aluminiumtrioxid

Thank you for sharing this.

It's a question of volume, really. When the signal to noise ratio reaches the point of making personal communication over the internet unviable, your situation is a bit different than "somebody called me rude names in TF2".

Again, I see no meaningful difference between "the gaming industry is a hostile environment to feminists" and "if you work in the gaming industry as an outspoken feminist, you will get death and rape threats". The outcome is, in both cases, that outspoken feminists are getting an incredibly hostile response. It's simply not a pleasant work environment. If we're looking at it from the perspective of a feminist woman thinking about working in game development, the end result is the same. Also, I feel that your perspective here may be a little skewed. To you, GG is this small microenvironment of, like, what? 20 people? If your exposure is limited to this, it's easy to see the movement as fundamentally reasonable. But to the rest of the world, it's the kiddie-porn filled cesspool of 8chan with its few thousands of followers, in all of its furiously misogynistic glory. "The narrative" has nothing to do with it, the fact that there is a very vocal subsegment of gamergaters who are essentially the scum of the earth (no hyperbole intended; you can't get much lower than pandering to paedophiles) has. I think the key here is "looks". I mean, TFYC surely looks like an admirable initiative, but it fails to accomplish much: it's basically using a woman as an "ideas person", but the industry already has more people like that than it can use, so I find it doubtful that it will manage to get women into the industry in the long term. And due to how the thing is worded, nobody will see a penny out of it if the end product doesn't turn a profit. Okay, it's better than nothing, but I think (f'rex) the charity KaineParker has linked to in a much, much earlier incarnation of the thread is a much more efficient way of actually helping women. Also, it hinges on the assumption that the anti-GG side doesn't fund charities, which, going by the example of my anti-GG-leaning friends, is blatantly false. They just don't feel a need to make the whole world know about it. That said, I'll concede the point that after taking these into account, from a utilitarian perspective, GG probably did more good than bad re:chasing women away from the industry. From a deontological standpoint, I still find the movement reprehensible (present company excluded), but that's irrelevant to the matter at hand.

People who are outspoken feminists getting rape and death threats definitely constitutes as an unwelcoming environment for feminists, in my opinion. Self-identified gamergaters in the appropriate *chan sites talking in great detail about bombarding them with those rape and death threats constitutes as GG being responsible for it. (Not in the collective responsibility sense - ie. every gamergater is personally responsible for the actions of those individuals -, but in the sense of "some people who are gamergaters do send those things".)

Kirottu was making a claim that gamergate hasn't chased away any women from the industry. I brought up an example of this not being true. I didn't voice worry, I voiced that he was factually wrong.

If my friends are feminists (who are also women), and see the gaming industry as an unwelcoming environment to feminists, so decide to bolt, they're not being chased away by the narrative, they're chased away by the environment being highly unwelcoming to feminists. The fact that they're women is secondary to this, but not irrelevant to a separate discussion about gamergate being responsible for women being chased away from the industry. I mean, the result is that women are being chased away, whether they're chased away for being feminists, or for being women.

The narrative is stupid and gaming journalism is a joke. That much we've quite established earlier. I don't think "women are chased away from the industry by a certain subsegment of gamergate supporters because they're feminists" is meaningfully different from "women are chased away from the industry by a certain subsegment of gamergate supporters", if we're looking at the question "are women getting chased away from the industry by gamergate?", which the original post sparking the whole disagreement was doing. Edit: I mean, it's not like "eh, they're feminists, they don't matter" was ever a valid line of argument. (Not like anyone here was saying so, but still.)

Stardust is very cool, but also tonally very different from the books OP mentioned to like.

Well, exactly. People get harrassed for having opinions the internet hivemind deems "wrong", not because they're women. That said, the acquaintances I've talked about are definitely holding such opinions; hence, them being driven off by the threat of harrassment still counts as gamergaters chasing women away from the industry. (For a given definition of "away".)

...And I totally forgot to mention Michael Moor****'s Elric of Melniboné books. Which is weird, given that they're pretty much the granddaddy of the whole "dark fantasy mostly about horrible people doing horrible things to each other" subgenre. They also happen to be quite good. Edit: And by "good" I mean "actually resembling fantasy instead of Gritty Pseudo-Medieval ****land that seems to be ashamed of its fantasy roots and avoids magical shenanigans like the plague". ...Wow, I never realized I was so bitter about the recent trend of "fantasy realism"

Have you considered this could be the responsibility of the people claiming gaming is unwelcoming to women? "Silly women, they're just so confused, they have no idea why they don't want to work on the field! Of course people believing that harrassment happens is not the fault of harrassers; the only people responsible are those who report on ongoing harrassment!" Could we avoid weasel words like "STEM workers are claiming"? Exactly who is claiming, exactly what: those are pretty important questions. Actual quotes would be helpful. The fact that you haven't seen it doesn't mean they don't exist. Of course, these forums not exactly being a welcoming environment for anybody with progressive leanings, it's no wonder you haven't heard about them. I'll dredge up some links when I have the time. I also feel the need to mention that between the listeners' almost universal "they must be lying/trying to blame their own failure on it" mentality when someone does speak up (and subsequent "professional victim" labels if they don't shut up about it), and strong structural incentives to not badmouth one's former employers (this one's actually universal, but the effect is not negligible), people aren't exactly encouraged to do so. I mean... you're a smart man. At least I'll assume you are, because I imagine law schools have pretty strict entry requirements. Whatever. Surely it must be not hard for you to see, if you stop for a minute and think about it, how this is kind of a catch-22 situation for the disaffected parties: if they do speak up, they can expect prolonged harrassment and diminished prospects on the job market (assuming they're looking for employment on their field) for basically no discernible immediate gain - the utter disinterest of the self-professed moderates is the best outcome they can hope to achieve (realistically, though, most likely lots of handwringing and attempts to rationalize the situation/discredit the speaker will commence). If they don't, they're actively making it harder for anybody in a situation similar to theirs to raise their voice by lending credence to claims such as yours. It's not even a game where the only winning move is not to play, given the fact that "not playing" would entail "seeking employment in a different field", which might not pay for student loans!

Try Glen Cook's Black Company series. Maybe Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker (it has a somewhat anti-heroic POV character out of... 4, if I remember correctly?) Or Steven Erikson's... thing, **** if I remember what it was called*. I only seem to recall it was pretty horrible, but it's also somewhat dark-ish and seemed to have gathered quite a following for some strange reason. Full disclosure, I read it in translation, the original may not be as bad as I remember it. I also really, really, really like Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, but I don't think you'd share my enthusiasm for it. * Edit: it was The Malazan Book of the Fallen.

...Well, actually... Anecdotical, I know, but a not-insignificant number of girls I know who've been considering a career in game development have said "**** this ****, I'll work somewhere else" exactly because of Gamergate.

Why should their deviancy be tolerated ? The flame for them! BUUUUUURRRRRNNN THE HERETIIIIIIC

I see no meaningful difference between "will not game because games don't appeal to me gameplay-wise" and "will not game because games don't appeal to me representation-wise". "Pander to non-normal people". How classy. Also, "small teams in basements and garages" might have been a viable business model 20, 30 years ago, but nowadays odds are overwhelmingly against you. I mean, Minecraft's been a hit, but that's one game out of what? Hundreds? Thousands?

...Meh.

Well, in my opinion, gaming journalism is a joke, but it's essentially a harmless joke. On the other hand, publishers being incompetent, greedy and risk-averse to the point of games in certain genres being essentially interchangeable has harmed and will continue to harm the industry as a whole. I don't consider them a harmless joke. They may not hold power over publishers, but they hold power over independent developers which, to me personally, is a far bigger deal than whoever is making gaming's version of Transformers. It's why I care about this at all. Well, the problem is that indies will always rely on exposure, but gaming journalism simply doesn't pay enough to be profitable for any given games journalist to always be on the lookout for the newest cool obscure indie game. Let's assume we manage to dethrone the Corrupt EstablishmentTM, and there will be a new gaming journalism focused on "consumer advocacy" or whatever you guys want. Most indies will still languish in obscurity, and it will have nothing to do with the quality of the stuff they put out. It's not a conspiracy, it's an emergent necessity of the field. They are universally wrong and i do not need to be personally affected to point out that they are full of ****. "Universally wrong"? That sounds like painting with a rather large brush. Fair enough. But why would it matter for people that are not interested in games to begin with? they have zero market value and offer no value for the hobby itself. The overwhelming success of Sims has proven that bringing previously-untapped consumer bases into the fold, so to speak, can prove to be an immensely profitable endeavour. Why? Diversity is a result of an organic process of people liking the same thing. Trying to force it in any way is tyranny. Surely you understand that people will not give up their freedom of creativity and choice to satisfy an abstract notion such as that? Would be a valid line of argument if really, really strong constraints on freedom of creativity weren't already a part of game development. Constraints, I might add, that make AAA games heavily featuring non-white non-cishet people all but impossible. Then I don't really see the problem. What we have is a group of people who intend to make the world a less ****ty place for marginalized people and really, really suck at making this intention a reality. But we should be up in arms about it because...?

Well, in my opinion, gaming journalism is a joke, but it's essentially a harmless joke. On the other hand, publishers being incompetent, greedy and risk-averse to the point of games in certain genres being essentially interchangeable has harmed and will continue to harm the industry as a whole.

I think the argument would be that if a metacritic score is an important thing for a developer (and I believe that it has been, with regard to developer-publisher contracts) then there is an important weight to a game critics critique beyond whether one listens to it or not. Well, absolutely, but why should game journalists be held responsible for actually acting with integrity for once and assigning a score they feel is appropriate, regardless of the consequences for the dev team, as opposed to the publisher who made bonuses contingent on Metacritic scores, a notoriously unreliable way of assessing quality?

"Verisimilitude" would be a big reason, for example. If you go by the fact that about 80-90% of important NPCs are white in games set in today's America, whereas in reality, the percentage of non-Hispanic whites is 63%, it's kind of understandable if minorities feel underrepresented. ...Actually, what I took issue was that the maker of that video took the study out of context and tried to use it to prove a statement it simply can't be used to prove. I wasn't saying the study failed at its aims, I was saying Sargon of Akkad failed to interpret it correctly.

I just have no idea why you think the fact that you're not their audience and they make this quite clear must mean they have a general disdain for the people they do consider to be their audience. Also, giving a game a lower rating based on "questionable content" is, ultimately, as much a subjective metric as giving a game a lower rating because it lacks a FOV slider. It's not like you a/ can't just read the article and adjust the final rating based on the fact that the complaints raised are irrelevant to you, and b/ are forced to only consume reviews by people who assign ratings based on criteria you feel are irrelevant. This is the beauty of the free market. By that logic there are no reasons to join Greenpeace until one is personally affected by pollution or environmental damage. Things do not work that way. I'm literally incapable of comprehending this analogy. Are gaming journalists destroying the environment? Is anybody forcing you to listen to their inane prattle? "Hurr durr they're out there to take away our gaemz" doesn't count, unless proof is provided that they've made any progress in doing so. So what i got out of your two points is that Sargon has doubtful connections (what do you even mean by that?), inane opinions (how?) and fail to comprehend anything (what?). Do you even have an argument? Because you're not saying anything at the moment. Basically this: Let's start with the fact that a sample size of 27 is laughable. 1000 would be optimal, or, if it's unfeasible, 300 gives a reasonably reliable data pool. You just can't make any far-reaching statements based on the opinion of 27 people. "Gamers don't need diversity" definitely counts as a far-reaching statement. But even if, miraculously, it wasn't sloppy research, you're still faced with the problem that you're trying to justify that diversity isn't necessary. One of the core arguments (a fairly inane one, but still) for diversity is that people who feel they aren't represented will simply not play games. Surely you must understand how asking people who already play games might not be the most reliable way of assessing how truthful that assertion is. Another one is that non-diverse games reinforce the marginalization of... well, marginalized groups, but since the effect is subtle, self-reporting is not going to let you see the extent of that. Essentially, Sargon fails to understand why we need diversity, and is trouncing a paper utterly irrelevant to the discussion as ultimate proof of him being right. It would be entertaining in a bumbling way, if it didn't eat 20 minutes of my free time. Yes, I'd say the idea of fairly obscure ideologues who were mainly active in the '80s not only being relevant in the public consciousness, but having an iron grip over today's media is definitely the product of insane right wing thinking. It's pretty much the equivalent of saying "researchers of the WNT4 gene's effects on the promotion of ovarian development are the secret masters of the world", except with political science instead of genetics.

...So, I actually spent 17 minutes of my life on watching that unbearably inane video of the guy essentially reading this paper aloud. After reading what the paper actually says, I have concluded that the guy has utterly failed to comprehend it on the most basic level, and his smug announcement of "see, gamers don't need diversity" only sheds light to the extent of his ignorance, not the fact that gamers, indeed, have no need of diversity.

...Says Sargon of Akkad, who, being heavily invested in the MRA community, has at least as much of a vested interest in demonizing feminists as feminists have in demonizing gamers. Being critical of one's sources cuts both ways. Then why call it "Cultural Marxism"? Because the name originates from right-wing conspiracy nuts, that's why. "Eeeebul commies are out there to destroy our culture" my ass.

I just have no idea why you think the fact that you're not their audience and they make this quite clear must mean they have a general disdain for the people they do consider to be their audience. Also, giving a game a lower rating based on "questionable content" is, ultimately, as much a subjective metric as giving a game a lower rating because it lacks a FOV slider. It's not like you a/ can't just read the article and adjust the final rating based on the fact that the complaints raised are irrelevant to you, and b/ are forced to only consume reviews by people who assign ratings based on criteria you feel are irrelevant. This is the beauty of the free market.

[citation needed] ...Short version? I mean, it's not like people are incapable of arriving on different conclusions based on the same facts, and I'm arguing with your conclusions, not your facts; hence, sitting through about an hour's worth of videos telling me what I already know seems... unproductive.