Corruption in gaming journalism discussion and update thread. - General

[QUOTE=Doritos-pope;45907495]I love how they're sockpuppets even after posting an image of them holding proof unless they provide shit-tonnes of personal information about themselves. Wait, isn't that basically just the "misogynistic" term "tits or gtfo"?[/QUOTE] Marginalized identities have to collect double the amount of personal information in order to be verified by privileged people accusing them of being privileged. It's like Papers Please. If you don't have your official Marginalized Identity Visa, you get denied.

For anyone who knows the Youtuber Nerd³, he did a pretty good pair of posts on Tumblr after he said he loathes both sides, and the nepotism crowd immediately started calling him an MRA and harassing him. [URL]http://nerdcubedactually.tumblr.com/post/96793099609[/URL] Pretty decent read, much in the same vein of TBs old posts. [img]http://u.cubeupload.com/Coldmute/Zmy5Cd.png[/img]

[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;45907552]Nerd³[/QUOTE] That guy can't decide whether he wants to be a SJW who claims that the Lego Movie videogame promotes stereotypes because female characters can jump higher or someone who pokes fun at people who pulled trigger warnings out of their ass because someone lost a bit of hair in doctor who just after being tortured. [editline]6th September 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45906788][t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-45-00.png[/t] [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-45-21.png[/t] If [I]several [/I]weeks of IRC logs that show that the whole thing has been a 4chan raid operation from the start won't even sway you guys a little bit... If 4chan's reactions to the outing don't even cause you to second-guess what's actually going on... [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-39-12.png[/t] [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-29-15.png[/t] [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-31-19.png[/t] If the fact that gamergate has harassed @jennatar over a footnote in a The Guardian article for not pointing out disclosure, [URL="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BwyDjRNCUAAof2o.png"]even though The Guardian themselves were fine with it[/URL], doesn't make you think that a group that goes on a crusade against writers based on false speculation shouldn't be dictating "ethics" to anyone... Then I think you guys are the ones putting your claws in and refusing to let go. If you want to look at corruption in gaming, look at the "official" mags and lavish AAA PR junkets, [I]not some freelancers scraping by[/I]. Look at AAA editors offering free flights and hardware to game journalists, instead of indie developers and a Kotaku writer who didn't even write a review of DQ. Everything people in this have done is target people who have no real power, or huge salaries; they bullied out the lowest common denominator in the games industry in terms of power and influence. Great job.[/QUOTE] Wow, a whopping [B]THREE[/B] people! This fully proves that 100% of the minorities in gamergate are fake. :downs:

[QUOTE=Reimu;45907517]Marginalized identities have to collect double the amount of personal information in order to be verified by privileged people accusing them of being privileged. It's like Papers Please. If you don't have your official Marginalized Identity Visa, you get denied.[/QUOTE] And if there is undeniable proof, and they can't dispute that anymore, they just fall back on "Whatever, they're just an Uncle Tom."

[QUOTE=Dermock;45907036]Why isn't max perma'd yet seriously he threadshits twice a week[/QUOTE] The only reason he isn't perma'd right now is because Garry undid his last permaban to make him a mod. He shouldn't be able to post right now.

[QUOTE=Fouytan222;45907222]I'm so glad Max isn't a mod anymore. I'm 100% sure he would have done everything in his power to censor anything that didn't confirm to his pro-SJW and anti-gamer views.[/QUOTE] Has he ever actually done that?

[QUOTE=V12US;45907178]Isn't it amazing how a couple of little cuts and edits can drastically change the meaning of something? [img]http://i.imgur.com/YzJZHk0.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] IIrc that middle one is actually a composite too :v: I think the photographer won some kind of prize but it was later rescinded(?) because they found out.

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45906685]Do you think the people creating sockpuppets accounts to pose as minorities in the gamergate tag have done anything to help you either?[/QUOTE] Like other people in this thread have said, it's like you have an extremely hard time believing minorities who post unironically under #gamergate and #notyourshield exist. It's like you (and the rest of the highly vocal members of the pro-Quinn/Anita side) won't believe them unless they provide ass-loads of personal info in order to prove they're a minority and not just a sockpuppet/fake account set up by a white cishet neckbearded male reddit, /b/, and/or /pol/ user. And if you (and the rest of the highly vocal members of the pro-Quinn/Anita side) do acknowledge that there are people in minority groups who don't share your opinion, they're just Uncle Toms and you all pity them and treat them like damaged goods. But whatever you seriously agreed with tweets and tumblr posts saying people who unironically post under #gamergate are actively trying to silence women and are all "misogynist manchildren".

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45906622]whoops, looks like #gamergate and #notyourshield got exposed for what they really are...[/QUOTE] Are you here to get banned again?

You know Reimu, I still don't know what your Twitter or Steam accounts are. Could you put one or two of those under your Facepunch avatar?

Hmm, I don't want to publicly post it. But you're more than welcome to PM me and we can add each other!

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45906622]whoops, looks like #gamergate and #notyourshield got exposed for what they really are...[/QUOTE] You know Max. Maybe you could be constructive and explain what you think about this whole Gamergate issue without shitposting in an incredulous tone like alot of these people in twitter are. As a person actually involved in the gaming industry you might have a unique perspective that could somehow get people to change their minds about this all.

I don't actually have a Twitter, but my Steam profile is right under my name if you're interested.

"Pro-nepotism" icons claim to be harassed. People ask for some proof, based on previous accounts of outright shameless lying - HOW DARE YOU NOT TAKING THEIR EVERY WORD FOR GRANTED, YOU BIGOT #NotYourShield - DOXX YOURSELF, LIKE, RIGHT NOW OR GTFO!

[QUOTE=gudman;45908093]"Pro-nepotism" icons claim to be harassed. People ask for some proof, based on previous accounts of outright shameless lying - HOW DARE YOU NOT TAKING THEIR EVERY WORD FOR GRANTED, YOU BIGOT #NotYourShield - DOXX YOURSELF, LIKE, RIGHT NOW OR GTFO![/QUOTE] Imo the dual standards, hypocrisy and outright hate from the "quinn-side" is by far the most despicable aspect of this whole thing.

[QUOTE=Rangergxi;45908003] As a person actually involved in the gaming industry you might have a unique perspective that could somehow get people to change their minds about this all.[/QUOTE] Or confirm everything. That'd be hilarious.

[QUOTE=Reimu;45907464]That's true. It's not as if academia universally is unable to approach Woolf with an intersectional, nuanced lens. But it's still an overarching problem, especially in intro classes. Intersectional feminism is often seen as an "advanced" literary lens, not "basic" and "mandatory." Sure! Here's the youtube page for anyone who is interested. I also wrote about abuse in Social Justice, but that's not as relevant to the ramifications of abuse from GG ATM: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c5QAAZNDZU I think one of the problems is that these concerns are so ridiculously easy to sweep aside. I do think a lot of gamers across aisles are concerned about nepotism, but I also think most gamers are willing to suspend disbelief if it means thinking the industry is nicer than it really is. Most people seem flat-out disgusted, and they'd rather take the blue pill if it means absolving themselves from fighting problems with ethics and nepotism in gaming. Especially the case when people try to move the goal posts into the AAA territory, which essentially tries to absolve the indie industry of any serious concerns. Not exactly. The dominant form of resistance has actually been e-mailing advertisers and simply spreading information around. Most people don't even bother trying to argue with journalists, especially because it's easy to end up getting swamped in bad faith arguments and harassment from all sides. Very valid concern, although the latter part isn't true. Phil Fish and Ouren are two examples: with Phil Fish driven out by gamers, Ouren a sexual harassment survivor silenced by his own devs. Due to twitter's ability to spread information quickly, I think we all see it as a start. Twitlongs seem to be the best way to spread large amounts of nuanced information very quickly, which is why I often use them. True, it's not perfect, but I think there's a discussion starting that can be further teased out. But I think many people would rather simply play video games instead of being active in fixing video games. Also, the problem with fake allies is that they often lure vulnerable people into their comfort, then begin to abuse or manipulate them. Case in point: Maya Felix Kramer, who is a confessed misogynist and has sexually harassed women in the past. It's a real problem for industry workers, or virtually anyone that wants to approach these workers for solidarity in SJ. There are more abusers in the industry too that haven't even been outed yet, Zoe Quinn basically isn't an outlier in that regard. [editline]6th September 2014[/editline] That post won't let me edit it cause it's too long and Firefox is weird, here's the video: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c5QAAZNDZU[/media][/QUOTE] A few minor points before I address the video, which I think is the meat of the whole GG 'thing.' The point about gamers across the aisles being concerned about nepotism is absolutely true, but I (and most of the SJ people I know) are put on the defensive by the grossness we see in the other side. There has been so many lines drawn in the sand, so much anger that 'breaking ranks' is inconceivable right now. I mean, I've defended Kotaku in the last few weeks which is just an shitty site. The whole debacle would probably have gotten much wider traction if it hadn't spawned from the Zoe Quinn thing. I think the problem with saying that most of the campaign has been directed at advertisers is that there's no way to see that. The most visible part (and the main talking point) is the twitter 'debate' which is just horrible. Other than that I agree with what you've posted. On the video: It's hard to disagree that there's been harassment from both sides which has damaged the discussion as a whole. Ironic, too, that a debate which began with a game about depression has led to an unprecedented number of calls for people to kill themselves. So in other words I agree with you about the problems with the discussion, but not so much about the problems with VG journalism. You champion the idea of objectivity in the video which I feel is really, deeply misguided. To your credit, you acknowledge that perfect objectivity is unachievable but I would go one step further and say it's undesirable. There's a divide among gamers, I think, in how games are viewed. I see a large contingent that want games to be viewed/reviewed as products and an equally large contingent asking for games to be viewed/reviewed as works of art. The difference, I think, is the desirability of objectivity. When you're reviewing cheese graters or vacuum cleaners I wouldn't expect the writer in question to talk about the politics of the product unless it was made by some particularly terrible corporation. It's absurd to say that this or that phone or toaster promotes this or that way of thinking. Without knowing much about the scene for reviewing toasters, it seems reasonable to me that the person doing the reviewing would strive to be objective. People want to know how the toaster toasts bread. That's not what I want to know about with videogames, though. I want the author to be predisposed for or against a genre or series; I want them to give me anecdotes about the game in question, I want them to give me their interpretation of the 'message' (if that isn't too much to ask). There is very little you can objectively say about a game, and even less which is valuable. It's a bit heavy handed, but I like the site [URL="http://www.objectivegamereviews.com/gorogoa-review/"]Objective Game Reviews[/URL] for demonstrating the absurdity of talking in objective terms about videogames. More than that, I think games deserve more than to be judged 'good' or 'bad', 'fun' or 'unfun'. Games are worth more than a score or a cursory assessment of how they play. No one thinks of a movie critic's favorite movie as necessarily the best movie: it's understood that the way they watched it, how they approached it, their mindset etc. all affected how they felt about the movie. Movies can be artfully shot and have no impact on a writer and likewise by clumsily shot and worth thousands of words. This is a problem journalism created for itself by adhering so rigidly to a scoring system and to pretensions of objectivity and being unbiased. Now, though, when some outlets try to move away from this they're shouted down, their writers are attacked and there's no productive discussion to be had. I mean, no one is saying IGN or GameSpot or whatever have to go away, but it's cool that some sites want to provide more than consumer criticism and scores. So much of GamerGate seems to be pushback against finally, after close to forty years, challenging the idea of a game reviewer as objective and unbiased. Reviewers/journalists/critics have genders identities, races, class positions that [I]should [/I]make them biased. Even the Facepunch review discussion strikes very obviously at being 'objective', a word so devalued (even if it wasn't unachievable) that it's lost all meaning. Journalists shouldn't take bribes, but they also shouldn't pretend that doing that makes them unbiased. So yes, in other words, game journalism does need to evolve into game criticism. For my money, though, Gamergate is holding that back, not propelling it forward.

[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;45908108]Imo the dual standards, hypocrisy and outright hate from the "quinn-side" is by far the most despicable aspect of this whole thing.[/QUOTE] And than we have noble 4chan funding a project to help women in gaming.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;45907810]Has he ever actually done that?[/QUOTE]He would in arguments if someone stood up to him before when he was a mod. And he kept screenshots saved any time someone said anything not nice to him and kept them all on his site. He has hidden it for now because he has been called out about it more than once in the last few weeks. Which should say something about his integrity.

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;45906788][t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-45-00.png[/t] [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-45-21.png[/t] If [I]several [/I]weeks of IRC logs that show that the whole thing has been a 4chan raid operation from the start won't even sway you guys a little bit... If 4chan's reactions to the outing don't even cause you to second-guess what's actually going on... [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-39-12.png[/t] [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-29-15.png[/t] [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3797350/hosting/2014-09/2014-09-06_16-31-19.png[/t] If the fact that gamergate has harassed @jennatar over a footnote in a The Guardian article for not pointing out disclosure, [URL="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BwyDjRNCUAAof2o.png"]even though The Guardian themselves were fine with it[/URL], doesn't make you think that a group that goes on a crusade against writers based on false speculation shouldn't be dictating "ethics" to anyone... Then I think you guys are the ones putting your claws in and refusing to let go. If you want to look at corruption in gaming, look at the "official" mags and lavish AAA PR junkets, [I]not some freelancers scraping by[/I]. Look at AAA editors offering free flights and hardware to game journalists, instead of indie developers and a Kotaku writer who didn't even write a review of DQ. Everything people in this have done is target people who have no real power, or huge salaries; they bullied out the lowest common denominator in the games industry in terms of power and influence. Great job.[/QUOTE] People can find the context of those posts and reactions in an archive like this: [url]https://archive.moe/v/[/url] (insert the post number at the top right). I found the replies made towards one of the posts in the screencap and they were mostly opposed to it. [url]https://archive.moe/_/search/text/261916104/[/url] EDIT: The other post ">>261303559" is correct according to that archive, but it didn't garner noticable responses. [url]https://archive.moe/_/search/text/261393559/[/url]

[QUOTE=Reimu;45907464]That's true. It's not as if academia universally is unable to approach Woolf with an intersectional, nuanced lens. But it's still an overarching problem, especially in intro classes. Intersectional feminism is often seen as an "advanced" literary lens, not "basic" and "mandatory." Sure! Here's the youtube page for anyone who is interested. I also wrote about abuse in Social Justice, but that's not as relevant to the ramifications of abuse from GG ATM: ][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c5QAAZNDZU[/media] I think one of the problems is that these concerns are so ridiculously easy to sweep aside. I do think a lot of gamers across aisles are concerned about nepotism, but I also think most gamers are willing to suspend disbelief if it means thinking the industry is nicer than it really is. Most people seem flat-out disgusted, and they'd rather take the blue pill if it means absolving themselves from fighting problems with ethics and nepotism in gaming. Especially the case when people try to move the goal posts into the AAA territory, which essentially tries to absolve the indie industry of any serious concerns. Not exactly. The dominant form of resistance has actually been e-mailing advertisers and simply spreading information around. Most people don't even bother trying to argue with journalists, especially because it's easy to end up getting swamped in bad faith arguments and harassment from all sides. Very valid concern, although the latter part isn't true. Phil Fish and Ouren are two examples: with Phil Fish driven out by gamers, Ouren a sexual harassment survivor silenced by his own devs. Due to twitter's ability to spread information quickly, I think we all see it as a start. Twitlongs seem to be the best way to spread large amounts of nuanced information very quickly, which is why I often use them. True, it's not perfect, but I think there's a discussion starting that can be further teased out. But I think many people would rather simply play video games instead of being active in fixing video games. Also, the problem with fake allies is that they often lure vulnerable people into their comfort, then begin to abuse or manipulate them. Case in point: Maya Felix Kramer, who is a confessed misogynist and has sexually harassed women in the past. It's a real problem for industry workers, or virtually anyone that wants to approach these workers for solidarity in SJ. There are more abusers in the industry too that haven't even been outed yet, Zoe Quinn basically isn't an outlier in that regard. [editline]6th September 2014[/editline] That post won't let me edit it cause it's too long and Firefox is weird, here's the video: [/QUOTE] I just wanna jump in and point out in support or Reimu's contention that Academic feminism and a lot of feminist movements push for a binary, the very idea of patriarchy which is still used today forces a binary. [B]GOD DAMMIT REIMU LEARN TO TAG.[/B]

[QUOTE=Denicide;45908133]A few minor points before I address the video, which I think is the meat of the whole GG 'thing.' The point about gamers across the aisles being concerned about nepotism is absolutely true, but I (and most of the SJ people I know) are put on the defensive by the grossness we see in the other side. There has been so many lines drawn in the sand, so much anger that 'breaking ranks' is inconceivable right now. I mean, I've defended Kotaku in the last few weeks which is just an shitty site. The whole debacle would probably have gotten much wider traction if it hadn't spawned from the Zoe Quinn thing. I think the problem with saying that most of the campaign has been directed at advertisers is that there's no way to see that. The most visible part (and the main talking point) is the twitter 'debate' which is just horrible. Other than that I agree with what you've posted. On the video: It's hard to disagree that there's been harassment from both sides which has damaged the discussion as a whole. Ironic, too, that a debate which began with a game about depression has led to an unprecedented number of calls for people to kill themselves. So in other words I agree with you about the problems with the discussion, but not so much about the problems with VG journalism. You champion the idea of objectivity in the video which I feel is really, deeply misguided. To your credit, you acknowledge that perfect objectivity is unachievable but I would go one step further and say it's undesirable. There's a divide among gamers, I think, in how games are viewed. I see a large contingent that want games to be viewed/reviewed as products and an equally large contingent asking for games to be viewed/reviewed as works of art. The difference, I think, is the desirability of objectivity. When you're reviewing cheese graters or vacuum cleaners I wouldn't expect the writer in question to talk about the politics of the product unless it was made by some particularly terrible corporation. It's absurd to say that this or that phone or toaster promotes this or that way of thinking. Without knowing much about the scene for reviewing toasters, it seems reasonable to me that the person doing the reviewing would strive to be objective. People want to know how the toaster toasts bread. That's not what I want to know about with videogames, though. I want the author to be predisposed for or against a genre or series; I want them to give me anecdotes about the game in question, I want them to give me their interpretation of the 'message' (if that isn't too much to ask). There is very little you can objectively say about a game, and even less which is valuable. It's a bit heavy handed, but I like the site [URL="http://www.objectivegamereviews.com/gorogoa-review/"]Objective Game Reviews[/URL] for demonstrating the absurdity of talking in objective terms about videogames. More than that, I think games deserve more than to be judged 'good' or 'bad', 'fun' or 'unfun'. Games are worth more than a score or a cursory assessment of how they play. No one thinks of a movie critic's favorite movie as necessarily the best movie: it's understood that the way they watched it, how they approached it, their mindset etc. all affected how they felt about the movie. Movies can be artfully shot and have no impact on a writer and likewise by clumsily shot and worth thousands of words. This is a problem journalism created for itself by adhering so rigidly to a scoring system and to pretensions of objectivity and being unbiased. Now, though, when some outlets try to move away from this they're shouted down, their writers are attacked and there's no productive discussion to be had. I mean, no one is saying IGN or GameSpot or whatever have to go away, but it's cool that some sites want to provide more than consumer criticism and scores. So much of GamerGate seems to be pushback against finally, after close to forty years, challenging the idea of a game reviewer as objective and unbiased. Reviewers/journalists/critics have genders identities, races, class positions that [I]should [/I]make them biased. Even the Facepunch review discussion strikes very obviously at being 'objective', a word so devalued (even if it wasn't unachievable) that it's lost all meaning. Journalists shouldn't take bribes, but they also shouldn't pretend that doing that makes them unbiased. So yes, in other words, game journalism does need to evolve into game criticism. For my money, though, Gamergate is holding that back, not propelling it forward.[/QUOTE] I've written briefly about this before, and I would agree that seeking objectivity in art critique is a fool's errand. What I think people really mean is transparency. I think everyone on all sides understands on some level that all reviews will inevitably be biased. The issue people like me have is that these journalists aren't giving enough information for as to why their articles have the bias it does. I wouldn't mind these articles if they said first thing "I am friends/roommates/lovers/investing/donating to the parties in question." When it's seen that they don't, and then people say "Hey, you should have said that," and then the journalists backpeddal and fight and attack, that's where things like #gamergate come from.

I'm really worried Zoe might not have just delivered us a massive bombshell that will kill our movement.

[QUOTE=Dick Slamfist;45908344]I'm really worried Zoe might not have just delivered us a massive bombshell that will kill our movement.[/QUOTE] Could always try regrouping to a new Hashtag and hopefully leave behind the minority the SJW are trying to construe as the whole.

It's rough. Zoe was smart. She cherry picked the best most damning quotes, it's going to deal a SIGNIFICANT blow to us, hoestly. People already weren't taking us seriously and dissmissing us but now it's even worse.

[QUOTE=Dick Slamfist;45908494]It's rough. Zoe was smart. She cherry picked the best most damning quotes, it's going to deal a SIGNIFICANT blow to us, hoestly. People already weren't taking us seriously and dissmissing us but now it's even worse.[/QUOTE] She's a top tier manipulator, that's what started all this. I guess we were foolish for not anticipating a move like this.

it's not really that big of a deal guys i don't even see anything that bad if you actually read the chatlog what's more amazing is that she apparently has no idea how to do screencaps

Holy fucking hell she's paranoid, this is actually really funny. Max, you're hilarious.

[QUOTE=No_0ne;45908586]it's not really that big of a deal guys i don't even see anything that bad if you actually read the chatlog what's more amazing is that she apparently has no idea how to do screencaps[/QUOTE] But people aren't going to read the chatlog

[QUOTE=DuCT;45908642]But people aren't going to read the chatlog[/QUOTE] They people who aren't reading the chatlogs were already supporting Quinn so that's irrelevant.