• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

GamerGate: a discussion without internet-murdering each other about it

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
This is some bullshit.

Look up the thread on here from when August Ames committed suicide after being repeatedly harassed online over not wanting to do scenes with bi guys or something because she perceived an increased HIV risk. Many responses applauded her suicide, or shrugged, because she was the Enemy of Progressive Values or whatever the fuck and the Actual Oppressor in the situation because of her expressed position. Harassed to the point of suicide: "meh, mental illness, but she deserved the harassment" essentially.

I just about deleted the forum then and there.
 

Dunki

Member
Another one would be Weinstein how was hunted around the university, they stalked, doxxed him and his whole family, they chased hiom with bats etc. And he did not even something outrages at all.
 
Let me nip that right in the bud. Nobody is 'crying about the left', what people are criticizing is the growing trend of social authoritarianism among the left

that has nothing to do with my point.

all the complaining is slanted in one direction. there's no complaining about the pro-censorship religious right (eg. the jack thompsons of the world). the complaints are never about politics in games. they're about certain types of politics in games

the narrative that all of this is apolitical relies on too many coincidences to really be true.

all this talk of authoritarian leftist thought police and lack of free speech is just not in line with the reality of how game development happens in the US

before you go on another political rant about Hillary or whatever, I suggest you read the OP to understand the context of what I'm talking about.
 
all the complaining is slanted in one direction. there's no complaining about the pro-censorship religious right (eg. the jack thompsons of the world). the complaints are never about politics in games. they're about certain types of politics in games
I'm not aware of any right-wingers pushing political agenda in games recently. If I knew of any, I'd most likely object to it. Let's not pretend it's not mostly the left who's concerning themselves with dictating pop culture though.
 

PtM

Banned
Let me nip that right in the bud. Nobody is 'crying about the left', what people are criticizing is the growing trend of social authoritarianism among the left. As a European leftist who tends to vote a mixture of social democrats and green, I always get a chuckle when american liberals consider themselves 'on the left', whilst clinging to the delusion that Hillary is left-leaning.

What I consider as social authoritarianism is probably best described by their view on censorship and free speech, or 'freeze peach' as they so mockingly like to refer to this basic human right. They are usually in opposition to an absolute interpretation of free speech by arguing in favor of certain restrictions. Their argument usually goes like this:
  1. The absolute definition of free speech includes the right to say anything you want
  2. Some people abuse that freedom in order to say vile and hateful things
  3. Therefore free speech is not an absolute right and must be limited
Now let me explain why that argument is not only incredibly lazy, but also antithesis to leftist values, by presenting an historical and a philosophical counterpoint.

a. The historical argument

The modern left got its historical roots during the industrial revolution. During that time, the largely urban population was forced to slave away in factories, plagued by poor work conditions and almost nonexistent worker rights. Freedom of speech and the right to peaceful assembly allowed these workers to form unions in order to organize, strike, protest and express their demands. This all happened much to the chagrin of the factory-owners, who would have very much preferred the status quo. Free speech has always, always come in favor of the oppressed and disenfranchised. From an historical perspective, free speech has always been a core value of the left and omitting that simple fact is absolutely inane and marks the difference between a leftist and an authoritarian leftist. I'm sure many a factory-owner would have loved to abuse above stated argument against free speech in order to break up those pesky unions.

b. The philosophical argument

Arguing that speech needs to be limited, because a few bad apples are abusing that right in order to express vile things is an absolutely disingenuous position. Coming from that position, basically any civil liberty can be abolished or restricted because there will always be people engaging with these freedoms in an irresponsible manner. By the same measure, you could circumcise freedom of assembly out of fear of violent protests. You could abolish the right to drive cars, because a few idiots are driving drunk or restrict freedom of movement because some people commit crimes. Besides, who gets to decide what's deemed acceptable speech? Certainly those in power and not the other way round. Yes, we have laws that deal with people overstepping their bounds, but they need to be applied on a case by case basis.

What does all this have to do with the topic at hand?

Well, I consider Anita an her ideologically charged ilk to be leftist authoritarians. Remember when they went to the UN in order to make their case that free speech needs to be restricted? They did so by explicitly conflating harassment, ridicule and valid criticism in order to silence their opposition. I quote: "Harassment is threats of violence but it's also the day-to-day grind of ‘You're a liar,' ‘You suck' ... making all of these hate videos on a regular basis to attack us and the mobs that come from those hate videos."

Like, I get that harassment is bad, nevertheless that is not the issue. I cannot let reason slide, only because somebody makes an appeal to emotion. Especially not if they are in front of a political institution pushing for policy changes that affect the lives of everybody, including the innocent people pursuing their civil liberties in a responsible manner. What about them? Do they not matter? I take issue with the insidious nature of her argument, construed in such a manner that everybody who dares to criticize could be labeled as in support of her harassment. I'm sorry, but no, just no...
  • Questioning the validity of a claim (i.e. calling somebody a liar) is not hateful speech
  • Claiming that somebody sucks, can be considered as rude, but is not hateful speech
  • Ridiculing somebody is considered satire, not hateful speech
Her appearance before the UN is doubly grating, considering how she basically characterized all gamers as being misogynistic hateful trolls. Did she seriously expect absolutely no push-back against these very serious implications? Hence why I already stated that her arguments are destructive by design and only serve to rile up people as much as possible in order to cash in on some outrage bucks. Let me tell you, anytime somebody comes along claiming to be an expert while trying to immunize himself against any form of criticism to such a high degree, you can safely dismiss it as snake-oil bullcr*p.

Listen & believe is exactly the kind of self-righteous authoritarianism that led to the owner of this forum to be judged and condemned in the public eye before he could even prove his innocence. It's the same kind of belief system that leads other closed communities (not wanna name names here) to pursue one public witch-hunt after another. That is what Anita and her uncritical press has brought upon the gaming community and I hold them responsible for that. I'm sorry but you don't get to shame me into silence, for expressing my reasoned concern only because you don't like what I have to say.

"But", I hear you say, "Anita and co. are not in positions of power, they are punching up". Yeah, no. She was given a powerful public voice, a huge platform, industry invitations and had so many people following her every word. For once, she was in a position of power and influence. She could have done so much good for women in gaming, yet she and her ilk chose to squander it all in order to impose their narrow-minded belief system by riding the outrage train for their own financial gains. I would not trust these people with any sort of political power.

Now you go ahead and label me however you want. I know what I am.
There's a difference between "you're a liar" and "that's not true". Come to think of it, there's also an additional difference between "you're a liar" and "you suck". But do keep protecting harassment as criticism.
Look up the thread on here from when August Ames committed suicide after being repeatedly harassed online over not wanting to do scenes with bi guys or something because she perceived an increased HIV risk. Many responses applauded her suicide, or shrugged, because she was the Enemy of Progressive Values or whatever the fuck and the Actual Oppressor in the situation because of her expressed position. Harassed to the point of suicide: "meh, mental illness, but she deserved the harassment" essentially.

I just about deleted the forum then and there.
Damn. I would have assumed that would net an insta-ban.
 
that has nothing to do with my point. all the complaining is slanted in one direction. there's no complaining about the pro-censorship religious right (eg. the jack thompsons of the world).

Go back a couple of pages to my posts here and here where where I criticize the authoritarian/religious right for doing the same thing. I even mention Thompson, those ridiculous bible games, AD&D and linked to a video where Frank Zappa is gets drilled by authoritarian conservatives for daring to make rock'n'roll. So no, it's not that the left is unfairly targeted, it's just that the authoritarian left is making the news right now.
 
Do you like contradicting yourself?



You're just downplaying the whole debacle in order to make your own standpoint seem more palatable now that Anita has largely fallen out of favor. I'm not buying it.



Yeah and for taking her arguments apart, these gamers were largely vilified by the gaming press. While the game journalists turned on their own audience for failing to see their own errors, these youtubers and streamers only grew in popularity. I hope it was worth it.



I think you just filtered out the part where I explicitly stated the following: "While you're certainly free to discuss these issues..."



Thanks for making my point.





Again, do you like contradicting yourself? Do you engage in these discussions because your fun is ruined and you're hurt, or because it is fun? Which one is it? Can't be both. I'm sorry, but I find it hard to argue with you, if you're flip-flopping around like that while being woefully unable to present a coherent viewpoint.

I think you read way too much into some phrases that I use or twisting them into convenient shapes. Saying that I personally don't want to watch something, does not mean it's not interesting and worthwhile for that thing to exist. It just means I don't want to watch it. Which is what I said. You could just ask me to clarify if you're personally confused.

Please do provide evidence if you feel like I'm downplaying a "debacle". I said the average gamer will not have heard of her, and you just brushed it off without actually providing evidence of that. An actual argument would be "well look at her view count" or "she was at the a tedXwomen thing or the colbert report.", but then I would call both if these things pretty niche things, which have a lot of people make appearances on them. But then I wouldn't call anyone on this forum the average gamer. But of course there was the UN thing, she didn't really give a speech it appears was on a panel there run by Broadband Commission Working Group on Gender, about harassment, not about feminism (her actual topic) .

I guess I hold two things in my head at the same time:

1. Anita appears to have not really address her legitimate critics.
2. Anita was severely harassed by people, and doxed.

Point two makes point one not feel like that much a faux pas to me, at least compared to you. It feels like you really handwave away the level of harassment that went on back there, or at least you imply that game journalists used it as an excuse to brand all Anita's critics as harassers. I think it implies an intent that isn't really there. Most official statements from outlets were just like "you guys should stop harassing people.". Really general statements. But maybe your beef is with specific journalists, but you imply all or the majority. it appears that you're mad they didn't try and set up a debate or something, or that they didn't immediately post other interviews from people with differing viewpoints as her (which no one does with any other topic). Overall, it's not surprising to me that any legitimate message wasn't answered after the noise created by harassment. I don't really expect anyone in that situation to neatly separate abusers from those seeking reasonable debate. Especially when a lot of this stuff is occurring on twitter.

I think it's hard for me take "While you're certainly free to discuss these issues.", at face value when a lot of our discussion has featured you and other people here arguing completely against those conversations existing for a variety of reasons.

Again, you could just ask me to clarify if you're personally confused. I thought it was reasonably clear that I was talking about discussion and debates around these issues as being interesting and amusing, and my "in moment" feeling when hitting what I think is a shitty moment in a game, as me feeling somewhat hurt and dismayed and for a moment having my fun ruined. The experience and the experience of me talking about the experience are two very separate things. And when I use words like "due to x I feel compelled... " that's me clearly talking about my motivation for doing something. And your motivation for doing something is clearly different than you feel when you do that thing. I can be motivated by embarrassment to eat an oyster because someone is making fun of me, and then when I eat it I might feel happy because it tastes great, or angry because it tastes awful.
 
I'm not aware of any right-wingers pushing political agenda in games recently. If I knew of any, I'd most likely object to it. Let's not pretend it's not mostly the left who's concerning themselves with dictating pop culture though.

the more likely story is that the concerns of harassment/discrimination are taken more seriously (and get more media attention) than the concerns about some extreme left authoritarian thought police

Go back a couple of pages to my posts here and here where where I criticize the authoritarian/religious right for doing the same thing. I even mention Thompson, those ridiculous bible games, AD&D and linked to a video where Frank Zappa is gets drilled by authoritarian conservatives for daring to make rock'n'roll. So no, it's not that the left is unfairly targeted, it's just that the authoritarian left is making the news right now.

are you claiming that your criticism is representative of gamergate?

i understand that these random hashtags aren't an organized movement where everyone marches in step, but the summaries i've seen of it as basically right-wing backlash against perceived "SJW threats" (combined with harassment of those perceived threats) seems to be the more likely story

it's like either all the media and all the game developers are part of some conspiracy... or maybe the simpler explanation is the one that's actually true
 
You honestly expect that to fly? Despite the questionable quality of her criticism of games, and the abject failure by mainstream games media to remotely challenge her conclusions, she has through their relentless promotion become elevated in the eyes of the mainstream press as a figure of notable authority on all matters gaming.

This attempt to play down the significance of someone reaching the heights of public exposure she has whilst being unchecked through any form of critical inquiry into the validity of her conclusions is a joke.

She got interviewed by a bunch of places, because people clicked on those interviews. And That's what interviews are like. They are not debates. I personally like combative, stern questions in interviews most of the time, but almost no one does that. A "here's my thoughts on x's view on thoughts on videos games" articles aren't really in the video game press' wheelhouse. When was the last time you read something like that from a mainstream gaming outlet? You're asking for an op-ed presence that really doesn't exist at place like ign.

Of course the average gamer probably hasn't seen her videos, but that doesn't mean her influence on the industry is small. As I posted earlier we know Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog has mentioned her being an influence on his writing.

Sure. But it doesn't mean her influence on the industry is huge. I'm sure Neil Druckmann has a lot of influences on his writing.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Please do provide evidence if you feel like I'm downplaying a "debacle". I said the average gamer will not have heard of her, and you just brushed it off without actually providing evidence of that. An actual argument would be "well look at her view count" or "she was at the a tedXwomen thing or the colbert report.", but then I would call both if these things pretty niche things, which have a lot of people make appearances on them. But then I wouldn't call anyone on this forum the average gamer. But of course there was the UN thing, she didn't really give a speech it appears was on a panel there run by Broadband Commission Working Group on Gender, about harassment, not about feminism (her actual topic) .

Playing Anita down as a no one of import is an abject denial of reality. How can you say being promoted by the mainstream media is in any way niche? For a great many people who aren't gamers especially in media circles, she's viewed as someone of import. The abject lack of challenge to her views by the gaming press is frankly kind of shocking really, especially when given the way outlets were falling over themselves to take umbrage at Jack Thompson and his questionable assertions. One rule for he but another for thee, is not how anyone who purports to be a journalist should operate.

She got interviewed by a bunch of places, because people clicked on those interviews. And That's what interviews are like. They are not debates. I personally like combative, stern questions in interviews most of the time, but almost no one does that. A "here's my thoughts on x's view on thoughts on videos games" articles aren't really in the video game press' wheelhouse. When was the last time you read something like that from a mainstream gaming outlet? You're asking for an op-ed presence that really doesn't exist at place like ign.

That she got softballed is the fundamental problem. This idea that somehow challenge is not the role of those who profess to be journalists in any arena, or shouldn't be in your view, says more about your inability to acknowledge the broken nature of game journalism more than anything else. If someone is setting themselves up to be a critic of a medium, who better to play devil's advocate with them than those who consider themselves the gatekeepers of said medium?

1. Anita appears to have not really address her legitimate critics.
2. Anita was severely harassed by people, and doxed.

Point two makes point one not feel like that much a faux pas to me, at least compared to you.

No one advocates for harassment, but I think it's rather a dismal defence to suggest having drawn the ire of a populace for having made poor arguments (some of whom took it to extremes), that said poor arguments should be given a pass. Arguments don't operate on a meritocracy of the maker, but on their own value in the open field of logic and reason.

Now come back with something approaching a cohesive position.
 
Last edited:
Playing Anita down as a no one of import is an abject denial of reality. How can you say being promoted by the mainstream media is in any way niche? For a great many people who aren't gamers especially in media circles, she's viewed as someone of import. The abject lack of challenge to her views by the gaming press is a frankly kind of shocking really, especially when given the way outlets were falling over themselves to take umbrage at Jack Thompson and his questionable assertions. One rule for he but another for thee, is not how anyone who purports to be a journalist should operate.



That she got softballed is the fundamental problem. This idea that somehow challenge is not the role of those who profess to be journalists in any arena, or shouldn't be in your view, says more about your inability to acknowledge the broken nature of game journalism more than anything else. If someone is setting themselves up to be a critic of a medium, who better to play devil's advocate with them than those who consider themselves the gatekeepers of said medium?



No one advocates for harassment, but I think it's rather a dismal defence to suggest having drawn the ire of a populace for having made poor arguments (some of whom took it to extremes), that said poor arguments should be given a pass. Arguments don't operate on a meritocracy of the maker, but on their own value in the open field of logic and reason.

Now come back with something approaching a cohesive position.

I never said she no one of import. And a lot of people appear on mainstream media and are not important at all. "For a great many people who aren't gamers especially in media circles, she's viewed as someone of import." hmmmmmm. I mean in October last year she created a personal twitter account separate from her "feminist frequency" twitter account and she only has like 7000 followers, only 7000 people followed her over from old account, that's not popularity. Like I said earlier, she's reviewing TV shows and getting like 5k views on YouTube, that's not "a great many people" viewing you as important.

"The abject lack of challenge to her views by the gaming press is a frankly kind of shocking really, especially when given the way outlets were falling over themselves to take umbrage at Jack Thompson and his questionable assertions." Jack Thompson's heyday happened more than a decade ago, so the journalists involved in both situations are completely different, and so the comparison makes no sense. I found an interview from the time just to see and, it's, well, a pretty pleasant interview.

http://m.ign.com/articles/2004/08/04/manhunt-lawyer-speaks

"That she got softballed is the fundamental problem. This idea that somehow challenge is not the role of those who profess to be journalists in any arena, or shouldn't be in your view, says more about your inability to acknowledge the broken nature of game journalism more than anything else." I haven't said a word about what I would like game journalism to be, I am simply pointing out that this is what it's like, because you seem to have have such strong expectations which are completely put of wack with how the industry actually operates. 90% of game journalism is not critique, especially not right now, and I'm not sure anyone in games journalism would consider themselves "the gatekeepers" of the medium.

"having drawn the ire of a populace for having made poor arguments" that's an understatement. "poor arguments should be given a pass" I never said they should be given a pass. You, me, anyone and everyone should argue their points if they'd like to. I said I'm not surprised she's not arguing back, and I don't feel like she's that obligated to do so. If a couple of people from here sent me harassment, like death and rape threats and then if I got doxed or felt like the threats were getting a little too close to home, then I might not debate on here anymore. The "open field of logic and reason." doesn't really work if it's covered in shit.

"Now come back with something approaching a cohesive position." Come on, really?
 
I never said she no one of import. And a lot of people appear on mainstream media and are not important at all. "For a great many people who aren't gamers especially in media circles, she's viewed as someone of import." hmmmmmm. I mean in October last year she created a personal twitter account separate from her "feminist frequency" twitter account and she only has like 7000 followers, only 7000 people followed her over from old account, that's not popularity. Like I said earlier, she's reviewing TV shows and getting like 5k views on YouTube, that's not "a great many people" viewing you as important.
"I never said she's no one of importance" and then you list several reasons why she's not that important... You can't blame people for misunderstanding.

Besides, we already established her popularity has dropped off. So your referring to her current views or followers doesn't really do much. Back in 2014 when gamergate was formed, she was probably the most well-known feminist video games critic. Her earlier videos about video games have been watched a decent amount, though those views dropped off pretty harshly as the series continued as well. When people found out what kind of arguments she was making, and their anger cooled down, they just stopped watching, I guess. May have had something to do with her slow release schedule too, where she wouldn't publish a new video for months. I think in the pitch for her kickstarter she promised to finish the series in a year or so, but in the end it took several. I might be mistaken on that, I don't remember the exact timeframe. Perhaps those delays had to do with the harassment. She remained relevant for a while though, because of this harassment, cancelled appearances, controversial things she said or did, all the way up to last year's VidCon incidents with Sargon of Akkad and Boogie2988.

Everything has changed now. Ms. Sarkeesian's relevance has mostly faded, gamergate is pretty much gone as well. That's for the better, in my opinion.

I do appreciate you returning and replying to the thread though, TheGraykid. If I were in your position, I'd find that pretty difficult to do.
 

Darryl

Banned
"I never said she's no one of importance" and then you list several reasons why she's not that important... You can't blame people for misunderstanding.

Besides, we already established her popularity has dropped off. So your referring to her current views or followers doesn't really do much. Back in 2014 when gamergate was formed, she was probably the most well-known feminist video games critic. Her earlier videos about video games have been watched a decent amount, though those views dropped off pretty harshly as the series continued as well. When people found out what kind of arguments she was making, and their anger cooled down, they just stopped watching, I guess. May have had something to do with her slow release schedule too, where she wouldn't publish a new video for months. I think in the pitch for her kickstarter she promised to finish the series in a year or so, but in the end it took several. I might be mistaken on that, I don't remember the exact timeframe. Perhaps those delays had to do with the harassment. She remained relevant for a while though, because of this harassment, cancelled appearances, controversial things she said or did, all the way up to last year's VidCon incidents with Sargon of Akkad and Boogie2988.

Everything has changed now. Ms. Sarkeesian's relevance has mostly faded, gamergate is pretty much gone as well. That's for the better, in my opinion.

I do appreciate you returning and replying to the thread though, TheGraykid. If I were in your position, I'd find that pretty difficult to do.

The Milo & Anita comparison that someone made earlier is applicable here as well. Milo's popularity has also fallen off a cliff recently. Can't say he was never popular though. They were both important and popular during a time frame.
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
NOTE: I apologize if my words come across as a garbled mess. I am currently under a number of painkillers due to an incident earlier in the week.

I will have to echo much of what KevinKeene KevinKeene and strange headache strange headache have said here. I am not talented in the ways of writing, but both members have written excellent posts about this topic.

As for my (probably poorly worded) viewpoint and minor history:

While I personally was not a supporter or opponent of GamerGate (as I was busy dealing with some health and university issues IRL at the time), I did see a major disconnect between the two. This was disappointing to me as I personally love open dialogue between two groups of differing ideologies. Sadly this was antithetical in my last "home". In my time over on ResetEra, members were silenced/banned for trying to have a fair discussion about this topic. There were opponents of GG who would dig through twitter pages/followers of those they disagreed with to find a single person who supported GG at one point in the past, labeling them as neo-nazis or alt-right. This reached a point where you could not post a previously "OK'd" comic as it was created by someone who supported GG, which therefore meant that it is now alt-right (and therefore ban worthy with no discussion). I do apologize for using them as a point of reference on this tangent, but I feel that they are a good example on how I feel much of the more vocal opponents of GG tend to act. If I am incorrect in this assumption, then I would love to know why with some great examples!

i understand that these random hashtags aren't an organized movement where everyone marches in step, but the summaries i've seen of it as basically right-wing backlash against perceived "SJW threats" (combined with harassment of those perceived threats) seems to be the more likely story

it's like either all the media and all the game developers are part of some conspiracy... or maybe the simpler explanation is the one that's actually true

This confuses me, StrategyFan. From what I have read and understood GG isn't about right-wing backlash, given the seemingly large number of left-siding members. I am sure there are some right-wing proponents in GG, but would it be right to label the entire group as right-wing in this instance? Or did I misread the intent of your post? If so, I do apologize.


As an aside: Thank y'all for having such a calm and fair discussion about this and I hope this is a sign of things to come for this community.

Look up the thread on here from when August Ames committed suicide after being repeatedly harassed online over not wanting to do scenes with bi guys or something because she perceived an increased HIV risk. Many responses applauded her suicide, or shrugged, because she was the Enemy of Progressive Values or whatever the fuck and the Actual Oppressor in the situation because of her expressed position. Harassed to the point of suicide: "meh, mental illness, but she deserved the harassment" essentially.

I just about deleted the forum then and there.

I hope that this would indicate future instant-bans for this kind of behavior. I followed that story on Twitter and it was disgusting to read those types of replies and posts. Reported *so* many accounts and the admins just continued to send me emails saying how they weren't breaking any rules (despite celebrating someone's suicide).
 
Last edited:
"I never said she's no one of importance" and then you list several reasons why she's not that important... You can't blame people for misunderstanding.

Besides, we already established her popularity has dropped off. So your referring to her current views or followers doesn't really do much. Back in 2014 when gamergate was formed, she was probably the most well-known feminist video games critic. Her earlier videos about video games have been watched a decent amount, though those views dropped off pretty harshly as the series continued as well. When people found out what kind of arguments she was making, and their anger cooled down, they just stopped watching, I guess. May have had something to do with her slow release schedule too, where she wouldn't publish a new video for months. I think in the pitch for her kickstarter she promised to finish the series in a year or so, but in the end it took several. I might be mistaken on that, I don't remember the exact timeframe. Perhaps those delays had to do with the harassment. She remained relevant for a while though, because of this harassment, cancelled appearances, controversial things she said or did, all the way up to last year's VidCon incidents with Sargon of Akkad and Boogie2988.

Everything has changed now. Ms. Sarkeesian's relevance has mostly faded, gamergate is pretty much gone as well. That's for the better, in my opinion.

I do appreciate you returning and replying to the thread though, TheGraykid. If I were in your position, I'd find that pretty difficult to do.

"You can't blame people for misunderstanding." that's understandable. I think there are multiple people saying multiple things about how big she was. Let me clarify, I think she got big within the hard-core gaming bubble and some sectors of the feminist bubble, but outside of that she was pretty much anonymous or known solely as a person who got harassed by a segment of the gaming population. That was my main point, and it's something I don't think was expressed here. Maybe others disagree?

I think it's very important to have these conversations. I'm glad so many people are participating.
 

Dunki

Member
"You can't blame people for misunderstanding." that's understandable. I think there are multiple people saying multiple things about how big she was. Let me clarify, I think she got big within the hard-core gaming bubble and some sectors of the feminist bubble, but outside of that she was pretty much anonymous or known solely as a person who got harassed by a segment of the gaming population. That was my main point, and it's something I don't think was expressed here. Maybe others disagree?

I think it's very important to have these conversations. I'm glad so many people are participating.
The hostility also was created because she was made way bigger by gaming journalists than she actually was. And when these "Journalist" did not report on her anymore she fell into the blogger hole again. But this always happens with such people. Again Milo is another example here. No one would hae even cared much about him but then there was also Berkley and even Germany had articles about him presenting him as the victim.

I also agree that it is great to talk about it without any hostility and attacking of user .
 
Last edited:

Lupingosei

Banned
This is some bullshit.

https://forward.com/opinion/390296/its-time-to-call-out-bullying-by-social-justice-warriors/

about August Ames

The reaction was brutal: Ames was called vile names and told to kill herself. Gay male porn star Jaxton Wheeler tweeted, “The world is awaiting your apology or for you to swallow a cyanide pill.”

Even after her suicide, Ames’s tormentors were unapologetic: “I sleep just fine, I stood up for the Gay and Bisexual community,” Wheeler assured his critics. Another actor who had mocked Ames’s distress suggested that she had been a hater getting a taste of her own medicine. “On Monday I called out a homophobic performer for her ignorance and uneducated bias,” he wrote. “She allegedly chose to end her own life when she was exposed to the same vitriol that gay people have been exposed to globally for decades.”

No one can say with certainty that the bullies drove Ames to take her own life. But the ugliness of her hate-mobbing, even in death, is beyond dispute.

About the bullying and how it is justifiable

Meanwhile, vicious trolls who cloak themselves in progressivism can easily find forgiveness. In 2014, the science fiction/fantasy community was shaken by the revelation that an award-nominated young Thai writer, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, was a notorious online harasser with multiple identities. Her main persona was that of a “rageblogger” known as “Requires Hate,” who specialized in assailing other authors for alleged racist, homophobic or misogynist sins, often in shockingly sadistic language. (“Her hands should be cut off so she can never write another Asian character” was a mild example.) She intimidated reviewers, sabotaged book promotions, and terrorized online groups whose moderators kept quiet for fear of silencing the “marginalized.” She apparently drove one writer to attempt suicide and nearly caused another to stop writing.

and why it was ok to do it

In her semi-apology, Sriduangkaew said that she had thought she was “punching up.” It seems that much liberal culture still sees social justice bullying that way, as well-intentioned anger gone too far.

And that is only a small sample

Go back a couple of pages to my posts here and here where where I criticize the authoritarian/religious right for doing the same thing. I even mention Thompson, those ridiculous bible games, AD&D and linked to a video where Frank Zappa is gets drilled by authoritarian conservatives for daring to make rock'n'roll. So no, it's not that the left is unfairly targeted, it's just that the authoritarian left is making the news right now.

That is the point it changed from the right to the left. You can also see this in South Park. For more than 10 seasons it was the parents and the right-wingers against comedy, against games and against culture and now it is P.C. principal and his crowd. Also how they attack the media, comedy or social media.

And it is not just games, science is also under attack from the extreme left now. Suddenly science is just a social construct or rigor in engineering is misogynistic and part of white supremacy. Evolution and Evolutionary Biology is suddenly under attack from sociology or gender studies and not from religion or creationists. Even math is somehow part of this system of oppression in science.
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
And it is not just games, science is also under attack from the extreme left now. Suddenly science is just a social construct or rigor in engineering is misogynistic and part of white supremacy. Evolution and Evolutionary Biology is suddenly under attack from sociology or gender studies and not from religion or creationists. Even math is somehow part of this system of oppression in science.

Funny thing about this, in my undergraduate cohort I am the *only* male out of the 8 or so people I work with. We have one person who switched majors from sociology/psychology majors (not sure if they were gender studies) and they were quickly disliked by the greater group. Their reason for joining was how "happy it is to see such progressive women in sciences". The others quickly told her something that I will always remember and cherish: "None of us care what gender or sex the people we work with are. The only thing we care about is doing the work and research to better humanity. Get over yourself and just focus on the work or leave and keep your idiotic bullshit to yourself."

Thankfully the university I attend is not highly liberal and most people here don't care about politics in general. People like her are definitely a small, annoyingly vocal minority.
 

makaveli60

Member
Look up the thread on here from when August Ames committed suicide after being repeatedly harassed online over not wanting to do scenes with bi guys or something because she perceived an increased HIV risk. Many responses applauded her suicide, or shrugged, because she was the Enemy of Progressive Values or whatever the fuck and the Actual Oppressor in the situation because of her expressed position. Harassed to the point of suicide: "meh, mental illness, but she deserved the harassment" essentially.

I just about deleted the forum then and there.
Why did you allow the insanity that was happening here at that time? I'm sincerely interested and I don't mean to insult you, I just want to understand it.
 

Dunki

Member
https://forward.com/opinion/390296/its-time-to-call-out-bullying-by-social-justice-warriors/

about August Ames



About the bullying and how it is justifiable



and why it was ok to do it



And that is only a small sample



That is the point it changed from the right to the left. You can also see this in South Park. For more than 10 seasons it was the parents and the right-wingers against comedy, against games and against culture and now it is P.C. principal and his crowd. Also how they attack the media, comedy or social media.

And it is not just games, science is also under attack from the extreme left now. Suddenly science is just a social construct or rigor in engineering is misogynistic and part of white supremacy. Evolution and Evolutionary Biology is suddenly under attack from sociology or gender studies and not from religion or creationists. Even math is somehow part of this system of oppression in science.

I was laughing when these eps did air and suddenly South Park became an alt right show
 
There were opponents of GG who would dig through twitter pages/followers of those they disagreed with to find a single person who supported GG at one point in the past, labeling them as neo-nazis or alt-right. This reached a point where you could not post a previously "OK'd" comic as it was created by someone who supported GG, which therefore meant that it is now alt-right (and therefore ban worthy with no discussion). I do apologize for using them as a point of reference on this tangent, but I feel that they are a good example on how I feel much of the more vocal opponents of GG tend to act. If I am incorrect in this assumption, then I would love to know why with some great examples!

First of all, thanks for participating in the discussion and your very polite tone, it's much appreciated. I'd like to give you an answer as to why all this is happening, but it's a rather complex problem that is not easy to boil down into a single post. I'll try my best to make it somewhat palatable.

From my point of view, there is some kind of McCarthyism that's being cultivated by radical left ideologies. The definition describes quite aptly what you've been experiencing:

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. [...] The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.

The cognitive framework constructed out of notions of radical feminism, intersectionality, critical theory (not critical thinking), the progressive stack and identity politics is creating a tribalistic group-think mentality that is highly divisive and extremely retributive. In these closed-minded communities, anybody who's deemed not being ideologically pure enough is met with utmost hostility and quickly ostracized. This creates an atmosphere of fear, that makes it impossible to engage with these notions in a critical manner, thus further radicalizing its members.

This extremist mindset that's being cultivated on English-speaking campuses is slowly seeping into hobbyist communities through politicization efforts by members of these close-knit circles. They often seek to abuse the vulnerabilities of minority groups in order to weaponize them for their own political gains. The reason why these ideological groups proliferate so rapidly is because they divide people by easily identifiable external characteristics, like gender, age, disabilities, skin-color, personal pronouns or ethnicity. They operate on the premise that everybody who belongs to these ingroups through one or several of these characteristics is put into a status of victimhood, i.e. the oppressed, while everybody else belonging to the outgroup is considered the perpetrator of some kind of sexism, racism, homophobia, abelism, ageism or islamophobia, i.e. the oppressor.

This creates a very black-and-white 'us vs. them' mentality that makes it a moral obligation to 'punch up', which means to dehumanize, to shame, to silence and to violate anybody who could be perceived as the opposition. These groups emanate an extreme sense of belonging by providing a positive feedback loop to those acting upon their moral obligations. Hence why it 'feels good' if you engage in these kinds of activities by shunning and vilifying those who do not belong. Even more so, these groups fabricate the hysterical persecution-complex that if you do not act on these self-righteous principles, you literally risk dying.

If you think I am exaggerating, take a quick look at what happened to Nicholas Christakis at Yale, Bret Weinstein at Evergreen, Jordan Peterson at the University of Toronto or Lindsay Shepherd at Laurier. If you want to know more about the ideological underpinnings of these radicalized movements, I recommend Benjamin A. Boyce who does a really good job accounting and investigating these happenings from an academic and reasoned point of view. Of course there's also the interviews with Weinstein, Peterson, Jonathan Haidt, Camille Paglia, Sam Harris and many many more. There's also this academic yet uplifting lecture by Gad Saad on how political correctness and identity politics are stifling the exchange of ideas.

Now for the sake of the argument, let me add that I'm not bashing the left. In the past, the religious right applied much of the same methodology, albeit for different political reasons. Be it the aforementioned McCarthyism, creationists or other religious fanatics like the Westboro Baptists Church and the lesser known Gloriavale Christian Community. There is also the Jesus Camp, Tipper Gore and Bill Maher's comedic yet comprehensive documentation Religulous. It's just that the the ideological outgrowths that are making the news nowadays have been cultivated among the left. Much like the right was mostly blind for the authoritarian tendencies within their own political circles, the left seems to have a blind spot for the growing radicalization within its own ranks. They are slowly waking up to that fact, but not without much criticism from the opposition shining a light upon these problems. Hence why diversity of thought and the presence of opposition is a necessary social and political mechanism in order to keep people from going off the deep end.

It's not some grand conspiracy, just another form of mass hysteria accelerated by the interconnective power of social-media. Through the notion of intersectional feminism and identity politics, Anita brought much of the same ideological baggage to the gaming community. It's not hard to see since she cites the same literature, uses the same vocabulary and promotes the same ideological core values. It's only natural that most gamers reacted strongly to that kind of rhetoric. It has nothing to do with misogyny or any kind of phobia, it's just how multi-pluralistic democracies tend to auto-correct themselves. Unfortunately for many young gamers, Anita was their first contact with feminism and uncritically supported by the gaming press, she has largely poisoned the well for any kind of reasonable debate pertaining to the representation of women in video games. It also lead to the side-effect that other feminist voices were swept under the rug, like Camille Paglia, Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer, Erin Pizzey and yes even Christina Hoff Sommers. I take umbrage to the fact that the gaming press propped her up as the single voice of feminism in video games, while either completely ignoring other feminist voices, labeling them as fake-feminists or borderline smearing and misrepresenting them.

Anyway, my argument is not whether Anita is still popular or not and honestly, I don't give a rat's ass about how many likes, views or followers she has. She's fallen down railing against butts in video-games, so make of that what you want. My argument is about what she and her company has introduced into the gaming community, a particular set of far-out core ideologies that have torn the community asunder. The mindset that I've been trying to explain above is still going strong among colleges, certain gaming communities and internet personalities. There's no denying the fact that there is still a particular subset of very vocal and aggressive ideologues among the gaming community that's constantly out for blood and honestly, that kind of mindset frightens me.

The others quickly told her something that I will always remember and cherish: "None of us care what gender or sex the people we work with are. The only thing we care about is doing the work and research to better humanity. Get over yourself and just focus on the work or leave and keep your idiotic bullshit to yourself."

What angers me the most is how these social authoritarians claim to speak for all individuals of the social group they seek to represent. They prey on the emotional vulnerabilities of those who oftentimes feel excluded in order to prop up their ranks. They then proceed to make outlandish demands in order to underline their 'otherness' only further isolating these groups from the rest of society. It's a vicious cycle that does incredible damage to the public perception of these minority groups, essentially reinforcing their isolation. The demand to be treated differently is in direct contradiction to their wish for inclusivity.

Cult-like groups often behave in the same manner. They identify the outside world as a threat in order to strengthen the social cohesion between its members by making people afraid to leave the group. Hence why they also react very strongly if outside forces are penetrating their domain. By principle, that's what 'safe spaces' do to you. I agree that safety is a basic human need but these spaces are your homes, your friends, your partners, not the public domain.

It's as you say, if you treat people the same as everybody else, that's when they can feel truly integrated. People don't want to be obsessively reminded of how different they are, because that's when alienation effects appear. Of course, any community should strive to be as accommodating as possible, that's why most social groups reduce adherence to a simple set of common denominators. For the gaming community it's the shared interest in games, for sports-fans it's a specific sport, for interest groups it's a common policy and for your work-group it was a professional task. You simply cannot expect a whole social group to bend to every specific individual need, that's not how socialization works. Like, it's fine if you express your needs and discuss differences, but it's not fine to make demands through social extortion by going "do/say X, or you're an -ist and -phobe".

What intersectionality and identity politics do is basically introducing more and more differences, further balkanizing the gaming community. Because now you have gamers not only identifying themselves as gamers, but also as male/female, black/white, left/right, hetero-/homosexual, cis/trans and any combination in between. Essentially splintering the community into smaller and smaller tribes that tend to become very hostile to each other because everything outside of their ingroup is considered evil. If we take the GAF exodus for example, we now have gamers who basically divide the community into two camps, the 'alt-right GAF' and the 'progressive left ResetERA' and that's what these ideologies do to ya. It goes without saying that that's not how diversity works.

That's why I'm happy to see people disagreeing with me, no matter if I approve of their arguments or not. Because that's when I know that I'm part of a healthy community. Sorry for the lengthy reply, but there is a lot to unpack in order to kinda maybe explain what's going on.
 
Last edited:

makaveli60

Member
First of all, thanks for participating in the discussion and you very polite tone, it's much appreciated. I'd like to give you an answer as to why all this is happening, but it's a rather complex problem that is not easy to boil down into a single post. I'll try my best to make it somewhat palatable.

From my point of view, there is some kind of McCarthyism that's being cultivated by radical left ideologies. It's definition describes quite aptly what you've been experiencing:



The cognitive framework constructed out of notions of radical feminism, intersectionality, critical theory (not critical thinking), the progressive stack and identity politics is creating a tribalistic group-think mentality that is highly divisive and extremely retributive. In these closed-minded communities, anybody who's deemed not being ideologically pure enough is met with utmost hostility and quickly ostracized. This created an atmosphere of fear, that makes it impossible to engage with these notions in a critical manner, thus further radicalizing its members.

This extremist mindset that's being cultivated on English-speaking campuses is slowly seeping into hobbyist communities through politicization efforts by members of these close-knit circles. They often seek to abuse the vulnerabilities of minority groups in order to weaponize them for their own political gains. The reason why these ideological groups proliferate so rapidly is because they divide people by easily identifiable external characteristics, like gender, age, disabilities, skin-color, personal pronouns or ethnicity. They operate on the premise that everybody who belongs to these ingroups through one or several of these characteristics is put into a status of victimhood, i.e. the oppressed, while everybody else belonging to the outgroup is considered the perpetrator of some kind of sexism, racism, homophobia, abelism, ageism or islamophobia, i.e. the oppressor.

This creates a very black-and-white 'us vs. them' mentality that makes it a moral obligation to 'punch up', which means to dehumanize, to shame, to silence and to violate anybody who could be perceived as the opposition. These groups emanate an extreme sense of belongingby providing a positive feedback loop to those acting upon their moral obligations. Hence why it 'feels good' if you engage in these kinds of activities by shunning and vilifying those who do not belong. Even more so, these groups fabricate the hysterical persecution-complex that if you do not act on these self-righteous principles, you literally risk dying.

If you think I am exaggerating, take a quick look at what happened to Nicholas Christakis at Yale, Bret Weinstein at Evergreen, Jordan Peterson at the University of Toronto or Lindsay Shepherd at Laurier. If you want to know more about the ideological underpinnings of these radicalized movements, I recommend Benjamin A. Boyce who does a really good job accounting and investigating these happenings from an academic and reasoned point of view. Of course there's also the interviews with Weinstein, Peterson, Jonathan Haidt, Camille Paglia, Sam Harris and many many more. There's also this academic yet uplifting lecture by Gad Saad on how political correctness is stifling the exchange of ideas.

Now for the sake of the argument, let me add that I'm not bashing the left. In the past, the religious right applied much of the same methodology, albeit for different political reasons. Be it the aforementioned McCarthyism, creationists or other religious fanatics like the Westboro Baptists Church and the lesser known Gloriavale Christian Community. There is also the Jesus Camp, Tipper Gore and Bill Maher's comedic yet comprehensive documentation Religulous. It's just that the the ideological outgrowths that are making the news nowadays have been cultivated among the left. Much like the right was mostly blind for the authoritarian tendencies within their own political circles, the left seems to have a blind spot for the growing radicalization within its own ranks. They are slowly waking up to that fact, but not without much criticism from the opposition shining a light upon these problems. Hence why diversity of thought and the presence of opposition is a necessary social and political mechanism in order to keep people from going off the deep end.

It's not some grand conspiracy, just another form of mass hysteria accelerated by the interconnective power of social-media. Through the notion of intersectional feminism and identity politics, Anita brought much of the same ideological baggage to the gaming community. It's not hard to see since she cites the same literature, uses the same vocabulary and promotes the same ideological core values. It's only natural that most gamers reacted strongly to that kind of rhetoric. It has nothing to do with misogyny or any kind of phobia, it's just how multi-pluralistic democracies tend to auto-correct themselves. Unfortunately for many young gamers Anita was their first contact with feminism and uncritically supported by the gaming press, she has largely poisoned the well for any kind of reasonable debate pertaining to the representation of women in video games. It also lead to the side-effect that other feminist voices were swept under the rug, like Camille Paglia, Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer, Erin Pizzey and yes even Christina Hoff Sommers. I take umbrage to the fact that the gaming press propped her up as the single voice of feminism in video games, while either completely ignoring other feminist voices, labeling them as fake-feminists or borderline smearing and misrepresenting them.

Anyway, my argument is not whether Anita is still popular or not and honestly, I don't give a rat's ass about how many likes, views or followers she has. She's fallen down railing against butts in video-games, so make of that what you want. My argument is about what she and her company has introduced into the gaming community, a particular set of far-out core ideologies that have torn the community asunder. The mindset that I've been trying to explain above is still going strong among colleges, certain gaming communities and internet personalities. There's no denying the fact that there is still a particular subset of very vocal and aggressive ideologues among the gaming community that's constantly out for blood and honestly, that kind of mindset frightens me.



What angers me the most is how these social authoritarians claim to speak for all individuals of the social group they seek to represent. They prey on the emotional vulnerabilities of those who oftentimes feel excluded in order to prop up their ranks. They then proceed to make outlandish demands in order to underline their 'otherness' only further isolating these groups from the rest of society. It's a vicious cycle that does incredible damage to the public perception of these minority groups essentially reinforcing their isolation. The demand to be treated differently is in direct contradiction to their wish for inclusivity.

Cult-like groups often behave in the same manner. They identify the outside world as a threat in order to strengthen the social cohesion between its members by making people afraid to leave the group. Hence why they also react very strongly if outside forces are penetrating their domain. By principle, that's what 'safe spaces' do to you. I agree that safety is a basic human need but these spaces are your homes, your friends, your partners, not the public domain.

It's as you say, if you treat people the same as everybody else, that's when they can feel truly integrated. People don't want to be obsessively reminded of how different they are, because that's when alienation effects appear. Of course, any community should strive to be as accommodating as possible, that's why most social groups reduce adherence to a simple set of common denominators. For the gaming community it's the shared interest in games, for sports-fans it's a specific sport, for interest groups it's a common policy and for your work-group it was a professional task. You simply cannot expect a whole social group to bend to every specific individual need, that's not how socialization works. Like, it's fine if you express your needs and discuss differences, but it's not fine to make demands through social extortion by going "do/say X, or you're an -ist and -phobe".

What intersectionality and identity politics do is basically introducing more and more differences, further balkanizing the gaming community. Because now you have gamers not only identifying themselves as gamers, but also as male/female, black/white, left/right, hetero-/homosexual, cis/trans and any combination in between, essentially splintering the community into smaller and smaller tribes that tend to become very hostile to each other because everything outside of your ingroup is considered evil. If we take the GAF exodus for example, we now have gamers who basically divide the community into two camps, the 'alt-right GAF' and the 'progressive left ResetERA' and that's what these ideologies do to ya. It goes without saying that that's not how diversity works.

That's why I'm happy to see people disagreeing with me, no matter if I approve of their arguments or not. Because that's when I know that I'm part of a healthy community. Sorry for the lengthy replay, but there is a lot to unpack in order to kinda maybe explain what's going on.
Beautifully formulated, I agree 99% with what you posted.
 

Dr. Claus

Vincit qui se vincit
First of all, thanks for participating in the discussion and you very polite tone, it's much appreciated. I'd like to give you an answer as to why all this is happening, but it's a rather complex problem that is not easy to boil down into a single post. I'll try my best to make it somewhat palatable.

From my point of view, there is some kind of McCarthyism that's being cultivated by radical left ideologies. It's definition describes quite aptly what you've been experiencing:



The cognitive framework constructed out of notions of radical feminism, intersectionality, critical theory (not critical thinking), the progressive stack and identity politics is creating a tribalistic group-think mentality that is highly divisive and extremely retributive. In these closed-minded communities, anybody who's deemed not being ideologically pure enough is met with utmost hostility and quickly ostracized. This created an atmosphere of fear, that makes it impossible to engage with these notions in a critical manner, thus further radicalizing its members.

This extremist mindset that's being cultivated on English-speaking campuses is slowly seeping into hobbyist communities through politicization efforts by members of these close-knit circles. They often seek to abuse the vulnerabilities of minority groups in order to weaponize them for their own political gains. The reason why these ideological groups proliferate so rapidly is because they divide people by easily identifiable external characteristics, like gender, age, disabilities, skin-color, personal pronouns or ethnicity. They operate on the premise that everybody who belongs to these ingroups through one or several of these characteristics is put into a status of victimhood, i.e. the oppressed, while everybody else belonging to the outgroup is considered the perpetrator of some kind of sexism, racism, homophobia, abelism, ageism or islamophobia, i.e. the oppressor.

This creates a very black-and-white 'us vs. them' mentality that makes it a moral obligation to 'punch up', which means to dehumanize, to shame, to silence and to violate anybody who could be perceived as the opposition. These groups emanate an extreme sense of belongingby providing a positive feedback loop to those acting upon their moral obligations. Hence why it 'feels good' if you engage in these kinds of activities by shunning and vilifying those who do not belong. Even more so, these groups fabricate the hysterical persecution-complex that if you do not act on these self-righteous principles, you literally risk dying.

If you think I am exaggerating, take a quick look at what happened to Nicholas Christakis at Yale, Bret Weinstein at Evergreen, Jordan Peterson at the University of Toronto or Lindsay Shepherd at Laurier. If you want to know more about the ideological underpinnings of these radicalized movements, I recommend Benjamin A. Boyce who does a really good job accounting and investigating these happenings from an academic and reasoned point of view. Of course there's also the interviews with Weinstein, Peterson, Jonathan Haidt, Camille Paglia, Sam Harris and many many more. There's also this academic yet uplifting lecture by Gad Saad on how political correctness is stifling the exchange of ideas.

Now for the sake of the argument, let me add that I'm not bashing the left. In the past, the religious right applied much of the same methodology, albeit for different political reasons. Be it the aforementioned McCarthyism, creationists or other religious fanatics like the Westboro Baptists Church and the lesser known Gloriavale Christian Community. There is also the Jesus Camp, Tipper Gore and Bill Maher's comedic yet comprehensive documentation Religulous. It's just that the the ideological outgrowths that are making the news nowadays have been cultivated among the left. Much like the right was mostly blind for the authoritarian tendencies within their own political circles, the left seems to have a blind spot for the growing radicalization within its own ranks. They are slowly waking up to that fact, but not without much criticism from the opposition shining a light upon these problems. Hence why diversity of thought and the presence of opposition is a necessary social and political mechanism in order to keep people from going off the deep end.

It's not some grand conspiracy, just another form of mass hysteria accelerated by the interconnective power of social-media. Through the notion of intersectional feminism and identity politics, Anita brought much of the same ideological baggage to the gaming community. It's not hard to see since she cites the same literature, uses the same vocabulary and promotes the same ideological core values. It's only natural that most gamers reacted strongly to that kind of rhetoric. It has nothing to do with misogyny or any kind of phobia, it's just how multi-pluralistic democracies tend to auto-correct themselves. Unfortunately for many young gamers Anita was their first contact with feminism and uncritically supported by the gaming press, she has largely poisoned the well for any kind of reasonable debate pertaining to the representation of women in video games. It also lead to the side-effect that other feminist voices were swept under the rug, like Camille Paglia, Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer, Erin Pizzey and yes even Christina Hoff Sommers. I take umbrage to the fact that the gaming press propped her up as the single voice of feminism in video games, while either completely ignoring other feminist voices, labeling them as fake-feminists or borderline smearing and misrepresenting them.

Anyway, my argument is not whether Anita is still popular or not and honestly, I don't give a rat's ass about how many likes, views or followers she has. She's fallen down railing against butts in video-games, so make of that what you want. My argument is about what she and her company has introduced into the gaming community, a particular set of far-out core ideologies that have torn the community asunder. The mindset that I've been trying to explain above is still going strong among colleges, certain gaming communities and internet personalities. There's no denying the fact that there is still a particular subset of very vocal and aggressive ideologues among the gaming community that's constantly out for blood and honestly, that kind of mindset frightens me.



What angers me the most is how these social authoritarians claim to speak for all individuals of the social group they seek to represent. They prey on the emotional vulnerabilities of those who oftentimes feel excluded in order to prop up their ranks. They then proceed to make outlandish demands in order to underline their 'otherness' only further isolating these groups from the rest of society. It's a vicious cycle that does incredible damage to the public perception of these minority groups essentially reinforcing their isolation. The demand to be treated differently is in direct contradiction to their wish for inclusivity.

Cult-like groups often behave in the same manner. They identify the outside world as a threat in order to strengthen the social cohesion between its members by making people afraid to leave the group. Hence why they also react very strongly if outside forces are penetrating their domain. By principle, that's what 'safe spaces' do to you. I agree that safety is a basic human need but these spaces are your homes, your friends, your partners, not the public domain.

It's as you say, if you treat people the same as everybody else, that's when they can feel truly integrated. People don't want to be obsessively reminded of how different they are, because that's when alienation effects appear. Of course, any community should strive to be as accommodating as possible, that's why most social groups reduce adherence to a simple set of common denominators. For the gaming community it's the shared interest in games, for sports-fans it's a specific sport, for interest groups it's a common policy and for your work-group it was a professional task. You simply cannot expect a whole social group to bend to every specific individual need, that's not how socialization works. Like, it's fine if you express your needs and discuss differences, but it's not fine to make demands through social extortion by going "do/say X, or you're an -ist and -phobe".

What intersectionality and identity politics do is basically introducing more and more differences, further balkanizing the gaming community. Because now you have gamers not only identifying themselves as gamers, but also as male/female, black/white, left/right, hetero-/homosexual, cis/trans and any combination in between, essentially splintering the community into smaller and smaller tribes that tend to become very hostile to each other because everything outside of your ingroup is considered evil. If we take the GAF exodus for example, we now have gamers who basically divide the community into two camps, the 'alt-right GAF' and the 'progressive left ResetERA' and that's what these ideologies do to ya. It goes without saying that that's not how diversity works.

That's why I'm happy to see people disagreeing with me, no matter if I approve of their arguments or not. Because that's when I know that I'm part of a healthy community. Sorry for the lengthy replay, but there is a lot to unpack in order to kinda maybe explain what's going on.

Thank you for the amazing post. I will give these links a read/watch and I may respond back with some questions, however given a couple quick reads through: you have listed what I was thinking far better than I ever could. On the last part, I have to agree wholeheartedly. I *love* it when someone disagrees with me and explains why in a well written and polite fashion. This is one of the reasons why I love the hard sciences as much as I do and why I have chosen to pursue a career as a chemical researcher. We openly welcome people to disprove our work as it all goes to furthering a common goal: improving the understanding of our universe.
 

Kadayi

Banned
I never said she no one of import.

Within the scope of the subject 'Gamergate,' I'd say she's of fundamental import. For a great many people who aren't gamers, she's the presented face of matters, through things like the Colbert report, Time magazines Top 100, and the numerous other mainstream outlets which have given her a platform and validated her narrative presentation accordingly.

Jack Thompson's heyday happened more than a decade ago, so the journalists involved in both situations are completely different, and so the comparison makes no sense.

If people are going to paint themselves as journalists, then it makes sense that they should hold themselves to some standards of conduct and critical scrutiny on behalf of the interest of their readership no? When someone comes along to publicly critique an arena, but then insulates themselves from any direct criticism and won't be engaged on their assertions who is in a better position to address that subject than the journalists who make their living writing about it? Sure, not all game journalism is a critique, but normally when there's an outcry in the gaming community at large it happens (loot boxes, or paid mod springs to mind as recent examples).

I said I'm not surprised she's not arguing back, and I don't feel like she's that obligated to do so. If a couple of people from here sent me harassment, like death and rape threats and then if I got doxed or felt like the threats were getting a little too close to home, then I might not debate on here anymore. The "open field of logic and reason." doesn't really work if it's covered in shit.

If you're going to put your thoughts out there in the public domain especially from an academic perspective you have to be prepared to be challenged on them. You might be happy to clutch your pearls and think of the children, but I don't buy it as a valid defence not to engage on some level. I've never yet seen Anita engage in any form of discussion about her positions on any platform to this day. Least of all with the mainstream gaming press. I consider that a public failure on both their parts.
 
Last edited:

Lupingosei

Banned
Funny thing about this, in my undergraduate cohort I am the *only* male out of the 8 or so people I work with. We have one person who switched majors from sociology/psychology majors (not sure if they were gender studies) and they were quickly disliked by the greater group. Their reason for joining was how "happy it is to see such progressive women in sciences". The others quickly told her something that I will always remember and cherish: "None of us care what gender or sex the people we work with are. The only thing we care about is doing the work and research to better humanity. Get over yourself and just focus on the work or leave and keep your idiotic bullshit to yourself."

Thankfully the university I attend is not highly liberal and most people here don't care about politics in general. People like her are definitely a small, annoyingly vocal minority.

I think the problem is, that certain fields of science like gaming or fandom are not very welcoming by default.

Not in a way, that you will be discriminated against, but you need to show a certain amount of dedication to advance. In STEM math is part of the studies and math is hard. There is no way to skip this, you have to sit down and learn. In history, I had to learn Latin, I also had to sit down and learn. If you want to be successful in competitive gaming like in sports, you will have to train and to join certain fandoms you have to know your basics or else you will not be accepted.

If you look at this from a pure equalitarian perspective, this is bad. Math is bad, hard games are bad and so on. You will not have instant access or instant gratification which both is a bad thing for a lot of people in humanities or the gaming press. Also because there are biological differences certain people will have easier access to certain fields. But if your whole ideology is based on the idea, that gender, science, pretty much everything is just a social construct this is not acceptable.

This is why there is this movement against the STEM fields and how they should be more inclusive and why there is this fight against fandoms because the also should be more inclusive.
 
Within the scope of the subject 'Gamergate,' I'd say she's of fundamental import. For a great many people who aren't gamers, she's the presented face of matters, through things like the Colbert report, Time magazines Top 100, and the numerous other mainstream outlets which have given her a platform and validated her narrative presentation accordingly.



If people are going to paint themselves as journalists, then it makes sense that they should hold themselves to some standards of conduct and critical scrutiny on behalf of the interest of their readership no? When someone comes along to publicly critique an arena, but then insulates themselves from any direct criticism and won't be engaged on their assertions who is in a better position to address that subject than the journalists who make their living writing about it? Sure, not all game journalism is a critique, but normally when there's an outcry in the gaming community at large it happens (loot boxes, or paid mod springs to mind as recent examples).



If you're going to put your thoughts out there in the public domain especially from an academic perspective you have to be prepared to be challenged on them. You might be happy to clutch your pearls and think of the children, but I don't buy it as a valid defence not to engage on some level. I've never yet seen Anita engage in any form of discussion about her positions on any platform to this day. Least of all with the mainstream gaming press. I consider that a public failure on both their parts.

I wasn't just talking about Anita from a solely GamerGate purview. I'm sorry if you misunderstood, but in the context of the text and as a reply to a previous post I thought that was clear. All her big media appearances are about her harassment, not the critique she gave.

" critical scrutiny on behalf of the interest of their readership no?" it would be nice, but that's not what they do(except pretty much entirely to games themselves) , so I don't expect it or look for it.
Gaming has always been an enthusiast press that doesn't really get involved in that way. I understand you feeling frustrated, but this is standard protocol. The "I read this person's criticism of certain games and this is my response" is a rare article (I saw it once for Roger Ebert, and he had to call games not art for years to get it), if it ever appears at all. Also, all the things you've just said are reasons why a lot of people in gaming media don't call themselves journalists. Loot boxes/paid mods and Anita's videos are nothing alike. One of these things is an ethically dubious business practice adopted by all the biggest game publishers, the other are a set of critical videos. I don't think they're comparable.

"you have to be prepared to be challenged on them." People did challenge them, a lot of people did, you can see those videos on the internet.

"You might be happy to clutch your pearls and think of the children, but I don't buy it as a valid defence not to engage on some level." Really? It is understandable that a person who was pretty badly harassed decided not to engage in public debates, but just to put out her videos. I don't think that's "clutching my pearls". I think it would be interesting to see an Anita vs whoever public debate, I would like that, but I don't feel like I need that, or like if it doesn't happen then she's a public failure. As I said mainstream gaming press is not really where you go for op-eds. I get the sense that you feel that them not writing and publishing a rebuttal in this case was them failing gaming somehow. Is the issue that you see Anita's work as an attack on gaming?
 

PtM

Banned
I think the problem is, that certain fields of science like gaming or fandom are not very welcoming by default.

Not in a way, that you will be discriminated against, but you need to show a certain amount of dedication to advance. In STEM math is part of the studies and math is hard. There is no way to skip this, you have to sit down and learn. In history, I had to learn Latin, I also had to sit down and learn. If you want to be successful in competitive gaming like in sports, you will have to train and to join certain fandoms you have to know your basics or else you will not be accepted.

If you look at this from a pure equalitarian perspective, this is bad. Math is bad, hard games are bad and so on. You will not have instant access or instant gratification which both is a bad thing for a lot of people in humanities or the gaming press. Also because there are biological differences certain people will have easier access to certain fields. But if your whole ideology is based on the idea, that gender, science, pretty much everything is just a social construct this is not acceptable.

This is why there is this movement against the STEM fields and how they should be more inclusive and why there is this fight against fandoms because the also should be more inclusive.
Except there's no need for gatekeeping gaming or fandom.
 
Last edited:

Kadayi

Banned
I wasn't just talking about Anita from a solely GamerGate purview. I'm sorry if you misunderstood, but in the context of the text and as a reply to a previous post I thought that was clear. All her big media appearances are about her harassment, not the critique she gave.

Sure some of her appearances have been about that, but that exposure hasn't stopped her from leveraging said exposure to cement in the wider publics mind that she is a viable rounded authority on the subject of games, despite never having once engaged in any discussion publicly with regard to the robustness of her ideas.

" critical scrutiny on behalf of the interest of their readership no?" it would be nice, but that's not what they do (except pretty much entirely to games themselves) , so I don't expect it or look for it. Gaming has always been an enthusiast press that doesn't really get involved in that way. I understand you feeling frustrated, but this is standard protocol. The "I read this person's criticism of certain games and this is my response" is a rare article (I saw it once for Roger Ebert, and he had to call games not art for years to get it), if it ever appears at all. Also, all the things you've just said are reasons why a lot of people in gaming media don't call themselves journalists. Loot boxes/paid mods and Anita's videos are nothing alike. One of these things is an ethically dubious business practice adopted by all the biggest game publishers, the other are a set of critical videos. I don't think they're comparable.
As I said mainstream gaming press is not really where you go for op-eds.

I guess film critics shouldn't have an opinion about Harvey Weinstein or any of the other Hollywood scandals because despite being tangentially related to the product, their only really qualified to talk films, not the industry itself right?

Gaming is a bigger money generator than Hollywood at this juncture. This notion that the oftentimes laughably amateurish nature of game journalism with all its many failings and faux pas is somehow a good thing because it's a niche arena in your view and therefore shouldn't be beholden to standards of professionalism or the expectations of their readers/viewers is an abject denial of reality on your part.

"you have to be prepared to be challenged on them." People did challenge them, a lot of people did, you can see those videos on the internet.

Again shes never ever once engaged in an actual open discussion about her ideas on any platform. Sure there are all sorts of videos out there that challenge her positions (some good some bad), but she herself is not engaging with those in a dialogue.

I think it would be interesting to see an Anita vs whoever public debate, I would like that, but I don't feel like I need that, or like if it doesn't happen then she's a public failure.

Your apathy is not my concern.

I get the sense that you feel that them not writing and publishing a rebuttal in this case was them failing gaming somehow. Is the issue that you see Anita's work as an attack on gaming?

It's not about rebuttal, it's about critique. I don't disagree with everything she says, but a lot of it is poorly framed and just doesn't hold up that well even cursory scrutiny. I'd say given the furore her videos have generated at times with gamers, there's plenty of reason for mainstream outlets to openly critique her in their audience's interest.
 
Last edited:

PtM

Banned
So Sarkeesian made some videos you think are weak?
And all the media give her a pass?
Maybe it's you.
 

Kadayi

Banned
So Sarkeesian made some videos you think are weak?
And all the media give her a pass?
Maybe it's you.

image.jpg


Just me? Did you even think that through before posting? In all seriousness, do you have anything remotely resembling a constructed counterpoint in you? Because I've gotta say, this hollow sniping angle of yours isn't really doing it for me as far as advancing the discussion goes.

Instead of getting bitter and snarky, make better arguments my friend.
 
Last edited:

Dunki

Member
So Sarkeesian made some videos you think are weak?
And all the media give her a pass?
Maybe it's you.

It was not weak she straight up lied and made shit up to push her agenda. That is a bit different than just having a weak argument...

Also something a bit more hilarious^^

 

PtM

Banned
Just me? Did you even think that through before posting? In all seriousness, do you have anything remotely resembling a constructed counterpoint in you? Because I've gotta say, this hollow sniping angle of yours isn't really doing it for me as far as advancing the discussion goes.

Instead of getting bitter and snarky, make better arguments my friend.
I don't like the huge brushes in which you paint a whole profession. These outlets are multitudes of independent entities.
But this monolith by your perception chose to not pick up criticisms you expected them to. As a subset (!!!!!!) of "gamers" expected them to, naturally with variants in these expectations, just for the record.
Games journalists are not a monolith. Why the fuck did pretty much none of them meet these expectations? These guys aren't writing to themselves. Maybe this requires some introspection into your expectations and their general prevalence.

Yes, I just posted the same thing with more words.
 

Makariel

Member
Games journalists are not a monolith. Why the fuck did pretty much none of them meet these expectations? These guys aren't writing to themselves.
There had been emails among games journalists about the "gamers are over" campaign, which was choreographed as it seems. It's pretty clear that most game journalists were knowing each other, and consequently perhaps lived in an echo chamber of their own. Obviously they would be meeting, going to the same events, covering the same games etc, so not surprising. And judging by the backlash it would seem that there was some sort of disconnect between the writers and some part of their audience.

People go to gaming sites for different reasons, to read about the art form they enjoy, to get consumer advice, to get confirmation that their taste in games is valid, to troll in the comments, to get an idea when what games are out etc. I do think a number of gaming sites have been losing sight of that when the whole gg started.
 

PtM

Banned
There had been emails among games journalists about the "gamers are over" campaign, which was choreographed as it seems.
Calling it a campaign goes into conspiracy-theory territory.

It's still not indicative of a monolith, even if it was an industry-wide mailing list. Outlets have an intrinsic motivation to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
 

Kadayi

Banned
I don't like the huge brushes in which you paint a whole profession. These outlets are multitudes of independent entities.
But this monolith by your perception chose to not pick up criticisms you expected them to. As a subset (!!!!!!) of "gamers" expected them to, naturally with variants in these expectations, just for the record.
Games journalists are not a monolith. Why the fuck did pretty much none of them meet these expectations? These guys aren't writing to themselves. Maybe this requires some introspection into your expectations and their general prevalence..

You not liking it isn't my concern. I'm not here for you, regardless of how much you 'fuck' or post exclamation marks.

g1389002737310511919.jpg


The alignment of interest of mainstream games media is pretty well documented already. I don't feel the need to wade into the minutiae of 'he said she said' at this juncture as that grounds already been covered extensively. As a profession, especially within the US it's abundantly clear that the gaming press is a pretty incestuous group with a lot of crossover in terms of those involved, so it's natural to expect a commonality of opinion to arise, but that is not necessarily a good thing, least of all when it moves out of synch with its audience as it has over the years.

As someone with a media studies background, I'm more interested how we got here, in terms of a schism between audience and gaming press. What are the factors and events that precipitated this divide and eventually lead to gamergate? Personally, I think the roots of discord really started to emerge around the period of Doritosgate (when the gaming press came under criticism from within their own ranks) and then the pretty vocal kickback against gamers over the fans reception to the Mass Effect 3 ending, and the emergence of the 'entitled fan' narrative, which was really just a means to de-legitimise consumer dissatisfaction when all is said and done. Game journalism biting the hand that feeds it and siding with developers over their audience was a move of such unprecedented hubris as a collective they've never really been able to wash away the taint since.
 

PtM

Banned
Game journalism biting the hand that feeds it and siding with developers over their audience was a move of such unprecedented hubris as a collective they've never really been able to wash away the taint since.
If they bite the hand that feeds them, they will die.
If they survive, then you're not speaking for the whole of their audience. Then you're not as big as you thought. You're not all there is to gamers.
 

Kadayi

Banned
If they bite the hand that feeds them, they will die.

Not really. You change your approach (and your personnel). Most sites have. Sure there's enough internet traffic to sustain the likes of Polygon with all their outrage or Waypoint with their 'reasons why we won't play this game' shtick, and there's an audience for that sort of thing for sure, but it's hardly an endorsement.
 
Last edited:

PtM

Banned
Not really. You change your approach (and your personnel). Most sites have. Sure there's enough internet traffic to sustain the likes of Polygon with all their outrage or Waypoint with their 'reasons why we won't play this game' shtick, and there's an audience for that sort of thing for sure, but it's hardly an endorsement.
That's debatable.

So would the new approach take a more thorough focus on a new Sarkeesian video on tropes in games?
 
Calling it a campaign goes into conspiracy-theory territory. It's still not indicative of a monolith, even if it was an industry-wide mailing list.

Let me state that there was indeed such a mailing list. Nevertheless, any discussion pertaining to its nature, content or purpose would largely boil down to speculation and be fruitless anyway. So I'll just take Kyle Orland's word on it. What I take issue with is your attempt to conflate the largely homogeneous political affiliation of american game journalists with some kind of conspiracy theory. Is the ascertainment that reporters in general tend to converge along certain political trench-lines also just a 'conspiracy'? What about the fact that business and industry sectors are perceived differently according to political affiliation? By that same measure, the 62% of Americans who see partisan bias in news media are also just a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists.

You know as well as I do, that's not what Makariel Makariel meant. Political solidification happens through socialization effects by which political views get circled around. It's no secret that many of the journalists involved shared the same social circles and were oftentimes pretty collegial with each other, cultivating to varying degrees some sort of cronyism.

Outlets have an intrinsic motivation to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Except when they're all embroiled in some kind of controversy that undermines their professional competence and directly attacks their business practices.
 
Sure some of her appearances have been about that, but that exposure hasn't stopped her from leveraging said exposure to cement in the wider publics mind that she is a viable rounded authority on the subject of games, despite never having once engaged in any discussion publicly with regard to the robustness of her ideas.




I guess film critics shouldn't have an opinion about Harvey Weinstein or any of the other Hollywood scandals because despite being tangentially related to the product, their only really qualified to talk films, not the industry itself right?

Gaming is a bigger money generator than Hollywood at this juncture. This notion that the oftentimes laughably amateurish nature of game journalism with all its many failings and faux pas is somehow a good thing because it's a niche arena in your view and therefore shouldn't be beholden to standards of professionalism or the expectations of their readers/viewers is an abject denial of reality on your part.



Again shes never ever once engaged in an actual open discussion about her ideas on any platform. Sure there are all sorts of videos out there that challenge her positions (some good some bad), but she herself is not engaging with those in a dialogue.



Your apathy is not my concern.



It's not about rebuttal, it's about critique. I don't disagree with everything she says, but a lot of it is poorly framed and just doesn't hold up that well even cursory scrutiny. I'd say given the furore her videos have generated at times with gamers, there's plenty of reason for mainstream outlets to openly critique her in their audience's interest.

The wider public doesn't even know she exists. They are not checking for her viewpoints on things.

Harvey Weinstein is not comparable to Anita's videos. Harvey Weinstein raped actresses. It was a international story. Harvey Weinstein was a famous movie producer. It wasn't that he had an opinion people disagreed with. That's not comparable at all.

You keep framing it like I'm happy with mainstream gaming coverage. This isn't about what I want, it's about expectation. I don't expect the mainstream gaming media to start critiquing other people's gaming critique because they don't do that stuff. If what you feel is that it should be different, that's reasonable. However, what I'm telling you is that your expectations are completely out of wack with how this industry has always acted. If you're an Ign reader who expected a critique of Anita's videos on Ign I have to call into question your expectations. Get in touch with Ign and request that kind of content in the future or make your own gaming website where you do those things, but saying "they failed their readers" by not making a content type that they never make (content that they don't hire people with a view to making) is wild to me.

"she herself is not engaging with those in a dialogue." - "It is understandable that a person who was pretty badly harassed decided not to engage in public debates, but just to put out her videos." I also don't think we need her to engage in those videos, for us as a community to have a constructive conversation about it.

"there's plenty of reason for mainstream outlets to openly critique her in their audience's interest." I agree, however, there are plenty of reasons for a lot of gaming content not being made to exist, and plenty of reasons for this specific gaming media content not to exist which I outlined above.
 

PtM

Banned
Let me state that there was indeed such a mailing list. Nevertheless, any discussion pertaining to its nature, content or purpose would largely boil down to speculation and be fruitless anyway. So I'll just take Kyle Orland's word on it. What I take issue with is your attempt to conflate the largely homogeneous political affiliation of american game journalists with some kind of conspiracy theory. Is the ascertainment that reporters in general tend to converge along certain political trench-lines also just a 'conspiracy'? What about the fact that business and industry sectors are perceived differently according to political affiliation? By that same measure, the 62% of Americans who see partisan bias in news media are also just a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists.

You know as well as I do, that's not what Makariel Makariel meant. Political solidification happens through socialization effects by which political views get circled around. It's no secret that many of the journalists involved shared the same social circles and were oftentimes pretty collegial with each other, cultivating to varying degrees some sort of cronyism.



Except when they're all embroiled in some kind of controversy that undermines their professional competence and directly attacks their business practices.
You're leaving out that the study finds most reporters to identify as unaffiliated. Though there are four times as many democrats as republicans among the rest, and it might look different in VG media.
Anyhow, so be it. The people in that private group (not industry-wide, but made up by people who know each other or each other's other) may all be democrats. Does that mean they ran a campaign? Surely not if you're taking Orland's word for it.

I was still thinking about the coverage of FemFreq there. And the gamers-over article wasn't necessarily an attack on gamers, as far as I'm hearing. There's another leap involved there anyway, to read it as retaliation for doritogate.
I got the chronology completely wrong, it's in retaliation to GG actually.
 
Last edited:

Achelexus

Member
May be an unpopular opinion, but looking at the comics industry of all places(specially Marvel), how their sales are tanking, and everything else currently going with it. I think that Gamergate was a good thing in the end, even if just to not allow the gaming industry to head the same path that the comics one took.
 
Last edited:
Let's talk news. I've just read Charlie Hall's kinda sorta review of Kingdom Come. It's mostly filled with subjective stuff, so I'm not gonna comment on that, whatever floats his boat I guess. But it's pretty apparent that the writer in question can't get over his disdain for Daniel Vávra. The whole article is pretty much oozing butthurt, transparently so considering that he felt the urge to retweet Waypoint's bullshit stance that they are not going to cover the game. By this point I'm pretty much convinced that these people need to keep the specter of GG alive in order to ostracize anybody who's not in perfect agreement with whatever political viewpoint is currently trending among their hipster circles. But whatever, that's his thing I guess... What I take issue with is the following statement from the article:

So outspoken is the studio’s leadership on cultural issues that they have found it necessary to work with a German outlet to publish anti-fascist, anti-sexist and anti-racist statements prior to their game’s launch.

That is an outright lie. I happen to read the German gaming press and let me tell you what actually happened. GameStar was the one who approached Warhorse studios, because they were baited by some random wordpress blogger who outright accused Vávra of being a Nazi and tried to raise a fuss by making GameStar guilty by association. It even says so right in the article that was linked. Obviously GameStar didn't fall for that nonsense and asked Vávra and his team to make a couple of statements in order to set the record straight.

In the wake of these allegations, GameStar even published a pretty sane and nuanced editorial explaining why it's all mostly sensationalized bullshit by underlining the fact that the game itself presents no such questionable undertones. They expressed their need to analyze the game for what it is without giving in to politically motivated social media outrage. All in all, most German gaming outlets are dealing with this in a pretty neutral and professional manner, unfortunately the same cannot be said about Polygon and Charlie Hall.
 

Makariel

Member
Calling it a campaign goes into conspiracy-theory territory.
I was writing campaign because that was just a word that came into my mind and I couldn't think of a better. Ever thought that you might be talking with people here who are not native speakers? English is not my first language (not even my second), so sorry if I sometimes misuse words. But if you insist on picking out specific words and mis-interpreting what I'm trying to say, I don't see how we can have a constructive dialogue? I tried to understand where you are coming from, you seem to try to find a word to twist so to "win" the argument and ignore everything else. Whatever, hope you are happy, order yourself a trophy from amazon if you want.
 

PtM

Banned
I was writing campaign because that was just a word that came into my mind and I couldn't think of a better. Ever thought that you might be talking with people here who are not native speakers? English is not my first language (not even my second), so sorry if I sometimes misuse words. But if you insist on picking out specific words and mis-interpreting what I'm trying to say, I don't see how we can have a constructive dialogue? I tried to understand where you are coming from, you seem to try to find a word to twist so to "win" the argument and ignore everything else. Whatever, hope you are happy, order yourself a trophy from amazon if you want.
I beg your pardon.
Though I believe the rest of that post works independently from the remark, which was mainly about framing.
 

KevinKeene

Banned
If anybody needed another example for why GG is necessary: https://www.resetera.com/threads/wh...iticise-supposed-sjw-material-in-games.24028/

I'm glad NeoGAF exists. That other forum is so incredibly cazy, yet with such a confident attitude going along with it. So many 'I've heard [enter whatever helps your agenda] somewhere, these people calling out anti-sjws are bad. GG boo!'-postings.

Imagine if I just wrote something like:
I've read somewhere that feminists are organizing walks-of-shame at highschools where all boys have to participate. They're booed at and insulted on their way to class. Resetera!

:/
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom