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#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014

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N

NickFire

Member
I am sure I will be dismissed, ridiculed or criticized for this, but if you really want to see the crazies go away its time for the people in this thread to move on. You are dealing with trolls, and you cannot reason with crazy. It just cant be done. And continuing to discuss the trolls is only fueling their fire and giving them new bridges to do trollish things under. Focus on the positives, encourage the continued diversification, and ignore the idiots. Continuing to banter about them is simply keeping them in the spotlight. And they love the spotlight, because without it being shown on them no one will take the time to listen or pay them the slightest attention.
 
Z

zeldablue

Member
NickFire said:
I am sure I will be dismissed, ridiculed or criticized for this, but if you really want to see the crazies go away its time for the people in this thread to move on. You are dealing with trolls, and you cannot reason with crazy. It just cant be done. And continuing to discuss the trolls is only fueling their fire and giving them new bridges to do trollish things under. Focus on the positives, encourage the continued diversification, and ignore the idiots. Continuing to banter about them is simply keeping them in the spotlight. And they love the spotlight, because without it being shown on them no one will take the time to listen or pay them the slightest attention.
Click to expand...

They're not all trolls. A lot of them are just really angry about the past two years having more vocal voices relating to feminism. A lot of people don't like feminism and don't want to see it in academia/the industry. This isn't just "trolls." These are people who feel "invaded."

I think it's important to listen and see where else this goes. No one should write this off as only trolls/harassers.
 
T

tranciful

Member
zeldablue said:
Do you think there is something that would make you a target? They tend to go after "art" games, "fake" girls, and progressive people. It's disheartening, but you should know that passion means both intense love and hatred. If you want to be passionate, you have to suffer from both the highs and lows.

To think people are this intimidated by other worldviews they turn barbaric. So much primitive thinking going on here.

If I made a game, I would probably want to conceal my gender, honestly.
Click to expand...

I'm not worried too much about me personally being a target -- I worry about the fact that anybody can be a target. If they are effective at pushing valuable voices out of the industry, I don't want anything to do with this industry. If they sink this ship, I'm getting off.

I support art games 100% but that's not what I'm passionate about as a game designer. I'm making a very gamey, hardcore competitive PC game... which is partly why this is extra scary for me because it's exactly the sort of gameplay that these people like. Leigh Alexander is right -- these trolls don't have to be your audience as a game designer. Unfortunately for me, they probably are a significant part of my audience.

Fortunately, I think there's a lot of good that can come from games that do target that audience. It's not just about designing good gameplay anymore -- it's also about designing good communication platforms. Hearthstone restricts chat to create a more sportsmanlike atmosphere. Bungie has stated that the reasoning behind limited voice chat wasn't technical, but it was to help protect against toxicity. League of Legends started with standard communication and their community is notoriously toxic, but they're taking it very seriously and doing a lot of interesting experimentation. I think these sort of efforts are very promising -- instead of ignoring these players (like art/casual games), they welcome these players without allowing their platforms to become a cesspool of toxicity.

If Raph and @PixieJenni can't get through to them with reason and logic, nobody can. They had incredibly strong arguments and I was blown away by how patient and cool headed they were, but still, it's hard to tell if anything good came from it. I think it's probably more effective to use games to reduce toxicity like the examples above.
 
D

Deleted member 126221

Unconfirmed Member
Widge said:
Oh christ, Thunderfoot, Baldwin, Milo, Sommers, lots of the prominent supporters, Sagat Of Arkkon. Seriously: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda is the key here.

In other lol news, when mad people meet the real world:

https://twitter.com/ShiraChess/status/516604688394121216
Click to expand...

Pwahahah. Is "marxist" their new empty expression they throw around instead of SJW? I have to admit, even though their harassment is terrible, I couldn't help but laugh reading those messages.
 
T

tranciful

Member
zeldablue said:
They're not all trolls. A lot of them are just really angry about the past two years having more vocal voices relating to feminism. A lot of people don't like feminism and don't want to see it in academia/the industry. This isn't just "trolls." These are people who feel "invaded."

I think it's important to listen and see where else this goes. No one should write this off as only trolls/harassers.
Click to expand...

The feminism debate is obviously a big component to it, but the anti-feminism side is often dismissing toxicity/trolling. Raph points to the tweets like "Cunt is not a sexist word, you stupid cunt" as a problem... the #GG peeps were just like "that's just how the internet is" -- trolling has this level of acceptance with that crowd. They are so used to seeing it on sites like 4chan that it's no big deal to them. They don't seem realize that to the outside world, it is completely unacceptable to act that way. They can't seem to understand that part of being inclusive is to not be so toxic because it really does turn people away. They get defensive, like in the PixieJenni livestream, and defend the toxicity as culture.

I'd be much more ok having a debate about feminism if the toxicity was addressed.
 
Z

zeldablue

Member
tranciful said:
The feminism debate is obviously a big component to it, but the anti-feminism side is often dismissing toxicity/trolling. Raph points to the tweets like "Cunt is not a sexist word, you stupid cunt" as a problem... the #GG peeps were just like "that's just how the internet is" -- trolling has this level of acceptance with that crowd. They are so used to seeing it on sites like 4chan that it's no big deal to them. They don't seem realize that to the outside world, it is completely unacceptable to act that way. They can't seem to understand that part of being inclusive is to not be so toxic because it really does turn people away. They get defensive, like in the PixieJenni livestream, and defend the toxicity as culture.

I'd be much more ok having a debate about feminism if the toxicity was addressed.
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Well...yeah. They don't condemn the harassment when it's directed at people they really don't like. They have a very "Well, they deserved it" way of rationalizing and dismissing abuse. But that can be said for pretty much anyone. They instead say "Don't tag Gamergate if you're harassing. Don't make us look bad."

:\

They also hate when people who are harassed talk openly about it. That form of denial makes them about equal to the harassers. The only thing worst than bad men, are the good men who do nothing but turn a blind eye.
 
R

RockTurtle

Member
Some of the people supported the GG tag were also the same people who wildly supported the ouya and kickstarter craze and were prominent supporters of the 360 Indie games on Xbox live initiative. Of course some resentment arises when some of their support ended up being met with news that the big Indie game they supported got bought by big game company or suddenly dropped projects or Indie developer starting to insult the people who provided funds for their game.

The backlash isn't a monolithic aspect. There's multiple levels to what has occurred. I've spoken to a lot of GGers and almost everyone had a different reason for hosting the tag.
 
Z

zeldablue

Member
RockTurtle said:
Some of the people supported the GG tag were also the same people who wildly supported the ouya and kickstarter craze and were prominent supporters of the 360 Indie games on Xbox live initiative. Of course some resentment arises when some of their support ended up being met with news that the big Indie game they supported got bought by big game company or suddenly dropped projects or Indie developer starting to insult the people who provided funds for their game.

The backlash isn't a monolithic aspect. There's multiple levels to what has occurred. I've spoken to a lot of GGers and almost everyone had a different reason for hosting the tag.
Click to expand...

A lot of them are mad about someone having a different opinion than them. Indies are a big target simply because they are so visible and close to the community. Posting a femfreq video is all it takes to cause hordes of people to spew hatred at you.

Think about that. That's pretty ridiculous. (When naughty dog does it, it's not a big deal. But when a smaller dev does it, it's a s***storm.)
 
L

Lime

Member
A screenshot of a reader letter for EGM issue # 157, i.e. in the late 90's. Does these comments ring any bells? Since this is over 14 years ago, it feels disheartening to see that the arguments are the same without much mainstream industry change.

tumblr_nc84xrRj921tejd1co1_1280.jpg
Click to expand...

Also, an interesting study on gender harassment on the Internet (with bots!):

ByaBbAuIMAAnjlt.png:large
Click to expand...
 
D

Deleted member 126221

Unconfirmed Member
RockTurtle said:
Some of the people supported the GG tag were also the same people who wildly supported the ouya and kickstarter craze and were prominent supporters of the 360 Indie games on Xbox live initiative. Of course some resentment arises when some of their support ended up being met with news that the big Indie game they supported got bought by big game company or suddenly dropped projects or Indie developer starting to insult the people who provided funds for their game.

The backlash isn't a monolithic aspect. There's multiple levels to what has occurred. I've spoken to a lot of GGers and almost everyone had a different reason for hosting the tag.
Click to expand...

Do you have any concrete example of that happening, and Gamergate reacting to it?
 
Z

zeldablue

Member
Lime said:
A screenshot of a reader letter for EGM issue # 157, i.e. in the late 90's. Does these comments ring any bells? Since this is over 14 years ago, it feels disheartening to see that the arguments are the same without much mainstream industry change.



Also, an interesting study on gender harassment on the Internet (with bots!):
Click to expand...

Dear Male Pigs...

Nice. xP
 
M

Mr_Antimatter

Member
RockTurtle said:
If you think some of the rhetoric is attacking Indie developers for being Indie then you are slightly mistaken.
Click to expand...

Actually, there is a separate crowd who thinks indie games are not games. You see this a lot when talking about the 2014 release calendar for the xb1/ps4, and majorly with the vita.
 
A

aeolist

Banned
RockTurtle said:
Some of the people supported the GG tag were also the same people who wildly supported the ouya and kickstarter craze and were prominent supporters of the 360 Indie games on Xbox live initiative. Of course some resentment arises when some of their support ended up being met with news that the big Indie game they supported got bought by big game company or suddenly dropped projects or Indie developer starting to insult the people who provided funds for their game.

The backlash isn't a monolithic aspect. There's multiple levels to what has occurred. I've spoken to a lot of GGers and almost everyone had a different reason for hosting the tag.
Click to expand...

then how do they expect any concerns to be addressed? if everyone has their own pet cause and nobody speaks for the group then what's the fucking point?
 
R

RockTurtle

Member
I never said it was organized or effective. It just blew up because a lot of people with different things to say saw an opportunity to say it I guess. I dunno human. Nature.
 
J

jay

Member
aeolist said:
then how do they expect any concerns to be addressed? if everyone has their own pet cause and nobody speaks for the group then what's the fucking point?
Click to expand...

They can unite under the same rousing battle cry - "Some things are bad and they should be changed or possibly not changed if the thing in question is something I already like and what's bad is that people want it to change"
 
N

NickFire

Member
zeldablue said:
They're not all trolls. A lot of them are just really angry about the past two years having more vocal voices relating to feminism. A lot of people don't like feminism and don't want to see it in academia/the industry. This isn't just "trolls." These are people who feel "invaded."

I think it's important to listen and see where else this goes. No one should write this off as only trolls/harassers.
Click to expand...

Oh, I completely agree that a lot of people are simply tired of hearing certain claims/arguments when games are discussed, and/or tired of the relationship between game developers and press. But the rational majority of those people have probably moved on by now, and decided to filter out both extremes of the GG / anti-GG arguments. That leaves, for the most part, the vocal voices and the trolls. And firing up the trolls will do nothing but get more trollish behavior from them, because trolls are gonna troll, and the people in the middle are not going to rush to the defense of the people criticizing them for feeling a certain way.

So, good luck trying to get the trolls to stop trolling and victimizing the people who they should not be victimizing but who you know they will victimize because they are crazy and crazy people do crazy things. But if you really want to see meaningful change, I again propose changing the subject to encouraging more under-represented people to enter the industry. Highlight the good they have and can accomplish, instead of scaring them away with the bad. Encourage devs to start scholarships. Encourage people to use kickstarter to raise scholarship money to bring people in. Show people that what you say can lead to actual and meaningful benefits for them, instead of telling them what they already have is bad because its sexist or whatever.
 
Q

QuickSilverD

Member
Mr_Antimatter said:
Actually, there is a separate crowd who thinks indie games are not games. You see this a lot when talking about the 2014 release calendar for the xb1/ps4, and majorly with the vita.
Click to expand...

Now, now, don't you think that has more to do with the sentiment that people want more AAA games to play, preferably Not Cross-Gen ports, I mean indie games are ok, but people don't buy new hardware to play them, especially considering most of them seen to be getting ported to PS Vita (showing that they're really not taking advantage of the new hardware)
 
Z

zeldablue

Member
NickFire said:
Oh, I completely agree that a lot of people are simply tired of hearing certain claims/arguments when games are discussed, and/or tired of the relationship between game developers and press. But the rational majority of those people have probably moved on by now, and decided to filter out both extremes of the GG / anti-GG arguments. That leaves, for the most part, the vocal voices and the trolls. And firing up the trolls will do nothing but get more trollish behavior from them, because trolls are gonna troll, and the people in the middle are not going to rush to the defense of the people criticizing them for feeling a certain way.

So, good luck trying to get the trolls to stop trolling and victimizing the people who they should not be victimizing but who you know they will victimize because they are crazy and crazy people do crazy things. But if you really want to see meaningful change, I again propose changing the subject to encouraging more under-represented people to enter the industry. Highlight the good they have and can accomplish, instead of scaring them away with the bad. Encourage devs to start scholarships. Encourage people to use kickstarter to raise scholarship money to bring people in. Show people that what you say can lead to actual and meaningful benefits for them, instead of telling them what they already have is bad because its sexist or whatever.
Click to expand...

That's all very much happening. But the more diversity you get the more sexual harassment and the more misrepresentation will be pointed out as archaic, indignant or maladaptive. :p

These are the growing pains of expanding the industry towards the rest of the world.
 
N

NickFire

Member
QuickSilverD said:
Now, now, don't you think that has more to do with the sentiment that people want more AAA games to play, preferably Not Cross-Gen ports, I mean indie games are ok, but people don't buy new hardware to play them, especially considering most of them seen to be getting ported to PS Vita (showing that they're really not taking advantage of the new hardware)
Click to expand...

Spot on.
 
S

Stop It

Perfectly able to grasp the inherent value of the fishing game.
BLunted said:
Well, I stand corrected then, and good! About time the jackasses of the internet were held accountable.
Click to expand...

Indeed.

While I can't speak for the US, but here in the UK if you threaten to violently rape someone in the ear shot of a police officer, you're going to be arrested. The fact that threats made online is a distant communication makes no odds, don't do it.

This idiot decided to describe "best way to rape a witch" after an argument on Twitter with a member of our UK Parliament.

The reason? She wanted a lady, Jane Austen in this case, to be on the £10 note because the UK was going to have no women on our currency (Current monarch excepted). Yes, you read that right.

Just like in the Zoe Quinn controversy, and the threats issued to Anita Sarkeesian etc etc etc etc, you just have to ask what the hell are some people by thinking this sort of behaviour is the way to act?

I thought that the best way to respond to any perceived slight was in a proportional way. Our justice system works that way and works pretty well. Even if there was a conspiracy for feminists and "SJWs" to "steal our games" from er...someone in a shrieking, exaggerated campaign of lies and hype, surely the best reply would be a calm, measured, proportional response?

Of course, I think we all know why that is not the case.
 
A

aeolist

Banned
QuickSilverD said:
Now, now, don't you think that has more to do with the sentiment that people want more AAA games to play, preferably Not Cross-Gen ports, I mean indie games are ok, but people don't buy new hardware to play them, especially considering most of them seen to be getting ported to PS Vita (showing that they're really not taking advantage of the new hardware)
Click to expand...

and once again they blame the wrong people. if this is a "problem" then the blame should go to the platform holders and the big publishers that make AAA games. if it's not the existence of indies that's an issue but rather the non-existence of big games then why hate on indie devs?
 
S

SwissLion

Member
It's definitely worth pointing out how many merely misinformed or misled people are part of this movement, pretty often even. Dehumanising people doesn't solve much. You have to understand people in order to speak to them and convince them, or to prevent history repeating itself ad nauseam.

But it's also worth having a giggle sometimes at the (dark, dark) unintentional humour this whole situation can bring up, lest we be brought low by the dismal blackness of it all. For example, these are some thoughts that will drift through, more or less unquestioned in prominent Gamergate discussion venue #274.

r71ROUV.png
 
J

JackDT

Member
aeolist said:
i like how derek smart of all people doesn't want to get involved in this flamewar
Click to expand...

O. M. G. I missed that on my first read through. I am dying now.

(If you are not familiar with Derek Smart, he's been part of some legendary epic flame fests on forums in the distant past.)
 
T

tonysidaway

Member
After the umpteenth time a self-declared gamer expresses more concern over the good name of gamers than they ever did about the horrible attacks on people in the name of gaming, it stops being funny.

Why couldn't we have had a #gamerrapethreatgate or a #gamerbombthreatgate ? Those are incidents being actively investigated by the police and FBI.
 
J

Jobiensis

Member
JackDT said:
Raph Koster trying to recruit developers to engage with #gamergate and:

http://imgur.com/a/LgZBN

It all breaks down, then the poster leaks this conversation and private conversation with Jimmy Wales all over.
Click to expand...

I'm really confused by this, does the GG think this shows him being hammered to the point he had to lash out? I mean the whole thing just completely confirms what stereotypes I've imagined GG to be.

How is Zoe doxxing people? I thought she was just a small developer.
 
N

Neoriceisgood

Member
F

frequency

Member
I haven't followed this stuff too closely because it just makes me really depressed and I become unfairly negative about the industry as a whole when I know there is a lot of good going on too.

But trying to read that, how can you start a conversation by defining it as "SJWs vs Gamers"? And then continually using the derogatory term like that while acting like you're a reasonable person and you've been wronged for no reason?

Also what does social justice have to do with ethics anyway? Isn't that what they keep saying this is about? Is it unethical simply to care about things like gender issues? Why do you label the opposition as "social justice warriors" when it's supposed to be about ethics?
 
B

Brakke

Banned
Neoriceisgood said:
This is apparently enough to claim Zoe is a horrid ruthless transphobic doxxer.
Click to expand...

The other day that Fart clown on Twitter was going on about how Zoe was "attacking" Anna Anthropy. The Evidence:

+ one time Zoe completely without reference to Anna, Zoe said she did "all the programming" on Depression Quest and she was rolling her eyes at people saying she couldn't program or something.
+ another completely unrelated time and without reference to Zoe, Anna had said of Twine that "it's not REAL programming".

All of which somehow adds up to Anna Anthropy #beingusedasashield.
 
S

SwissLion

Member
Neoriceisgood said:
She once tweeted to this article on wiki vandalism: (NSFW, boobie artwork) http://wikipediocracy.com/2014/09/07/wikipedia-and-the-war-on-womens-dignity/


It vaguely identifies MRA trolls most likely pretending to be female or transexual who are clearly sabotaging feminism-related articles.

This is apparently enough to claim Zoe is a horrid ruthless transphobic doxxer.
Click to expand...

She also quickly deleted the tweet and apologised.

Her detractors went on to spread screenshots of the tweet with the information still clearly visible across the internet, clearly affirming their position that doxxing is bad.
 
N

Neoriceisgood

Member
SwissLion said:
She also quickly deleted the tweet and apologised.

Her detractors went on to spread screenshots of the tweet with the information still clearly visible across the internet, clearly affirming their position that doxxing is bad.
Click to expand...

It's almost like they're looking for reasons to hate Zoe rather than actually caring about harassment and doxxing..
 
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