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[JackDT]

Deep thoughts.

If I'm not teaming with outrage from Leigh's article am I real gamer?

(I do in fact think the article was unkind and impertinent but holy crap, you'd think someone just murdered your family)

 

[frequency]

Even if Leigh Alexander's article is super offensive to you, isn't this kind of extreme? It's like over a month later already!

I've had lots of articles that I didn't like. Like, for example, Mike Williams' Final Fantasy article on USGamer.net that had errors in it. Or Chris Kollar's Final Fantasy is dead article at Wired.

I was a huge Final Fantasy fan and found one article badly researched and the other "offensive". But my response wasn't, "I better find some way to hurt these people." My response was just, "Yeah, that was kind of a bad read." And that's it.

Why does Gamasutra "deserve" this over a simple disagreement with an article? The reaction over it just seems so unnecessary extreme.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

Do people here actually support Leigh's article?

Absolutely. "gamer" is so broad of a term now that it has essentially no meaning, so the word is effectively dead.

 

[Riposte]

Absolutely. "gamer" is so broad of a term now that it has essentially no meaning, so the word is effectively dead.

Despite some efforts to change it, it still has the same meaning it always had. It's a short hand for person who plays or is playing a game. This has situational use at best, so this is why terms like "PC gamer", "casual gamer", etc. have existed for decades.

 

[Canucked]

"Gamers" who are insulted by these articles aren't reading them properly. And it's just a veil to throw over the fear of change. And supporting it just feeds the fires of those who are using it maliciously.

No one has died. Gaming hasn't died. Paradigms shift. I'm totally fine with Leigh's article. All of the articles.

If you're gonna tell people to just "get over" wanting diversity in the gaming world then you're just going to have to "get over" being stuck in the past.

 

[Griss]

Well since what she wrote doesn't actually make openly contemptuous generalizations about their demographic, I'm going to disagree that this was in some way the wrong time for it. (See, the article can't be about generalizations about their demographic since its entire point is that this image of what the demographic really looks like is a myth.) She used provocative language to paint a very ugly picture of a certain very narrow niche of the gaming subculture.

Why so many people insist on looking at that picture and reacting as though it's actually a mirror is beyond me.

Her style isn't really my cup of tea either, but I'm not offended because I understand when something is and is not about me.

I don't understand this 'it's not about you' argument. Every person can read the article and make up their mind whether what she's talking about affects them or is aimed at them. And multiple parts are aimed at anyone self-identifying as a gamer, which is a whole lot of very different people.

She says '‘Games culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online ‘wars’ about social justice or ‘game journalism ethics,’ straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences.'

I've always considered myself part of games culture, I know games developers and passionate game enthusiasts, both of whom are very involved in game culture and I find her statement to be offensive, both to me personally and in the way it relates to my friends.

She then calls the generation that grew up with games 'a generation of lonely basement kids'. There is no qualifier on that. That's our generation, apparently. We were lonely basement kids. Everyone who didn't play games was apparently outside having fun. Look, if she wants to avoid pissing people off, she needs to be more precise with her language. It's very easy to read this article and think 'this is very much about me, and it's bullshit', because she doesn't qualify her attacks. And that's piss-poor writing.

I mean, look at this again:
"Gamers are over. That’s why they’re so mad. These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers..."

A lot of people identify as a gamer. I'm one of them. Therefore I can't help but be angry when she basically demands 'either I'm talking to you, or I'm demanding you give up your identity regarding this hobby'.* That's a bullshit proposition. I'm still a gamer, but I'm not and never have been an 'obtuse shitslinger, a wailing hyper-consumer, a childish internet-arguer' or whatever else she might vomit out there.

Look, it doesn't bother me too much. It's just an opinion piece. But it's a bad one, and I can see why people didn't like it.

*(That's not her quote, that's me stating my conclusion to what she wrote.)

 

[The Technomancer]

Do people here actually support Leigh's article?

I don't know if I'd say I "support" it, but I agree with a hefty chunk of it and recognized even early on that large portions of it were being misconstrued or ignored

 

[sedaku]

Yeah...but people do that all the time. Everyone is used to it, and if you're provoked by stuff like this, then try to think hard about why it made you angry.

Self reflection is important. Skipping introspection and going straight to anger is a problem. I don't agree with the article she wrote at all. But it at least made me think more about the culture I associate myself with everyday. We certainly have a tolerance issue.

That's not my point AT ALL.

My point is that article showed she is the one that is provoked, she is the one that is getting angry. Basically the whole industry was baited into shitting on their audience.

Instead of following the tried and true "don't feed the trolls", she and her colleagues decided to grab the "megaphone" and throwing a tantrum.

To be honest, I wouldn't have heard of this whole thing if it was not for all the "gamers are dead" article. I believed this whole thing would be long gone by now if they were not written. The fallout is so predictable.

Basically, they got trolled.

 

[Deleted member 126221]

If people read the article, they would have seen it's not about "everybody who ever played a game".

(Please don't reply with "oh but then she shouldn't have used the word gamer" or something like that)

 

[Nanashrew]

I can't believe it's October and this is still going =/. It's national bully prevention month now.

 

[JackDT]

She says '‘Games culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online ‘wars’ about social justice or ‘game journalism ethics,’ straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences.'

Thinking back, at the time of that article, I myself was pretty damn mad at the word 'gamer'.

It had been a solid week 'Five Guys' crusading and the seemingly endless cruel and nasty discussion on the topic. I'm not talking bomb threats but the tenor and volume of the Five Guys topics everywhere on the most mainstream of gaming sites. Top voted /r/games threads and top voted comments.

I was honestly thinking to myself, "If this is the culture that now represents being a 'gamer' ... then I can't think of myself as a gamer any more. This sucks."

 

[Riposte]

If people read the article, they would have seen it's not about "everybody who ever played a game".

(Please don't reply with "oh but then she shouldn't have used the word gamer" or something like that)

The problem is that the moment you begin giving concrete characteristics to this otherwise abstract gamer (such as their consumerism, how they identify with games, specific practices, games associated with them, etc. - which I don't think is too far to Alexander did or at least has done before or after), you run the risk of expanding your target too far. However, without that, you, at the very best, limit your target to an entity that never held power in the first place (and at worst, is very hard to identify outside this one specific fight). I found the articles I read to be pretty inconsistent in themselves (they were trying to do both it seemed like) and when you factor them all together along with all those wonderful twitter conversations and hashtags, it's not at all surprising to me this has become much bigger and more aggressive than it was ever intended to be; a perfect other for also aggressive movement with cancerous growth.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

Despite some efforts to change it, it still has the same meaning it always had. It's a short hand for person who plays or is playing a game. This has situational use at best, so this is why terms like "PC gamer", "casual gamer", etc. have existed for decades.

We agree, I think. As more and more people play games it becomes less and less useful to describe someone (or yourself) as a gamer. Eventually it will be the same as describing someone as a "TV watcher." The term encompasses so many different experiences that cater to so many different types of people that it adds nothing to your description of a person to label them as such.

 

[Canucked]

Comics are having similar arguments right now over things like new female Thor and a variant Spider-Woman cover and I gotta say, there's always a side acting a little more maliciously than the other.

If anyone gets the chance, check out the new Thor and read the letters section. It's quite close to this argument. Read about it here

 

[Riposte]

We agree, I think. As more and more people play games it becomes less and less useful to describe someone (or yourself) as a gamer. Eventually it will be the same as describing someone as a "TV watcher." The term encompasses so many different experiences that cater to so many different types of people that it adds nothing to your description of a person to label them as such.

I'm not quite sure if we do. Gamer is a shorthand that is still useful, because there are many sentences that would employ the phrase "person who plays/is playing games" (which can even mean for a game developer "my audience"). The idea that we have weigh how much it "defines" someone kind of misses the point I'm trying to get across.

 

[RadarScope1]

People who read it (and understood it) mostly.

This.

I cannot believe Intel pulled ads because of this. These people piss me the hell off. I had really hoped this was ebbing by now.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

I'm not quite sure if we do. Gamer is a shorthand that is still useful, because there are many sentences that would employ the phrase "person who plays/is playing games" (which can even mean for a game developer "my audience"). The idea that we have weigh how much it "defines" someone kind of misses the point I'm getting across.

Perhaps I don't follow the point, then. Surely you see all the people in this thread labeling themselves as a gamer? They are using that term as an identity, correct?

 

[Riposte]

Perhaps I don't follow the point, then. Surely you see all the people in this thread labeling themselves as a gamer? They are using that term as an identity, correct?

That's one context, sure. "I'm someone who plays games". One that is very vague, but likely has an implied specific meaning that's inconsistent between multiple people.

 

[stupei]

I don't understand this 'it's not about you' argument. Every person can read the article and make up their mind whether what she's talking about affects them or is aimed at them. And multiple parts are aimed at anyone self-identifying as a gamer, which is a whole lot of very different people.

She says '‘Games culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online ‘wars’ about social justice or ‘game journalism ethics,’ straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences.'

I've always considered myself part of games culture, I know games developers and passionate game enthusiasts, both of whom are very involved in game culture and I find her statement to be offensive, both to me personally and in the way it relates to my friends.

But... those people are a part of games culture, too. The horrible ones? They are a part of the culture you are a part of. They call themselves the same label you call yourself. To the public at large, you might seem to be allies. That isn't Leigh making that up; that's reality.

I just find it baffling that the title "gamer" seems to mean so much to some people that they became genuinely hurt and enraged by that article... but their response was to decry it ever being written rather than saying, "Wow, there are a lot of horrible human beings loudly identifying themselves as gamers and making the rest of us look bad. Since this title means so much to me, I'd like to do something to improve the way gamers are perceived by the rest of the world. 'Gamers' as a culture that means a lot to me doesn't have to be over because we can and should be better."

If it's such a sincere and important issue that gamers not be labeled or stereotyped, perhaps more energy should be focused on the very vocal members of the gaming community who behave like caricatures rather than the games journalist who pointed this out in a somewhat ham-fisted way.

Perhaps I don't follow the point, then. Surely you see all the people in this thread labeling themselves as a gamer? They are using that term as an identity, correct?

There was a #GGer who started a reddit thread linked earlier who referred to gamers as "my people." As in he said, "offensive to my people."

So.

 

[zeldablue]

Thinking back, at the time of that article, I myself was pretty damn mad at the word 'gamer'.

It had been a solid week 'Five Guys' crusading and the seemingly endless cruel and nasty discussion on the topic. I'm not talking bomb threats but the tenor and volume of the Five Guys topics everywhere on the most mainstream of gaming sites. Top voted /r/games threads and top voted comments.

I was honestly thinking to myself, "If this is the culture that now represents being a 'gamer' ... then I can't think of myself as a gamer any more. This sucks."

Yeah. It was pretty depressing. But people were waiting very patiently for a reason to justify their hatred for "SJWs." So when that happened, it finally gave them a reason to act.

Then they realized their hatred still wasn't justified and that they were just slut-shaming...And then they U turned out of there to try and make this about something less sexist. Tsk tsk.

"It's not about Zoe anymore..."

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

To be honest, I wouldn't have heard of this whole thing if it was not for all the "gamers are dead" article. I believed this whole thing would be long gone by now if they were not written. The fallout is so predictable.

Soo... to put it another way, harassment and death threats against a female game developer are not enough to show up on you radar, but Leigh's article was?

 

[zeldablue]

Edit edit: Sorry!

I hope that was unrelated, because that was incredibly tragic.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

Please do not post speculation like that without any evidence.

 

[MoeB]

Removed at the request of the poster

Please do not post speculation like that without any evidence.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Griss]

But... those people are a part of games culture, too. The horrible ones? They are a part of the culture you are a part of. They call themselves the same label you call yourself. To the public at large, you might seem to be allies. That isn't Leigh making that up; that's reality.

I just find it baffling that the title "gamer" seems to mean so much to some people that they became genuinely hurt and enraged by that article... but their response was to decry it ever being written rather than saying, "Wow, there are a lot of horrible human beings loudly identifying themselves as gamers and making the rest of us look bad. Since this title means so much to me, I'd like to do something to improve the way gamers are perceived by the rest of the world. 'Gamers' as a culture that means a lot to me doesn't have to be over because we can and should be better."

If it's such a sincere and important issue that gamers not be labeled or stereotyped, perhaps more energy should be focused on the very vocal members of the gaming community who behave like caricatures rather than the games journalist who pointed this out in a somewhat ham-fisted way.

I'm not arguing that a large segment of games culture isn't toxic. There are parts of it we don't even discuss that I find toxic - namely the part in thrall to the american military complex. But there are tons of awesome parts to game culture, and Leigh smeared the whole thing as being vicious morons with no interpersonal skills or relationships.

The only people who might see me and a gamergate supporter as allies is one with a fundamentally ignorant view of the breadth of different types of gamers and game culture in general. I'm not concerned with the opinions of said people, because I can either educate them or, failing that, ignore them.

And the fact that we should be combating the morons goes unsaid only because it doesn't need to be said, and has been said hundreds of thousands of times in the last month. The vast amount of discourse here and elsewhere has been about what toxic idiots these gamergate people are. But on the small topic of this one article, I'm happy to give my opinion, which is that it's nasty stereotyping nonsense. And giving that opinion does not impede my or anyone else's efforts to make gaming and gaming culture a better and more inclusive place. One does not preclude the other. In fact, I'd wager that an intentionally divisive article like Leigh's has the opposite effect.

You're engaging in a spot of 'what-aboutery' here. I'm saying 'This article is divisive and poorly written.' You reply, 'Well, what about all these misogynists, what are we going to do about them, why don't we put our focus there?' The fact that there's work to be done there doesn't excuse the shitty article, that's all I'm saying.

And Intel have every right to pull advertising if they feel a website is publishing shitty, stereotyping articles that offend the many decent people who identify as gamers. Like me, I'm sure they're all for diversity in gaming and anti the gamergaters. But regarding this specific article, that's not the issue at hand.

 

[sedaku]

Soo... to put it another way, harassment and death threats against a female game developer are not enough to show up on you radar, but Leigh's article was?

Yep, it's kinda like that, too busy playing game to notice. The LizardSquad and bomb threat thing was news for awhile (mostly because they DDOS game server I was playing on.). But the "gamers are dead" articles were everywhere though, and not just the one from Leigh. That's when I asked wtf is going on.

 

[tengiants]

Thinking back, at the time of that article, I myself was pretty damn mad at the world 'gamer'.

It had been a solid week 'Five Guys' crusading and the seemingly endless cruel and nasty discussion on the topic. I'm not talking bomb threats but the tenor and volume of the Five Guys topics everywhere on the most mainstream of gaming sites. Top voted /r/games threads and top voted comments.

I was honestly thinking to myself, "If this is the culture that now represents being a 'gamer' ... then I can't think of myself as a gamer any more. This sucks."

I agree... all that sucked, but what I took away from it is not that this was gamer culture, but asshole culture. I've known too many positive gamers of all types from all over the world to remotely consider that this was 'gamer' culture making these attacks.

I pretty much have stuck to the plain and vague dictionary definition of the word all these years, but after reading Leigh's article and the related articles that shortly followed, I now see that there is an even larger disconnect than I had already thought between how gaming journalists, advertisers, industry people, etc, view the word gamer compared to people like me. If this convenient marketing definition is the death that Leigh is calling for (which seems to be the case), then I'm all for it. A gamer is just someone who plays games and grouping them into some sort of demographic is actually foolish when you risk excluding people. What's strange to me is that although her article is apparently addressed to the gaming press and her colleagues in the headline, that it was posted publicly. It is a piece that is ripe with quotes that can be taken very easily the wrong way when presented out of context by very loud people.

 

[JackDT]

Intel pulling their support looks like tacit agreement with gamergate; whether they intended this or not is question to ask Intel I suppose.

 

[Riposte]

But... those people are a part of games culture, too. The horrible ones? They are a part of the culture you are a part of. They call themselves the same label you call yourself. To the public at large, you might seem to be allies. That isn't Leigh making that up; that's reality.

I just find it baffling that the title "gamer" seems to mean so much to some people that they became genuinely hurt and enraged by that article... but their response was to decry it ever being written rather than saying, "Wow, there are a lot of horrible human beings loudly identifying themselves as gamers and making the rest of us look bad. Since this title means so much to me, I'd like to do something to improve the way gamers are perceived by the rest of the world. 'Gamers' as a culture that means a lot to me doesn't have to be over because we can and should be better."

If it's such a sincere and important issue that gamers not be labeled or stereotyped, perhaps more energy should be focused on the very vocal members of the gaming community who behave like caricatures rather than the games journalist who pointed this out in a somewhat ham-fisted way.

There are sure terrible people out there, but I don't feel like that gets Alexander off the hook for what she said - at the very least, not away from the fact she said certain things. I mean, maybe you have no problems with it, but I think you are glossing over some details when you make it sound like people were only offended because she said something bad about the title of "gamer". I think she fired enough aimless shots (or shots aimed at shadows) to say that it is not unreasonable for people to feel like they were targeted (this can be attributed as a "misunderstanding", but I have a hard time believing that with Alexander given what I read in the past). Perhaps when you take each and every point and explore what they could mean, they are not that dangerous, but taken as one singular, giant rant (which it was, that's what she does, don't think I can be convinced otherwise). Just a few choice quotes that I think qualify (as in, "she's talking about me!" in a manner that is insulting or otherwise provocative) :

‘Game culture’ as we know it is kind of embarrassing -- it’s not even culture. It’s buying things, spackling over memes and in-jokes repeatedly, and it’s getting mad on the internet.

It’s young men queuing with plush mushroom hats and backpacks and jutting promo poster rolls. Queuing passionately for hours, at events around the world, to see the things that marketers want them to see. To find out whether they should buy things or not. They don’t know how to dress or behave.

Suddenly a generation of lonely basement kids had marketers whispering in their ears that they were the most important commercial demographic of all time. Suddenly they started wearing shiny blouses and pinning bikini babes onto everything they made, started making games that sold the promise of high-octane masculinity to kids just like them.

Yet in 2014, the industry has changed. We still think angry young men are the primary demographic for commercial video games

This is hard for old-school developers who are being made redundant, both culturally and literally, in their unwillingness to address new audiences or reference points outside of blockbuster movies and comic books as their traditional domain falls into the sea around them. Of course it’s hard. It’s probably intense, painful stuff for some young kids, some older men.

These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers

"Ah, she is only talking about the bad ones" you might think for at least the last one, but then it flows all together with statements like:

It’s clear that most of the people who drove those revenues in the past have grown up -- either out of games, or into more fertile spaces, where small and diverse titles can flourish, where communities can quickly spring up around creativity, self-expression and mutual support, rather than consumerism. There are new audiences and new creators alike there. Traditional “gaming” is sloughing off, culturally and economically, like the carapace of a bug.

Now throw in the twitter comments and such and I think it's clear why people felt heat from this. (I.e., "gamers", as a concept, is used to represent both the "traditional gaming" that is being discarded (in reference to new markets becoming bigger) and the shit-flingers, inside the same article.)

Now maybe you can say it is harmful to put attention on her and not the people doing the terrible things (aimed at her and others), which, okay, sounds fair, but it's a little unfair to also defend her article at the same time.

EDIT: Also, this reminded me of something that I thought was a little weird at the time. She did apologize, partially, for this piece as such:

regretful if my tone alienated non-neurotypical ppl. i had a lot of challenges re social norms as a child & games were my safe place, too <3

https://twitter.com/leighalexander/status/507673109705797633

Maybe I'm don't get it (and admittedly, more ready to believe the worst of her), but it sounds like to me, as someone who understands non-neurotypical as someone on the autism spectrum, like "if you do these things that apparently can be associated with autism, then it's okay if you have autism, otherwise it's embarrassing/disgusting/socially-retarded", which sounds like a poisonous way to apologize to someone. Actually, I might even be more bothered by the second part of that apology, but I'll leave that untouched.

 

[Griss]

Intel pulling their support looks like tacit agreement with gamergate; whether they intended this or not is question to ask Intel I suppose.

I don't see how you can infer any such thing from their actions. At all.

 

[JackDT]

I don't see how you can infer any such thing from their actions. At all.

That's what it looks like -- that's the way it's being perceived from my skimming of the internet the last few hours. I personally think inferring intent from a large corporation is a fool's errand.

 

[RockTurtle]

Intel could have read the article themselves and felt it was too strong or vitriolic to support.

they are composed of adults who, we assume, can make decisions on their own.

Companies removing support from companies or persons they deem would hurt their image isn't a new thing.

"if you don't support Leigh's article you must have read it wrong" is a bit of an out there statement.

you don't write an article saying " X people are this and that, they are toxic and need to go away" and expect X people to just sit back and say "i don't agree with the article, but i'm not gonna get mad about it"

 

[deltatheta]

There are sure terrible people out there, but I don't feel like that gets Alexander off the hook for what she said - at the very least, not away from the fact she said certain things. I mean, maybe you have no problems with it, but I think you are glossing over some details when you make it sound like people were only offended because she said something bad about the title of "gamer".

Yeah, I agree with Alexander's larger point and consider myself a feminist, but she attacked a lot of people in that piece that probably didn't deserve it, including me.

It's always tough when people that you agree with make their arguments in a shitty way. It just gives the other side more ammunition.

 

[Orayn]

"if you don't support Leigh's article you must have read it wrong" is a bit of an out there statement.

you don't write an article saying " X people are this and that, they are toxic and need to go away" and expect X people to just sit back and say "i don't agree with the article, but i'm not gonna get mad about it"

You are still misunderstanding the article if you think she said X was everyone who plays video games.

 

[RockTurtle]

You are still misunderstanding the article if you think she said X was everyone who plays video games.

sorry, i meant the basement dwelling, release date camping, fat cosplaying gamer.

That's one way to spin it. We already know #GG people have been organizing efforts to reach advertisers. We know these companies are getting tons of messages from #GG people. It's reasonable to think they might only be getting that side of the story.

We, knowing the whole story, think that action makes Intel look bad. We want clarification that they really understand what's going on.

spin eh?

like a big company getting one side of the story from some emails? come on, all we have is speculation at this point.

I think it's fair to say the article is pretty terrible out of context. And the article is especially bad if you helped harass a few certain people or condoned the harassment of a few certain people.

Using exclusionary terms and stereotypes to get back at people who exclude and stereotype you...confirms that both sides are ready to full on dehumanize each other in order to feel better.

exactly.

me being a minority doesn't give me free reign or justification to just wail and stereotype in articles in a website and expect people to just take it. specially when i'm speaking about such a broad term as "gamer".

EDIT: Also, this reminded me of something that I thought was a little weird at the time. She did apologize, partially, for this piece as such:

https://twitter.com/leighalexander/status/507673109705797633

Maybe I'm don't get it (and admittedly, more ready to believe the worst of her), but it sounds like to me, as someone who understands non-neurotypical as someone on the autism spectrum, like "if you do these things that apparently can be associated with autism, then it's okay if you have autism, otherwise it's embarrassing/disgusting/socially-retarded", which sounds like a poisonous way to apologize to someone. Actually, I might even be more bothered by the second part of that apology, but I'll leave that untouched.

i want to give her the benefit of the doubt that she admits her article was strong worded, but she's still alienating with the neurotypical comment.

 

[tranciful]

Intel could have read the article themselves and felt it was too strong or vitriolic to support.

they are composed of adults who, we assume, can make decisions on their own.

Companies removing support from companies or persons they deem would hurt their image isn't a new thing.

"if you don't support Leigh's article you must have read it wrong" is a bit of an out there statement.

you don't write an article saying " X people are this and that, they are toxic and need to go away" and expect X people to just sit back and say "i don't agree with the article, but i'm not gonna get mad about it"

That's one way to spin it. We already know #GG people have been organizing efforts to reach advertisers. We know these companies are getting tons of messages from #GG people. It's reasonable to think they might only be getting that side of the story -- that their perception of the events might be distorted.

We, knowing the whole story, think that action makes Intel look bad. I saw many devs voicing this concern on twitter. We want clarification that they really understand what's going on.

 

[zeldablue]

You are still misunderstanding the article if you think she said X was everyone who plays video games.

I think it's fair to say the article is pretty terrible out of context. And the article is especially bad if you helped harass a few certain people or condoned the harassment of a few certain people.

Using exclusionary terms and stereotypes to get back at people who exclude and stereotype you...confirms that both sides are ready to full on dehumanize each other in order to feel better.

 

[sedaku]

Intel could have read the article themselves and felt it was too strong or vitriolic to support.

they are composed of adults who, we assume, can make decisions on their own.

Companies removing support from companies or persons they deem would hurt their image isn't a new thing.

"if you don't support Leigh's article you must have read it wrong" is a bit of an out there statement.

you don't write an article saying " X people are this and that, they are toxic and need to go away" and expect X people to just sit back and say "i don't agree with the article, but i'm not gonna get mad about it"

Exactly. After all, I have to say she is very honest in term of writing down what she think, and her description is very clear. I don't think there is much "misunderstanding" here.

I think people here underestimate how many "gamers" would not ashamed to aligning themselves with the "socially awkward basement dwelling loner who like war simulator" type.

 

[tonysidaway]

Gamasutra were one of the outlets that spread anger, flames and us vs. them mentality further and wider than any misogynist anonymous troll ever could.

Leigh Alexander's article did not drive Anita Sarkeesian out of her home. Anita Sarkeesian was already out.

Leigh Alexander's article dud nut drive Zoe Quinn out of her home. Zoe Quinn was already out.

Sure over past few weeks there has been a whole heap of noisemaking and attempts to diffuse the blame. But the problems described by Leigh Alexander still exist. Don't blame the messenger. Gaming culture is dangerously toxic.

 

[MHWilliams]

Intel could have read the article themselves and felt it was too strong or vitriolic to support.

they are composed of adults who, we assume, can make decisions on their own.

Companies removing support from companies or persons they deem would hurt their image isn't a new thing.

Indeed. As I said earlier, this is the system working as intended.

They should probably acknowledge that others asking for their voices to be heard by publishers and developers in response to representation is also the system working as intended.

And in this case, I think Intel has thrown themselves into the middle of something, as many are using their corporate response form to express displeasure with pulling ads over that article. They are without a clear "win" in this case.

 

[GoodCoffeeJoey]

The typical Gamergater reaction of exaggerated offendense and marginalization to Leigh Alexander's 'Gamers are dead' opinion piece reminds me of this article on the Redskins controversy.

I think back to the tailgate: the man blowing cigar smoke in my face, the man who mockingly yelled, “Thanks for letting us use your name!”, the group who yelled at us to “go the fuck home,” the little waif who threatened to cut me, the dude who blew the train horn on his truck as I walked by the hood. I think of all of that, and I think back to O’Dell crying and trying desperately to get out of the room full of calm Natives. I thought she was crying because she was caught unawares and was afraid. But I realized that was her defense mechanism, and that by overly dramatizing her experience, she continued to trivialize ours. It was privilege in action. And as I realized these things, something else became incredibly clear: She knew she was wrong.

http://bigskypress.com/GreenRoom/ar...scenes-of-the-1491s-segment-on-the-daily-show

 

[scytheavatar]

Intel pulling their support looks like tacit agreement with gamergate; whether they intended this or not is question to ask Intel I suppose.

Could also be that they didn't feel Gamasutra is acting professionally enough and advertising with them doesn't make much sense business wise. Not everyone thinks that attacking your own customers, justifiable or not, is a good idea.

 

[tranciful]

spin eh?

like a big company getting one side of the story from some emails? come on, all we have is speculation at this point.

Can you show me that there was an organized campaign to email Intel showing support for Gamasutra before Intel made their decision? No. You can't.

 

[tonysidaway]

Soo... to put it another way, harassment and death threats against a female game developer are not enough to show up on you radar, but Leigh's article was?

Gamergate in a nutshell.

 

[RockTurtle]

Can you show me that there was an organized campaign to email Intel showing support for Gamasutra before Intel made their decision? No. You can't.

there's organized campaigns all the time. chick fil a. the microsoft announcer thing. not all are successful.

you don't know what prompted intel to drop her. Could the emails have brought the article to their attention? sure i can believe that.

did the campaign itself force them to drop their ads? that's you making assumptions.

it could just as easily have been the fact Leigh was dissing gamers for being consumerist pawns. And guess what intel does? they sell products to consumers who happen to also be composed of enthusiast gamers.

it's not farfetched to think that supporting someone who is insulting your bread and butter might be bad for business.

 

[MHWilliams]

there's organized campaigns all the time. chick fil a. the microsoft announcer thing. not all are successful.

you don't know what prompted intel to drop her. Could the emails have brought the article to their attention? sure i can believe that.

did the campaign itself force them to drop their ads? that's you making assumptions.

it could just as easily have been the fact Leigh was dissing gamers for being consumerist pawns. And guess what intel does? they sell products to consumers who happen to also be composed of enthusiast gamers.

it's not farfetched to think that supporting someone who is insulting your bread and butter might be bad for business.

We do know.

https://twitter.com/gamasutra/status/517415198492467202

Yes, our partners at @intel were flooded with complaints over a recent opinion piece, and they did pull an ad campaign.

http://recode.net/2014/10/01/under-pressure-from-gamers-intel-pulls-advertising-from-gamasutra/

&#8220;Intel has pulled its advertising from website Gamasutra,&#8221; Intel spokesperson Bill Calder said. &#8220;We take feedback from our customers very seriously especially as it relates to contextually relevant content and placements.&#8221;

Intel did not care about the article. They do care about feedback.

So let's put the speculation part of this to bed. This wasn't Intel caring about one article on a website on its own.

And as I said earlier, the effect of this isn't that huge. Intel will still have a presence at UBM Tech's other sites and events. Someone else will ad buy at Gamasutra to reach developers. Life moves on and the system continues to work as intended.

 

[skullmuffins]

EDIT: Also, this reminded me of something that I thought was a little weird at the time. She did apologize, partially, for this piece as such:

https://twitter.com/leighalexander/status/507673109705797633

Maybe I'm don't get it (and admittedly, more ready to believe the worst of her), but it sounds like to me, as someone who understands non-neurotypical as someone on the autism spectrum, like "if you do these things that apparently can be associated with autism, then it's okay if you have autism, otherwise it's embarrassing/disgusting/socially-retarded", which sounds like a poisonous way to apologize to someone. Actually, I might even be more bothered by the second part of that apology, but I'll leave that untouched.

That tweet does sound, um, odd out of context, but it makes more sense when you realize it's in response to https://twitter.com/pattheflip/status/507671487810007040 which she retweeted just prior to making that apology.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

Gamergate in a nutshell.

I know, and he agreed like it wasn't even something problematic!

 

[tranciful]

there's organized campaigns all the time. chick fil a. the microsoft announcer thing. not all are successful.

you don't know what prompted intel to drop her. Could the emails have brought the article to their attention? sure i can believe that.

You can believe the emails brought it to their attention..? It is plainly obvious that it was the emails that brought it to their attention. It is a safe bet that it was not some random chance where an Intel employee stumbled upon the article and was like "hey wait a sec, we run ads here!"

did the campaign itself force them to drop their ads? that's you making assumptions.

Why do you guys like to misuse the word "forced" so much?

it could just as easily have been the fact Leigh was dissing gamers for being consumerist pawns. And guess what intel does? they sell products to consumers who happen to also be composed of enthusiast gamers.

it's not farfetched to think that supporting someone who is insulting your bread and butter might be bad for business.

"just as easily" is the spin. We have examples like this. https://twitter.com/jayd3fox/status/512735931774681089

We know for a fact that they received lots of emails from #GG people. It's a very reasonable assumption to assume they did NOT receive lots of emails from the other side.

Now we have plenty of devs outspokenly against Intel's decision. We want clarification from Intel -- we want to hear their reasoning. There's nothing unreasonable about that.

edit: oh look, the obvious is confirmed http://recode.net/2014/10/01/under-pressure-from-gamers-intel-pulls-advertising-from-gamasutra/

 

[RockTurtle]

We do know.

https://twitter.com/gamasutra/status/517415198492467202


http://recode.net/2014/10/01/under-pressure-from-gamers-intel-pulls-advertising-from-gamasutra/


Intel did not care about the article. They do care about feedback.

So let's put the speculation part of this to bed. This wasn't Intel caring about one article on a website on its own.

And as I said earlier, the effect of this isn't that huge. Intel will still have a presence at UBM Tech's other sites and events. Someone else will ad buy at Gamasutra to reach developers. Life moves on and the system continues to work as intended.

well allrighty then!

good on intel to follow up the complaints!