Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
Not-pologized. "I'm sorry you didn't like what you think I said"
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#GamerGate thread 2: it's about feminism in games journalism
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Not-pologized. "I'm sorry you didn't like what you think I said"
It drives me up a wall! Sometimes I just can't hold back though but I swear that they're often just playing dumb and doing this just to get that rise out of me.
I hate non-apologies like this. Just say you're sorry and get it over with. No need for filler and unnecessary words like "perceived" and being all dramatic. I especially dislike the whole bringing up the past during an apology because there is often no need. It sounds more like a excuse to why they do things and still continue to do them.
I dislike how an apology is seen as weak by people when it actually takes more courage to admit to yourself that you just might be wrong. That is not weakness, that is a strength because you allow yourself to move on and learn from your mistakes.
They're being a bit hyperbolic. Your post was about 70% true. The relationship between Zoe and Nathan Grayson was real, he did report on her and her game without disclosing it, which Kotaku later acknowledged, albeit over a week later. Although he didn't write an official review of her game. What caused it to blow up was Kotaku blacking out the story, despite pouncing on game dev sex scandals in the past. It's a topic that's guaranteed to generate buzz, readers just flock to it for whatever reason. Even if there ultimately was no breach of ethics, going radio silent on the most talked-about story of the day turned it into the most talked about story of the week, and gave already-paranoid idiots the false impression of a game journalism conspiracy, coverup, etc.
Again, there was no positive review written for Depression Quest, but you can't expect tens of thousands of individuals to do their own journalism to discover that. So in that short timeframe, some trolls and her already-existing detractors spammed the initial report everywhere they could, just to give it visibility. So you had a story of press corruption flowing through the underbelly of the internet, that the press wouldn't comment on, which only appeared to give it more credibility. And with the gut impression that something was amok, people started digging for any other hint of corruption they could find. Backgrounds were checked, links were drawn, conspiracies piled up, at this point it started looking more like a consumer revolt. And then something like 10 "Gamers are Dead" articles were published on the same day, which convinced the gamergate folks that they were onto something and the games media was conspiring to crush them for it, and that the random trolls in their ranks were being picked out as a desperate attempt to discredit them. Because to them, trolls were not a new thing.
This was the paranoid fantasy that was born.
LiegeWaffle
Member
Uh, no, I strongly object to the parts highlighted. He never wrote about her for Kotaku while he was in a relationship with her. Also, he did not talk about the game itself at all. Kotaku did not "black out" on this; the response from Stephen Totilo came next day via Twitter, and a day after that as an official editorial (and it was not immediate only because he was on vacation).
Going back to RogueStar, has this ever been posted?
http://www.pockettactics.com/features/zynga-controversy-slade-villena-vigrior/
There's much more coming from StrictMachine as well https://twitter.com/strictmachine
EDIT: The reddit AMA is 2 years old and interestingly the guy got banned on Gamasutra 2 years ago. He blames Gamasutra for shadowbanning him for no reason but now I think a lot of this is related to why he got banned there. He's a very hostile person and was fired for how he treated others not some simple office politics. He burned bridges everywhere.
http://www.pockettactics.com/features/zynga-controversy-slade-villena-vigrior/
There's much more coming from StrictMachine as well https://twitter.com/strictmachine
EDIT: The reddit AMA is 2 years old and interestingly the guy got banned on Gamasutra 2 years ago. He blames Gamasutra for shadowbanning him for no reason but now I think a lot of this is related to why he got banned there. He's a very hostile person and was fired for how he treated others not some simple office politics. He burned bridges everywhere.
I think I read about stuff like this in an early gamergate thread on this board.It's not exactly new. I can't believe he's lying to his potential customers still.
Ah okay, just me being slow. I'll just quote my own avatar this time.
I'm no real expert, as I'm not a dev or a lawyer but I do believe an NDA falls under trade secrets. I think he can get in a lot of trouble, possibly jail time for sharing this private and stolen information. Again I'm no expert.
Someone with credentials might know more about the complexities. I know Aquamarine freaked out that day when Polytron got doxxed and their NDAs flying around the internet. That was enough for me to not touch it.
Ventilaator
Banned
Reading the KiA subreddit, I find it pretty funny how that place and this thread often have the exact same conversations about each other. There's a post here wondering if GG is dying down, and a post there talking about anti-GG dying down.
I mean seriously:
I mean seriously:
More_Badass
Member
Can we assume the "email advertisers" tactic is dead in the water? I haven't read or heard anything about ads being pulled recently. And looking at KiA, they haven't stopped sending emails. Could the companies just be ignoring them now?
Lalalandia
Member
I disagree, there is nothing unreasonable about expecting people to do basic research. To have gotten involved in GG and not done any kind of research at all bar watching shitty YT videos by obviously antagonistic idiots marks a person as naive at best.
There were not 'like 10 "Gamers are Dead" articles ... on the same day' Mike Williams (MHWilliams) has pointed out that there was 1 "Gamers are Over, they don't have to be your audience" article and a few follow up articles responding to it over the next few days (on phone so I don't have the link). Apologies if this seems like nit picking but the "they declared Gamers are dead en masse" is a key GG lie in creating an 'us vs them' narrative vis a vis the press.
Neoriceisgood
Member
It's just the result of the anomaly hunting + gish gallop way GG presents "evidence".
If something looks like "collusion" or some sort of ethics violation, they put it on their long list of talking points.
The sheer fact that a bunch of writers "agreed on"/discussed the same cultural point is, in itself, "evidence" of collusion to GGers.
The "logic" mostly falls in the camp of: "omg feminism is taken over, this isn't journalism but ideology!11!"
jim-jam bongs
Member
So guess how much porn there is on the Totally Not Misogynistic Glorious Hero Chan of GamerGate involving Vivian James and the Aryan Waifu.
Guess.
Guess.
Quite a bit actually.
man twitter has been hilarious. i almost never used it prior to this last ban of mine but now ive been diving headfirst into fighting the GG reactionaries. i cant tell you how many times a seemingly civil conversation wherein i pry to find a legit ethics violation led to revelations the dude i was debating with had none (OBJECTIVE REVIEWS) and instead was just the bigoted, anti-feminist, anti-progressives that they keep getting "stereotyped" as. disheartening 
Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
70%? Really? Notice your wording here? First: "he did report on." You know everything he wrote with her in it was before any relationship right? Was he supposed to use time travel to disclose it? Second: "official review." which implies he gave some kind of endorsement of the game, but it's in a listing of 50 indie games, months before anything happened.
Irony! So an example of ethics in journalism would be to act like a tabloid? There was no breach of ethics, and the 4chan folks had already been harassing her, talking about getting her to kill herself, escalating it to "5 GUYS!" and you want Kotaku to add to it. And don't pretend they were even worried about journalistic ethics really. Or else Grayson would have been the focal point.
Yes you can, I certainly do... and now you go on to say "no positive review." Is it hard to say, "no review at all"? Or maybe "no mention at all after their relationship started"?
So Kotaku has a responsibility... A RESPONSIBILITY to write about the sex lives of women. If they don't, well look what happens. It's Kotaku's fault for not piling on.
What is it with these bigoted misogynists and skulls?
Neoriceisgood
Member
Isn't that how you recognise villains? Skull motifs?
chaobreaker
Member
He's just spent 4 minutes rambling about people blocking him and being shocked about stuff. I'm enjoying this meltdown regardless.
chaobreaker
Member
Neoriceisgood
Member
Heheheheh.
Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
I've seen lots of references to this video, but I'd never watched it until now. That was hilarious.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
In cartoons, perhaps. Reality is not that simple, unfortunately. But if they want to assume the mantle of being cartoon villains, I'm all for it. Easier to point and laugh at these idiots.
Edit:
Hahahah that's great!
But here's a skull that's not evil:
\m/
He is a good example of how being "neutral" can make you oblivious to what is going on around you.
Lalalandia
Member
Oh F-you buddy I hate these 'non-pologies', if you feel you've done nothing wrong own it. Don't try and get the forgiveness that flows from a true apology while also throwing digs at those whom you have offended. My respect for this guy is just at nil right now (and after his Wu interview it was shaky at best). Public invites to debates/interviews are always intended to apply pressure on the interviewee and to claim they are not is just wrong.
Neoriceisgood
Member
What the fuck. "Try it" !?
Sometimes I actually manually certify tweets by some of these well known GG guys because I actually get some doubts they can be real.
What the flying fuck.
Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
Well, I coulda gone my whole life without seeing that... And on that note, I'm off to bed. Maybe I can dream of a world where that didn't happen.
Dude is like a criminal on Law & Order SVU.
tonysidaway
Member
Cernovich is a net liability to any cause he espouses. One of the problems with being a self-declared decentralised "movement" is that they can't reasonably disown any well known figure who attaches themselves to the cause. What are they going to do, express sympathy with his chosen victim Zoe Quinn?
Kabuki Quantum Lover
Member
That's vomit worthy and cements these idiots in the same brain deficient category as truthers and birthers.
kingdoug87
Member
Unless they have already, GamerGate is a perfect issue that SVU will replicate in an episode. Wonder how that will go?
More_Badass
Member
Holy shit. And the scary thing is that he doesn't even try to hide these insane thoughts: it's fucking public on Twitter. Which can only mean he thinks it's perfectly rational and normal to make comments like that
Which makes it even more disturbing
Oh wait, we can't draw attention to these personalities. That makes us Moral Police shills. Remember folks, GG is about ethics in gaming journalism and political leanings have nothing to do with that. No one's perfect, or speaks for everyone.
HolyBaikal
Banned
Yeah, GamerGate seems very misogynistic without many people concerned about journalism. I thought that in the old thread, but I was afraid to say something, because it seemed like I might get in trouble or something. It seemed like we weren't supposed to be biased, and there were a lot of rules in the thread...
But Gamer Gate is really awful. It makes me so sad that so many other fans of video games are so mean and horrible. :<
It's because of people like this that the world is so scary...
Kind of part of the reason I would like to live in a virtual world is because I would like to get away from people like this...
I'd never like to worry about or think about mean people like them again...
But Gamer Gate is really awful. It makes me so sad that so many other fans of video games are so mean and horrible. :<
It's because of people like this that the world is so scary...
Kind of part of the reason I would like to live in a virtual world is because I would like to get away from people like this...
I'd never like to worry about or think about mean people like them again...
Neoriceisgood
Member
It's not even deleted or anything either, I typed a line from it into the twitter search engine to doublecheck and found the original tweet.
Like ... wow, "try it".
Camp Freddie
Member
I'm glad others have noticed the similarity between the messes that atheism and gaming have gotten into.
It was pretty heartbreaking to see the communities I liked being ripped apart by their worst stereotypes. Especially since part of my reason for identifying as an atheist/gamer is because I wanted to show that those stereotypes are untrue.
I always assumed that atheists, gamers and feminists would unite under the general progressive cause, since most of our poor treatment comes from conservatives.
Turns out I was mistaken.
It was pretty heartbreaking to see the communities I liked being ripped apart by their worst stereotypes. Especially since part of my reason for identifying as an atheist/gamer is because I wanted to show that those stereotypes are untrue.
I always assumed that atheists, gamers and feminists would unite under the general progressive cause, since most of our poor treatment comes from conservatives.
Turns out I was mistaken.
partyphone
Banned
pakman shilling his patreon and gamergaters are conflicted
https://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow/status/528577755039141888
https://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow/status/528577755039141888
Lalalandia
Member
pakman shilling his patreon and gamergaters are conflicted
https://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow/status/528577755039141888
Awaiting the storm of GG outrage as one of 'their' reporters indulges in the prime sin of Patreon....still waiting. Seriously though it seems my impression of Pakman as an opportunist is starting to seem more justified, perhaps he saw all that Sarkeesian Effect money and thought 'hmmm that could be me'. Cynical of me but I'm not sure how a person can ask 'hard questions' of the victims of a hate campaign and expect to be taken seriously as a journalist.
partyphone
Banned
yeah it's fun to watch their thought process play out over twitter.
I just found this gem: https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/528549168399527936
Neoriceisgood
Member
I would attribute it to extreme ignorance rather than necessarily being opportunistic.
Pakman's thing has always been extreme criticism of "corporate media", so to him "asking hard questions" to people claimed to be part of a media conspiracy is in character from an ideological pov.
What he's completely failing to notice is that he's diving head first into an extremely controversial subject with very public repeated harassment of specific individuals, which bends the rules of how to engage with it compared to a more general "issues in media" story.
If you look at his timeline it's mostly:
1. anti-GGers being really ticked off at his fairly blundering attempts at "neutrality".
2. GGers showering him in thousands of compliments and telling him how great and objective he is.
If you combine his distrust with general media, the ire he's gotten with anti-GG & GG's continuous praise for him ... I can understand why he's being so ... weird about this particular case.
I give him more credit than someone like TB though; Pakman actually cares a lot about social issues, but he's clearly wet behind the ears when it comes to how to deal with public harassment victims. (and honestly not really ..leanring.)
http://www.goodgamers.us/2014/10/31/where-have-all-the-goodgamers-gone/
The editor in chief has (probably wisely) abandoned Goodgamers.us
Don't worry, she'll still appear in things like Davis Aurini's documentary. And the good people there that love centaur rape games will continue to soldier on despite not updating the site in 2 weeks.
The editor in chief has (probably wisely) abandoned Goodgamers.us
Don't worry, she'll still appear in things like Davis Aurini's documentary. And the good people there that love centaur rape games will continue to soldier on despite not updating the site in 2 weeks.
The guy has a lot of tweets like that. Like how he can't be a misogynist because he enjoys the company of women. The next tween he clarifies that he has had sex with a lot of them. From his twitter:
Yeah, what could possibly be misinterpreted as misogyny from a statement like that?
he's known for asking hard questions of pretty much every single person he interviews on his show and has shown a penchant for inviting people to the show whose politics he strongly disagrees with. examples include anti-semites, anti-gay rights (a few times) and the westboro baptist church.
furthermore, i don't think that anyone has ever taken issue with patreon as a donation method. it only became an issue when it was shown that writers were donating to subjects of their pieces; that was at least the claim, i don't know if it was true or not. either way, many sites have clarified their policies on patreon since then.
Lalalandia
Member
His past work aligns with a lot of causes I sympathise with but it's hard to see the actual evidence in the whole GG/Quinnspiracy and think 'there's a media story here' that isn't 'Why the hell did it take death threats at USU to get the largest games media outlets to condemn this?' then I have to ask why? Perhaps he is just too into that juvenile 'Lame Stream Media' narrative that he sees everything through that lens but again that speaks pretty poorly of the man.
there were writers paying dev patreons because that's how you get the games those people make. it's like flipping out if a reviewer went to the store and bought a game instead of getting a free review copy, totally backwards and makes no sense.
if the person writing a review thinks highly enough of a game to put their own money toward it then that is a confluence of interest, not a conflict.
e. a real conflict of interest would be a developer paying into the patreon of a writer who covered their work, but you'll notice nobody has found examples of that
Well, no, a very common mocking tactic is about patreon. Commonly referred to as hipster welfare. Outside of the journalist context, it's something pretty widely mocked among GGers.
At least until the 8chan owner put one up.
Lalalandia
Member
Asking hard questions of people advancing a narrative or cause is good work, some of his other videos I've liked but how do you ask hard questions of someone explaining that they've been a victim of a hate campaign? In his interview with Brianna Wu he seemed to stray dangerously close to victim blaming for my tastes and if that was the style of interview I was being invited too I'd tell him to get lost also. Worse he then engaged in the classic public call out so that by refusing to appear on his show a person opens themselves to accusations that they don't want to 'discuss the issue' or are 'running away' (such as has already been made by TB).
I have no problem with Patreon, I just enjoy watching people who have condemned Patreon play mental twister to justify it when someone they support asks for patronage. The claims went something like 'they funded X's patreon, therefore they lie about it's quality' which is utter madness, it's like claiming that because a reviewer is a lifelong FIFA player they shouldn't review FIFA 15 as they've been making the equivalent of $5 a month payments to EA for years. At best a small note that you support a person via a Patreon is all that's required, the straight ban is something I will never understand (and there has never been any recorded case of bias or undue influence due to a Patreon backing).
Confluence of interest?
Game journalists should not be funding development. They should not be supporting developers or publishers.
This is journalism 101. You don't get attached to your sources, personally or economically.
As a former game journalist, I will tell you that fraternization is part of the job. You can be social and not step over the line. But providing funds for the people you are meant to cover is absolutely verboten.
Lalalandia
Member
So when you were a games journalist you never bought games?
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