Journalism and sexism in the games industry

[Meshugger]

Speaking of the Escapist, i never understood the the popularity of Jim Sterling. Why is that? I mean Angry joe is angry, Spoony is nitpicking, Yatzee talks fast with silly jokes...but i cannot find any hook on that Jim guy, nothing insightful really either. 

[Hurlshort]

Speaking of the Escapist, i never understood the the popularity of Jim Sterling. Why is that? I mean Angry joe is angry, Spoony is nitpicking, Yatzee talks fast with silly jokes...but i cannot find any hook on that Jim guy, nothing insightful really either. 

 

Well that's kind of a root problem here.  Are these entertainers or are they journalists?

 

Personally, I haven't considered the gaming media journalists since the early days of Computer Gaming World.  They are entertainment rags, closer to US Weekly than any reputable news organization.  That's why I find this entire movement mindboggling.  

[Blarghagh]

Hurl, I'm pretty sure that's the problem. It's not a reputable news organization and people are tired of it. Nobody trusted them with AAA titles because they were paid via advertising to sell us the games they were reviewing, but they were still trusted when it comes to smaller titles. Now that's over too, and people have decided they're done with them and they need to be replaced with something that they can actually trust. Either by reorganising with clear ethics policies that are adhered to, are getting rid of them entirely.

 

For all this nonsense about who harasses who and who has acted unethically, it's really a matter of trust. They lost it, and then they talked down to the people whose trust they lost. At the end of the day, reviews aren't about culture criticism, people read them to find out if they should buy a certain product. It's consumer advocacy 101, and it's about time games has something worthy of it because these websites are holdovers from a time when games were still niche stuff and they're going to have to adapt or die and currently it's looking like they picked the second option out of sheer stubborness.

 

 

 

It has nothing to do with those ridiculous bastards at Return of the Kings (that website is as stupid as any radfem moron complaining about a shirt) other than the fact they consider their ridiculous nonsense to be such. 

 

 

Like it or not, "the redpill movement" is a name co-opted by "the manosphere".

 

I mean, okay, you can use it in any sense you want to, but the original question was "what do I mean by 'redpiller terminology'", and the answer is "the terminology you're likely to encounter on r/RedPill, the number one site google brings up when searching for 'redpill'".

 

I wasn't actually speaking specifically to you, I just wanted to clear it up because other people in these threads have mentioned the practice of redpilling people which had nothing to do with the version that was "co-opted" that you mention and your specific definition might misrepresent what they mean or are doing. As for it being "co-opted", I'm pretty sure much more people know about the Matrix than some obscure MRA website.

Edited November 20, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Malcador]

Well that's kind of a root problem here.  Are these entertainers or are they journalists?

 

Personally, I haven't considered the gaming media journalists since the early days of Computer Gaming World.  They are entertainment rags, closer to US Weekly than any reputable news organization.  That's why I find this entire movement mindboggling.

Plenty of people must consider them worth something, while IGN and their like is usually mocked you find people have respect for RPS or Polygon (with that weirdo prick Kuchera) or other sites that aspire to..uh..analysis of games and what not.

 

That and these people are fun to abuse as they always bite.

[Meshugger]

 

Speaking of the Escapist, i never understood the the popularity of Jim Sterling. Why is that? I mean Angry joe is angry, Spoony is nitpicking, Yatzee talks fast with silly jokes...but i cannot find any hook on that Jim guy, nothing insightful really either. 

 

Well that's kind of a root problem here.  Are these entertainers or are they journalists?

 

Personally, I haven't considered the gaming media journalists since the early days of Computer Gaming World.  They are entertainment rags, closer to US Weekly than any reputable news organization.  That's why I find this entire movement mindboggling.  

 

 

You find it mindboggling because you're and old man on the inside and don't understand the fire of the youth.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg9_Lx2AWaE

 

But seriously, these journalists usually are insightful, great writers or have a fun schtick to them in order to stand out. For example remember Greg Casavin of Gamepot? That guy was known because he had really high standard for giving high scores, and could motivate the scores given in a thoughtful manner. That was his schtick. But Jim....well clearly i missed it.

[Keyrock]

It's possible to have a schtick and still provide fair and insightful information to help the consumer.  The two are not mutually exclusive.

 

As an aside, these days I turn to The Cynical Brit for my most trusted information since I find him to be very fair and thorough.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Keyrock

[Hurlshort]

 

Well that's kind of a root problem here.  Are these entertainers or are they journalists?

 

Personally, I haven't considered the gaming media journalists since the early days of Computer Gaming World.  They are entertainment rags, closer to US Weekly than any reputable news organization.  That's why I find this entire movement mindboggling.

Plenty of people must consider them worth something, while IGN and their like is usually mocked you find people have respect for RPS or Polygon (with that weirdo prick Kuchera) or other sites that aspire to..uh..analysis of games and what not.

 

That and these people are fun to abuse as they always bite.

 

 

Plenty of people consider reality shows and trashy celebrity mags worth something as well.  I'm just saying that maybe some of these expectations are a bit unrealistic.  Video game journalism is always going to suffer from the fact that it is about video games, so expecting some high brow journalistic integrity is puzzling to me.  

[Keyrock]

 

Speaking of the Escapist, i never understood the the popularity of Jim Sterling. Why is that? I mean Angry joe is angry, Spoony is nitpicking, Yatzee talks fast with silly jokes...but i cannot find any hook on that Jim guy, nothing insightful really either. 

 

Well that's kind of a root problem here.  Are these entertainers or are they journalists?

 

Personally, I haven't considered the gaming media journalists since the early days of Computer Gaming World.  They are entertainment rags, closer to US Weekly than any reputable news organization.  That's why I find this entire movement mindboggling.  

 

Wait, so what you're saying is that it's stupid to ask for reform because these sites are just clearly sensationalist rags?  I'd say it's all the more reason to ask for reform because these sites are sensationalist rags.  

 

You argument basically boils down to this thing is broken, you people are being silly trying to fix it.

[bobobo878]

 

 

What the hell is redpiller(ing?)

 

A quick primer to redpill.

 

I might need brain bleach now, thank you very much.

 

 

Wow is this link for real? Or is it some kind of parody

 

It contains some of the most uninformed and sexist comments I have ever read about gender equality....he can't be serious ?

 

If you think that's bad, read the site's about us page.

[Malcador]

Plenty of people consider reality shows and trashy celebrity mags worth something as well.  I'm just saying that maybe some of these expectations are a bit unrealistic.  Video game journalism is always going to suffer from the fact that it is about video games, so expecting some high brow journalistic integrity is puzzling to me.

Well, nothing wrong with wanting more from things and not everyone is as dismissive of them. It is pointless from the get go as they are all ultimately whores in the end, though, saw a video from a guy that used to run a paintball review site on the line he had to walk to not being cut off and I assume the situation is similar.

 

Didn't you get the memo, games are 'art' now, though, about 'experiences' and what not, so real journalism is possible! I'm holding out for Third World Poverty simulators.

[Blarghagh]

I reject the very notion of art anyway. What do I care if academics consider video games art or not? Art is a pointless notion. I recognize craftmanship, creativity, innovation, sentiment, self-expression, beauty and evocativeness as seperate things, both objective and subjective, and I'm not going to devalue any of them by calling them all the same thing as this:

 

 

The notion of art is to all of those things what creationism is to modern science. What do I care that Roger Ebert said games will never be art? The Walking Dead made me tear up, Amnesia made me feel more scared than any horror film, and Octodad made me rage so hard I broke my voice. What do I care who considers those games art or not when they meant something to me, personally? I answer the question of "are games art?" with another question, namely "who the hell cares?"

Edited November 20, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[JadedWolf]

Allow me to put my old man face on, but to be honest I've never really been all that impressed with PC game journalism. When I was a lad, a long time ago, I was really into Amiga and so I read things like Amiga Power, Amiga Format and CU Amiga. Yes, they were incredibly geeky but they were also (mostly) funny and honest. If a game was crap they told it like it is and they gleefully dissected it in such a way that when you were buying one of the magazines you were hoping they'd review some really crap games. I've never, ever come across anything similar for the PC.

 

Now excuse me, I think it's time for my nap.

[bobobo878]

Speaking of the Escapist, i never understood the the popularity of Jim Sterling. Why is that? I mean Angry joe is angry, Spoony is nitpicking, Yatzee talks fast with silly jokes...but i cannot find any hook on that Jim guy, nothing insightful really either. 

I don't know why but when something sucks, I like to listen to someone give a long winded rant about it. He's just so delightfully pompous. He's not Yahtzee, but he's witty enough. Have you ever seen the video where he reads his Mass Effect 3 slashfic? That's the Jim Sterling people thank God for.

 

 

Edited November 20, 2014 by bobobo878

[Nonek]

Speaking of the Escapist, i never understood the the popularity of Jim Sterling. Why is that? I mean Angry joe is angry, Spoony is nitpicking, Yatzee talks fast with silly jokes...but i cannot find any hook on that Jim guy, nothing insightful really either. 

 

There may yet be a world food shortage, when Soylent Green becomes viable Mr Sterling's employers will truly reap the weight of their investment.

 

Fnarr Fnarr.

 

Edit: Or possibly they are experimenting with Mass accumulation, and are trying to imitate a Star collapsing under the weight of its own Mass? Could it be that Mr Sterling is not wearing black all the time, but that light cannot escape his event horizon, giving the illusion of blackness?

 

 

Sorry, back to weightier matters.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Nonek

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

There may yet be a world food shortage, when Soylent Green becomes viable Mr Sterling's employers will truly reap the weight of their investment.

 

 

That was a nice touch.

[Hurlshort]

 

 

Speaking of the Escapist, i never understood the the popularity of Jim Sterling. Why is that? I mean Angry joe is angry, Spoony is nitpicking, Yatzee talks fast with silly jokes...but i cannot find any hook on that Jim guy, nothing insightful really either. 

 

Well that's kind of a root problem here.  Are these entertainers or are they journalists?

 

Personally, I haven't considered the gaming media journalists since the early days of Computer Gaming World.  They are entertainment rags, closer to US Weekly than any reputable news organization.  That's why I find this entire movement mindboggling.  

 

Wait, so what you're saying is that it's stupid to ask for reform because these sites are just clearly sensationalist rags?  I'd say it's all the more reason to ask for reform because these sites are sensationalist rags.  

 

You argument basically boils down to this thing is broken, you people are being silly trying to fix it.

 

 

 

I'm saying that the entire industry is sophomoric, from the consumers to the developers, so expecting the media to be less than that is unrealistic.

 

Look, I love games, and I get that they are a big business.  But at the end of the day, they are still video games.  There are so many other things in this world I'd rather see us getting serious about.

 

Edit:  The movie industry is the exact same way, btw.  Those awards shows are ridiculous. 

Edited November 20, 2014 by Hurlshot

[Fighter]

I used to watch the early Jimquisitions. People used to hate Jim Sterling. His early work didn't have (if I remember all of this straight) the self deprecating humor and his "thank god for me" routine was done straightforward without the obvious irony.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/19406-give-voice-to-the-voiceless

[Longknife]

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/19406-give-voice-to-the-voiceless

 

 

What a scrub. He didn't even use the opportunity to get people to donate to his Patreon.

[Longknife]

And now to respond to the rest of that post as promised:

 

 

My point was that a/ saying all women are biologically programmed to be submissive is disgusting - not only from a moral standpoint, but also because it's based on the worst kind of pseudo-scientific bull**** (the large majority of evopsych "research" is done by people who seem incapable of understanding basic research methodology and statistics), and b/ encouraging people to engage in an extremely dangerous area of BDSM play without first asking for consent is one of the most irresponsible bits of advice you could give, especially taken into account the fact that a sizeable part of the redpiller community is composed of sexually inexperienced young males.

 

 

While I don't disagree with this since I was just asking for clarity, I also want to ask why do you specifically go and visit some obscure minority-voice website no one's ever heard of and go "omg outrageous radical views!!!" Ya no ****?

 

I only ask because the attitude seems akin to when through the course of GGs discussion, people point at statements made by anonymous youtube trolls with minimal upvotes and call it representative of the community.  It seems to have become a discussion where only extremes are discussed rather than the...yknow, objective groups and opinions actually at hand. The furthest I've gone to purposefully explore opinions I disagree with was r/gamerghazi, and that was to just see if I could educate myself on how they feel about things or find anything insightful.

 

 

 

I honestly don't see your problem.

 

Aside from the extremely small minority of nutjobs going "gender traitor!" on the women who dare to enjoy straight sex and being a housewife, how exactly does a feminist endorsement of "traditionally masculine" life choices as not replacing, but being a viable alternative to living as a housewife threaten their way of life? I mean, a situation where the only viable lifepath for a woman is being a housewife sounds like a pretty crappy alternative to what feminism is offering.

 

 

While that may or may not be true for feminism as a whole, I don't believe that opinion is the type of opinion we're dealing with HERE with GamerGate. Take Bayonetta for example. She's hardly "just eye candy" as she's the main character, the protagonist and the character with more detail and backstory than anyone else in the entire series, and yet she's being given **** for the sexualized outfits. That's my point: the feminism GG is dealing with seems quid pro quo, where yes the women who want knights-in-shining-armor with vaginas would be quite pleased, but the women who consider sex empowering would not be pleased. I would be all for both co-existing, but I do not get the vibe that that's what the people of Polygon, SilverString media and others want to see happen. In a more generalist commentary on feminism as a whole, I've commented in the past on how I find it counter-productive they all provide themselves the same label despite often opposing views; no need to revisit that.

 

 

Yeah, this whole argument here? Exactly the type of pseudo-scientific drivel I was talking about earlier. If I remember the study in question correctly (you didn't cite it, and what you describe isn't a study, it's a very logical-sounding theory supported by exactly zero pieces of factual evidence - but I do remember reading something like it in an actual study), it came to this conclusion based on behavior observed among a certain species of monkeys - but later studies have revealed the species it was based on to have about as much in common with humans, genetically speaking, as mouses do (which is still quite a lot, but when a very sizeable amount of genetic material is pretty much universal to all mammals, you can't really tout it as some kind of ultimate proof - after all, the differences between a human and a platypus are self-explanatory, despite the genetic commonalities).

 

Granted, I might be confusing it with a different study. There's a lot of bad science floating around in evopsych.

 

Also, you might wanna ask an actual historian about how life was like for women before our time. You might be surprised at the answer (spoiler warning: the popular concept of "they were basically slaves to their all-powerful male overlords" is a steaming pile of bull****).

 

 

At no point did I suggest a "historical depiction" with cavemen with giant clubs dragging women around by their hair or the like. I suggested a pregnant woman completely alone in a wild and hostile environment probably wasn't a good idea, thus some protection is of value. I would cite the same fact of biology as being the cause for most early armies being composed of men: because they are capable of reproducing while remaining strong and physically intimidating.

 

As for if you encountered a study debunking that study (or not and you have them confused), I don't see any value in us comparing the two studies as, for example, I once found myself in a debate about if animals (such as bears, dogs, dolphins and mammals in general) had emotions where one Texas university study suggested they did not whereas Berkeley had a study suggesting they did. Overall I think the take-away is "it's something to think about." (not in the animal case, in this one. I found the idea animals lack emotion to be absurd. ;P )

[Meshugger]

Oliver Campbell is fighting the good fight.

[Longknife]

Oh, before I forget. This is largely fluff and meaningless, it's just something that caught my eye and felt worth mentioning as something odd/funny.

 

 

A while back I posted a video of Roundabout:

 

 

 

I posted it to point out how, because of the whole SJW clique in the gaming media and particularly amongst indie devs, I was now questioning if a female lead with a lesbian relationship (if you can call it that since the game is odd and never acknowledges Georgio's gender) was an initial choice of the creators or one they felt inclined to make due to the situation of things. I believe TrueNeutral pointed it out as a good point but said he thought it was unlikely to be the case since the game was made by the SomethingAwful crowd and they just screw around. Fast forward, I believe I've heard a number of things about Zoe Quinn once being involved with SomethingAwful, as well as SomethingAwful posting a youtube vid passively mocking Gamergate (I could find it I think if someone wants).

 

   Likewise when Anita appeared on Colbert? Something caught my eye: the actress who played Georgio was estatic and excited for Anita, being one of the first to respond when Anita tweeted a picture of herself in Colbert's seat.

 

 

Again fast forward, one of Ubisoft's writers has been ****ting all over GamerGate and calling it a terrorist group. Far Cry 4 releases and I watch Vinny play it AS I WAIT FOR ANOTHER TOMODACHI LIFE EPISODE COME THE **** ON VINNY I WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO WALRUS AND TWO-FACED, and something again catches my eye. One of the first instances of NPC dialog involves an NPC telling Vinny that a prominent member of the game's "Golden Path" faction made it so that women can serve in their militia, which was a controversial decision at the time. The name of the woman who made that choice? Amita. This is also interesting because it would appear much of Far Cry 4 is recycled assets from Far Cry 3, yet Far Cry 3 lacked female enemies or fighters period. This would mean somewhere in development they decided having female militia was a worthwhile effort. In contrast to that, let's be clear Amita is an actual Hindi (think it was Hindi...?) name and not just something lazily made up. But yeah it jumped out at me because likewise, Far Cry's writers have always seemed pretentious. as. f**k. to me, with the writer for 3 trying to explain it like it was some complex work of art (it was god awful ****) and if you look up the endings to Far Cry 4, one of the endings is noticeably very very boring compared to the others as if they were trying to make some kind of artistic statement. Just seemed like the kind of attitude I'd expect from SilverString media or something.

 

 

 

 

As I said, none of this can be proven or anything and I know it can sound a little conspiracy-theory-esque, I just find it all kind of funny because...well let's say I'm noticing things that AREN'T just coincidences, then this would show just how deep the Kool-Aid bowl is. Too bad we can never know, cause I'd be curious to know if such design decisions were on the initiative of the developers themselves or by request of this very same clique of thought.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Longknife

[Gorgon]

I reject the very notion of art anyway. What do I care if academics consider video games art or not? Art is a pointless notion. I recognize craftmanship, creativity, innovation, sentiment, self-expression, beauty and evocativeness as seperate things, both objective and subjective, and I'm not going to devalue any of them by calling them all the same thing as this:

 

 

The notion of art is to all of those things what creationism is to modern science. What do I care that Roger Ebert said games will never be art? The Walking Dead made me tear up, Amnesia made me feel more scared than any horror film, and Octodad made me rage so hard I broke my voice. What do I care who considers those games art or not when they meant something to me, personally? I answer the question of "are games art?" with another question, namely "who the hell cares?"

Modern art is the thought process, it's the journey as well as the desitination. It has ironic distance to the notion of itself. It's not supposed to look technically impressive, or at least that's not a goal in and off itself. Of course this makes it very easy for it to appear like some giant elaborate hoax to cheat rich people of their money. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Oliver Campbell is fighting the good fight.

Yup, along with TB probably the best representation ganergate has. Nice, polite, and tries to keep it fairly apolitical.

 

As an aside, seeing alanshu and Longknife get into it would unleash a wall of text upon us that would rival the size of a thesis. If only Lephys would join in.

Edited November 20, 2014 by KaineParker

[Longknife]

Modern art is the thought process, it's the journey as well as the desitination. It has ironic distance to the notion of itself. It's not supposed to look technically impressive, or at least that's not a goal in and off itself. Of course this makes it very easy for it to appear like some giant elaborate hoax to cheat rich people of their money. 

 

 

What annoys me most, and I know I've said it before and I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but if I were asked to name a game I consider a work of art and not just a cash cow, I'd name Fallout New Vegas.

 

And all that got it was a mention in a lazy montage of "women as backround decoration in video games..."

 

 

I also really hate how sometimes it seems there's this correlation between how much praise something gets for being artistic and how pretentious the creator is when discussing their art or how they convey their message in their creation. Prime example would be all the half hour "games" which function more like movies that all of us have already forgotten cause they're boring as **** as games and still second rate as far as movies go...still got praise though "cuz it's art."

Edited November 20, 2014 by Longknife