The Big Picture: Remembering the Real Jack Thompson

[The Deadpool]

I'd say gender equality is at a better place today than it was fifty years ago (though issues, of course, remain). I'd say we consume more media (and perhaps more significantly, more diverse media) than we did fifty years ago.

...I'd also say that those two facts may be related. Whoever said media has only a negative impact? I would argue that diversifying media has potentially had a positive impact on gender issues in recent history.

So your argument is that games have a positive effect on gender issues? Then welcome, you disagree with Anita too. Have a nice stay.

if it is solely that media influences outlook, is not wrong.

Also, are you saying that wanting to have the government regulate something that causes children to murder each other is the worst thing he could do?

I have no idea where this came from. I never said anything to that effect.

Games are violent (undeniably so). They glorify and incentivize players to to acts of violence (also, undeniably so).

If games affect behavior, then violent games makes people more violent, leading to extra assaults and death, etc... Why WOULDN'T you want that regulated?

Once again; using a similar premise, but actually arguing completely different things, is not "the same argument".

Is there any meaningful difference?

And, yes, people do have a problem with Jack Thompson getting death threats.

Yeah... That's not true. No one defended him when it happened. Certainly not the media. Hell, several articles thought it was kinda funny...

Also, "nobody seems to have a problem" with games causing sexism?

A minority. Every news outlet, not just online but even TV, largely agrees with the premise all of a sudden.

 

[WhiteNachos]

except as people defending it have pointed out THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO PLAY THE GAME. The game designers had to program the game so this was all possible. They had to program the strippers AI so they cower in fear instead of fighting back or running away. The only reason they would be designed in such a way is as she said as to give the players pleasure in killing them. The strippers will even stand still and not notice that you have killed the girl standing right next to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPqTm3KgABM

Ok here we go.

While there is no inherently off limits way to play the game, the game itself doe have systems contained within in that encourage or discourage certain approaches.

The most evident one is losing score and as such rating if you decide to play the game a different way. It won't end your experience instantly but it will place sanctions. There sanctions instantly are less score, slightly later it might be higher alter from guards making the game harder.

In older some of the older Hitman games they tried a notoriety mechanic where by your performance or lack there of in previous missions would cause you to be more or less easily spotted thus actively punishing you for not playing the game a certain way.


The same argument you're applying to Hitman for allowing these behaviours can be levelled at The Sims


Now while the Sims doesn't even as actively punish people for creating a Sim just to be mean to. You can do it. The game does punish you in a way by slowing progress.

So is that problematic in the Sims that you can create people just to torture them ?
The only reason the pool was in the Sims was to drown Sims.
The only reason Knives exist is to stab people.
Can you see a problem yet with only allowing one interpretation to be allowed ?

As for the Stipper Standing still and not realising........ poor AI coding the AI coding most likely was done such that they only realise when they have line of sight of a body. Remember these are the equivalent of programmed robots trying to act human. Trying to claim it was malicious because it's not realistic enough discounts the far more simple explanation. The designer was lazy or didn't have the time / money to make the coding more complex.

As for the stripper. The other NPCS fight back, run away and notice you killing other people. That means they were coded NOT to do those things.

Nope. I've seen them run away, I've seen others cower run or fight back. I think it's randomly determined what each individual NPC does or at least its partly determined based on what type of NPC they are (waiter vs. guard for instance)

The sims does punish you for torturing others. Your mood and behavoir of your main character is greatly affected by acting mean to other characters. Not to mention in the Sims there is permantnet death.

And hitman Absolution does punish you for killing civilians

In Hitman the strippers are there for one purpose. They can not be altered from that purpose.

You say you haven't played the game and yet your positive about this? Well I have and I can tell you it's bullcrap. They're there to either give background information on the club when you listen in on their conversations, or they can be there as a hinderance. If they catch you sneaking around backstage when you aren't disguised as a guard or whatever they'll raise the alarm, so you have to avoid them if you don't have the right disguise.

Do you want to know why you can kill non-target NPCs in hitman?

Have you ever played a crappy stealth section in an action game?

You may have thought to yourself during during those stealth sections "I can't get past this one person, can't I just kill them and move on"

Crappy Stealth Section: No.
Hitman (which is a stealth game): Sure, but it'll cost you.

Later: Couldn't I just kill everyone in the level?
Hitman: Sure but it'll cost you even more.

And as I explained earlier the point of dragging bodies around is to hide them.

These rules apply to every NPC in the game (except the designated targets which you're supposed to kill but you can still hide their bodies).

Some people don't care about the negative consequences just as people don't mind getting negative karma in Fallout or Infamous or having their sims be in a bad mood (I assume anyway, haven't actually played the Sims).

I find it funny the only people i have ever met who play and enjoy hitman are people who support Gamergate. I've never met anyone in real life who has ever said they enjoy the hitman games.

I'm not part of gamergate, and the original topic wasn't about it so I don't see your point.

 

[The Deadpool]

is saying "these peoples viewpoints correlate with my own thus they validate my opinion". That's the very DEFINITION of by swayed by media bias.

No, it's my pointing out that the same people arguing FOR her argument now were arguing AGAINST her argument when it was presented by someone else.

I didn't say "believe it because smarter and wiser people have it." I simply pointed out we've had this argument presented before TEN YEARS AGO and it lost.

 

[The Choke]

Confirmation bias.

That's fair since it's based on the anecdotal evidence of my own experience, but I wouldn't consider a screenshot from another biased party to be a reliable source of information, nor would I consider a sampling of three hundred out of thousands comments- especially if that sampling ignores things like the wikipedia vandalism, impersonation accounts, and doxing- to be effective evidence.

 

[The Deadpool]

Confirmation bias.

That's fair since it's based on the anecdotal evidence of my own experience, but I wouldn't consider a screenshot from another biased party to be a reliable source of information, nor would I consider a sampling of three hundred out of thousands comments- especially if that sampling ignores things like the wikipedia vandalism, impersonation accounts, and doxing- to be effective evidence.

You talked about comments in her youtube videos specifically.

Were the youtube videos NOT deleted by her, we could go count ourselves. I counted what I had access to (the top 300) and they were largely positive.

Considering there were thousands of comments spread across several social media and over the course of days and she pulled about 20 super negative ones... Does it really seem that unlikely that the trend remained the same?

 

[Lightknight]

Confirmation bias.

That's fair since it's based on the anecdotal evidence of my own experience, but I wouldn't consider a screenshot from another biased party to be a reliable source of information, nor would I consider a sampling of three hundred out of thousands comments- especially if that sampling ignores things like the wikipedia vandalism, impersonation accounts, and doxing- to be effective evidence.

You talked about comments in her youtube videos specifically.

Were the youtube videos NOT deleted by her, we could go count ourselves. I counted what I had access to (the top 300) and they were largely positive.

Considering there were thousands of comments spread across several social media and over the course of days and she pulled about 20 super negative ones... Does it really seem that unlikely that the trend remained the same?

I apologize for interjecting but I can't seem to see what the argument is here. What point is choke trying to make? Are we somehow surprised that negative comments are happening on the internet?

 

[Belaam]

Not sure how in the world you think you can claim a media that makes more money than movies and music together.

Nice logical fallacy yourself. ..you don't understand the first thing about strawman and logical fallacies, lol.

Sorry, I guess I should have used "people" instead of "you"; it's moronic to think anyone can claim to represent all gamers. I guess I thought the context made that obvious.

If you don't like current gaming journalism, go start your own site.

Not how games journalism works. ... When you see something wrong, we have this thing called "vote with your wallet and call people out on their bullshit". Because we have the right to do so as game consumers.

That's exactly what I said, and exactly how journalism works. People thought there was a liberal bias in news and so there was a market for FOX News' creation. You, or any other GGer, are perfectly free to start your own site and those appalled with "ethics" are free to join you. Instead, you seem to be giving more hits/ad space to a Big Picture ad directly opposed to your stated goal. In other words, every time you watch a MovieBob vid or post on an article on one of his vids, you are indeed voting with your wallet towards the very argument you claim to be against. If you were having this argument on a GG gaming site, you would instead be giving that money to GG instead of Bob.

That's what GG was SUPPOSED to be about, ethics in games journalism before everyone started getting their political agendas involved.

I think you're working from a faulty timeline if you think that's what came first. What came first was a false accusation of trading sex for reviews. GG would be on FAR stronger footing if the instigating event and continued focus was Shadow of Mordor marketing or the like.

Sure. Just like you for example, I don't have to take everything seriously and I don't have to take Ms. Sarkeesian's "analysis" of games seriously either. I can call BS when I see it.

Exactly. I would love to see more critical analysis of games.

So if it isn't why are feminists so afraid of analysis of themselves then?

Are you ignorant? Feminist theory can be traced back to the 1700s. Feminist analysis has been pretty much going on steadily, with much debate for, against, and within, for almost a hundred years. There has been constant and regular analysis and criticism of feminist analysis for ages. Schisms within, offshoots of queer analysis, and quite literally mountains of analysis of feminist thought, theory and analysis. Just at the academic level, it would probably take a lifetime to review all the analysis of feminist theory. Purude has a nice basic overview and some basic recommended reading here:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/11/

Though I would certainly recommend some Judith Butler to that list as well. Michael Foucault can be read as feminist arguments regardless of gender and might also be of interest to you.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

Bravo, sir. Your good coherence and rational behaivor are something rare in those kind of statements in the Internet. Hats off to you!

Now, I'd like to point out that not all comments against her are legitimate criticism of her points. There is a lot of delusional criticism of feminism or mere name-summoning of Thompson in a Godwin-esque law fashion (and a lot of other things that aren't even criticism, but they aren't part of this topic). Who can hear the former when the later are much noisier?

 

[Lightknight]

That's what GG was SUPPOSED to be about, ethics in games journalism before everyone started getting their political agendas involved.

I think you're working from a faulty timeline if you think that's what came first. What came first was a false accusation of trading sex for reviews. GG would be on FAR stronger footing if the instigating event and continued focus was Shadow of Mordor marketing or the like.

Right, unfortunately the trigger point ended up being extreme nepotism and cronyism that was benefitting a potential political movement/position/group of sorts. It would definitely have been much better with the more AAA level style of corruption.

However, people fail to realize that both are wrong and both deal with games journalism. That widespread political favoritism in the industry happens is a problem. Individual causes and arguments should be dealt with on their own merits. They should not be avoided or covered because you're friends with the person championing them. That's bad in any kind of journalism and failing to root that out if you agree with the group getting extra attention only reinforces an environment that may turn out to harm you on other issues in the future.

The truth is, there are many areas of corruption in the industry and they don't have to be addressed exclusively. It starts with full disclosure of relationships and friendships and ends when both sides of the issue are discussed openly. It happens when charities aren't blacklisted just because someone's friend says they're bad. Heck, in those cases journalists should be even quicker to interview them to expose them as bad rather than just not interview them.

 

[Lightknight]

snip

Bravo, sir. Your good coherence and rational behaivor are something rare in those kind of statements in the Internet. Hats off to you!

Thank you! Hopefully I can maintain that respect.

Now, I'd like to point out that not all comments against her are legitimate criticism of her points. There is a lot of delusional criticism of feminism or mere name-summoning of Thompson in a Godwin-esque law fashion (and a lot of other things that aren't even criticism, but they aren't part of this topic). Who can hear the former when the later are much noisier?

I fully agree that there are non-rational, even borderline obsessive responses to her arguments.

But just because there are loud crazies out there doesn't mean that the truth shouldn't be pursued or the conversation shut down. We should be able to shift through nonsense and listen to reasonable arguments. I mean, you just did. Why shouldn't we expect journalists and other people to be able to also? Liana Kerzner of Polygon points out that she also has problems with Anita's argument [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp3kzy3eTcU] (this link is an excellent two-sided discussion) but the environment would automatically label any male writer disagreeing with Anita as sexist and any female writer would automatically get labeled as the Anti-Anita and when her fame wanes, so will theirs.

So the environment is damaged. We need to have rules in place where the default is to include two sides. Where it's expected to see a piece on Anita that includes a critic of hers where relevant. If that's expected then we can avoid people being afraid of covering the counter point.

 

[The Choke]

she pulled about 20 super negative ones... Does it really seem that unlikely that the trend remained the same?

Or... actually a lot more than that, screenshots up on her Feminist Frequency site, and did three separate posts about it on her website, but sure, we can keep trying to lie about the numbers. How about I say there were FOUR HUNDRED negative ones, and you can come back and tell me how the top 300 confirm that there was actually six hundred positive comments, since we're both clearly mathmagicians who can conjure numbers and facts out of thin air.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Bob, dude, seriously...

It's your show and technically you can do whatever you want but regardless of ideological difference NO ONE came here to listen to you rant about this issue. Do yourself a favor and take this discussion to another outlet unless you want to alienate viewers who enjoy the big picture for discussing geek nostalgia and other "fun" topics.

Speak for yourself, buddy. Or do I have to change my name to "Nevyn" now (uber-obscure fantasy novel geek reference).

 

[The Choke]

300 negative comments you say.

Pssst. That isn't what I said. Also, if you look up you'll see the point whizzing over your head.

 

[The Deadpool]

she pulled about 20 super negative ones... Does it really seem that unlikely that the trend remained the same?

Or... actually a lot more than that, screenshots up on her Feminist Frequency site, and did three separate posts about it on her website, but sure, we can keep trying to lie about the numbers. How about I say there were FOUR HUNDRED negative ones, and you can come back and tell me how the top 300 confirm that there was actually six hundred positive comments, since we're both clearly mathmagicians who can conjure numbers and facts out of thin air.

I wasn't conjuring up the numbers. I am saying that, in the comments on her youtube video I was personally privy to, the break down was largely positive.

If your argument is that because I did not read and tally up EVERY SINGLE COMMENT EVER MADE TO HER therefore I cannot speak as to the average breakdown of positive to negative, then the question becomes... why can you?

You said it was largely negative. I actually counted and looked at the numbers. You... Have a sense of things?

 

[The Deadpool]

After the Kickstarter, all the videos comments filled up with some pretty vile stuff.

That is actually untrue.

She used to close off her comments section before the Kickstarter. FOR the Kickstarters she opened them, and stated (herself) that she was doing so to prove that there would be a negative reaction.

Actually she never opened the comments as such.

Sorry, should have specified. I was talking about her youtube video in particular, not her Kickstarter page.

She had a post of her own on her comment section, saying something to the effect of keeping it open to show people the kind of reaction she'd get.

 

[The Choke]

You said it was largely negative. I actually counted and looked at the numbers. You... Have a sense of things?

Sorry, but if my anecdotal evidence is sullied by confirmation bias, then your own is, too. I told you, I read the negative comments as they came in. You told me you read the positive comments in a screenshot after the fact, then told me that it was actual the comments on the video, only it was just the most recent 300.

Also, "I actually counted and looked at the numbers." lol. Some of them. Which supported your already held belief.

 

[The Deadpool]

I apologize for interjecting but I can't seem to see what the argument is here. What point is choke trying to make? Are we somehow surprised that negative comments are happening on the internet?

The argument is actually over what percentage of the gamer population is actually misogynistic.

The argument I presented is as follows:

If Anita's hypothesis is correct and games have a serious effect non the misogyny of people who play them, then the grand majority of players would be misogynistic.

If someone is misogynistic, said person would be against Anita's statements.

I postulate then that since the majority of gamers seem to be AGREEING with Anita, then games simply don't have any noticeable effect.

He argues that the majority of gamers are AGAINST her, citing the large percentage of negative comments against her.

That's how we came to argue over how large the percentage of negative comments against her ACTUALLY was...

 

[The Choke]

I apologize for interjecting but I can't seem to see what the argument is here. What point is choke trying to make? Are we somehow surprised that negative comments are happening on the internet?

The argument is actually over what percentage of the gamer population is actually misogynistic.

The argument I presented is as follows:

If Anita's hypothesis is correct and games have a serious effect non the misogyny of people who play them, then the grand majority of players would be misogynistic.

If someone is misogynistic, said person would be against Anita's statements.

I postulate then that since the majority of gamers seem to be AGREEING with Anita, then games simply don't have any noticeable effect.

He argues that the majority of gamers are AGAINST her, citing the large percentage of negative comments against her.

That's how we came to argue over how large the percentage of negative comments against her ACTUALLY was...

I've actually just been asking you to clarify that point over and over again because it's, first of all, weird, and secondly was worded in such a way that I had no idea what you were trying to say.

I don't like the total-sum "misogyny equals this" because it ignores how subtle sexism actually is, but whatever sweeping statement floats your boat.

Right now we seem to be arguing over the fact that your supporting your opinion with random numbers that don't actually work as evidence.