It seems to me that the games press is pretty fucked up atm.
Careful mate, somebody gonna rain down hot fury upon you if you post such things xD
However, I do feel there are issues that need to at least be addressed by means of ethics policy updates and public statements. (Following the escapists example)
@eSculpt I know but I really don't give a shit. This is one of the few forums that we can discuss this. I can understand that game devs are afraid to say anything pro gamergate. I am also afraid to be in "support" of gamergate because it seems that it can ruin your game dev career.
I do not support the misogyny and harassment. I am supporting the idea that this needs to be talked about out it the public by everyone involved, because this has a direct influence on my ability to make games. This also means that all of the people who are attacking the game devs and journalists should stop.
I am not sure if ethics policy updates will do anything. If the allegations are true it would seem to me that this web is too large to bring down. Apart from joining them, I don't see that there is anything we can do as game devs to rectify this. That idea makes me sad.
@eSculpt I know but I really don't give a shit. This is one of the few forums that we can discuss this. I can understand that game devs are afraid to say anything pro gamergate. I am also afraid to be in "support" of gamergate because it seems that it can ruin your game dev career.
I do not support the misogyny and harassment. I am supporting the idea that this needs to be talked about out it the public by everyone involved, because this has a direct influence on my ability to make games. This also means that all of the people who are attacking the game devs and journalists should stop.
I am not sure if ethics policy updates will do anything. If the allegations are true it would seem to me that this web is too large to bring down. Apart from joining them, I don't see that there is anything we can do as game devs to rectify this. That idea makes me sad.
Huzzah!
Although I do disagree about the ethics policies. People were bleak about the escapist's behaviour in some ways as well at the start, and now they love them for having updated their policies, and given people a reasonable venue to discuss the issues.
Gama probably wouldn't get by if Leigh sticks around, since she's angered the mob on too many occasions, and keeps prodding at them, but I think everyone involved could rectify the situation if only they just addressed the angry people appropriately rather than condemning them at every turn. :)
What an obnoxious video. That guy is again repeating the same misinformed bollocks that we keep hearing. That JF post in the Guardian was an op-ed. Op-eds are opinion pieces, which by definition are not supposed to be unbiased. The only way that would be questionable, is if the "opinion" was bought, which it was not. JF is an essayist/creative writer, and usually doesn't do "journalism" and as such falls way outside the realm of "corrupt journalism".
But yeah, they drove her out. They also circulated a rumour that the Guardian fired her. (it's a freelancer) So the Guardian asked her to write some stuff about herself, and she did... whereafter a GGer promptly jumped into the comments to call her a "lying cunt" because she "said she had quit".
Gamergate is about destroying things, not about ethics. There are legitimately things wrong with games reporting, for example, see the recent Shadow of Mordor YouTuber/Twitch thing - but you will not find these things in the general speech of the average GamerGater.
The problem with trying to rescue GamerGate as a "conversation about ethics" is that it's a poisoned well. It's like 2 men wearing white robes and pointed hoods wandering up to an African American and saying "look, I know your people have been harassed by folks operating under this banner, but why won't you stop and have a reasonable chat with us about issues of civic responsibility?"
Yeah, sorry, doesn't work that way. You can't redeem the brand.
The GamerGate people as a whole also continue to operate quite dishonestly, undermining their own claims that it's about ethics.
Here's a popular image meme that circulated a while ago, that tries to explain how GamerGate isn't really about Zoe Quinn, it's about ethics.
Now here's how much of that image is devoted to discussing Zoe Quinn.
Most of it. With the second largest chunk devoted to discussing feminism. The truth is right there, once you scratch the surface.
This is the pattern :
"It's not about Zoe Quinn! It's about unethical behavior!" "What unethical behavior?" "The way journalists gave Zoe Quinn positive reviews in exchange for sex!"
"It's not about Zoe Quinn! It's about unethical behavior!" "What unethical behavior?" "The way SJW's like Quinn and Sarkeesian are pushing social justice into games journalism!"
"It's not about Zoe Quinn! It's about unethical behavior!" "What unthical behavior?" "Like an academic think tank (Digra) secretly using SJW agents like Zoe Quinn and Leigh Alexander to corrupt gaming with social justice issues!!"
You see, they claim it's not about these women, that it's about some vague notion of "ethics" but when pushed for specifics on the kind of unethical behavior they're talking about, it almost always dials back to all the accusations leveled at Zoe Quinn and Sarkeesian etc. The rest of us aren't fooled by the attempted smokescreen.
Gamers are not genuinely up in arms because review sites are reviewing games from publishers that pay them ad revenue, and have been since the beginning of gaming, the most blatant conflict of interest.
They're up in arms because they think the feminists are controlling their media. Every time a GG manifesto is written, at least half of it is devoted to "we want social justice discussions kept out of games". What does that have to do with journalistic ethics? If GG *is* about ethics, why does that keep coming up?
So long as media sites stick to rating hyped AAA games between 7/10 and 10/10 and parroting press releases, they don't really care. They just don't like being very occasionally told that many of the games they like have some cringeworthy social elements in them, and they're lashing out like spoiled children.
And yeah, the Escapist posted that interview with women in game dev. Go and look at it again. Notice that most of the women reacted negatively to GG, one or two were pro, and the comments were filled with men mansplaining how the female devs "just didn't understand what GG is really about".
But the most important part, as pointed out by Zen of Design, and this is critical, is how many of these women would only speak on condition of anonymity. Like they need the fucking witness protection program from the howling mob. That's where we are now. That's what GamerGate has achieved. It's made a lot of women afraid to speak in public about issues and trends that concern them.
You want to talk about ethics? The overwhelming majority of gaming sites did the ethical thing when it came to the Zoe Quinn story, and refused to spread slander based on hearsay. And the GamerGate mob howled and kicked their feet and added them to the conspiracy chart memes. For being ethical.
Every journalist who stood up and defended against the witch hunt was added to the list. To be considered "the enemy" and boycotted.
John Walker (Nathan Greyson's boss) points out that the article Greyson supposedly wrote on RPS in return for sex from Quinn doesn't actually exist? Added to the list the next very day, simply for trying to fight viral lies. I watched it happen in real time.
Jim Sterling, who made it very clear he didn't want to take a side, but found the harassment disgusting? Added to the list.
It's all a very bad joke. The brand can not be redeemed. The ground has been salted.
@dislekcia: "A broken clock is right twice a day" - that is an absolutely perfect way of framing this. That's exactly what it is, they present their key concern as journalistic integrity, but thus far have only made a scene about the issues that are related to outspoken women in games. Weirdly enough, some have tried to make the argument that GG is the side in favour of diversity in gaming, which is an argument that falls somewhere between hilarious and terrifying.
Bigotry as a linguistic phenomenon is really complex and tied to so many other systems. I'm glad we see eye to eye on this, because we could really spend forever agreeing on the overall principle but arguing about the minutiae. :P
Benefit of the doubt is the best way to go, I think. Thankfully I haven't encountered anyone who's entirely unwilling to argue in good faith, but that's probably because I haven't had all that many arguments about GG. This is the lengthiest discussion I've had, and I feel like it's been fairly productive.
@Kobusvdwalt9: There's a lot going on in that video. I'd like to talk about the entire thing, but I do have a masters dissertation to write. If you don't mind, do you think you could outline what you'd consider the key talking points, or the things that concern you the most. Again, I'd really like to have a lengthy discussion about this, but that isn't the most valuable way to use my time today. :)
Regarding some of the other stuff you said: "I do not support misogyny and harassment." Rad. Then don't support Gamergate. I don't think it's a movement genuinely interested in having conversations about ethics, unless those conversations will lead to a specific subset of people (women and other minorities, specifically those that disagree with their politics and ideologies) being removed from gaming spaces. Unfortunately, given that Gamergate is still happening, I'm not sure if "right now" is a good time for everyone involved to have a public discussion about the issues. However, I think this board can facilitate that discussion on a small scale. Of course that comes with the implication that it can't be spoken about under the banner of Gamergate, because that's just too toxic. I don't think ignoring wider societal contexts is a good thing to do, but if it stimulates an environment where we can have a god damned dialogue about journalistic ethics and not a shouting match over whether or not an indie dev is allowed to have a sex life, then it might be worth considering.
I think the question of "is supporting GG going to hurt my career?" is one worth talking about. Daniel Vavra, the head of Warhorse Studios is vocally supportive of GG, and given his conduct throughout this, I wouldn't be comfortable with calling him anything less than "kinda racist." That said, his game, Kingdom Come: Deliverance looks dope as all hell, and I don't actually approve of the idea of it not being covered once it's out because of his support of GG. That said, I do think it feeds into a broader question of whether or not the politics of a creator should matter in our evaluation of their work, either as commercial products or as cultural artefacts. Of course, Vavra's position as the head of a large-ish studio puts him in a significantly more stable environment from which to make his claims. Things could well be different for lower-ranking employees or much smaller indie devs.
@rustybroomhandle: The Guardian's legal department evidently told her the disclosure was unnecessary. Say what you will about Polygon and Kotaku, but The Guardian is not a bush league organisation. They know whether or not that sort of disclosure is required.
Fuck the brand, who gives a fuck about the name you call it? Talk about the issues. JUST THE ISSUES. All I hear from all sides now is how shit the brand is (and it is) and not talking about issues.
"You have an issue? Well let's talk about how shit your name is."
Fuck #gamergate. Forget about it. Talk about issues.
Furthermore: Take heed sinners! For Milo Yiannopoulos, Gamergate's Sex Worker Hating, Misogynistic, Transphobic, Celestial Emperor of Journalism is on the case!
Fuck the brand, who gives a fuck about the name you call it? Talk about the issues. JUST THE ISSUES. All I hear from all sides now is how shit the brand is (and it is) and not talking about issues.
"You have an issue? Well let's talk about how shit your name is."
Fuck #gamergate. Forget about it. Talk about issues.
Furthermore: Take heed sinners! For Milo Yiannopoulos, Gamergate's Sex Worker Hating, Misogynistic, Transphobic, Celestial Emperor of Journalism is on the case!
@Tuism: People have been talking about the things that have been raised as issues. Each time the issue has either been dismissed because it's not relevant to anything (Zoe Quinn's sex life), completely misrepresented (journalists supporting indie patreons/knowing indie developers) and blatantly sexist/exclusionary (calling anyone an SJW and pushing for less inclusive writing about games); or the issue has been quickly and rationally dealt with, like some sites updating their disclosure policies or journalists taking the initiative to check with legal experts about their disclosure responsibilities. Sometimes people have even been too quick to act and have made bad calls, like Kotaku's stance against allowing writers to support Patreons (does this cover Kickstarters too? Why can't someone who likes games back something that they like, personally?)...
So the points have already all been dealt with. Either through addressing them or explaining why they're poor arguments (or, y'know, like hateful and shit). Why do they keep coming up over and over again? Why do people like you think that they haven't been dealt with satisfactorily?
Because they keep being repeated as part of "What GamerGate is about". Repeating them is all people want. They just need to keep the noise up, keep these things being said so that people who don't have time to research or aren't lucky enough to see the 1-in-1000 post that actually addresses these issues end up thinking they're still valid concerns - why else would people keep talking about them?
Look at this very thread: If you go back to the start of it, every single GamerGate concern has been addressed already. Yet those same things keep being brought up as "what GG is really about". When people have tried to ask how those things are still considered un-addressed, the people bringing them up deflect, say they're under attack or simply ignore the questions. This is the pattern here... In order to keep talking about topics that have been addressed and keep them in people's minds, they get brought up as a response to GG being a horrible movement. In order for this to continue happening, GG has to remain a horrible movement so that people can decry it, then become the fodder for more repetition of already-handled arguments.
It's even self-sustaining: The more people who don't know how to engage with these points see these points repeated, the more likely they are to bring up those same points the next time they see GG being "attacked" or labeled as a damaging movement.
It's also self-protecting: Because "SJW" writing is raised as hateful to gamers so often by GG (incorrectly), anything that resembles that sort of writing in a reply is immediately already coloured as biased and thus ignorant gamers are more likely to fight against it.
So yeah, I agree: Fuck GamerGate. But that's why people keep bringing it up: It's the only way to keep talking about really horrible topics. And how shit the name is really is the only argument people have left - once people are convinced that the movement doesn't need defending, the handled concerns are allowed to be handled.
I'm still mentally processing the points that have been dismissed for legitimate reasons. To me none of it is perfectly ok, but I haven't absolutely made up my mind absolutely about it yet. It's certainly not death-threat bad, but it's not just nothing either.
Is anyone dismissing : 1. The accusations about Quin and her sex life ? 2. The apparent fact that there is a games journalist clique ? I mean the coordinated articles and mailing lists are pretty damning evidence. 3. Peoples comments being deleted all across the internet and all the deflection from the press?
I agree with @Tuism in that we should discuss the issues that gamergate has highlighted. Not gamergate it self. So I would compare it to a runaway fire where everybody is talking about the fire but no one is talking about the mass grave that the fire has brought to light.
I would like it if we could talk firstly about if these claims of journalists being corrupt are true and then secondly about what we can do if thats the case. I do not want to talk about the damage gamergate has done or the death threats or that bullshit cause in every group of people there are going to be some asshole who is misbehaving..
Also @dislekcia I dont know if the games press group has been dealt with sufficiently. If they are communicating with each other on what they should cover and who they should help and the only thing that happens is the websites updates some policy' what is stopping that from happening again or continuing to happen?
Is anyone dismissing : 1. The accusations about Quin and her sex life ? 2. The apparent fact that there is a games journalist clique ? I mean the coordinated articles and mailing lists are pretty damning evidence. 3. Peoples comments being deleted all across the internet and all the deflection from the press?
I agree with @Tuism in that we should discuss the issues that gamergate has highlighted. Not gamergate it self. So I would compare it to a runaway fire where everybody is talking about the fire but no one is talking about the mass grave that the fire has brought to light.
I would like it if we could talk firstly about if these claims of journalists being corrupt are true and then secondly about what we can do if thats the case. I do not want to talk about the damage gamergate has done or the death threats or that bullshit cause in every group of people there are going to be some asshole who is misbehaving..
1. Zoe Quinn has a sex life. This is none of our business. The accusations claim she had sex for favourable reviews of her game. The only journalist she allegedly had sex with in their list of "five guys, burgers and fries" is Nathan Grayson. He never wrote any reviews of her game. The only time he wrote about it was in an article where it was mentioned along with other titles that got Greenlit in a batch.
2. Journalists have mailing lists. It's no secret, and I don't understand how any of it constitutes corruption. It's just a useful tool for them to stay on top of what's happening within their industry.
3. Comments are being deleted. Even 4chan has started deleting some of this rot. Looking at the types of comments that are posted on some sites, I'm actually amazed at how tolerant they are. I'm all for it. It's not "censorship", it's housekeeping - "behave in my house, or get out".
1. He used her game in the image of the article and gave it more prominence. But ok I see your point. 2. There is screen caps of them talking about how they were going to help Zoe and "handle" this thing. 3. I agree with that. I am unsure but did they have a clause in the usage policy that said no discussion on gamergate will be tolerated before hand ?
Fuck #gamergate. Forget about it. Talk about issues.
So talk about them.
Is anyone dismissing : 1. The accusations about Quin and her sex life ? 2. The apparent fact that there is a games journalist clique ? I mean the coordinated articles and mailing lists are pretty damning evidence. 3. Peoples comments being deleted all across the internet and all the deflection from the press?
I am.
Claim 1
A. Those claims haven't been proven. What has been proven is that at least one is an outright lie (Nathan Greyson never wrote a positive review of Depression Quest for RPS, making the claim that he did so for sex an outright lie). Also, Kyle Pulver claims to have no idea how he got on that list, he met Zoe once. So we have one dude who was caught lying vs the words of people whose integrity we have no good reason to doubt, saying these things didn't happen.
B. The same ex-boyfriend who posted the accusations posted naked pics of Zoe all over 4Chan. An act known as revenge porn, it's a despicable act without integrity. 4Chan took those images and scripted bots to spam the images to every thread in reddit, as well as mailing them to her friends, family, employers etc. The ex must have predicted that they would behave shittily with the material he was providing, it's 4Chan. He did it with malevolent purpose.
C. There are 4Chan chat logs showing the ex-boyfriend plotted at how to get at Zoe for weeks before the initial blog post.
Add those together. He was caught in an outright deception, he was willing to stoop to a despicable act for revenge, he preplanned his campaign of revenge, and there isn't any evidence to back up his other claims other than "Zoe talked to some of those guys at trade shows" and what you have isn't "evidence", you have slander based on hearsay and a campaign of harassment by a jilted ex-boyfriend.
Claim 2
Professionals who work in the same industry become friends. This is not sign of a conspiracy. I'm friends with Luke, Matt, Gazz, the Richert brothers and others from this forum, I've had drinks with them, worked with them etc. Does that make us a clique? I suppose, in the sense of clique=friends.
Industry professional mailing lists are completely normal. They're essentially just forums-by-email. Does it freak you out that journalists discuss issues of ethics about potential stories in forums, or even suggest courses of action to each other? It really shouldn't.
If you look through the mailing list, it's a bunch of journalists discussing the ethics and potential harm of reporting internet slander, and urging each other not to spread stories that may ruin dev careers without real evidence. That's ethical behavior.
Saying the articles were "co-ordinated" is also a stretch. Leigh Alexander wrote a piece with a provocative title, a handful of other writers (I think there were about 6 pieces) picked up the thread and wrote on the same topic, from the same angle. That happens all the time with opinion pieces and suchlike. Especially when the topic is, well, topical. Journalists often post pieces not just on topics, but on other pieces written about topics.
There is, at this point, no strong evidence of any of that being journalistic corruption. Journalists discussing the ethics of a story with each other by mail isn't corruption. Encouraging each other to not spread slanderous claims without first getting real evidence of the claims (since those claims can destroy dev careers) isn't corruption. And patreon accounts are also not evidence of corruption. We can discuss the ethics of Patreon, it's new territory where the journalists themselves are uncertain of the ethics, but it's not evidence that journalists are being "bought off".
The claims about DiGRA etc are also just laughable.
Claim 3
The GG threads repeatedly got abusive, or people continuously dogpiled in to repeat the same slander even when the point had been addressed 100 times, and eventually the threads got locked by moderators to cleanup the bile, and new threads auto-locked. That is not censorship or deflection.
On this forum, Makegames, threads that get too bogged down in bile have been locked. Do you believe that was censorship? It isn't.
There was a few weeks there, where I couldn't tweet the word "gamergate" (without the hashtag) on twitter without randos with anime or egg avatars pitching up in my mentions to hurl abuse. The threads were closed because they were toxic and abusive.
@eSculpt: I was pretty sure you wouldn't agree with Nero, and glad that I was proven right there :) Still, a lot of GG supporters have adopted him as their champion. I've seen a ton of comments along the lines of "I consider myself pretty left-leaning, but I support Milo and Breitbart because they agree with my views on Gamergate." I don't think we can just dismiss him as a vocal asshat who nobody agrees with. Plenty of people agree with him, unfortunately. :(
@Kobusvdwalt9: Regarding point 2 - if I recall, that discussion revolved around potentially getting her a gift, like they did for Patrick Klepek when he broke his collarbone. Everyone quickly shot the idea down because they agreed it would be overstepping their boundaries.
In terms of "handling this thing," that's how the media works. They decide what's worth covering and how they want to cover it. It's the reason why Rock Paper Shotgun never runs articles on presidential elections. They decided to cover video games, and to cover video games in a specific way.
What still confuses me is that Gamergate is outraged by journalists deciding not to cover the Zoe Quinn sex scandal, but all of their manifestos ask that news outlets only cover very specifically game-related issues. It's funny how they only want tunnel-vision style copy-pasted press release info about game mechanics and a 10/10 score slapped on the end of an article unless it interferes with the media shaming a woman for having a sex life.
I honestly fucking despair for the state of logic sometimes...
@Kobusvdwalt9: Yes. All of these things have been dealt with. Not only by @rustybroomhandle above (-edit- Ninja'd by like a million smart replies too :)), but at great length in many articles that have been linked here in this very thread, as well as earlier in the thread as well, multiple times. The fact that you're ignoring that points out just how effective continuously re-stating the same, flawed, statements as though they were facts actually is at shutting down reason. Because a thing has been repeated, does not mean that it is valid.
The biggest issue here is and remains willful misrepresentation, GamerGate has no actual concept of evidence. This is why it can often feel (to people who have been hearing the trumped up GG accusations constantly) like refutations of those statements isn't satisfying.
Take the "journalists colluding via secret lists" bullshit claim. This claim is centered on the idea that a membership-only communication mechanism means collusion and manipulation is happening, that's it. The chain of reasoning here is flawed in several ways:
1. People who work in the same field are going to get to know each other. Do you know the people you work with? Are you colluding to manipulate the entire industry you're part of, or are you just doing your job and talking to people who understand that? People who go to the same events are going to get to know each other, that does not mean that they are a clique... Although specific groups of people might form a clique, that also doesn't imply that a clique is necessarily evil. That assumption shows a lot more about the kind of social anxiety underlying it than it does about the real world.
2. Manipulation implies control. Are freelance game writers really in control of the games industry? Do they set policies or control spending in any way? How, exactly, do game writers choose which games will do well and which wont? Yes, getting a game covered is important to specific sales of games with no marketing budgets, but please point out how game reviews actually predict the market in any substantial way. Games writers are inundated with games, the act of choosing which things to cover is not corruption when it's simply a selection issue.
3. Secrecy does not imply evil intent. There are many valid reasons for a list to not be publicly visible: Starting with the content of a list devoted to the discussions that game journalists have is probably not interesting to everyone and ending with game journalists needing to be able to discuss issues with embargo dates, potentially dodgy offers and other concerns they might have outside of the view of the companies with money whose advertising and PR content pipes they rely on. Limited circulation communication like that is actually how corruption and collusion are exposed by providing whistleblowers safe places to share information with each other and to construct coherent cases. There are also going to be multiple groups of interest like this, all over the place, none of them will ever encompass the entire game journalist sphere... By the logic of GG, us talking on this forum is tantamount to collusion to manipulate SOMETHING (I'm actually not sure what that might be, but we're talking amongst ourselves and they're not invited, so it has to be evil) and we should be weighed against a duck post-haste.
I honestly could go on. If you just repeat a phrase and take it as writ that it must be a valid accusation because so many other people have said it, then it feels right. If you actually investigate it at all and it falls apart, why the hell are you boosting that signal?
Even more interesting is that if you keep going with this stuff, all sorts of other logical inconsistencies spring up that (unsurprisingly) have been asked elsewhere of this movement before: Why these particular journalists? Aren't there other journalistic practices that might be more worrying than people communicating with each other in private? How, exactly, is it okay to assume that sex is a bargaining tool and truly the only reason someone might write about a thing? (That last one sheds a LOT of light on why it's really easy to call GG misogynist, that's a classic sexist argument hiding in concern for propriety).
GG is not LOGICAL. It is the responsibility of the people presenting claims to provide evidence for those claims. If that evidence does not hold up, the claims cannot be upheld. What counts for evidence in GG is simply nothing of the sort, but because people don't understand that, they keep right on making claims.
It's a legitimate issue, and happens all the time. Bigger sites are often guilty of this sort of thing where they work alongside the PR department of a games company to make sure the game is reported on just right. You might remember a few years ago how Jeff Gertsmann got fired from Gamespot for giving Kane & Lynch a negative review. Score was 6, as I recall. Now publishers are wooing YouTubers, which are actually a much easier target for them.
I repeat, it's a legitimate issue of dodgy dealings in enthusiast press.
Now, go onto Twitter, 4chan , comment sections of sites that posted about the Mordor thing etc., and see for yourselves what GamerGate people are saying about it. Look at the types of comments, and the amount of discussion about it. Then compare this to the stuff they have been flagging as ethical concerns up to this point.
We find ourselves in a situation where a ton of comsumers are pissed, and taking on consumer activism.
They take it to people, who say "nah, that's wrong" and they keep moving, because they want to find the root of the problem.
That's why they keep rolling over irrelevant crap. It's unfortunate, but in my opinion, if alot of the publications acted appropriately to calm the situation down rather than calling them all sexists or whatever applicable insult they've been waiving, the whole thing could've been avoided. Or at least it wouldn't have gained any steam in the world. The censorship also didn't help the tinfoil hat situation out there.
('s fine if you don't think it's censorship. You're entitled to that. Problem is that they think it is, and so they rampage forth)
Regardless of evidence, or lack thereof, there were some enormous mistakes made in this, and as a consequence anyone who has done anything wrong is being looked at under a microscope by a lot of people.
And I still hold to the opinion, that this can still be fixed. It would take alot of humility from the side of the journalists though.
So easily dismissed. Yeah, despite that evidence, people are still using untrue accusations to justify their actions. But if we just ignore that evidence, then their actions aren't misguided. If we just ignore the evidence that both illuminates their misconceptions AND points out better ways to address the problems they say they're concerned about, if we just ignore that, they can keep on acting the way they are.
Nobody gets to say "Despite the evidence". You can talk about actual consequences of actions, sure. But that, unfortunately, requires consulting evidence.
And I still hold to the opinion, that this can still be fixed. It would take alot of humility from the side of the journalists though.
So it probably won't happen.
Because those journalists are evil, right? They're all egotistical assholes that did this whole thing on purpose, right? Them and their evidence... Who do they think they are?
So easily dismissed. Yeah, despite that evidence, people are still using untrue accusations to justify their actions. But if we just ignore that evidence, then their actions aren't misguided. If we just ignore the evidence that both illuminates their misconceptions AND points out better ways to address the problems they say they're concerned about, if we just ignore that, they can keep on acting the way they are.
Nobody gets to say "Despite the evidence". You can talk about actual consequences of actions, sure. But that, unfortunately, requires consulting evidence.
And I still hold to the opinion, that this can still be fixed. It would take alot of humility from the side of the journalists though.
So it probably won't happen.
Because those journalists are evil, right? They're all egotistical assholes that did this whole thing on purpose, right? Them and their evidence... Who do they think they are?
Calm your crazy down bro.
I just meant that the journalists are sticking to their guns on this rather than being tactful. In Leigh's case, I've seen this happening over and over and over again.
And I get to say despite the evidence. You mad? (I am just trolling you, because of your infinite hostility, honestly I think MGSA needs to find a mod that can be less harmful towards discussion)
Not that evidence isn't endlessly important in this issue, but only in summarising the issues that I perceive at hand.
So, not bearing evidence or lack thereof in mind, and looking at the present issue of the mob being at the gates, THERE ARE SOLUTIONS.
But it's been 6 weeks. Nobody is trying to solve it really. They're just calling them sexists and making it worse.
So if we ignore the lack of evidence...this is about tact? That's your argument? Weeks of harassment and rage are about tact?
Goodness me.
Leigh is one of the best journalists out there, btw. Her comments online have mostly been tongue-in-cheek mockery of the weeks of harassment her and people she knows have been receiving. I don't require her to be polite to people who send her death and rape threats on her own twitter feed.
It would take alot of humility from the side of the journalists though.
Agreed. I can't imagine why the journalists are being super stubborn about this. It's not like the movement they're dismissing has origins in a campaign to harass a woman out of video games. Or that said campaign didn't result in women actually leaving the industry, and two being harassed out of their homes. It's not like GG went and accused the latter two of lying about their harassment and fabricating all the rape and death threats sent to them. GG also never accused gaming journalists of irredeemable corruption, and if they were proven wrong on such accounts, I'm fairly certain GG would apologise profusely and stop throwing those accusations around. Gamergate didn't willfully misinterpret an article written by a feminist in order to justify another campaign to convince companies to pull ad support from the site that ran the article. It's not like their behaviour throughout all of this has justified the accusations of sexism.
These journalists are so silly. All the have to do is swallow their pride and admit that a movement that is now backed by fundamentally awful right wing cretins was correct all along, and that they were entirely wrong in their assessment of them as hateful and misogynistic.
It would take alot of humility from the side of the journalists though.
Agreed. I can't imagine why the journalists are being super stubborn about this. It's not like the movement they're dismissing has origins in a campaign to harass a woman out of video games. Or that said campaign didn't result in women actually leaving the industry, and two being harassed out of their homes. It's not like GG went and accused the latter two of lying about their harassment and fabricating all the rape and death threats sent to them. GG also never accused gaming journalists of irredeemable corruption, and if they were proven wrong on such accounts, I'm fairly certain GG would apologise profusely and stop throwing those accusations around. Gamergate didn't willfully misinterpret an article written by a feminist in order to justify another campaign to convince companies to pull ad support from the site that ran the article. It's not like their behaviour throughout all of this has justified the accusations of sexism.
These journalists are so silly. All the have to do is swallow their pride and admit that a movement that is now backed by fundamentally awful right wing cretins was correct all along, and that they were entirely wrong in their assessment of them as hateful and misogynistic.
Nice facetiousness. Point taken.
The thing is, they don't have to admit to being wrong about anything that they weren't.
But they could've reacted more respectfully towards alot of people, when to a large degree, the consumers weren't involved in that horrific display.
Assholes be assholes though, and despite hating them for that, press could've handled the PR better.
That and somebody did a test on GG people and found they're mostly Left wing libertarians. Calling them right wing anything is dead.
If I were one of the journalists in the situation, I think I would've handled things differently. But that's based on how I try to approach these things. I don't believe anyone is obliged to entertain toxic behaviour. If they want to straight up dismiss it, that's fine.
Can't find the link now. But there's something super wonky about that test. In any case, I was talking about Baldwin, Sommers, and Yiannopoulos, they're the fundamentally awful right wing cretins.
Regarding the consumer activist slant. David Hill (tabletop RPG designer) has said a lot of fascinating things about GG on his Google+ account (evidently tabletop RPG designers are the only people who use that social network :P ). I don't know enough to be sure if it's totally accurate, but I think it certainly encapsulates something of the absurdity of contemporary neo-liberal capitalism: "Boycotting a free website because "you're the customer"? You're wrong. Advertisers are the customers. You're the product they're buying."
If I were one of the journalists in the situation, I think I would've handled things differently. But that's based on how I try to approach these things. I don't believe anyone is obliged to entertain toxic behaviour. If they want to straight up dismiss it, that's fine.
Can't find the link now. But there's something super wonky about that test. In any case. I was talking about Baldwin, Sommers, and Yiannopoulos, they're the fundamentally awful right wing cretins.
Regarding the consumer activist slant. David Hill (tabletop RPG designer) has said a lot of fascinating things about GG on his Google+ account (evidently tabletop RPG designers are the only people who use that social network :P ). I don't know enough to be sure if it's totally accurate, but I think it certainly encapsulates something of the absurdity of contemporary neo-liberal capitalism: "Boycotting a free website because "you're the customer"? You're wrong. Advertisers are the customers. You're the product they're buying."
I guess in a way the people are the product being sold to advertisers in a manner of thinking.
Yeah Baldwin's a nut, Sommers, and def Milo (fuck him), but they're 3 loud people.
And yeah I agree, there's no obligation to entertain toxic behaviour. But if I pissed off so many people online, I would go hide in a bunker for a few months. I certainly wouldn't keep calling them names on the hashtag (which at the moment is a huge stage for controversy) after the fact.
Which is where I perceive poor handling of the situation.
I just don't think it would be as bad as it is, if some things were handled better. And then maybe Gama wouldn't be losing sponsors etc?
And then maybe Gama wouldn't be losing sponsors etc?
They lost one sponsor. I doubt they'll lose more because it's apparent that Intel has come off looking pretty bad after pulling out. They can't go back either because then they'll just look fickle.
And then maybe Gama wouldn't be losing sponsors etc?
They lost one sponsor. I doubt they'll lose more because it's apparent that Intel has come off looking pretty bad after pulling out. They can't go back either because then they'll just look fickle.
I guess it's just that they're standing their ground? I think the socially progressive voices in games have had enough of the entitlement, hostility, and resistance to diversity that we've seen, not just from Gamergate, but from the gaming community in general for a long time (let's not get into a debate about how many people might constitute that sect, their collective voice is loud enough to be worried about).
If the journalists give in even a little bit, that implies that GG was in some sense correct, or justified. By continuing to be aggressively opposed to it, they're saying "we're not standing for this anymore. Your views are shitty, and they're holding this entire industry back from progressing artistically and commercially. You can't keep insisting that no girls are allowed in your treehouse, and you can't keep acting in a way that keeps minorities out of the industry, or chases the few that do break through the glass ceiling right back out."
Hmm, now that I've written it out like that, I'm actually a lot more supportive of the course of action the anti-GG side has taken.
I guess it's just that they're standing their ground? I think the socially progressive voices in games have had enough of the entitlement, hostility, and resistance to diversity that we've seen, not just from Gamergate, but from the gaming community in general for a long time (let's not get into a debate about how many people might constitute that sect, their collective voice is loud enough to be worried about).
If the journalists give in even a little bit, that implies that GG was in some sense correct, or justified. By continuing to be aggressively opposed to it, they're saying "we're not standing for this anymore. Your views are shitty, and they're holding this entire industry back from progressing artistically and commercially. You can't keep insisting that no girls are allowed in your treehouse, and you can't keep acting in a way that keeps minorities out of the industry, or chases the few that do break through the glass ceiling right back out."
Hmm, now that I've written it out like that, I'm actually a lot more supportive of the course of action the anti-GG side has taken.
An artist I know and respect mentioned the other day, that they see 1/30 applicants that are female.
If that's universal, it makes it hard to say who's to blame for the lack of women in the industry.
I haven't seen anyone say that they want women or minorities out though, so I'm not sure I totally follow.
Sure, perhaps nobody in Gamergate hasn't explicitly stated it (though I doubt that), but the implication is there. We've been outlining how the entire movement is implicitly hostile towards women and minorities for a few days now.
Who's to blame for lack of women in the industry? Patriarchal power structures and oppressive gender norms enforced on every single human being from the day they're born.
And then maybe Gama wouldn't be losing sponsors etc?
They lost one sponsor. I doubt they'll lose more because it's apparent that Intel has come off looking pretty bad after pulling out. They can't go back either because then they'll just look fickle.
They've lost UAT and INTEL.
That's 2 out of 3.
Ah, just saw about the UAT thing. Their loss, I guess.
Sure, perhaps nobody in Gamergate hasn't explicitly stated it (though I doubt that), but the implication is there. We've been outlining how the entire movement is implicitly hostile towards women and minorities for a few days now.
But there are enough people that disagree about that for there to be an issue.
Who's to blame for lack of women in the industry? Patriarchal power structures and oppressive gender norms enforced on every single human being from the day they're born.
Ok guys, thanks. I didn't know it was like that at all. I think @rustybroomhandle's *edit* I fucking meant @garethf *edit* post was a stellar post.
It seems that some of the people distributing the information are twisting it in insane ways. I am assuming that everything you said is correct cause you have nothing to gain from making this up.
So then it seems I was misinformed about the press clique and I apologize for any inconvenience. That was my biggest concern.
Probably pointless self explanation follows >>> I didn't follow this thread that closely because I thought It didn't effect me. But when I heard some chatter over journalists being unethical, I jumped in. The fastest way for me to gather info on what actually was going on was a video. I checked out that video and it seemed like there were enough proof for it to be legitimate but it turns out its biased. But you are right I should have educated myself from more sources and dug a little deeper into this before throwing my opinions at this.
I have no problem with people locking threads in order to stop the hate. What I do have a problem with is comments being removed. I want to know whatever was said in those comments. More than that, I think that the person who wrote those things has a right to have his voice heard if he is not in violation of a well writin clearly accessible usage policy.
But there are enough people that disagree about that for there to be an issue.
Plenty of people disagree with concepts like evolution and climate change. It doesn't mean we need to reassess those theories. Their opponents are just plain wrong. I'm not saying what I've said is as irrefutable as something like evolution, it's the sort of textual analysis where something can very well go wrong, but I'm pretty confident that I'm correct. Okay, that sounds way more snarky and pompous than I want it to, but I'm happy to keep discussing the issue if you're not convinced. :)
Also from David Hill (kinda shitty, but I chuckled): "Unilever pulls ad support from Polygon. Boycott said to Unilever that it's no longer profitable to advertise Axe Body Spray to gamers. WIN."
But there are enough people that disagree about that for there to be an issue.
Plenty of people disagree with concepts like evolution and climate change. It doesn't mean we need to reassess those theories. Their opponents are just plain wrong. I'm not saying what I've said is as irrefutable as something like evolution, it's the sort of textual analysis where something can very well go wrong, but I'm pretty confident that I'm correct. Okay, that sounds way more snarky and pompous than I want it to, but I'm happy to keep discussing the issue if you're not convinced. :)
Also from David Hill (kinda shitty, but I chuckled): "Unilever pulls ad support from Polygon. Boycott said to Unilever that it's no longer profitable to advertise Axe Body Spray to gamers. WIN."
I'd happily discuss that issue with you in a private forum. If we speak about it here, I imagine there will be some good ol' dogpilin' going down, and I'm not keen. (maybe I'm just being paro, but it's happened so often on the interwebs, that I've at least learnt not to discuss ideologies like that publicly)
I think that joke went right over my head. But perhaps just because I'm so against stereotyping gamers at the moment, the cognitive dissonance is interfering with my funny receptors. xD
I'd happily discuss that issue with you in a private forum.
Sure. I'd rather have the discussion be public so that others might learn from it, but I also understand your misgivings about that. Feel free to message me if you'd like to talk about this stuff. :)
I'd happily discuss that issue with you in a private forum.
Sure. I'd rather have the discussion be public so that others might learn from it, but I also understand your misgivings about that. Feel free to message me if you'd like to talk about this stuff. :)
Sure ok. Well let's give it a try. As soon as it gets ridiculous I'm out though.
Since you are well educated on these matters (I get the impression of this) maybe I could even relay some common arguments about some things and we can talk about the differing viewpoints.
But please, let's keep it civil. :) And maybe good to start from scratch for the sake of making sense to people who don't want to filter through the fury.
With this, I think we have to bear in mind the #notyourshield hashtag that came into being because of people claiming all the gaters are white males, and the women and minorities made a statement that they would not be the shield (or deflection) in this discussion, and to show their support for the cause.
Also, can we pretend, just for the sake of empathy, that we all believe that the harassment and threats were enacted by a tiny minority of gaters, and that GG is actually quite oppositional to that behaviour, and provide an alternative answer? (I think this would be interesting perhaps)
Sure ok. Well let's give it a try. As soon as it gets ridiculous I'm out though.
I strongly suggest that you check with people when you feel attacked (because I presume you will, given your previous reactions in this thread) and make sure that actual attacks are both intended and perceived by others.
Just because you say someone is attacking you, doesn't make it true. No matter how many times that's repeated.
I'll leave other people to respond to the rest of this post, because I'm at risk of actually lashing out at you should I continue right now. All of your questions have already been answered in this thread.
Comments
It seems to me that the games press is pretty fucked up atm.
However, I do feel there are issues that need to at least be addressed by means of ethics policy updates and public statements. (Following the escapists example)
I do not support the misogyny and harassment.
I am supporting the idea that this needs to be talked about out it the public by everyone involved, because this has a direct influence on my ability to make games. This also means that all of the people who are attacking the game devs and journalists should stop.
I am not sure if ethics policy updates will do anything. If the allegations are true it would seem to me that this web is too large to bring down. Apart from joining them, I don't see that there is anything we can do as game devs to rectify this. That idea makes me sad.
Although I do disagree about the ethics policies. People were bleak about the escapist's behaviour in some ways as well at the start, and now they love them for having updated their policies, and given people a reasonable venue to discuss the issues.
Gama probably wouldn't get by if Leigh sticks around, since she's angered the mob on too many occasions, and keeps prodding at them, but I think everyone involved could rectify the situation if only they just addressed the angry people appropriately rather than condemning them at every turn. :)
But that's my opinion I guess
But yeah, they drove her out. They also circulated a rumour that the Guardian fired her. (it's a freelancer) So the Guardian asked her to write some stuff about herself, and she did... whereafter a GGer promptly jumped into the comments to call her a "lying cunt" because she "said she had quit".
Gamergate is about destroying things, not about ethics. There are legitimately things wrong with games reporting, for example, see the recent Shadow of Mordor YouTuber/Twitch thing - but you will not find these things in the general speech of the average GamerGater.
Don't get brainwashed by the bile.
Yeah, sorry, doesn't work that way. You can't redeem the brand.
The GamerGate people as a whole also continue to operate quite dishonestly, undermining their own claims that it's about ethics.
Here's a popular image meme that circulated a while ago, that tries to explain how GamerGate isn't really about Zoe Quinn, it's about ethics.
Now here's how much of that image is devoted to discussing Zoe Quinn.
Most of it. With the second largest chunk devoted to discussing feminism. The truth is right there, once you scratch the surface.
This is the pattern :
"It's not about Zoe Quinn! It's about unethical behavior!"
"What unethical behavior?"
"The way journalists gave Zoe Quinn positive reviews in exchange for sex!"
"It's not about Zoe Quinn! It's about unethical behavior!"
"What unethical behavior?"
"The way SJW's like Quinn and Sarkeesian are pushing social justice into games journalism!"
"It's not about Zoe Quinn! It's about unethical behavior!"
"What unthical behavior?"
"Like an academic think tank (Digra) secretly using SJW agents like Zoe Quinn and Leigh Alexander to corrupt gaming with social justice issues!!"
You see, they claim it's not about these women, that it's about some vague notion of "ethics" but when pushed for specifics on the kind of unethical behavior they're talking about, it almost always dials back to all the accusations leveled at Zoe Quinn and Sarkeesian etc. The rest of us aren't fooled by the attempted smokescreen.
Gamers are not genuinely up in arms because review sites are reviewing games from publishers that pay them ad revenue, and have been since the beginning of gaming, the most blatant conflict of interest.
They're up in arms because they think the feminists are controlling their media. Every time a GG manifesto is written, at least half of it is devoted to "we want social justice discussions kept out of games". What does that have to do with journalistic ethics? If GG *is* about ethics, why does that keep coming up?
So long as media sites stick to rating hyped AAA games between 7/10 and 10/10 and parroting press releases, they don't really care. They just don't like being very occasionally told that many of the games they like have some cringeworthy social elements in them, and they're lashing out like spoiled children.
And yeah, the Escapist posted that interview with women in game dev. Go and look at it again. Notice that most of the women reacted negatively to GG, one or two were pro, and the comments were filled with men mansplaining how the female devs "just didn't understand what GG is really about".
But the most important part, as pointed out by Zen of Design, and this is critical, is how many of these women would only speak on condition of anonymity. Like they need the fucking witness protection program from the howling mob. That's where we are now. That's what GamerGate has achieved. It's made a lot of women afraid to speak in public about issues and trends that concern them.
You want to talk about ethics? The overwhelming majority of gaming sites did the ethical thing when it came to the Zoe Quinn story, and refused to spread slander based on hearsay. And the GamerGate mob howled and kicked their feet and added them to the conspiracy chart memes. For being ethical.
Every journalist who stood up and defended against the witch hunt was added to the list. To be considered "the enemy" and boycotted.
John Walker (Nathan Greyson's boss) points out that the article Greyson supposedly wrote on RPS in return for sex from Quinn doesn't actually exist? Added to the list the next very day, simply for trying to fight viral lies. I watched it happen in real time.
Jim Sterling, who made it very clear he didn't want to take a side, but found the harassment disgusting? Added to the list.
It's all a very bad joke. The brand can not be redeemed. The ground has been salted.
Link.
Bigotry as a linguistic phenomenon is really complex and tied to so many other systems. I'm glad we see eye to eye on this, because we could really spend forever agreeing on the overall principle but arguing about the minutiae. :P
Benefit of the doubt is the best way to go, I think. Thankfully I haven't encountered anyone who's entirely unwilling to argue in good faith, but that's probably because I haven't had all that many arguments about GG. This is the lengthiest discussion I've had, and I feel like it's been fairly productive.
@Kobusvdwalt9: There's a lot going on in that video. I'd like to talk about the entire thing, but I do have a masters dissertation to write. If you don't mind, do you think you could outline what you'd consider the key talking points, or the things that concern you the most. Again, I'd really like to have a lengthy discussion about this, but that isn't the most valuable way to use my time today. :)
Regarding some of the other stuff you said: "I do not support misogyny and harassment." Rad. Then don't support Gamergate. I don't think it's a movement genuinely interested in having conversations about ethics, unless those conversations will lead to a specific subset of people (women and other minorities, specifically those that disagree with their politics and ideologies) being removed from gaming spaces. Unfortunately, given that Gamergate is still happening, I'm not sure if "right now" is a good time for everyone involved to have a public discussion about the issues. However, I think this board can facilitate that discussion on a small scale. Of course that comes with the implication that it can't be spoken about under the banner of Gamergate, because that's just too toxic. I don't think ignoring wider societal contexts is a good thing to do, but if it stimulates an environment where we can have a god damned dialogue about journalistic ethics and not a shouting match over whether or not an indie dev is allowed to have a sex life, then it might be worth considering.
I think the question of "is supporting GG going to hurt my career?" is one worth talking about. Daniel Vavra, the head of Warhorse Studios is vocally supportive of GG, and given his conduct throughout this, I wouldn't be comfortable with calling him anything less than "kinda racist." That said, his game, Kingdom Come: Deliverance looks dope as all hell, and I don't actually approve of the idea of it not being covered once it's out because of his support of GG. That said, I do think it feeds into a broader question of whether or not the politics of a creator should matter in our evaluation of their work, either as commercial products or as cultural artefacts. Of course, Vavra's position as the head of a large-ish studio puts him in a significantly more stable environment from which to make his claims. Things could well be different for lower-ranking employees or much smaller indie devs.
@rustybroomhandle: The Guardian's legal department evidently told her the disclosure was unnecessary. Say what you will about Polygon and Kotaku, but The Guardian is not a bush league organisation. They know whether or not that sort of disclosure is required.
"You have an issue? Well let's talk about how shit your name is."
Fuck #gamergate. Forget about it. Talk about issues.
http://www.zenofdesign.com/what-their-right-wing-nutjob-heroes-say-about-gamergates-hidden-ideology/
So the points have already all been dealt with. Either through addressing them or explaining why they're poor arguments (or, y'know, like hateful and shit). Why do they keep coming up over and over again? Why do people like you think that they haven't been dealt with satisfactorily?
Because they keep being repeated as part of "What GamerGate is about". Repeating them is all people want. They just need to keep the noise up, keep these things being said so that people who don't have time to research or aren't lucky enough to see the 1-in-1000 post that actually addresses these issues end up thinking they're still valid concerns - why else would people keep talking about them?
Look at this very thread: If you go back to the start of it, every single GamerGate concern has been addressed already. Yet those same things keep being brought up as "what GG is really about". When people have tried to ask how those things are still considered un-addressed, the people bringing them up deflect, say they're under attack or simply ignore the questions. This is the pattern here... In order to keep talking about topics that have been addressed and keep them in people's minds, they get brought up as a response to GG being a horrible movement. In order for this to continue happening, GG has to remain a horrible movement so that people can decry it, then become the fodder for more repetition of already-handled arguments.
It's even self-sustaining: The more people who don't know how to engage with these points see these points repeated, the more likely they are to bring up those same points the next time they see GG being "attacked" or labeled as a damaging movement.
It's also self-protecting: Because "SJW" writing is raised as hateful to gamers so often by GG (incorrectly), anything that resembles that sort of writing in a reply is immediately already coloured as biased and thus ignorant gamers are more likely to fight against it.
So yeah, I agree: Fuck GamerGate. But that's why people keep bringing it up: It's the only way to keep talking about really horrible topics. And how shit the name is really is the only argument people have left - once people are convinced that the movement doesn't need defending, the handled concerns are allowed to be handled.
To me.
Is anyone dismissing :
1. The accusations about Quin and her sex life ?
2. The apparent fact that there is a games journalist clique ? I mean the coordinated articles and mailing lists are pretty damning evidence.
3. Peoples comments being deleted all across the internet and all the deflection from the press?
I agree with @Tuism in that we should discuss the issues that gamergate has highlighted. Not gamergate it self.
So I would compare it to a runaway fire where everybody is talking about the fire but no one is talking about the mass grave that the fire has brought to light.
I would like it if we could talk firstly about if these claims of journalists being corrupt are true and then secondly about what we can do if thats the case.
I do not want to talk about the damage gamergate has done or the death threats or that bullshit cause in every group of people there are going to be some asshole who is misbehaving..
2. Journalists have mailing lists. It's no secret, and I don't understand how any of it constitutes corruption. It's just a useful tool for them to stay on top of what's happening within their industry.
3. Comments are being deleted. Even 4chan has started deleting some of this rot. Looking at the types of comments that are posted on some sites, I'm actually amazed at how tolerant they are. I'm all for it. It's not "censorship", it's housekeeping - "behave in my house, or get out".
2. There is screen caps of them talking about how they were going to help Zoe and "handle" this thing.
3. I agree with that. I am unsure but did they have a clause in the usage policy that said no discussion on gamergate will be tolerated before hand ?
Claim 1
A. Those claims haven't been proven. What has been proven is that at least one is an outright lie (Nathan Greyson never wrote a positive review of Depression Quest for RPS, making the claim that he did so for sex an outright lie). Also, Kyle Pulver claims to have no idea how he got on that list, he met Zoe once. So we have one dude who was caught lying vs the words of people whose integrity we have no good reason to doubt, saying these things didn't happen.
B. The same ex-boyfriend who posted the accusations posted naked pics of Zoe all over 4Chan. An act known as revenge porn, it's a despicable act without integrity. 4Chan took those images and scripted bots to spam the images to every thread in reddit, as well as mailing them to her friends, family, employers etc. The ex must have predicted that they would behave shittily with the material he was providing, it's 4Chan. He did it with malevolent purpose.
C. There are 4Chan chat logs showing the ex-boyfriend plotted at how to get at Zoe for weeks before the initial blog post.
Add those together. He was caught in an outright deception, he was willing to stoop to a despicable act for revenge, he preplanned his campaign of revenge, and there isn't any evidence to back up his other claims other than "Zoe talked to some of those guys at trade shows" and what you have isn't "evidence", you have slander based on hearsay and a campaign of harassment by a jilted ex-boyfriend.
Claim 2
Professionals who work in the same industry become friends. This is not sign of a conspiracy. I'm friends with Luke, Matt, Gazz, the Richert brothers and others from this forum, I've had drinks with them, worked with them etc. Does that make us a clique? I suppose, in the sense of clique=friends.
Industry professional mailing lists are completely normal. They're essentially just forums-by-email. Does it freak you out that journalists discuss issues of ethics about potential stories in forums, or even suggest courses of action to each other? It really shouldn't.
If you look through the mailing list, it's a bunch of journalists discussing the ethics and potential harm of reporting internet slander, and urging each other not to spread stories that may ruin dev careers without real evidence. That's ethical behavior.
Saying the articles were "co-ordinated" is also a stretch. Leigh Alexander wrote a piece with a provocative title, a handful of other writers (I think there were about 6 pieces) picked up the thread and wrote on the same topic, from the same angle. That happens all the time with opinion pieces and suchlike. Especially when the topic is, well, topical. Journalists often post pieces not just on topics, but on other pieces written about topics.
There is, at this point, no strong evidence of any of that being journalistic corruption. Journalists discussing the ethics of a story with each other by mail isn't corruption. Encouraging each other to not spread slanderous claims without first getting real evidence of the claims (since those claims can destroy dev careers) isn't corruption. And patreon accounts are also not evidence of corruption. We can discuss the ethics of Patreon, it's new territory where the journalists themselves are uncertain of the ethics, but it's not evidence that journalists are being "bought off".
The claims about DiGRA etc are also just laughable.
Claim 3
The GG threads repeatedly got abusive, or people continuously dogpiled in to repeat the same slander even when the point had been addressed 100 times, and eventually the threads got locked by moderators to cleanup the bile, and new threads auto-locked. That is not censorship or deflection.
On this forum, Makegames, threads that get too bogged down in bile have been locked. Do you believe that was censorship? It isn't.
There was a few weeks there, where I couldn't tweet the word "gamergate" (without the hashtag) on twitter without randos with anime or egg avatars pitching up in my mentions to hurl abuse. The threads were closed because they were toxic and abusive.
@Kobusvdwalt9: Regarding point 2 - if I recall, that discussion revolved around potentially getting her a gift, like they did for Patrick Klepek when he broke his collarbone. Everyone quickly shot the idea down because they agreed it would be overstepping their boundaries.
In terms of "handling this thing," that's how the media works. They decide what's worth covering and how they want to cover it. It's the reason why Rock Paper Shotgun never runs articles on presidential elections. They decided to cover video games, and to cover video games in a specific way.
What still confuses me is that Gamergate is outraged by journalists deciding not to cover the Zoe Quinn sex scandal, but all of their manifestos ask that news outlets only cover very specifically game-related issues. It's funny how they only want tunnel-vision style copy-pasted press release info about game mechanics and a 10/10 score slapped on the end of an article unless it interferes with the media shaming a woman for having a sex life.
Lol.
@Kobusvdwalt9: Yes. All of these things have been dealt with. Not only by @rustybroomhandle above (-edit- Ninja'd by like a million smart replies too :)), but at great length in many articles that have been linked here in this very thread, as well as earlier in the thread as well, multiple times. The fact that you're ignoring that points out just how effective continuously re-stating the same, flawed, statements as though they were facts actually is at shutting down reason. Because a thing has been repeated, does not mean that it is valid.
The biggest issue here is and remains willful misrepresentation, GamerGate has no actual concept of evidence. This is why it can often feel (to people who have been hearing the trumped up GG accusations constantly) like refutations of those statements isn't satisfying.
Take the "journalists colluding via secret lists" bullshit claim. This claim is centered on the idea that a membership-only communication mechanism means collusion and manipulation is happening, that's it. The chain of reasoning here is flawed in several ways:
1. People who work in the same field are going to get to know each other. Do you know the people you work with? Are you colluding to manipulate the entire industry you're part of, or are you just doing your job and talking to people who understand that? People who go to the same events are going to get to know each other, that does not mean that they are a clique... Although specific groups of people might form a clique, that also doesn't imply that a clique is necessarily evil. That assumption shows a lot more about the kind of social anxiety underlying it than it does about the real world.
2. Manipulation implies control. Are freelance game writers really in control of the games industry? Do they set policies or control spending in any way? How, exactly, do game writers choose which games will do well and which wont? Yes, getting a game covered is important to specific sales of games with no marketing budgets, but please point out how game reviews actually predict the market in any substantial way. Games writers are inundated with games, the act of choosing which things to cover is not corruption when it's simply a selection issue.
3. Secrecy does not imply evil intent. There are many valid reasons for a list to not be publicly visible: Starting with the content of a list devoted to the discussions that game journalists have is probably not interesting to everyone and ending with game journalists needing to be able to discuss issues with embargo dates, potentially dodgy offers and other concerns they might have outside of the view of the companies with money whose advertising and PR content pipes they rely on. Limited circulation communication like that is actually how corruption and collusion are exposed by providing whistleblowers safe places to share information with each other and to construct coherent cases. There are also going to be multiple groups of interest like this, all over the place, none of them will ever encompass the entire game journalist sphere... By the logic of GG, us talking on this forum is tantamount to collusion to manipulate SOMETHING (I'm actually not sure what that might be, but we're talking amongst ourselves and they're not invited, so it has to be evil) and we should be weighed against a duck post-haste.
I honestly could go on. If you just repeat a phrase and take it as writ that it must be a valid accusation because so many other people have said it, then it feels right. If you actually investigate it at all and it falls apart, why the hell are you boosting that signal?
Even more interesting is that if you keep going with this stuff, all sorts of other logical inconsistencies spring up that (unsurprisingly) have been asked elsewhere of this movement before: Why these particular journalists? Aren't there other journalistic practices that might be more worrying than people communicating with each other in private? How, exactly, is it okay to assume that sex is a bargaining tool and truly the only reason someone might write about a thing? (That last one sheds a LOT of light on why it's really easy to call GG misogynist, that's a classic sexist argument hiding in concern for propriety).
GG is not LOGICAL. It is the responsibility of the people presenting claims to provide evidence for those claims. If that evidence does not hold up, the claims cannot be upheld. What counts for evidence in GG is simply nothing of the sort, but because people don't understand that, they keep right on making claims.
Jim Sterling posted a video about the contract WB gave to Twitch streamers and YouTubers who got early codes for Shadow of Mordor.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/9782-Shadow-of-Mordors-Promotion-Deals-with-Plaid-Social
It's a legitimate issue, and happens all the time. Bigger sites are often guilty of this sort of thing where they work alongside the PR department of a games company to make sure the game is reported on just right. You might remember a few years ago how Jeff Gertsmann got fired from Gamespot for giving Kane & Lynch a negative review. Score was 6, as I recall. Now publishers are wooing YouTubers, which are actually a much easier target for them.
I repeat, it's a legitimate issue of dodgy dealings in enthusiast press.
Now, go onto Twitter, 4chan , comment sections of sites that posted about the Mordor thing etc., and see for yourselves what GamerGate people are saying about it. Look at the types of comments, and the amount of discussion about it. Then compare this to the stuff they have been flagging as ethical concerns up to this point.
Draw your own conclusions. Go.
We find ourselves in a situation where a ton of comsumers are pissed, and taking on consumer activism.
They take it to people, who say "nah, that's wrong" and they keep moving, because they want to find the root of the problem.
That's why they keep rolling over irrelevant crap. It's unfortunate, but in my opinion, if alot of the publications acted appropriately to calm the situation down rather than calling them all sexists or whatever applicable insult they've been waiving, the whole thing could've been avoided. Or at least it wouldn't have gained any steam in the world. The censorship also didn't help the tinfoil hat situation out there.
('s fine if you don't think it's censorship. You're entitled to that. Problem is that they think it is, and so they rampage forth)
Regardless of evidence, or lack thereof, there were some enormous mistakes made in this, and as a consequence anyone who has done anything wrong is being looked at under a microscope by a lot of people.
And I still hold to the opinion, that this can still be fixed. It would take alot of humility from the side of the journalists though.
So it probably won't happen.
Nobody gets to say "Despite the evidence". You can talk about actual consequences of actions, sure. But that, unfortunately, requires consulting evidence. Because those journalists are evil, right? They're all egotistical assholes that did this whole thing on purpose, right? Them and their evidence... Who do they think they are?
I just meant that the journalists are sticking to their guns on this rather than being tactful. In Leigh's case, I've seen this happening over and over and over again.
And I get to say despite the evidence. You mad? (I am just trolling you, because of your infinite hostility, honestly I think MGSA needs to find a mod that can be less harmful towards discussion)
Not that evidence isn't endlessly important in this issue, but only in summarising the issues that I perceive at hand.
So, not bearing evidence or lack thereof in mind, and looking at the present issue of the mob being at the gates, THERE ARE SOLUTIONS.
But it's been 6 weeks. Nobody is trying to solve it really. They're just calling them sexists and making it worse.
So here we are.
Goodness me.
Leigh is one of the best journalists out there, btw. Her comments online have mostly been tongue-in-cheek mockery of the weeks of harassment her and people she knows have been receiving. I don't require her to be polite to people who send her death and rape threats on her own twitter feed.
These journalists are so silly. All the have to do is swallow their pride and admit that a movement that is now backed by fundamentally awful right wing cretins was correct all along, and that they were entirely wrong in their assessment of them as hateful and misogynistic.
The thing is, they don't have to admit to being wrong about anything that they weren't.
But they could've reacted more respectfully towards alot of people, when to a large degree, the consumers weren't involved in that horrific display.
Assholes be assholes though, and despite hating them for that, press could've handled the PR better.
That and somebody did a test on GG people and found they're mostly Left wing libertarians. Calling them right wing anything is dead.
That is all.
Can't find the link now. But there's something super wonky about that test. In any case, I was talking about Baldwin, Sommers, and Yiannopoulos, they're the fundamentally awful right wing cretins.
Regarding the consumer activist slant. David Hill (tabletop RPG designer) has said a lot of fascinating things about GG on his Google+ account (evidently tabletop RPG designers are the only people who use that social network :P ). I don't know enough to be sure if it's totally accurate, but I think it certainly encapsulates something of the absurdity of contemporary neo-liberal capitalism: "Boycotting a free website because "you're the customer"? You're wrong. Advertisers are the customers. You're the product they're buying."
(Link, if anyone wants to read more of what he's written on it: https://plus.google.com/118365124365067663191/posts/Lt3NRXuy7bT )
@garethf: Thank you, good sir. I quite like the cut of yours as well.
I guess in a way the people are the product being sold to advertisers in a manner of thinking.
Yeah Baldwin's a nut, Sommers, and def Milo (fuck him), but they're 3 loud people.
And yeah I agree, there's no obligation to entertain toxic behaviour. But if I pissed off so many people online, I would go hide in a bunker for a few months. I certainly wouldn't keep calling them names on the hashtag (which at the moment is a huge stage for controversy) after the fact.
Which is where I perceive poor handling of the situation.
I just don't think it would be as bad as it is, if some things were handled better. And then maybe Gama wouldn't be losing sponsors etc?
That's 2 out of 3.
If the journalists give in even a little bit, that implies that GG was in some sense correct, or justified. By continuing to be aggressively opposed to it, they're saying "we're not standing for this anymore. Your views are shitty, and they're holding this entire industry back from progressing artistically and commercially. You can't keep insisting that no girls are allowed in your treehouse, and you can't keep acting in a way that keeps minorities out of the industry, or chases the few that do break through the glass ceiling right back out."
Hmm, now that I've written it out like that, I'm actually a lot more supportive of the course of action the anti-GG side has taken.
An artist I know and respect mentioned the other day, that they see 1/30 applicants that are female.
If that's universal, it makes it hard to say who's to blame for the lack of women in the industry.
I haven't seen anyone say that they want women or minorities out though, so I'm not sure I totally follow.
Who's to blame for lack of women in the industry? Patriarchal power structures and oppressive gender norms enforced on every single human being from the day they're born.
It seems that some of the people distributing the information are twisting it in insane ways. I am assuming that everything you said is correct cause you have nothing to gain from making this up.
So then it seems I was misinformed about the press clique and I apologize for any inconvenience. That was my biggest concern.
@dislekcia I will go back to those.
Probably pointless self explanation follows >>> I didn't follow this thread that closely because I thought It didn't effect me. But when I heard some chatter over journalists being unethical, I jumped in. The fastest way for me to gather info on what actually was going on was a video. I checked out that video and it seemed like there were enough proof for it to be legitimate but it turns out its biased. But you are right I should have educated myself from more sources and dug a little deeper into this before throwing my opinions at this.
I have no problem with people locking threads in order to stop the hate. What I do have a problem with is comments being removed. I want to know whatever was said in those comments. More than that, I think that the person who wrote those things has a right to have his voice heard if he is not in violation of a well writin clearly accessible usage policy.
but this is getting of topic.
I hadn't heard anything about that.
Also from David Hill (kinda shitty, but I chuckled): "Unilever pulls ad support from Polygon. Boycott said to Unilever that it's no longer profitable to advertise Axe Body Spray to gamers. WIN."
I think that joke went right over my head. But perhaps just because I'm so against stereotyping gamers at the moment, the cognitive dissonance is interfering with my funny receptors. xD
Since you are well educated on these matters (I get the impression of this)
maybe I could even relay some common arguments about some things and we can talk about the differing viewpoints.
But please, let's keep it civil. :)
And maybe good to start from scratch for the sake of making sense to people who don't want to filter through the fury.
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So. How is gamergate oppressive to minorities?
With this, I think we have to bear in mind the #notyourshield hashtag that came into being because of people claiming all the gaters are white males, and the women and minorities made a statement that they would not be the shield (or deflection) in this discussion, and to show their support for the cause.
Also, can we pretend, just for the sake of empathy, that we all believe that the harassment and threats were enacted by a tiny minority of gaters, and that GG is actually quite oppositional to that behaviour, and provide an alternative answer? (I think this would be interesting perhaps)
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:)
Just because you say someone is attacking you, doesn't make it true. No matter how many times that's repeated.
I'll leave other people to respond to the rest of this post, because I'm at risk of actually lashing out at you should I continue right now. All of your questions have already been answered in this thread.