Support NeoGAF

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Now it's coming out...

 

[Trame]

What the hell is this shit?

An utterly transparent attempt at character assassination that would be irrelevant in a Tropes vs Women thread, let alone here.

But I think you knew that.

 

[ClosingADoor]

Who's decrying people having personal opinions or subjective analysis? When did I say that? I specifically named the example of "if your SO is the developer, maybe you shouldn't write or at least state the fact in your article".

There are many ways to discover games. Here's a few, despite your sarcasm:

- Gamejolt
- Indiegames.com (they cover a wide gamut of indie titles and from what I've seen, show no real favoritism)
- Indiestatik - Has writers like Chloi on staff who actively seek out indies and give fair coverage. Good writers overall and they cover a lot of different games.
- Reddit (gamedev, indiegaming, games, subreddits for other games if you are looking for a particular genre like creepygaming)
- Game engine, gamedev forums like Unity, UE4, TIGSource.
- Facebook has a group called Indie Game Promo (a lot of it is mobile devs and a lot of clones, but that's the nature of open groups, sadly)
- IndieDB.com
- Billions of other smaller game sites, youtubers, etc. Did you know that a lot of youtubers do Let's Plays of small indie games nobody's ever heard of? Markiplier did a let's play of one of my gamejam games. I discovered it after I saw a huge unexplained spike in my site's traffic. Know who told him? Nobody. His readers recommended it to him.

The fact is, there are a *ton* of places you can go to discover games, even if you ignore the fact that developers actively send their games to press for coverage, so they don't even *need* to go find them.

There is absolutely no *need* to rely on your friends to know that a game exists. This is the internet for crying out loud, you can find anything.

So people can use those ways to discover games or they can follow other websites that cover other games. What's the problem here?

You point out there are "billions of otehr smaller game sites, youtubers, etc." So there are people covering those games. Then why should other websites be forced to also do that?

Every outlet picks is strategy. Some focus on PC, some on indie games, some on mainstream titles. Don't like it, pick another website to read.

 

[The Technomancer]

There's a pretty huge amount of things she said that are super-ignorant of whatever she's talking about. That and she's obviously sex-negative and made comments that pretty much dehumanized female sex workers.

No, her point is that the way that game's handle sex workers dehumanize them. Her opinions haven't been the clearest, I know, but her Background Decoration Part 2 video lays things out fairly neatly

 

[Oersted]

I'm just saying, you don't need disinformation to dislike Anita. I doubt anyone but a small minority thinks she 'wants to take video games away from us'.

Do you have any shred of self-awareness? "She approved the positive ones but not the negative." This information is so irrelevant for so many reasons.

 

[Son of Cervantes]

There's a pretty huge amount of things she said that are super-ignorant of whatever she's talking about. That and she's obviously sex-negative and made comments that pretty much dehumanized female sex workers.

Haven't read those comments so I can't say anything about it...just talking about her video game YouTube stuff, or rather, what I've seen of it.

Depends on if she slams Bayonetta or not, though. My gf and I love Bayonetta.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

There's a pretty huge amount of things she said that are super-ignorant of whatever she's talking about. That and she's obviously sex-negative and made comments that pretty much dehumanized female sex workers.

It's cute that you make these statements without any supporting evidence or even a clear understanding of what something like "sex-negative" means.

As I said, the spread of misinformation.

 

[dumbo]

The gamer term was never taken away, to be honest, but it's one of the issues Gamergate people (e.g. Boogie) have complained about. There's nothing to give back.

If a group of professional writers managed to convince a significant chunk of their readership that they were attacking the term 'gamer', then I don't see what alternative exists.... Are they poor writers? are their readers poor readers? (and shouldn't a writer write for their readers anyway?)

For a moderate GG supporter, I'd imagine this controversy probably starts with those "poorly worded/intended/understood" articles.

I don't think it's the worst idea to suggest undoing that (especially if it wasn't intended anyway)?

 

[Mesoian]

There's a pretty huge amount of things she said that are super-ignorant of whatever she's talking about. That and she's obviously sex-negative and made comments that pretty much dehumanized female sex workers.

Which, again, is her OPINION. It's cool if you disagree with her, but people shouldn't be flying off the handle because of it. She has good points and bad points, but let's not forget that this entire video series is one big OPINION piece.

 

[RicoTheMad]

Absurd hyperbole aside you could start by actually updating your own company's blog. Effective marketing is a craft. It is not an accident that certain indies get press coverage, and the answer isn't some grand conspiracy. It is effective marketing.

I post in other places that get more visibility and save my blog for meaty updates with more content. But like I said, thanks for your interest, but I will not be taking business advise from you at this time. I am not actively trying to market my game at this moment, and that is part of my business plan. Let's also not forget I do indie dev in my spare time and I do have a day job I spend 8 hours a day at, so pardon the dust, but kindly, lay off unless you are genuinely interested, which is clearly not the case.

But please, continue proving to me how its ok for games media to be shady and blame it on me. You are definitely proving your point without a shadow of a doubt. Continue!

 

[Auctopus]

Is this the same guy who made the arrogant and obnoxious remarks about the Xbox One's original always-online policies?

 

[Deleted member 126221]

What are you on about? When did I say marketing wasn't a thing.

Should my marketing budget include funds for bribes to the press? Hookers/gigolos? I'm an indie so I may need to get my own hands dirty. Will you tell my wife this is necessary so she'll give me the go ahead, please?

Ridiculous.

 

[Mesoian]

Is this the same guy who made the arrogant and obnoxious remarks about the Xbox One's original always-online policies?

It is.

But he's right.

 

[EXIE]

Dunno if this has been posted already, but 30 minute live Huffpost interview with 3 female pro-gg gamers.

Found it very interesting.

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/se...n-video-game-culture/543c686878c90a71ff000157

Always nice to see a different side to a story

 

[Gutsy Frog]

Haven't read those comments so I can't say anything about it...just talking about her video game YouTube stuff, or rather, what I've seen of it.

Depends on if she slams Bayonetta or not, though. My gf and I love Bayonetta.

She finds Bayonetta misogynist. As I said, she's very sex-negative.

It's cute that you make these statements without any supporting evidence or even a clear understanding of what something like "sex-negative" means.

Disagreement =/= misunderstanding. But keep up the needless passive-aggression.

No, her point is that the way that game's handle sex workers dehumanize them. Her opinions haven't been the clearest, I know, but her Background Decoration Part 2 video lays things out fairly neatly

There have been very valid complaints regarding her statements about sex workers. http://elevatorgate.wordpress.com/2...d-women-have-connotations-femfreqvideo-games/

(this is a shitty blog please ignore the rest of it and just look at the tweets)

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Disagreement =/= [misinformation]. But up the needless passive-aggression.

Indeed, but what you did is not disagree. You stated false statements as if they were fact. By definition, misinformation.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

I've not commented at all on GamerGate nor do I associate myself with it but to allow post after post of claims that the GamerGate campaign is an anti-women campaign, then to encourage people to "move on" when discussing an example of what some claim the movement to be about seems a very big double standard.

I'm encouraging people to move on because we are going around in circles about stories written two years ago that are supposed to serve as shining examples of what the movement stands for. What's the better alternative here?

Folks, these egregious articles from 2012 obviously prove just what corruption we are fighting against. Now, while Kotaku has addressed these concerns and promised to be more transparent going forward, that's obviously not enough. Clearly, this story is very important and we need to keep talking about it until we can claim the huge victory that is making Hernandez answer for her past transgressions.

My grandchildren will one day be regaled by the harrowing tale about how a female journalist almost got away with promoting her significant other's game without disclosing the conflict of interest, but we stuck to our guns and two years later got her fired. #GamerGate

 

[Mesoian]

She finds Bayonetta misogynist. As I said, she's very sex-negative.

The reason why I'm so cold on Anita is because of her Bayonetta arguments from before the Tropes videos which are poorly thought out and more about marketing than they are about the game itself. It's a bad jumping off point. Started a lot of good conversations about the idea of sexism and objectivism in video games though.

]

 

[Deleted member 126221]

She finds Bayonetta misogynist.

Uuuuuh... I don't think misogyny means what you think it means...

 

[NickFire]

Another person victimized. Well, same person victimized again. Someone needs to change course to stop this insanity. Nothing significant is going to ever be won in a damn twitter war.

I've said it before, and I will say it again. Stop giving the trolls attention. Hate feeds off of hate. Giving them attention is what they want. Its the only thing that keeps them going. As long as someone is listening to them, they will continue their temper tantrums to try to prove they are somehow right. Let them scream into an empty abyss until they get tired and take their naps and go back to whatever they hell they did before this little internet crusade began.

 

[Brakke]

She posted an article that basically told the world that Max Tempkin from Cards Against Humanity raped a woman in college with no evidence or creditable backing. I would have fired her for that and given their editor hell. It is a gross article that never should have been run.

But her dating someone once is way more important than that apparently.

That's sort of a misreading. That article was based on Temkin's own blog about the accusations, was more concerned with how he was approaching it--which approach his post had discussed--than what had actually happened.

 

[Lime]

I started disliking Anita in 2010, before 4chan even knew of her existence. I found her channel and left her four comments in her approval queue: two positive, two negative (yet nicely-worded). She approved the positive ones but not the negative.

Why are you saying this?

 

[RicoTheMad]

You have clearly "won" this discussion with that image. Please, move on to use your excellent debate skills in politics. But also while you're at it, please make sure you buy some Doritos and Mountain Dew Game Fuel!

 

[Cybit]

Uuuuuh... I don't think misogyny means what you think it means...

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the terms bigot, racist, sexist, misogynist and misandrist have all been completely stripped of meaning and power due to their usage online. We use those words because they had such a powerful connotation - but the overusage of them has unfortunately stripped them of their power.

 

[Neoriceisgood]

Why are you saying this?

To prove that he is a hero of justice and that Anita is a horrible person.

 

[Bionic]

Is this the same guy who made the arrogant and obnoxious remarks about the Xbox One's original always-online policies?

Yes. He also gave some pretty interesting interviews and talks about how that experience changed him. The trajectories for people who experience massive amounts of harassment and negative public sentiment are varied, but his is a pretty nice turnaround story in terms of comparing what he could have done with the experience (becoming bitter and lashing out in all directions) vs what he did (changed his behavior, making hay out of a lot of environmental stressors, sharing lessons learned with others).

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the terms bigot, racist, sexist, misogynist and misandrist have all been completely stripped of meaning and power due to their usage online. We use those words because they had such a powerful connotation - but the overusage of them has unfortunately stripped them of their power.

I'm pretty sure the extreme reaction that people have to being called any of those terms means they haven't been stripped of their power. Meaning may have shifted, but being called any of those words sure seems to rile people up.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the terms bigot, racist, sexist, misogynist and misandrist have all been completely stripped of meaning and power due to their usage online. We use those words because they had such a powerful connotation - but the overusage of them has unfortunately stripped them of their power.

Is that why so many gamers get their collective undergarments in a twist whenever someone even attempts to discuss racism/sexism in gaming?

 

[dLMN8R]

Is this the same guy who made the arrogant and obnoxious remarks about the Xbox One's original always-online policies?

Are you seriously suggesting that Adam Orth must be forever held accountable to stupid things he said well over a year ago?

Even though he's publicly apologized for those remarks countless times, and given public talks about how he learned from the experience?

 

[JackDT]

She finds Bayonetta misogynist. As I said, she's very sex-negative.

Disagreement =/= misunderstanding. But keep up the needless passive-aggression.

There's nothing wrong with not liking Bayonetta. Jeezus. 100 reviews and one reviewer from Polygon gives his highest score in months while saying he found it sexist, and millions of gamergate tweets focus on this as the scandal to end all scandals.

On opinions on the game:

https://twitter.com/samusclone

Dear GGers linking my Bayo2 review out of context: Did you read it?

oh hey it's another reminder that women in games aren't a hive mind and we disagree with each other all the time and it's *actually fine*

It's almost as though we need a plurality of experiences / opinions / *human beings* represented, as opposed to "any ol' minority will do"

Like ... on @Isometricshow ... we have three cisgendered white lady hosts *and we still disagree with each other constannnttlyyyy*

Or Jim Sterling: it's ok to say the character of Bayonetta is bad. It's ok to say the character of Bayonetta is good. Have a great chat about it with a pal!

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the terms bigot, racist, sexist, misogynist and misandrist have all been completely stripped of meaning and power due to their usage online. We use those words because they had such a powerful connotation - but the overusage of them has unfortunately stripped them of their power.

If that were true people wouldn't react so violent when it's even suggested that they might be one.

If they're used more now it's because social media and lack of self-awareness make it easier to see.

 

[Dr_LucienSanchez]

Hey! NeoGAF got a shout-out in that new huffpo video! Apparently we're a 'prominent figure of the gaming journalism industry today.' And '[we] need to be told off' since 'it's not right what [we're] doing.'

This is all so enlightening.

 

[More_Badass]

Hey! NeoGAF got a shout-out in that new huffpo video! Apparently we're a 'prominent figure of the gaming journalism industry today.' And '[we] need to be told off' since 'it's not right what [we're] doing.'

This is all so enlightening.

What...are we doing exactly?

 

[Squire]

She posted an article that basically told the world that Max Tempkin from Cards Against Humanity raped a woman in college with no evidence or creditable backing. I would have fired her for that and given their editor hell. It is a gross article that never should have been run.

But her dating someone once is way more important than that apparently.

Please. You don't even have a link to the article. Sounds like someone else who's just upset she covered it at all. "She didn't do research" You sound like an apologist to me.

 

[Pride]

I'm encouraging people to move on because we are going around in circles about stories written two years ago that are supposed to serve as shining examples of what the movement stands for. What's the better alternative here?

It seems to me that if you really wanted to, I bet you could find more than one instance of a topic that "we are going around in circles about" in a thread that has exceed 130 pages.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

What...are we doing exactly?

Keeping priorities straight, for the most part

 

[outunderthestars]

I post in other places that get more visibility and save my blog for meaty updates with more content. But like I said, thanks for your interest, but I will not be taking business advise from you at this time. I am not actively trying to market my game at this moment, and that is part of my business plan. Let's also not forget I do indie dev in my spare time and I do have a day job I spend 8 hours a day at, so pardon the dust, but kindly, lay off unless you are genuinely interested, which is clearly not the case.

But please, continue proving to me how its ok for games media to be shady and blame it on me. You are definitely proving your point without a shadow of a doubt. Continue!

To be fair, I was replying to your post where you were literally asking how you could market your game in an industry you find shady, and earlier posts where you said you fear that your game would be unfairly ignored. I was pointing out that you can't really blame the media when you haven't bothered to update your official site in 5 months.

You then replied and accused me of slander. I honestly hope you hire an outside marketing firm because your people skills are not your strong suit, and your game really looks interesting.

 

[Hemi-PoweredDrone]

Is that why so many gamers get their collective undergarments in a twist whenever someone even attempts to discuss racism/sexism in gaming?

I hate to use the term white privelage because of it's conotation, but there is a fair bit of it there coming from people that don't think racism exists anymore, so it couldn't be in our games.

do you have a link or screencap of those comments? since you have such a close personal relationship with the person who made them I just can't accept your word on the issue.

I don't, but I could post a screenshot of David Shankle from Manowar telling me "Fuck of, loser" on Youtube because I said his video looked speed up. Not relevant, but I always find it funny.

 

[Lalalandia]

Another person victimized. Well, same person victimized again. Someone needs to change course to stop this insanity. Nothing significant is going to ever be won in a damn twitter war.

I've said it before, and I will say it again. Stop giving the trolls attention. Hate feeds off of hate. Giving them attention is what they want. Its the only thing that keeps them going. As long as someone is listening to them, they will continue their temper tantrums to try to prove they are somehow right. Let them scream into an empty abyss until they get tired and take their naps and go back to whatever they hell they did before this little internet crusade began.

You will be repeating this point many times because these are not trolls, they have long since moved past that into the realm of criminality. We have to talk about it so they cannot spin silence into support I.e. 'we are the true gamers, that's why site X and Person Y gave resisted the SJW attempts to get them/it to condemn us').

While ignoring Quinnspiracy may have been the right thing to do at one point I think since this has metasticised into GG and is rampaging across the net more sites need to actively say 'this wrong and here's why'.

 

[Neoriceisgood]

What...are we doing exactly?

Banning people who think the worst part about death threats is that it legitimizes Anita.

 

[Dr_LucienSanchez]

What...are we doing exactly?

Hah, not quite sure of that myself exactly. GAF was lumped in with polygon, kotaku, RPS, etc.

Mind you, it was one of the 'pro-gamergate' panel members that was saying it, not the HuffPo host.

 

[MYeager]

What...are we doing exactly?

Having opinions.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Wow it's even trending worldwide on Twitter now

Spoiler

this was posted already wasn't it? D:

Not trying to rain on your parade but were you logged in to twitter when you saw that? It shows you hashtags you're likely to be interested in. I don't think even the GamerGate tag ever truly trended worldwide at it's peak.

 

[Orayn]

It seems to me that if you really wanted to, I bet you could find more than one instance of a topic that "we are going around in circles about" in a thread that has exceed 130 pages.

That's happened before, and Steve told people to move on then as well.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

[...]there is a fair bit of it there coming from people that don't think racism exists anymore, so it couldn't be in our games.

Yeah and I legitimately question these people's sanity. They seem to think that once minorities were given voting rights that suddenly racism/sexism ceased to exist. They remind me of the same people who spout things like "well if women wanted to work in tech/games/etc then they would". Then they of course ignore the fact that several women are being driven out of a male dominated industry with death/rape threats.

 

[Gutsy Frog]

Obviously there's still plenty of people who do, or the tag would have been dead weeks ago.

A better question to ask is, is there anyone left on NeoGAF who really wants to support Gamergate? And I doubt there is.

I might think twice about it if the "objective non political analysis" thing and the "you faked your death threats" stuff stops being so common.

 

[PumpkinSpice]

Not trying to rain on your parade but were you logged in to twitter when you saw that? It shows you hashtags you're likely to be interested in. I don't think even the GamerGate tag ever truly trended worldwide at it's peak.

It did at least briefly around 1 or 2am EST. I don't have a twitter accout and don't get bubble'd.

 

[JohnnyHustler]

Not trying to rain on your parade but were you logged in to twitter when you saw that? It shows you hashtags you're likely to be interested in. I don't think even the GamerGate tag ever truly trended worldwide at it's peak.

#StopGamerGate2014 is the top trend in the US currently.

 

[Son of Cervantes]

I'm encouraging people to move on because we are going around in circles about stories written two years ago that are supposed to serve as shining examples of what the movement stands for. What's the better alternative here?

Folks, these egregious articles from 2012 obviously prove just what corruption we are fighting against. Now, while Kotaku has addressed these concerns and promised to be more transparent going forward, that's obviously not enough. Clearly, this story is very important and we need to keep talking about it until we can claim the huge victory that is making Hernandez answer for her past transgressions.

My grandchildren will one day be regaled by the harrowing tale about how a female journalist almost got away with promoting her significant other's game without disclosing the conflict of interest, but we stuck to our guns and two years later got her fired. #GamerGate

You're being a real jerk here. I can't even bring up a real issue? The point is she wrote those articles years ago but the disclosures were only added a couple of months back.

 

[endless dave]

not sure if this has been settled yet (thread is moving fast this afternoon!), but from a journalism ethics standpoint, if you, as a journalist, have a direct, personal connection to a subject of your writing, AND you're initiating a call to action regarding their work, you should be disclosing that.

what is difficult is the definition of two phrases there: "direct, personal connection" and "call to action." the first is certainly open to interpretation, but morally I feel it involves something beyond a work connection, something past colleagues in the same field. Certainly a significant other. If they can stand as a friend outside of your shared field, I'd consider that a direct, personal connection. and certainly if there is a monetary connection between the two of you, that connection exists.

A "call to action" is a bit more well defined because the FCC does regulate that in determining advertising vs. underwriting. Think of an ad on a commercial radio versus NPR/non-commercial radio: "buy this album!" against "this album is out now." One implores you to take action (doesn't necessarily have to be "buy") and the other does not. Ads vs. underwriting also includes pulls into having non-quoted statements of opinion, but I don't think that's germane here. So for Hernandez to not disclose a personal connection to someone's games she's imploring you to buy, then yeah, that's a breach of your reader's trust.

THAT BEING SAID- it's a small infraction and one that could have been waved away by most editors. Enthusiam press engages in this all the time through many MANY shades of grey. The music industry especially at the more "indie" level like Pitchfork or something is rife with friends supporting other friends' bands. But the (honestly opaque) equation also takes into account the size of the push from the press source and the level of acclaim/press the subject already has. So a lesser headline piece about a tiny indie game, yeah, not the biggest no-no. But still a no-no.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

It seems to me that if you really wanted to, I bet you could find more than one instance of a topic that "we are going around in circles about" in a thread that has exceed 130 pages.

Right. Folks, buckle in. We need to get to the bottom of this Hernandez story from two years ago. Someone put on another pot of coffee. Call your loved ones and let them know you're eating dinner at the office. These two-year-old stories are clearly the corruption we need to focus on. I think I speak for the rest of the staff here when I say that we are throwing our hats in with #GamerGate. Has anyone checked for unethical stories from 2011 that Hernandez wrote? Because, let's get moving here people. This is clearly what's wrong with gaming journalism.