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[lazorexplosion]

You know what I mean by 'us vs them' mentality? It's how they made like the issue is feminists vs gamers instead of gamers and feminists vs internet trolls.

GGers wanted it to be gamers vs feminists because it got them more attention. Gamasutra and others wanted it to be gamers vs feminists because it got them more attention. And between them, they got attention. It's so trolling.

 

[Lime]

I seriously can't believe people *still* are hurt or offended by Alexander's article. I can't believe it is constantly brought up. And I can't believe that people use it as an excuse to justify this misogynistic, self-contradictory and downright lunatic movement that has already resulted in a loss of different voices and experts within the games industry & culture. And the women in game development who had to speak up about GamerGate had to fucking be anonymous in the Escapist article. ANONYMOUS! That is just some of the damage we are talking about from this movement, so please consider why you feel the need to bring up Alexander's article as an excuse for this now month-long carneval of exclusion and discrimination.

Fine that your feelings as a gamer were hurt by misunderstanding the argument in the original *opinion* piece by Alexander, but when the goddamn experiences of being a woman in this piece of shit culture and games industry consist of harassment, terrorism, and threats to your life, coupled with micro-aggressions and structural inequities, solely because you identify as a woman (or other non-default identities), you better damn well get some perspective on whose feelings and lives are actually exposed to harm.

Criticizing a stereotype by saying that the Doritos- and Mountain Dew-fueled white male sci-fi/fantasy nerd, whose identity is solely created and defined out of marketing and capitalistic incentives, is dead should not be as vitriolic and controversial as what some people seem to be championing. Unless you actually conform to that specific stereotype in real life, I understand if you're hurt, but people are always, always, always much more complex, multi-faceted and -dimensional than stereotypes, so I'm sure almost no one fulfil the negative stereotype of the "gamer".

If getting hurt over someone's opinion (who some apparently misunderstood despite tons of clarifications and explanations by others) on something as selective as identifying as the Gamer stereotype , then I must say you live a pretty sweet life if that is what grinds your gears.

 

[jetjevons]

i do

if nothing else the reaction to it basically proved its point

The reaction was certainly equal parts disturbing and illuminating but at this point...

#letitdie

 

[MikeOfTheLivingDead]

I just finished listening to the Raph Koster livestream. He pointed out how attacking Gamasutra is also attacking Developers. Gamasutra was made for developers and many have blogs there. Basically, all the GGers are doing is scaring developers away and making sure they never engage with them.

This is laughable.There aren't too many developers who take gamasutra seriously much less ever visit the site. It's not even near the best place on the net to find a job anymore and that was really the only thing it ever had going for it. Most developers I know and have worked with pay zero attention to gamasutra, and GDC is a joke. It's an excuse to go party in San Francisco with people you know. If gamasutra disappeared from the net it would have less impact on developers than when the printed Game Developer magazine folded.

 

[Deleted member 126221]

Do people here actually support Leigh's article?

I do. Is it a bad thing?

 

[frequency]

now? The entire movement was basically an attempt to censor all 'sjw' talk in the videogame industry. They just call it 'bias' or 'politicization' or 'agenda' stuff.

I haven't been following very closely. I thought they claimed they were all about ethics but this is like cartoon-ish level of villain mustache twirling. It is like parody.

You know what I mean by 'us vs them' mentality? It's how they made like the issue is feminists vs gamers instead of gamers and feminists vs internet trolls.

I've not actually been following gamergate because that stuff is depressing.

What I've seen of it looking in from the outside is a lot of "gamers vs sjw". So I see a lot of "us vs them" coming from gamergate supporters.

All I know is that recently I've seen gamergate pushing for censorship and threatening websites that dare talk about things they don't want talked about. And gamergate people consider their enemies supporters of social justice.

They're kind of just proclaiming themselves the villains here...

My perspective as someone who hasn't followed this thing very much at all anyway. I don't see how Leigh Alexander's article is "feminists vs gamers".

 

[stupei]

Damn are these people desperate. How do you even come up with an idea like that?

I seem to recall a lot of far right Christian focus on the family style groups patting themselves on the back for getting Ellen (the sitcom) off the air after an extensive letter writing campaign to sponsors once the character came out of the closet.

It's a pretty old tactic.

I seriously can't believe people *still* are hurt or offended by Alexander's article. I can't believe it is constantly brought up. And I can't believe that people use it as an excuse to justify this misogynistic, self-contradictory and downright lunatic movement that has already resulted in a loss of different voices and experts within the games industry & culture. And the women in game development who had to speak up about GamerGate had to fucking be anonymous in the Escapist article. ANONYMOUS! That is just some of the damage we are talking about from this movement, so please consider why you feel the need to bring up Alexander's article as an excuse for this now month-long carneval of exclusion and discrimination.

Fine that your feelings as a gamer were hurt by misunderstanding the argument in the original *opinion* piece by Alexander, but when the goddamn experiences of being a woman in this piece of shit culture and games industry consist of harassment, terrorism, and threats to your life, coupled with micro-aggressions and structural inequities, solely because you identify as a woman (or other non-default identities), you better damn well get some perspective on whose feelings and lives are actually exposed to harm.

Criticizing a stereotype by saying that the Doritos- and Mountain Dew-fueled white male sci-fi/fantasy nerd, whose identity is solely created and defined out of marketing and capitalistic incentives, is dead should not be as vitriolic and controversial as what some people seem to be championing. Unless you actually conform to that specific stereotype in real life, I understand if you're hurt, but people are always, always, always much more complex, multi-faceted and -dimensional than stereotypes, so I'm sure almost no one fulfil the negative stereotype of the "gamer".

If getting hurt over someone's opinion (who some apparently misunderstood despite tons of clarifications and explanations by others) on something as selective as identifying as the Gamer stereotype , then I must say you live a pretty sweet life if that is what grinds your gears.

Well said.

 

[LiegeWaffle]

I mostly can't believe it's been a month since that article was published, and they are still talking about it.

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

I hope you have evidence to support your claim, besides the single opinion piece (the meaning of which has been discussed here in detail).

Do people here actually support Leigh's article?

I do not support it (if only for using some of the lazier gamer stereotypes), but I will stand by the idea that she had right to publish it without receiving all the threats and crap she got.

i do

if nothing else the reaction to it basically proved its point

"Comments on any article about feminism justify feminism" (Lewis' Law, I believe?)

 

[Fari]

At least nobody's talking about Zoe Quinn now.

 

[lazorexplosion]

if nothing else the reaction to it basically proved its point

There's a word for writing inflammatory stuff to provoke an angry reaction...

 

[Teremap]

There's a word for writing inflammatory stuff to provoke an angry reaction...

No, seriously, stop that.

Leigh Alexander is an angry woman. I mean, that's just her character. She didn't write it specifically to provoke a reaction, she just happened to write it in her usual style which, unsurprisingly, is somewhat inflammatory. That's it. That's the extent of the damage.

 

[sgjackson]

I can see where Intel is coming from here. They do market to gamers among other groups, and a place you advertise at then publishes a piece that talks about the "death of gamers" (and is not a particularly well-written or kind article IMO) is probably not going to make them happy.

Add in that we are in a very risk averse business environment when it comes to sponsorships (see: NFL, etc); makes sense for them as a business to err on the side of caution for the time being.

There is little to zero chance any gamer looking to potentially buy an Intel product chooses based on reasons as ridiculous as "they advertised on a website I don't like once" when hard performance and cost numbers are a factor.

 

[Oidisco]

At least nobody's talking about Zoe Quinn now.

If only that were true, she's still getting quite a lot of nastiness thrown her way on a daily basis.

 

[JDSN]

There's a word for writing inflammatory stuff to provoke an angry reaction...

Yeah, Gamasutra was being all cocktease with that little tight provocative article, she was kinda asking for it.

 

[libregkd]

Do people here actual support Leigh's article?

The article was a bit heavy handed but I agreed with the general sentiment of it. It is amusing to me that so many think the article is making an argument that is actually an attack on gamers though.

 

[Riposte]

It's a little weird that this blog post, which I think is extraordinary, was "featured" though:

A Guide to Ending Gamers

 

[lazorexplosion]

Yeah, Gamasutra was being all cocktease with that little tight provocative article, she was kinda asking for it.

They could have easily written an article that made the same points without the insults and generalizations, and de-escalated instead of escalated the anger over the issue. If they had credibility. They went with the trolling for more attention route.

 

[stupei]

There's a word for writing inflammatory stuff to provoke an angry reaction...

Except that there's nothing especially inflammatory about saying that prevalent negative stereotypes about gaming culture have existed for a long time. There's nothing inflammatory about suggesting that a self-prescribed identity with its foundation in corporate advertising is no longer necessary as the type and number of people who play games continues to rise. Some of the language was obviously deliberately charged and provocative, but as has been said over and over, unless you yourself are a cartoonish parody of the sort many people who do not play games themselves often think of when they hear the word "gamer," then it isn't about you. It's about a concept that has become archaic. The fact that there are so few people who are actually like that is, in fact, the point.

It not actually being about you is the point.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Do people here actually support Leigh's article?

Yep

because I'm not who it's about

 

[JackDT]

Leigh talks about her article in the leaked, very heated facebook discussion: http://imgur.com/a/LgZBN#

I really struggle to understand how I can write an article about how your hobby has become so normalized there's no longer a need to obsessively self-identify as a consumer demographic nor a persecuted minority and rational humans actually get offended.

People who are like 'WELL I STILL PLAY VIDEO GAMES SO HOW ARE GAMERS DEAD HUH' have missed the point so willfully I have presume they are actually choosing to, because they like talking 'sides' against women and progressives.

No one is saying that 'gamer games' are over and 'causal games' are now in. We've been trying to discuss the cultural shift whereby games are more diverse and independent than before, and there is no need to feel like playing games puts you in some kind of special minority which justifies hateful attacks on independent women game developers who are trying to to do new and different things.

...

When I, or Anita, or anyone, simply wants to have a conversation about the content of the products being produced, here are people like you, calling us "SJWs" and trying to claim you own an entire medium, one which at last is one the verge of being cultural relevant and speaking to more people than ever.

 

[zeldablue]

The whole thing was something that could and should have been discussed reasonably and briefly and then died. But instead, they made vastly more people angry with insulting generalizations about a much larger group, riling more people up and fanning the flames. They trolled for attention, flat out and unsubtly. And that sort of anger-fanning insulting bullshit is textbook trolling.

Well I mean...

1. Bomb threat on Sony executive's flight
2. Massive hate + slut shaming campaign on Zoe
3. Death threats and FBI filing from Anita
4. Polytron doxxing

It was time to address an issue.

 

[lazorexplosion]

Some of the language was obviously deliberately charged and provocative

People were getting hurt in the anger over the issue. It was horrible.

And they stepped right into the middle of it and were "obviously deliberately charged and provocative"? Fanning the anger more? Does that sound like a professional outfit you would want to run your adverts on?

 

[LiegeWaffle]

Well I mean...

1. Bomb threat on Sony executive's flight
2. Massive hate + slut shaming campaign on Zoe
3. Death threats and FBI filing from Anita
4. Polytron doxxing

It was time to address an issue.

I am not actually sure that the article in question came after all of the things listed. I'm almost sure #4 happened after.

Yeah, Gamasutra was being all cocktease with that little tight provocative article, she was kinda asking for it.

Uh, are you familiar with the concept of "victim blaming"?

 

[Dr_LucienSanchez]

Do people here actually support Leigh's article?

I do, and I think quite a few people who managed to read the actual article beyond the headline do also. It's pretty bang-on.

 

[ZSeba]

Do people here actually support Leigh's article?

People who read it (and understood it) mostly.

 

[Hackworth]

Uh, are you familiar with the concept of "victim blaming"?

I think they're making a joke.

Woah, nameless dude got mad as all hell. Leigh seemed pretty reasonable, dunno how he got so vexed. https://imgur.com/a/LgZBN

 

[stupei]

People were getting hurt in the anger over the issue. It was horrible.

And they stepped right into the middle of it and were "obviously deliberately charged and provocative"? Fanning the anger more? Does that sound like a professional outfit you would want to run your adverts on?

You can't really dictate editorial policy based on the fact that there will always be people who stubbornly insist on misinterpreting the obvious intent of the writing.

Provocative isn't inherently bad. Charged with emotion isn't inherently bad, especially when the situation calls for it. The behavior that members of the gaming public had been exhibiting in the weeks leading up to the article was more what I would call horrible, personally.

You would think the outrage would be over being lumped in a label with horrible human beings who choose to self-identify the same way that "you" (proverbial you) do, and that perhaps it might cause some people to analyze their choices and grapple with their understanding of this identity.

Except why do that when you can yell at its author on twitter, yeah?

 

[Messofanego]

I seriously can't believe people *still* are hurt or offended by Alexander's article. I can't believe it is constantly brought up. And I can't believe that people use it as an excuse to justify this misogynistic, self-contradictory and downright lunatic movement that has already resulted in a loss of different voices and experts within the games industry & culture. And the women in game development who had to speak up about GamerGate had to fucking be anonymous in the Escapist article. ANONYMOUS! That is just some of the damage we are talking about from this movement, so please consider why you feel the need to bring up Alexander's article as an excuse for this now month-long carneval of exclusion and discrimination.

Fine that your feelings as a gamer were hurt by misunderstanding the argument in the original *opinion* piece by Alexander, but when the goddamn experiences of being a woman in this piece of shit culture and games industry consist of harassment, terrorism, and threats to your life, coupled with micro-aggressions and structural inequities, solely because you identify as a woman (or other non-default identities), you better damn well get some perspective on whose feelings and lives are actually exposed to harm.

Criticizing a stereotype by saying that the Doritos- and Mountain Dew-fueled white male sci-fi/fantasy nerd, whose identity is solely created and defined out of marketing and capitalistic incentives, is dead should not be as vitriolic and controversial as what some people seem to be championing. Unless you actually conform to that specific stereotype in real life, I understand if you're hurt, but people are always, always, always much more complex, multi-faceted and -dimensional than stereotypes, so I'm sure almost no one fulfil the negative stereotype of the "gamer".

If getting hurt over someone's opinion (who some apparently misunderstood despite tons of clarifications and explanations by others) on something as selective as identifying as the Gamer stereotype , then I must say you live a pretty sweet life if that is what grinds your gears.

Yup, said it better.

 

[Fredescu]

I'm almost sure #4 happened after.

It didn't. The article came a week after the Polytron hack.

 

[JDSN]

They could have easily written an article that made the same points without the insults and generalizations, and de-escalated instead of escalated the anger over the issue. If they had credibility. They went with the trolling for more attention route.

Yeah, that attention craving whore, with its pretty sassy words, not so tough now that its getting death treats and getting pulled ad support!

 

[lazorexplosion]

You can't really dictate editorial policy based on the fact that there will always be people who stubbornly insist on misinterpreting the obvious intent of the writing.

Provocative isn't inherently bad. Charged with emotion isn't inherently bad, especially when the situation calls for it. The behavior that members of the gaming public had been exhibiting in the weeks leading up to the article was more what I would call horrible, personally.

You would think the outrage would be over being lumped in a label with horrible human beings who choose to self-identify the same way that "you" (proverbial you) do, and that perhaps it might cause some people to analyze their choices and grapple with their understanding of this identity.

Except why do that when you can yell at its author on twitter, yeah?

I have absolutely no control over what some tiny minority of trolls amongst the millions of gamers do. Editors have at least the professional control to stop or edit pieces that make openly contemptuous generalizations of their own demographic in the middle of an issue that is already way too emotionally charged.

You're sort of dancing around the point with "Provocative isn't inherently bad". Right, fine, I didn't claim that. How about provocative in the middle of an already way too charged and emotional and hateful issue?

 

[Arkage]

The defense of Leigh's article as "it needed to be done" or "it was time" or "well x, y and z happened so it's justified" is only demonstrating that you embrace a path of discourse that solves nothing and converts no one. The general takeaway I get from her article and the article's defenders: "It's about time she preached to the choir!" since I imagine that being her only possible target audience.

 

[sedaku]

Well I mean...

1. Bomb threat on Sony executive's flight
2. Massive hate + slut shaming campaign on Zoe
3. Death threats and FBI filing from Anita
4. Polytron doxxing

It was time to address an issue.

Accussing "Gamers" of doing all those thing was definitely a VERY smart thing to do.

It's about as smart as declaring "Christianity is dead" because of something the Westboro Baptist chucrh did.

 

[Deleted member 126221]

Holy shit, we're back YET AGAIN to the #notallgamers debate?! This is really running in circles.

 

[bigmf]

It's never a good idea to anger a large contingent of your consumer base.

 

[MHWilliams]

Accussing "Gamers" of doing all those thing was definitely a VERY smart thing to do.

It's about as smart as declaring "Christianity is dead" because of something the Westboro Baptist chucrh did.

1966

2009

It's like the least scary thing to write ever.

I don't write like Leigh and the article isn't my cup of tea, but again... way too much over essentially nothing. But let's keep running in circles.

EDIT: Also, Kotaku's numbers were apparently up for the month.

https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/517396391011033088

Thanks to skill, some luck and the support of our readers, Kotaku had an unusually strong September. Thank you, all!

 

[Deleted member 126221]

It's like "gamers" never read any editorial ever outside of the gaming press.

 

[kcp12304]

I just find it funny that it's Alexander's article that people want to be offend by rather than the witch hunts, bullying, and all sorts of toxic behavior. Lets focus on how she hurt our feeling as gamers rather than the real human pain that has been caused by certain crusaders, right?

 

[JackDT]

https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/517443095496237056

Again, I feel I should reiterate that trying to push voices out of games media, especially fringe voices, helps nobody and nothing.

I disagree with Leigh Alexander 50% of the time. Still love reading her work and watching her LPs, and I'm sad some feel that needs apology.

 

[dLMN8R]

It's like "gamers" never read any editorial ever outside of the gaming press.

One of the biggest problems in general with the most active enthusiasts of generally-geeky culture is that they only consume media from that particular and extremely narrow slice of genre.

It's one of the reasons why games writing is so awful most of the time - most games writers grew up playing games and not reading much that has nothing to do with games. It's why so much games journalism is awful as well - because many tend to just write about games and not become great writers that can write something interesting about any topic.

It's only fitting that those who so personally identify themselves with the "gamer" persona - to the point that they'll viciously attack anyone who dare call them out - are not at all familiar with how journalism, reporting, criticism etc. work in the real world outside of gaming.


So concerned with ensuring that their media is considered "art", so unready to accept what that identification really means. So upset when they aren't validated by Ebert and other renowned critics, so unfamiliar with the kinds of personal relationships people like Ebert had with the people who created what he wrote about.

 

[zeldablue]

Accussing "Gamers" of doing all those thing was definitely a VERY smart thing to do.

It's about as smart as declaring "Christianity is dead" because of something the Westboro Baptist chucrh did.

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

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

 

[Riposte]

I figure they also referenced Alexander's tweets in their campaign against Gamasutra. She does make a lot of vitriolic, sweeping statements.

 

[Silexx]

The defense of Leigh's article as "it needed to be done" or "it was time" or "well x, y and z happened so it's justified" is only demonstrating that you embrace a path of discourse that solves nothing and converts no one. The general takeaway I get from her article and the article's defenders: "It's about time she preached to the choir!" since I imagine that being her only possible target audience.

Sorry, this makes absolutely no sense to me. What possible audience other than 'gamers/developpers' could she be targeting?

It's like "gamers" never read any editorial ever outside of the gaming press.

You're probably more on the nose than you might think.

 

[LiegeWaffle]

I think they're making a joke.

Woah, nameless dude got mad as all hell. Leigh seemed pretty reasonable, dunno how he got so vexed. https://imgur.com/a/LgZBN

I think my Poe's law sensor starts failing me here.

It didn't. The article came a week after the Polytron hack.

Woah, right, this has been going on for longer than I recalled it. I suspect I lost the sense of time because of how everything since then was going in circles. Is there a condensed timeline of events anywhere?

 

[tranciful]

To be fair they are neutral now. They aren't advertising in 8chan as far as I know. I really don't really see it as an endorsement though, they cater to gamers, saw the article and decided to pull out.

..no, changing your behavior is a response -- a response that wasn't neutral.

 

[Griss]

The "GamerGate" movement is an insane clusterfuck of horrible people espousing horrible views, and I've barely interacted with it as I don't need that poison in my life. That doesn't mean that I automatically back anyone on the other side.

Leigh's article was utterly atrocious, a blunderbuss of angry bile spewed in every direction that enlightened no one and helped nothing. It's typical of her writing. No, there is no benefit to being 'provocative' in arguments like this. There isn't. I also don't like the idea that sweeping generalisations and lazy stereotyping can be handwaved as 'provocative' rather than 'piss-poor writing'. If I was Intel and saw that that was the calibur of opinion piece being hosted on Gamasutra I'd consider my options as well.

The defense of Leigh's article as "it needed to be done" or "it was time" or "well x, y and z happened so it's justified" is only demonstrating that you embrace a path of discourse that solves nothing and converts no one. The general takeaway I get from her article and the article's defenders: "It's about time she preached to the choir!" since I imagine that being her only possible target audience.

Well said.

 

[tranciful]

screw anyone who calls themselves gamers' bullshit that they threw up.

So you're telling me you didn't read the article.

 

[stupei]

I have absolutely no control over what some tiny minority of trolls amongst the millions of gamers do. Editors have at least the professional control to stop or edit pieces that make openly contemptuous generalizations of their own demographic in the middle of an issue that is already way too emotionally charged.

You're sort of dancing around the point with "Provocative isn't inherently bad". Right, fine, I didn't claim that. How about provocative in the middle of an already way too charged and emotional and hateful issue?

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

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

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

 

[tranciful]

The defense of Leigh's article as "it needed to be done" or "it was time" or "well x, y and z happened so it's justified" is only demonstrating that you embrace a path of discourse that solves nothing and converts no one. The general takeaway I get from her article and the article's defenders: "It's about time she preached to the choir!" since I imagine that being her only possible target audience.

It was on Gamasutra. The audience was game developers. The message was "you, as game developers, don't have to make games for these trolls." She wasn't talking about all gamers. She was talking about the trolls.

 

[Deleted member 126221]

So you're telling me you didn't read the article.

Hey, reading the title already makes me angry, why should I go further?!