"A gamergate is a worker ant which is able to reproduce with mature males without a queen present in its colony."
It's a funny coincidence.
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Games Journalism! Wainwright/Florence/Tomb Raider/Eurogamer/Libel Threats/Doritos
- Thread starter papersleeves
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"A gamergate is a worker ant which is able to reproduce with mature males without a queen present in its colony."
It's a funny coincidence.
The (more or less explicit) goal is to bully feminist voices into leaving the video games scene. The goal is to shut them up. And the bad news is that they are successful.
Hey, that's actually kinda what GamerGate is trying to accomplish! IT ALL FITS!
I see your point, but then the harassers and extremists have won by silencing any potential opposition. Also, they could close the comments on their "reports".
Unfortunately this moronic thing has resulted in several women quitting video games. It would be good for these sites to speak up and take stand against who that they don't tolerate the bullshit going down.
thatsthejoke.jpg (in case you're being serious)
Eurogamer has you covered.
Their goal is to pretty much destroy "the other side".
njean777
Member
I wouldn't say anything either, everybody in this whole shitstorm is acting stupid and nothing more needs to be said.
No it isn't. The goal is for, and I quote from one of the most reposted images about the situation on /v/: "Contrary to what you might believe, #GAMERGATE is not about Zoe Quinn: it is a stand against corrupt journalism in the gaming press, from honest gamers that want game journalists to have good ethical standards"
I thought that was painfully obvious from the very beginning, nothing has happened to warrant any of the abuse, doxxing or any other stuff that has been going on.
Criticism of stuff is valid, you don't have to agree but they have their say too and it's ok, the world is not going to end, and you don't have to enjoy your game less because someone else didn't like it or gave it a bad review or say somethings on it were sketchy on their mind.
Developers and press and pr being friendly, sure, I am sure that happens in all industries in which you have to work closely with people and keep running into them at events, it's just normal human interaction, and nothing happened here that was a red flag about anything.
It's all a veil lame excuse to be despicable humans and I don't understand how anyone could even defend it a little bit.. but as always someone will play or think they are playing devils advocate and defend the indefensible.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
No, the problem is enough of "them" want them to say exactly what they want to hear and nothing else.
Honestly, what is a site like Giant Bomb supposed to put out? They are far from neutral in this to report on it in any way.
edit: You know, a "letter from the editor" type of thing would be interesting comming from Jeff Gerstmann.
May have started like that, but it's been hijacked by MRA assholes. Also, I've not seen much corruption in games journalism being uncovered by this.
The worst part of all this is that there is no foreseeable end.
Even with the FBI involved, they've shown in multiple cases they cannot stop online harassment. And that was against random flavour-of-the-month targets who are forgotten after a week. In this situation, the trolls actually think they've got a cause. That's scary.
Even with the FBI involved, they've shown in multiple cases they cannot stop online harassment. And that was against random flavour-of-the-month targets who are forgotten after a week. In this situation, the trolls actually think they've got a cause. That's scary.
If this was actually about ethical standards, I don't think the targets would be writers like Jenn Frank and Patricia Hernandez.
Because it was never about uncovering corruption to begin with.
I've tried to ask on other places what the corruption is and the only straight answer I ever got was: "Yes, there isn't hard proof of widespread corruption."
Maybe on the Twitter hashtag, although I'm not really checking it. But the threads on /v/, the main source of everything, are right now mostly focused on emailing the advertisers of gaming websitesm recommending them to pull their sponsership alongside trying to expose further corruption. And outside of a few shitters, this is 4chan after all, nothing about Anita, Feminists, or anything like that.
Then who are they after and what is this corruption that has actually been uncovered?
RockTurtle
Member
Jennifer Frank no. But we're going to have to agree to disagree on p. Hernandez
There are way more obvious targets for that than Jenn Frank, e.g. Machinima, Game Informer or Polaris/Maker Studios. It's no coincidence that the targets of the movement are all outspoken feminists (or allies).
EDIT: The Yogscast should be the number 1 target if this was about ethics.
Moral Panic
Member
Have you not been paying attention? We already proved that Jenn Frank did absolutely nothing wrong. 25 000 comments were delted? Maybe because they were misogynistic crap? Further spreading of Zoe Quinn's sexual exploits as if it is any of our business! Why are you continuing to spread these hateful messages and talk about ethics to anyone is an amazement to me.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Agree 100%. I appreciate Tim Schafer being active on this. Props to dude with power engaging in some community leadership.
You might say when you decline to create or to curate a culture in your spaces, youre responsible for what spawns in the vacuum.
Baron von Loathsome
Member
They very, very occasionally have good points.
Obviously, this is not one of those occasions.
The point of the image was to give a summery for new people, not entirely about GameGate.
There isn't. There's some bullshit about a few critics knowing a dev they've written something about, but that's it. It's fucking nothing. The spotlight has been on game journalists since this thread was first made, and the internet detectives haven't found any smoking gun. They've actually not found any hard proof of corruption. The last time you can prove that there was some actual corruption in this industry (and it's not really corruption, more suits being scared and confused) was when Gerstmann was fired. And that was in fucking 2007!
Sure, there's some problems with some journos being a bit too close with devs/PR, but that's every fucking industry ever! There's nothing here to warrant the extreme outcry. Nothing.
Patrick Klepek said it best recently.
Now isn't the time to fight this fight. There are legitimate things to discuss and talk about, but now is not the time for it. It is almost impossible for a single person to parse through the mire of literal shit to find the people trying to be reasonable about their concerns. Think about how many people are going, "Wait, what?" every time something happens.
Even if everything you say is accurate, as with any 'movement' or 'cause', if it gets hijacked by absolute nutters, then it really is on the true believers to promote the real message - through actions, not just hounding victims with "but we're not all...".
/v/ (and 4chan at large) is always so quick to organise different campaigns. Why haven't they tried to prove it isn't about misogyny/MRA by supporting one of the victims? Why not prove that just because they don't like someone or their 'ethics', they don't agree with the harassment?
Yogscast had two massive controversies in succession, yet navigated through it relatively unscathed. I'm sure what's between their legs had nothing to do with that.
Look, I've posted in the #gamergate hashtag. I was as hurt as anyone by Leigh's article, and yeah, I think game journalism has been pretty creepy in some ways. The political opinions are weirdly homogenous, and man, all those articles going up at the same time about gamers being dead was really disheartening.
That said, can we kinda give the whole "corruption in journalism" a rest? The very worst thing I've seen in the "corruption" angle is that IGF thing, which yeah, if it really is as insular as claimed (which may very well not be the case), is an actual problem. The vast majority of the other "corrupt journalists" are either proven false, or are just so goddamn minor that really, why do we give that much of a shit?
Let's just be honest with ourselves. This is because our feelings are hurt and we feel excluded. The whole "ethics" angle is just a way to shield ourselves behind something objective rather than just admitting that, hey, the language you guys have been using in your articles has been making us feel shitty, and you're all speaking with one voice and it makes some of us feel excluded, which hurts because we've enjoyed being a part of this community. I would hope writers would care about the fact that they're making a lot of their readers feel attacked, but they aren't obligated to. Let's stop trying to pretend there's some great criminal scandal going on here. We're using it as a screen.
For the bolded: There is no /v/ or 4chan community. Full stop. It is a site that does not require anything more than a basic internet connection to hop onto. No sign-ups, nothing. This is my fundamental problem with people claiming to associate with it. Even getting banned effectively does nothing if you're even mildly internet savvy. There cannot be a community if there's no gate-keeper.
As for the Yogscast thing, I think the fact that they outright refused to acknowledge it outside of, "Yeah, that happened. Whoopsie!" has a lot to do with how unscathed they came out of it. It's really easy for people to forget about bad shit when it just doesn't get any wind under it's sails.
poorlonelycomputer
Member
Basically!
RockTurtle
Member
I believe the outcry is a combination of things. Not just the relation b/w the journous and PR.
Ill write a more detailed post in a couple of hours since I hate typing on phone. But it definitely isn't Zoe or specific journo related unless it's a constant theme in their writing. I honestly feel more connected to the #notyourshield hash than gamergate.
Are there unfavorable constituents in them? Sure plenty of examples. But I'm not going to accept there's only one aspect to it that people want to apply to it (Mra misogynist rhetoric) trying to discredit the handful of actual cries of some who are adding to it in earnest and with credible concerns. Its easier for you to dismiss it I'd you want. That's your prerogative.
Ill write a more detailed post in a couple of hours since I hate typing on phone. But it definitely isn't Zoe or specific journo related unless it's a constant theme in their writing. I honestly feel more connected to the #notyourshield hash than gamergate.
Are there unfavorable constituents in them? Sure plenty of examples. But I'm not going to accept there's only one aspect to it that people want to apply to it (Mra misogynist rhetoric) trying to discredit the handful of actual cries of some who are adding to it in earnest and with credible concerns. Its easier for you to dismiss it I'd you want. That's your prerogative.
I would strongly recommend that anyone who feels this way detach from the #GamerGate tag -- which is mired in harassment and hatred -- and find some other way to express that feeling of disenfranchisement, which is something I can totally sympathize with. I've long been against the "us vs. them" mentality in the games press, but this campaign has been co-opted by the likes of Adam Baldwin and that Breitbart guy, and it's become far more about radicalism and hatred than gamer pride.
Why would anyone feel attached by Leigh's article, unless you're part of that subculture and it hits close to you.. I play games, I love playing games, I guess that qualifies me as a gamer.. I didn't take that article as a personal attack in my person or in my hobby, I don't see why anyone would, sure Leigh sometimes says stuff in a way that is attacking.. but so? It doesn't deserve any of the pile on that she gets no matter how butthurt someone gets over her using the term gamer culture in general to what is going on at the moment, which by large, she's correct.. there's no need to say #notallgamers, she already knows that..
AstroNut325
Member
What? Can you provide links or statements that can substantiate this? And are you completely disregarding the findings/claims against Zoe and Maya? I don't condone misogyny or support it in any way. I just want more attention on the corruption of the media. Not just gaming media but the media overall.
Those finding were minor in the grand scheme of things, and again, few if any cases of actual corruption in the games media have ever been proven. And people are no closer to proving anything now, it's just some bullshit about someone being friends with a dev and how that might have blah blah blah.
As for my statement about MRA assholes, look up what the #gamergate hashtag has turned into on Twitter, the vile abuse Jenn Frank got etc. It's all fucking garbage now and anyone with a sane mind should step away from that movement. If you want to keep digging into "corruption in the media" you should do that, but #gamergate has turned into fucking poison.
Gucci Messiah
Banned
I believe the original intent was to expose corruption and a lack of transparency within the industry but the whole movement has morphed into something else. There's extremists on both sides, really.
How did this even happen? All this time I thought there was another Adam Baldwin who was a blogger or something. But the Firefly guy actually got in on this? How random.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I've absolutely already done this. I thought about tweeting support for Jenn Frank under the tag as others were doing, but I really don't think it will help. Why try to "repair" the tag? What would "winning" even look like? There's no endgame here. At best, we had something to say, and we said it. If it wasn't loud enough to hear by now, I don't think it ever will be.
As noble as it may sound to "fight harassment" right now, I really think we should all just shut the fuck up, let everything die down, and trust that there are enough good people around that eventually we'll be able to have a "holy fuck, what was THAT shit all about?" discussion.
This is the sort of discussion that would be interesting to have when people aren't at each other's throats. In the meantime, I genuinely am fine with people thinking I'm wrong to be hurt by this, or that it doesn't matter that I am. Clearly the message that it bothered people has been broadcast loud and clear. At some point you have to leave it up to the other "side" to decide whether they care. I'm pretty sure I understand human nature enough to say that bludgeoning people out of the industry isn't going to make them care more.
This is a load of bullshit. There are not "extremists on both sides." There are people who harass other people, and then there are people who don't. A feminist tweeting "kill all the gamers" might be tasteless, but it is not harassment. Sending messages to a writer with imgur spam saying she's corrupt and should be fired is harassment, and anyone who supports it should be banned from video games forever.
EmCeeGramr
Member
Turns out that he's a weird conservative conspiracy theorist. His first tweets on this were literally sandwiched between tweets about how "social justice movements" are actually stealth communism, and how global warming is a hoax.
AstroNut325
Member
It could very well be minor, but it doesn't help that something of this nature doesn't even get any sort of attention from the games media. It would have been nice if even just one laid out the facts of the events that led up to this.
But yes I agree that it is getting out of hand and I don't want to associate with GamerGate anymore. It's unfortunate that people are leaving the industry over this. I really wish the harassment would end.
Edit:
Yikes. That's bad. The hostility is getting out of hand.
I actually think it started out as gamers pushing back from valid criticisms of their hobby (which include some misogynistic assholes). But with pieces like Alexander's and this collective push by activists/journalists to kill the "Gamer" label, it's pushed people that SHOULD be their audience into the GamersGate thing, because they are on the defensive (because they either misunderstood the pieces written, or reject the idea that they should be told by others what to identify themselves as). Because not all gamers are assholes, or are resisting criticism/changes (and I know, Alexander and others aren't saying all gamers are this). But by trying to get rid of the gamer label, or telling people what they should or shouldn't identify with, it's roped everyone into what seems like an attack on them.
Realistically speaking, we have a massive problem here. The amount of hatred being spewed at females in gaming, or anyone that has any criticism of this industry, is unacceptable. But I also feel that people are going about this argument the wrong way. The push to end the gamer label has backfired and has pushed away those that should be their audience (they people they need to educate on the issues).
So I actually think the origin of GamerGate was malicious under the surface (masking the resistance of legitimate criticism as legitimate criticisms of nepotism). And it's now allowed people that aren't asshole to join the cause not knowing what the underlying intention of it originally was. And the whole "death to the gamer label" is also pushing people into it.
I side with the activist/journalists that have criticisms of this industry. We have a definite problem with diversity. I think we absolutely should be open to criticism. And I'm not sure why there is a push to end the gamer label.
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