Bartimaeus

I think that's a pretty silly/insulting way to put it, but ignoring that, have teenage/young adult males actually ceased to be AAA gaming's largest demographic? I know that they're no longer the majority in gaming "overall", but "overall" is not really a useful distinction to be making if that one sector, the (probably?) most powerful and lucrative sector because of its audience, continues to dominate gaming. It doesn't have to be that way, I'll agree with you, but the fact that it is, for the most part, continuing to be that way says something about its purchasing power in the industry. I also don't really care for the notion that, in order for other sectors/demographics to become more significant players in the industry, we need to belittle/reduce the currently most powerful: if they are actually distinct and significant, then they should become stronger and better represented in time regardless...and without needing to go on the offensive, so to speak, on the currently most powerful part of the market that some of us happen to consider "inferior". I like the things I like, and other people like the things they like: why should any of us be less for that, regardless of our preferences? It's not like game development is a monopoly, after all: if those other demographics really want to support a different variety of works than what is currently being supported by the AAA industry, then it will(/should?) happen on its own, and they will(/should?) become significant forces in the industry and continue to satisfy that demographic. I'm afraid we'll have to differ here, based on what we consider to be a part of those adolescent "tastes": I would consider what the AAA gaming industry considers to be "romance" in games to absolutely fall into this...in fact, I'd go a step further and say it comes across as practically infantile to me. Nevertheless, such so-called "romance" implementations definitely have their proponents even here on these forums...and personally, I think that's O.K., because I don't typically concern myself with games that have it, and as a result, I have no desire to rail against it or the people who enjoy its current implementations. Instead, I am usually content to let people like what they like. Just as I'd prefer everyone else to do as well.

I think his point was that the sort of people that make/inhabit websites/subreddits for targeting/criticizing a specific type of people in a very particular way such as that subreddit does don't usually adhere to the highest of ethical/moral standards themselves, and often engage in behavior identical or at least similar to that which they supposedly abhor in the people they're targeting/criticizing. In my experience of these kinds of subreddits (regardless of who they're actually about), I couldn't say that would seem completely baseless...

I'm going to ignore everything but the initial post that started this: she is not a moderator of that subreddit.

The "easiest" difficulty is, IMO, the hardest. Everyone - yourself, enemies - can take like 10x as much damage compared to if you're playing on the hardest. So you don't die in a few bullets like you would on the hardest difficulty, but the same goes for enemies. The result is that gun battles are way, way too long and drawn out for no real reason. Playing on hard, whether ranger or not, is much, much preferable, IMO. Weirdly, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had a semi-similar difficulty system...is it a coincidence that both games are from Ukraine? Hmm... Out of a few playthroughs, I think I've died on that section maybe once.

Why do some of you keep acting as though reddit has "free speech"? It doesn't: every subreddit is moderated by a different team of moderators who set rules and guidelines for their subreddits, and if you don't follow them, either the users downvote you to oblivion or the moderators delete your posts. That's about as much free speech as you can get here: less, in fact, because people can downvote posts they just don't care for, even if they're perfectly within the rules. If we were discussing the topics we have on Reddit instead of here, I would pretty much guarantee that some posters would never see the light of day: people like Volourn (among others) would never be able to post the posts they do without their posts disappearing from everyone's sight because of the downvotes. Based on what you're saying, I would think you would prefer that over the virtual free for all here, Bruce: these forums are probably some of the most "free speech"-y I've ever seen, where the moderators don't seem to give a hoot about most anything anyone says outside of a very few subjects: never mind if people are going off on rants with personal attacks and trolling and whatever else - just don't try to circumvent the swearing filters, . It's certainly "better" in that regard than Reddit, anyways. Keyword: should.

Depends on what you mean by "big deal". Lots of things are big deals...doesn't necessarily mean they're worth bothering with, though.

No, not really...but um, thanks for the inquiry? I don't believe you Barti.....you would lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvve to be arested by her....think of all the much needed discipline she could inflict on you..

https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3d3hrp/exex_ceo_yishan_i_actually_asked_that_he_be_on/ I'm not sure I can handle Reddit anymore. #BringBackPao?

No, not really...but um, thanks for the inquiry? You can usually have them even when they're on duty...there's just generally a limit to how long they'll stick around and humor you (though it depends on exactly what they're doing).

How are these inflammatory remarks helping the situation, exactly? Such nonsense from those on both sides...

From just your article: "These straw man ‘game journalism ethics’ conversations people have been having are largely the domain of a prior age, when all we did was negotiate ad deals and review scores and scraped to be called ‘reporters’, because we had the same powerlessness complex as our audience had. Now part of a writer’s job in a creative, human medium is to help curate a creative community and an inclusive culture -- and a lack of commitment to that just looks out-of-step, like a partial compromise with the howling trolls who’ve latched onto ‘ethics’ as the latest flag in their onslaught against evolution and inclusion."

"That was post-edit :p" I'm not sure how your article dispels my notion. The article is still full of ridiculous hyperbole and sweeping generalizations about seemingly the entire "gaming" industry and community...it raises specific points and ideas that might've been appreciable if presented in a more limited, discretionary manner, but packages it in such a terrible way that I'm not surprised people took offense to it when it says laughable nonsense like this: "Suddenly a generation of lonely basement kids had marketers whispering in their ears that they were the most important commercial demographic of all time. Suddenly they started wearing shiny blouses and pinning bikini babes onto everything they made, started making games that sold the promise of high-octane masculinity to kids just like them. By the turn of the millennium those were games’ only main cultural signposts: Have money. Have women. Get a gun and then a bigger gun. Be an outcast. Celebrate that. Defeat anyone who threatens you. You don’t need cultural references. You don’t need anything but gaming. Public conversation was led by a games press whose role was primarily to tell people what to buy, to score products competitively against one another, to gleefully fuel the “team sports” atmosphere around creators and companies." I kept the last sentence for integrity's sake (because it is criticizing traditional gaming "journalism" as you said...even though it goes on later to imply that such behavior was in the past, and that "game journalists" are very different nowadays, and much more ethical and creative and cultured and... ), but everything before it (and a bit of the stuff after)? Yeah, I'll admit, that side of the gaming industry doesn't really appeal to me...in fact, I rather hate it, personally. It also does seem to be a rather sizable portion of the industry, it seems to me...but the thing is, I don't have to interact with it if I don't want to, and stuff that I hate that appeals to other people I can keep to my danged self about and instead engage with other communities for other games or other types of games. People enjoy the type of games they enjoy because...why? I have no idea. Why's that any of my business? It's certainly not the business of self-righteous so-called "journalists" who would write arrogant, "blow my own horn until my audience is deaf" nonsense like that article. To generalize the entire gaming community like that in one breadth? The question I have now isn't so much, "What were/are these guys thinking?" as much as, "Why did we even treat these people seriously long enough for Gamergate to even become a thing in the first place, instead of just laughing them off right from the get-go with the fact that we know better, that the situation is a little more complex than this?". Help me see this article from your point of view, because all I'm getting is what I'm pretty sure is exactly what the pro-GG people got out of it, though perhaps more striped with amusement than the outrage they had at the time. Maybe GG has already painted my perspective so much my judgement is clouded.

Okay, and I specifically said enlighten me in that very post in regards to that very subject. (edit): I am pretty sure when I hit quote, that last sentence wasn't there. Hmm. (edit): So, out of curiosity, what should my key search terms be, since you haven't supplied me with anything yet? (edit): to make more sense

Bro, do you ever fact-check? Ooh, that's constructive! (edit): Hey, looks like I finally got the drop on somebody before they got an edit in for once. That's a first. Surprised I wasn't too busy editing my own post to see yours.

Ah, but TECHNICALLY, did he specifically call you one? If not, you're applying that label to yourself all by yourself: he could think you're just the normal SJW, while SJF are actually a very special brand of SJWs! If he did actually call you one, then I'm probably out of lame arguments that technically counter what you said. Probably.

At least two of those were only by Volourn. That's hardly a valid argument.

Just another reason, then, that none of us should be making any sweeping generalizations about the "majority" or "most of you guys": a lot of us often argue from the same platform for very specific subjects within broader ones, but that doesn't mean it carries over to others. Well I think the majority of posters here doesn't really give a **** either way. They're fine with the status quo, but they're also fine with changes as long as they get what they're looking for in gaming. "Having your protagonist be male or female", I'd venture, isn't really a meaningful change from that perspective. Neither would be "having interesting characters in the game be male or female". Which is, incidentally, why I really don't get the violent pushback to the notion that maybe we should change things around a bit; such changes are unlikely to affect the core experience of whatever game we're looking at. Which, in my probably worthless opinion, would suggest there's probably something wrong with the way such potential change is being portrayed or argued for by its proponents. Different and less polarizing strategies than saying "gamers are dead", demonizing gamers for having a vested interest in the ethics surrounding the business side of their hobby (to be completely honest, I'm not sure why the whole anti-women in gaming thing is even associated with GamersGate, when I haven't seen hardly any evidence of the two being related to each other outside of anti-GGers like Bruce repeatedly and obstinately bringing it up all the time and stating that it is: someone feel free to enlighten me why this is)...and conducting worthless straw polls like the one we just saw earlier while ignoring possible ACTUAL evidence suggesting something contrary to what one already believes (this presumes that people actually saw the contrary evidence, of course, when it's quite possible they didn't given the social circles we all run in...and the fact that we usually don't run in those strongly opposed to our viewpoints). Though the bridges may already be too burned and the sides too polarized for anything to work at this point.

Could you get the majority of posters to do the opposite, or has that been clearly demonstrated in one of these topics already (for the record, I don't think it has been, so give me some evidence if you do think so )? If not, you can't really make a sweeping generalization either way, I'll agree with you that much...if you look at the latest edit to my previous (my apologies, I'm a bit of an edit-freak, ), Bruce asked if anyone "besides ShadySands" would have a problem having to play a female character...of which the few repliers to either said "no" or "I prefer playing males characters because I am a male, but not really, no" (besides Bruce himself, who said he probably wouldn't play a game like Dishonored 2 with only a female character as the choice...which seemed fair enough to me). Everyone else did not reply to it...I think you might find it difficult to pin the majority of users here down to any particular stance on some of these subjects...which means, don't have sweeping generalizations about the folks here on these forums. (e): Need to not be a horrible hypocrite and poorly paraphrase for other people. Fixed. (e): A little additional discussion on this subject in the previous topic that was before the previously linked post which I think at least vestigially supports my point of view: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80106-journalism-and-bias-in-the-gaming-industry/page-9?do=findComment&comment=1704205

I think the "most of you guys are basically fine with the status quo" is more of the issue, which, in reference to the post/image Bruce was actually replying to, means that we're "fine" with women being underrepresented and/or misrepresented in games. We already had a discussion about this earlier in the topic...or, uh, maybe the last one one, where Bruce misrepresented what ShadySands said about something in regard to this topic (edit: although I'll admit probably unintentionally, given his later posts). Here's the post: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80106-journalism-and-bias-in-the-gaming-industry/?p=1704725

Oh gee, Bruce reframing the narrative of our discussions to better support his point of view...again? I can't believe it! C'mon, Bruce.

A pretty hilarious counter to at least some of the points of the Feminist Frequency videos.

Depends on how bad you were.

Pot, meet kettle.

Funny, after I posted that, I had an idle thought: "Wonder if he's a dad..." Regardless, that's fair enough. I don't think any pedophile, active or inactive, would ever say anything like that, though: would be totally weird and unsettling for all parties involved. Much more likely, they don't tell you and you never know.