You don't have to be afraid of taking a public stance against #GamerGate.

[Nirallus]

I think the first step of GamerGate looking like it actually listens to women is by actually listening to women.

Well, you just made my day a touch brighter. Glad to see someone say that.

Glad to see a smarmy statement dismissing all the pro-GamerGate women at a stroke? Glad to see it once again cut down to "GamerGaters just hate women"?

 

[Nirallus]

Stop immediately casting out anyone who doesn't agree with what you say.

Like the good folks from Reddit to NeoGAF to Cracked. The reason I'm here, and I'm not the only one judging from Joined dates, is because the Escapist is one of the last places that would even let you talk about this. All gratitude to Greg Tito for not censoring the discussion, even under all the pressure. Look at all the shit being flung this way on Twitter and in the leaked GameJournoPros emails, just for letting us speak.

Stop the talk of burning games journalism to the ground.

You know, the more I've read the more I think games journalism is dying anyways. David Auerbach (that notorious right-wing hack working for tinfoil hat conspiracy hotbed Slate) absolutely skewered the GameJournoPros by revealing all the shrill "Gamers Are Dead" articles to be textbook projection. Publishers can skip the middleman, like Nintendo is doing with Nintendo Direct. Consumers can find reviews on YouTube, or ask Reddit or /v/ or Steam friends or go to a dozen other places. That's why these sites are reduced to blogging about how Game X is Y-ist because it doesn't Z.

Stop acting like you're so much smarter than anyone who disagrees with you. Listen to your critics as much as people who agree with you.

Quoting you from another thread. I'm guessing all of these will get merged tomorrow morning:

But that's not gonna happen, because GamerGate really isn't about journalism. It's about beating the other side. It's about revenge. It's about GamerGate "winning" the conflict. And if they creat a new movement, and a new hashtag, then they can't win. They might actually have to compromise with the journalists, feminists, and SJWs, instead of destroying them like they've destroyed so many video game bosses.

These are not the words of someone who is willing to listen to the opposing side, and doesn't presume to be smarter than they all are. They're the words of someone who's already made up his mind to dismiss the opposition.

 

[Nirallus]

But that's not gonna happen, because GamerGate really isn't about journalism. It's about beating the other side. It's about revenge. It's about GamerGate "winning" the conflict. And if they creat a new movement, and a new hashtag, then they can't win. They might actually have to compromise with the journalists, feminists, and SJWs, instead of destroying them like they've destroyed so many video game bosses.

These are not the words of someone who is willing to listen to the opposing side, and doesn't presume to be smarter than they all are. They're the words of someone who's already made up his mind to dismiss the opposition.

Go through my post history. I've been listening to the other side since this whole silly thing began. And I've actually revised a few of my thoughts because of it (example: I used to think GamerGate was a bunch of teenagers. I was wrong, as a large portion of it is actually made up of adults).

Overall, however, I have found your points to be overwhelmingly unconvincing. Don't assume that all people need to do to be convinced of your position is to hear you out. Plenty of people are listening to you, and coming to the conclusion that you are wrong.

Likewise in the opposite direction. Maybe this is why "Listen And Believe" was being pushed so hard.

 

[Carrington666]

But none of that happened. She wasn't even called a bad name.

You're right, all you did was make a woman with a mild opinion feel alienated and uncomfortable. Obviously, that has nothing to do with GG's PR problems.

It doesn't. GG's PR problems come from the media that they're fighting against. You can't understand what's truly going on without understanding this first.

Please, don't just dismiss opinions if you don't like them.
This is not the first time that someone has pointed to the behavior of some pro-GGer and said that this is one of the reasons why people my not like the movement. Don't just say: "This is wrong, the media is at fault."
Take a moment, reflect and ask yourself "Could this person have a point?" You don't have to agree with it, you can even come to the conclusion that the point was stupid, but please think about it.

I can only speak for myself, this is the only forum I follow and my twitter account is only there to tell me when 2 Youtuber upload there videos. To the best of my knowledge, I haven't read any of the articles against GG, but I have seen a couple of those reprehensible "Gamers/GG are like ISIS, only worse" tweets. I should be in your corner, but I am not.
And it isn't because of some articles of the media. It's because a lot of the pro-GG posts look condescending and carry the subtext, that is if it isn't outright said, "if you don't agree with me, than you don't know what you're talking about / than you haven't done your research".
Then there are the posts that seem to deliberately misunderstand something to make a point.
And the posts that imply or say that if you aren't with them, you are against them.

And I don't care if the anti-GGer do the same thing. I don't want to be against a consumerist movements that asks for better journalistic standards. I want to be part of that group. And I try to ignore the BS and just look for the good points, but it gets so, so tiring.

 

[Netrigan]

How naive can you be? They're going to attack people under one label or another. Do you not know what spawned gamergate? A coordinated barrage of articles directly attacking gamers. Gamers. They had no "gamergate" to attack but they still had a name for us, didn't they? They still had a group of people to slander and deride and shame into submission. Unfortunately for them they only managed to piss people off in record numbers.

You know what? No. You bring up the "Gamers are Dead" articles, we get to talk about what spawned the "Gamers are Dead" articles. They didn't spring up full form from the head of Zeus, they were written in response to yet more horribleness that had come to define "gamer" these past years. Like the month long "Burgers and Fries" witch hunt. Like the response Sarkeesian gets for doing literally anything. Like the bomb threat on the SOE president. Like the death threats sent to the Gamespot reviewer who dared give GTA 5 a mere 9/10.

I'm not surprised games journalists got sick of this loud, toxic minority that tries to pretend they're the only gamers that matter, I'm just surprised it took them this long to snap.

Really? You want to play this game?

And what about Leigh Alexanders hateful and racist tirades? Her repeated doxxing of critics? The constant stream of articles over the last several years calling gamers misogynists and how games promote rape? The syringe sent to Milo? A writer at the verge threatening to punch gamergate supporters at comic-con? TB still receiving harassment while recovering from surgery? Indie devs like Jason Miller losing their jobs due to harassment? Gearbox claiming a bomb threat near their office was from gamergate when, as it turned out, had absolutely nothing to do with them? The DDOSing of this very forum? The censorship of multiple sites? The refusal to report on the Zoe Quinn scandal after smearing Max Temkin with no evidence on a bogus rape claim?

I can go on all day.

Zoe Quinn's attacks on TFYC. IndieCade's completely corrupt judges. Phil Phish's racketeering scheme. Brianna Wu harassing GamerGate supporters with a sock account while still trying to claim victimhood, baseless attacks on Intel calling them sexist, gaymerx harassed for mere neutrality, the polygon writer harassed for neutrality, Matt Lees calling Christina Sommers scum, Alex Lifschitz saying gamers should have their backs broken on racks among other crazy things, the bullying that went on in the gamejournopro group, George Reese comparing gamergate supporters to ISIS, Ian Miles Chong falsely accusing a gamergate supporter of being a rapist, the doxxing of Kingofpol and internetaristocrat, the dmca claims on thunderfoot....

I'm choosing to stop but it goes on and on and on....http://i.imgur.com/4JWl6sF.jpg

Not to mention every person, just like you, who blames every individual event on gamers as a whole, even though if you replaced "gamers" with a race, gender, religion, lifestyle, country, political leaning, etc. you'd sound absolutely ridiculous.

Just would like to point out that the Phil Fish "racketeering" thing is about as uncomfirmed as you can get. No police reports, no original article to point to, just people quoting bits from an article they assure us they saw.

But if you can't trust random people on message boards, who can you trust?

 

[redlemon]

Please, don't just dismiss opinions if you don't like them.
This is not the first time that someone has pointed to the behavior of some pro-GGer and said that this is one of the reasons why people my not like the movement. Don't just say: "This is wrong, the media is at fault."
Take a moment, reflect and ask yourself "Could this person have a point?" You don't have to agree with it, you can even come to the conclusion that the point was stupid, but please think about it.

It's common knowledge that the media can skew the way people perceive things. But what people don't realize is the extent of how much and how often they do it.

Consider: Pro-GG has an image problem to the general public. The person implied that it's simply because of the actions of a few trolls making the entire movement look bad. If that was true, why doesn't anti-GG have this problem? Consider the fact that even some of their figureheads have made racist tweets while our image problem is supposedly caused by a few random anons.

I can only speak for myself, this is the only forum I follow and my twitter account is only there to tell me when 2 Youtuber upload there videos. To the best of my knowledge, I haven't read any of the articles against GG, but I have seen a couple of those reprehensible "Gamers/GG are like ISIS, only worse" tweets. I should be in your corner, but I am not.

I suggest you read those articles against GG. Or those gamers are dead articles, if you haven't already. They'll give you some more perspective on what's going on. No offense, but don't you find it a little strange to tell someone that they shouldn't be faulting the media when you haven't read what the media's been saying about us?

And it isn't because of some articles of the media. It's because a lot of the pro-GG posts look condescending and carry the subtext, that is if it isn't outright said, "if you don't agree with me, than you don't know what you're talking about / than you haven't done your research".

Misinformation is probably GG's greatest enemy, so it's not a surprise this gets thrown around a lot. Of course, there really are a lot of people who haven't done their research, so it's not entirely unjustified.

And I don't care if the anti-GGer do the same thing. I don't want to be against a consumerist movements that asks for better journalistic standards. I want to be part of that group. And I try to ignore the BS and just look for the good points, but it gets so, so tiring.

Gaming journalists hate their core audience, and they aren't above resorting to blatant lies to make everyone else hate them too. They've made it clear that they'd rather promote a political or personal agenda rather than report the truth. They don't promote games based on merit, but how well it falls in line with their agendas. Or whether they're friends with the developer. Or whether they've invested money so that they earn a profit when the game succeeds. It's clear they no longer represent our best interests.

 

[small]

personally i did my own research into the zoe quin thing and couldnt find any evidence of a conspiracy with her. that said there is something dodgy with mostly AAA companies and game sites, reviewers, etc when its a miracle any AAA game gets under 90% these days no matter what its like, not to mentioned gamers going apeshit if a game gets less than 90.

it doesnt matter what the intention of gamergate was in the past or now. the side effect of all this is that a good chunk of women in the industry are now scared shitless of standing out in any way in the industry or attracting the attention of gamers. no matter what side you stand on thats the end result of all this and frankly we will get less creative games, less original ones, and less games that truly stand out or even have some good elements we havent seen before or implemented in someway.

you can almost guarantee we will loose developers over this and people will not enter the industry because of it

 

[Xyebane]

I have a rather opposite perception. In that I feel if you come out in support of game journalism reform or say you do believe there is too much bias in games journalism you will automatically be branded as sexist and a troll.

 

[Irick]

I'm sorry it took me so long to message you back. I wanted to read the articles with a clearer head, and I can't say I wasn't a bit irritated last night. As it is, I never said the idea that you guys are wanting journalistic integrity isn't a thing.

My point was that when someone who isn't for GG goes into the major thread they're going to see something quite astounding. One group will be talking about journalism. One will be talking about what Anita or Zoe is up to. One may be talking about what is on twitter and who said this or that. Another may be pissed about another thing. And so there are 5 different conversations going on.

What happens next? Well they may try to join in one of those conversations. We'll assume there are 30 people in there talking at one time, about 5 different things. They give a dissenting opinion on something Jim Sterling said on Twitter because they think if you put context on it (with something he followed it up with on Twitter lets say) you'd understand it better. Now they're not going to get 6 people messaging them, because there are 6 people in that conversation (30 people/5 topics= 6 people per topic in my example here).

They're going to get 15 comments. And then as they try to reply to those, they're going to get 10 more to another comment they made. And eventually they're going to be overwhelmed by those comments and they're not going to want to discuss anything with anyone. It becomes a huge train wreck.

And it is funny, because not everyone always agrees, some people in the thread love Jim still, they think he's taken stuff out of context, but they have given him a pass. Others think that he needs to be fired. Others still just black list him. So this person isn't getting one opinion blasted at them, they're getting 3. And they're getting so many comments they can't keep up. And eventually, because they can't keep up, they get told they're either derailing the thread (despite the fact that it was a topic that had been brought up already by the GG people there), or they're told to be ignored, because their opinion doesn't matter, or they're told they're just some SJW activist that doesn't need to be there.

I know this happens. I've seen other people go through it, I've gone through it. And these weren't inflammatory comments, they were just "We don't think Jim S. is a bad guy. You guys jumped the gun on what he said and are taking it out of context."

That's enough to set the pack on them. And this is why GG gets a bad PR. There are lovely people in there, and I like some of them. I still talk to them. I get PMs from them periodically and we joke around about me being a Social Justice Bard. So people that aren't for GG can make lasting relationships with people that ARE for GG. But we're not treated as people when we go in there, we're treated as enemies when we go in there.

And that's what I meant by my comment.

These are salient points.
I'm honestly surprised that you are still as actively engaged with this line of discussion as you are. But, these are simply the forces are partisan politics. There is never going to be a clear consensus in any group. We can say XYZ are the core tenets of any given group, but we are still going to be making rough generalization. We are going to generalize the worse about the 'opposition'. It's going to be a rare conversation in a public forum that actually allows intelligent conversation on the subject without a godly amount of restraint shown by all parties when someone comes in with a confrontational attitude. I'm personally still committed to trying to find a level of discourse on the topics I feel are important. So, i'm happy that the issues can still be discussed outside of these public forums. PBS's Game Show did a nice little video on the topic of ethics in journalism. We are seeing discussion in games media. These are good, it's really surprising to me just how much staying power this conflict has had so far.

I am curious if your focus on history gives you any interest in the subject as perhaps the indication of a Zeitgeist. I really disagree with a lot of the "Gamer is dead" articles, but I acknowledge we may be going through a culture shift. I can't help but wonder if you think these sort of flame wars and the surrounding issues will become an event we actually do point to in the future as a defining moment for games culture. I mean, it's impossible to say without retrospect, but a bit of my motivation for staying involved is I feel that it might be important. That there is a cultural momentum we can use to mature the medium by discussing how we treat it.

I don't necessarily think it's bad anymore that the bickering and flame wars are going on. I'd love to see nothing but intellectual debate, discussion and everyone coming to the table as equals, but uh... Heh. That's boring to most people who want to argue. Honestly I fall into that position too, occasionally. Devil's advocate is a fun position, as is argument for the sake of argument. Sometimes I can be really mean and have fun at the expense of others. I can't really judge for this, but I still feel that we can try and steer the discussion toward a more civil context.

I admit that I've kinda disengaged recently because it's a daunting concept. But...
I'm seeing at least some people who seem like I could engage on 'on the opposite side'. So. You've inspired me somewhat to get back to trying to find the worthwhile discussion in the noise being thrown around. I hope that you don't get overwhelmed by the flame war and I hope that we end up exchanging ideas in the future.

 

[Carrington666]

snip

I like this post, but not for the reason you might think.

See anything about harassment in there? Misogyny? Illegal activities? Hate speech of any kind? 4chan?

No.

This guy right here isn't pro-GG because of any of those reasons, despite what people describe as our "image problem". The worst he has to say about us is that we're less than polite, and a bit arrogant.

Well, yes and there seems to be a tendency to deliberately misinterpret something so it can fit your argument. And when you see it happening to yourself, you will automatically be suspiscious about their other statements.

And since statements without proof are worthless, I'll quote out previous dialogue from this thread. I said if one websites publishes a single article about a topic, then this article can be seen as the view of that website. To which you replied that following that logic ZP must be opinion of the Escapist.
Now, I don't know if you deliberately misunderstood my point to invalidate it by making it look ridiculous, but it atleast looks that way to me.

I added the relevant quote in the spoiler, I only added the emphasis.

Spoiler

snip

snip

The only thing I argue for is that if one site publishes excactly one article/video etc. about a topic, than this article/video can be seen as the opinion of that site. If a site publishes multiple articles/videos about a topic that share the same tenor, but non with a contrary viewpoint, than this tenor can and probaby should be seen as the general opinion of that site.
If a site publishes multiple articles/videos about a topic with multiple viewpoints, than these viewpoints should be seen as the viewpoint of the author.

This is the same reason why I'd argue that the boycott of Gamasutra and other sites is perfectly valid. They published one opinion piece and none that contradicts it, so it's fair to boycott the whole site.
However you cannot hold one page accountable for one article and seperate another article from its page.
You either have to say that if one page publishes one article than this article represents the opinion of the page, or every article is divorced from the page it is published and it stands on its own. You cannot have it both ways.

Okay, so by that logic, ZP's critiques on a lot of games must be the opinion of the escapist. You can't have it both ways, you said.

It's common knowledge that the media can skew the way people perceive things. But what people don't realize is the extent of how much and how often they do it.

Consider: Pro-GG has an image problem to the general public. The person implied that it's simply because of the actions of a few trolls making the entire movement look bad. If that was true, why doesn't anti-GG have this problem? Consider the fact that even some of their figureheads have made racist tweets while our image problem is supposedly caused by a few random anons.

He said, that this behavior is part of the reason why GG has an image problem, which you dismissed, because the only fault lies with the media. I'm not arguing that GG description in the games media is fair and unbiased, because I would have to be extremly biased to claim it, but I'm saying that the image problem is not just the result of unfair media coverage.
Does it play a part? Sure. Is it the only reason? Probably not, since there are people like me, who didn't read the biased articles and still can't/won't support it.

I suggest you read those articles against GG. Or those gamers are dead articles, if you haven't already. They'll give you some more perspective on what's going on. No offense, but don't you find it a little strange to tell someone that they shouldn't be faulting the media when you haven't read what the media's been saying about us?

I do not care what those articles say. I want to focus on the constructive criticism, on the good points. And I doubt articles and videos that look to be biased from the outside will help me with this. It's the same reason I won't watch a video that explains the "corruption", when it starts with "brought to you by Zoes vagina."

I understand that articles like that can make you angry and it's understandable that you blame them, but don't take the easy way of blaming everything on other people. Focus on the valid criticism, not the mudslinging.

Misinformation is probably GG's greatest enemy, so it's not a surprise this gets thrown around a lot. Of course, there really are a lot of people who haven't done their research, so it's not entirely unjustified.


Gaming journalists hate their core audience, and they aren't above resorting to blatant lies to make everyone else hate them too. They've made it clear that they'd rather promote a political or personal agenda rather than report the truth. They don't promote games based on merit, but how well it falls in line with their agendas. Or whether they're friends with the developer. Or whether they've invested money so that they earn a profit when the game succeeds. It's clear they no longer represent our best interests.

The other side misinforms and lies? Great, show it. Prove that they have lied. But don't do it by misquoting, ripping quotes out of its context, or deliberately misunderstand someone to "prove" your point. This helps nobody and only makes every argument you make look suspect. Look at my quote above, why would I belive what somebody says about a developer or journalist, when I know that this person turns a "can" into a "must" to help his point.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Yea, I'd disagree with that. [http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2010/12/09/afl-cio-leader-gladly-accepts-communist-party-award/] That aside though, who cares if troglodytes call labor unions communist? I don't have anything particularly against communists. If anything, hard core communists are just wild eyed idealists to me, much like libertarians, but less destructive than the Randroids.

As shown by the millions of people put to death and jailed for nothing in libertarian regimes like the USSR and China.

- The Industrial Revolution.

Capitalism has caused as much death as Communism- because Communism and Capitalism Isn't what caused the deaths. It was greed and power hunger, which exists in humanity- Not Ideologies.

 

[rbstewart7263]

-snip-

Aye, and for a movement that's supposedly moved past it's misogynistic roots, they can kindly tell that to Brianna Wu. What's your channel? And tippy, most people have abandoned the gg thread, it's an echochamber. Any sort of criticism of it just gets lost, ignored, or met with the same talking points.

What misogynistic roots? You mean calling a journalist out on giving positive press to a woman who slept with him?

It was the woman and the journalist in question who shifted the focus onto her. The issue gamergate had was always with him.

Is that what you people are claiming is the start of gg now? I never knew thezoepost was all about the journalist (whats his name again?). Here I thought it was all started by a jilted ex trying to shame someone, and the subsequent explosion of spammed threads across the internet by a bunch of 4chan trolls.

Tell me again where the proof is that this 'positive press' was the result of sexual favors?

.......sigh. To paint gg with one broad stroke is just as distasteful as painting feminism with one broad stroke.

I see plenty of anti gg'ers as well as people who call themselves feminists who dont mind doxxing when its not "one of theirs" So if you want to contribute to the noise with broad strokes than you contribute to a further end of dialogue.