Gamergate - OP updated 27 October

[Deleted]

No, every now and then there are people getting upset with bad ethics. I just linked that example because it was similar to the ZQ situation, to show that it's not the mere fact that a woman was involved that sparked Gamergate. If it were, we'd have a Gamergate every year.

"Bad games exist on Steam" isn't really the issue either. If that's what you want to discuss then you may want to make a separate thread for it.

I just think it's interesting that "bad games on steam" doesnt cause mass hysteria. If for example a big issue was that this girl got her game of steam, which is a dream of many indie gamers... then if it actually was an issue, more people should question more greenlight games and what reviews or how those games ended up there. Because I dont really understand the mass hysteria and the problem then, if what game journalists actions leads to doesn't really matter.

When it comes to journalism, I mean... there is a lot of shit going on even giving jobs in all kind of topics in journalism. There are relatives, friends, possibly boyfriends, girlfriends getting jobs without proper education... I mean just that makes me doubt journalism overall. I know there is a lot of companies using marketing, buying reviews in all kinds of field which also makes it difficult to trust what you read. Today most reviews you read about anything you find online, and we all know the issues with internet. And being a journalist and writing about things you like is very appealing and popular, and I guess that is the problem here... why do they get to do the job if they wont do it right?
However, it's not a problem if you dont have any goals in what changes in ethical behaviour would lead to other than ethical behaviour.
I know gamergate led to boycotting some unethical game review sites, which is natural and what to expect in action... we all should stop support something we don't believe in. Im guessing there has grown alternate game reviewing sites that try to be ethical? At least it should. And then progress should be in right direction, support what's good and boycott what's bad.
But if games that you can buy today is good enough, that it's not really that big of a deal if sought after choose to put a game on their shelf based on just one review or other things actually affecting the real deal.

I mean, to sum up the goal is to be able to read game reviews and know they are being ethically made and you can feel good visiting that site and know that the journalist writing that review is top notch and got it all going right and what he or she says is the good stuff. But in the end, same games are reviewed, same games are on shelves, and well... was that all?
I dont know...

[Holtzmann]

I just think it's interesting that "bad games on steam" doesnt cause mass hysteria. If for example a big issue was that this girl got her game of steam, which is a dream of many indie gamers... then if it actually was an issue, more people should question more greenlight games and what reviews or how those games ended up there. Because I dont really understand the mass hysteria and the problem then, if what game journalists actions leads to doesn't really matter.

The developers of shitty greenlit games never got the internet equivalent of a megaphone and started shouting down gamers and accusing them of being culturally irrelevant neckbeard misogynistic savages while trying to censor discussion about their shitty games on Reddit, the Escapist and a bunch of other websites.

So there's your answer.

Greenlight attracts plenty of criticism, so much so Steam has recently changed its terms to forbid games from promising things they can't or won't deliver in the greenlit game. It didn't turn into a "mass hysteria" (I don't think that term means what you think it means) for two reasons: one, no one is trying to censor criticism. There is no Streisand Effect at play here; and two, there are no insulting and provably false generalizations about a very broad demographic group like gamers.

As a bunch of people told you already: if the games media didn't try to censor discussion to hide their unethical (and sometimes borderline criminal) actions, and if they didn't start trying to divert attention by calling gamers misogynistic troglodytes who deserve to be bullied, GamerGate wouldn't have been a thing at all. If the media had just owned up to their fuck-up, apologized, punished the relevant parties and followed proper professional journalistic ethics (which we discussed to death multiple times in this thread alone), like proper professionals, the past few months would have turned out very different indeed. ZQ would go back to being a mere footnote in gaming as befitting the rather lacking game development skills she's displayed so far, and we'd have a better environment for everybody.

But no, that couldn't happen. Why? Because some in the games media decided they didn't want to let go of their little benefits for the sake of being good professionals in their field, and went on the attack to try to cover their own asses. And now we have imbeciles on the internet advocating for gamers to be put into gas chambers and genocided. Yeah, good work there.

[Deleted]

The developers of shitty greenlit games never got the internet equivalent of a megaphone and started shouting down gamers and accusing them of being culturally irrelevant neckbeard misogynistic savages while trying to censor discussion about their shitty games on Reddit, the Escapist and a bunch of other websites.

So there's your answer.

Greenlight attracts plenty of criticism, so much so Steam has recently changed its terms to forbid games from promising things they can't or won't deliver in the greenlit game. It didn't turn into a "mass hysteria" (I don't think that term means what you think it means) for two reasons: one, no one is trying to censor criticism. There is no Streisand Effect at play here; and two, there are no insulting and provably false generalizations about a very broad demographic group like gamers.

As a bunch of people told you already: if the games media didn't try to censor discussion to hide their unethical (and sometimes borderline criminal) actions, and if they didn't start trying to divert attention by calling gamers misogynistic troglodytes who deserve to be bullied, GamerGate wouldn't have been a thing at all. If the media had just owned up to their fuck-up, apologized, punished the relevant parties and followed proper professional journalistic ethics (which we discussed to death multiple times in this thread alone), like proper professionals, the past few months would have turned out very different indeed. ZQ would go back to being a mere footnote in gaming as befitting the rather lacking game development skills she's displayed so far, and we'd have a better environment for everybody.

But no, that couldn't happen. Why? Because some in the games media decided they didn't want to let go of their little benefits for the sake of being good professionals in their field, and went on the attack to try to cover their own asses. And now we have imbeciles on the internet advocating for gamers to be put into gas chambers and genocided. Yeah, good work there.

Thank you for your information, and also the greenlight one... I didn't know that but sounds like at least some improvements are being made.

I recall now that censorship and immature name calling done by journalists. It's crazy, and I can imagine feeling quite let down if my favourite websites did something like that, or even game developers... some of those sure can censor hard or silence their community.
They are not professional if they behave like that, not according to me. I think it would be extremely friendly of the community even to just settle for an apology. I mean, their behaviour is a done deed... boycotting is the way to go, just leave them be. There are many, I mean maaaaany people out there waiting to do a good job in gaming journalism, just leave the scrubs and give new ones a chance. They are people behaving bad, they are replaceable at all cost. And like I said, if the community didn't turn to new places with journalists trying to act ethically they really should. I mean, dont put up with shit, dont pay them attention... go where the sun shine, read what makes you feel good. I've personally been boycotting things for less

[hrugner]

I know that it got swept over to be about something else, but what brought attention to the matter, what caused mass hysteria in the first place was this girl and that is what's interesting.

It's gossip rag trash. Gamers game, gaming is mostly devoid of big names and pathetic star stalking; you show up, you play, you have fun. Keep that crap in People magazine where it belongs.

[erthwjim]

Thank you for your information, and also the greenlight one... I didn't know that but sounds like at least some improvements are being made.

I recall now that censorship and immature name calling done by journalists. It's crazy, and I can imagine feeling quite let down if my favourite websites did something like that, or even game developers... some of those sure can censor hard or silence their community.
They are not professional if they behave like that, not according to me. I think it would be extremely friendly of the community even to just settle for an apology. I mean, their behaviour is a done deed... boycotting is the way to go, just leave them be. There are many, I mean maaaaany people out there waiting to do a good job in gaming journalism, just leave the scrubs and give new ones a chance. They are people behaving bad, they are replaceable at all cost. And like I said, if the community didn't turn to new places with journalists trying to act ethically they really should. I mean, dont put up with shit, dont pay them attention... go where the sun shine, read what makes you feel good. I've personally been boycotting things for less

People have left for other sites, here's a list of sites that are recommended instead of some of the main ones: http://gamergate.me/approved/ But I don't think it should stop with that, like most boycotts, for a boycott to work, the masses needed to be educated about why the companies should be boycotted, since many people don't do their own research. A boycott doesn't start because of just a few people, it starts because those few people know how to market and spread their message.

As for apologies, it would be nice if the sites that wrote those articles apologized, but it may be past that now. They've taken their gamers are dead attitude and beaten a dead horse with it, so an apology might not be enough for everyone, although I do think it would be a step in the right direction. When asked to apologize though, these sites condescend and are even ruder saying that if you don't understand the articles you're stupid or some such thing.

[Holtzmann]

I mean, their behaviour is a done deed... boycotting is the way to go, just leave them be. There are many, I mean maaaaany people out there waiting to do a good job in gaming journalism, just leave the scrubs and give new ones a chance. They are people behaving bad, they are replaceable at all cost. And like I said, if the community didn't turn to new places with journalists trying to act ethically they really should. I mean, dont put up with shit, dont pay them attention... go where the sun shine, read what makes you feel good. I've personally been boycotting things for less

Unfortunately, the slanderous accusations of misogyny and hate crime being flung against gamers are serious, particularly in this age of political correctness and social media. So simply boycotting and ignoring them is not going to be enough. Gawker Media and other companies involved in this are big enough to smother most "new places". They have a large readership that doesn't know better, and if those folks are being told gamers are the scum of the Earth, we're gonna have gamers being stigmatized all over again.

Only now instead of being seen as childish, gamers (particularly those that don't toe the current "social justice" party line) will be seen as actively malicious.

[Strangebrew]

Just on topic of Anita, it`s pretty obvious she`s a trained scam artist.
It should ring an alarm bell inside anyones head when a scam artist is the leading force in "changing" the video game industry, just look at the guy standing behind her.

[Shadowspire]

Lol I find it funny that after days of mostly silence someone who was never or barely following anything in this thread, comes in and starts a uproar about shit that is now months old.

And I would call him(not saying ur a guy but my default gender online is someone's a guy until otherwise, just incase u want to be a ass and say otherwise) stupid but it's impossible for something this long to be misunderstood I mean even if a person did like I do and read the last twenty pages they can see the convsayion switched.
So that means a few things. Either a) he is trolling , b) he wants you guys to insult him so he can run to twitter ABD say gamergate is full of assholes, c) and I love this theory it's been going around for a while now in my head. He's a dissusion terrorist sent here by the LWs to bring them up.

Now just incase you really don't understand the conversation from this thread let me make a crappy timeline for you.

Week 1-2 Zoe Quinn scandal is hot but it's a scandal two weeks is as long as most last anyway.
Week 3-4 Leigh joins and so does fish, but fish will vanish befor this week ends so not important, but they join to defend Zoe , or atleast yes her as a point of proof about misogyny in games.
Week 5-6 misogyny in games of course spurs the sleeping dragon of them all , AS JOINS AND LETS BE HONEST, COMPLETLY STEALS ZOE AND LIEGHS SPOTLIGHT, aswell the gamers are dead stories come out. And gamergate is officially born from the piles of lies and insults.

Week 7- now ,gamers across the world ( not all of then mine you. But lumping both sides together I can guess its atleast a million ppl actually care) have been fighting to a) keep thier identity away from sjws, b) fighting to Actaully get a fair journalist side of gaming reporting. And to end the collusion of favors between journalist and indie game devs- triple a game devs.

And as a final big note. The ppl who did join over these months and aren't talked about, there is one GIANT REASON WHY. THEY STOPPED BEING DICKS AND BICTIMS OVER THE INTERNET, AKA TWITTER.
Whenever liegh, fish, that dumb Asian racist guy, and many others said dumb shit to or about gamers and gamergate,naggers were there to have discussions like they were therapist, yes some ppl were dicks but some is not even close to all.

[Jofe]

Just on topic of Anita, it`s pretty obvious she`s a trained scam artist.
It should ring an alarm bell inside anyones head when a scam artist is the leading force in "changing" the video game industry, just look at the guy standing behind her.

Not that I want to defend McIntosh but I'm pretty sure he means as a total of each, as in 99% of rape cases are committed by men and on a complete separate statistic 87% of stalking cases are committed by men. Not that somehow you take 99% of rape and then you add the 87% of stalking for a 186% of the men committing said crimes.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Not that I want to defend McIntosh but I'm pretty sure he means as a total of each, as in 99% of rape cases are committed by men and on a complete separate statistic 87% of stalking cases are committed by men. Not that somehow you take 99% of rape and then you add the 87% of stalking for a 186% of the men committing said crimes.

I think the biggest issue with what McIntosh said is that there is zero context to the numbers he's spitting out. Numbers mean nothing if you have no context. For instance, 98% of mass shootings mean nothing when you don't even have a number for how many mass shootings have occured, or make a comparison to the total population. My bet is that if we took the numbers of mass shootings done by makes in the US and compared it to the country's total male population, the percentages would be almost miniscule, if not less than a percentage.

Bottom line is that McIntosh is twisting the numbers to suit his point. In the study of Statistics this is called bias and he is full of it.

[Shadowspire]

Not that I want to defend McIntosh but I'm pretty sure he means as a total of each, as in 99% of rape cases are committed by men and on a complete separate statistic 87% of stalking cases are committed by men. Not that somehow you take 99% of rape and then you add the 87% of stalking for a 186% of the men committing said crimes.

I won't fault you for doing that, I came to the same conclusion....but I think he pulled numbers out of his ass..I'd have to go google these, granted the mass killings as far as I can tell has been mostly male so I can give him that one I guess. But damn a link of proof would be nice.



...right ok googling these aren't exactly easy since, fun fact . Trying to actually look these up for the u.s at-least it's nit really separated by gender it all seemed lump together, at least when I tried to find one for rape...I did see one that said 15% were male, soo that 99% thing is bogus.but I'm gonna go burn my eyes after reading a few depressing reports.

[Sting]

I won't fault you for doing that, I came to the same conclusion....but I think he pulled numbers out of his ass..I'd have to go google these, granted the mass killings as far as I can tell has been mostly male so I can give him that one I guess. But damn a link of proof would be nice.

People pull numbers out of their ass all the time. As the saying goes: "79% of statistics are made up on the spot".

[Gruffertus]

Now just incase you really don't understand the conversation from this thread let me make a crappy timeline for you.

Eh, that's a pretty crappy timeline all right - Eron Gjoni's Zoe post went up on the 16th, Anita's latest Tropes video went up on the 25th, the articles came in on the 28th (like I said before, two instances of the same thing = a story).

- - - Updated - - -

Wait...what? How is being critical of criticism (fact checking it, calling out inconsistencies, etc.) making one look like an absolute "asshole"? And where is the jump to if you're critical of some of the things they've said/done that somehow means that you're justifying the abuse?

I'm horribly confused.

"This criticism is full of holes" would be a valid response to an article about "Anita Sarkeesian is a leading academic". "This game isn't very good" would be a valid response to an article about "What's respected videogame creator Zoe Quinn / Brianna Wu doing next?". Neither is a valid response to "These women have received have received appalling abuse, what is going on?" - they aren't relevant, and furthermore they imply that if these things were true, they'd have deserved the abuse - which is where the looking like an asshole comes in.

[MFDOOM]

Is Milo Yiannopoulos not having his twitter account verified, yet banned multiple times, an example of anti-GG bias by twitter? I've seen a lot of gamergaters talking about twitter's bias, but I don't get it. He's been banned for having tweeted reprehensible things to people, like Thunderfoot. Why should he be verified?

[Edge-]

"This criticism is full of holes" would be a valid response to an article about "Anita Sarkeesian is a leading academic". "This game isn't very good" would be a valid response to an article about "What's respected videogame creator Zoe Quinn / Brianna Wu doing next?". Neither is a valid response to "These women have received have received appalling abuse, what is going on?" - they aren't relevant, and furthermore they imply that if these things were true, they'd have deserved the abuse - which is where the looking like an asshole comes in.

Wait...who has dismissed the harassment they've received? I know there have been some questions about its authenticity (given that Wu, who is apparently "on the run" has conducted every interview from her home, for example) of some of the threats, but I don't think anyone in this thread has tried to excuse any of the harassment that these women, and anyone else, for that matter, have received in the past however many months this is going on. I've not seen anyone in this thread say that they, or anyone else, deserved such abuse, either.

So I'm confused as to where you're getting that.

Is Milo Yiannopoulos not having his twitter account verified, yet banned multiple times, an example of anti-GG bias by twitter? I've seen a lot of gamergaters talking about twitter's bias, but I don't get it. He's been banned for having tweeted reprehensible things to people, like Thunderfoot. Why should he be verified?

For Milo, I only know of recent bannings (and I have no clue how verification works at all). He definitely walks the line a lot in terms of making shitty posts (from what I've seen, which is admittedly very little as I avoid Twitter as much as possible). The recent bannings though, from what I remember seeing, weren't in response to anything that I remember being against their rules.

And what has Thunderfoot tweeted that's reprehensible? I know he's been banned recently, but images of his Twitter feed prior to his banning showed absolutely nothing that would come even remotely close to breaking any rules on Twitter. Granted, that's pretty much the extent of what I've seen from his Twitter (again, I don't Twitter and have never bothered to look at his), so I could be vastly ignorant of the majority of what those folks tweet about.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Twitter... Oh, how I dislike that website. Arguing heavily over Twitter is like trying to write an essay with just the title of the piece. Twitter was hardly meant for heavy argumentation, yet people still use it as such. So much sensationalism in single sentences made by people and it's getting tiresome seeing all these tweets by people like Anita get this amount of attention. Getting pretty sick of it.

[erthwjim]

Eh, that's a pretty crappy timeline all right - Eron Gjoni's Zoe post went up on the 16th, Anita's latest Tropes video went up on the 25th, the articles came in on the 28th (like I said before, two instances of the same thing = a story).

And it's the last part that brought most people into gamergate. People have been against Anita's critiques before gamergate existed and have strongly criticized them and their lackluster methods. The Zoe thing, I didn't hear about until I started following gamergate, but I didn't follow until the gamers are dead articles.

"This criticism is full of holes" would be a valid response to an article about "Anita Sarkeesian is a leading academic". "This game isn't very good" would be a valid response to an article about "What's respected videogame creator Zoe Quinn / Brianna Wu doing next?". Neither is a valid response to "These women have received have received appalling abuse, what is going on?" - they aren't relevant, and furthermore they imply that if these things were true, they'd have deserved the abuse - which is where the looking like an asshole comes in.

Actually people have done both, but they get shutdown or called out as sexist, because you can't criticize Anita, et al without it being some sort of sexist thing. Forget the fact that she uses the research poorly and infers things from the research that are never proven, and that she cherry picks, this all gets thrown out as sexist. I find it odd that most of the mainstream gaming sites have yet to print a critique of her, either from some third party or one they wrote themselves. It's as if what she says is truth.

[hrugner]

Eh, that's a pretty crappy timeline all right - Eron Gjoni's Zoe post went up on the 16th, Anita's latest Tropes video went up on the 25th, the articles came in on the 28th (like I said before, two instances of the same thing = a story).

- - - Updated - - -



"This criticism is full of holes" would be a valid response to an article about "Anita Sarkeesian is a leading academic". "This game isn't very good" would be a valid response to an article about "What's respected videogame creator Zoe Quinn / Brianna Wu doing next?". Neither is a valid response to "These women have received have received appalling abuse, what is going on?" - they aren't relevant, and furthermore they imply that if these things were true, they'd have deserved the abuse - which is where the looking like an asshole comes in.

The discussion of the quality of these creators content comes in after the initial response to your question of "These women have received have received appalling abuse, what is going on?", they fed the trolls; end of story. When people begin discussing their struggles to enter into gaming as women, you can expect it to be noted that as female contributions to gaming go, their contributions are rather lacking.

[erthwjim]

Is Milo Yiannopoulos not having his twitter account verified, yet banned multiple times, an example of anti-GG bias by twitter? I've seen a lot of gamergaters talking about twitter's bias, but I don't get it. He's been banned for having tweeted reprehensible things to people, like Thunderfoot. Why should he be verified?

As for the verified: https://support.twitter.com/articles...ified-accounts

of key note:

Twitter verifies accounts on an ongoing basis to make it easier for users to find who they're looking for. We concentrate on highly sought users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas. We are constantly updating our requirements for verification.

Whether it's some sort of bias, I can't say.

As for his banning, I know one time was because of his comments towards Ian Miles Cheong, reprehensible? Maybe snide, but the guy did have some previous beliefs that paint him in a poor light and can't be buried.

[Zoaric]

Considering it's been somewhat slow, have a new article from William Usher detailing
the inaccuracies with the Wikipedia article: http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/201...-of-gamergate/