aluminiumtrioxid

I don't know about any studies disproving Sarkeesian's claims (namely, that sexist portrayal in media - including, but not limited to, video games - affects unconscious attitudes, not behaviors). I know about many studies regarding the effects video games have on players' mood, or behavior, but not this particular thing.

Time for some collaborative worldbuilding, which is to say I'm out of ideas. I want to let you have a small corner of the world as "pirate-controlled waters". It would also be kinda nice to have an (actual) Pirate King. Since these islands are supposedly something resembling a "home base" to you, I'll let you pitch in stuff you want to see when you visit these places. So shoot. P.S. I'm not opposed to a bit of silliness (we did have a Church of Metal, after all), but do keep my signature in mind.

Ah, sorry for the mixup.

Exactly my point. Moreover, the idea of children being disgusted by fantasy feels intuitively wrong to me; if that was the case, how could bedtime stories become a thing?

It's not like I doubt your word on the issue (I'm absolutely willing to believe you've read a study reaching the conclusion you mentioned), more like "there's a significant body of research out there directly in opposition of your claim".

I have, but consistently found that even 5-years-old children have trouble differentiating fantasy from reality, making the claim that even babies know the difference between reality and falsehood, and are furthermore made uncomfortable by the unreal, sound extremely dubious to me. [citations needed] (emphasis mine) Source: Sharon, T. and Woolley, J. D. (2004), Do monsters dream? Young children's understanding of the fantasy/reality distinction. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22: 293–310. doi: 10.1348/026151004323044627 Happy now?

I have, but consistently found that even 5-years-old children have trouble differentiating fantasy from reality, making the claim that even babies know the difference between reality and falsehood, and are furthermore made uncomfortable by the unreal, sound extremely dubious to me.

...Could we get a citation for that as well?

[citation needed]

...Wait what? It's a conspiracy theory. It does sound suspiciously like something GG would have you believe. (I mean, the "evil autocratic government forcing feminism into art telling filmmakers how they can portray stuff" part, not the "CoD is funded by the military" part.) Hence my confusion.

...Wait what?

I was thinking of hacking Blade of the Iron Throne to do Witcher. I'm kinda torn though, Exalted 3E does cinematic fighting and sorcery really well, whereas Warhammer Fantasy is really good for low fantasy shenanigans. I'm not sure which system would be the best foundation for the thing I want.

Isn't this what the ninja class is for?

I'm saying they weren't gamergaters back then. Given that GG itself is about six months old, it seems quite impossible to me that GGers were kicking up much of a fuss about those issues back when they were recent (ie. years ago). Also, Nonek, in my years of posting here I have come to know you as a gentleman of impeccable taste and excellent education, so please understand that this question in no way reflects upon your intelligence, but... you have no idea what a strawman is, do you?

...Except that article was published on a website aimed at developers, and I'm pretty sure Alexander openly states she doesn't think of the particular subset of gamers she's writing about as her audience, so I'm unsure "demonizing your core demographic" is an accurate description of events. The thing is however, that it was posted, VERBATIM on websites like Kotaku, which is a tacit approval of the piece by that organization. And if you read through the other articles mentioned in conjunction with this one they're all praise for Alexander and Anita for their "brave stand" against the mouth breathers and neckbeards that are part of the gamer community. None of those that are linked mention that "We don't condone or agree with this person" or try to argue against her points, instead they're agreeing with it (or the pieces they pull from it if they don't post the entire bloody thing). Well, actually... Kotaku's stance: I can't read that as "we condone and agree with people who think gamers, as a whole, are reprehensible". There's a very applicable Hungarian saying for this situation; so far, I haven't found English analogues. It's sort of like "if the cap fits, wear it", but in the inverse. It could be loosely translated as "if it's not your shirt, don't put it on". That's pretty much the full extent of my opinion on the matter.

...Except that article was published on a website aimed at developers, and I'm pretty sure Alexander openly states she doesn't think of the particular subset of gamers she's writing about as her audience, so I'm unsure "demonizing your core demographic" is an accurate description of events. It did? I mean, I've never even heard of the thing up until now, so I severely doubt its ability to "give people hope". I'd be grateful if you could provide me with links to the discussions that sprang up around it back in '12 (or so?).

I assume these.

First off, GG has been blind to years of journalistic abuses due to being nonexistent, unless time travel has been invented while I wasn't looking. You could argue that the people who later become gamergaters weren't, but that's a statement impossible to prove or disprove (although we can point at the circumstantial evidence of their prolonged silence, which doesn't seem to support your statement). Second, you're basically just reinforcing my point. The straw that broke the camel's back wasn't Gamespot firing an editor for the oh-so-horrible crime of handing out scores lower than 8 to AAA games (a perfect encapsulation of what's wrong with gaming journalism), it was people "preaching at you" (read: discussing feminist issues in articles you're in no way forced to read). It's a ****ing temper tantrum over the SJ equivalent of TotalBiscuit's weird, but essentially harmless obsession with graphical setting options.

Yikes Alu, as far as hostile misrepresentations of another's argument go, this is pretty bottom-barrel. You didn't use to be such a nasty poster - what happened? I don't think it's a misrepresentation at all. People are still whining about Grayson not disclosing the fact that he had intercourse with Quinn when he mentioned her game (a grand total of, what, two times? three? invariably in contexts where it was easily overlooked?). Hence the accusation that she somehow "stole" exposure from "more deserving" developers. With her vagina. Obviously. I mean, if we're talking about hostile misrepresentation, we could bring up the whole "Sargon of Akkad doesn't know jack **** about statistics but is sure as hell feminists are purposefully lying to us" thing, or "a coordinated attack of 12 articles declaring gamers 'dead'" (more like three articles, none of which appeared in gamer-facing websites, distinct lack of the phrasing "gamers are dead", etc.) all over again, but really, why bother? You picked two issues out of a list. Misrepresentation aside, what are you trying to prove by pointing out that you don't consider these two to be the "biggest" problems? They're what kicked off the entire movement. Depression Quest receiving three sentences that could vaguely be seen as undue praise, and Leigh Alexander calling 'gamers' bad names. Not the fact that gaming "journalism" has been **** for decades, not the fact that most of the content is vaguely-rephrased marketing talk about games that aren't even out yet, not the fact that journalists can be fired for giving a bad score to heavily-advertised games. Not, y'know, actual issues with lack of professionalism that have been present for at least a decade before GG even existed. Gamers have been fine with those. Just how much of a shortsighted fool does somebody need to be in order to fail to notice how the entire industry of gaming journalism has consistently been terrible since forever, but cry bloody murder over the fact that it now also publishes feminism-flavored crap alongside the regular crap?

I disregard the ideas at the heart of this series of tweets as a matter of common sense, not principle. Anybody who thinks gaming journalism's biggest problems are feminist infiltration and indie devs stealing exposure with their devil vaginas is ****ing stupid. So is, for that matter, anybody who seriously believes people depend on gaming journalism to "grasp a very large and confusing industry".

So, Pirate Saturday the day after tomorrow, as usual?

I like it.

...Wat.

Well that's unfortunate. Shall we return to our regular "whenever Oner can't attend" Mage game?

Which I'm not doing; man, nuance being utterly lost on you seems like a running theme. I do apologize for my earlier outburst, but surely you must understand how frustrating it is for me to write about something and have you responding to something else entirely. Yes, I'm very sure it would be incredibly hard for the game to keep track of civilian casualties and have certain NPCs' attitudes change based on that number. Oh wait, it's a mechanic that's been a staple of gaming since, well, pretty much forever (PST sure had it).