Drama in the indy gaming biz ?

[Fearabbit]

Papers Please lost in a competition to Depression Quest because of the panel which had close connections to Zoe Quinn.

 

Okay I checked it and this is not true.

Again. Made up facts. God dammit people, you shouldn't look for conspiracy theories regarding Zoe Quinn, you should look at who's feeding you these lies and why the heck they are doing it.

 

@Meshugger: Nice, I've always wanted a visual representation of the ramblings of a madman.

No seriously that thing doesn't really get your point across. Who what now and why should I care?

[Meshugger]

 

 

@Meshugger: Nice, I've always wanted a visual representation of the ramblings of a madman.

No seriously that thing doesn't really get your point across. Who what now and why should I care?

 

 

How much you should care is something that you have to ask yourself, not me.

[Malcador]

Okay I checked it and this is not true.

Again. Made up facts. God dammit people, you shouldn't look for conspiracy theories regarding Zoe Quinn, you should look at who's feeding you these lies and why the heck they are doing it.

So there's a conspiracy against Quinn ?

[Orogun01]

@Orogun: Source? Hadn't heard about a contest where Papers, Please lost against Depression Quest because of connections. (And I'm doubtful because both games are quite popular, actually.)

The festival is Indiecade and international Independent games festival, Papers Please and Depression Quest were both in NightGames which is a party held by the festival. I misremebered  about it being part of the contest. The outrage stems from the fact that Robin Arnott was the chair of the NightGames at IndieCade and he is one of the guys mentioned in the WordPress.

 

http://i.imgur.com/tf9ig3e.jpg

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

Okay I checked it and this is not true.

Again. Made up facts. God dammit people, you shouldn't look for conspiracy theories regarding Zoe Quinn, you should look at who's feeding you these lies and why the heck they are doing it.

So there's a conspiracy against Quinn ?

Yes, you must have missed the misogynist meeting yesterday. Someone will fill you in at the next one.

[Fearabbit]

@Meshugger: "Not at all" it is then, thank you very much.

 

So there's a conspiracy against Quinn ?

 

I wouldn't call it a conspiracy because it's quite out in the open. But I wish people would do their sleuthing on that side of the fence for once and see what they find.

 

Okay seriously. I don't want to tell you "it's all misogyny" or whatever. Maybe it's just nothing but a hate mob that has taken on a life of its own. But it needs to stop. It's quite obvious that it's actually about nothing and that there is no actual scandal.

(BTW I do believe her ex-boyfriend and I would say that she sounds like a huuuuuge ****. Just to put things into perspective. I just also think he shouldn't have posted that stuff about their private life and it's not relevant.)

Edited September 3, 2014 by Fearabbit

[Longknife]

Who the **** gives a **** about Quinn?

[Malcador]

I wouldn't call it a conspiracy because it's quite out in the open. But I wish people would do their sleuthing on that side of the fence for once and see what they find.

Hm, I must not have been looking closely at the scheming. So then this is all a giant smear campaign on Quinn, as relevant as she is, but done by who and why ?

 

For the most part this caught fire and left Quinn a while back, the curious crackdown on discussion about it on some sites sure did help - gives the impression she has plenty of friends in key places (r/gaming moderator was a rather funny one)

Edited September 3, 2014 by Malcador

[BruceVC]

Guys fearabbit is making some excellent points, you should probably consider what he or she is saying

[Meshugger]

@Meshugger: "Not at all" it is then, thank you very much.

What baffles me more is why you bothered to ask such a thing in the first place.

Edited September 3, 2014 by Meshugger

[Malcador]

Guys fearabbit is making some excellent points, you should probably consider what he or she is saying

That was a long flounce there. Remember the 'Like' button does exactly what you posted.

[Orogun01]

Guys fearabbit is making some excellent points, you should probably consider what he or she is saying

Mostly focused on Quinn while the whole thing has moved on towards Silverstring Media, Maya Kramer and the consequences of those connections.

 

Meanwhile 4chan has made it a point to not make this about Quinn as they don't want it to be considered an attack on an individual. They are going after corrupt gaming press not after Zoey Quinn.

 

[Fearabbit]

I'm not focused on Quinn. I'm talking about corrupt gaming press. And how it's not corrupt because there's actually no corruption and all examples are false or not very important.

You're the one who brought up Zoe Quinn, Orogun.

 

But yeah, I mean that's where it all started and where a huge amount of the conspiracy still takes place, apparently.

 

 

 

@Meshugger: "Not at all" it is then, thank you very much.

What baffles me more is why you bothered to ask such a thing in the first place.

 

 

Mysteries.

 

Update: Also I can highly recommend BruceVC's posts. And I didn't even sleep with him maybe.

Edited September 3, 2014 by Fearabbit

[Malcador]

Hm, interesting that you'd say there is no corruption. Thin line between them being bought off or being plain useless, I suppose. If the accusation encourages "journalists" like Walker, Grayson, Sessler to be under stricter standards, no big deal.

[Longknife]

I'm not focused on Quinn. I'm talking about corrupt gaming press. And how it's not corrupt because there's actually no corruption and all examples are false or not very important.

You're the one who brought up Zoe Quinn, Orogun.

I just got here and there's like five pages to read through from when I last checked this thread. Mind explaining or showing how all the claims are false?

[Orogun01]

I'm not focused on Quinn. I'm talking about corrupt gaming press. And how it's not corrupt because there's actually no corruption and all examples are false or not very important.

You're the one who brought up Zoe Quinn, Orogun.

 

But yeah, I mean that's where it all started and where a huge amount of the conspiracy still takes place, apparently.

Yes she is the departure point but an effort has been made to keep this impersonal and not let it be about her but about her actions and the people surrounding her.

 

As for it not being corrupt; I would ask you to look for the code of journalistic ethics and how these indie developers are financially tied to journalists. If you don't think that is important that their relationship be disclosed, or that they recluse themselves from judging panels because it is unfair to other entries then I don't know what to tell you.

 

Also, there is the fact that they are censoring (or its being done in their favor) any opposing speech and affecting people's careers because of political reasons.

 

On an unrelated note; welcome to the forums. I don't recall seeing you before.

[Nonek]

 

 

I didn't mean to imply "slept with" just "had a relationship with" in my post; sorry if I wasn't clear.  The reviewer in question is Kotaku's Patricia Hernandez with respect to developer Christina Love and the Hate Plus article from last year and Anna Anthropy/The Hunt for the Gay Planet also from last year.  The Kotaku article was updated to indicate that Patricia and Christina are friend and this relationship wasn't disclosed in the article when published, since its added as an "UPDATE" in the text.  The Gay Planet text also updates that Patricia was housemates with Anthropy the year before the article.

 

I think it's a bit far-fetched to say that they could have added these updates years later. In fact, they often update their articles minutes/hours after publishing them. Also it's not like the articles praised the games in any way. They're not reviews, they just inform you that these games exist and feature a strange idea or silly premise.

I don't see the scandal here.

 

@kirottu: That article was written months before they even had the affair. Again... all the facts are entirely made up and there really is no scandal.

 

 

You won't come right with people on these forums who criticize the stance gaming journalists have taken around Zoe Quinn. They refuse to see reason or use logic. Most people are debating from a perspective of outrage because of the usage of the word "gamers". Despite the fact the word doesn't apply to all gamers they chose to ignore this and take it as a personal insult. I have tried and people just want to believe what they want, irrespective of the explanations given

 

But good luck getting people to see the facts

 

 

The word gamer applies to anybody who plays games recreationally this is a fact Bruce, even a child can understand this. I am not outraged, or lacking reason or logic and dislike my points being dismissed because you say that I wish to believe what I wish to believe. I see the facts, I have seen the corrupt nature of the gaming press for years, from major publications having their reporters appear in games and then giving those games near perfect scores, to thousands of preview pieces being blatant hype for games without any attempt at objectivity and criticism, and on to this latest debacle where the gaming press have tried to censor any evidence of their nepotism, corruption and flagrant lack of integrity.

 

If you choose to not see any of this that is your perogative, but don't blame others for being awake and aware.

[Meshugger]

I'm not focused on Quinn. I'm talking about corrupt gaming press. And how it's not corrupt because there's actually no corruption and all examples are false or not very important.

You're the one who brought up Zoe Quinn, Orogun.

 

This is how it goes:

 

Argument: "The examples are false"

Retort: "Which ones, and how?"

 

Now, you present a claim or a link to someones that does.

[Fearabbit]

I just got here and there's like five pages to read through from when I last checked this thread. Mind explaining or showing how all the claims are false?

 

If you only focus on my posts it's just five or six of them.

I don't know which claims are being made in total. I've asked for examples and there were two articles about friends' games that were neither reviews nor glowing praises. The rest of the claims were mainly that - claims without backup or conspiracy theories, all without proof (or proof to the contrary). It's as simple as that.

 

@Orogun, thanks! I hang around in the PoE section mostly.

And yeah, I gave my opinion about the rest of your post - my main point being that it's definitely not a scandal if people are friends in the industry. (Reading the Kotaku comments also tells me that they do not censor dissenting opinions - they just delete the really bad, hurtful stuff.)

 

@Meshugger: Lol no that's not how it goes. I asked for examples where the gaming press was being corrupt or not giving the necessary information. Almost nothing came back except for two articles about which Amentep and I had a brief discussion, and a post by Orogun concerning some competition - which was definitely a false information, as he himself explained later. (He still thinks it's relevant - I don't, because it kind of lacks the scandalous nature of "Depression Quest won even though Papers Please should have won" if there wasn't actually a competition going on.)

I came to the conclusion that people are being overly dramatic. Prove me wrong.

Edited September 3, 2014 by Fearabbit

[Malcador]

"Reading the Kotaku comments also tells me that they do not censor dissenting opinions - they just delete the really bad, hurtful stuff."

 

Funny how that always works out, I find.

[Longknife]

 

I just got here and there's like five pages to read through from when I last checked this thread. Mind explaining or showing how all the claims are false?

 

 

If you only focus on my posts it's just five or six of them.

I don't know which claims are being made in total. I've asked for examples and there were two articles about friends' games that were neither reviews nor glowing praises. The rest of the claims were mainly that - claims without backup or conspiracy theories, all without proof (or proof to the contrary).

I just did and I don't see any answers. In fact you don't seem to be addressing any rumors or debunking any, you're chatting about tangets or other ideas. :U

[Meshugger]

@Meshugger: Lol no that's not how it goes. I asked for examples where the gaming press was being corrupt or not giving the necessary information. Almost nothing came back except for two articles about which Amentep and I had a brief discussion, and a post by Orogun concerning some competition - which was definitely a false information, as he himself explained later. (He still thinks it's relevant - I don't, because it kind of lacks the scandalous nature of "Depression Quest won even though Papers Please should have won" if there wasn't actually a competition going on.)

I came to the conclusion that people are being overly dramatic. Prove me wrong.

 

 

Ah, you asked where?. Sure, allow me to direct to some evidence made by the Internet Aristocrat and...

 

 (Reading the Kotaku comments also tells me that they do not censor dissenting opinions - they just delete the really bad, hurtful stuff.)

 

...you're not fooling anyone, Nathan.

Edited September 3, 2014 by Meshugger

[Fearabbit]

 

 

I just got here and there's like five pages to read through from when I last checked this thread. Mind explaining or showing how all the claims are false?

 

If you only focus on my posts it's just five or six of them.

I don't know which claims are being made in total. I've asked for examples and there were two articles about friends' games that were neither reviews nor glowing praises. The rest of the claims were mainly that - claims without backup or conspiracy theories, all without proof (or proof to the contrary).

I just did and I don't see any answers. In fact you don't seem to be addressing any rumors or debunking any, you're chatting about tangets or other ideas. :U

There's nothing to debunk. That's the thing. People talk about the corruption as if it was a known fact. They don't actually offer any evidence that holds up. (Meshugger posted something about DARPA, but nobody knows what his point is.)

 

Also I distinctly remember my posts being awesome. Don't talk about them like that.

[Longknife]

 

Thunderf00t's videos often rub me the wrong way but this is pretty good: 

Beating BruceVC to the punch with thishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N-tkrxAEWwEven if it's just a lot of passive aggressive snarking, but that comes with the territory

I just wanna jump in here real quick....

 

 

 

HOW MANY OF YOU ARE FACT CHECKING PERIOD?

 

 

 

I'm getting the sneaking suspicion people from both sides are blindly linking things that support their side of the argument. That thunder foot vid happens to be one I came across ages ago. The counter-argument and reply in the "thunder foot busted" video? It's terrible. It's terriawful. INFACT it even tosses out vocabulary words related to logical fallacies and poor arguments and proceeds to be guilty of those very logical fallacies. Ultimately the counter video fails because the very claims of sexism thunder foot claims were unfairly exaggerated and applied to Hitman absolution are ALSO applied to Fallout New Vegas. I've already said this twice and you all can go watch Anita's women as background decoration video to check it out yourself. But yes, she is DEFINITELY cherry picking and misrepresenting games, and given that I can see that myself, I have no reason to doubt thunder foots arguments about hitman being misrepresented aswell, and it's likely other games were too.

 

 

 

 

But this is all besides the point. I merely worry people are going to quote without reading or argue without informing themselves, which won't get **** done period no matter who is guilty of it.

[alanschu]

To me it sounded same as saying muslims are to blame for 9/11. It doesn't make it okay just because we know most of muslims don't fly planes into buildings. It was, for lack of a better term, hate speech. Taking the actions of few and painting everyone to be the same.

 

 

Hate speech is probably the worst possible term you could have used.  Especially since we're all being so keen on using proper definitions of words now.

 

Hate speech is, outside the law, speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of e.g. race, religion, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. (Source. Note that this doesn't touch on the legal application of the term which the link also discusses).

 

 

That is sounds the same as "muslims are to blame for 9/11" is a huge problem because the level of significance and relevance of people seeing "attacks on gamers" as being in any way equivalent to real world and institutional discrimination towards (typically) visible groups gives gaming a level of gravitas that isn't there.  As people are so common to say when it's convenient: "it's just video games."  Which is true, and that doesn't mean one can't be passionate about it and love it.  But any level of equivalence towards the two things is false.  People aren't going to be scrutinized by the law for being gamers.  People aren't going to face systemic levels of discrimination because they play video games.

 

It's co-opting a specific term that means something different and I see it all the time too.  LGBT people, for example, have "gotten what they wanted" on the claims of representation.  Unsurprisingly, groups and fans of particular ideas (that don't suffer constant erasure from pop culture nor systemic oppression for simply having those ideas) now utilize the term and feel justified in doing so because "well we've given them what they want, so now it's time to give us what we want."

 

 

 

...and they way it was done, 10 articles on a same day. It was organized hate speech.

 

 

Would it have been more palatable if they had colluded to spread out the articles?  What you're seeing is a reaction to what some of them, and yes some of them are indeed friends, had to endure in the wake of both Zoe and Anita backlash.  When you're facing a plethora of people (and their sockpuppets) harassing the **** out of you and your colleagues/friends online the impetus is going to draft a response.  Yes, several articles came up to call out the antiquated notion of "gamer" and the narrow field of view a group of gamers have about what is mandated to be a gamer.  But an organized hate speech campaign or several people sharing their experiences with each other and deciding to write about it?  Note that there IS a gaming journalism critique here, in that games journalism has a huge tendency to imitate and repost same ideas from other OpEds and the like.  But that's not what you've expressed concern about.

 

 

 

Because there is only one definition of gamer Bruce, and that's what they mean, the millions of us whom play games recreationally. English is the largest language in the world, there are plenty of other words to choose.

 

 

First off, the bolded.  This statement is untrue.  Both Mandarin and Spanish are spoken by more people than English.  Your perspective is, however, consistent with eurocentricism and ideology that the subset of gamers that these articles refers to.  Why do we need more black people in our games? Ugh who cares about LGBT in games? I just want to play games! God damn SJW are ruining gaming!!! As though gaming is some pure thing that should be sheltered from outside influences and untainted by those that just don't understand what it means to be a true gamer!  God forbid some article points out that older women now outnumber teenage boys.  In fact, lets make sure we point grill them on "what types of games" because if they don't fit a particular idea (which is a moving set of goalposts depending on who you ask) then we can dismiss this and speak out against articles that state this as being bogus for... reasons.

 

 

 

I question the intentions of anybody who handwaves this away and apologises for the hate speech they are now propogating against millions, if they choose to be blind towards any negative aspects of the movement they are serving as a mouthpiece for that is their priority, but to me this makes them mindless puppets parroting their masters dogma.

 

 

I question the intentions of anybody who lectures people on the proper use of words while in the immediately not following their own standards.  The same things you bitch about gaming journalism about you exempt yourself from.

 

Gaming Journalism is RIFE (click baiting, link chaining, industry sponsored award shows, etc.) with bad things and I don't, in general, care too much for it.  You're absolutely correct in your other paragraph that there's dozens upon dozens of huge issues with gaming journalism.  But when someone like Dan Golding states the following:

 

-------------

When, over the last decade, the playing of videogames moved beyond the niche, the gamer identity remained fairly uniformly stagnant and immobile. Gamer identity was simply not fluid enough to apply to a broad spectrum of people. It could not meaningfully contain, for example, Candy Crush players, Proteus players, and Call of Duty players simultaneously. When videogames changed, the gamer identity did not stretch, and so it has been broken.

-------------

 

then you're just being obstinate about the usage of the term gamers.  Don't claim to be moderate in this issue.  You dislike gaming journalism and you're insistent on this because in your views you want as much as possible against them so much so that you're splitting hairs over the usage of the term because failing to do so would mean conceding a talking point against gaming journalism.

 

For all the ills of gaming journalism, them pointing out that the term "gamer" applies to so much more people than those that are so adamantly defensive about it is hardly an indictment against it compared to other things.  But hey, like you, I have my own biases and since I've already been pretty indifferent towards the term being applied more liberally it's hardly a shock that I have less issues with them calling out the old, rigid gamer clique and illustrating that times are indeed changing.  If someone were to, however, have a particular agenda against gaming journalism it doesn't surprise me that they'd opt on being wilfully obstinate towards the nuanced use of the term in this case because hey, you have a pile of stuff you want to build up against gaming journalism and the thought of taking something off that pile isn't something you're keen on doing.  But that's not a moderate view.

 

 

If you're going to rag on gaming journalism, I'd consider your argument to have more weight if it wasn't insisting that media telling people that the ownership of the term has evolved beyond what the old school insist it is.  The subset of gamers that these articles refer to view the label as so sacred that they actively go on "hate speech" (since you used the term) campaigns to push out and discredit anyone that threatens to change the status quo.  Depression Quest isn't a game.  Anita isn't even a gamer.  Allan you don't understand the gamer identity and the co-opting of our culture capital (yes, this has been said to me, as though I haven't been a gamer for 30 years that even competed in online leagues).  The same group that shat all over Tim Schafer for "betraying" them because he simply said "I think everyone who makes games should watch this video from start to finish."  I mean, he wasn't even talking to gamers (of any kind) when he said this - he was talking to the developers.

 

But that's the issue the subset of gamers that these articles refer to. Anita is poisoning gaming through lies and all sorts of other scandalous terms. If Tim has now bought in... we have to mobilize and be even louder because otherwise true games won't be made anymore.  Especially given that Anita's video basically comes across as "Stop being lazy and use different tropes."  As though the subset of gamers that these articles refer to are actually encouraging game developers to be stagnant.