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Giant Bomb X | Built-In Automatic Death Thing For Secret People

bonercop

Member
I'm glad Patrick and Alex talked about the Brianna Wu story on the morning show. I hope it'll also gets at least a mention on the bombcast, as that reaches a lot more people.
 
Great, this should set off another shit storm.

Apparently Giant Bomb is "neutral" on Gamergate? News to me.

I guess in the sense that they haven't explicitly denounced it as "Giant Bomb the website," even though Patrick and others have made their opinions clear in other ways. GB has a tendency to catch a lot of flack anyway in situations like this because Jeff and the others are pretty well respected in the industry so people naturally want them to speak up. I'm sure they aren't taking it too personally.
 
That would be odd as they are no more or less "neutral" than 90% of the other mainstream media sites. Do I remember her name because she was calling out GB back when we had "hire-gate"?
sorry
. Might explain things.

This. and although nothing has been posted in terms of stories about it, Patrick and Alex are always talking about how terrible the whole GG thing is on BTAM, calling out all the harassment that takes place, which makes it all the more disappointing.
 

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
"Neutral" pretty accurately describes Giant Bomb's stance toward all of it. I have only heard them avoid discussing it and haven't seen any articles about it, but I don't listen to the AM show either.
 
"Neutral" pretty accurately describes Giant Bomb's stance toward all of it. I have only heard them avoid discussing it and haven't seen any articles about it, but I don't listen to the AM show either.

From the San Fransisco office maybe. But Alex and Patrick have spoken about it plenty.
 

Myggen

Member
What happened to her is awful. But giantbomb seems like the wrong website to be targeting for this

I can see how she would view the site as being "neutral" though, because they haven't taken an editorial position on it or spoken about it on the Bombcast. Patrick and Alex have spoken about the issue several times on Bombin', including today, but I guess she wants the main crew to react to it more than they have. The closest you come to anything like that is Jeff's rant on the PAX Panel and the "Letter from the Editor" about "hiregate" and the reaction that followed.

I didn't see the MSNBC interview so I have no idea if she mentioned GB along with other outlets, or just GB.

We'll see how this develops as soon as the clip is uploaded to YT. I doubt many of the gamergate people watch MSNBC.
 

Patryn

Member
Given what happened after Dan's hire, I'm not shocked that GB has decided to mostly stay out of all that mess.

And Brianna is free to say whatever she wants, but I do find it odd that she'd specifically mention GB. I haven't seen the piece, so I can't say the context, but did she also call out Gamespot and IGN? I think both have stayed out of things as well.

Regardless, I'd rather not bring that trash into this thread.
 

yatesl

Member
The Giant Bomb video streaming is so bad. I have a connection of 7500 KB/s, yet the old UPF videos constantly stop to buffer - even on high.
 

popo

Member
"Neutral" pretty accurately describes Giant Bomb's stance toward all of it. I have only heard them avoid discussing it and haven't seen any articles about it, but I don't listen to the AM show either.

In terms of directly referencing GG, it is mainly just Pat and Alex. However, in terms of generally not making threats or being a dick on forums or twitter - Jeff called it out both on the PAX panel and in his front page Editors Letter. It might have been about a different backlash but it still stands.
 

Myggen

Member
The Giant Bomb video streaming is so bad. I have a connection of 7500 KB/s, yet the old UPF videos constantly stop to buffer - even on high.

Tried the HTML5 player? That works perfectly for me.

That's more of the "this shit is personal cuz I got people bitching me out for both things" way, which is still neutral (ie, don't get involved unless it concerns you personally).

You think Alex and Patrick has stayed neutral on this? They've seemed pretty clear, especially on today's Bombin'. I would however agree that their opinion isn't the "official" GB stance or whatever, and can understand those who want the main crew to speak out. I think it's pretty clear that Jeff and the rest never support harassment (look at the letter from the editor for example), but I guess people want an explicit denouncement of gamergate as a movement.
 
When it comes down to it, a Skype stream between two guys nowhere near San Fran who make up like 25% of the video content between them isn't enough to give a definitive message that Giant Bomb isn't the video game frat house some believe it is. For better or worse.

Some people aren't going to get over the Dan hire. Ever.
 

Patryn

Member
The Giant Bomb video streaming is so bad. I have a connection of 7500 KB/s, yet the old UPF videos constantly stop to buffer - even on high.

If you're a member, you could switch to progressive and then do the old YouTube trick of opening a video up and leaving it be for a bit and then playing it.
 

Fjolle

Member
I can see how she would view the site as being "neutral" though, because they haven't taken an editorial position on it or spoken about it on the Bombcast. Patrick and Alex have spoken about the issue several times on Bombin', including today, but I guess she wants the main crew to react to it more than they have. The closest you come to anything like that is Jeff's rant on the PAX Panel and the "Letter from the Editor" about "hiregate" and the reaction that followed.

I didn't see the MSNBC interview so I have no idea if she mentioned GB along with other outlets, or just GB.

The interview is here (interesting bit about 7:30). She say IGN and Giant Bomb are predominantly male and haven't covered "what happens to women".
 

Bacon

Member
I would classify GB as neutral on it, as a whole. Patrick and Alex may be outspoken on the subject but their podcast has nowhere near the amount of listeners or visibility of the bombcast.
 
I think a Bombcast mention would be nice, at some point "Game developer driven out of home by bomb threat" is pretty high up on the list of things you can talk about on a weekly podcast with a news section.
 

Patryn

Member
The interview is here (interesting bit about 7:30). She say IGN and Giant Bomb are predominantly male and haven't covered "what happens to women".

That's a valid criticism. I think it's something they'd even acknowledge, and I suspect it's something that will be rectified during the next hiring window.
 

popo

Member
The interview is here (interesting bit about 7:30). She say IGN and Giant Bomb are predominantly male and haven't covered "what happens to women".

Thanks. If that is all then it seems a bit of a nothing. Shame she tagged a small site like GB but both comments are generally correct.
 

Myggen

Member
That's a valid criticism. I think it's something they'd even acknowledge, and I suspect it's something that will be rectified during the next hiring window.

Yep. Not surprised that she's calling out GB either since she was one of the people who got caught in the shit storm that was the whole "hiring war". I think the Reddit thread that blew the fuck up started with someone posting a screencap of something she wrote on Twitter?

edit: MSNBC's player is worse than GB's streaming player, goddamn.
 

ultron87

Member
I definitely would like to see them take a firm stance on it on the homepage or the Bombcast instead of just the non-main podcast. As obvious a sentiment as it is, something like the end of this Kotaku piece is nice to see: http://kotaku.com/another-woman-in-gaming-flees-home-following-death-thre-1645280338

Jeff's Letter from the Editor when during the hiring stuff was great. They might not feel it is as necessary in this case since people aren't doing the harassment "in their name" but if condemning GamerGate now can get even a few people to stop supporting it, it would be worth it.
 

popo

Member
I think a Bombcast mention would be nice, at some point "Game developer driven out of home by bomb threat" is pretty high up on the list of things you can talk about on a weekly podcast with a news section.

They shouldn't have to spell it out but maybe they should just to deflect the idea that they don't care. It isn't like we don't already know their reaction. I mean Jeff has spoken out against internet threats before, Brad is very liberal and Dan is so happy go lucky I can't see him holding with any bullshit like this.

Jeff's Letter from the Editor when during the hiring stuff was great. They might not feel it is as necessary in this case since people aren't doing the harassment "in their name" but if condemning GamerGate now can get even a few people to stop supporting it, it would be worth it.

I think they just want to avoid another flare up like with the hiring. GB got dragged through the muck with that. They likely want to avoid posting directly about GG because a bunch of idiots will create burner accounts and turn their forum in to a cesspool. There does come a point when saying nothing causes more trouble then good though. Another letter from Jeff condemning it, lock comments, then go back to staying out of the shit storm.
 

sixghost

Member
Just like every other Borderlands character Gearbox puts the spotlight on. Just make a game with him, Claptrap, and Tiny Tina as the playable characters. Then proceed to drink cyanide.

I actually really liked Torgue, but after watching that 9 minute trailer which was nothing but him rehashing the same jokes from the torgue DLC, it makes me think they're going to run that character into the ground as well.
 
Jeff has said many, many times that one of the things he's glad they're in a position to do is to cover whatever they want in the way they want to present it. GB West in particular is not a news site or an editorial site. They do their QLs and they do their fun videos, because it's what they like and want to do. I don't see any reason to expect them to suddenly take a stance on a topic like this. They're the first ones to admit they're not journalists. They run a silly website that makes goofy videos.
 

BanGy.nz

Banned
Assassins Creeds lack of 180 lines has had a longer and more in-depth discussion then anything relating to the abuse of #GamerGate.
 
That's a valid criticism. I think it's something they'd even acknowledge, and I suspect it's something that will be rectified during the next hiring window.

If only because the next hire is going to be in either New York or Chicago. :p

Anyway, here's a transcript:

[on change in the culture] "I think it needs to happen from the top down. ...this is a problem with the gamer culture, but it's also a problem with the professionals within the gaming industry. If you look at IGN and Giant Bomb, these are sites predominantly ran by men, and they are choosing to not cover what's happening to women in the industry. If you look at the industry's hiring practices as a whole, they are tilted very, very severely against women.

...I think you have to look at the culture from the top-down that's sending these messages, to women, very subtly and unconsciously. "You are not welcome here", "this is a boy's club", "this is our turf". It's not that the men are conscious that they're doing this. I love and respect the men I work with in this industry with me, but they have attitudes frequently that they don't understand are antagonistic.
 
Assassins Creeds lack of 180 horizontal lines has had a longer and more in-depth discussion then anything relating to the abuse of #GamerGate.

Different things interest different people. The Destiny OT has generated about 7x the amount of discussion than GamerGate has.
 

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
Assassins Creeds lack of 180 horizontal lines has had a longer and more in-depth discussion then anything relating to the abuse of #GamerGate.

Okay?

People sending death threats are shitheads. There's no debating that.

The ethics of game journalism threads had tons of replies and was shut down and morphed into gamergate threads.
 

BearPawB

Banned
I think all the staff at GB would agree with what Wu said in that clip, really.

The problem is the more you talk about gamers gate the more shit gets turned towards you. Suddenly you're the one getting death threats. So I certainly get the urge to try and not kick the hornets nest. Gamers gate are holding game journalists hostage.
 

bonercop

Member
I think it's pretty clear that Jeff and the rest never support harassment (look at the letter from the editor for example), but I guess people want an explicit denouncement of gamergate as a movement.

That's why it bothers me, I suppose. They've always been calling it out when internet assholes were harassing people or just generally being stupid about something -- hell, I would even argue that sometimes they've been frustratingly dismissive in calling people entitled, like when the whole outrage over MW2 having no dedicated servers went down.

But they haven't said anything about this. When someone like Jeff, who's always called out shit like this, doesn't speak out about it, it helps the narrative that this whole GG mess is a legitimate thing and not a hate campaign to get women to shut up.
 
Anyway, here's a transcript:
Editorially, Jeff probably doesn't think their voice is suited to making large editorials on this topic. Whether you think that's right or wrong, the last thing I would ever assume is that he's doing it out of hatred or spite - especially knowing Jeff's character. And saying it is without him recognising it is just a poor argument.
 

mnz

Unconfirmed Member
The problem is the more you talk about gamers gate the more shit gets turned towards you. Suddenly you're the one getting death threats. So I certainly get the urge to try and not kick the hornets nest. Gamers gate are holding game journalists hostage.
Isn't that insane, though?
 

Myggen

Member
The problem is the more you talk about gamers gate the more shit gets turned towards you. Suddenly you're the one getting death threats. So I certainly get the urge to try and not kick the hornets nest. Gamers gate are holding game journalists hostage.

I was more thinking of the general statement that Coldman posted.

That's why it bothers me, I suppose. They've always been calling it out when internet assholes were harassing people or just generally being stupid about something -- hell, I would even argue that sometimes they've been frustratingly dismissive in calling people entitled, like when the whole outrage over MW2 having no dedicated servers went down.

But they haven't said anything about this. When someone like Jeff, who's always called out shit like this, doesn't speak out about it, it helps the narrative that this whole GG mess is a legitimate thing and not a hate campaign to get women to shut up.

I don't remember them talking about many instances of internet harassment before (the letter from the editor was written because people were harassing people in their name), really. But maybe I'm misremembering stuff here, Jeff has always been clear that that's not something he will ever support in a more general sense. But yeah, call that shit out on the podcast or something.
 
The Destiny OT is also about 47x less likely to generate bans.

True enough. Still, you're essentially saying people are scared to say the wrong thing and get banned because of that. Which I can understand why it's not being heavily discussed in GAF, compared to other things, like Paritygate.
 
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