Drama in indy gaming and games journalism

[Monte Carlo]

Actually Hurlie I was out of order back there and I apologize.

 

As for the ongoing argument - there is nothing wrong with Anita or anyone else pointing out perceived cultural flaws and biases in games or any other cultural medium. And to be fair to Anita, she's pretty upfront about where she's coming from and what you see is what you get.

 

OTOH what I'm talking about is something more invidious. One person's 'inclusiveness' is another's nightmare. The SJW crowd really do think their way is the only way.

 

It's a type of intellectual arrogance. I know writers and academics on the political left, the warm fuzzy kind. They really would ban things. For your own good. Because they know best.

 

Edit - exclusivity changed to inclusiveness

Edited September 27, 2014 by Monte Carlo

[Malcador]

Yes, that's exactly my point. Giving a game bad reviews because the reviewer thinks the game has problems with diversity is censorship exactly as much as large amounts of people crying about how a game "isn't really a game", aka "not at all".

I don't know, as Alexander likes to boast, the media is a megaphone, so their words often carry a bit more weight than large amounts of people 'crying' as you put it. Someone should throw the "don't like it, don't play it" at Sarkeesian and all the other SJWs and see what the response will be, it applies to Quinn's 'game' and Gone Home or whatever game makes these people tear up.

[Hurlshort]

Thanks Monte, I figured you were just in a mood.  Even my unicorn-dancing-on-a-rainbow rear gets a bit pissy from time to time.  More so as I get older and more cranky!      

 

 

 

I keep hearing about things like Gamergate, and this Zoe Quinn, and this Anita character, and every once in awhile I try to read through the threads about them, but I have a hard time getting any of it.  Are these issues in the real world?

 

I do get that video game journalism sucks.  But that's hardly newsworthy.  It's also not any worse than entertainment news and sports reporting is barely any better.

 

Maybe I just need to go back to the other threads.  

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I thought that the issue was that there's a conspiracy of gaming journalists trying to enforce an agenda and how developers should have total artistic integrity without having to do a checklist of certain inclusive elements.

 

Except total artistic integrity simply doesn't exist in the world of commercial game development, so while I appreciate the sentiment, I feel it's rather misplaced. Or, to quote a developer asked to voice her opinion on the matter:

 

 

 

 You've never had your artistic freedom trampled in your work because there's no such thing as artistic freedom in your work if it's work done for a company. You're there to make the game they pay you to make. They tell you all the time that the shade of green is not right, that the animation is too sexy or not sexy enough, that the character needs more or less clothes, that the blood isn't shiny enough. It's a part of the job: that's the reality of game development.

[Malcador]

Nope, normal people don't care about this. It's the best flame war in a while, people claiming being traumatized in real life over it, etc.

 

Explained this to my sister and she said it sounds like a bad soap.

[Longknife]

 

 

How are developer's supposed to know that the tired trope of the knight saving the princess in the castle is tired if people don't voice their criticisms?

 

 

Also is SJW the new White Knight label?  I try to ignore these silly internet memes that come and go.  

 

Where are you people getting that I have a problem with her voicing her opinion? I never stated that. I have a problem when her opinion unjustly holds a disproportional amount of influence over gaming media and the gaming industry. The very fact we're HAVING this GamerGate backlash suggests it's not the popular opinion. For better or worse, that's how it is, and you cannot force a group of people to like things you do and think the way you do.

 

  Please guys, I don't think these strawman arguments (criticiizing a flaw in an argument your opponent never made instead of attacking the ones they did) are intentional, but it's very hard to get ANYWHERE when I feel I'm not even being properly heard or responded to.

 

 

Look, it's not a strawman to point out she doesn't really have a power to force her opinions on you, therefore complaints about her forcing her opinions on you are either misguided, or indeed pointing at the fact that your problem lies in her being able to voice her opinion.

 

 

 

 

 

.....

 

 

Let's walk through this, one step at a time, shall we? Please, I urge you to think things through one step at a time:

 

 

1) The accused strawman argument was NOT about Sarkeesian trying to influence people, it was about you guys perceiving that I'm saying she and others have no right to provide criticism and voice opinions. They have EVERY right to do so. That you perceived that I said they don't hold this right? THAT is the strawman, NOT her forcing opinions on others.....that you accused me of the latter is yet another strawman, ironically....

 

2) To argue that "she (and others) do not have the power now and therefore it's fine" is absolute INSANITY when there is a crystal-clear intent to change that, improve on that power to do so and expand influence. This would be tantamount to if you said it's fine that Stephen Hawking intends to murder me in cold blood because he is not physically capable of doing so. No, it's NOT fine because a man having the intent to commit a crime may eventually find the means to do so, and criminal or (in this specific case with gamergate) immoral actions should be discouraged by the community.

 

 

  When you gain influence within the community to control a disproportionate amount of the media and game development sectors given the relative unpopularity of your opinion, and then that opinion is made stronger by a mailing list of journalists who attend to your every call, all while providing social pressure and harassment to get things the way you want them to be, that's coercion. And believe it or not, coercion is a crime punishable by law:

 

 

(1) A person commits the crime of coercion when the person compels or induces another person to engage in conduct from which the other person has a legal right to abstain, or to abstain from engaging in conduct in which the other person has a legal right to engage, by means of instilling in the other person a fear that, if the other person refrains from the conduct compelled or induced or engages in conduct contrary to the compulsion or inducement, the actor or another will:

(a) Unlawfully cause physical injury to some person; (b) Unlawfully cause damage to property; © Engage in conduct constituting a crime; (d) Falsely accuse some person of a crime or cause criminal charges to be instituted against the person; (e) Cause or continue a strike, boycott or other collective action injurious to some persons business, except that such a threat is not deemed coercive when the act or omission compelled is for the benefit of the group in whose interest the actor purports to act; (f) Testify falsely or provide false information or withhold testimony or information with respect to anothers legal claim or defense; or (g) Unlawfully use or abuse the persons position as a public servant by performing some act within or related to official duties, or by failing or refusing to perform an official duty, in such manner as to affect some person adversely.

 

 

 

Mind you, no, I'm not saying anything they're doing here is totally illegal and going to get them in trouble, but what I'm saying is that if you utilize the very same tool that could get - say - a banker or an economist arrested, then yes, it's time to rethink your methodology.

 

  Also as minor clarification, Anita is someone I view as the face of the SJW movement. She herself is not neccesarily guilty of any of this (we don't know), I simply name her as a placeholder of sorts; she's a symbol.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Longknife

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Yes, that's exactly my point. Giving a game bad reviews because the reviewer thinks the game has problems with diversity is censorship exactly as much as large amounts of people crying about how a game "isn't really a game", aka "not at all".

I don't know, as Alexander likes to boast, the media is a megaphone, so their words often carry a bit more weight than large amounts of people 'crying' as you put it. 

 

 

Yeah, no, I don't buy it. Game journalists haven't really been considered as a way to get reliable information about games since... the last decade or so, maybe?

[Monte Carlo]

Thanks Monte, I figured you were just in a mood.  Even my unicorn-dancing-on-a-rainbow rear gets a bit pissy from time to time.  More so as I get older and more cranky!      

 

 

 

I keep hearing about things like Gamergate, and this Zoe Quinn, and this Anita character, and every once in awhile I try to read through the threads about them, but I have a hard time getting any of it.  Are these issues in the real world?

 

I do get that video game journalism sucks.  But that's hardly newsworthy.  It's also not any worse than entertainment news and sports reporting is barely any better.

 

Maybe I just need to go back to the other threads.  

 

I only started following it properly once it bled out into media that wouldn't usually cover it. Initially I was sort of, "meh" about it because the protagonists are so much younger than me and dealing with it in a way I find pretty strange. Then I read the article I linked and realised - the tactics described really are familiar to me in other fields. And I was tickled by the idea of childish, bickering, silly gamers actually being 'The Helm's Deep of Freedom of Expression.'

[licketysplit]

Actually Hurlie I was out of order back there and I apologize.

 

As for the ongoing argument - there is nothing wrong with Anita or anyone else pointing out perceived cultural flaws and biases in games or any other cultural medium. And to be fair to Anita, she's pretty upfront about where she's coming from and what you see is what you get.

 

OTOH what I'm talking about is something more invidious. One person's 'exclusivity' is another's nightmare. The SJW crowd really do think their way is the only way.

 

It's a type of intellectual arrogance. I know writers and academics on the political left, the warm fuzzy kind. They really would ban things. For your own good. Because they know best.

 

Not only that. They pressure developers to conform, as has been demonstrated by the Saints Row dev kowtowing to Anita or the Larian artist being asked to change the female lead's armor. Or the Dragon's Crown fiasco. This is the real issue as I see it. Through social media, ideologues can cause change and effectively force their views to be adopted by creative entities. It's everywhere nowadays: in comics, movies, toys, novels. I wouldn't call it a cohesive movement but an unpleasant and dangerous cultural phenomena. They've been slow to co-opt games, at least there's been a strong push back from the gaming community and some devs as well. 

[Monte Carlo]

^ I completely agree lickety.

[Malcador]

Yeah, no, I don't buy it. Game journalists haven't really been considered as a way to get reliable information about games since... the last decade or so, maybe?

Some people still do, else they wouldn't be around I would imagine. And they can push a narrative, quite well, as recent weeks show. Isn't censorship in any case, but does have that irritating aura of telling people what they should do, enhanced by it being on others' behalf (white guys irate of the treatment of black women in gaming, for example), rather than being unconvinced the gameplay of a 'game'.

[Hurlshort]

This is the cost of living in a digital world.  We have so much information and media at our fingertips, it's amazing.  We get so much immediately.  But we also have to deal with the immediacy of criticism and blowback.  You can't have one without the other, this platform goes both ways.  

 

 

Also, Spider-Woman looked ridiculous and I thought it was awesome how quickly they had to backpedal on her cover art.  Again, we get so much entertainment from this digital world!

[Malcador]

Meh, most of it is garbage, so that diminishes the amazement at what we have access to.

[Longknife]

This is the cost of living in a digital world.  We have so much information and media at our fingertips, it's amazing.  We get so much immediately.  But we also have to deal with the immediacy of criticism and blowback. 

 

 

Nobody in this thread has a problem with criticism. But coercion is something different.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

 

 

Look, it's not a strawman to point out she doesn't really have a power to force her opinions on you, therefore complaints about her forcing her opinions on you are either misguided, or indeed pointing at the fact that your problem lies in her being able to voice her opinion.

 

 

 

 

 

.....

 

 

Let's walk through this, one step at a time, shall we? Please, I urge you to think things through one step at a time:

 

 

Look, dude, I really appreciate the condescension, I honestly do, I'm just not sure it's as conducive to constructive debate as you might think it is. That said...

 

 

1) The accused strawman argument was NOT about Sarkeesian trying to influence people, it was about you guys perceiving that I'm saying she and others have no right to provide criticism and voice opinions. They have EVERY right to do so. That you perceived that I said they don't hold this right? THAT is the strawman, NOT her forcing opinions on others.....that you accused me of the latter is yet another strawman, ironically....

 

 

Except I've never said you were saying that, I've just pointed out that freedom of speech also includes freedom to criticize, and the criticized party isn't bereft of their freedom of speech due to said criticism. If that wasn't clear, I apologize.

 

 

2) To argue that "she (and others) do not have the power now and therefore it's fine" is absolute INSANITY when there is a crystal-clear intent to change that, improve on that power to do so and expand influence. This would be tantamount to if you said it's fine that Stephen Hawking intends to murder me in cold blood because he is not physically capable of doing so. No, it's NOT fine because a man having the intent to commit a crime may eventually find the means to do so, and criminal or (in this specific case with gamergate) immoral actions should be discouraged by the community.

 

 

Except I'm not seeing any realistic avenues for them to do so (and frankly, neither the crystal-clear intent you're speaking of). But whatever.

 

 

 

Oh, and I've somehow failed to address this earlier point of yours:

 

 

 

 

Collaborated media backfire in a medium essentially nobody views as having any sort of influence whatsoever is hardly what I'd call coercion.

 

 

LOL R WE SRS RIGHT NOW????

 

"Collaborated effort to murder a man that ultimately fails is hardly what I'd call murder."

 

There's a reason attempts at crime are also a crime. Here we're not talking actual court orders and crime, mind you, but yes the community has a VERY reasonable reason to be skeptical and wary of this particular group, because it's obvious the attempt is being made.

 

 

As you've pointed out earlier, coercion occurs when a "person compels or induces another person to engage in conduct from which the other person has a legal right to abstain, or to abstain from engaging in conduct in which the other person has a legal right to engage" - therefore, if it has no effect, it's attempted coercion at most, if we're really unkind and assume the parties involved were somehow overlooking the fact that they lack the influence to actually be coercive. Or, alternatively, they knew precisely what little power they hold, and were merely expressing their honest opinion with said articles, as it is their right (see: freedom of speech).

[Hurlshort]

 

This is the cost of living in a digital world.  We have so much information and media at our fingertips, it's amazing.  We get so much immediately.  But we also have to deal with the immediacy of criticism and blowback. 

 

 

Nobody in this thread has a problem with criticism. But coercion is something different.

 

 

Heh, when you say coercion I think of how the mafia spread its influence across America in the previous century.  I think about political lobbyists.

 

 

Video games and coercion, not so much.  

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Not only that. They pressure developers to conform, as has been demonstrated by the Saints Row dev kowtowing to Anita or the Larian artist being asked to change the female lead's armor. Or the Dragon's Crown fiasco. This is the real issue as I see it. Through social media, ideologues can cause change and effectively force their views to be adopted by creative entities. 

 

 

I know this may sound like a radical idea, but have you ever thought of the possibility that they might have honestly been convinced by the points the "ideologues" have raised?

[Longknife]

 

 

 

1) The accused strawman argument was NOT about Sarkeesian trying to influence people, it was about you guys perceiving that I'm saying she and others have no right to provide criticism and voice opinions. They have EVERY right to do so. That you perceived that I said they don't hold this right? THAT is the strawman, NOT her forcing opinions on others.....that you accused me of the latter is yet another strawman, ironically....

 

 

Except I've never said you were saying that, I've just pointed out that freedom of speech also includes freedom to criticize, and the criticized party isn't bereft of their freedom of speech due to said criticism. If that wasn't clear, I apologize.

 

 

"You're wrong!! I made a highly irrelevant point that no one had called into question whatsoever and responded with such FOR NO APPARENT REASON! How DARE you accuse me of making a strawman argument! I was merely taking the opportunity to make an irrelevant point!!"

 

 

Yknow it's VERY difficult to sympathize with the SJW side of things when I've yet to find a single person in support of that side capable of objective debate...

 

Your entire post is just you repeating the same "mistakes" I was criticizing. All while repeating "it's not coercion cause they won't succeed" while completely failing to address that the intent is indeed there. The intent is the exact cause for concern and outrage...Likewise you claim they don't have the capacity to be coercive when I myself provided an example and licketysplit provided several more.

[Hurlshort]

So what's the buzzword for people that overuse terms like SJW and straw man?

[Malcador]

 

 

 

Not only that. They pressure developers to conform, as has been demonstrated by the Saints Row dev kowtowing to Anita or the Larian artist being asked to change the female lead's armor. Or the Dragon's Crown fiasco. This is the real issue as I see it. Through social media, ideologues can cause change and effectively force their views to be adopted by creative entities.

 

I know this may sound like a radical idea, but have you ever thought of the possibility that they might have honestly been convinced by the points the "ideologues" have raised?

Yielding to hounding is usually done for reasons other than being convinced, though.

[Malcador]

So what's the buzzword for people that overuse terms like SJW and straw man?

Arts major.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

 

Except I've never said you were saying that, I've just pointed out that freedom of speech also includes freedom to criticize, and the criticized party isn't bereft of their freedom of speech due to said criticism. If that wasn't clear, I apologize.

 

 

"You're wrong!! I made a highly irrelevant point that no one had called into question whatsoever and responded with such FOR NO APPARENT REASON! How DARE you accuse me of making a strawman argument! I was merely taking the opportunity to make an irrelevant point!!"

 

 

 

 

I hope you are aware that you're arguing in bad faith.

 

 

Your side is all about "SJW censorship". I point out that they have no way of enforcing the censorship you speak of, therefore calling it censorship is misguided at best, or a thin veneer on the attempt to silence them. I fail to see how it is not relevant to the debate.

 

Also, bonus points for taking a perfectly calm and polite post and paraphrasing it as the ramblings of a frothing idiot. Very mature.

 

 

 

Your entire post is just you repeating the same "mistakes" I was criticizing. All while repeating "it's not coercion cause they won't succeed" while completely failing to address that the intent is indeed there. The intent is the exact cause for concern and outrage...Likewise you claim they don't have the capacity to be coercive when I myself provided an example and licketysplit provided several more.

 

 

I also love how you seem to have missed me pointing out that the intent you mention completely hinges on their side being too stupid and/or blind to realize that they hold no power to make said intent into reality.

 

Or, an alternative interpretation of facts: they are perfectly aware of their powerlessness and have no insidious hidden agendas while expressing their opinions.

 

 

I'd also be glad is some of you could provide links to the stories behind the examples you've mentioned (the Larian one I vaguely recall, the others are completely unfamiliar to me).

 

 

So what's the buzzword for people that overuse terms like SJW and straw man?

 

I like "the MRAtheist-rationalist crowd", but people who overuse both SJW and straw man are fairly rare (even rarer outside said crowd, though).

Edited September 27, 2014 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Longknife]

So what's the buzzword for people that overuse terms like SJW and straw man?

 

Just so we're clear, even the SJW's themselves call themselves that. Hell, I think they coined the term. It's not a word with negative connotation assigned to them.

 

And strawman is only a buzzword in that it's occured REPEATEDLY throughout this entire event. Hell, you could daresay it's the core of the issue and why the issue persists: people are pissed off about being falsely represented by their own media. You make a statement about censorship of art or corrupt journalism, then the next morning headlines read "an undying misogynistic hatred for women!!!"

[HoonDing]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-zifv_D9QU

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

So what's the buzzword for people that overuse terms like SJW and straw man?

 

Just so we're clear, even the SJW's themselves call themselves that. Hell, I think they coined the term. It's not a word with negative connotation assigned to them.

 

 

I won't hold it against you, but I feel the need to point out that you're wrong on both accounts. "SJW" has originated as a dismissive term describing people interested in issues of social justice. Later on, there was an attempt on the part of socially conscious folks to "reclaim" the term (a practice I've never really understood the value of), but that doesn't change the fact that it wasn't coined by them and it has negative connotations associated with it.