like the post and comments on Steam that were highlighted, is playing a part in changing gamer culture and yes, it's partly because of the growing success of gaming. Movements that seek to silence parts of the media that do the calling out are sending the message that racist comments aren't a problem and shouldn't be discussed.

[Sorrior]

The problem is thin-skinned gamers who think criticisms of any aspect of the culture is some sort of personal slight or an attack on gamers as a whole. If you're not one of the people complaining that black people shouldn't be a protagonist, or that a black person wouldn't be smart enough to be a high-tech computer hacker, then the article isn't being aimed at you.

Articles calling out the less desirable aspects of gamer culture, like the post and comments on Steam that were highlighted, is playing a part in changing gamer culture and yes, it's partly because of the growing success of gaming. Movements that seek to silence parts of the media that do the calling out are sending the message that racist comments aren't a problem and shouldn't be discussed.

Gamers like me are tired of this and just want to play games. I know a woman who refuses to play video games because she is cared of the propaganda these people have been spreading...and the idea it is a boys club(I only see women believing ir spreading this honestly)

Most gamers really don't give a shit but attack our hobby(which for some if us is an escape from reality) annnd you are going to have a backlash.

To put it in sjw terns how woukd they like it if a bunch of stereotyped frat boys came in and started redecorating their "safe space" I mean bloody hades I don't even care if they make games about shooting gamers and burning us on crosses..be ironic and offensive sure but meh if it is aGOOD Game would not matter.

Quite frankly I feel women and sjw are keeping women another groups out more then anyone.

I also think gamers are the first group to go "NO" to these people and they hate it

[Dhrizzle]

Gamers like me are tired of this and just want to play games. I know a woman who refuses to play video games because she is cared of the propaganda these people have been spreading...and the idea it is a boys club(I only see women believing ir spreading this honestly)

Most gamers really don't give a shit but attack our hobby(which for some if us is an escape from reality) annnd you are going to have a backlash.

To put it in sjw terns how woukd they like it if a bunch of stereotyped frat boys came in and started redecorating their "safe space" I mean bloody hades I don't even care if they make games about shooting gamers and burning us on crosses..be ironic and offensive sure but meh if it is aGOOD Game would not matter.

Quite frankly I feel women and sjw are keeping women another groups out more then anyone.

I also think gamers are the first group to go "NO" to these people and they hate it

Firstly it's not "gamers" saying no to "these people." It's gaming culture as a whole having problems calling out sexist/racist/whatever aspects because some thin-skinned gamers think any criticism of the sub-culture is a personal attack. Don't pretend you just want to play video games, no-one is stopping you from doing that.

Most of the people you want to silence are also gamers, just because they have a different view on what constitutes negative behaviour doesn't change that. If you want to defend blatant racism fine, but don't pretend that "all gamers" agree with you.

[hrugner]

Firstly it's not "gamers" saying no to "these people." It's gaming culture as a whole having problems calling out sexist/racist/whatever aspects because some thin-skinned gamers think any criticism of the sub-culture is a personal attack. Don't pretend you just want to play video games, no-one is stopping you from doing that.

Most of the people you want to silence are also gamers, just because they have a different view on what constitutes negative behaviour doesn't change that. If you want to defend blatant racism fine, but don't pretend that "all gamers" agree with you.

Dude, callout culture is it's own thing, and nobody wants a part of it. People who comb through forums and grab a statistically insignificant collection of comments and treat it like news are the problem, not their victims.

[erthwjim]

The problem is thin-skinned gamers who think criticisms of any aspect of the culture is some sort of personal slight or an attack on gamers as a whole. If you're not one of the people complaining that black people shouldn't be a protagonist, or that a black person wouldn't be smart enough to be a high-tech computer hacker, then the article isn't being aimed at you.

Articles calling out the less desirable aspects of gamer culture, like the post and comments on Steam that were highlighted, is playing a part in changing gamer culture and yes, it's partly because of the growing success of gaming. Movements that seek to silence parts of the media that do the calling out are sending the message that racist comments aren't a problem and shouldn't be discussed.

The problem is gamers see the same thing they saw back in the Jack Thompson days, and no one called gamers thin skinned back then for calling out the regressive right for their BS, so why is it thin skinned now?

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Firstly it's not "gamers" saying no to "these people." It's gaming culture as a whole having problems calling out sexist/racist/whatever aspects because some thin-skinned gamers think any criticism of the sub-culture is a personal attack. Don't pretend you just want to play video games, no-one is stopping you from doing that.

Most of the people you want to silence are also gamers, just because they have a different view on what constitutes negative behaviour doesn't change that. If you want to defend blatant racism fine, but don't pretend that "all gamers" agree with you.

The problem is not just that these people are gamers, but that they're the type of people who have media backing. If it were just another gamer, no one would give two shits, because people like this have existed even before now. The problem is these so called journalists are taking a small group and blowing them out of proportion when as many people have stated this type of so called toxicity exists across all sub-cultures, not just gaming, yet these journalists want to make it look like its an epidemic to all gaming. Oh but they don't say "all gamers", no, but they choose specific words that other media outlets and certain "progressive" groups pick up on to then make blanket statements and apply it to all gamers. These are writers, they know what they're doing.

[Strangebrew]

The problem is gamers see the same thing they saw back in the Jack Thompson days, and no one called gamers thin skinned back then for calling out the regressive right for their BS, so why is it thin skinned now?

Ï don't know about that though, we are seeing much more real threats of censoring and banning of games nowadays, just because these people have "journalism" on their side.
Jack Thompson wasn't taken seriously anywhere, these people are.

UK and France.
Censoring going on during "localization"
Japanese developer who straight out refuse to release to games in the west now due to the toxic atmosphere these people have started.

And "criticism" my fucking ass, there are straight up calls for bans and censoring of video games, it's no longer criticism.
And why is this "criticism" one-sided? Look at what the criticising Anita receive is being spun into, look at gamergate.
Look at TB and the amount of attacks and harassment he have received for criticising these people.

You shitstains started it, not us.


This is a guy who works for Polygon, what the fuck kind of message do you think this sends to people outside of gaming and especially politicans? This influence people, this isn't simple fucking criticism.


And i will personally and gladly say that if you don't defend video games from these people, you don't give a shit about video games in the first place and/or is more driven by a shitty ideology, so much that you refuse to see how dangerous these people are to the freedom of expression.

[Eleccybubb]

Ï don't know about that though, we are seeing much more real threats of censoring and banning of games nowadays, just because these people have "journalism" on their side.
Jack Thompson wasn't taken seriously anywhere, these people are.

UK and France.
Censoring going on during "localization"
Japanese developer who straight out refuse to release to games in the west now due to the toxic atmosphere these people have started.

And "criticism" my fucking ass, there are straight up calls for bans and censoring of video games, it's no longer criticism.
And why is this "criticism" one-sided? Look at what the criticising Anita receive is being spun into, look at gamergate.
Look at TB and the amount of attacks and harrasement he have received for criticising these people.

You shitstains started it, not us.


This is a guy who works for Polygon, what the fuck kind of message do you think this sends to people outside of gaming and especially politicans? This influence people, this isn't simple fucking criticism.

From that image all I'm gonna say is this. How fucking retarded do you actually have to be to think that shooting games are a major/main cause of mass shootings. Seriously peoples stupidity these days. Not you ofc Xekus I mean the Twitter person.

[Strangebrew]

From that image all I'm gonna say is this. How fucking retarded do you actually have to be to think that shooting games are a major/main cause of mass shootings. Seriously peoples stupidity these days. Not you ofc Xekus I mean the Twitter person.

These people ignore any kind of evidence and hundreds of studies there has been done on it that shows otherwise because they are so ideology driven, like a fucking cult.
Violence, sexism and racism, it's all the same bullshit.

[Edge-]

This is a guy who works for Polygon, what the fuck kind of message do you think this sends to people outside of gaming and especially politicans? This influence people, this isn't simple fucking criticism.

Context for that tweet? He deleted a bunch of stuff apparently so it's no longer up, and one-off tweets without context are usually pretty useless. Was he referring to the discussion around that question rather than asking the question himself? Or did he ask the question himself? Because that image (images are dumb, archive plox) show him referring to the question, not asking it.

[erthwjim]

Context for that tweet? He deleted a bunch of stuff apparently so it's no longer up, and one-off tweets without context are usually pretty useless. Was he referring to the discussion around that question rather than asking the question himself? Or did he ask the question himself? Because that image (images are dumb, archive plox) show him referring to the question, not asking it.

Here's some of the context: https://archive.is/E5bvJ More or less he was saying journalists covering E3 should be asking that question.

[Deleted]

Here's some of the context: https://archive.is/E5bvJ More or less he was saying journalists covering E3 should be asking that question.

All i'm getting from those tweets is, i'm gonna state a really stupid opinion to try and get views, and then i'm gonna backpedal like fuck.

[Edge-]

Here's some of the context: https://archive.is/E5bvJ More or less he was saying journalists covering E3 should be asking that question.

*sigh* I remember when the industry, including writers, defended themselves against outside groups making these claims, which have still yet to have much in the way of significant evidence to back them up.

Just another reason why I do everything I can to avoid Polygon and its writers.

[erthwjim]

All i'm getting from those tweets is, i'm gonna state a really stupid opinion to try and get views, and then i'm gonna backpedal like fuck.

Pretty much what I got, trying to retract his statement in hindsight once people reacted.