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[TheGraykid]

I think it's important to look at one of the most impactful gaming related ideologies of the last few years and evaluate their effect on the overall scene.

Personally I am not a fan. Someone in another thread described their ideology as the following:

1. Games are about fun, not political agenda
2. Facts over feelings
3. Censorship is always bad

So, I set out to critique them based on that.

I think GamerGate as an intellectual movement is so irritating because its core values are vague and don't make sense, almost to the point where I have to consider if this is done on purpose to enable guilt free attacks on other fringe movements within gaming.

1. Games are about fun, not political agenda

For example, the above makes no sense because all pieces of art that depict people are inherently political, and have a political agenda. Games like call of duty, Battlefield, Horizon, Uncharted, Halo, Grand Theft Auto all have huge political text and subtext. However, when I see people within the GamerGate sphere attacking games for having "political agendas" these games are not brought up. These attacks tend to be solely made on games that have a non-white or non-straight or non-male protagonist/protagonists. Games that depict what those other people's lives are like. This is why the movement appears to be motivated by themes deeper than a simple "political agenda in games is bad" viewpoint.

2. Facts over feelings

I don't have much to say for this point, it's just standard dismissive framing. "The things I disagree with are feelings, the things I agree with are facts."

3. Censorship is always bad

Which again brings us back to the issue of dismissive framing. "When I talk about the negative things in a game or think a game should be different, that's a critique, when others do the same, that's censorship."

"When a female gaming journalist praises an otherwise bad game for its diversity... people will call that out, because it's bs." The political purview of a game matters, what makes a story good is often what that story has to say. Shadow of the Colossus, for example, has huge things to say about our relationship to our environment and animals, that's one of the reasons I love that game. Games that depict minorities and women within them, and have interesting things to say about them, are games seeking to enhance their story, if you do that well then why shouldn't that be praised in the same way Shadow of the Colossus' story is praised. It's the same thing.

It feels like GamerGate as a movement is attempting to basically say "Games that don't fit my political viewpoint shouldn't exist.". That's why so many people don't like it. I am open to being convinced that this isn't the case, but given the things that they complain about this is my personal conclusion.

What do you guys think?

 

[EviLore]

Quoting my post that prompted this separate thread. which has some background inside back from when everything first went down here. Thanks for splitting it off independently from my other thread as per my request.

If you must talk about GG -- which you are allowed to here, mind you, with the same basic guidelines about civility and respect and all that as we have board-wide -- could you please take it to another thread? Soon, at least? Obviously this post will be part of the problem; I'm not going to demand this formally, but I'd appreciate it nonetheless since I'm so worn out by this crap and I became an unwitting target in the sjw vs gg wars.

Background: I thought Zoe's ex-bf's novel-length blog post was patently ridiculous, a public expose of an entirely personal matter that didn't sound plausible at all for some free game for charity about depression (no matter how virginal the typical games journo is...I've been to E3, believe me), and no one's actual business besides. I'm a fan of personal privacy, as it happens. I called it out as such on neogaf through some satirical comments intended to highlight the absurdity of it all, and that instantly ended up turning NeoGAF into the front line battleground for the GG vs SJW movement. I received thousands of hate messages (many from obvious bot accounts) almost instantly, was called out by #gamergate hashtag creator Adam Baldwin personally on twitter (after our back and forth, he deleted his tweets @ me after I verbally demolished him; just sayin', you're my bitch, Adam), and from that point on even though the "movement" evolved and did have issues of merit to discuss, the endless stream of creepers and basement "investigative journalists" coming after me in the wake of all that chose my "side" for me without leaving much up to choice, and my mods did the rest afterwards since the battle lines had apparently been drawn.

I kept my hands off all those Anita Sark topics for the most part, because I think her videos aren't the greatest, and I've publicly locked I believe every thread about her attempting "feminist film criticism" because the film criticism is trash. Calling Fury Road misogynist sealed that deal for me. No offense, but please don't review movies. Video game, sure, whatever, it's disproportionately nerdy awkward guys in those studios and there are some obvious failings as a result. I'm under NDA so I can't speak to specifics but I've seen and heard some seriously cringe-worthy stuff consulting for studio video game projects re: women and PoC. Overly forced diversity also causes problems, though, and PoC friends have rolled their eyes at that at well in recent Hollywood productions for being too neatly distributed to the point where checklists are clearly being marked first, any other considerations second. Culturally we're still navigating all this. The main thing to probably do is stop listening to an angry vocal minority on social media. As an side, I'm personally way cooler with the idea of something like Black Panther, where something like afrocentrism is explored fully and unapologetically, rather than Disney Checklist Diversity Appeasement (cough TLJ) . There's balance in there somewhere though.

I don't really give a shit anymore about all that drama though, and so many people have told me to kill myself or whatever that I can have a chuckle at it now, and I think it's possible to have reasonable discussion about issues like censorship and diversity in video games without going all -- as ever -- polarized us vs them sjw/tumblr feminist vs gg/alt-right/whatever. Pull your asses out of of that ridiculous, manipulated, polarized tribalism and start talking to your fellow human. That's the most important step to getting anywhere, and I'm glad to see so much open, sincere discussion from multiple viewpoints happening on GAF now.

What I will say is that harassment is not cool. Zoe and Anita shouldn't have needed FBI protection from an army of internet trolls. Everyone needs to chill the fuck out with trying to use internet mob justice to destroy people's lives.

I invited Zoe to come post/talk on NeoGAF a day or two ago. Hope she does; understand if she doesn't.

Also moving this to gaming side. Please keep it civil and respectful. My own direct involvement in the discussion may or may not continue so don't assume anything there, but the mod team will try to keep things mature and reasonable and please don't make it hard on them to do so. Thanks.

Oh, and like I said in the above post, I did invite Zoe to participate on GAF directly the other day if she'd like. I don't believe we've met or spoken before, but if you're engaged with her on Twitter (in a friend way, not a harassment way...), consider nudging her to hop on here whether for an AMA or casual conversation (moderated, of course). Feels like we're maybe ready to shed the polarized tribalism and talk about all this like adults here, yeah? Thanks.

 

[Alx]

I never went too deep into understanding Gamergate, because it usually lead me to silly arguments and opinions that make my head spin. It seems that there is a lot more aggregating around whatever definition it's trying to have, which makes it chaotic and hard to argue with/against.
Anyway if we're going with your three points, my opinion would be rather similar to yours.
1. Games and political agenda : it's true that I'm fond of silly and shallow games, I don't play Sonic or Virtua Fighter for the plot or the politics. But as you say, games are a medium and they can have a political agenda if their creators want to. Just like comics, music, cartoons, novels, movies,... Nothing wrong with a game that's just about fun, but nothing wrong with a game trying to be more than that either.

2. Facts over feeling : honestly I don't understand what that is about...

3. Censorship is bad : maybe, when it's excessive. But it doesn't look like there has been a lot of censorship in games recently (as in content that has been removed from a game for being inappropriate). Now there is some criticism on several aspects of games (like sexism), but criticism is good. We should never stop thinking and discussing about stuff, especially on controversial topics.

 

[Big4reel]

Games can be political unless it doesn`t try to rub an agenda on your face... but I think people only complain if its an agenda they don`t support. Though I don`t think I know much that sorta had a obvious agenda they wanted to push other than uncharted 4 and xenoblade 2.

 

[Reyben]

1. Games are about fun, not political agenda

2. Facts over feelings

3. Censorship is always bad

That's.... not what the core gamergate ideology is about.

 

[DGrayson]

you have a lot of very similar arguments going on in comic books as an analogy. Some people dont want to read politics in comics.

Its not something I understand. There are so many video games being made why would it upset you if one of them touches on politics you may not agree with. Cant you just play a different game?

As gaming becomes bigger and bigger these sorts of things are going to crop up more and more. Its best to get used to it now its not going away.

 

[TheGraykid]

That's.... not what the core gamergate ideology is about.

As I said, this is what was told to me by another poster. Please do elaborate if you have a differing opinion.

 

[PtM]

With the amount of SJW bashing that is en vogue now on GAF, Quinn must have had a good laugh at the idea of showing up.

That's.... not what the core gamergate ideology is about.

"Actually it's about ethics in video game journalism."

So, time for some fake news:
https://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-theyre-a-hate-1644984010
This researcher looks at the GG channers and compares them to a study on hate groups. She got a match.

 

[Reyben]

Because there is no core.

But old NeoGaf told me that it was something like "harass women out of gaming by any means necessary".

 

[TheGraykid]

But old NeoGaf told me that it was something like "harass women out of gaming by any means necessary".

Again, if you have a differing opinion please do give it.

 

[Lupingosei]

you have a lot of very similar arguments going on in comic books as an analogy. Some people dont want to read politics in comics.

No, politics were always part of comics and nobody cared. Look at the X-Men and other series. People also liked characters like Black Panther, Luke Cage or James Rhodes because they were great characters. They were good characters and everything else second. Now the characters in comics are just a minority and everything else second. And they are also perfect, because they are often the alter-ego of a creator, which makes them even worse.

Its not something I understand. There are so many video games being made why would it upset you if one of them touches on politics you may not agree with. Cant you just play a different game?

That is not how it works. It is getting pushed into already existing franchises, because way to often new franchises with those topics just don't sell. So it is some kind of re-education and people hat that.

As gaming becomes bigger and bigger these sorts of things are going to crop up more and more. Its best to get used to it now its not going away.

I think nobody has a problem with that. You can ignore it, but look at Kingdom Come Deliverance. People insist that they developers share their political views on the middle age not what they think is right, like staying close to the exiting sources. Or look at SNK heroines how people insist that the Japanese developers change their game, because they don't like it.

 

[Dunki]

It was never about politics in gaming. Almost every game has poltical plots in there. Especially JRPGs which also feature a ton of religion in it. No one cared if a game was used to spread some political opinion or view. IT was about using these ideologies to change gaming instead of use these views to expand on genres, topics issues. When Anita bought these videos it was all about handpicked negativity she never cared about the tons of great female characters gaming had to over she only cared about the points she could us for her agenda. And for that she even stole Lets play videos in which people did stupid shit. Like in Hitman for example which was the absolute worst reflection I have seen from her.

And gaming journlism jumped into it and wrote these terrible gamers are over articles. That was the point for me to look into all this stuff and I found it was way moe grey than these people made it to be. It was never about hate against women it was about changing a subculture which was bulied up by people who were already bullied out of society. No one cared if you were a women, trans person a guy or black, asian etc.. And you also could clearly see this in the supporters of Gamergate it was all about your tone. If you came into gaming to experiment with new stuff like bringing in feministic themes in games it was totally fine. And that never wsa the issue.

The issue was that these people stigmatized other groups because of what they loved to play. Example stupid fanservice games and they wanted to change these games instead of creating new games or IPs that would fit into their ideology. They tried to change gaming and that why the people who once were already bullied out of society became mad and defend their subculture. Anita even admitted that she never really cared about games probably not until she could make money from it.

That said I never engaged with anyone on gamergate who has threaten other people in any form. Quite the opposite. I even took part in massing reports of people who doxxed and has threaten other people.

As for comics: What I really dislike it the absolute lazyness to just gender switch well known characters or just give them another race etc instead of creating original great new superheroes. This kind of forced diversity was always stupid to me. Same in gaming. Like the whole Link debate for example. This is just lazy and Indy games do it a lot better in this regard.

I also accept that gaming changes when it gets bigger. But these people went for absolute Niche games which were sold like 20k worldwide which then has lead to asian developers not even releasing some games anymore since they fear a huge backlash.

 

[Inviusx]

This thread is going to go south real quick. I thought Neogaf had moved passed this type of discussion, it never goes well.

 

[cubicle47b]

This thread is going to go south real quick. I thought Neogaf had moved passed this type of discussion, it never goes well.

I'm sure mods will lock the thread if it starts getting out of hand. I think it has a chance to be an interesting discussion now.

 

[PtM]

I think nobody has a problem with that. You can ignore it, but look at Kingdom Come Deliverance. People insist that they developers share their political views on the middle age not what they think is right, like staying close to the exiting sources. Or look at SNK heroines how people insist that the Japanese developers change their game, because they don't like it.

People aren't allowed to insist?

 

[Dunki]

People aren't allowed to insist?

I think when you never had the intention to buy or play it in the first place then no you should not. I am also not interested in Fifa so I will never demand changes so I could like it. Not every game has to be for everyone and that goes for the genre, artstyle, topics, characters etc.

Of ccourse you can say something but developers should not listen to you. They only do in these cases because they fear backlash of being called sexist racist etc.

 

[Lupingosei]

People aren't allowed to insist?

Of course, but they must also be able to say no, if they don't want to without having whole internet mob at their back.

 

[ehead]

The term "Gamergate"makes me feel bad. Bleh. I guess because it was associated to the "mob" harassing developers and personalities about differing opinions. It is the same type of "mob" that perpetuated here a few months ago.

I'll just comment on the first point of this so called ideology - it is very flawed. As DGrayson stated, a game having its own political agenda is inevitable. Developers have their own right to put whatever they want in their game. Every type of media has this. Why can't games do it as well? Videogames are no longer binary (well, in a sense). If one is so offended by the supposed political agenda, why not just ignore it?

 

[KevinKeene]

1. Games are about fun, not political agenda

For example, the above makes no sense because all pieces of art that depict people are inherently political, and have a political agenda.

I completely disagree. When I play Zelda, GTA4 or Kingdom Hearts, the game doesn't rub any political agenda in my face. I also severely doubt Aonuma wanted to express any political agenda with BotW, unless we take it to a philosophical level and call him an environmentalist because of how great it is to explore nature in his game. But that'd be silly.

I'd go as far as to say most games don't have a political agenda and they're usually better for it. Having a political agenda is something you find in a handful of aaa-games and then a ton of indie-games, because garnering attention via means of story is easier than doing so with great gameplay.

2. Facts over feelings

I don't have much to say for this point, it's just standard dismissive framing. "The things I disagree with are feelings, the things I agree with are facts."

That's a really unfair assessment. Just look at how Jordan Peterson is treated. This man has no outlandish agenda, he's mostly observant of natural/sociological facts and tells them. And then people from websites like resetera condemn him without ever bringing a single valid counterargument to what Peterson says. It's all about feelings for them.

That happens all the time. Again, remember the Alison Rapp-case. Mods on neogaf back then forbade to mention the actual reason why she was fired. It was evil Nintendo, listening to evil harassers. Meanwhile on GG-communities, you'd find out that she was secretly working as a prostitute, a double offense, both against Nintendo's company-rules and against state law. But it was 'mean' to talk about that, so it was forbidden to talk about it.

That is what it means 'facts over feelings'. There's nothing nebulous, vague or biased about it. I've seen threads started on KotakuInAction that tried to shit on sjws, but were quckly closed because the topic creator was lacking a proper source or made something seem bigger than it actually was. GG doesn't discriminate certain facts. It's either fact or it isn't.

3. Censorship is always bad

Which again brings us back to the issue of dismissive framing. "When I talk about the negative things in a game or think a game should be different, that's a critique, when others do the same, that's censorship."

The difference is that GG doesn't call for any game to not exist. People will criticize what they don't like (which is really normal, but that's it. Sjws meanwhile actively call for censorship, changes and boycott, if they don't like something. Unfortunately, companies often times listen to this vocal minority, which then causes tragedies like the western version of Tokyo Mirage Sessions.

If you don't like something, don't buy it. The end. But din't ruin it for others who like it. That's gamergate.

It feels like GamerGate as a movement is attempting to basically say "Games that don't fit my political viewpoint shouldn't exist.". That's why so many people don't like it.

That's really not true, see above.

That's.... not what the core gamergate ideology is about.

It is. Maybe you should educate yourself and follow a GG-community to see what it's about. What it's not about: harassment and misogyny. That's what people like resetera propagate to marginalize differing viewpoints.

you have a lot of very similar arguments going on in comic books as an analogy. Some people dont want to read politics in comics.

Its not something I understand. There are so many video games being made why would it upset you if one of them touches on politics you may not agree with. Cant you just play a different game?

You have this backwards. GG doesn't tell anyone which games should exist and which shouldn't. Meanwhile the anti-GG side unionizes to call for censorship, changes or firings, because they don't want certain games to exist. So I find it a bit unfair that you adress 'cant you just play another game?' towards GG.

Phew, typing on a smartphone is terrible ;/

 

[dolabla]

TBH, I still don't really know what this whole GamerGate is about (I've never really cared to know cause I usually don't get into drama stuff; I'm not a drama person). I've looked it up before (though barely even read any of it cause I just didn't really give a hoot; I just kept seeing people mention it), but my knowledge of this goes as far as a guy who wrote a blog about his ex gf and she was harassed. Other than that, my knowledge is pretty much zero on this subject.

But since this is now a thread, and as someone on the outside looking in, I'll be interested to read what happened and the different perspectives on people who are for or against. I know there are always two sides of everything.

 

[Reyben]

With the amount of SJW bashing that is en vogue now on GAF, Quinn must have had a good laugh at the idea of showing up.

"Actually it's about ethics in video game journalism."

So, time for some fake news:
https://jezebel.com/gamergate-trolls-arent-ethics-crusaders-theyre-a-hate-1644984010
This researcher looks at the GG channers and compares them to a study on hate groups. She got a match.

Jezebel.com

 

[KevinKeene]

I know there are always two sides of everything.

At least two sides. Usually many more. Americans like to simplify that too often.

 

[Nobo-ty]

I have been lurking ‘off topic’ off and on and wondered if this particular subject would come up.

(I’m only going to go over the one thing that always got under my skin with GG, debate over changing games and shaming/criticizing developers for their choice in game design isn’t my focus. It’s one thing to legitimately discuss a design, mechanic, or story decision, but it’s another to try to shame and humiliate/harass a developer or accuse them of being something they’re not, aka Dragon’s Crown Designer and Schrier on this very forum or Tim Soret discussions pre-Gaf purge)

I’ll give a little of my opinion on this, the main thing I was concerned about when it came to GG was the implications of the games press getting far too chummy with developers and the possibilities of favorable coverage for “a little something on the side”. How much of that has ever happened (is or still does) nowadays with #metoo raging onward is debatable.

But after a while I had to just ask myself why even bother in worrying about the video game press and what they do? We have YouTube and Twitch streams for being able to assess a game, a 10,000 word essay on how Sonic the Hedgehog is an allegory of American capitalism tells me nothing about the game or how it plays. Sure the trustworthy-ness of YouTube reviewers and Twitch streamers is debatable, but they have far more to lose if they get found out being a corporate shill.

A lot of gaming based web pages are on their death bed, or are on the verge of collapse. Why else would sites like Destructoid, Polygon, Kotaku, and countless others shift from only focusing on games to having to “review” snacks? Or literally write an article about using Amiibo as a butt plug (and yes that’s a real article by Mike Fahey). I’ve quit going to almost every gaming web page other than reddit’s R/games and r/nintendoswitch for any games related information that I’d want anymore. And I coudln’t be happier with my hobby of playing video games, even more so since I’m not visiting these sites.

GG is barely even a thing anymore, the only people I see bring it up are ones in the game’s press/fanboys that are continuously trying to keep the fire going of a righteous crusade to save gaming from ”the inferiors”. It’s at this point a dead movement relegated to KotakuInAction, which has shifted from focusing on gaming, to all things deemed censorship in their eyes.

 

[Dunki]

And then you never should forget this here.

Full report

https://womenactionmedia.org/cms/assets/uploads/2015/05/wam-twitter-abuse-report.pdf

 

[TheGraykid]

It was never about politics in gaming. Almost every game has poltical plots in there. Especially JRPGs which also feature a ton of religion in it. No one cared if a game was used to spread some political opinion or view. IT was about using these ideologies to change gaming instead of use these views to expand on genres, topics issues. When Anita bought these videos it was all about handpicked negativity she never cared about the tons of great female characters gaming had to over she only cared about the points she could us for her agenda. And for that she even stole Lets play videos in which people did stupid shit. Like in Hitman for example which was the absolute worst reflection I have seen from her.

And gaming journlism jumped into it and wrote these terrible gamers are over articles. That was the point for me to look into all this stuff and I found it was way moe grey than these people made it to be. It was never about hate against women it was about changing a subculture which was bulied up by people who were already bullied out of society. No one cared if you were a women, trans person a guy or black, asian etc.. And you also could clearly see this in the supporters of Gamergate it was all about your tone. If you came into gaming to experiment with new stuff like bringing in feministic themes in games it was totally fine. And that never wsa the issue.

The issue was that these people stigmatized other groups because of what they loved to play. Example stupid fanservice games and they wanted to change these games instead of creating new games or IPs that would fit into their ideology. They tried to change gaming and that why the people who once were already bullied out of society became mad and defend their subculture. Anita even admitted that she never really cared about games probably not until she could make money from it.

That said I never engaged with anyone on gamergate who has threaten other people in any form. Quite the opposite. I even took part in massing reports of people who doxxed and has threaten other people.

As for comics: What I really dislike it the absolute lazyness to just gender switch well known characters or just give them another race etc instead of creating original great new superheroes. This kind of forced diversity was always stupid to me. Same in gaming. Like the whole Link debate for example. This is just lazy and Indy games do it a lot better in this regard.

I also accept that gaming changes when it gets bigger. But these people went for absolute Niche games which were sold like 20k worldwide which then has lead to asian developers not even releasing some games anymore since they fear a huge backlash.

I think there are multiple contributing factors.

1. Gaming culture is currently at the point where more minorities and females are engaging in this culture than ever before. They also have a bigger voice than ever before.

2. Gaming culture is no longer focused on creating new worlds/characters/franchises because the audience just isn't that into it. That's not where the money is.

So, here we are, the population of visible and audible gamers has changed, the creators themselves have changed and matured. Why wouldn't the games be different now? People are allowed to call for things to change to their taste. You can't look at people who you view as being "new" and call their tastes illegitimate. Gaming culture doesn't belong to anyone. For example, in the same way, you can be like "I would find Big Gaming Franchise X more enjoyable if the character designs were better." I can say "I would find Big Gaming Franchise X more enjoyable if the people of colour in it were better written". Big Gaming Franchise X doesn't belong to a super specific idea of what gaming culture is. Big Gaming Franchises changes dramatically as the years go on, that's not a bad thing.

 

[Reyben]

It is. Maybe you should educate yourself and follow a GG-community to see what it's about. What it's not about: harassment and misogyny. That's what people like resetera propagate to marginalize differing viewpoints.

"Facts over feelings" is a Ben Shapiro, Milo, maybe Peterson catchphrase. It's not specifically gamergate.
"Games are about fun, not political agenda" is worded poorly at best. Games can be 100% political if the developers want to, that's not the problem.
"Censorship is always bad" is more or less correct, but again, it's not of the main points, i think, just a reaction to SJW calling for censorship.

"Fucking/paying reviewers to get good scores is bad."
"Social justice in gaming (and pretty much everywhere else) is bad."
These 2 points describe gamergate a little better, i think. I mean, these days it sadly (d)evolved into "how to set up the white ethnostate" and "who should we gas first", but that's another matter.

 

[Dunki]

I think there are multiple contributing factors.

1. Gaming culture is currently at the point where more minorities and females are engaging in this culture than ever before. They also have a bigger voice than ever before.

2. Gaming culture is no longer focused on creating new worlds/characters/franchises because the audience just isn't that into it. That's not where the money is.

So, here we are, the population of visible and audible gamers has changed, the creators themselves have changed and matured. Why wouldn't the games be different now? People are allowed to call for things to change to their taste. You can't look at people who you view as being "new" and call their tastes illegitimate. Gaming culture doesn't belong to anyone. For example, in the same way, you can be like "I would find Big Gaming Franchise X more enjoyable if the character designs were better." I can say "I would find Big Gaming Franchise X more enjoyable if the people of colour in it were better written". Big Gaming Franchise X doesn't belong to a super specific idea of what gaming culture is. Big Gaming Franchises changes dramatically as the years go on, that's not a bad thing.

Gaming culture does exist because these people were bullied out of society. When it became big they tried to push into this culture and instead of expanding it they tried to change it. Thats why people got mad. And no one would care if these people only went for the huge AAA games. They went after absolute niche games and demanded to change them. Games they would have never looked at. The era thread about female sexualisation is a great example in there they do not even care about they games they go against ANY female character who wears a skirt or high heels. These people do not care at least about these games so why should anyone listen to them except for the fact that they otherwise call it sexist and put a bad image on it.

Newest example was the SNK game.

 

[TheGraykid]

I completely disagree. When I play Zelda, GTA4 or Kingdom Hearts, the game doesn't rub any political agenda in my face. I also severely doubt Aonuma wanted to express any political agenda with BotW, unless we take it to a philosophical level and call him an environmentalist because of how great it is to explore nature in his game. But that'd be silly.

I'd go as far as to say most games don't have a political agenda and they're usually better for it. Having a political agenda is something you find in a handful of aaa-games and then a ton of indie-games, because garnering attention via means of story is easier than doing so with great gameplay.



That's a really unfair assessment. Just look at how Jordan Peterson is treated. This man has no outlandish agenda, he's mostly observant of natural/sociological facts and tells them. And then people from websites like resetera condemn him without ever bringing a single valid counterargument to what Peterson says. It's all about feelings for them.

That happens all the time. Again, remember the Alison Rapp-case. Mods on neogaf back then forbade to mention the actual reason why she was fired. It was evil Nintendo, listening to evil harassers. Meanwhile on GG-communities, you'd find out that she was secretly working as a prostitute, a double offense, both against Nintendo's company-rules and against state law. But it was 'mean' to talk about that, so it was forbidden to talk about it.

That is what it means 'facts over feelings'. There's nothing nebulous, vague or biased about it. I've seen threads started on KotakuInAction that tried to shit on sjws, but were quckly closed because the topic creator was lacking a proper source or made something seem bigger than it actually was. GG doesn't discriminate certain facts. It's either fact or it isn't.



The difference is that GG doesn't call for any game to not exist. People will criticize what they don't like (which is really normal, but that's it. Sjws meanwhile actively call for censorship, changes and boycott, if they don't like something. Unfortunately, companies often times listen to this vocal minority, which then causes tragedies like the western version of Tokyo Mirage Sessions.

If you don't like something, don't buy it. The end. But din't ruin it for others who like it. That's gamergate.



That's really not true, see above.



It is. Maybe you should educate yourself and follow a GG-community to see what it's about. What it's not about: harassment and misogyny. That's what people like resetera propagate to marginalize differing viewpoints.



You have this backwards. GG doesn't tell anyone which games should exist and which shouldn't. Meanwhile the anti-GG side unionizes to call for censorship, changes or firings, because they don't want certain games to exist. So I find it a bit unfair that you adress 'cant you just play another game?' towards GG.

Phew, typing on a smartphone is terrible ;/

Zelda BOTW, a game about people who look different, who come from different backgrounds, and share different values coming together to fight a common evil. That doesn't have a political message? GTA4, a game about an Eastern European immigrant war veteran coming to the USA in order to chase the American dream and getting tangled in organised crime. That doesn't have a political message? I don't know enough about Kingdom Hearts to make the same breakdown, but I'm sure it has many a political message. Maybe that's not why you come to these games, and you don't look for them, but they are there.

I don't want to argue about Jordan Peterson in this thread, because that will completely derail everything, so I won't.

Also in your previous post in another thread, you complained about games you perceived to be "bad", getting high scores because of what you assume to be their themes. People within GG get mad the moment they see any praise given to these games that contain themes that they don't like. And, if a gaming series they like starts to include these themes they whine and beg for them to be taken out. Don't you remember the meltdown some people had when GTA had its first black protagonist? Or the meltdown people had last year about Assassin's Creed Origins.

 

[Phoenix RISING]

GamerGate is what happens when people don't read ****ing books.

Video games have been political since flippin Mrs. Pac-Man. That was 1982 when Namco/Midway determined that 60% of Pac-Man players were women. Nintendo misled people in the instruction manual of Metroid to think that she was a he.

And so on.

"Facts over feelings," like the OP has already said is dismissal framing. Worse, it's double-speak. I've read "women have more rights than men" on this very board in the past four weeks. LoL, wut. But this is framed such that they can resist the permeation of diversity in video games for the sake of diversity. You can see this in the defense of James Damore.

"Censorship is always bad" is just another way of being "anti-PC," meaning, "I want to call gays the f-word, black people the n-word, etc."

 

[prag16]

I'm glad we have a thread on this now. I certainly didn't grasp wtf was going on with gamergate for quite some time. It was hard to navigate because old-Gaf and a lot of the gaming journalists were pushing what turned out to be a very questionable narrative while shouting down everyone else.

Were there a contingent of assholes that flew the GG banner while engaging in harassment and other disgusting behavior? Yes. Did some figures jump in and use GG to kind of push their own somewhat tangential agendas (Milo certainly, Adam Baldwin to an extent, etc)? Yes. But did some on the other side such as Anita capitalize in their own ways? Also Yes. Is that all GG was about? Not even close. Keene already explained things pretty well so I don't have a whole lot to add.

But this just circles back around to: Fuck echo chambers. They are dangerous. Regardless of whether they are alt-right or "alt-left".

 

[Typhares]

I have no doubt that some harassment took place because every group has its fringe elements willing to go too far for a cause.
That goes both ways, on the GG side and on the anti-GG side some people were going crazy.
As a gamer myself I can't help but feel tired of all the articles describing games/gamers as terrible/racist/sexist for any little detail.

Gaming is a male dominated hobby at what I would called its 'core'.
Yes we are getting close to 50/50 split but that's only thanks to mobile/casual games.
See wikipedia article the only genre with female majority are:
Match-3 at 69% and Family or farming simulator at 69% followed directly with casual puzzle with women already down to 42%.
With the types of games selling the most being Sport (2% women), Racing (6% women) FPS (7% women).

Saying that though I have never met any gamer that was against women participating in the hobby, quite the opposite in fact. And no man has ever asked for match-3 games to be made more appealing to them.
But when people started wantings to change the hobby to fit their vision that's when the conflict started.
There is a difference between 'that game has half naked women so I'm not interested' and 'that game has half naked women so it's sexist and if you play you are sexist'.

The fact that then mainstream media went almost totally one sided on the issue made a lot of people lose trust in many outlets.

 

[AnimalFather]

Yes. Unfortunately it was hijacked by the SJWs on twitter. Anyone else notice that all our problems started with twitter.

 

[Wunray]

What Gg turned into I don't agree with, but what it started out as and what it stood for I support 100% I do believe harassment is wrong ( I try to put myself in the other person's shoes) I also believe every journalist should be held to a certain standard and follow a ethical code.

 

[Mobile Suit Gooch]

I'm pretty neutral about it. However, I noticed a lot of women and minorities like myself support it. (IE Mombot, Ian Miles Chang? Of course Based mom )

 

[Battlechili]

This thread is going to go south real quick. I thought Neogaf had moved passed this type of discussion, it never goes well.

To be fair, this type of discussion wouldn't have been allowed in the first place on Neogaf circa several months ago

 

[BANGS]

GG, like all messy mobs destroyed by the media, started out with clear goals and common sense practices. Doesn't take long for that to get destroyed by the fringe tools...

 

[TheGraykid]

Gaming culture does exist because these people were bullied out of society. When it became big they tried to push into this culture and instead of expanding it they tried to change it. Thats why people got mad. And no one would care if these people only went for the huge AAA games. They went after absolute niche games and demanded to change them. Games they would have never looked at. The era thread about female sexualisation is a great example in there they do not even care about they games they go against ANY female character who wears a skirt or high heels. These people do not care at least about these games so why should anyone listen to them except for the fact that they otherwise call it sexist and put a bad image on it.

Newest example was the SNK game.

Nerd culture rules the world now. The biggest movies all contain comic book characters. It feels like so many people within this culture want the upside all this interest, which is better quality products, more exposure, more social acceptance, more stuff, but don't want the downside, which is that the culture doesn't bend to your whims anymore. If you feel like you lost something, you need to remember that this was never yours to begin with.

Furthermore, I'd like to point out that GG related people get mad at pretty much any game that has themes they don't like, even AAA games.

Also, you can criticise something you haven't played before, and the reason why the criticisers haven't played those games MIGHT have something to do with their critique. I can look at a game and say "those graphics look trash, you should change that.".

 

[TheShadowLord]

.

As for comics: What I really dislike it the absolute lazyness to just gender switch well known characters or just give them another race etc instead of creating original great new superheroes. This kind of forced diversity was always stupid to me. Same in gaming. Like the whole Link debate for example. This is just lazy and Indy games do it a lot better in this regard.

.

But you can have a Black Batman without him being black Bruce Wayne for example. Terry Mcginnis, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, and Damian Wayne all have become Batman at least one time in their life. Having a non-white as Batman doesn't sound as far-fetched. For live action though, they don't really have to do a 1:1 to the comics. Bane and Ra's are white in the Dark Knight Trilogy. Domino is black in Dead Pool 2. The Ancient One is white Doctor Strange. And then you have a Hispanic Joker and a Black Catwoman in the Adam West Batman show.

 

[Mobile Suit Gooch]

With the way things are going, we have comicsgate, wouldn't be shocked there'll be an Animegate. Looking at what Funimation did to the dubs of Prison School, Dragon maid, etc...

 

[KevinKeene]

Maybe that's not why you come to these games, and you don't look for them, but they are there.

Clearly you see a difference between a game having elements that can be interpreted as a political message (your BotW-example) and games where publisher uses a political message to advertise the game (all Bioware-games of the past 10 years), right?

Again, that's what I explained above. Most games don't push a political agenda. They carry certain messages, but those are very general or subtle. Saying BotW is about coming together and against racism makes as much sense as saying 'the only reason we don't kill each other is because the bible told us so'. No, these are commonplace themes that don't push any agenda. They're there to entertain. It is when a game pushes real world politics in one's face that people get upset. But even then: GG doesn't campaign against these games. They criticize, that's all.

I don't want to argue about Jordan Peterson in this thread, because that will completely derail everything, so I won't.

That is your choice, but it also greatly highlights the whole amusement around the condemnations of Peterson: resetera hates him, but they can't argue against what he says. Rather cheap.

Also in your previous post in another thread, you complained about games you perceived to be "bad", getting high scores because of what you assume to be their themes. People within GG get mad the moment they see any praise given to these games that contain themes that they don't like. And, if a gaming series they like starts to include these themes they whine and beg for them to be taken out. Don't you remember the meltdown some people had when GTA had its first black protagonist? Or the meltdown people had last year about Assassin's Creed Origins.

You're equating people who didn't like a black protagonist with GG. I don't agree with that. Some overlap? Sure.

As for 'hating a game franchise when it adds these themes': That depends entirely on the perceived reason. You can be sure I will complain if the next Zelda-game has a female Link, because that'd mean thst Nintendo gave in to social justice activists. Had the whole female Link-idiocy never taken place, I might have even enjoyed a female Link. Not like that, though. GG hates when publishers/developers listen terrible people trying to get their agenda into games. I think that's fair.

What Gg turned into I don't agree with, but what it started out as and what it stood for I support 100% I do believe harassment is wrong ( I try to put myself in the other person's shoes) I also believe every journalist should be held to a certain standard and follow a ethical code.

That's kinda backwards, too. If anything, GG had its harassment moment in the very beginning with all the Zoe Quinn-quarreling, but now had cemented itself as a movement following the three principles I mentioned (see OP).

 

[Big4reel]

Gaming culture does exist because these people were bullied out of society. When it became big they tried to push into this culture and instead of expanding it they tried to change it. Thats why people got mad. And no one would care if these people only went for the huge AAA games. They went after absolute niche games and demanded to change them. Games they would have never looked at. The era thread about female sexualisation is a great example in there they do not even care about they games they go against ANY female character who wears a skirt or high heels. These people do not care at least about these games so why should anyone listen to them except for the fact that they otherwise call it sexist and put a bad image on it.

Newest example was the SNK game.

So I looked through that resetera thread and it seems like all opposing opinions are dismissed with bans or warnings. I`m not exactly fan of people who also state that Japan as a whole have to change to fit their world view as if we don`t know any better compared to them. Though I don`t understand why we need to complain and start a movement against anime tiddies when there are so many other problems in the world.

 

[Lupingosei]

With the way things are going, we have comicsgate, soon there'll be an Animegate.

Comicsgate is in full swing. But comics is a very strange thing, because creators want to decide who their customers are and what they should buy. That is a very unusual and costumers now tell them, you work for us, if you don't see that you are in the wrong industry.

Meanwhile comics stores close because Marvel and Diamond swindle them into buying books they cannot sell. There are tons of unsold Marvel comic books in stores right now and the stores can not sell them, even for huge discounts.

 

[TheShadowLord]

With the way things are going, we have comicsgate, soon there'll be an Animegate.

Anime will never be as popular in the west so you don't have to worry

Ona side night I am glad that this gaming gate controversy happened. I never fully understand it, but there was a surge of female protagonists from western devs. That didn't really happen two gens ago. Nor do I don't mind they are not objectified/sexualized as the lack of them can sell just as well as those that have them.

 

[TheWatcher]

GamerGate is what happens when people don't read ****ing books.

Video games have been political since flippin Mrs. Pac-Man. That was 1982 when Namco/Midway determined that 60% of Pac-Man players were women. Nintendo misled people in the instruction manual of Metroid to think that she was a he.

And so on.

"Facts over feelings," like the OP has already said is dismissal framing. Worse, it's double-speak. I've read "women have more rights than men" on this very board in the past four weeks. LoL, wut. But this is framed such that they can resist the permeation of diversity in video games for the sake of diversity. You can see this in the defense of James Damore.

"Censorship is always bad" is just another way of being "anti-PC," meaning, "I want to call gays the f-word, black people the n-word, etc."

How does Texas look from up there?

 

[OH-MyCar]

GG, like all messy mobs destroyed by the media, started out with clear goals and common sense practices. Doesn't take long for that to get destroyed by the fringe tools...

I’m more or less of this school of thought. I lurked KiA since the beginning and never got the vibe that GG was any kind of “hate mob”. In fact, the swiftness in that labeling and the startling uniformity of thought coming from our news outlets helped reaffirm some of the things GG was onto. Moreover, “social justice” is just an intersection of a lot of this because now it’s that perfect mix of clickbait and Facebook-tier activism for a lot of these writers. Wanting to “drive women and minorities” out of the industry is their perfect weapon. In short, it’s driven me away from 90% of news outlets.

With that said, I also feel like GG developed its own stupid echo chamber over time and began to attract a crowd that wasn’t necessarily “hateful” but petty, bitter and not very reflective. I still feel like the Allison Rapp thing was ridiculous and had very little to do with Fire Emblem’s awful localization, but was the mob rolling with it without a lot of the discussion you’d see early on in the so-called “movement”. By that era they were almost the dumb boogeymen that the media and other groups went out of their way to paint them as.

 

[TheGraykid]

Clearly you see a difference between a game having elements that can be interpreted as a political message (your BotW-example) and games where publisher uses a political message to advertise the game (all Bioware-games of the past 10 years), right?

Again, that's what I explained above. Most games don't push a political agenda. They carry certain messages, but those are very general or subtle. Saying BotW is about coming together and against racism makes as much sense as saying 'the only reason we don't kill each other is because the bible told us so'. No, these are commonplace themes that don't push any agenda. They're there to entertain. It is when a game pushes real world politics in one's face that people get upset. But even then: GG doesn't campaign against these games. They criticize, that's all.



That is your choice, but it also greatly highlights the whole amusement around the condemnations of Peterson: resetera hates him, but they can't argue against what he says. Rather cheap.



You're equating people who didn't like a black protagonist with GG. I don't agree with that. Some overlap? Sure.

As for 'hating a game franchise when it adds these themes': That depends entirely on the perceived reason. You can be sure I will complain if the next Zelda-game has a female Link, because that'd mean thst Nintendo gave in to social justice activists. Had the whole female Link-idiocy never taken place, I might have even enjoyed a female Link. Not like that, though. GG hates when publishers/developers listen terrible people trying to get their agenda into games. I think that's fair.

That's kinda backwards, too. If anything, GG had its harassment moment in the very beginning with all the Zoe Quinn-quarreling, but now had cemented itself as a movement following the three principles I mentioned (see OP).

So, what is the difference between "pushing a political agenda." and "They carry certain messages, but those are very general or subtle."? You mention it being a "real world politics" thing, but the GTA games are all about real-world politics and yet they don't seem to be hated by GG. You also mention the word "agenda" quite a bit, tell me if I'm wrong, but it appears that you're indicating that certain games are made only to affect a kind of political change. This, I think isn't the sole reason for any art, however, I would say almost all art uses that as one of its reasons for existing.

The BotW idea that people from different backgrounds can come together and do great things, is a pretty modern (almost pro-diversity) message, or do you believe that's a poor interpretation of the work?

I can argue about pretty much anything reasonably well, including Peterson, and I've seen lots of people arguing very coherently about why Peterson is completely wrong. I'm more than happy to PM you with links if that takes your fancy. I'm not in the resetera Peterson thread, so I won't comment on that.

Doesn't that idea feel petty? The "Nintendo gave in to social justice activists." idea. We don't do that with anything else. If I complain about bad graphics, or a bad story, or a game not being open world, anything else within a game, would your response be to not like that solely because people asked for it to be changed? It's people feeling upset just because that change indicates that their perceived "side" is losing something when nothing has really been lost. It's partisanship at it's highest. It's ideology over events. Some might even call that "feelings over facts".

 

[Griss]

Anyone who was there from the start on 4chan with the Zoe Quinn 'Five Guys' thing knows that GamerGate was a harassment campaign from the start. They wanted to abuse Quinn, and invented a bullshit cover reason that never stood up to any scrutiny. They roped some innocent useful idiots into it using that 'ethics in game journalism' cover story, but a harassment campaign is all it ever was. I agree with pretty much everything that Evilore said above about it.

Something that did bug me was seeing professional victims like Anita S use the movement as a way of furthering her shitty arguments, and how the 'movement' couldn't help but play exactly into her hands.

As for the points raised in the OP
1. Games are about fun, not political agenda
Games can be political, what's wrong is trying to force people who don't want to be political to have to have political discussions. Whether that's devs or fans. You can't MAKE people engage politically, and trying to force them to do so is wrong.

2. Facts over feelings
As OP said, this is just framing bullshit, really.

3. Censorship is always bad
Censorship obviously isn't always bad. I'm glad that we remove ISIS videos from the mainstream observable internet, for example. But censoring sexual content under feminist pressure is wrong to me. That said, businesses are free to make whatever decisions they think will serve them best, and if that's bowing to the wishes of a certain political group then that's fine. I can make my purchase decisions accordingly - sometimes I'll dodge the game, sometimes I won't.

 

[Mobile Suit Gooch]

Comicsgate is in full swing. But comics is a very strange thing, because creators want to decide who their customers are and what they should buy. That is a very unusual and costumers now tell them, you work for us, if you don't see that you are in the wrong industry.

Meanwhile comics stores close because Marvel and Diamond swindle them into buying books they cannot sell. There are tons of unsold Marvel comic books in stores right now and the stores can not sell them, even for huge discounts.

I follow a lot of those things while watching Diversity & Comics.

Anime will never be as popular in the west so you don't have to worry

Ona side night I am glad that this gaming gate controversy happened. I never fully understand it, but there was a surge of female protagonists from western devs. That didn't really happen two gens ago. Nor do I don't mind they are not objectified/sexualized as the lack of them can sell just as well as those that have them.

I'm glad that there was that surge. It kinda makes my blood boil (not really) how they go after female leads like 2B and Bayonetta.

 

[NahaNago]

From what I remember gamergate started up because journalists were attacking gamers and the gaming culture at the time and then got evolved into gamers questioning journalists ethics, and then that whole sleeping around thing got mixed in with it. After that it just got pushed into gamergaters are folks who attack women. On to the list of what you believe gamergate is.
1. Games are about fun, not political agenda
Answer: the problem is not the politics of a game. Everything is political if you break it down or relate it to something political. The issue is being preached at and pushing propaganda.
2. Facts over feelings
Answer: Huh? Shouldn't that always be the case? If I'm understanding this correctly then I totally agree with using facts instead of feelings.
3. Censorship is always bad
Let the consumer be the one to decide if something should be censored The issue I think a lot of folks had was you don't even play the games that you want to be censored so piss off is my rough translation. a.k.a. leave my titties alone, I guess. To be honest I'm of the opinion that no underage character in a game should be sexualized even if it is for storytelling purposes but I grew up watching anime so I'm already desensitized to it.

 

[Phoenix RISING]

How does Texas look from up there?

Whenever I visit Texas I break out in random allergic reactions that are never the same symptoms. IDK what it is, but my soul seems to dislike that state.