Gamergate - OP updated 27 October

[Senka]

http://www.solution6months.com I saw the word passionate here, and I saw it mentioned earlier a page or two ago. I've realized THAT is what I mean by "living world." The problem is the emotion of passion is also vague, so even though I now have a more specific word to describe what I think makes a gamer, it's still a little hard for me to pin down the term.

Also, http://leopirate.com/post/1123735220...ing-wish-i-was lol, nothing surprising here.

[erthwjim]

It was always very obvious this was false from the moment it was sourced from a 4chan screed against the evil Lord Sarkeesian to the fact that none of the involved parties ever mentioned such a thing.



They often do, though.

Yeah they do mean that, because with art it's not how good it is, it's the intent, because personally I would reference Jackson Pollock, to me it's not really art, but it's not about what the art looked like, it's about the intent behind his art. Or the number of other abstract things people call art. So shitty games will be called good art. The problem is that some people will rate the games based on their artistic merit instead of how they are as a game. Which is fine, just don't group those types of games in with other games or use the same type of rating system (x/10, x/5, etc.) or rather when they get rated it should be against other artsy games.

[Rokom]

It was always very obvious this was false from the moment it was sourced from a 4chan screed against the evil Lord Sarkeesian to the fact that none of the involved parties ever mentioned such a thing.

They often do, though.

It was always suspicious given that the only source was that 4chan post, and it definitely should never have gained the traction it did.

My problem with Anita isn't that she's a game critic, or even that she's doing a feminist critique of games, it's that 1. she's a really bad critic and 2. that so many people seem to view her criticisms as perfect, and get so upset if anyone dare suggest otherwise.

[Mahourai]

Yeah they do mean that, because with art it's not how good it is, it's the intent

Authorial intent is not very important, especially in collaborative mediums, if I catch your drift here. I'm not sure I'm actually responding to your point because I don't understand what you wrote here, mostly.

EDIT:

My problem with Anita isn't that she's a game critic, or even that she's doing a feminist critique of games, it's that 1. she's a really bad critic and 2. that so many people seem to view her criticisms as perfect, and get so upset if anyone dare suggest otherwise.

Sarkeesian has problems. Her work is barely fleshed out criticism - mostly lists of examples in a futile attempt to prove she did her homework - and appears more as the dreaded "thinkpiece" type of wonkery that merely invites the audience to do the reading the critic ought to be doing themselves. Her videos even open with the disclaimer that her analysis is not intended as a holistic criticism, a point which failed to convince her detractors of anything and something that really robs the series of a lot of its power as a critical piece.

When Sarkeesian mentions that a villain in Bioshock is characterized, at one point, by beating a hooker to death for no reason, there is no greater meaning in the moment as far as a coherent critical analysis of Bioshock as a whole because Sarkeesian is too preoccupied with sticking to the facts of isolated events in a game with no context (an ironic fault given that the usual criticism is that every word she breathes is a lie, etc).

Her work is useful in some ways. Scholarly criticism of games and game environments are mostly, and regrettably, confined to academia, and coherent critical readings of games as art are rarer still. Baby steps! One day gaming will have the learned Marxist critic it deserves, but that day is not today.

[Addict]

So, appearently ( and this brings me great ache to put up, but its have some relevance) the Shorty awards that are going about currently/recently seem to have some drama attached to it, namely people getting removed such as Mike Cernovich and Milo, in the case if Mike it is yet (to my knowledge) uncertain as to why, but for Milo they stated "Promote pronography" - as to where he have done so, they havent said (again to my knowledge). And for Banana Who, one of the judges (Selena Larson) seems to be a pal of hers, and there doesnt appear to be any disclosure.
This is all very iffy and not verified, so take it as that. But if there is another undisclosed jury, it is a breach of ethics, which is why I brought it up. Hopefully someone here have more up to date inttel and can verify/dismiss said things. :P

[Senka]

I looked up what the Shorty awards are, and ugh...that makes me want to throw up. But people can do what they want, so it's fine that exists. Whatever. However, what you said is very NOT fine if true. I won't even get into how amazingly stupid, yet not totally unexpected, the "promoting pornography" reason is until I see something to back this up.

[Durandro]

I looked up what the Shorty awards are, and ugh...that makes me want to throw up. But people can do what they want, so it's fine that exists. Whatever. However, what you said is very NOT fine if true. I won't even get into how amazingly stupid, yet not totally unexpected, the "promoting pornography" reason is until I see something to back this up.

Didn't you get the memo? You can accuse people of anything if they disagree with social justice!

[Senka]

Well I mean, my issue is how it can even be an accusation. What's their point if someone promotes pornography? They act like it's murder or violence against animals.

[stumpy]

Yeah they do mean that, because with art it's not how good it is, it's the intent, because personally I would reference Jackson Pollock, to me it's not really art, but it's not about what the art looked like, it's about the intent behind his art.

Authorial intent has very little impact on artistic criticism; it's on the critic and what they're able to find in the work. That's how any given piece of literature has critics doing Freudian readings, Marxist readings, objectivist readings, Christian readings, feminist readings, deconstructivist readings, et cetera, all of the same text. If you build it, they will come.

As said earlier, the artist doesn't get to create something and then keep yelling "stop it, that's not what I meant!" when people comment on it. If I want to do an analysis of how Rayford Steele and Buck Williams (the protagonists of the Left Behind series - just feast your eyes on those porn-star names) are an expression of wish fulfillment in the face of sexual inadequacy, the authors don't get to stop me.

Sarkeesian is a very bad, very superficial critic who would flunk out of any college women's lit. class, but there's nothing stopping her from opening her mouth.

[KrazyK923]

They often do, though.

And you'll find that nobody really cares. Gamers in general will let people interpret a game as however they want. People will disagree, of course, since something so incredibly subjective as interpretation of art (Without the author deliberately spelling out every little detail of what they meant, which isn't often the case) is bound to have disagreement, but like you left out, its more that they demand it be viewed through the prism of third world feminism.

Which even that isn't a bad thing. Its when people like BW and AS demand that the entire industry changes to suit their supremely political and biased view. And then they dismiss any criticism of their analysis as sexism.

That is the problem. As well as large swaths of the gaming journalism industry listening to these people as if they were speaking gospel while not only NOT finding an opposing view, but joining in the shouting down of those opposing views.

[Durandro]

And you'll find that nobody really cares. Gamers in general will let people interpret a game as however they want.

Unless its Mass Effect 3. Which will get you branded a 'cultist' if you don't take the game 100% literally.

[KrazyK923]

Unless its Mass Effect 3. Which will get you branded a 'cultist' if you don't take the game 100% literally.

Well naturally.

[Zoaric]

A few years ago, this was Kuchera's stance on games journalism and ethics... dafuq
happened? https://archive.today/4aFXS

EDIT: And Rogue did an interview with Tech Raptor. He talks primarily of his game,
but also of related stuff, so it may as well be added here too.
http://techraptor.net/content/indie-...star-fleetcoom

[Pann]

A few years ago, this was Kuchera's stance on games journalism and ethics... dafuq
happened? https://archive.today/4aFXS

Apart from his first tweet that says it is "kinda misleading" to say whatever story they were talking about at the time (seriously taking a few tweets from years ago and not providing any sort of context is not a great way to advance your point) was about a games journalism?

[Mahourai]

Unless its Mass Effect 3. Which will get you branded a 'cultist' if you don't take the game 100% literally.

I don't know what this means since I haven't played the Mass Effect series, but I thought it was cute that the original endings consciously aped the Destroy/Conquer/Merge paradigm of Deus Ex, except now the gaming public hated it for some reason.

[unholytestament]

I don't know what this means since I haven't played the Mass Effect series, but I thought it was cute that the original endings consciously aped the Destroy/Conquer/Merge paradigm of Deus Ex, except now the gaming public hated it for some reason.

That reason being Bioware's own hype for the game that turned out to be lies.

[Strangebrew]

I don't know what this means since I haven't played the Mass Effect series, but I thought it was cute that the original endings consciously aped the Destroy/Conquer/Merge paradigm of Deus Ex, except now the gaming public hated it for some reason.

Except Deus ex actually gave different endings, meanwhile in ME3 the colors in the ending changed.

Red, blue and green i think?

Man, i loved mass effect 1 and still consider it one of my favorite games, Mass effect 2 was decent, then came 3 and that was the day i stopped respecting bioware as a developer.
Good old bioware as i remember them is dead.

[Durandro]

A few years ago, this was Kuchera's stance on games journalism and ethics... dafuq
happened? https://archive.today/4aFXS

He found out that ethics are hard, and that he was usually in breach of them.

- - - Updated - - -

That reason being Bioware's own hype for the game that turned out to be lies.

That too. But I do like the fact they went out of their way not to take a 'side' in the community debates. Until Chris Priestly decided to bully half the forum off the official Bioware site for no reason at all shortly before he was 'transferred' to a different department.

[Zoaric]

It seems Mark is going a bit nuclear on the Twitters.

I thought Polygon and Ben had a chance of being professional and fair press.
Now we know for sure they are the worst cancer in our industry.

Thank you Ben and VG247, for showing me that it is absolutely true that you
are what they say you are: manipulative, corrupt and blind.

Lot more of a rant in his feed, goes back aboot an hour.
https://twitter.com/Grummz

And Usher on the whole thing.
http://t.co/j7dKitE19J

EDIT: Oh, and so many people are / have been using the Solution 6 Months sites that
they're requiring upgrades and settings changes to handle it all. According to Daw.

[KrazyK923]

I can't exactly blame him.

Regardless of what he's said in the past, regarding GG he's been relatively reasonable and neutral. And he's just been getting spit in his face from all the anti-GG people.