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[Dragonborn]

Because every journalist that wants to cover video games should also want to cover civil war from the front?

No, but I feel that when you're takijg on job in the press, you should be prepared for copious amounts of hate and vitriol thrown your way.

Now let me make this clear, I'm not saying that that is right. In an ideal world everyone would behave and be kind. But the reality is we don't and likely never will live in a perfect world.

Honestly, I'm at a point where when any member of the press or really anyone in general decides to paint with a broad brush (as in speak ill of all gamers, rather than those wo are the problem), they go on my ignore list. I disagree entirely with that and find it insulting, and tiring.

It's especially baffling when these people decode to insult the people who make up their livelihoods. Like yea, what a great idea

 

[cubicle47b]

Phil Fish recently.

He does that every year, I think.

 

[jambo]

Here is a great article/piece on the whole situation

Brendan Keogh "Game of moans: the death throes of the male ‘gamer’" https://overland.org.au/2014/09/game-of-moans-the-death-throes-of-the-male-gamer/

 

[fedexpeon]

I find this whole thing to be funny because I haven't see the economic impact yet, nor anyone is attempting to put a dollar amount to the damage of these many #____Gate situation. Next year we will talk about another _____Gate until the oldGate dies down.
Until I see this billion-dollars gaming industry collapsing on top of itself, I won't put too much effort in caring about this current situation.
Years from now, we can read more on this if the industry did suffered from these events. So until then, we should just calm down and wait for the results.

But this whole thing did make me realize how unprofessional some these people are in the gaming journalist industry. Leaking private emails, trashing developers, complaining and cussing out to other people, and no one is stopping this bad PR...simply ridiculous.
The internet can rage/threat/random crap because they are anonymous and no one actually cares about the anonymous mob...why would anyone listen to an angry mob?
But these journalists are using their real identification, and putting their reputable name and company on the line by mixing into the filth of the internet by swearing and defamation others.

 

[Suzushiiro]

There's a fundamental problem that I see in this whole discussion, and that's what has made me steer clear from most of it (especially since any timid attempt to discuss have resulted in my counterparts trying to argue against points I wasn't making at all with the usual "ah, then you support this!").

A large percentage of the proponents of both sides, including the most visible ones, seem to be much more interested in persuading the world that the other side is "evil" than in bringing forth (or actively supporting) real arguments of their own.

With that premise, there's really little room for discussion, unfortunately.

Yeah, both sides are infested with people who are much more interested in pushing their own agenda and/or living out the fantasy of being a white knight and/or victim fighting evil than actually making things better for anyone, and both sides are guilty of shitty behavior.

As far as the issue of social justice/women in games goes:

-There's certainly a shitload of misogyny in many parts of gamer culture- and I'd argue that the "white knight" form of misogyny (where guys put women on a pedestal and blindly support/coddle/worship them just for being women) is just as harmful as the "black knight" form of misogyny (where guys harass/abuse/threaten women who they don't like,) especially in that they tend to reinforce each other ("black knights" tend to resent women for being treated nicer just for being women by "white knights," who in turn are encouraged to give them said treatment to counter the "black knights," and so on.) It's something that will go away when the male:female ratio in these spaces evens out more, but that's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem as it's also a reason why women stay away from them.

-I'd also agree that there should be more/better representation of women in games, though at the same time I don't think demonizing games that do it "wrong" (ex: Dragon's Crown, Assassin's Creed:Unity) is the right way to do it. "Minorities" have very rarely gotten equality by framing the argument as wanting to take things away from the "majority," and there's honestly nothing wrong with someone choosing to make a game that only cares about appealing to men, just like how there's nothing wrong with making something that only cares about appealing to women.

-Regarding journalism- most people who dislike the rise of social justice issues in gaming don't hate it because they think women don't belong in games or gaming, but because they see these people as being more interested in pushing an agenda or feeling good about themselves than actually being proper games journalists, and in the process blindly agree with people just because they're women who have become feminist symbols, regardless of whether or not they're right. This in turn has created an environment where many men are afraid to disagree with these women for fear of being branded as a sexist and having their reputations ruined, which means the only ones who are willing to speak are people who don't have that to lose, either because they're anonymous (or are "insignificant" enough that they may as well be anonymous) or because they already have a reputation of being sexist in the eyes of that crowd (Baldwin, that senator guy whose name I forget, etc.)

 

[Tetsuo9]

Can you show or link to some evidence of this?

Gamers are not detectives. The only thing we have is trust. And I gave up a long time ago on reading 1 day reviews from most big websites, we have to relay on neogaf to get informed whether the game even works. I have no idea why does this happens and who to blame about this, but I lose trust.

 

[TheD]

The simple fact is that some people are so un self aware that they start doing the very things they decry (using moronic absolutest language, using hate speech, sending threats, generalizing large groups) and that is why gamers are pissed off (including me).

I expected better than this.

 

[Orayn]

Gamers are not detectives. The only thing we have is trust. And I gave up a long time ago on reading 1 day reviews from most big websites, we have to relay on neogaf to get informed whether the game even works. I have no idea why does this happens and who to blame about this, but I lose trust.

And that's an understandable sentiment. Making the leap to accusations of corruption is where a lot of people take it too far, because they're putting forth serious allegations with little to no evidence.

 

[Dragonborn]

I find this whole thing to be funny because I haven't see the economic impact yet, nor anyone is attempting to put a dollar amount to the damage of these many #____Gate situation. Next year we will talk about another _____Gate until the oldGate dies down.
Until I see this billion-dollars gaming industry collapsing on top of itself, I won't put too much effort in caring about this current situation.
Years from now, we can read more on this if the industry did suffered from these events. So until then, we should just calm down and wait for the results.

But this whole thing did make me realize how unprofessional some these people are in the gaming journalist industry. Leaking private emails, trashing developers, complaining and cussing out to other people, and no one is stopping this bad PR...simply ridiculous.
The internet can rage/threat/random crap because they are anonymous and no one actually cares about the anonymous mob...why would anyone listen to an angry mob?
But these journalists are using their real identification, and putting their reputable name and company on the line by mixing into the filth of the internet by swearing and defamation others.

That's because there isn't any economic impact. For all the drama and complaining going around on all sides, at the end of the day nothing will really change. CoD and AC will dominate, GTAV will still sell in the millions and life will go on.

This is why I don't understand why some peoplr feel threatened, as if all of sudden gaming will change. Fact is, as long as these companies have millions of the line, nothing will change in any dramatic way. There's no reason for people to be concerned in any way.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Gamers are not detectives. The only thing we have is trust. And I gave up a long time ago on reading 1 day reviews from most big websites, we have to relay on neogaf to get informed whether the game even works. I have no idea why does this happens and who to blame about this, but I lose trust.

Blame the culture that demands day 1 reviews in the first place.

How many review threads do you see on this forum that are so anxious for a score from every big game that they're going to buy regardless of what is written about it?

 

[zhorkat]

Do people opposed to the harassment think it's possible to stop?

To me, I think it's down to the nature of Twitter (et al), and humanity. A certain percentage of humanity are arseholes. Give them a public voice and a vector to attack and they will. If you make it your business to question social mores (an admirable business), you're going to get some people offside. If you're active on Twitter (etc) you're providing a vector for attack.

Is there a solution to this generally other than to either stop using twitter, or try your best to ignore the attacks? I'm not so sure there is, and I'm not so sure this is a gaming community specific problem.

I don't know if it's possible to stop it but I think you can at least try and mitigate the harmful effects. Some people have a public voice and a vector to harass, but you also have a public voice. Report what harassment you see in an attempt to get Twitter to deal with the situation. Call out harassers so that they don't get to simply disappear with nobody the wiser about what occurred. Give support to the people being harassed to help remind them that not everybody on the Internet is an asshole. Also, perhaps not all the harassers are assholes. Maybe some of them are just misinformed people who have accidentally done harm when they thought they were doing something good. In that case, education is a great tool to help them see what is really going on so they don't continue their actions. It probably doesn't hurt to complain to Twitter to try and get them to change their systems to make it easier to deal with harassment.

 

[Objectively Bad Opinion]

So uh, someone found nude pics Zoe posed in for a porn website, and they're spamming them on twitter.

 

[zeldablue]

Oh god I'm going to get banned for expressing my opinion here...

This whole situation has stemmed from the fact that gaming journalism just isn't about games anymore. A large amount of games journalists have decided usurp game reviews and use them to push an agenda. This hasn't been helped by the fact that games journalism is almost completely morally corrupt.

Reviewers are being bribed by developers
This is leading to unreliable review scores

Reviewers are pushing an agenda which most of the time has nothing to do with the game being reviewed
This is leading to bad reviews

A portion of review websites are relying on "clickbait" to stay afloat
This leads to the spreading of misinformation as clickbait articles are almost always sensationalised.

This whole gamergate thing might have came about from right or wrong reasons. We have extremists on both sides that are the bad apples ruining the bunch for everybody. But we do have one big problem that needs addressing and that is the current state of games journalism.

So it's pretty much just the feminist slant you don't like a lot right? If that went away, would you feel as though most of the corruption was stopped?

Modern art went through a long battle against feminism. They resisted for a very long time, but of course they eventually stopped being overbearingly elitist/chauvinistic. As soon as people started to be more accepting of "feminism" there was no more reason for this agenda to be pushed.

 

[jschreier]

Gamers are not detectives. The only thing we have is trust. And I gave up a long time ago on reading 1 day reviews from most big websites, we have to relay on neogaf to get informed whether the game even works. I have no idea why does this happens and who to blame about this, but I lose trust.

Right, but that's a different conversation. When someone says something like "Reviewers are being bribed by developers" it's pretty important to post evidence to back up that accusation!

 

[~Kinggi~]

So uh, someone found nude pics Zoe posed in for a porn website, and they're spamming them on twitter.

thats one of the things that started this mess a while back.

 

[Dragonborn]

So uh, someone found nude pics Zoe posed in for a porn website, and they're spamming them on twitter.

I believe those were take with consent, right? She was working for that porn studio (or did someone hack her pics?)

 

[Abriael]

So uh, someone found nude pics Zoe posed in for a porn website, and they're spamming them on twitter.

And thus the discussion was derailed.

 

[lt519]

First I've heard of #GamerGate. Good article by Rhodes. The only point I disagree with is, and mostly off-topic, is:

"As William Randolph Hearst famously said, “News is something somebody doesn’t want printed; all else is advertising.”"

This is just so untrue. News can be positive, features can be positive, not everything has to be a story gutting out publishes and developers analyzing their every move. Polygon has (still does?) write some fantastic features on game developers and gamers that were very well received.

I agree there should be a critical eye on practices. Things like poor treatment of employees should be rooted out but we also shouldn't go far off the deep end that everything is a witch hunt.

More on topic: we certainly can't have it both ways. I for one like the move away from "enthusiast press" for major websites and like to rely on blogs, forums, and user reviews for my enthusiast information (such as NeoGAF). They can co-exist but it's certainly hard for them to exist int he same place unless there is a clearly defined line in organizations. Almost like putting certain writers behind a firewall. Reviewers that don't do the pre-release coverage and are a separate entity from directly interacting with publishers (going to hands-on demos, etc). Only a partial solution, but an idea.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Leigh’s article really resonated with me and I think it’s unfortunate that people have reacted to it in the way they have because there’s a lot of important truths there.

I’ve worked in AAA gaming for a long time, but when talking with new people I often bend over backward to not talk about my job or to say I’m a “software engineer” before quickly diverting the conversation elsewhere. I’m just not proud of what I do, but it’s not that I’m not proud of my work, it’s that I’m not proud of everything that surrounds my work, which is the game industry, and the gamer culture that people think of before they think of the games themselves. Whereas at one point a “gamers” were innocent geeks, increasingly the community is associated with toxic trolling and hate. Maybe not everyone I talk to knows these gross things about gaming culture, but I know this, and so I don't want to claim being a gamer. I want to distance myself as much as possible from hateful people, but then I’m reading this stuff coming from the mouths of gamers every day and it’s incredibly depressing.

Gaming culture needs a huge reset.

 

[andymcc]

thats one of the things that started this mess a while back.

yep, still disgusting.

 

[Xe4]

I haven't really been following this too much, and I don't really understand what the whole "Gamergate" is about. I've read the articles linked, as well as others and I really don't understand.

Usually, when "blank-gate" (e.g. watergate) happens, it is the result of some controversy or scandal. What happened here to prompt this? I kind of know about the whole Zoe Quinn thing, but is that the whole cause of this? I don't know, it just feels like this whole debacle happened without any real reason too. Anyone care to enlighten me?

 

[Fehyd]

Here is a great article/piece on the whole situation

Brendan Keogh "Game of moans: the death throes of the male ‘gamer’" https://overland.org.au/2014/09/game-of-moans-the-death-throes-of-the-male-gamer/

I see a few issues with that article. For instance.

Note that nobody is going after the mainstream games journalism outlets or the big publishers they are caught up with; it’s only ever the individual writers and developers with a concern for social justice and diversity. This is not a point that can be made too lightly: this was and remains a concentrated, right-wing political attack on perceived progressive ideas in videogame design and discourse.

There have been some accusations and investigation at Kotaku and Polygon (as I'm sure Mr Schreier can attest). Policies were also clarified at both I believe? So there was progress there.

The later parts of the article seem to get a bit out there. Its much too dismissive of those "core gamers" who aren't male as well.

 

[SerTapTap]

Gamers are not detectives. The only thing we have is trust. And I gave up a long time ago on reading 1 day reviews from most big websites, we have to relay on neogaf to get informed whether the game even works. I have no idea why does this happens and who to blame about this, but I lose trust.

I hope this isn't getting off topic, but I don't get why "paid for reviews" comes into this argument when it's been a discussion about indie game devs, who really frankly don't have the resources to woo reviewers anyway. If we were talking about EA Games rather than a moderately notable indie developer I would be more willing to entertain the notion of "corruption" (but I would still want some real proof, and no that disproven personal-life prying stuff is not what I'm talking about and doesn't need to be brought up).

I find this whole thing to be funny because I haven't see the economic impact yet, nor anyone is attempting to put a dollar amount to the damage of these many #____Gate situation. Next year we will talk about another _____Gate until the oldGate dies down.
Until I see this billion-dollars gaming industry collapsing on top of itself, I won't put too much effort in caring about this current situation.
Years from now, we can read more on this if the industry did suffered from these events. So until then, we should just calm down and wait for the results.

But this whole thing did make me realize how unprofessional some these people are in the gaming journalist industry. Leaking private emails, trashing developers, complaining and cussing out to other people, and no one is stopping this bad PR...simply ridiculous.
The internet can rage/threat/random crap because they are anonymous and no one actually cares about the anonymous mob...why would anyone listen to an angry mob?
But these journalists are using their real identification, and putting their reputable name and company on the line by mixing into the filth of the internet by swearing and defamation others.

I don't think it's "harming the industry" in any meaningful sense (the gamer argument, not the harassment I mean--harassment is definitely hurting).

It is, however, making it very hard to follow some journalists and devs I respect because of their open hostility towards "gamers" and "nerds". Yes these comments aren't "directed at me", as I've heard so many times. "You're one of the good ones if you're offended! Relax!" Well, no. When you're using a term that explicitly defines me as a slur, yeah, I take offense, and offense is intended.

That is my problem with the current state of affairs. I do not believe that anything on the journalism or harassment sides have changed for the better, but a lot of people's relationship with their audience has become a lot more adversarial and I really do not see any benefit to this.

 

[Lime]

If anyone wants to read a academic perspective on this: http://culturedigitally.org/2014/09/a-4-front-war/

The Ouroboros metaphor is fitting, I think.

 

[studyguy]

Honestly I can't really stand to view some of the twitter conversations going on anymore over the issue that have the hashtag posted. It's feeling more and more like those gross radical political opinions from both sides. If your argument against an issue or group is to simply disparage your supposed "opposition" I don't know how anyone can take you seriously.

 

[fedexpeon]

Can you show or link to some evidence of this?

Isn't that the whole point of a bribe?
You want to avoid leaving evidence in the first place.

See that suitcase next to you Jason? My Mom gave that to me for my birthday.
But you can take it if you want it...inside has a lot of homemade cookies from my Mom.
I hope you like sweet Jason....And remember to add me to your Steam friend list when you are eating those cookies.

 

[firehawk12]

I haven't really been following this too much, and I don't really understand what the whole "Gamergate" is about. I've read the articles linked, as well as others and I really don't understand.

Usually, when "blank-gate" (e.g. watergate) happens, it is the result of some controversy or scandal. What happened here to prompt this? I kind of know about the whole Zoe Quinn thing, but is that the whole cause of this? I don't know, it just feels like this whole debacle happened without any real reason too. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Well, Baldwin himself seems to believe that the "scandal" is the fact that the journalists are trying to lecture a community. He seems to have basically co-opted the whole Zoe Quinn/Patreon thing and other people have jumped on as well.

 

[The Silver]

Here is a great article/piece on the whole situation

Brendan Keogh "Game of moans: the death throes of the male ‘gamer’" https://overland.org.au/2014/09/game-of-moans-the-death-throes-of-the-male-gamer/

I like the little of what I've read so far, just wish he had chosen a better title. It will be far too easy for people to get instantly defensive and that will color every good point he makes.

That Meduim article is excellent stuff, nothing there for people to latch on to to get defensive and discredit, just everything laid out bare.

 

[Fehyd]

Isn't that the whole point of a bribe?
You want to avoid leaving evidence in the first place.

See that suitcase next to you Jason? My Mom gave that to me for my birthday.
But you can take it if you want it...inside has a lot of homemade cookies from my Mom.
I hope you like sweet Jason....And remember to add me to your Steam friend list when you are eating those cookies.

For the purposes of this thread though, we're dealing only with provable accusations. Its like someone accusing me of being a space alien in disguise. Of course I'm not going to be able to illustrate that I'm not an alien because an alien would be just that good at hiding it.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Isn't that the whole point of a bribe?
You want to avoid leaving evidence in the first place.

See that suitcase next to you Jason? My Mom gave that to me for my birthday.
But you can take it if you want it...inside has a lot of homemade cookies from my Mom.
I hope you like sweet Jason....And remember to add me to your Steam friend list when you are eating those cookies.

I wonder if you even want to be taken seriously at this point.

 

[JennyTablina]

I feel like people don't consider that both sides have lousy people being awful. Have members of #GameGate been jerks? Absolutely, I won't defend those people, and many were trying to actively police the tag when we realised what had happened to Jenn Frank. People are individuals, there's only so much you can do to rein in those who decide to go on the attack.

But Journalists have been doing mass character assassinations, mocking and basically outright dismissive of their readership. We had people calling anyone daring to associate with the tag misogynist, white, male nerds who live in moms basement en masse because of journalism setting that agenda for the weekend.

A lot of people go "hey why didn't you care when Doritosgate/Kayne and Lynch ect. happened" well actually we did, I remember several very long threads on those things, and people getting quite upset about those situations. The difference at least then, were these being isolated incidents - and journalists actually kind of tried to report the situation best they could. Mass Effect 3's ending saga was a bit awkward and resulted in some slightly unprofessional statements on twitter - but I didn't really care for ME so assumed it was worth the slight bops on head to readership.

The reaction to this situation has been so weird to me, I follow a lot of jornos on twitter and suddenly with this news "your point is irrelevant this" this and "lol gamers" that. I used to think these people were just like us, just they got to play games for a living. The way many of acted during this time, I can't see it that way anymore. It's like a certain level of trust and acquaintanceship I had with those people is shattered.

People seem awfully resistant to have the discussions needed to smooth things over. If they advertised TFYC (without attempting to stick a bias on what is a charity game jam) - if these companies properly reviewed their ethics and came back to people and said "hey look we're sorry we acted really unprofessional on social media, and we looked into this so this might be workable, and this might not, but we want to make sure our readers are happy and we can work together to make this better" - a lot of this would go away.

But I've seen little give and take in that regard, a few have come into the tag to ask questions. But it's almost always the same, complete and utter dismissal. If your super lucky to be one of the "weaponised minorities" like myself and others, you also get told about how apparently your cause is misguided or you are "brainwashed" - that's not the slightest bit insulting or condescending nope.

Why in any respect would I stay around for people that have that much contempt for me and the hobby I enjoy?

We could not bother to fight at all, choose to walk away and never give them another click or morsel of ad revenue. But we decided to fight because we wanted to be heard, we want to fix this. But it's not going to work if the solution is basically the same as before, sweeping it under the rug and pretending these problems are not there till the problem rears it's ugly head again.

I appreciate greatly that The Escapist is changing their ethics policy and looking into how they engage on social media. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with as a result.

(BTW there are rotten parts to gaming community that need to be sorted too ect but that's gonna take work and maybe media being more considerate of how their articles sway discussion on these matters)

Ultimately at this point, I won't be giving bigger sites my clicks. But turn to independents & streamers instead. I'ld like to see change, and less people being at odds with each other but for now the backbiting continues.

 

[Lime]

Here is a great article/piece on the whole situation

Brendan Keogh "Game of moans: the death throes of the male ‘gamer’" https://overland.org.au/2014/09/game-of-moans-the-death-throes-of-the-male-gamer/

The historical perspective that Keogh provides is really fruitful. This is definitely a recommended, albeit long read and overview of the situation.

 

[Doalateralus]

The worst part of this entire thing is that some people are still refusing to see that both sides are "doxxing" each other, harassing the other sides supporters and purposely muddying the waters.

Actually, upon writing that, I think the worst part is that some people see this as a black and white two sided issue.

Articles that are pure worthless bile like the one jambo just promoted do nothing to help, and instead try to paint it as a "us vs. them" thing, when it's really "we should ignore the people acting like idiots because there are always idiots on the internet, but these points raised by both sides are worth tabling a bigger discussion".

Anytime someone from the Gamersgate side says the other side is just SJW and press, they are missing the people in the middle or the people not in that category that still have issues with some of the things happening. And any time a "journalist" regurgitates that the Gamersgate side is only white males deemed "gamers" that are dying off, that just means the rest of the article they wrote becomes absolutely worthless because it's judging a plethora of people (generally their fans no less!) of this. Nevermind both sides ignore the people in the middle, who are generally pleading for sanity.

Long story short: Your side is not more right than the other. Your side is just as responsible for gaslighting and harassing the other, and until both "sides" either admit their side of the fence has issues and works to root them out, both sides will just keep endlessly looping like this.

And no, just because one "side" is doing something worse than the other does not mean yours is justified in its crossing of lines.

But again, the fact that everything is attempting to be jammed into one of two sides to begin with is the entire problem with this whole discussion. It's actually creating more sides like #notyourshield and #notmyshield and whatever else is going on because every time a generalization breaks out, a bunch of people get angry and start their own smaller movement within the context of all this other stuff that is going on.

Edit: Oh, also wanted to say, I think both sides are both being hijacked and "used" as screens to go after people and pin the blame on a cause instead of an individual. Very much like people that pillage and plunder and riot during protests somehow coming to represent the entire protest because it is the thing that is generating the most news.

 

[~Kinggi~]

I think in general you dont really need to point to any distinct acts of corruption or bribery cause its been painted all over the "games journalism" scene for quite some time. But then again so is every other industry. Except, gamers seem to be more hooked in and passionate about the growth of the games industry at this particular point in time whereas other industries are larger and more established. So in the games world you have increasing moments of 'swag' and parties and elaborate favors being tossed around the reviews world which can come off as really shady and wrong in an industry thats trying to establish itself seriously. It's a perception issue really.

 

[JesseEwiak]

Two cool ladies, Molly Lambert and Emily Yoshida (Grantland), did a pod with Leigh Alexander about #gamergate and the celeb nude hacks, among other topics.

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/grantland/player?id=11464760

Molly and Emily talk pop culture happenings generally, Leigh joins in around ~17:00.

I'm a big fan of this pod generally and this episode is solid. Especially if you're someone who thinks Leigh is raging or angry or something, here's a good place to hear her calmly extemporize on this subject. Highly recommend it.

+1 To This.

Anybody who truly believes that Leigh, or any other person in the games press hates 'gamers' needs to listen to the interview. Also, I think it's important to hear what two outsiders/casuals to the whole thing see when they look in on it.

If they advertised TFYC (without attempting to stick a bias on what is a charity game jam) - if these companies properly reviewed their ethics and came back to people and said "hey look we're sorry we acted really unprofessional on social media, and we looked into this so this might be workable, and this might not, but we want to make sure our readers are happy and we can work together to make this better" - a lot of this would go away.

No, it would. No, it really wouldn't. Because in a month or two, some person in the games press might have an issue with something horribly sexist in gaming, and you'd have the same people calling for that person's head because censorship and corruption.

 

[TheD]

It is, however, making it very hard to follow some journalists and devs I respect because of their open hostility towards "gamers" and "nerds". Yes these comments aren't "directed at me", as I've heard so many times. "You're one of the good ones if you're offended! Relax!" Well, no. When you're using a term that explicitly defines me as a slur, yeah, I take offense, and offense is intended.

That is my problem with the current state of affairs. I do not believe that anything on the journalism or harassment sides have changed for the better, but a lot of people's relationship with their audience has become a lot more adversarial and I really do not see any benefit to this.

Yeah, being a bigot towards groups of people means you are a bigot, no matter what else has happened.

 

[Wallach]

If anyone wants to read a academic perspective on this: http://culturedigitally.org/2014/09/a-4-front-war/

The Ouroboros metaphor is fitting, I think.

Interesting piece, thanks.

 

[Suzushiiro]

I haven't really been following this too much, and I don't really understand what the whole "Gamergate" is about. I've read the articles linked, as well as others and I really don't understand.

Usually, when "blank-gate" (e.g. watergate) happens, it is the result of some controversy or scandal. What happened here to prompt this? I kind of know about the whole Zoe Quinn thing, but is that the whole cause of this? I don't know, it just feels like this whole debacle happened without any real reason too. Anyone care to enlighten me?

The Zoe Quinn thing is what lit the fuse, but the bulk of the powder in the proverbial keg was the long-standing belief among a lot of people that gaming journalism is corrupt.

Then people started posting articles about how "gamers are over" and a bunch of gamers who felt insulted about being accused of being white male misogynist neckbeards joined the fray.

 

[SteveWinwood]

I have somehow completely missed all of this.

 

[Dragonborn]

I hope this isn't getting off topic, but I don't get why "paid for reviews" comes into this argument when it's been a discussion about indie game devs, who really frankly don't have the resources to woo reviewers anyway. If we were talking about EA Games rather than a moderately notable indie developer I would be more willing to entertain the notion of "corruption" (but I would still want some real proof, and no that disproven personal-life prying stuff is not what I'm talking about and doesn't need to be brought up).



I don't think it's "harming the industry" in any meaningful sense (the gamer argument, not the harassment I mean--harassment is definitely hurting).

It is, however, making it very hard to follow some journalists and devs I respect because of their open hostility towards "gamers" and "nerds". Yes these comments aren't "directed at me", as I've heard so many times. "You're one of the good ones if you're offended! Relax!" Well, no. When you're using a term that explicitly defines me as a slur, yeah, I take offense, and offense is intended.

That is my problem with the current state of affairs. I do not believe that anything on the journalism or harassment sides have changed for the better, but a lot of people's relationship with their audience has become a lot more adversarial and I really do not see any benefit to this.

Precisly this. The whole is off putting. The gamers who choose to harass others (the minority) are as shitty as ever but the other side honestly much better and frankly they just push me away more from whatever their argument may be.

 

[fedexpeon]

I wonder if you even want to be taken seriously at this point.

I already posted that I have found this whole thing to be ridiculous.
Funny for me as well because it is another #____Gate meme on Twitter.
So at this point...I hope you understand that suitcase post was tongue in cheeks.

You need to have some fun and a brighter outlook when "drama" like this happens.
Diffusing the drama/bad blood from the situation, and just calm down to think and see clearer.
You don't need to take everything with a serious outlook because that can narrow and cloud your judgment.

 

[Doalateralus]

I am not taking a side by saying this, but I think it needs to be said:

On what planet is trying to marginalize and persecute people that have generally felt marginalized and persecuted their whole lives a good idea? A lot of people retreat to gaming as their "safe haven" or their attempts to forget about their lives for a period of time, posting tweets or publishing articles telling them they are worthless is the absolute worst thing one can do, and will only rally them more against you.

And that goes for both sides, because both sides are doing it.

They are both creating their own enemies, and it's really fascinating to watch.

 

[Dryk]

Usually, when "blank-gate" (e.g. watergate) happens, it is the result of some controversy or scandal. What happened here to prompt this? I kind of know about the whole Zoe Quinn thing, but is that the whole cause of this? I don't know, it just feels like this whole debacle happened without any real reason too. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Near as I can tell, the Quinn thing turned into a massive shit-fight as these things are wont to do. When that happens both sides with start dredging up anything they can to try to get one up on the person they're arguing with. For years the issues of inappropriate relationships between journalists and publishers, and the contempt that those two groups have for their consumers and vice-versa have been bubbling away near the surface. It gets brought up a lot but it always dies down fairly quickly.

So what happens is that as soon as anyone mentions corruption in relation to the Quinn thing, people start scrambling to find ammo to throw at each other and the wider industry problems come back to the surface even though they're only tangentially related.

I am not taking a side by saying this, but I think it needs to be said:

But on what planet is trying to marginalize and persecute people that have generally been marginalized and persecuted their whole lives a good idea? A lot of people retreat to gaming as their "safe haven" or their attempts to forget about their lives for a period of time, posting tweets or publishing articles telling them they are worthless is the absolute worst thing one can do, and will only rally them more against you.

And that goes for both sides, because both sides are doing it.

They are both creating their own enemies, and it's really fascinating to watch.

Gaming communities marginalise and persecute other people in them all the time. Considering how many gaming journalists come from that general background it makes perfect sense that once elevated above the rest they'd start looking down on them.

 

[studyguy]

I have somehow completely missed all of this.

The funniest thing about all of this is it doesn't seem strange to actively play video games and completely miss this controversy. I don't know what that says about all of this.

 

[antigoon]

This "both sides" nonsense needs to stop until someone can show me examples of #gamergate people receiving the type of harassment Sarkeesian, Quinn, Frank, Fish, etc have received.

 

[bronson]

It boggles my mind that -- instead of latching onto controversy with tangible details (like the Yogscast Kickstarter and their YouTube monetization/revenue share policies) -- the vengeful hand of the internet has chosen to grasp the straws of hearsay and circumstantial evidence, including a few vague tweets and the extended blog post from a source as biased as you can get.

 

[Deitus]

First I've heard of #GamerGate. Good article by Rhodes. The only point I disagree with is, and mostly off-topic, is:

"As William Randolph Hearst famously said, “News is something somebody doesn’t want printed; all else is advertising.”"

This is just so untrue. News can be positive, features can be positive, not everything has to be a story gutting out publishes and developers analyzing their every move. Polygon has (still does?) write some fantastic features on game developers and gamers that were very well received.

I agree there should be a critical eye on practices. Things like poor treatment of employees should be rooted out but we also shouldn't go far off the deep end that everything is a witch hunt.

I think you are maybe missing the point of that quote. He didn't literally mean that all journalists do is post bad news.

The point is that you don't need hard hitting journalism with pristine ethics to get good news. Companies, and governments will jump at the change to give you good news. And why wouldn't they, good news makes them look good. That's why he said good news is advertisement.

Where we really need journalism is to get people to post stories about things that someone doesn't want you to know about. And depending on how much they don't want you to know, they might go to extreme methods to keep a journalist from doing their job. That's where the ethics come in.

That's not to say that all bad news for companies is bad news for gamers. But when some people are emotionally invested in the companies that make their favorite games, there are bound to be people upset when their favorite companies have bad things said about them. That is one of the consequences of bringing real journalism to video games, rather than going back to a time when it was mostly positive previews and puff pieces. That certainly won't be entirety of what journalists report on, and even with true games journalism, there will still be room for enthusiast press I think.

 

[Fredescu]

I don't know if it's possible to stop it but I think you can at least try and mitigate the harmful effects. Some people have a public voice and a vector to harass, but you also have a public voice. Report what harassment you see in an attempt to get Twitter to deal with the situation. Call out harassers so that they don't get to simply disappear with nobody the wiser about what occurred. Give support to the people being harassed to help remind them that not everybody on the Internet is an asshole. Also, perhaps not all the harassers are assholes. Maybe some of them are just misinformed people who have accidentally done harm when they thought they were doing something good. In that case, education is a great tool to help them see what is really going on so they don't continue their actions. It probably doesn't hurt to complain to Twitter to try and get them to change their systems to make it easier to deal with harassment.

I agree with all of that. I doubt it would make a dent, but "Give support to the people being harassed to help remind them that not everybody on the Internet is an asshole" is a good point.

I guess I don't understand why, upon being harassed, some people have elected to leave their careers rather than leave a particular social media platform. Twitter is a nice idea but it really is heavily flawed in situations like this.

 

[BrokenEchelon]

Right, but that's a different conversation. When someone says something like "Reviewers are being bribed by developers" it's pretty important to post evidence to back up that accusation!

I'm pretty sure you said you accept drinks from publishers/devs at conferences.

You said you didn't think it was a conflict of interest and that it would be rude to refuse someone offering you a drink.

Some people would call that bribery.

I can't find the thread where you made those comments, so I apologize for not providing evidence, but it's somewhere in your post history.

I also asked you if Kotaku followed SPJ's code of ethics, or some other code, to which you never replied.

http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

Other sites raffle off swag they get from publishers/developers in an effort at transparency. This type of swag could also be considered "bribery" by some.

It also isn't very hard to point to dozens of AAA games that game disproportionately high reviews compared to consumer opinion as at least a springboard that something smells like shit in the business, but alas that's also circumstantial and speculation so I can't roll with that argument either, but the problem is that no one in gaming journalism is going to openly admit something like "EA paid us $50,000 for a 9+ review for Mass Effect 3! We loved every last green colored dollar of it!"

Please read the OP, folks.

I'm sorry if this is too much speculation regarding my comments about bribery. Please let me know if I should delete my comments as I don't want to go against the OP rules, which I've read. I don't think I'm crossing the line, but apparently I'm not a good judge of that on this forum. I'll step out as I've nothing else to add on the rest of the debate.

 

[John Kowalski]

You know what i would like to know, i'd like to know what subsets of video game culture this isn't touching on, or who have themselves avoided this issue altogether. Perhaps the one thing that i can't wrap my head around this is the length that it spans. I'm sure this is just a matter of perspective, but i'm almost sure that there are places, somewhere in this industry, where respect is had, where press is functional and correctly communicative, and where the fans have a healthy relationship with all facets of their industry, but i just don't know where they are.

I know i shouldn't say this, it has obviously been repeated to death and it will just as useless a comment as all similar have been, but... i just don't actually see anything happening. Nothing seems to have come of this, outside of some cultural shifts and the necessary personality conflicts to fuel them. Which is hypocritical of me to say, i've long been a supporter of feminist commentary on games and have strongly shaped what content i watch and which i don't so i support the creators that i believe in, but i haven't... ever spoken of it in an evangelical manner.

But... i don't know, perhaps out of guilt for never having truly done anything, one hopes that even the littlest effort is enough, and one contorts the true usefulness of outlets that are by and large ineffective in anything but propaganda. And even then, one hopes propaganda is at least something. But it's not. It's nothing.

fuck, bottom page'd