#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014
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That Stone Dude
Neo Member
I agree with that sentiment.
I mean, my total exposure to Leigh Alexander is that article and her couple appearances on the Giant Bombcast, and for the most part I find her kind of obnoxious. However she's far from the only games journalist in that category, and it's easy enough to just not read her stuff.
I just don't understand this mentality that some people have where every criticism is is an attack that has to be fought. I mean holy shit, the lady is a gamer herself! How many of us have looked at some of the shit gamers do and just had to shake our head and said "fucking gamers are crazy"?
Anyone else feel like he's latched onto this idealized version of "the middle ground"?
Riposte
Member
The push for more inclusion (or should I say push against themes that are considered excluding?) and the criticism of violence (namely, the nature of it, not just the pervasiveness) in games often seems to be tied together in such a way that it may just be one position for many people (I think it is safe to throw in some anti-"AAA" or big budget sentiment in there too). At the very least, that's my impression from watching Sarkeesian and interacting with many posters on NeoGAF, including perhaps the majority of those posting in this thread I can recognize discussing this with previously, such as Lime.
It ties into identity politics. If gaming means so much you you it becomes part of your identity, anyone criticising that will by extension be criticising you. Identity politics a tribalism go hand in hand.
She was attacking 'Gamers'. A small subset of which are absolute fucks. But the majority of people within that umbrella term are not, yet still got the brunt of her ire. She didn't single out the subset clearly, and the title of it explicitly mentioned the entire group.
If there was a term to describe only the toxic members of the group - like football hooligan or radical feminist or jihadist - then it allows the moderate members of that group to be on side and distance themselves. Just berating 'gamers' doesn't no do this, leading to the folks who 'take both sides'.
For those interested, Zoe Quinn is doing an AMA on Reddit right now - http://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/2j2rj7/im_zoe_quinn_ask_me_almost_anything/
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I'm really confused why anyone would choose to associate themselves with this movement at this point.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Oooooh snap. :0
Nintendo went for a fickle crowd and hit the jackpot. But it was definitely a huge betrayal to Nintendo's core fanbase.
In my ideal world, games would be more difficult, less hand-holdy, more innovative and less conventional...and not rely so much of violence and sexist/racial stereotypes or plot devices. Games would put the mind of the director ahead of the publisher's marketing wishes.
But maybe that's just me. Nintendo's been doing very good about inclusion, they just need to get rid of the casual stuff.
You are probably just mocking Gamergaters, but hey, someone has to bite.
There are more than just AAA and non-gamers
How have you able to ignore the criticism of violence? And how have you been able to come to that conclusion? Seriously, how?
Yep, you are just trolling Gamergate. Better try next time buddy.
There are more than just AAA and non-gamers
How have you able to ignore the criticism of violence? And how have you been able to come to that conclusion? Seriously, how?
Yep, you are just trolling Gamergate. Better try next time buddy.
Riposte
Member
The short answer is that they don't believe in the criticism or the fairness of it. For example, the idea that GamerGate is about this bad thing, instead of that good thing, is viewed as a tactic to change the discussion against them. The idea of making a new hashtag appears as a means to weaken them. I summed up it up as pride being an issue.
This is my view on why you have people taking both sides, or otherwise moderate people having a reason to agree with GG. Which is happening.
What's your view on why there hasn't been a universal rejection to GG, and there's still a perception that the games media is hostile to gamers?
Youre all over the place. Could you elaborate on each point and paragraph? What does Nintendo have to do with the hegemony of play and the cultivation of the constructed gamer identity? How does criticism of violence in video games tie into this? And what is watching paint dry 2024? I want to play that game!
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
It's interesting how they're understandably just as protective of the label because they consider it just as much of a message in itself as feminists do with their name that people want to change all the time.
It was aimed specifically at the gamersgate people. A tiny fraction of all gamers. I didn't feel in any way targetted by them but even so; they were nothing to care about.
No even close. It was gamers calling out the vicious minority among us; not outsiders like Milo Yiannopoulos writing stupid shit or the mainstream press. Gamers are ubiquitous, they wouldn't feel targeted and the vast majority don't. #GG people however did feel targeted because they were. They are a specific extremely homogeneous demographic. Basically really young inexperience guys who have no perspective.
#GG people are embarrassing gamers though. Their behaviour is toxic. Their logic is really dumb. Their world view hopelessly uninformed. Their opinions ignorant and laughable. To people who aren't gamers they might mistake all of us for those assholes. That's the most annoying thing about it. We can ignore the little boys in #GG; but they're claiming to represent all of us while being awful.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Some people are incapable of separating their identities from the things they enjoy, and take any criticisms of things they like personally. This not a new or rare phenomenon,; you can see it here on Gaf every day, only not taken to GG-level extremes.
This is also linked to the perception of hostility from the games media. Although quite honestly, there is hostility toward some gamers, and frankly it's deserved because some gamers frequently display behavior deserving of hostility. However, it's also taken as a given that this does not extend to every person who plays games everywhere, at least by people who understand the basics of conversation.
One would think that responding to accusations of bad behavior would be answered by something other than bad behavior IF the goal was actually to disprove those accusations, but that's not what we've seen.
Liking games doesn't make you a gamer. Playing tons of video games doesn't make you a gamer. Gamer is just a label, and it's a label that a number of people are turning their back on. That doesn't mean that they don't like games, but it means that they feel the image associated with that label is something that doesn't fit them.
This is honestly a issue of petty semantics. She was commenting on a particular image of people who play games using the common term for that image. If you don't think that image fits you, fantastic, that's what she was talking about.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Do you want my honest assessment? People often react to their perception of an event before truly understanding an argument. And to be clear: this applies to many, many people on either side of an issue.
boogie for instance clearly reacted to the controversy and not the substance before firing up his camera and making his first YouTube video on the topic. Here he is here 9 days after Alexander's piece hit the web:
It doesn't matter how good one's intentions are when it's patently clear that they are not abreast about even the basics of what is fueling this controversy. And I mention him because he's been one of the more prolific moderate voices from the start.
Green Biker Dude
Banned
what
straight from the article you posted
and i'm not arguing about the "constructed gamer identity". this article talks about non gamers being excluded and complains about violence in games as if shifting the focus of the market to non gamers will save it somehow. we've already seen what happened to nintendo when they did it
Hmm. I consider myself more of a gamer, than I consider myself a girl. I spent all of yesterday at a convention with a pointy green hat on and Hylian shield in hand, waiting in line to see more game related stuff. :\
I don't see anything wrong with being a diehard fan. I see a problem with hate campaigns over imaginary conspiracies. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being socially awkward or introverted. As long as you don't have a crap ton of repressed hatred sitting beneath your mask. If games are your primary way of dealing with the world, then use games to figure out how to be a better person. Don't use games to block out or hurt yourself and the people around you.
I hope you're kidding. The best games of all time are going to be the ones that can be awesome without defaulting to the status quo. Whether it's Tetris or Portal...not all games need to rely on the same-ole same-ole to be good. New, more interesting mechanics revolve around thinking outside the norm. :\
That was good. I needed that.
First of all, it's 5 or 7 years old and it's making a historic analysis to the point of a manifesto that the games industry and culture consist of powers that work to exclude other people because of the cultivation of the Gamer identity. It isn't making any claims about the future or Nintendo's "casual" audience. By looking at analogue games, the authors argue that there is potential for game designers to do many different things.
Secondly, the violence argument is targetting the lack of diversity in play in mainstream video games culture. The "verbs" in video game design are very narrow and homogenous where there aren't a lot of different ways to do things or perform within the game design in video games. This also works to put off people who are interested in more diverse or different experiences.
Thirdly, Nintendo's failure to re-capture the "casual audience" (whatever that is) could be argued to not have anything to do with the viability of making video games more diverse in their expressions and performances and designs.
And what did the watch paint dry comment mean? Are you saying that having non-violent game design or game design appealing to different tastes would be boring?
I'm on my phone so sorry about the short phrasing.
Riposte
Member
She does so by ranting and in her ranting it's hard to say she isn't also making comments on games and their developers. And her idea of a gamer expands and shifts rapidly from paragraph to paragraph with no real break, linking harassment to nerdiness to "hyperconsumers" to videogame tropes as one carelessly formed target, who are seemingly being punished by the expansion of mobile/casual markets (the means of traditional gaming being "sloughed" off). Back when this affair was more about "gamers", the days following that similar articles and hashtags about how shitty gamers are, I noticed this problem a lot. People had to juggle "gamer" as a thing that was important or common enough to have even mattered (such as the reason why "AAA" games can succeed), but also include the descriptors that makes them worth attacking with vitriol that are limiting to the point where you could say it is questionable they were ever the status quo (e.g., her physical description of people wearing Nintendo branded clothes at media conferences). People basically did both at the same time; vague target, a lot of vitriol. I think that contributed to an already tense relation between media and audience. In retrospect, her article just set off the worse of it (although that itself was a reaction to current events).
i'm glad this was brought up again.
Words have meaning, period. If I said "Gamers suck. they are basement dwelling dweebs who are losers." I should expect someone to ask me to clarify what I mean because frankly, the words used do not specify anything.
You can say "well I know what she REALLY meant..." thats fine, but it doesn't mean she was exceptionally clear in what she was saying.
I can say something like "soccer fans are racist assholes who throw bananas at black people." That is not a clear statement and any soccer fan should be offended. If you can't get why that would upset people then I guess to each their own.
More_Badass
Member
This is great.
And holy shit, how did I not realize this Scalzi was John Scalzi, author of Old Man's War. Loved that book
I'm a gamer and a football fan. Why am I not offended? Besides you telling me how am I supposed to feel about lines which have never been written... where are the better representatives of Gamergate, you promised me earlier?
But as a football fan you know you have problems with racism in the professional leagues and from the fanbases. Even Fifa had to do a severe campaign to take a stand against the racism in football. And you know the stereotypical football fan so you would be understanding of the comment that there are toxic football fans with racist beliefs. Implicitly you would understand the comment.
And as Galactic Fork puts it really neatly earlier, a group is somewhat responsible for how it treats it's toxic elements. And by ignoring it or being Silent about it, the toxic elements fester and grow within that unchallenged vacuum. Like racists in football.
I prefer the reckoning of #Cigargate. Legalize all the drugs, except cigars.
#PineapplePizzaGate will suffice too; I do enjoy Hawaiian Pizza.
The amusing part about the not working "Football fans- Gamers" comparison ( where the hell is it even coming from), is, once again, the reality. There are fan initiatives against racism, violent ones are getting expelled etc. etc. It has been noticed as a problem and fans and organisators and clubs are fighting against it.
Now in the videogames community...
Now in the videogames community...
It's pretty clear through the context of the article that it's not referring to everyone who plays games, but to an older group that is getting pushed out by increasing diversity. There are only three uses of the word "gamer" in the body of the article, two of them in consecutive sentences.
As for "Words have meaning, period." Bullcrap. Language is constantly evolving. Meaning is not static. Mistakes and conveniences often become part of the language itself as it does. The word "gamer" is hundreds of years older than video games.
Anyone who has experience with gaming would know that 'gamer' forms a self identity for many. So that's why Leigh's article was such folly, as she just attacked that identity. Not the group within it that was actually harmful.
If I start ranting against Muslims, where actual issue is only with Jihadists, the reaction to me from moderate Muslims is likely to be hostile. I would have failed if my goal was to get the group to self moderate and call out their own.
This has never happened ever.
You are echoing the same thing as the US Right. They see flashpoints like Fergerson, are critical of the criminality in the black community, then use escalating violence as justification of their views.
The people who are doing the 'bad behaviour' in GG will never be calmed by articles or hashtags or stern words. They are not the people such things should be targeted at. Your actual goal is to ensure that toxic behaviour is not tolerated, by a combination of moderation (blocking from social media, police intervention etc) and through social exclusion by the majority. You won't get the latter by grouping the majority into your condemnation.
Which leads to:
I assume Boogie was responding an article entitled 'Gamers Are Dead' which was perceived to throw gamers under the bus.
Words have power. In contentions issues, with embattled sides, you need to choose your words carefully. Leigh didn't, hence the fact it has helped fuel the very thing she was rallying to end.
What is there exactly to be expelled from for gaming though? Forums? Social groups?
Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
Just to clear this up, it wasn't "gamers are dead." It was "'Gamers' are over." The quotes around "gamers" is there. It's about the word. As in the identity. As in how the world sees gamers. And that the 'gamers' publishers focus on isn't all there is.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Gamerclans? E-Sport tournaments? Of course, you can expell from less, one of the many reasons the comparison doesn't work.
More_Badass
Member
People are still having trouble understanding this?
A point of clarification, the actual article title was: 'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over.
That didn't answer my question.
I was just paraphrasing with my lame title I apologize. Thanks for the correction.
Sorry if this is a bit of a tangent, but I'm really reminded of this bit from Monty Python.
Vercotti: I was terrified of him. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.
Interviewer: What did he do?
Vercotti: He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.
Interviewer: What did he do?
Vercotti: He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.
Yes. Please stop. :\
I was watching Ferguson trend when suddenly the Quinnspiracy shot up and was covered with tweets of "gamers" telling some "slut" to go kill herself.
I saw what happened. I saw how awful these people were. It's not the same as another black male getting shot again for little to no reason...again.
A better example would be: "Christian fundamentalists in the Bible Belt feel persecuted or "oppressed" whenever they find someone that doesn't share their particular worldview. On closer examination of such claims, it's more commonly the case that claims of persecution are better explained as annoyance at the removal of privilege or the curtailment of their ability to force their views on others."
Green Biker Dude
Banned
why are you acting as if i'm not directly quoting the article you posted? they state precisely that the current market is smaller than what it should be because it's exclusionary due to games being violent
"gamer identity" is irrelevant. it comes down to whether the market for "non gamers" (include whichever minority you want here) is bigger than the current market or not. they say it is. if you're talking about low budget cellphone games, then yes, it is. but not for the 50/60 usd games. and, again, the wii was a great example of this. the average person isn't interested in spending 50-60 usd on new games every month. they "prove" they are right by using non digital games. hurr durr. as if that doesn't miss the entire point of video (!!!) games
nintendo's attempt to capture the non gamer market was so far the one that came closest from a traditional publisher/developer. so far, no one has been able to really identify how to make it sustainable since otherwise, there would be plenty of companies making billions off it. i'm sure no publisher would just leave money on the table like that. unless you think the corporations hate these demographics so much they'd rather not sell anything to them and lose money. or that there is a publisher conspiracy to lose money
being violent has nothing to do with having interesting gameplay mechanics. gta 3 was shat on for being violent. devil may cry 3, ninja gaiden 2 and metal gear rising are all violent games.
outside of puzzle games, and maybe adventure games, it's very unlikely for you to cite games with good gameplay that don't have some form of conflict. in one of those twitter images, someone was complaining about mario stepping on koopa's heads.
Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
No, she wasn't satirizing. She was expressing how narrow the view of gamers has become. What people think of "gamers". After the first few paragraphs describing "gamers" she says, "This is what the rest of the world knows about your industry."
Well that's what I meant; she wasn't being literal of her own opinion of convention attendees right?
Steve Youngblood
Member
Right. It's the hosts of Fox and Friends showing the latest place that eschewed Merry Christmas in favor of Happy Holidays or some city hall that opted not to put up a Nativity scene this year as evidence of "The War on Christmas."
I'm not equating Gamergate to racial violence.
I was equating it your view that being critical of an entire group, especially one tied into identity, will see the bad apples in that group suddenly change their behaviour to prove their critics wrong. This doesn't happen, and certainly hasn't happened with GG.
...Mario Kart? Sims? Animal Crossing? Portal? Minecraft? Katamari Damacy? Journey? Jetset Radio? Pac-Man? Silent Hill: Shattered Memories? Guitar Hero? DDR? Ace Attorney? Billards? Any sports game ever? A ton of other games that have reached record breaking purchases? C'mon man.
Edit: the best selling games ever are 1. Tetris 2. Wii Sports and 3. Minecraft. Let that sink in when you talk about violence in games.
jim-jam bongs
Member
It was pretty clear from her repeated use of quotation marks around the word that Alexander wanted to target a particular group within what can be defined as gamers. I actually would tend to agree that her tone was extremely abrasive though, and the attempts she made to create a disparaging mental image for the reader cast a net which was far too wide. People who had a lonely childhood, or had worn a Mario t-shirt at some point in their lives, incorrectly felt that they were being targeted and became defensive.
By the time people began making attempts to clarify things, it was too late. The rebuttal of her piece had already become a conversation about something else entirely. There was nothing which could be done to convince people that, if they were not participating in attacks on women in the industry or actively pushing to silence anyone who wanted to discuss the politics of gaming, they were not the people who were being declared to be done with. If Alexander hadn't cast such a wide net, it's unlikely that otherwise reasonable people would have found themselves siding with the misogynists who had started gamergate in the first place.
That's not to blame Leigh for the abuse and threats she has suffered, for the record. I'm just trying to reconcile the fact that a movement which began with a hate campaign against Zoe Quinn somehow managed to pull in people who would not have climbed aboard otherwise. To them, that's where gamergate started. To them, that's what it's about. The only people making a lot of noise about what Alexander wrote were the 'gaters, so they found themselves allied with a cause they didn't fully understand.
By the time people began making attempts to clarify things, it was too late. The rebuttal of her piece had already become a conversation about something else entirely. There was nothing which could be done to convince people that, if they were not participating in attacks on women in the industry or actively pushing to silence anyone who wanted to discuss the politics of gaming, they were not the people who were being declared to be done with. If Alexander hadn't cast such a wide net, it's unlikely that otherwise reasonable people would have found themselves siding with the misogynists who had started gamergate in the first place.
That's not to blame Leigh for the abuse and threats she has suffered, for the record. I'm just trying to reconcile the fact that a movement which began with a hate campaign against Zoe Quinn somehow managed to pull in people who would not have climbed aboard otherwise. To them, that's where gamergate started. To them, that's what it's about. The only people making a lot of noise about what Alexander wrote were the 'gaters, so they found themselves allied with a cause they didn't fully understand.
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