GamerGate WTF?

[Gravekeeper]

So I've been following this some more, and I'm starting to understand the GG side.

The problem is they don't have a "side". Their stated mission was retroactively added to their original intent and at no point have they ever stopped conducting themselves as psychopathic misogynists. GG is the "Extremists" and anyone actually trying to be reasonable under the GG banner needs to get the hell away from it.

I don't see them as anti women or even anti feminism (they get along well with The Fine Young Capitalists). They're against moral crusaders who want to paint gamers as violent psychopaths (unfortunately, those DOXING and harassing opponents of GG are not helping matters).

No. They are most definitely misogynistic and they refer to "moral crusaders" as "Social Justice Warriors" and it has nothing to do with painting gamers as violent psychopaths and everything to do with encroaching on their sacred rights as white male gamers with icky things like vaginas, gays and black people.

Sarkeesian does not have any "influence". She just has a vagina. If she were a he, you literally would have never have heard of him.

It compares Anita Sarkeesian to Jack Thompson (Fundie lawyer crusading against violent video games).

Not even a remotely valid or accurate comparison

her influence may have gotten games pulled from shelves

Did you even read that link? >.>

It was "pulled from the shelves" because it was an R-18 rated game being sold in Target in Australia that wasn't properly labelled about its contents.

even slut shamed two "booth babes" at a convention

....Did you even read that one either? Its total bullshit. The tone of the first paragraph alone should have clued you in as to what you were reading.

As far as gamergate goes, it's made up of a bunch of anonymous people online. Literally anyone can come in and speak for GG so it's hard to divide the extremists (those harassing and doxxing) and those who are merely critical of Sarkeesian.

No its not, because any sane reasonable person would not be associating themselves with GG.

So overall, I can't say I'm in gamergate or even support it (not much of a gamer to begin with), but I have a better understanding of why Sarkeesian is such a
controversial figure.

A) You're doing a great job of supporting it by buying into its bullshit.

B) No, you really don't have a better understanding. To repeat: If Sarkeesian had a dick, you would have never heard of him even if he did and said the exact same things. Same thing with Quinn.

C) Did you read none of this thread before posting? >.>

GG is a toxic wasteland of human filth. Just leave it alone and hope you don't get any of it on you.

[Rageaholic]

So I've been following this some more, and I'm starting to understand the GG side. I don't see them as anti women or even anti feminism (they get along well with The Fine Young Capitalists). They're against moral crusaders who want to paint gamers as violent psychopaths (unfortunately, those DOXING and harassing opponents of GG are not helping matters).

Here's a good article that explains it better than I could. It compares Anita Sarkeesian to Jack Thompson (Fundie lawyer crusading against violent video games). Sarkeesian has also made several comments against violent video games and her influence may have gotten games pulled from shelves. She also said some assholish things on twitter (such as blaming "Toxic Masculinity" for a school shooting) and even slut shamed two "booth babes" at a convention. While advocating for games with more diverse characters doesn't ruin games or even affect them as a whole, she often goes beyond that into moral crusader territory.

As far as gamergate goes, it's made up of a bunch of anonymous people online. Literally anyone can come in and speak for GG so it's hard to divide the extremists (those harassing and doxxing) and those who are merely critical of Sarkeesian. This means that those who do have legit points are lumped in with the worst of GG. This gets really insane on some websites, such as the comments in the second article I linked to (here). At the top, one was called an "Elliot Rodger wannabe" just because they said they were sick of feminists wanting to censor things. Further down, someone compared "Don't like video games, don't buy them" to "Don't like slavery, don't buy slaves".

So overall, I can't say I'm in gamergate or even support it (not much of a gamer to begin with), but I have a better understanding of why Sarkeesian is such a controversial figure.

[Ginger Tea]

I am in both camps as TBF are plenty of people who are willing to zone out the extremists in both camps would probably agree.

I want to know if a reviewer is buddy buddy with a dev, even if it is a simple disclosure of "I went to college with X when I was 20, we met again 10 years later when I was asked to review his/her first game Y last year."

The review could be good bad or indifferent, but its better all round that the journalist states up front that they know the dev on some level than someone later posting pics of them during their college years and paint a new narrative.

One movie reviewer stated he could not review a new movie as he knows the writer, director or star and didn't want to be seen as a conflict of interests. This was posted in January, but someone outside of games journalism gets the idea.

TB wanted nothing to do with it for the longest of time, he was a moderate and still is, but as already posted, both sides wanted him to choose.

You cant see much in a shit storm.

He wrote (and also posted on soundcloud) when it was just starting to disassociate itself from Quinn.

He closed his PO Box as many smaller game devs would send random tat and he would then have that at the back of his mind when playing a game ready to do a WTF or anything about it.
He said on one Co Optional podcast.

"you gave me chocolates and that makes me like you, but now I cant review your game because I'm now bias.

Or words to that effect.

His StarCraft 2 team is sponsored by GoG.com who are in turn owned by a publishing house, so he wont do any of their games as to do so might make him look like he's in their pocket, he has prefaced vlog soundclouds tweetlonger and sections on the podcast with "GoG sponsor my Esport team and as such I can not give an unbias opinion on the subject." but if anyone else on the podcast wants to shit on the game for reasons, genuine or not, he wont stop them.



Women in games/STEM, don't care, you want to study work hard etc then go for it, I hope that all interview processes select on talent and not quotas to be filled. I, regardless of if the story is in a game, book, radio, stage, TV show or movie, want a good story.

If the game is story driven, I would rather have a good story than a shit one, I don't care who wrote it, shit writing is still shit writing.

If a tacky shirt or a tweet by Feminist Frequency changes your mind about going into a field, that's on you, but if the development house is full of 'Toxic masculinity' then I hope HR side with the right party, but I have read accounts of women in the business seeing nothing of the kind.


Why it had to be Quinn as the catalyst I don't know, there had been many scandals prior, hell the whole Xbox One shady dealings should have kick started it, but I had forgotten about it until a few days ago when someone posted it in passing elsewhere.

Though it and enough relevant backlash from #GG did force both the FCC and ASA to come down on endorsements, many YouTubers taking money to promote stuff never disclosed, some did but in a lazy fashion for example right down the bottom of the See more section where no one would scroll to.

TB was quick to call out his partner Polaris (who are now owned by Disney) and what now seem to be former friends the Yogscast for their failings in this regard.

He would state in the podcast that he and his fellow hosts were in a paid promotion for a game but when Polaris would upload the video, that fact was strangely omitted.

Jesse Cox (Co Host) runs a section called Jesse Sells Out which states very clearly he is doing a paid promotion and most of the time its for games he was going to do a video on anyway, he tends to not talk about the game itself so cant be seen to be kissing arse or shitting on the game whilst taking their money.

Hat Films were part of a paid promotion for Assassins Creed (whichever one was in France) and they shit on it, "Great French accent guys." "Jesus Christ the crowd just spawned around me." etc, bugs were left in and more fun was had riffing on the game than playing it. They would have shit on the game anyway if they chose to play it as part of their schedule, but getting paid to shit on it was that little bit of icing.

[Gravekeeper]

If you think GG are the bad guys, or have hounded and harassed and threatened women in the gaming industry as one, then I'm sorry, but you've had the wool pulled over your eyes by the media narrative.

Yes, the wool over our eyes.

>.>

[RayvenQ]

Yeah, both sides have their share of idiots, but from my view, the majority of the idiots are on the GG side. This cracked article points out the flaws in gamergate (though I disagree with point 3, you don't have to experience an injustice to fight against it.) The only way I see the other side being wrong (aside from the SJW wannabes on tumblr) is the silencing they've done on message boards. But even that could be justified if they were anticipating the kind of harassment Quinn would receive.

And from my view, the majority of the idiots are on the AGG side, though mostly the higher profile people on that side.

If you think GG are the bad guys, or have hounded and harassed and threatened women in the gaming industry as one, then I'm sorry, but you've had the wool pulled over your eyes by the media narrative.

That's all I'll say about the clusterfrak of the the that is GG/AGG, as frankly there are far too many things to look up, pull up and dig out from the past to show you how this is the case. And Frankly I'm exhausted from having to explain it to people everytime I've gotten attacked for being a gamer who just wants to enjoy games, and look at open, honest, fair and informed video games media. And so have many others.

[Rageaholic]

Following it on a message board that's been letting a pro-GG discussion go a long time. (Board itself is officially neutral), and mainly letting it be.

But apparently, the latest wrinkle in this mess is with respect to Internet Archives. GG folk have been using it to capture "incriminating" data (Tweets, websites, etc...) that are later deleted/changed. Apparently DMCA notices are going out now, to make the archive remove that archived data.

Personally, I'm trying to remain neutral on this, and think both sides have a lot of very loud idiots (when I chose to wade in and look at the latest in any case). But one side effectively destroying information certainly doesn't look good. Better to acknowledge it, air it out and be done with it, than to try and hide it. (Hell GG probably wouldn't have happened if that had been done in the first place but oh well).

Yeah, both sides have their share of idiots, but from my view, the majority of the idiots are on the GG side. This cracked article points out the flaws in gamergate (though I disagree with point 3, you don't have to experience an injustice to fight against it.) The only way I see the other side being wrong (aside from the SJW wannabes on tumblr) is the silencing they've done on message boards. But even that could be justified if they were anticipating the kind of harassment Quinn would receive.

[Jetfire]

Following it on a message board that's been letting a pro-GG discussion go a long time. (Board itself is officially neutral), and mainly letting it be.

But apparently, the latest wrinkle in this mess is with respect to Internet Archives. GG folk have been using it to capture "incriminating" data (Tweets, websites, etc...) that are later deleted/changed. Apparently DMCA notices are going out now, to make the archive remove that archived data.

Personally, I'm trying to remain neutral on this, and think both sides have a lot of very loud idiots (when I chose to wade in and look at the latest in any case). But one side effectively destroying information certainly doesn't look good. Better to acknowledge it, air it out and be done with it, than to try and hide it. (Hell GG probably wouldn't have happened if that had been done in the first place but oh well).

[lordlundar]

It's come to the point where if you don't activiely say, every waking moment, that you agree with everything the feminist says, then you are trying to keep them down. Now mind you the other side is just as bad. You are 'P***y whipped if you don't agree with everything THEY say. So hey lose/lose.

It's a case of the extremists on both sides being the only ones allowed to speak. The vast majority see both sides as having valid points (though to varying degrees) and are more than willing to discuss things rationally and actually trying to come up with solutions. Then the extremists on both sides or some assholes looking to get some shits and giggles out of setting off a firecracker do something stupid that one or both sides use as evidence of the others wrongdoing and forces the entrenchment.

John Bain (aka Totalbiscuit who has been a far more reasonable person in this than most with a soapbox) put it best:

If you're being called a nazi by one group and an sjw liberal by another, you're pissing off the right kind of idiots.

[Mytical]

Not really touching all of this mess. Why? Because the second you voice a contrary opinion you are labeled Misogynist or a produce of the Misogynistic culture. However, I will comment on one thing..

Anita Sarkeesian (spelling). Ok, I agree that the rape threat, et al, is horrible. No argument there from me. Anita, however, has other .. issues. Like taking over 100k to do youtube videos I think 2 years ago, and maybe 1 or 2 have been done (LOTS more have been promised). She allows no dissenting voice (for the most part) in her videos. Anybody who disagrees with her is automatically either an evil male, or a female brainwashed by the evil men. So.. yeah.. take that as you will.

It's come to the point where if you don't activiely say, every waking moment, that you agree with everything the feminist says, then you are trying to keep them down. Now mind you the other side is just as bad. You are 'P***y whipped if you don't agree with everything THEY say. So hey lose/lose.

[Gravekeeper]

There are 3756 pages of chat logs dumped by 4chan about this that detail the plans and efforts from the get go. They are full of the most horrific things imaginable. The words ethics or journalism ( and they are not calls for either ) aren't even uttered until the 22nd of Aug. After days of death threats, rape threats, rape fantasies about her, doxxing her, planning to destroy her life, hoping to drive her to suicide, hacking nudes of her ( and sending them to her family, coworkers and tweeting them to her ) etc etc etc etc. Quinn's shitsmear of an ex even drops in from time to time to do Q&A's about how Quinn is fatter than the kind of girls he usual dates.

But by all means, use knowyourmeme as a source and assume I haven't been watching this from the get go.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

You're reaching.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/quinnspiracy

Quinn published a game in December. She made claims about harassment around that time which were contested.

The Ex-boyfriend thing that 99.99999% of the people who actually use the #GamerGate hashtag are referring to occurs in August.

So again, how you want to spin it comes down to what you want to talk about. I've included Slate.com's bipolar coverage in chronological order for funsies. Do I think she was harrassed prior? It wouldn't suprise me. It is the internet.

http://www.slate.com/articles/techno..._but_they.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor...gamasutra.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/techno...proves_it.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor...eting_zoe.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_te...gamergate.html

I mean, if you're happy with it being one thing, that's fine. It's just demonstrably false. Even Slate isn't keeping in straight.

[Gravekeeper]

No Gravekeeper, it wasn't.

For those watching on Twitter (not reading about it on a secondary source) on day 1, there was nothing retroactive about it.

Sorry, but if you think day 1 was on Twitter you're sadly mistaken. The only thing that occurred on the 27th was Baldwin coining a hashtag. The harassment began in December. The shift of focus to corruption in game journalism come about in September. The original focus was to essentially destroy Quinn herself.

Edit: Stop making me say Voldemort's name.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

And even that's not fair now that I think about it, because even in the 90's it wasn't just young white boys playing it. But that was frequently how it was portrayed as the "core demographic."

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

No Gravekeeper, it wasn't.

For those watching on Twitter (not reading about it on a secondary source) on day 1, there was nothing retroactive about it.

#Gamergate itself was an evolution of the tag #Quinnspiracy which also was full of bullshit, but also included ethics of gaming journalism. Gamergate hit the 27th of August. Quinnspiracy was around at least as early as the 15th of August.

I dunno.. the level of ad hominem occuring on both sides has been enough for me to not care about the topic in general other than a curiosity. I haven't been a "gamer" since my early 20's. No one's really discussing workable ideas. I find the rhetoric fascinating, but in the end it's a toxic mix of yellow journalism(on the anti side), ignorance (on both), and screwed up people (on the gamergate side). I know why people I generally agree with are saying what they are, but demonizing white male teenagers playing video games honestly already has a several decade old history.

[Gravekeeper]

This is looking like one of those clusterfucks where you really don't know who's right because it's obvious that at least one party (or sub party) is not telling the whole story.

Well, I'll give you a hint. The whole "journalism ethics" and "censorship" thing was retroactively added after the shit storm and attacks on Quinn to try and make it seem like they had some legitimate cause.

Bah, here, read this. It should help.