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[Buzzman]

Feminists called bomb threats and tried to harm, or actually harmed males rights people.

What

 

[Nirolak]

While they didn't comment here, EA has been pretty clear they support Anita: https://twitter.com/Battlefield/status/251735220292820993

 

[DICKS AHOY]

B-B-BUT IT'S ALL ABOUT TRANSPARENCY IN JOURNALISM GUYS COME ON

we'll show all those journalists who gave bayonetta 2 a 10/10 what to do about their anti-sex bias

Spoiler

7.5 is hardly a low score, it's Gies right to have the opinion he has (as it is my right to think his opinion was misinformed) and a lot of us aren't exactly waiting with baited breath to hear from him how we should better change our gaming habbits.

That's certainly better than death threats.

It's still pretty dumb considering the reality is the game got an excellent reception from the press despite the industry seemingly being controlled by SJW overlords.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

What does the gamergate conversation have to do with objectification and sexism in videogames anymore? Why does gamergate even have to be part of the conversation when the majority of gamers don't even know it exists even if it made the front page of the New York times? At this point, what people are upset about is a small subset of people in a movement that are actively misogynist which is as relevant to the conversation of equality in gaming as the neonazis are relevant to civil rights.

Your attempts to downplay this are comical

 

[Steel]

Your attempts to downplay this are comical

*Sigh* What, praytell, do you think my agenda is?

 

[Gattsu25]

That's a mainstream problem too. The whole movie industry have parties where they give away gifts, alchool and fun time before or after the reviewers see the movie. A lot of more serious reviewers condemn the whole idea of getting goodies at PAX when you are supposed to be there for work.

Going for the "appeal to tradition" fallacy?

 

[Orayn]

"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

It's on top of threads. All of those messages could be of a single person. It's all anonymous.

You are straining credibility so fucking hard right now. It takes about five minutes on /v/ to figure out that those are pretty common sentiments for people who post there.

Let me guess, anything that makes GamerGate must be a false flag, right? But they still get to take credit for all of the "good" things they've done, obviously.

 

[Buzzman]

"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

It's on top of threads. All of those messages could be of a single person. It's all anonymous.

Wow great argument you're right, maybe 8chan is all just one guy posting really fast? Maybe it's just a ploy to make GG look bad?

 

[Anton Sugar]

Feminists called bomb threats and tried to harm, or actually harmed males rights people. Should we judge the feminist movement on the action of those extremists? I do not think so. Same here. People will try to make everything something else to either attack or defend it. The thief was a black person, so that mean that all black people are like this. Or that mean that black people have problems and we need to help them. People will try to make everything into a bigger thing.

If we call a women out for something, that does not mean we hate women. It mean we dont like this thing that this person did. Same for everything. Just because I dont like that one specific black person, do not mean I dont like black peoples. And yet people will say "You dont like that guy because he's of color" and it change the whole debate.



"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

It's on top of threads. All of those messages could be of a single person. It's all anonymous.

Can you answer my questions please?

And, regarding your response to the post--if we should not trust posts in 8chan (the online HQ of #GamerGate), if we should not trust posts from Adam Baldwin or similar GG crazies, who should we trust as representing #GamerGate? And why?

 

[Kimawolf]

Love how Rubius still hasn't made any attempt to give specific examples of ongoing bad stuff that needs to change.

Well there's the medias seemingly lack of any kind of "editorial barrage" on the complete absence of minorities in gaming main roles and has been no real talk on it for years. That seems like a pretty big one to me. Or are they just waiting for #minoritygate?

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

*Sigh* What, praytell, do you think my agenda is?

*sigh* I don't know or really care, I just think it's comical

 

[Kinyou]

What

He linked it earlier:

Dont every celebrity or personality out there get death threats on a quasi daily level? Extremists will try to threaten people who they dont like. Every group do it, and it's not game related at all in my opinion.
Hell, feminists extremists called a bomb threat on a Male rights event. Everybody is against threats like that, but they are just that. Threats. Every celebrity out there get them and every personality out there get them. Female or not. Just because the victim is a women, it does not mean that this case is more important or mean more than any others. Threats are bad. Threats against womens are not any worst and they dont not relate to video game publisher.

It's like saying that if a rocker extremist make a threat against a hip hop singer, that every rock record label out there should say "sorry".

 

[Slayven]

Feminists called bomb threats and tried to harm, or actually harmed males rights people. Should we judge the feminist movement on the action of those extremists? I do not think so. Same here. People will try to make everything something else to either attack or defend it. The thief was a black person, so that mean that all black people are like this. Or that mean that black people have problems and we need to help them. People will try to make everything into a bigger thing.

If we call a women out for something, that does not mean we hate women. It mean we dont like this thing that this person did. Same for everything. Just because I dont like that one specific black person, do not mean I dont like black peoples. And yet people will say "You dont like that guy because he's of color" and it change the whole debate.


.

This really makes me mad. Trivializing the plight of minorities so you can compare them a stupid movement that started because some idiots were mad because people would not talk about who was fucking who? That shit is beyond insulting.....I got to stop typing.

 

[thesolidshark]

It was long time when I first came up with the idea so some of it is forgotten. But I imagine it would have dealt with having very important public speakers from each company come out and denounce things like sexism or harassment. There could be bigger moves like establishing new departments specifically targeting gender relations and having them relay that information to other publishers saying "this is what MS/Nintendo/Sony etc have agreed up and wish for all Publishers to start following". The last part may be too ambitious.

Thanks for your reply. Someone else brought up "gender relations" earlier; that was kind of a question mark to me, but still thought it was interesting.

One thing that does come to mind with denouncing sexism and policing between platform holders and publishers is some of the possible limits that could come with it. If the time came for a publisher, 1st or 3rd party, to allow development of a game that comes under fire for any sexism claims by individuals or groups, would it look like they're going back on their word for denouncing sexism?

It could become that unfortunately perceived contradiction of saying "no, we don't support sexism (in real life cases)," and a year or two later it gets thrown in their face based off of a game heavily critiqued for sexist tropes, characters, scenarios, etc, and bad press follows. Yeah, maybe too ambitious as I think about it now. I don't think it's totally bad, but I don't see as much positive as I do negative. I will admit I'm thinking pessimistically about this though, so you can hold that against me.

 

[robotzombie]

B-B-BUT IT'S ALL ABOUT TRANSPARENCY IN JOURNALISM GUYS COME ON

they want to give more sales to Bayonetta 2, I guess nobody is all bad

 

[danwarb]

Well, they make the games like GTA which pretty much fuels all the controversy in the first place.

Of course they are apart of it!

It's a bit of a silly contoversy to begin with then. Are we to start censoring fiction? Games are likely at the bottom of the list of popurlar entertainment mediums that influence behaviour.



Your problem here is a percieved threat to young male demographic, plus internet.

 

[Lime]

I think its ridiculous to demand companies enter into an argument because of some tangential relation between insane people and the products they may or may not consume.

The involvement of game companies into the controversy would only muddle the distinction of people who play games and internet thugs. There's literally nothing linking the two and this whole gamergate thing has been a tumultuous experiment in attempting to establish a link between the two. Whether its borne of people who want to use gross generalizations to usurp a group they feel disenfranchised from or people who wish to usurp a group to wage war on a disenfranchised group, nothing can be gained from it.

Frankly, the media attempting to pull in game companies is no different than they do when a young male goes on a murder spree with a gun and a gaming console is found in his home. We cannot respect the rights of the medium to be evaluated apart from the actions of an individual in some cases and then randomly hold their feet to the fire when we feel it will advance something we think deserves attention.

You're thinking there is only the "internet thugs" and then everyone else. There are also the people neutral, moderate, etc. And the non-invited. And the signal it would send to the victims of this hate campaign.

Sending a message and denouncing this hate campaign has a clear effect. Perhaps not on the psychopaths, but at least to the other people unaware or uncaring or suffering from this shit.

 

[watershed]

What does the gamergate conversation have to do with objectification and sexism in videogames anymore? Why does gamergate even have to be part of the conversation when the majority of gamers don't even know it exists even if it made the front page of the New York times? At this point, what people are upset about is a small subset of people in a movement that are actively misogynist which is as relevant to the conversation of equality in gaming as the neonazis are relevant to civil rights.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Anita's work is about representation in games. In reaction to her work some people have threatened her life and the lives of others. My argument is, in part, that if more outlets and publishers condemned these threats and engaged in a real conversation about the issues Anita tries to address, video game culture as a whole would benefit.

 

[Satch]

not yall expecting Rubius to give yall good responses when he has proven time and time again that he's got hardly anything worthwhile to say in threads about women in gaming

 

[Prototype]

Why would game companies say something? They're not really a part of the whole gamer gate thing.

This is my stance as well. What do they have to do with some assholes making threats, they can't control it.

 

[Orayn]

Well there's the medias seemingly lack of any kind of "editorial barrage" on the complete absence of minorities in gaming main roles and has been no real talk on it for years. That seems like a pretty big one to me. Or are they just waiting for #minoritygate?

Do you think the "barrage" came out of nowhere? It was preceded by a high profile incident.

The gaming press have covered both of those topics to some extent, but they're deep-seated issues that are hard to chip away at. They didn't become "gate" incidents because the previous coverage didn't inspire people didn't form an organized harassment campaign to stop others from talking about these subjects or convince the public that they're a total non-issue.

That said, I could see some shitty people starting a "pro-equality, anti-racist anti-affirmative action" campaign that winds up inspiring threats toward racial minorities in game development despite the movement "condemning harassment."

 

[Oersted]

Feminists called bomb threats and tried to harm, or actually harmed males rights people. Should we judge the feminist movement on the action of those extremists? I do not think so. Same here. People will try to make everything something else to either attack or defend it. The thief was a black person, so that mean that all black people are like this. Or that mean that black people have problems and we need to help them. People will try to make everything into a bigger thing.

Feminism is a movement, going for equality. It has figureheads, leaders, denouncing actions like you described. Gamergate is a harassment campaign. Don't confuse the two.

 

[Haunted]

Here's hoping the perpetrators of these threats can be found and punished accordingly.

 

[Lime]

While they didn't comment here, EA has been pretty clear they support Anita: https://twitter.com/Battlefield/status/251735220292820993

http://abload.de/img/eaanitap3ozp.png[IMG][/QUOTE]

Commendable and thanks for bringing it up, but that's [I]two years ago[/I] and it isn't associated with the hate campaign operating under a smoke screen of ethics and hurt gamer feelings.

 

[Reishiki]

You know how afraid I am off telling the girls I teach that they should get into video game development and culture? Or imagine being a parent and your daughter comes over and tells you that her ambition is to create her own video games and you recall reading that NYT headline about women in video games receiving rape threats for Youtube videos. This has an effect. And that's not even talking about the chilling effect *within* the video games industry.

As a trans woman working on getting into the industry, I am far more afraid of the people who have been attempting to drag my identity through the shitter for the last thirty years than the Twits of Twitter™.

Some of this is due to local legislation, of course. Does the US have something similar?

 

[DICKS AHOY]

You are straining credibility so fucking hard right now. It takes about five minutes on /v/ to figure out that those are pretty common sentiments for people who post there.

The screenshot's from 8chan (look at the post ID's), but at least there'll eventually be actual generals on /v/ and /vg/ with less idiotic shit going on. 8chan from what I've seen so far ranges from being a ghost town to the screencaps we've had posted in this thread.

 

[Rubius]

You are straining credibility so fucking hard right now. It takes about five minutes on /v/ to figure out that those are pretty common sentiments for people who post there.

Let me guess, anything that makes GamerGate must be a false flag, right? But they still get to take credit for all of the "good" things they've done, obviously.

/v/ hate everything and love everything. /v/ is not an entity. You can have threads about how great a game is and the next will be about how shitty this game is and it will have as many posts.

What

Happened a lot of times, but here the most recent death threats from feminists extremists.

I dont think there is a single group out there with members that never made threats.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

B-B-BUT IT'S ALL ABOUT TRANSPARENCY IN JOURNALISM GUYS COME ON

If they want bayonetta to sell, more power to them

 

[paperboywriter]

this thing has to stop, it's a cancer in the industry and nothing good comes out of it.

 

[JDSN]

Love how Rubius still hasn't made any attempt to give specific examples of ongoing bad stuff that needs to change.

He could use the Shadow of Mordor example but the "SWJ" site Kotaku exposed hero of Gamergate and person from the United KIngdom Boogie as a bit of an opportunistic shill.

 

[Orayn]

/v/ hate everything and love everything. /v/ is not an entity. You can have threads about how great a game is and the next will be about how shitty this game is and it will have as many posts.

Yes. /v/ has some diversity of opinion. That doesn't mean that nobody ever uses it to express their actual views. Based on the frequency with which certain topics come up, it's pretty likely that a good number of people who post on /v/ are sincere about those things.

 

[SolidSnakex]

You don't think that there are still people unaware and/or in denial about the hate movement they are associating themselves with? And you really think that the neutral/moderates are completely aware of what this movement is causing? It sends a strong signal if companies, personalities, and media denounce this hate campaign.

Oh, there's certainly people that aren't aware. Most people playing games are likely completely oblivious to this happening. But informing those people won't necessarily mean that they'll settle on the outcome that you want. Which could be a major negative in it getting even more attention. Which I guess brings up how people think this will all go away. Will more attention do it due to it potentially driving them out, or will ignoring do it because they'll no longer have anyone giving them attention? I guess it's a question that no one can really answer right now.

 

[Lord_Balkan]

What about objectification and sexism in videogames is in some ways a reflection of the attitudes of people who make such games and people who buy such games? Do you not think that media representation plays a role in how people see themselves or others?

All I am saying is that: there has been no correlation or causation evidence with sexism in games creating sexism in real life.

I did not and did not intend to make a statement on societal representation of games, or if they perpetuate certain attitudes (which is probably true) but that does not mean it causes it.

This point is either rare from her or has been brought up far less often than Thompson's about violence, where the whole 'violence in games = violence in real life' aspect was the entire foundation of his crusade.

Not that if you oppose Anita's views on gaming you shouldn't oppose her arguments, but the two people aren't really all that comparable on how they were critiquing gaming.

The reason I brought it up is it seems Anita's videos have arguments that try to the lead to the conclusion that 'sexism in games can cause sexism in real life' which is the big thing I disagree with.

EDIT: Let me make it clear, just because I disagree with her conclusions and think some of her arguments / evidence is ridiculous, I still think she has the right to make those videos. Just like I have the right to disagree with them. She also should not be receiving death threats because of her videos.

 

[Orayn]

If they want bayonetta to sell, more power to them

Plenty of non-GG people also want Bayonetta 2 to sell. Some of them are even feminists!

How do we determine who's right now?

 

[Rubius]

This really makes me mad. Trivializing the plight of minorities so you can compare them a stupid movement that started because some idiots were mad because people would not talk about who was fucking who? That shit is beyond insulting.....I got to stop typing.

I do not trivialize anything. Minority issues is a real issue, that I live myself, same as equality among sexes. I'm saying that people will try to make an issue into something else if they can. Simply took the first example that popped in my mind. This is about moving the debate from point A to point X. For example, at a meetup a couple of months ago, we were playing the Concordia board game when one of the player ordered some food. The owner of the game said "If you get food, just watch out to not put stuff on the cards" and the guy said "Well I was there when there was this school shooting so this kind of stuff do not affect me".

That's moving the discussion in a direction far far away from the intended argument of "Dont put mayo on my board game".

 

[Noaloha]

I started making this superawesome finely produced political cartoon, but, then I got bored. Sorry.

Point being, when this truck came driving up your street with its appealing looking banner slapped on the side and they asked if you wanted to get in, you should have looked a bit closer at the folk up in front behind the tinted windows. Because they're driving this thing, not you. You're just weight. Momentum.

And those unfortunate explosions that keep happening around you? A little hint: the ones driving the truck are causing those. Ignore that fact if you like and continue along for the ride, but at that point you don't get to say "Hey, it's not us back here doing that." You can get off this particular ride.

If you choose to stay on the truck, you're complicit in the actions of the truck.

 

[robotzombie]

Plenty of non-GG people also want Bayonetta 2 to sell. Some of them are even feminists!

How do we determine who's right now?

those who own a copy of bayonetta 2 are right of course, the rest of the world can burn!

 

[Kimawolf]

Oh, there's certainly people that aren't aware. Most people playing games are likely completely oblivious to this happening. But informing those people won't necessarily mean that they'll settle on the outcome that you want. Which could be a major negative in it getting even more attention. Which I guess brings up how people think this will all go away. Will more attention do it due to it potentially driving them out, or will ignoring do it because they'll no longer have anyone giving them attention? I guess it's a question that no one can really answer right now.

Well now it's more than a game issue. When Anita tweeted her urging of people to basically "boycott" speaking in Utah until the laws change, she put herself firmly in the camp of gun control. which is fine, but now she has certainly alienated any people on the other side of that debate. As we'll see soon enough.

Hell you heard the politician saying she was overreacting, how many other people think the same thing? They'll think it due to the constant media stories of this famous people getting a death threat, this one having a stalker, this one etc etc. They'll roll their eyes and move on.

 

[Orayn]

those who own a copy of bayonetta 2 are right of course, the rest of the world can burn!

Leigh Alexander is pro-Bayonetta.

 

[Tiktaalik]

While they didn't comment here, EA has been pretty clear they support Anita: https://twitter.com/Battlefield/status/251735220292820993

This is the simple sort of action that I think would go a long way. More dev teams and publishers should be doing this.

 

[L Thammy]

Gamergate is not the KKK. Same way Muslims and Christians are not terrorists who want to kill everybody.

Is there a seminar or something where they train people to regurgitate this same shitty argument? I'm seeing it every day now.

Major religions have denominations. Most religious people are associated with denominations that are not crazy. Everyone in the crazy denominations is part of a crazy denomination and we should react to them accordingly. It's easy to tell because they choose specific names to differentiate from each other.

Gamergate is not an umbrella term. Everyone who says they support Gamergate is supporting the entire group; if they really wanted to keep their disparate messages from being drowned out, they'd pick new labels and use them instead.

 

[Lime]

Some of this is due to local legislation, of course. Does the US have something similar?

Thanks for this! I am not familiar with the UK policies, could you elaborate on what the Communications Act 2003 have done? Making it legal for people to impersonate other people and appropriate their identities?

Oh, there's certainly people that aren't aware. Most people playing games are likely completely oblivious to this happening. But informing those people won't necessarily mean that they'll settle on the outcome that you want. Which could be a major negative in it getting even more attention. Which I guess brings up how people think this will all go away. Will more attention do it due to it potentially driving them out, or will ignoring do it because they'll no longer have anyone giving them attention? I guess it's a question that no one can really answer right now.

Simply keeping silent on the online terrorism of women in the culture of video games is not going to help anyone except the bigots. This is the consensus among research into victims of both offline and online harassment/terrorism.

Most people don't accept bigots and neither do they sympathize with people making rape and death threats. Hearing that GG is demonstratively a hate campaign would make sure not only that people capable of empathy won't join the movement, and it would send a signal of approval to the ones being victimized throughout this shitfest.

Who knows, making people aware of the problem might even push towards change.

Staying silent is not the course of action. There are so many convincing reasons to speak up about this.

 

[Shig]

Comparing a barista messing up orders to journalists being paid and bought, good game.

I'm comparing severities of response.

And using 'journalist' as a broad unspecific term obfuscates the odiousness of the crime. We're not talking journalists that are covering up war crimes here, we're talking journalists that namedrop a videogame because they knew someone who made it. They both violate basic journalistic ethics, sure, but chrissake, a basic evaluation of "How much does this matter, really?" should probably enter in somewhere before you ready the iron maidens and stretching racks.

 

[Buzzman]

All I am saying is that: there has been no correlation or causation evidence with sexism in games creating sexism in real life.

I did not and did not intend to make a statement on societal representation of games, or if they perpetuate certain attitudes (which is probably true) but that does not mean it causes it.



The reason I brought it up is it seems Anita's videos have arguments that try to the lead to the conclusion that 'sexism in games can cause sexism in real life' which is the big thing I disagree with.

Really? If the media you consume has sexist views don't see how you wouldn't be influenced by it. A person raised on racist media would probably turn racist.

 

[Rubius]

Yes. /v/ has some diversity of opinion. That doesn't mean that nobody ever uses it to express their actual views. Based on the frequency with which certain topics come up, it's pretty likely that a good number of people who post on /v/ are sincere about those things.

Not really. Right now it's pretty common to see baits who are anti gamer gate since that's what people react to. You have as many pro gamer gate threads that you have anti gamer gates threads. 4chan do not have a Up and down system, but they still get a kick when the threads is full of answers. So they do click bait stuff and try to get people into a fight.
Anita is a simple way to get a lot of posts in a thread. Just like posting 4*5-7(4/2+3*2)+4, you get full threads from that too because people like messing with people by getting the wrong answer and arguing against PEMDAS and BEDMAS.

 

[robotzombie]

Leigh Alexander is pro-Bayonetta.

he must have been a time traveler

 

[BreezyLimbo]

This is the simple sort of action that I think would go a long way. More dev teams and publishers should be doing this.

Saying they support someone they may or may not care about?

 

[John Harker]

Individual companies shouldn't make individual comments: that's exactly the work of industry organizations. And the Entertainment Software Association did exactly that as quoted in the article.

They also fund the ESA, the ESA is a body that exists because of game companies and in effect are the legal representation of these companies. They can speak on the industry's behalf.

Individual publishers don't really have any direct input or control over a body of extremists.

That said, this is effing terrifying. First make me feel too good about my career

 

[Steel]

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Anita's work is about representation in games. In reaction to her work some people have threatened her life and the lives of others. My argument is, in part, that if more outlets and publishers condemned these threats and engaged in a real conversation about the issues Anita tries to address, video game culture as a whole would benefit.

I mildly agree publicly condemning these threats would be beneficial. Obviously they should say that they don't support death threats and death threats are reprehensible for any reason. Presumably this would send a signal to gamers that gaming companies are for equal representation. However, people who make death threats thrive on this type of attention I don't see it having a huge effect on gamergate. It's a drop in the bucket, kinda pointless beyond making a handful of people feel better which isn't a bad thing.

I completely agree that gaming companies themselves should engage in real conversations about equal representation in gaming and how they can actually change their own practices to make gaming more inclusive. Video games as a whole would certainly benefit. That has nothing to do with acknowledging gamergate one way or the other though, though I suppose the thought is that now's the perfect time since the subject is hanging out there because of gamergate. I just see any engagment with the gamergate debate as kind of pointless, as it only prolongs a meaningless "us vs them" mentality.

 

[Orayn]

Not really. Right now it's pretty common to see baits who are anti gamer gate since that's what people react to. You have as many pro gamer gate threads that you have anti gamer gates threads. 4chan do not have a Up and down system, but they still get a kick when the threads is full of answers. So they do click bait stuff and try to get people into a fight.
Anita is a simple way to get a lot of posts in a thread. Just like posting 4*5-7(4/2+3*2)+4, you get full threads from that too because people like messing with people by getting the wrong answer and arguing against PEMDAS and BEDMAS.

Okay. You are seriously arguing that there is no proof of "anti-SJW" or anti-feminist sentiment existing on 4chan or in GamerGate. Everyone's just looking for attention or they're secretly planted by the opposition.

I'm sure all those lovely folks at /pol/ are just a big silly hivemind version of Colbert, elaborately mocking racism through hilarious irony.