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Paradox295 wrote:

If someone chooses to take the words of a minority group of feminists as what "feminism" stands for, that's ridiculous.

Likewise, choosing to take the words of a minority group of the gaming community as representative of the gaming community as a whole, that's absurd, especially when your aim is (or at least, I hope, should be) to encourage more women and racial minorities to enjoy mediums such as videogames and animation.

If that "minority"s actions cause women and racial minorities to simply give up on contributing to videogames and animation (which has happened--say hello, Jenn Frank!) and harasses those that currently are (remember when the Internet hated Zoe Frank for Depression Quest?), you're darn right I'll paint the whole community with the same brush. Clean up your dang house if you want to say "NOT ALL GAMERS!" Otherwise, I--someone who's enjoyed games since '94--will look forward to seeing the community implode on itself in a fiery disaster, bringing the last vestiges of fandom with it. I'll look on that implosion and laugh my rear off, for every time that one of my female friends has gotten heck from some jackass at Gamestop when they just want to pick up Kingdom Hearts, for every messed-up message they get on XBox Live, and for every time gamers threw a tantrum when the media tried treating them with the maturity they wanted.

Gamers are their own worst enemy.

Last edited by GWOtaku on Wed Sep 10, 2014 5:04 pm; edited 3 times in total

DigitalFowl wrote:

GamerGate will continue to be unfairly represented with slanderous comments like this and when people assume they know everything about it and everyone involved.

They don't, no one can, no one needs to. Whether you like it or not, it was sparked by a falsehood (Kotaku's supposed conflict of interest re Depression Quest that was soon revealed to not exist) and hijacked by a relentless barrage of nastiness. The 4chan chatlog collusion stuff put the final nails in the coffin (I'm amazed Quinn had the patience to lurk in that cesspool for that long).

And frankly, there was always a dearth of constructive criticism about how journalism can improve in it. To your average observer and to me, it's largely defined by its investment in attacking others to one degree or another. Sarkessian is a really just a hater and a nitpicker, Quinn is nasty, Edge magazine is a rag and you shouldn't trust anyone who ever worked for it, Kotaku is run by hacks, etc etc, on and on.

The MSM has picked up on that aspect of it as well, most recently in The New Yorker (two things GamerGate and the "Quinnspiracy" craziness clearly accomplished: intimidating Zoe Quinn out of her house and giving her game tremendous amounts of publicity. Good job, jerks). This isn't because everyone is somehow failing to pay sufficient attention, it's because that's the message that's clearly getting across while virulent hate has a way of drawing attention. Then there are those who enable it by implying that harassment is overblown or even faked or that it's a sign of thin skin to even complain about it. It's terrible.

Which isn't to say that everyone claiming to champion "social justice" is automatically correct and reasonable, or that there haven't been bad responses to "GamerGate". But that's beside the point. Nothing can excuse the pure venom that's been spewing since August, and before it. If there's a lack of good dialogue about issues in gaming today, it's in large part because a lot of very loud and very nasty people shouted it down. The vitriol against Sarkessian began with the advent of her kickstarter, before a single video had been created. The best thing a self-described "level-headed" person such as yourself can do is to disassociate from the "GamerGate" label and start over from zero, with issues as your focus and not people. It'd also help to have nothing whatsoever to do with 4chan.

Which is a long way of saying that when Todd Ciolek says that "Gamergate only serves as proof that some game fans [not "all", BTW] can't handle the maturity they seek", I'm unfortunately disposed to agree, except that I think I'd add that much of the troublesome bunch doesn't necessarily even seek it. More than a few antagonistic comments I've seen against Sarkessian and so-called Shonen Jump Weekly's basically demand "leave my games alone!"

Levitz9 wrote:

(which has happened--say hello, Jenn Frank!)

Jenn Frank wrote a heavily biased article on a major newspaper's website, which was biased towards someone she financially supported via Patreon and was criticized for it.

If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.

This isn't to do with wanting women out of games. You're deluded if you have looked at the actions taken by each "side" of this argument and come to the conclusion that the anti-Zoe Quinn/Maya Kramer/Jenn Frank "side" is anti-those people because they're women, when in fact, those people have raised SIXTY GRAND for a startup which is building a platform for women to be able to create games.

If your rhetoric is "people are trying to get Quinn, Kramer and Frank out of gaming because they are women", then I'm going to struggle to have a proper discussion about this topic with you, because that's completely and utterly false.

Paradox295 wrote:

If your rhetoric is "people are trying to get Quinn, Kramer and Frank out of gaming because they are women", then I'm going to struggle to have a proper discussion about this topic with you, because that's completely and utterly false.

Is that a fact?

I guess those IRC screenshots are fake, then. Wow, what was I thinking. Laughing

Last edited by jr240483 on Wed Sep 10, 2014 5:31 pm; edited 1 time in total

Todd Ciolek wrote:

That brings the contest to an end. And here's our top vote-getter, Karin Kanzuki!

Well that's no surprise

if your a die hard SF fanatic, especially those that still like Street Fighter Alpha 3 to this day, a majority of those fans wanted both Karin or Charlie as the 5th character in USFIV. though its a majority of those in the otaku community that wanted karin and rainbow mika.

though my main surprise that someone actually voted for Q which to be frank are the worst character in SF III. Sean i can get, or probably even remy or oro , but definitely not Q .

And as for Skullomaina? yea he's a fan fav of the SF EX characters, though those that played the game would rather see Kairi or Garuda for SF 5.

in the RV cat of course batsu would be picked since he's a fan fav. which is why he was chosen for Tasunoko VS CAPCOM , though i could also say the same for Hyo and his brother. that would definitely be a war of monsters. Akuma's Satusi no Hado bloodline Vs Demon Hyo's Mugen bloodline. place ya bets.

though of course in the otaku community, most would want to see that seductress secretary from justice high school or that buxom cheerleader since she have the same tits size as rainbow mika.

and speaking of monsters, i could see Ashura being a DLC character for USFIV since a lot of people liked that mini game for Ashura's Wrath. though nothing have been confirmed. if he does become a DLC characters in the future, i definitely would pick up the game.

It's all a load of crap.

The biggest pushers of this mess are those who for months and years have been complaining about the dreaded "Shonen Jump Weekly agenda" that they've accused a number of sites and writers of promoting. If you've ever said that something in a game is misogynistic or offensive, you're on the shit list. The mess with Quinn was simply the kind of thing they've been waiting for. Something that makes "them" look bad and in turn gives their side something resembling justification.

Their claims of concerns over journalistic ethics are insincere and I sure in hell don't by them. They're just trying to take down those who they didn't like to begin with.

It's childish and shameful. And in the end, everybody looks bad.

Guile wrote:

I am disappointed with how Zoe and Anita handled the death threats, though. Using it to plug their donation buttons and make money off them.

How dare they taint the purity of death threats! Jeez, do you even read what you're typing out?

Levitz9 wrote:

Paradox295 wrote:

If your rhetoric is "people are trying to get Quinn, Kramer and Frank out of gaming because they are women", then I'm going to struggle to have a proper discussion about this topic with you, because that's completely and utterly false.

Is that a fact?
I guess those IRC screenshots are fake, then. Wow, what was I thinking. Laughing

They're salted with unrelated channels, and are taken out of context intentionally. The full logs were already disseminated here.

Also, several of the accusations leveled(For example, that 4chan started the hashtags) are part of the overall disinformation campaign.

See here For at least the beginning of it.

TL;DR: If you're going to level criticism on GamerGate, do your research.

GWOtaku wrote:

DigitalFowl wrote:

GamerGate will continue to be unfairly represented with slanderous comments like this and when people assume they know everything about it and everyone involved.

They don't, no one can, no one needs to. Whether you like it or not, it was sparked by a falsehood (Kotaku's supposed conflict of interest re Depression Quest that was [url=http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-I've-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346]soon revealed[/url] to not exist) and hijacked by a relentless barrage of nastiness. The 4chan chatlog collusion stuff put the final nails in the coffin (I'm amazed Quinn had the patience to lurk in that cesspool for that long).

And frankly, there was always a dearth of constructive criticism about how journalism can improve in it. To your average observer and to me, it's largely defined by its investment in attacking others to one degree or another. Sarkessian is a really just a hater and a nitpicker, Quinn is nasty, Edge magazine is a rag and you shouldn't trust anyone who ever worked for it, Kotaku is run by hacks, etc etc, on and on.

The MSM has picked up on that aspect of it as well, most recently in The New Yorker (two things GamerGate and the "Quinnspiracy" craziness clearly accomplished: intimidating Zoe Quinn out of her house and giving her game tremendous amounts of publicity. Good job, jerks). This isn't because everyone is somehow failing to pay sufficient attention, it's because that's the message that's clearly getting across while virulent hate has a way of drawing attention. Then there are those who enable it by implying that harassment is overblown or even faked or that it's a sign of thin skin to even complain about it. It's terrible.

Which isn't to say that everyone claiming to champion "social justice" is automatically correct and reasonable, or that there haven't been bad responses to "GamerGate". But that's beside the point. Nothing can excuse the pure venom that's been spewing since August, and before it. If there's a lack of good dialogue about issues in gaming today, it's in large part because a lot of very loud and very nasty people shouted it down. The vitriol against Sarkessian began with the advent of her kickstarter, before a single video had been created. The best thing a self-described "level-headed" person such as yourself can do is to disassociate from the "GamerGate" label and start over from zero, with issues as your focus and not people. It'd also help to have nothing whatsoever to do with 4chan.

Which is a long way of saying that when Todd Ciolek says that "Gamergate only serves as proof that some game fans [not "all", BTW] can't handle the maturity they seek", I'm unfortunately disposed to agree, except that I think I'd add that much of the troublesome bunch doesn't necessarily even seek it. More than a few antagonistic comments I've seen against Sarkessian and so-called Shonen Jump Weekly's basically demand "leave my games alone!"

I'm sorry, but no. This isn't how it works. Just because some people don't like the mean and nasty things other people have said, as disgusting and hateful as they are, doesn't mean GamerGate needs to reset or go away. What SHOULD happen is that people look at the mistakes they have made and go forward NOT repeating those mistakes.

Just because 'someone doesn't like something' doesn't mean that it has to go away. And when some people are magnifying the bad to seem larger than it is, or saying that the bad completely tarnishes all the good, that's also incredibly unfair and heavily indicates a desire for a resolution in the most simple way possible.

That's not how change happens and I'm sorry, but I think GamerGate needs to keep going, unacceptable vitriol and all... If we didn't accept the bad with the good, how would anyone debate anything?

rizuchan wrote:

Is there an unbiased version of the gamergate story somewhere? Is Todd's description here fairly unbiased? I heard the story from reddit (yeah...) and they made it sound like, aside from the blatant misogyny, that it was about how corrupt video game journalism is. To me it sounded like an ex boyfriend writing up some nasty accusations about a woman that scorned him. Did they find his accusations (i.e. that she did sleep with every one of these journalists that gave her game a good review) to be true?

Escapist did a follow up and actually tried to get information from both side:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.859977-Exclusive-4Chan-and-Quinn-Respond-to-Gamergate-Chat-Logs

But it's fairly hard things to do since to properly discuss this you need to accept that we're talking about two unorganized groups of people, who may or may not have valid point when all this started, but accumulated a lot more momentum. Todd's doesn't seems to accept that and as such based the entire movement on the action of an unknown number of individual (possibly very small) and dismiss every point they raise (good and bad) because of the action of a few person (i.e. Hitler was a vegetarian therefore all vegetarian are mass murdered).

This has some interesting stuff in it too:

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/09/05/a-few-more-thoughts-on-gamergate/

In my opinion the sexism label barely old when you consider that similar scenario happen to male persons too (Phil Fish, Jack Thompson). There's clearly some bad apple in both camp, and because most major outlet chose to focus there attention on the vitriol both camp fling at each others, none of there good point make it trough. To me the real problem that gamer gate should highlight isn't the collusion between game journalist and developer but rather how incredibly poor the game journalist coverage of event is (although calling it game journalist is often pushing since surprisingly few people in game journalist actually have journalist degree). Rather than find and present fact most game journalist assume the information they obtain from tweeter and official PR to be true and write article where they give there opinion, which tbh is something that should only be present in comment and editorial.

Paradox295 wrote:

No. Facts are in play here. You're just choosing to put your fingers in your ears and ignore it.

If you think those facts are false, then you could go ahead and... disprove them?

You know that's exactly what those Ancient Aliens shows say right? You are kinda proving my point. "The truth is out there, you just have to BELIEVE!"

I've seen the "facts." Which consists of a blog post from a jilted ex-boyfriend. You lot love to scream about "objectivity." Does that look an objective perspective to you?

What is there to disprove anyways? That Zoe Quinn dated Grayson of Kotaku, and Grayson supported her game through Patreon? Yeah that happened, so what? Grayson didn't review the game. Grayson doesn't represent Kotaku, since he wasn't even a full employee of Kotaku at that time. Plenty of other game reviewers did and gave it a high grade, some people apparently disagree. That's their own subjective opinions. I find the game intriguing in what it wants to do but not great in its execution. That's my own opinion. No facts here. What else do you have? Do you have any hard evidence that Quinn bought any of those reviews? Like actual pictures of money changing hands, records of bank transactions? You don't, because we wouldn't be having this conversation in an internet forum if you do. Anything else you got?

Meanwhile, Todd has cited all the evidence supporting Zoe's claims about who the real conspirators were, savage misogynists on 4chan. Or I could just click on any one of Quinn's tweets and see two or three death/rape threats from burner accounts aimed at her. You want to disprove these facts? Or are you going to put your fingers in your ears and ignore them?

Paradox295 wrote:

"You like socialism? Why don't you stop siding with Stalin, you commie bastard!"

"I'm not really pro-Stalin, I'm just helping Stalin put an axe in Trotsky's head." Hey, your analogy, not mine.

I swore I wouldn't talk about this on the internet anymore but I will just say that I think regardless of its origins, the whole "GamerGate" shenanigan has become a lightning rod for many people's long-held frustrations with the video game "journalism" establishment - some legitimate, some not.

Unfortunately this is the internet and gamers are nerds, so vitriolic rhetorical back-and-forth has accumulated so high that temperate dialogue is virtually impossible at this point.

DigitalFowl wrote:

That's not how change happens and I'm sorry, but I think GamerGate needs to keep going, unacceptable vitriol and all... If we didn't accept the bad with the good, how would anyone debate anything?

I'll answer that and the rest of your post with a question of my own: is there much real debate worthy of the name right now? I say there isn't, as demonstrated by what happens every time a new Sarkessian video comes out. The nasty ones aren't about debate, they're about preempting it. They attack the person. You minimize "the bad", complain it's taken too seriously. The correct thing to do is denounce and marginalize the bad ones, or at the very least to refrain from making any excuses or defenses for them or echoing their attacks. It's not close-mindedness when you don't allow lunatics to run the asylum.

Anyhow, so far as alleged "corruption" goes...on top of Zac said on page 1, in my view this was a long but good answer to the people preoccupied about it:

https://medium.com/@upstreamism/to-fair-minded-proponents-of-gamergate-7f3ce77301bb

Zac wrote:

This is a criticism that's based entirely in ignorance and is exclusively brought up as some kind of problem by people who have never worked a day as a writer in their lives, in any field of journalism or entertainment writing.

Literally every field of journalism operates this way. Reputations are built on relationships, access is given based on reputation. "Friendly" business relationships are not proof of collusion, compromise or everyone's favorite buzzword, corruption - they are the backbone of how any industry based on people working together operates. Journalists frequently know their interview subjects and sources on a personal level; it helps give them further insight, strengthens their questions, and helps the content be better than it would be otherwise. A writer who is "friendly" with a game developer - they get along, have similar personalities or tastes - is going to get you a better interview than someone with no report, or someone who has a cold, contentious, "I'm here to make you look bad because negativity and hostility to a subject always means truth and honesty" attitude.

Games journalism and every other form of entertainment journalism functions this way. If you want success in the field, you want access to interviews, you want to be able to write the coverage you want to write, you're going to have to build relationships with people in the industry. Developers, publishers, marketing teams, the whole nine yards. These relationships can be friendly. You might hit it off with someone and enjoy talking to them. Or they're just cordial, with mutual respect, and you get the content you're after (this is the most common form of what folks like you are insisting is insidious collusion). Either way you're just doing your job, covering the industry, and you're also not a gigantic impossible-to-work-with unfriendly combative jerk that nobody wants to work with. Who knew that if you spend your life working in one industry, covering the personalities in that industry with the professionalism and demeanor expected of a pro journalist, you might - GASP - forge casual friendships with some of these people. It's almost as if they're all human beings!

Corruption, clearly.

Again, the complaint is based largely on ignorance. And the whole "sites hire the same writers" thing? You're aware of what a "freelancer" is right? And that being good at it and making a living doing it is incredibly difficult, and the reason you see a lot of the same names is because those people are hardworking and reliable and get a lot of work as a result, right? It isn't proof of some conspiracy to only hire the same people, it's that the pool of available, responsible, competent, hardworking freelancers that editors trust is small, and a freelancer who turns in quality work at his or her deadline is rare and treasured.

Meanwhile you're holding up the Japanese gaming press as some bastion of quality when the most influential publication there is the famously unethical Famitsu, which actually does most of the corrupt stuff people are fantasizing about US publications doing.

I'm not talking about "connections", I'm talking about writers finding nothing wrong with giving positive press to a girl they're currently living with and in a relationship with. At the very least, it should be prefaced by saying "this is my girlfriend, by the way". Though Kotaku did go back and add a little PS at the end of a lot of articles after this whole scandal broke up. Problem was these are years old articles so it didn't exactly matter anymore. Nevertheless, that's my main problem.

I'd like to think there's difference between gaming journalism and normal journalism. There are thousands upon thousands of news outlets all around the country. Every city has a local paper, radio shows, national news sources. I find suspect that a reporter in Oklahoma City would be as chummy with a reporter in Augusta, Maine as people on these gaming sites are with each other. Having lunch, donating to their patrons, conversing on Twitter 24/7, and similar things. National news is a much grander scope compared to gaming news, which is made up of only a handful for noticeable sites, which I feel the problem is.

As for Famitsu, I don't really care about their review scores nor is it anywhere near as problematic as our industry's are, even if it's 100% paid reviews. I never heard of companies only hiring people based on what their Famitsu score was, or if developers got paid depending on what the Famitsu score was like we do here for Metacritic. I also vaguely recall you, or perhaps someone else on the ANNcast, once mentioning you were dissatisfied with how anime/game journalism is in Japan, in the context of it doesn't exist and you guys find you have to use Amazon review scores of all things to find review scores. Japan's approach on game/anime journalism is more preferable to me.

rizuchan wrote:

Is there an unbiased version of the gamergate story somewhere? Is Todd's description here fairly unbiased? I heard the story from reddit (yeah...) and they made it sound like, aside from the blatant misogyny, that it was about how corrupt video game journalism is. To me it sounded like an ex boyfriend writing up some nasty accusations about a woman that scorned him. Did they find his accusations (i.e. that she did sleep with every one of these journalists that gave her game a good review) to be true?

That's the problem as I mentioned, everyone is friends with everyone in this industry. Sites were actively trying to bury the story or spin the narrative. Given Zoe's relationship with people on a lot of gaming sites, no, you can't really get an unbias, neutral stance on the situation out of them. You'd have to go to the lesser known, indie websites to get something vaguely neutral. Eventually sites did cover it, but they spin it as some "cathedral of misogyny" crusade, despite the fact people like Jonathan Blow, Phil Fish, Cliff Bleszinski, and plenty of male developers and journalists have been dragged under the bus by these same people. Nobody was crying misandry when the "Dorito's Pope" incident happened. Though now that a woman is under scrutiny, it's an easy way to slander the slanderers by using the sexism card. It also probably doesn't help there is nof igurehead for GamersGate. Anyone can say they're with GamersGate. From YouTube personalities like Boogie, Jontron, and TotalBiscuit, to actors like Adam Baldwin, to actual real female feminists who've actually gone to third world countries to fight for women's rights there and publish scholarly books actually started getting involved, and then on the other side you have idiots just seeing it as an excuse to rile people up and troll as per usual. Problem is those are the ones who get cherry picked to represent the opposing side, rather than the former people.

-Stuart Smith

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-fine-young-capitalists--2#home

A good thing to come out of this whole mess. It has almost reached it's goal with a lot of time still left. Very Happy

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