Journalism - #gamergate

How any civilized human being can still be supporting GamerGate is beyond me.

 

That's the problem.  You're associating any criticism against Anita as support for GamerGate.  Anita was being criticized for her pseudo intellectual bullshit long before Zoe Quinn ever cheated on her boyfriend and fucked 5 guys for positive reviews.  I don't care about her celebrating her "sexuality."  Though it is funny that Zoe argued that it was rape to cheat on your partner since you're potentially exposing them to STDs without their consent and then went wild.  She's just another hyporcite and I couldn't care less.

 

But Anita is taken seriously and people drop all reason and logic every time she accuses on of her detractors as a misogynist. 

Man, I'm totally lost in all this.  All I know is that San Andreas is wicked fun.

Long story short, some feminist (Zoe Quinn) with no coding background or capability came up with the idea for a game.  She designed one played from the point of view from a person suffering from depression.  Real appealing, right?  Anyway, she got some exposure for her game due to its unique topic in the indie game world.  Allegedly she slept with 5 guys in the very prestigious video game journalism circle. She did this while in a relationship.  All 5 of those guys wrote a positive review for her, and there is some compelling evidence that she did this for certain with at least one.  After finding out, the girl's douchenozzle boyfriend went on every gaming forum and posted some 20 page diatribe calling her a whore and exposing all her secrets.

 

Most sites immediately deleted the discussion as they thought it was entirely of a personal nature.  This resulted in your typical internet wackjobs claiming conspiracy and thus the term "gamergate" was born. To make matters worse, the most devout of the nutters began an online harassment campaign against Zoe, one at least stooping so low as to call her father and inform him of her alleged affairs.  This behavior led to an onslaught of condemnation from a lot of people, including Joss Whedon.  Anita Sarkeesian (among countless others) injected themselves into the conversation by furthering their nonsense that the video game industry is exploitative and demeaning to women.  Months if not years prior to all of this, Anita was criticized for her outlandish claims and "studies" that had no basis in fact or research.  She's always attacked her detractors as misogynist, but she has become the defacto feminist leader out of this whole mess.  But now anyone who attacks her lies is not only labeled a misogynist, but as someone who supports the obscene behavior of a bunch of nutters who legitimize every stereo type of the basement dwelling, cheetoh eating lard ass.

 

Now she's claiming death threats every other day and linking a donation page for her cause.  She most recently took flack because immediately after the Seattle shooting, she blamed it on male oppression and the objectification of women via video games.  Rather than accept the criticism as a critique on her bullshit, it's just a bunch of mean spirited men's righters attacking her as a woman.  Hence art's earlier comment, that "#gamergate isn't your shield".

I did not know about any of this. 

That's the problem.  You're associating any criticism against Anita as support for GamerGate.  Anita was being criticized for her pseudo intellectual bullshit long before Zoe Quinn ever cheated on her boyfriend and fucked 5 guys for positive reviews.  I don't care about her celebrating her "sexuality."  Though it is funny that Zoe argued that it was rape to cheat on your partner since you're potentially exposing them to STDs without their consent and then went wild.  She's just another hyporcite and I couldn't care less.

 

But Anita is taken seriously and people drop all reason and logic every time she accuses on of her detractors as a misogynist. 

And why exactly do you suppose to know what I think of the issue, and what my opinion is?

The Disheartening GamerGate Campaign

 

Is GamerGate About Media Ethics or Harassing Women? Harassment, the Data Shows

 

 

Long story short, some feminist (Zoe Quinn) with no coding background or capability came up with the idea for a game.  She designed one played from the point of view from a person suffering from depression.  Real appealing, right?  Anyway, she got some exposure for her game due to its unique topic in the indie game world.  Allegedly she slept with 5 guys in the very prestigious video game journalism circle. She did this while in a relationship.  All 5 of those guys wrote a positive review for her, and there is some compelling evidence that she did this for certain with at least one.  After finding out, the girl's douchenozzle boyfriend went on every gaming forum and posted some 20 page diatribe calling her a whore and exposing all her secrets.

 

Most sites immediately deleted the discussion as they thought it was entirely of a personal nature.  This resulted in your typical internet wackjobs claiming conspiracy and thus the term "gamergate" was born. To make matters worse, the most devout of the nutters began an online harassment campaign against Zoe, one at least stooping so low as to call her father and inform him of her alleged affairs.  This behavior led to an onslaught of condemnation from a lot of people, including Joss Whedon.  Anita Sarkeesian (among countless others) injected themselves into the conversation by furthering their nonsense that the video game industry is exploitative and demeaning to women.  Months if not years prior to all of this, Anita was criticized for her outlandish claims and "studies" that had no basis in fact or research.  She's always attacked her detractors as misogynist, but she has become the defacto feminist leader out of this whole mess.  But now anyone who attacks her lies is not only labeled a misogynist, but as someone who supports the obscene behavior of a bunch of nutters who legitimize every stereo type of the basement dwelling, cheetoh eating lard ass.

 

Now she's claiming death threats every other day and linking a donation page for her cause.  She most recently took flack because immediately after the Seattle shooting, she blamed it on male oppression and the objectification of women via video games.  Rather than accept the criticism as a critique on her bullshit, it's just a bunch of mean spirited men's righters attacking her as a woman.  Hence art's earlier comment, that "#gamergate isn't your shield".

 

Can you exploit a fictional character, whether in gaming, film, literature, or any artistic medium?  I don't think you can.  So while it may at times be demeaning or culturally harmful, I can't see any basis to call any of this exploitative.

 

Then again...as I said, I know nothing about this.  I play games on my computer and phone, but haven't dipped even a toe into the waters of gaming culture.   

And why exactly do you suppose to know what I think of the issue, and what my opinion is?

because all anyone had been talking about was Anita, and then you made the comment "How any civilized human being can still be supporting GamerGate is beyond me." Most people would infer that you were associating your comment with the topic being discussed. Or am I not supposed to assume that dialogue is connected and related to what precedes it and also what comes after?

Unicorns and glitter.

#Gamergate is multifaceted. There is the two feminist gamers that have been receiving many mentions in this, and their is the game journalists part, and there is serious trolling going on. 

 

The two feminists and the drama that Flagg was mentioning is to me not the main issue. These women are being activists and trying to change the gamer culture as they see it. They have every right to do this and some of their methods produce intense discussions. They are looking to shake things up and they have. They have received spirited responses and threats. But since this is the internet and anyone can post as anyone or support anything anonymously it is hard to prove with certainty that the threats are from #gamergate supporters or are from trolls using the hashtag. 

 

The journalist ethics part is to me the actual important thing going on. It has been proven that the game journalists were coordinating and promoting an agenda. Some were being paid for reviews. Some were trying to social engineer their audience. Several game journals proclaimed that gamers were dead an buried amongst other insults to their customers. The average gamers disagreed and have banded  together under the #gamergate hashtag to expose the corrupt journalist practices that have been uncovered.

 

I follow a number of #gamergate supporters on twitter, many of them are women. They use the #notyourshield hashtag to say that they do not support the feminist "Social Justice Warriors" who denigrate gaming culture and want it changed to suit themselves. Many of these #gamergate people have been exposing trolls and do not promote harassment. They have organized an email campaign to pressure advertisers to distance themselves from the corrupt game journals web sites. So far they have succeeded in convincing intel to pull ads from gawker and Adobe to have gawker remove any mention of adobe support from their web site. 

 

Make no mistake this is part of the culture war. There have been harassment and "doxxing" going on on both sides of the #gamergate fight.

 

http://www.breitbart...-don-t-stop-now

 

http://dailycaller.c...ds-them-anyway/

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2014/10/25/While-the-Media-Slanders-Gamers-as-Terrorists-GamerGate-Is-Hunting-Trolls-and-Abusers

I understand your point, but I just don't take video game journalism that seriously. Back when it was just a couple magazines like GamePro, the same games being reviewed had an advertisement on the next page. With the advent of media moving to the internet, it became that much more challenging to get a foot hold. How many reviewers are compensated by the publisher for their review? I'm just saying objectivity has been non existent from day one in the game industry.

We're not talking about the New York Times here. We're also not talking about really important issues like war, politics or social unrest. We're talking about video games where people pretend to be Soldiers and shoot bad guys in the face from 2 miles away. If it was discovered that Julia Roberts slept with some guy on rotten tomatoes, I really wouldn't care still.

I get the point about journalistic ethics and standards, but how many of these game journalist even went to school? Are they more bloggers than news reporters?

That's why I never got involved in the whole thing. I know you're a news guy, but I just see such a large chasm between video games and what real journalist do, I really don't care if a game reviewer is biased.

There is something to what you say, gaming is not as important as "real" news. But a big part of the movement to champion journalism ethics in gaming is the way the journals and reporters so marginalized and insulted their audience. Any business will receive a serious backlash if they show utter contempt for their audience. I think gamers decided that they take gaming seriously and would like to read ethical journalism about games. They didn't want people being judgmental or pushing an agenda. They didn't want crap games getting good reviews because someone was paid off or sleeping with someone. They decided they were the customer and if these entities didn't start acting professional they would go elsewhere. When these journals and reporters didn't acknowledge that this is a fair point and doubled down on the insults and marginalization then it was on. They could have apologized, put in ethical policies and that probably would have prevented the situation that is now going on.

Art, you should start a journalism thread.  Most of my thoughts on journalism have nothing to do with gaming and/or feminism, so I don't want to dump that convo here, but I have found myself increasingly disgusted with the quality of journalism, especially on television and from both sides.

Would you like me to start a new thread and merge these last few posts?

That would be cool. I have lots of views from the inside having worked at newspapers for over 20 years in my previous career.

#gamergate

#iThing #word