Zontar said:
Daystar Clarion said:
Been a gamer for 23+ years. At the end of the day, this entire thing started because a woman had sex with someone, and people got angry. In my mind, that's always going to be what I associate Gamer Gate with, and all the negative connotations that comes with it (as well as the stupid name, Gamer Gate? Seriously? It's fucking video games for christ's sake).
A gross simplification perhaps? Maybe, but I find a movement is only worth as much as what sparked it in the first place, and anything that uses the term SJW unironically isn't something I want to associate with, or be associated with.
Your comment just reinforces the fact that GamerGate has an image problem. After all, you skipped the part where every video game website bar the Escapist tried to censor anyone talking about Quinn, as well as Reddit and, somehow, 4chan. That is the crucial missing part between "her sleeping with people" and "people getting angry", and rightly so.
Well the thing is also that Quinn didn't exactly sleep with "someone" she slept with five people apparently all of whom were involved in the games industry, and none of which should have had a close relationship with her to begin with for reasons of personal integrity. It also tended to expose the whole "old boys" network involved in this thing as if you look you'll find that a lot of the people involved all know each other or float around in the same circles. They also tend to all hold the same basic political viewpoints and positions and use their jobs as a platform for them, and go about using those positions to attack anyone they don't like.
The thing one has to understand is that "Gamersgate" doesn't really have an image problem. Half the point of it is the way the industry has rallied to left wing issues and projects them as an offensive weapon when it doesn't like the way something is going. The actual misogyny among gamers gate supporters has been minimal, but the other side, namely the games media, and those swinging around banhammers and the like, have been heavily promoting it that way as they did from the beginning. Sure, there are probably a few misogynists involved, but for the most part I think a lot of the misogynist stuff you see is "firing back" sort of with people basically trolling back effectively saying "if you want misogyny here you go", which admittedly isn't the best way to go about things, but should not be confused with the real thing. Indeed if you think #gamersgate is really about gender issues, then you haven't been paying much attention, since this is an issue less because of hipster romance drama, and the fact that Zoe slept around, so much as who she slept with and the relative positions everyone involved held. The gaming media on the other hand has tried to make this a gender issue to deflect the accusations away from itself, and of course greater criticisms about the incestuous nature of the entire thing, and it's political slant.
Basically, my answer to Runic Knight is that there is no real need to divorce yourself from "toxic" elements of the entire thing. Just be very specific about what your talking about when you get involved in this and what your position is, and don't shout misogynist garbage yourself. Truth be told you'll probably be called one anyway just for supporting #Gamersgame, but that's sort of the point being made, and why you need to stick with it. You need to pretty much wade through that and keep coming right back at the gaming media and it's political agenda.
Besides, one important thing to understand is you have the right to be a misogynist just as much as someone has to be a feminist, a feminist also has the right to engage is misandry if they want to. That's what free speech is all about, it's not "the right to only say what I agree with". On this issue, which is similar to many others, you see a very clear dual standard. The gaming media and geek culture gives the floor to feminists, and extremists who engage in misandry and even entertains discussions about the difference between the two, but if you dare to disagree with them on any points and make comments that might be considered not in favor of women's rights? Something which can easily be projected onto rebutting issues about games being sexist and such by those with the opposite agenda (whether accurate or not). The thing that pisses people off is not so much that they want to be misogynists, so much that they do not want to be attacked or shut down for daring to say things that aren't exactly pro-feminist in the context of games and such. You'll notice the game media as a whole doesn't have many people that say defend the artwork in games and such. Granted in pushing for this you arguably also have to say misogyny is a fair topic to express since by definition if you oppose
the other two viewpoints you wind up there by default. Either allow discussion of everything, or allow discussion of nothing so to speak. A lot of the people engaging in extreme misogyny recently seem to be doing it to get the goat of the other side, not mature, but it's the kind of backlash you see when people are irritated.
On the wider issue of SJWs in the gaming media which comes in association with this, the bottom line is that you've got a social network of naïve, guild-ridden, white kids trying to get attention by posting issues from their keyboard equipped ivory towers to champion minorities that are seen as not being able to champion themselves. While I won't see it out there, you generally don't see many actual minorities pushing for better representation in games, and honestly a big part of why you don't see more minorities and points of view is because when attempts have been made to cater to them, they just don't show up (and it's not like there was one or two half hearted efforts, we've seen it periodically). You see more guys like say Bob Chipman demanding better representation of say blacks in geek media, than you see actual blacks for example. It's not that Black America can't speak for itself, it's just that culturally it doesn't care much on any large scale, when it wants to push as it has in the past, it can be very loud, and doesn't need the geek media and social justice warriors to lead the forefront for them. However it gets attention and makes social justice warriors feel important so... well, we see it, and after a while it gets obnoxious. It's not that anyone has any desire to keep minorities out, it's just that people are getting tired of the pushes for inclusiveness that the group in question doesn't seem to care about on any large scale, and being told we're all terrible people if we don't want to see established franchises ethnicity swapped for the sake of controversy and the feel good points for a few SJWs. This is something that erupted as part of Gamers Gate, though it's not connected to the actual incident that started it (gamers gate became about a lot of things). Basically this is akin to people finally getting irritated over how pretty much every media source out there seemed to talk about how great it was to ethnicity swap Heimdall in the "Thor" movies but yet nobody seemed to be representing the common viewpoint that a long established character should look like the long established character (and there are plenty of black characters to promote if they need to). Purely in gaming people are looking at things like Jim Streling's comments and how he made them over the whole "gay male options in Mass Effect 3" which were not just in support of it, but pretty offensive to those who were not. Nobody seemed to be taking the whole "you know, I don't care what two gay guys do in the privacy of their own home, but I don't want to have to see it, or have it suggested in my video games". For that matter when is the last time you've seen anyone in the games media who was not 100% pro gay? Almost every one of them is a complete social liberal. Perhaps the most vocal group SJWs actually represent is absolutely tiny, and you don't see those same principles being applied to say forcing China, Japan, and other more or less monoethnic countries to have their minorities better represented (the numbers are similar).
The point here isn't that you need to be some kind of racist, anti-gay, misogynist... but rather that the games media is unbalanced, and you can disagree with what it promotes on some of these subjects without being any of those things. Yet disagree with a lot of the people on these sites and out come the banhammers. This all got set off because the media old boys network came to the defense of Zoe Quinn, and started hammering anyone who dared to have a problem with what she did, or suggested it was wrong for people in the games industry/media to be sleeping with an indie developer. Zoe's pissed off Ex has never really been a big issue... but those against Gamersgate try and act like that's what it's about.
At the end of the day though #Gamersgate is not going to accomplish much, it's simply the first incident of it's kind and it's paving the way. I doubt much will change when this eventually blows over, except maybe the gaming media and aspects of the industry touched by this will become a bit more paranoid. That just means the next incident (which could be a year or two in the making) will blow up even worse. This is going to be ongoing until something changes.
Right now the ideal thing would be for those managing some of these sites to start firing people, and bringing in fresh blood to fill some of the slots, people unknown to the others involved in gaming media (as opposed to being friends who are brought in and so on) combined with a lot more attention being paid to personal ethics and what kinds of relationships employees hold. Furthermore they need to start getting people who are more socially conservative into positions within the gaming media, as face it, a lot of people are not socially liberal. We need a "Rush Limbaugh Of Geek Journalism" or two to balance out all the Bob Chipman types since it's unlikely anyone is going to start forcing an equal time standard on them. Basically if Jim is going to troll people who don't care for having gay male stuff added into "Mass Effect 3" that's his right, but there should be some counter statements of equal force.
That's just my thoughts of course.
