"gamers are over" 3rd anniversary

[Deleted]

A historic event closer to the release of Call Me Maybe, than we are to the event itself, 3 years ago, the gaming press declared that gamers are over.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...s_are_over.php

In the wake of an accusatory post by the ex of some barely known developer, what could have been just a sordid episode prompted a bizarre culture war, revitalizing the popcorn industry and bringing the "sjw" smear to the mainstream.

Are you celebrating? lamenting? was any of it wroth it? do you genuinely believe any of the narratives by the (many) sides?

[Venant]

A historic event closer to the release of Call Me Maybe, than we are to the event itself, 3 years ago, the gaming press declared that gamers are over.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...s_are_over.php

In the wake of an accusatory post by the ex of some barely known developer, what could have been just a sordid episode prompted a bizarre culture war, revitalizing the popcorn industry and bringing the "sjw" smear to the mainstream.

Are you celebrating? lamenting? was any of it wroth it? do you genuinely believe any of the narratives by the (many) sides?

I imagine many people who took an interest in the SJW phenomenon have had the lessons of that movement confirmed, as in the last 3 years we have seen more and more violence spilling into the streets from the SJW ideology. In retrospect, it is not surprising that many of the 'gamers are dead' crowd have associated themselves with anarcho-communists.

I think the entire episode Red-pilled many people to the fact that SJW politics are just used to create ideological breeding grounds for the shock troops of the progressive elite ruling class of society. Somehow, you have mass numbers of people brainwashed into thinking they are somehow rebelling against the dominant power structure, yet they are doing exactly what the globalists and neoliberals want.

[JohnBrown1917]

GG is one of the most idiotic things the internet has ever spawned.

[Dr Assbandit]

I imagine many people who took an interest in the SJW phenomenon have had the lessons of that movement confirmed, as in the last 3 years we have seen more and more violence spilling into the streets from the SJW ideology. In retrospect, it is not surprising that many of the 'gamers are dead' crowd have associated themselves with anarcho-communists.

I think the entire episode Red-pilled many people to the fact that SJW politics are just used to create ideological breeding grounds for the shock troops of the progressive elite ruling class of society. Somehow, you have mass numbers of people brainwashed into thinking they are somehow rebelling against the dominant power structure, yet they are doing exactly what the globalists and neoliberals want.

Bravo, I didn't think someone could squeeze in that many buzzwords to season their word salad but boy you sure proved me wrong .

Ignoring the fact that you show a remarkable lack of self-awareness born out of what I can only assume is blind tribalism, and also ignoring the fact that a lot of what you posted is just conspiratorial nonsense, for someone who tries to give off an air of being an intellectual and "red-pilled" your blame game is unsurprisingly one-sided. Because if you were truly impartial, you would see that both the anti-gamers and the GG crowd were retarded. If someone claims it was for "ethics in gaming journalism" is just deluding themselves as that pretense was dropped right at the start.

How you wove all of that into a typical far-right conservative tirade is truly worthy of Olympic gold. If you think you aren't just as brainwashed as far-left SJW then lying to yourself is a strong talent of yours ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[THE Bigzoman]

A historic event closer to the release of Call Me Maybe, than we are to the event itself, 3 years ago, the gaming press declared that gamers are over.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...s_are_over.php

In the wake of an accusatory post by the ex of some barely known developer, what could have been just a sordid episode prompted a bizarre culture war, revitalizing the popcorn industry and bringing the "sjw" smear to the mainstream.

Are you celebrating? lamenting? was any of it wroth it? do you genuinely believe any of the narratives by the (many) sides?

"Women are playing FarmVille, so their input about bayonetta is superrrr important"

Good times.

[Slant]

A historic event closer to the release of Call Me Maybe, than we are to the event itself, 3 years ago, the gaming press declared that gamers are over.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...s_are_over.php

In the wake of an accusatory post by the ex of some barely known developer, what could have been just a sordid episode prompted a bizarre culture war, revitalizing the popcorn industry and bringing the "sjw" smear to the mainstream.

Are you celebrating? lamenting? was any of it wroth it? do you genuinely believe any of the narratives by the (many) sides?

I was happily ignoring it and enjoying the time of gamers once more united in gaming until some derp brought the only real issue up that had the gaming community up in arms at each other.

[Deleted]

Ah yes, the time when a brotherhood of "jocks" started bullying their nerdy friends to make some easy clickbait articles, and the nerds rebelled.

[Venant]

Bravo, I didn't think someone could squeeze in that many buzzwords to season their word salad but boy you sure proved me wrong .

Ignoring the fact that you show a remarkable lack of self-awareness born out of what I can only assume is blind tribalism, and also ignoring the fact that a lot of what you posted is just conspiratorial nonsense, for someone who tries to give off an air of being an intellectual and "red-pilled" your blame game is unsurprisingly one-sided. Because if you were truly impartial, you would see that both the anti-gamers and the GG crowd were retarded. If someone claims it was for "ethics in gaming journalism" is just deluding themselves as that pretense was dropped right at the start.

How you wove all of that into a typical far-right conservative tirade is truly worthy of Olympic gold. If you think you aren't just as brainwashed as far-left SJW then lying to yourself is a strong talent of yours ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

You used a fair number of words to say nothing here. Are you denying that GG proved there was collusion and an ideological echochamber involving a number of games journalists? Is it not true that this extends to the wider media, as was documented by wikileaks during the presidential campaign, and now is even more transparent in how the media is dealing with current issues?

Instead of name calling, perhaps you could actually take a position and defend it. Even if its an idiotic position like 'hey I get all my news from CNN and they are unbiased and have no agenda!' is better than attempting to critique without establishing any perspective.

[Dhrizzle]

Ah yes, the time when a brotherhood of "jocks" started bullying their nerdy friends to make some easy clickbait articles, and the nerds rebelled.

As if people who write about video games on the internet aren't a bigger bunch of nerds...

- - - Updated - - -

You used a fair number of words to say nothing here. Are you denying that GG proved there was collusion and an ideological echochamber involving a number of games journalists? Is it not true that this extends to the wider media, as was documented by wikileaks during the presidential campaign, and now is even more transparent in how the media is dealing with current issues?

Holy hell you drank the cool-aid. All GG proved was people in the same industry sometimes talk to each other and people sometimes write things from their ideological perspective.

In response the movement claiming to love "ethics" and "free speech" pulled the massively hypocritical move of trying to silence the opinions they disliked by pressuring outlets through their advertiser's.

[Mittens]

GG is one of the most idiotic things the internet has ever spawned.

This is the correct take. Nothing good came out of that movement.

[mvaliz]

Since when did Gamasutra become the entirety of "the Gaming Press"?

As being a former member of actual gaming press (press as in Magazine print :P) I can assure you there's many many more members of the press that do not agree with this.

[Venant]

In response the movement claiming to love "ethics" and "free speech" pulled the massively hypocritical move of trying to silence the opinions they disliked by pressuring outlets through their advertiser's.

Lets just establish this point: the 'games journalists' represent the insiders, they represent the elite who held all of the institutional power when it came to GG. You don't deny this point right?

Do you recognize that the people who run the universities and the people who run the corporate media are part of the elite of our society? Do you really think that these organizations would have so much power if they existed in opposition to the dominant power structure?

The ideal of journalism is to exist as a check against the dominant power structure in a society, but what happens when it is instead used to reinforce that power structure?

[Lochton]

None, don't even think of it.

[Dhrizzle]

Lets just establish this point: the 'games journalists' represent the insiders, they represent the elite who held all of the institutional power when it came to GG. You don't deny this point right?

I wouldn't call games journalists "elite" in any way, they're basically just gamers who write for popular blogs. Any "power" they wield comes from how popular they are which comes from how many gamers like what they do. That's one of the things I found most galling about GG, like the "moral outrage" crusaders such as Mary Whitehouse and Jack Thompson they clearly had a minority view but organised campaigns in a way that made the movement seem more widespread.

Do you recognize that the people who run the universities and the people who run the corporate media are part of the elite of our society?

People who run universities? No, not so much. People who run "the corporate media" maybe a bit more so, but not as much as the politicians and larger industries, unless you're thinking of multi-million, international tyrant-tycoons like Richard Murdoch.

Do you really think that these organizations would have so much power if they existed in opposition to the dominant power structure?

What exactly do you mean? I agree that organisations would be a lot less successful if they were in direct opposition to democracy, capitalism and the rule of law but I'm not entirely sure that is what you were getting at.

The ideal of journalism is to exist as a check against the dominant power structure in a society, but what happens when it is instead used to reinforce that power structure?

In a democratic country with a free press, acting as a check against "the dominant power structure in society" could be seen as supporting it, but if you're referring to a particular government rather than the general system I would expect different outlets to give positive or negative support, so I guess the answer to your question is "competition."

However in video games, the ideal of journalism is to be interesting, informative or entertaining so I'm not sure what your points have to do with GG.

[Louisa Bannon]

I'm not some hardcore gamer. Sure, I've played Pong, Sonic the Hedgehog and Donkey Kong and Ikaruga and eventually got into WoW. So yeah, I've played some games. Maybe even a lot of games.

But when I first heard of and started watching the youtube presentations made by Anita Sarkeesian, I was quite readily persuaded she was onto something. I wasn't hopping mad or anything, but I did think that some of the sexist material in video games needed to be looked at and improved. I had no idea at that point how carefully she had probably cherry-picked her evidence in her many examples. Some months later I saw a youtube video that very cleverly merely put Sarkeesian's voice stating various faults with video games over actual video game content that proved she was just plainly wrong.

Was her take on things malicious? Who knows? People are fantastically stupid, sometimes it gives them a kind of well-intentioned tunnel vision. Normally I am skeptical and quite smart about most stuff; but I was taken in by Sarkeesian very easily because she used all of the expected techniques to mount her very reasonable-seeming argument. It really did take the more knowledgeable expert that made the second video to see how wrong all her shit was. And honestly, I am probably not knowledgeable enough about video games to truly know which side is correct even now.

Online culture is generally pretty bad. There's just huge gaps in how material is presented that makes slippage in meaning all too common. Even in simple things like chat, or a message board like this one. These words on this screen, there's a pretty good chance they mean something slightly different to the different people reading them. And those words don't summarize me in any way either - they aren't a window into my soul or anything else. You don't know me and I don't know you.

But yeah, the corporations are out to get you. And the very cozy arrangements that exist between video game companies, developers, and the supposedly objective press is basically just as bad as you may think it is. It's probably worse actually.

[sarahtasher]

Ah yes, the time people were brainwashed into believing that the biggest issue with game journalism was people making comments in the review about how it was nice that the female character was wearing something else than dental floss, not the fact that AAA games more or less bought their reviews...

[Afrospinach]

Trying to forget this much ado about nothing.

[Independent voter]

It was really hard to pick out the people who were sincere and really believed what they were saying from the people who were trolling and trying to increase the drama.

[sarahtasher]

Remembers folks : ''ethics in gaming journalism'' meant for the usual suspects that it was verboten to mock ''games'' like DOAX3 (masterpieces that sold worldwide around 100 000 copies) . It hurt the feelings of Tecmo, so it was a crime against mankind.

However, the said usual suspects had absolutely nothing against the fact that, for instance, every single AAA game essentially bought it's review by plastering gaming sites with adds.

[Ryme]

I look at it as the single most misrepresented online phenomenon in history and wish we could all just pretend it never happened since at this point there's nothing with even a shred of a chance of being salvageable - the trolls and the media went into a shouting war and we all lost out.

It would be nice to say we learned something from it, but it really set the tone for the next few years of media, didn't it?