Drama in indy gaming and games journalism part 2

[BruceVC]

 

 

Recent developments, Jennifer Hale will be talking about GamerGate. (Though she might end up on the side of SJW)

 

In the meanwhile

http://apgnation.com/archives/2014/09/09/6977/truth-gaming-interview-fine-young-capitalists

 

That is a good read and is discusses many issues in an objective and reasonable way

 

One thing that concerns me is the apparent influence that Zoe Quinn seems to have, its almost like if she doesn't approve of a particular gender equality project then its got no chance of succeeding. I have an issue with that as she shouldn't be the judge, jury and executioner of what constitutes acceptable initiatives around gender equality.

 

Is not so much Zoe as the Silverstring media and the Digras and we should really come up with a term for all the groups that have created networks of influence to promote their ideologies. The way it functions; IMO, is a lot like 4chan and other internet communities where someone bring the information and the collective decides. These people are united by their ideology and by the means by which they try to promote it. So it bears to reason that merely introducing the information was enough, after all there's a lot of info backing up the fact that they didn't bother to check before acting against TFYC.

 

Also, on response to one of your previous posts:

"In summary the link I posted https://archive.today/CeWxy summarizes what gaming journalists are really saying, I encourage people to stop thinking there is this campaign that attacks all white, male gamers because its just not true ".

 

Its a bit disingenuous to believe that the calculated article they have posted is what they are thinking when you can go to the tweets accounts of many of these journalists and see what they are saying. It seems that they do have something against white male gamers and anyone who stands with them.

 

 

 

Sure I hear what you are saying about what the real intentions of RPS may be but I still believe what is most relevant is actually what they post on there website as an official explanation for proper scrutiny by all. After all this debate seems to be about a perception of "what gaming journalists are saying. As evidence I can't see how more clear my link can be around what they are saying, or at least as far as RPS is concerned? We shouldn't necessarily judge people on Twitter comments as these can be made on emotion and at the spur of the moment and definitely don't always reflect what the person really thinks

[BruceVC]

 

 

• The word gamer does not mean all gamers in this context. 

Feminists are fat, lazy, hate men, and are lesbians. Oh, but don't worry. When I say "feminists" I am referring to a certain types of feminists, not the majority who don't fit into my narrative.

 

Can you understand why I take offense BruceVC?

 

 

I wouldn't be offended if you said that is your opinion about a subset of feminists that have a certain perspective, I would be offended if you said this applies to all feminists

 

Once again "gamers" doesn't apply to all gamers. This discussion boils down to semantics and I don't think we are going to agree on that despite links I have provided that highlight what gaming websites, like RPS, really mean when they say "gamers" 

[Fighter]

So it's sounding more and more like there is a select clique of people with major influence over any gender discussion or project. And they have enough influence to just deny people coverage in the games' media or to brand them bigots if they don't like something. Because equality and diversity are so important to them I guess (sarcasm if you can't tell). This is one reason people hate these SJWs, because they always behave like this. Same with Fine Young Capitalists, same with just an average gamer. Pretending to have a discussion while censoring people they don't like (closing threads they don't like, deleting posts, blocking, etc.) or dismissing them as haters.

[HoonDing]

I think it should be Fine Young Cannibals.

[Bos_hybrid]

 

Bruce is just trolling at this point.

 

Typical response when you don't agree with someone... "lets play the old troll card" instead of engaging in debate

 

 

Bruce you don't properly engage in debates. You ignore vast parts of post or altogether skip them.

 

Maybe it's because you're a lone SJW (and only have so many tentacles), but when you ignore/skip posts that counter your views, but respond with "this is a very well reasoned post and people should read this" to every post that share your viewpoint, you look like a troll(or are trolling).

 

It's not because Malc and others don't agree with you that they call you a troll. It's because you exhibit troll behavior. Intentionally or not.

[BruceVC]

 

 

Bruce is just trolling at this point.

 

Typical response when you don't agree with someone... "lets play the old troll card" instead of engaging in debate

 

 

Bruce you don't properly engage in debates. You ignore vast parts of post or altogether skip them.

 

Maybe it's because you're a lone SJW (and only have so many tentacles), but when you ignore/skip posts that counter your views, but respond with "this is a very well reasoned post and people should read this" to every post that share your viewpoint, you look like a troll(or are trolling).

 

It's not because Malc and others don't agree with you that they call you a troll. It's because you exhibit troll behavior. Intentionally or not.

 

 

As you mentioned I cant possibly respond to every single comment, but also most of the comments don't require separate answers because the points are basically the  same " I am offended by the characterisation of the word gamer. I don't like what they are saying about me"

 

If 5 people say the same thing but use different words to express there outrage I don't need give 5 different answers, I just need to say " no guys gaming journalists aren't saying that about all gamers" and then post a link to support my view like I did with the RPS article

 

But yes I am limited due to time by how much I can respond, its not a deliberate attempt to ignore anyone

[Oerwinde]

 

 

 

• The word gamer does not mean all gamers in this context. 

Feminists are fat, lazy, hate men, and are lesbians. Oh, but don't worry. When I say "feminists" I am referring to a certain types of feminists, not the majority who don't fit into my narrative.

 

Can you understand why I take offense BruceVC?

 

 

I wouldn't be offended if you said that is your opinion about a subset of feminists that have a certain perspective, I would be offended if you said this applies to all feminists

 

Once again "gamers" doesn't apply to all gamers. This discussion boils down to semantics and I don't think we are going to agree on that despite links I have provided that highlight what gaming websites, like RPS, really mean when they say "gamers" 

 

 

But this is the underlying problem. When the journalists and you say gamers, you mean a very specific subset of gamers. When EVERYONE ELSE says gamers, they mean all gamers, because that is how the word was used in every circumstance ever until now. People got upset because people hijacked the term to serve their agenda. If they didn't know using it in that context would offend 99% of gamers, its because they are that out of touch with their readership. We understand that that's what they mean in this context. The issue is that they are dumb and corrupt and by using the term that way they pissed off the people who they make their money from.

 

Maddox pretty much matches my opinion of representation in games

Edited September 10, 2014 by Oerwinde

[BruceVC]

 

 

 

 

• The word gamer does not mean all gamers in this context. 

Feminists are fat, lazy, hate men, and are lesbians. Oh, but don't worry. When I say "feminists" I am referring to a certain types of feminists, not the majority who don't fit into my narrative.

 

Can you understand why I take offense BruceVC?

 

 

I wouldn't be offended if you said that is your opinion about a subset of feminists that have a certain perspective, I would be offended if you said this applies to all feminists

 

Once again "gamers" doesn't apply to all gamers. This discussion boils down to semantics and I don't think we are going to agree on that despite links I have provided that highlight what gaming websites, like RPS, really mean when they say "gamers" 

 

 

But this is the underlying problem. When the journalists and you say gamers, you mean a very specific subset of gamers. When EVERYONE ELSE says gamers, they mean all gamers, because that is how the word was used in every circumstance ever until now. People got upset because people hijacked the term to serve their agenda. If they didn't know using it in that context would offend 99% of gamers, its because they are that out of touch with their readership. We understand that that's what they mean in this context. The issue is that they are dumb and corrupt and by using the term that way they pissed off the people who they make their money from.

 

 

Fair enough, you make some good points. And yes we mean a subset of gamers. Whats your opinion on the link below that I posted

 

https://archive.today/CeWxy

[Bos_hybrid]

 

Bruce you don't properly engage in debates. You ignore vast parts of post or altogether skip them.

 

Maybe it's because you're a lone SJW (and only have so many tentacles), but when you ignore/skip posts that counter your views, but respond with "this is a very well reasoned post and people should read this" to every post that share your viewpoint, you look like a troll(or are trolling).

 

It's not because Malc and others don't agree with you that they call you a troll. It's because you exhibit troll behavior. Intentionally or not.

 

 

As you mentioned I cant possibly respond to every single comment, but also most of the comments don't require separate answers because the points are basically the  same " I am offended by the characterisation of the word gamer. I don't like what they are saying about me"

 

If 5 people say the same thing but use different words to express there outrage I don't need give 5 different answers, I just need to say " no guys gaming journalists aren't saying that about all gamers" and then post a link to support my view like I did with the RPS article

 

But yes I am limited due to time by how much I can respond, its not a deliberate attempt to ignore anyone

 

 

This is True Neutrals post at the end of last thread.

 

I've been assured by people supporting the journalists that this is not the case, which is the problem. These journalists carry weight and have reach - the moment those articles went up, the connection has been made and some of their readers went on the attack. No half-hearted retraction such as the one from Rock Paper Shotgun is going to matter.

 

It is a tactic many people have used against SJWs and feminists, which is why I'm surprised you would make that argument. You discredit the group without redefining the word and make the connection, and then when you get called on it you go "oh no, when I say [group], I mean something else". It's an easy way to marginalise and demonise people without having to take responsibility for what your words do. At this point, I have seen more anti-#GamerGate people be abusive than I have ever seen gamers be abusive in my entire life and I hold the careless call to arms of these journalists responsible.

 

It doesn't help that the gamers who are against harassment or are minorities themselves are being harassed and marginalised now and none of these journalists, even the ones going "oh we don't mean ALL gamers" have owned up to the fact that their generalising smear campaign has caused harassment, doxxing, sexism and racism (from the supposed people who claim to be supporting inclusivity) when the gamers have been quick to own up to the fact that yes, some gamers are awful people and we condemn their actions.

 

If you look into the hashtags on Twitter, for example, you will find thousands of gamers messaging for tolerance and peace or showing they are minority gamers who have not been discriminated against as a gamer, and you will find supposed "feminists" dismissing them as "sockpuppets" or "slaves", claiming their profiles are fakes and they do not exist, and generally dismissing them entirely. These are the people supposedly claiming they support equality and inclusivity. It should be telling that the pro-#GamerGate people are communicating through #NotYourShield and #AgainstHarassment while the anti-#GamerGate people are communicating through #AGamerInFourWords and #KillAllMen. I wouldn't support them, as they give me and you a bad name.

 

 

This was your reply.

 

As I've said numerous times the word  " gamer" doesn't mean all gamers, in this discussion it has never meant that.

 

I've been assured by people supporting the journalists that this is not the case, which is the problem. These journalists carry weight and have reach - the moment those articles went up, the connection has been made and some of their readers went on the attack. No half-hearted retraction such as the one from Rock Paper Shotgun is going to matter.

 

 

 

What do you think the word " gamer" means in this topic? Every single person who plays games? White males who play games or something else?

 

 

Ignoring vast parts of post you disagree with, and picking out a certain bit, is trollish behaviour.

 

You say nothing about the bulling and narcissism that both SJW, game journalist and indie devs repeatedly exhibit on twitter/blogs, and focus on 'they didn't mean all gamers' just white male misogynistic one. Despite the fact journalists and quack indie devs, think they need to come up with a new name for themselves to distinguish themselves from the awful evil male gamer.

 

Not once was as amendment made by the journalist/indies/SJW, which said 'by gamers we mean the asshats that comment on twitter/articles' why? Because by then the journalist realized that a huge number of gamers were questioning their validity in not just posting reviewing/previewing games, but there sanctimonious armchair moralizing(click bait).

 

You ignore the women and minorities that are behind #gamergate #NotYourShield.

 

Instead you constantly bring up, 'oh they didn't mean all gamers, just the misogynistic ones'. Sorry Bruce, but that excuse failed long ago.

[Oerwinde]

<p>

 

Fair enough, you make some good points. And yes we mean a subset of gamers. Whats your opinion on the link below that I posted

 

https://archive.today/CeWxy

Not bad. Says a lot that I agree with. I liked the bit about games diversifying. One of the issues I have with a lot of the social justice articles that get written (my primary game site is Kotaku, for disclosure) is the obsession with games needing to change because reasons. Games don't need to change. They need to grow. Assassins Creed doesn't need to change because millions of women play candy crush. There needs to be more games that do more to include women and people of colour and such, but the games I like are just fine as is and don't need to change to suit the desires of people who don't enjoy them.

 

there's a similar debate in comics fandom, with movies and comics changing the race and such of established characters to increase diversity. Some fans are upset by this because they are characters they love, the "progressives" just label these people as racist and shut down debate, but the main argument on the side upset by it is that you shouldn't be changing the race of white characters, you should be creating new characters to fill the need for diversity. People dont have a problem with a black Flash, they have a problem with black Wally West.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Oerwinde

[Blarghagh]

Guys I'm not going to go back and respond to all comments, but I'll just say I'm not convinced that my view is incorrext  In summary I'll make some general response

 

• The word gamer does not mean all gamers in this context. @ TN you posted this link https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/death-to-the-gamer/.  Wow you talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel to find a link that supports your perspective. No that article is annoying and doesn't reflect what gaming journalists are saying, I mentioned websites like the Escapist and RPS that have gone to great lengths to explain what they mean by gamers which you guys have conveniently ignored as it doesn't suit your interpretation of the narrative. Read this link if you want to understand what gaming journalists mean and tell me where in this link its says "all white male gamers are misogynistic scum " https://archive.today/CeWxy

 

Bruce, that article was on the first google page of the search term "death of the gamer", when many of the journalists' articles, even the one titled that exactly, didn't even show up. I think google's sorting algorythms are a fairly good representation of notability. It also perfectly illustrates my point of that these journalists should have redefined gamer in advance instead of in retrospect and whether or not they spoke out of malice or ignorance at this point is irrelevant, as their original articles have spawned this viewpoint and they need to own up to that. You can't make a public connection between gamers and misogyny and then play takeback.

 

Anyway, if you had wanted an article with different credentials, you should have qualified it better. Because if you don't qualify, you're going to get what you asked for, such as when you forget to qualify that by "gamers" you mean something else.

 

Which leads me to the Rock Paper Shotgun article, which you say actually supports your argument, however long it doesn't. My original point about takebacks not being viable aside, they never once actually state that they do not mean all gamers. They point out, hey, video games aren't just for gamers. Never once do they redefine gamer as something else than a gaming enthousiast and they never once own up to the fact that gamers are being harassed because of their careless demonisation.

 

Oh, they point out gamers are being harassed in this section:

 

 

 

"Here’s what has happened: The past month has seen an explosion of criticism and harassment of gamers, games journalists, games critics, and game developers. The harassment has been particularly focused on women, and men who have spoken out in support of women. Without exception, harassment and abuse, for any reason, is unacceptable."

 

But they are quick to qualify it that it is their side that is being harassed the most, which is simply and by far not accurate and also implies that the gamers who are being harassed are the ones on their side, not the ones that critique.

 

I'd also like to point out this section that they claim is a description of their situation:

 

 

 

I understand that people remain very angry at what they see as journalists lashing out at the community in general, and whilst I won’t try and justify that (or even entirely accept that this isn’t even true) I’d like to ask you to consider this: When the community you’ve worked so hard to serve choose to stand beside a group of manipulative misogynists rather than entertain the idea that you might not actually be corrupt, how do you think this makes people feel?

 

So much of this argument boils down to a misunderstanding – the games media aren’t calling you misogynists. They don’t think you hate women. But you’ve decided that your distrust of the media is so strong that you’d rather side with dangerous bigots than believe that the media might not be corrupt, that’s a hell of a statement to be making.

 

Right here in the article it may retrospectively claim that no, not all gamers are misogynists, but then it goes on to state that all gamers supporting #GamerGate, such as the #NotYourShield and #AgainstHarrasment movements, are people who have consciously decided to stand beside a group of manipulative misogynists. No effort is made to bring up our campaign on change.org, or the diversity campaign that is #NotYourShield, or the fact that all of these movements have openly condemned misogyny, racism and homophobia at every turn. No, they go out of their way to qualify that "by the way, if you're not with us, you're with them" when that simply isn't true. In fact, they go out of their way to undermine the credibility of these gamer based movements by claiming they are astroturfing and continue to marginalise and demonise the voices of every individual supporting #NotYourShield, who are exactly the people they are still pretending to be championing.

 

 

 

While there are certainly people who feel alienated from the games press, or who are (for whatever reason) unhappy about how the games press functions, many of the people who have pushed their ideas and opinions during this furore are people whose views are extreme and sexist. There are numerous individuals criticising the games press who are simultaneously harassing and abusing women. Many of these people have a history of attacking women. Their main intention is to attack women, not to improve practice across games. It’s deeply ugly stuff, and has little to do with ethics or games. It has to do with politics and hate.

 

As I've already described, here again they cloud the issue. They obstinately refuse to give concrete numbers and refer to the misogynists that these movements has condemned as "many of them", i.e. a significantly large portion of these movements. Never once is it acknowledged that these movements have publicly and intensely condemned these misogynist actions and have, in fact, been taking action against them. This isn't honest debate, this is thinly disguised propaganda.

 

 

 

Even outside the unpleasant sexist agenda and the extraordinary harassment, where there have been concerted attempts to carefully describe the nature of the games industry, what most of these critics seem to be discovering is that a lot of people in the industry know each other. This is true. But it should not be surprising, or extrapolated into corruption. It is true of all industries. It is being interpreted as a conspiracy, but of course it isn’t. And it is definitely not the end of games.

 

Again, no effort is brought up to discuss the actual problems that have been brought up. Issues such as high profile competetitions being rigged to generate money to generate money for the creators of the contest cannot be handwaved by saying "so, people know each other" and neither can issues such as games journalists grading games based on who their advertisers are rather than the content of a game. Not honest, just "our side is the good guys and since this is our website we can ignore what we want".

 

 

 

We do not hate gamers. We object to, and will fight, harassment and abuse. But that has little to do with gamers, and little or nothing to do with the ethics of the games industry. Not everyone who objects to how the games press works are harassing and attacking, but the ones who are are causing enough disruption for this entire thing, whatever it actually is, to be a mess of resentment and recrimination. For any progress to be made, in any direction, it has to stop.

 

Here, they do it again. By virtue of language, they make a connection. It might as well say "We don't hate gamers, but we object to, and will fight, their harassment and abuse" and then they take it back again. You cannot have it both ways. Then it goes on to say that people who are harassing and attacking are the ones who object to how the games press works while, again, conveniently ignoring the fact that these movements have seen as much public harassment as they have. It plays the victim card to try and give their words weight while marginalising and demonising the other side.

 

Then under the following heading: "Well, you still won’t engage the other side of the debate. Why isn’t that represented on RPS?"

 

This subsection begins with qualifiying what their side is.

 

"Because we are this side. Our own side."

 

Okay, fair enough. I can live with that. But then they continue on qualifying their side as this:

 

"We’re against sexism, we support feminist arguments of various kinds."

 

Considering they qualified this as being their side, it qualifies the other side (whether all gamers or all gamers who have taken a stance behind the GamerGate, NotYourShield and AgainstHarassment movements is irrelevant as they are both diverse groups containing many different races, genders (including the various states of trans-, pan- and a-sexual) and orientations) as not being against sexism and not supporting feminism, which is again dishonest.

 

And this is without ignoring the fact that all the questions they posed are complete strawman arguments. I can't imagine more than one or two idiots have claimed "they are doing it for sexual favors". They are misrepresenting the other side, both their people and their arguments to make it easier to attack. I think that's the very definition of a strawman, if there's any confusion.

 

 

 

Also, we care less about whether you read RPS than we do about whether you condemn misogyny and harassment. Don’t let others do these things in your name.

 

Misrepresenting the argument again. These movements have, at every turn, condemned the actions of the vocal minority of harassers and taken action against it. This once again posits that gamers have their heads in the sand and as I have pointed out very clearly several times is that since far before this, the reasonable gamers were busy removing toxicity from the communties (multiple, as the assessment that the gamer community is a single entity is also a fallacy). Awareness was being raised without lecturing and guilting call-to-arms messages. Game developers were acquiescing such as Riot Games constantly updating and changing their honor systems to attempt to battle discrimination and toxicity among players. Gamers know what is going on and never at one turn have we let others speak for them. Which is why gamers are banding together under NotYourShield to say, again, these journalists and their hatemongering (intentional or otherwise) do not speak for us either.

 

 

 

And yes, there will still be games that contain women with breast-sides exposed, and there will still be unspeakable and exciting violence throughout.

 

The crux of the misrepresentation, claiming the gamers opposing them are doing it for these things. It's ridiculous. And I'm not even going to begin to touch the area that comes after this, where they begin to condescendingly lecture the readers, with the intended audience of this article containing many NotYourShield supporters whose very existence proves that games are already for everybody, that games should be for everybody.

 

It is not a good article. It isn't even a reasonable article. It is a thinly veiled, hostile misrepresenting their opponents.

 

And even if it wasn't, it's still just a halfhearted "takeback" without taking responsibilty for what they said before and the harassment those words have caused. Semantics about what the word "gamer" means are meaningless because they failed to redefine the word before attacking it. Whether that was intentionally malicious or unintentionally ignorant doesn't matter. They need to own up to it.

[BruceVC]

 

Guys I'm not going to go back and respond to all comments, but I'll just say I'm not convinced that my view is incorrext  In summary I'll make some general response

 

• The word gamer does not mean all gamers in this context. @ TN you posted this link https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/death-to-the-gamer/.  Wow you talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel to find a link that supports your perspective. No that article is annoying and doesn't reflect what gaming journalists are saying, I mentioned websites like the Escapist and RPS that have gone to great lengths to explain what they mean by gamers which you guys have conveniently ignored as it doesn't suit your interpretation of the narrative. Read this link if you want to understand what gaming journalists mean and tell me where in this link its says "all white male gamers are misogynistic scum " https://archive.today/CeWxy

 

Bruce, that article was on the first google page of the search term "death of the gamer", when many of the journalists' articles, even the one titled that exactly, didn't even show up. I think google's sorting algorythms are a fairly good representation of notability. It also perfectly illustrates my point of that these journalists should have redefined gamer in advance instead of in retrospect and whether or not they spoke out of malice or ignorance at this point is irrelevant, as their original articles have spawned this viewpoint and they need to own up to that. You can't make a public connection between gamers and misogyny and then play takeback.

 

Anyway, if you had wanted an article with different credentials, you should have qualified it better. Because if you don't qualify, you're going to get what you asked for, such as when you forget to qualify that by "gamers" you mean something else.

 

Which leads me to the Rock Paper Shotgun article, which you say actually supports your argument, however long it doesn't. My original point about takebacks not being viable aside, they never once actually state that they do not mean all gamers. They point out, hey, video games aren't just for gamers. Never once do they redefine gamer as something else than a gaming enthousiast and they never once own up to the fact that gamers are being harassed because of their careless demonisation.

 

Oh, they point out gamers are being harassed in this section:

 

 

 

"Here’s what has happened: The past month has seen an explosion of criticism and harassment of gamers, games journalists, games critics, and game developers. The harassment has been particularly focused on women, and men who have spoken out in support of women. Without exception, harassment and abuse, for any reason, is unacceptable."

 

But they are quick to qualify it that it is their side that is being harassed the most, which is simply and by far not accurate and also implies that the gamers who are being harassed are the ones on their side, not the ones that critique.

 

I'd also like to point out this section that they claim is a description of their situation:

 

 

 

I understand that people remain very angry at what they see as journalists lashing out at the community in general, and whilst I won’t try and justify that (or even entirely accept that this isn’t even true) I’d like to ask you to consider this: When the community you’ve worked so hard to serve choose to stand beside a group of manipulative misogynists rather than entertain the idea that you might not actually be corrupt, how do you think this makes people feel?

 

So much of this argument boils down to a misunderstanding – the games media aren’t calling you misogynists. They don’t think you hate women. But you’ve decided that your distrust of the media is so strong that you’d rather side with dangerous bigots than believe that the media might not be corrupt, that’s a hell of a statement to be making.

 

Right here in the article it may retrospectively claim that no, not all gamers are misogynists, but then it goes on to state that all gamers supporting #GamerGate, such as the #NotYourShield and #AgainstHarrasment movements, are people who have consciously decided to stand beside a group of manipulative misogynists. No effort is made to bring up our campaign on change.org, or the diversity campaign that is #NotYourShield, or the fact that all of these movements have openly condemned misogyny, racism and homophobia at every turn. No, they go out of their way to qualify that "by the way, if you're not with us, you're with them" when that simply isn't true. In fact, they go out of their way to undermine the credibility of these gamer based movements by claiming they are astroturfing and continue to marginalise and demonise the voices of every individual supporting #NotYourShield, who are exactly the people they are still pretending to be championing.

 

 

 

While there are certainly people who feel alienated from the games press, or who are (for whatever reason) unhappy about how the games press functions, many of the people who have pushed their ideas and opinions during this furore are people whose views are extreme and sexist. There are numerous individuals criticising the games press who are simultaneously harassing and abusing women. Many of these people have a history of attacking women. Their main intention is to attack women, not to improve practice across games. It’s deeply ugly stuff, and has little to do with ethics or games. It has to do with politics and hate.

 

As I've already described, here again they cloud the issue. They obstinately refuse to give concrete numbers and refer to the misogynists that these movements has condemned as "many of them", i.e. a significantly large portion of these movements. Never once is it acknowledged that these movements have publicly and intensely condemned these misogynist actions and have, in fact, been taking action against them. This isn't honest debate, this is thinly disguised propaganda.

 

 

 

Even outside the unpleasant sexist agenda and the extraordinary harassment, where there have been concerted attempts to carefully describe the nature of the games industry, what most of these critics seem to be discovering is that a lot of people in the industry know each other. This is true. But it should not be surprising, or extrapolated into corruption. It is true of all industries. It is being interpreted as a conspiracy, but of course it isn’t. And it is definitely not the end of games.

 

Again, no effort is brought up to discuss the actual problems that have been brought up. Issues such as high profile competetitions being rigged to generate money to generate money for the creators of the contest cannot be handwaved by saying "so, people know each other" and neither can issues such as games journalists grading games based on who their advertisers are rather than the content of a game. Not honest, just "our side is the good guys and since this is our website we can ignore what we want".

 

 

 

We do not hate gamers. We object to, and will fight, harassment and abuse. But that has little to do with gamers, and little or nothing to do with the ethics of the games industry. Not everyone who objects to how the games press works are harassing and attacking, but the ones who are are causing enough disruption for this entire thing, whatever it actually is, to be a mess of resentment and recrimination. For any progress to be made, in any direction, it has to stop.

 

Here, they do it again. By virtue of language, they make a connection. It might as well say "We don't hate gamers, but we object to, and will fight, their harassment and abuse" and then they take it back again. You cannot have it both ways. Then it goes on to say that people who are harassing and attacking are the ones who object to how the games press works while, again, conveniently ignoring the fact that these movements have seen as much public harassment as they have. It plays the victim card to try and give their words weight while marginalising and demonising the other side.

 

Then under the following heading: "Well, you still won’t engage the other side of the debate. Why isn’t that represented on RPS?"

 

This subsection begins with qualifiying what their side is.

 

"Because we are this side. Our own side."

 

Okay, fair enough. I can live with that. But then they continue on qualifying their side as this:

 

"We’re against sexism, we support feminist arguments of various kinds."

 

Considering they qualified this as being their side, it qualifies the other side (whether all gamers or all gamers who have taken a stance behind the GamerGate, NotYourShield and AgainstHarassment movements is irrelevant as they are both diverse groups containing many different races, genders (including the various states of trans-, pan- and a-sexual) and orientations) as not being against sexism and not supporting feminism, which is again dishonest.

 

And this is without ignoring the fact that all the questions they posed are complete strawman arguments. I can't imagine more than one or two idiots have claimed "they are doing it for sexual favors". They are misrepresenting the other side, both their people and their arguments to make it easier to attack. I think that's the very definition of a strawman, if there's any confusion.

 

 

 

Also, we care less about whether you read RPS than we do about whether you condemn misogyny and harassment. Don’t let others do these things in your name.

 

Misrepresenting the argument again. These movements have, at every turn, condemned the actions of the vocal minority of harassers and taken action against it. This once again posits that gamers have their heads in the sand and as I have pointed out very clearly several times is that since far before this, the reasonable gamers were busy removing toxicity from the communties (multiple, as the assessment that the gamer community is a single entity is also a fallacy). Awareness was being raised without lecturing and guilting call-to-arms messages. Game developers were acquiescing such as Riot Games constantly updating and changing their honor systems to attempt to battle discrimination and toxicity among players. Gamers know what is going on and never at one turn have we let others speak for them. Which is why gamers are banding together under NotYourShield to say, again, these journalists and their hatemongering (intentional or otherwise) do not speak for us either.

 

 

 

And yes, there will still be games that contain women with breast-sides exposed, and there will still be unspeakable and exciting violence throughout.

 

The crux of the misrepresentation, claiming the gamers opposing them are doing it for these things. It's ridiculous. And I'm not even going to begin to touch the area that comes after this, where they begin to condescendingly lecture the readers, with the intended audience of this article containing many NotYourShield supporters whose very existence proves that games are already for everybody, that games should be for everybody.

 

It is not a good article. It isn't even a reasonable article. It is a thinly veiled, hostile misrepresenting their opponents.

 

And even if it wasn't, it's still just a halfhearted "takeback" without taking responsibilty for what they said before and the harassment those words have caused. Semantics about what the word "gamer" means are meaningless because they failed to redefine the word before attacking it. Whether that was intentionally malicious or unintentionally ignorant doesn't matter. They need to own up to it.

 

 

Thanks for the detailed response TN

 

I'll need time to go through it but I can't now as I am at a customer so I'll respond later

[kirottu]

It's also just his own questions, his own answers and no discussion to be had. Different questions and different answers wont be heard. It's a sad, sad article.

[Kroney]

This seems to have largely passed me by, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's a controversy caused by a literal ton of fat, sweaty, socially inadequate man-flesh wobbling in rage over women requesting that they don't get treated as, what I shall euphemistically call, off-the-wrist material and whom should grow the hell up and stop acting like a bunch of virginal online autists.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Kroney

[BruceVC]

This seems to have largely passed me by, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's a controversy caused by a literal ton of fat, sweaty, socially inadequate man-flesh wobbling in rage over women requesting that they don't get treated as, what I shall euphemistically call, off-the-wrist material and whom should grow the hell up and stop acting like a bunch of virginal online autists.

 

I have to say you have a way with words

 

" a literal ton of fat, sweaty, socially inadequate man-flesh wobbling in rage over women"   

[Agiel]

Stardock boss Brad Wardell's take on the recent debacle:

 

http://forums.galciv3.com/457616

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

This seems to have largely passed me by, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's a controversy caused by a literal ton of fat, sweaty, socially inadequate man-flesh wobbling in rage over women requesting that they don't get treated as, what I shall euphemistically call, off-the-wrist material and whom should grow the hell up and stop acting like a bunch of virginal online autists.

You would be wrong then.

[Keyrock]

This seems to have largely passed me by, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's a controversy caused by a literal ton of fat, sweaty, socially inadequate man-flesh wobbling in rage over women requesting that they don't get treated as, what I shall euphemistically call, off-the-wrist material and whom should grow the hell up and stop acting like a bunch of virginal online autists.

Ah, and there's the insult hurling.  No better way to appeal to people to become more civil and open minded than by stereotyping and hurling insults.  Bravo, sir.

[Fighter]

From TFYC interview:

 

"Kotaku's Jason Schreier contacted us after our Indiegogo page got hacked on August 25, about these issues. At the time, we assumed Zoe had simply not understood the terms of our website and asked to do an article on that facts of the issues explaining Zoe was confused and did not understand them. We wanted to set the record straight on what happened. That article was never published."

 

Balanced reporting there Kotaku.

[Kroney]

Agreed, having a wobbly rage over how much side boob other people are comfortable with is indeed a waste of your time.

[Blarghagh]

You're actually right, but the side you're describing is the other side than you think it is.

 

At the same time, nice show of tolerance there with he fat shaming.

Edited September 10, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Bos_hybrid]

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20140906VL200.html

[Malcador]

http://www.marketplace.org/popoutplayer/55

 

Hale starts speaking about 50% of the way in. Predictable stuff, really.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

http://www.marketplace.org/popoutplayer/55

 

Hale starts speaking about 50% of the way in. Predictable stuff, really.

No transcripts, I take it there was a collection of canned talking points?

[Blarghagh]

Yes. Just listen to it if brevity is your problem, it's a few minutes and Hale's voice, as always, is a joy to listen to.

 

Props to Hale for coming out in defense of the greater game community. I am really saddened that she was nervous about what the small group would do to her, though.