#Gamergate

[Barmacral]

Secondly yes, yes they are. You're flat out wrong.

 

As long as the following is true it isn't:

 

Also lol, no we wont be getting a leader and a membership list to doxx.

 

Because You're afraid to take a stand against trolls. Show some real backbone and that you actually have a real movement. Take it beyond twitter. Ensure that the doxxers are not affiliated with gamergate in any way. Until then you're a bunch of people on twitter with no consistent voice doing a lot of nasty things to women in the gaming industry because you have no control or say over your membership so the doxxers are as much gamergate as you are because you can't stop them from being a part of it.

 

http://www.themarysue.com/newsweek-gamergate/

http://www.newsweek.com/gamergate-about-media-ethics-or-harassing-women-harassment-data-show-279736

 

There's actual statistics for you.

 

1. I am not a bad guy.

2. I am not a victim. I don't play that game.

 

I don't meant to suggest that you're a bad guy, but you are completely playing the victim:

 

Zero proof has been provided that Gamergate has done wrong it's just being associated with the incident in a smear attempt.

I'm not going to accept responsibility for something without proof.

 

You don't have a movement, you have a bunch of people on blogs and twitter and zero ability to control membership, that combined with the newsweek article provides all the proof you need.

 

I couldn't ignore it because of how dumb it was.

Do a little research. Spend some time on the hashtag.

Don't just blindly follow what Gawker and Vox tell you.

 

The only thing that is dumb is the continued harassment of women. I did research, I even used reputable sources, I don't read Gawker and have no idea what Vox is. I'll be happy to talk about what you want to talk about when you can show that a real (and succeeding) effort is being made to disassociate yourselves with the trolls. Maybe you should abandon the gamergate name altogether and reform under a name that is actually relevant to what you want. Then control membership to it. It is nice that you're donating to feminists and reporting people on twitter, but it is not enough.

[Nolder]

Nolder, I'm not highly informed on this, but I think it's hard for a lot of people to believe that sexism doesn't play a role to some degree when the thing came to prominence over the unsupported accusations against Quinn and Grayson.

Wtf? Where are you getting that it's unsubstantiated?

Grayson admitted to having a relationship with Zoe.

Zoe admitted Grayson was a tester for her game (he's thanked in the credits).

Some people are still confused and think Grayson reviewed her game, which isn't true, but he did give it coverage multiple times and there's ample evidence pointing to a conflict of interest.

 

Even if the vast majority of you are working against the harassment, I know from personal experience that there are a lot of racists/sexists/trolls who play video games, so you have to work extra hard to combat them, and decentralizing and running your movement almost entirely through Twitter (a medium highly susceptible to trolls) doesn't seem like a good idea in that regard.  Even a little more reliance on coordination through internet forums would help imo.

Again, it's working.

People who talk about racism/sexism/etc are deflecting from the issues at hand.

The opposing side refuses to address them. Ever. In the rare instances they do they say things to the effect of "there are problems...BUT GAMERGATE IS HARASSING PEOPLE AND THAT'S THE BIGGER ISSUE." They wont give the ethical concerns the time of day. Let's say that Gamergate is just a cesspool of harassment and general vileness hidden behind ethical concerns. Pretend it's all just a shield for blatant sexism. It would be really damn easy to take that shield away and say "see? they didn't care about ethics it's about harassment" but these sites wont do it. They wont make any changes or adopt ethical policies. They aren't telling their journalists to recuse themselves when reporting on lovers or to stop donating to developers patreons or anything. They're just like ehhh nah they're just sexists. Hell most of us would settle for simple disclosure not even recusal but they just wont. 

 

Do you think it's a conflict of interest to donate monthly to someone you report on?

What about sleeping with someone you report on?

Living with someone you report on?

 

Those are all real instances and the editors in chief at the sites deny it's even an issue and refuse to even engage on the subject.

The accusations of sexism is the shield, not the calls for ethics. 

[Nolder]

 

Secondly yes, yes they are. You're flat out wrong.

 

As long as the following is true it isn't:

 

Also lol, no we wont be getting a leader and a membership list to doxx.

 

Because You're afraid to take a stand against trolls. Show some real backbone and that you actually have a real movement. Take it beyond twitter. Ensure that the doxxers are not affiliated with gamergate in any way. Until then you're a bunch of people on twitter with no consistent voice doing a lot of nasty things to women in the gaming industry because you have no control or say over your membership so the doxxers are as much gamergate as you are because you can't stop them from being a part of it.

 

It has less to do with being afraid and more to do with the fact that what we're doing is working so we're not about to change it.

The media can lash out at us all it wants every single day but the results are speaking for themselves. We're not getting the ethics we want but we are hurting the sites that refuse to hear our complaints.

 

And just by the way we are beyond twitter to a certain degree but we've been largely shut out and censored from the larger internet.

Do you think Kotaku is going to let a Gamergate discussion take place? Hell no they killed discussion early and never looked back. The only place that's allowing discussion that's a relevant media outlet is The Escapist. And Ben Kuchera tried to pressure Greg Tito into shutting that down as well.

 

http://www.themarysue.com/newsweek-gamergate/

http://www.newsweek.com/gamergate-about-media-ethics-or-harassing-women-harassment-data-show-279736

 

There's actual statistics for you.

Yeah, IIRC the majority of tweets about Anita et all were neutral. Neither good or bad in tone.

 

 

1. I am not a bad guy.

2. I am not a victim. I don't play that game.

 

I don't meant to suggest that you're a bad guy, but you are completely playing the victim:

 

Zero proof has been provided that Gamergate has done wrong it's just being associated with the incident in a smear attempt.

I'm not going to accept responsibility for something without proof.

 

You don't have a movement, you have a bunch of people on blogs and twitter and zero ability to control membership, that combined with the newsweek article provides all the proof you need.

 

No no no, that's not proof of harassment.

Let's not forget the age old saying "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

What I mean by proof is something like linking someone who is pro Gamergate and clearly NOT a troll (it's not hard to tell the difference between people using the tag to troll and regular users) to some of these threatening emails that have been received.

 

Take Anita Sarkeesian as an example.

Someone threatened to shoot up a school she was going to speak at.

She was more than happy to lay this at the feet of Gamergate. The only link being her accusation.

Turns out GAMERGATE had to clear it's own name (of course) and do journalists jobs for them and tracked the guy down.

He's some nutjob from Brazil who has no idea what Gamergate is and claims no affiliation with it.

But you're not going to read about that in Newsweek or anywhere else. They wont report these things.

 

When you're criticizing media you can't expect media to play fair.

 

 

I couldn't ignore it because of how dumb it was.

Do a little research. Spend some time on the hashtag.

Don't just blindly follow what Gawker and Vox tell you.

 

The only thing that is dumb is the continued harassment of women. I did research, I even used reputable sources, I don't read Gawker and have no idea what Vox is. I'll be happy to talk about what you want to talk about when you can show that a real (and succeeding) effort is being made to disassociate yourselves with the trolls. Maybe you should abandon the gamergate name altogether and reform under a name that is actually relevant to what you want. Then control membership to it. It is nice that you're donating to feminists and reporting people on twitter, but it is not enough.

 

Vox owns Polygon among other publications.

 

 

I'll be happy to talk about what you want to talk about when you can show that a real (and succeeding) effort is being made to disassociate yourselves with the trolls.

This is what I'm talking about.

We have nothing to discuss then.

We already do all we can be expected to do and more.

We don't have to disassociate ourselves with the tag to denounce trolls.

Do Muslims have to renounce Islam because of Jihadists?

You are more than willing to lay any and all instances of harassment at our feet without acknowledging that we denounce it and do our best to remove these trolls from our midst as soon as possible. Even Leigh Alexander and Jason Schrier, two journalists on the other side, are willing to admit this.

 

When you want to talk about ethics I'll be here.

[SinisterDeath]

Do Muslims have to renounce Islam because of Jihadists?

 

Muslims like Catholics have a tangible/physical presence in this world. They can say who belongs to them, and who doesn't belong to them. Often they require certain procedures to be met before you can even call yourself one. Which is completely different from the Anon Model gamergate is following.

 

How did that Anon thing go for you guys a couple years back?

[WWWwombat]

 

Nolder, I'm not highly informed on this, but I think it's hard for a lot of people to believe that sexism doesn't play a role to some degree when the thing came to prominence over the unsupported accusations against Quinn and Grayson.

Wtf? Where are you getting that it's unsubstantiated?

Grayson admitted to having a relationship with Zoe.

Zoe admitted Grayson was a tester for her game (he's thanked in the credits).

Some people are still confused and think Grayson reviewed her game, which isn't true, but he did give it coverage multiple times and there's ample evidence pointing to a conflict of interest.

 

They were unsupported at the time and the evidence that has come up so far isn't exactly the kind of stuff that should make one's blood boil.  As far as I can tell, he wrote a blurb for RPS about some Greenlight games that featured Depression Quest prominently.  That was probably a conflict of interest, but the original claims that Quinn traded sex for positive reviews are clearly unfounded.  People have relationships with people they meet, and sometimes they don't always do the right thing.  That doesn't make them horrible people.  If GamerGate is really all about journalistic ethics, then why are you even going after indie devs in the first place?  Your time would be much better spent railing against the firms developing and promoting "AAA games" and their journalist lackeys.

[WWWwombat]

No no no, that's not proof of harassment.

Let's not forget the age old saying "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

What I mean by proof is something like linking someone who is pro Gamergate and clearly NOT a troll (it's not hard to tell the difference between people using the tag to troll and regular users) to some of these threatening emails that have been received.

 

Take Anita Sarkeesian as an example.

Someone threatened to shoot up a school she was going to speak at.

She was more than happy to lay this at the feet of Gamergate. The only link being her accusation.

Turns out GAMERGATE had to clear it's own name (of course) and do journalists jobs for them and tracked the guy down.

He's some nutjob from Brazil who has no idea what Gamergate is and claims no affiliation with it.

But you're not going to read about that in Newsweek or anywhere else. They wont report these things.

 

When you're criticizing media you can't expect media to play fair.

 

 

As long as you don't have official membership, there is no way to provide the proof you are asking for.  Your movement is structured in such a way as to be almost completely unaccountable.  You are a bunch of people united only by a hashtag and a common enemy.  You can simply denounce anyone as a troll after the fact and point to all the donations and reporting.  As long as you are outside the game, you don't have to play by the normal rules.  This damages your credibility immensely though, especially when you are indirectly relying on the actions of the trolls for publicity.  SD is right in that GamerGate is very similar to the model Anon uses, and Anon is largely seen as a bunch of hacker trolls (probably because most of them are).  At some point, I believe you will have to move beyond the current model.

[SinisterDeath]

Here's a novel idea for the #gamergate crew.

 

Go to kickstarter, and attempt to start there own website/magazine that deals with game reviews/news/ect. 

Want a site with freedom of speech, with game reviews that aren't paid and bought by game developers? Lead by example. Right? Better than whining that no one is, or attack there ad-revenue through anon-trolling techniques.

 

You'll also get a movement that is tangible and can admit anyone it believes follows its guidelines, and kick out anyone who doesn't.

[Nolder]

 

Do Muslims have to renounce Islam because of Jihadists?

Muslims like Catholics have a tangible/physical presence in this world.

 

I don't see your point here.

 

They can say who belongs to them, and who doesn't belong to them.

Well yes and no.

No one is going to say Osama Bin Laden isn't a Muslim even if most Muslim's say he isn't.

Like I said before movements and ideologies cannot police who uses their name.

All they can do is denounce their actions.

Look to the majority not the minority.

 

Are the majority of Muslims bad?

Are the majority of Gamergaters bad?

 

If the answer is no in both cases then why is it acceptable to generalize the entire movement based on a minority of people in the case of Gamergate but not Muslims? Or at least I'm assuming you'd agree that most Muslims are not to blame for radical Jihadists.

 

Often they require certain procedures to be met before you can even call yourself one. Which is completely different from the Anon Model gamergate is following.

Not really.

Maybe somewhere like New York they want you to sign up with a Mosque or whatever but in most of the world if you read the Quran and call yourself a Muslim that makes you a Muslim. I guess in Catholicism you need to be baptized but still there's no requirement of character. Bad people can be Catholics and Muslims.

 

How did that Anon thing go for you guys a couple years back?

I don't know what you're talking about.

[Nolder]

 

 

Nolder, I'm not highly informed on this, but I think it's hard for a lot of people to believe that sexism doesn't play a role to some degree when the thing came to prominence over the unsupported accusations against Quinn and Grayson.

Wtf? Where are you getting that it's unsubstantiated?

Grayson admitted to having a relationship with Zoe.

Zoe admitted Grayson was a tester for her game (he's thanked in the credits).

Some people are still confused and think Grayson reviewed her game, which isn't true, but he did give it coverage multiple times and there's ample evidence pointing to a conflict of interest.

 

 

They were unsupported at the time and the evidence that has come up so far isn't exactly the kind of stuff that should make one's blood boil.

 

Maybe you're right. However Grayson initially lied about having a relationship with Zoe. He denied writing about her game at all. Totilo came out and said this wasn't an issue. Period. All conversation was deleted, blocked, swept under a rug. This was a simple matter of disclosure. All Grayson and/or Totilo had to do was say "hey we messed up we're sorry. You're right he should have disclosed his relationship in the future that will be policy."

 

They wont do it. They continue with the line that no one has done any wrong and that nothing needs to change.

 

That's what makes blood boil.

 

If GamerGate is really all about journalistic ethics, then why are you even going after indie devs in the first place?  Your time would be much better spent railing against the firms developing and promoting "AAA games" and their journalist lackeys.

There's a lot of reasons for that I think, although I want to make it clear no one is targeting indie devs.

And this is just my opinion here so feel free to disagree.

 

At it's genesis Gamgergate wasn't that big and people said the same thing. The response was that Gamergate wasn't big enough to take on AAA companies. All we could do was denounce what they were doing, which we did. As Gamergate got larger that message stayed the same but maybe now there is actually more we could do. Regardless the target is journalists. If they got a code of ethics AAA companies wouldn't be able to send them to fancy parties, give them gifts, etc. It wouldn't be ethical to do that. As it is now that's commonplace. The key in all this is journalists not game devs.

[Nolder]

 

No no no, that's not proof of harassment.

Let's not forget the age old saying "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

What I mean by proof is something like linking someone who is pro Gamergate and clearly NOT a troll (it's not hard to tell the difference between people using the tag to troll and regular users) to some of these threatening emails that have been received.

 

Take Anita Sarkeesian as an example.

Someone threatened to shoot up a school she was going to speak at.

She was more than happy to lay this at the feet of Gamergate. The only link being her accusation.

Turns out GAMERGATE had to clear it's own name (of course) and do journalists jobs for them and tracked the guy down.

He's some nutjob from Brazil who has no idea what Gamergate is and claims no affiliation with it.

But you're not going to read about that in Newsweek or anywhere else. They wont report these things.

 

When you're criticizing media you can't expect media to play fair.

 

 

As long as you don't have official membership, there is no way to provide the proof you are asking for.  Your movement is structured in such a way as to be almost completely unaccountable.  You are a bunch of people united only by a hashtag and a common enemy.  You can simply denounce anyone as a troll after the fact and point to all the donations and reporting.  As long as you are outside the game, you don't have to play by the normal rules.  This damages your credibility immensely though, especially when you are indirectly relying on the actions of the trolls for publicity.  SD is right in that GamerGate is very similar to the model Anon uses, and Anon is largely seen as a bunch of hacker trolls (probably because most of them are).  At some point, I believe you will have to move beyond the current model.

Look you're technically right in that yes we COULD just say anyone is not a member of Gamergate.

Do you really think if it comes out that Kingofpol or MundaneMatt sent death threats to Brianna Wu we're going to deny they're part of Gamergate?

No we'd say that's completely shitty and we're denouncing their actions like we always have.

 

Thus far there's just ZERO evidence linking Gamergate to the kind of harassment that is supposedly causing people to leave homes other than the words of people who seem to have a chip on their shoulder. They are ideologically opposed to Gamergate for whatever reason and yeah I do think some of them would lie about death threats to make Gamergate look bad. I do believe they get the threats but I don't believe they say something like "I'm gonna kill you bitch - Love Gamergate". The people who make death threats are lone nutjobs, they always are.

[WWWwombat]

The Catholic Church can excommunicate their members.  Islam isn't as centralized, which is probably part of the reason that the Islamic world has such a problem with extremism.

[WWWwombat]

You might be right about not initially having enough power to take on AAA companies, but I see their actions as much more harmful.  They are also probably harder to detect though.  They don't need crowdfunding and can probably just bribe journalists whenever they want.  I haven't looked at game reviews in a long time because it seems to me that the big publishers almost always get good scores.  Even Metacritic is pretty unreliable these days.

[Nolder]

Here's a novel idea for the #gamergate crew.

 

Go to kickstarter, and attempt to start there own website/magazine that deals with game reviews/news/ect. 

Want a site with freedom of speech, with game reviews that aren't paid and bought by game developers? Lead by example. Right? Better than whining that no one is, or attack there ad-revenue through anon-trolling techniques.

 

You'll also get a movement that is tangible and can admit anyone it believes follows its guidelines, and kick out anyone who doesn't.

Don't think that isn't happening. There are several new and small publications that are Gamergate friendly and there will be more to come.

 

TechRaptor.com

Attackongaming.com

Goodgamers.us

Nichegamer.com

[Nolder]

You might be right about not initially having enough power to take on AAA companies, but I see their actions as much more harmful.  They are also probably harder to detect though.  They don't need crowdfunding and can probably just bribe journalists whenever they want.  I haven't looked at game reviews in a long time because it seems to me that the big publishers almost always get good scores.  Even Metacritic is pretty unreliable these days.

Yeah I agree.

 

Well with regards to triple AAA companies there was that EA hack that never would have come out without Gamergate.

It's not exactly what you're talking about it's more what we're talking about. Journalists refused to cover it because they didn't want to piss off EA.

[SinisterDeath]

Muslims like Catholics have a tangible/physical presence in this world.

 

I don't see your point here.

Really?

Tangible/physical means real. They are in this world and not in the digital world. They are hosted/governed by real people. Not anonymous names and people behind them with unknown agendas.

 

 

SinisterDeath, on 29 Oct 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

They can say who belongs to them, and who doesn't belong to them.

Well yes and no.

No one is going to say Osama Bin Laden isn't a Muslim even if most Muslim's say he isn't.

Like I said before movements and ideologies cannot police who uses their name.

All they can do is denounce their actions.

Look to the majority not the minority.

 

Are the majority of Muslims bad?

Are the majority of Gamergaters bad?

 

If the answer is no in both cases then why is it acceptable to generalize the entire movement based on a minority of people in the case of Gamergate but not Muslims? Or at least I'm assuming you'd agree that most Muslims are not to blame for radical Jihadists.

1. Muslims/Catholics all have various places of worship. If your a catholic or muslim in NYC, it stands to reason, you also attend said church/mosque. If you don't, there's a good chance you claim to be a catholic/muslim but aren't actually one. By having a physical location, you gain power over who can claim to be a member of your doctrine. You also have the power to CONDEMN anyone who isn't following your rules, but claims to be one of you. 

Remember those people that claimed to be muslim after attacking/beheading someone? And it turned out that the local mosque's say the person wasn't a member? There's a reason that holds far more sway in public opinion than simply some random people on twitter claiming they aren't members of gamergate, and reporting them to twitter.

 

2, You also claim not to playing the victimization card, yet your first defense is an analogy is with muslims and how the public has victimized there image? #IronyGate

 

 

SinisterDeath, on 29 Oct 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

Often they require certain procedures to be met before you can even call yourself one. Which is completely different from the Anon Model gamergate is following.

Not really.

Maybe somewhere like New York they want you to sign up with a Mosque or whatever but in most of the world if you read the Quran and call yourself a Muslim that makes you a Muslim. I guess in Catholicism you need to be baptized but still there's no requirement of character. Bad people can be Catholics and Muslims.

 

So now you know -everything there is to know- about Islam?

It's no secret that Mosques, like catholic churchs can and do decide who is part of there mosque/church, and who isn't.

They, like Catholics often have certain procedures.. Like meeting with its leaders. Simply going to a mosque for 2 weeks, doesn't make you a Muslim, or a member of said mosque. 

Same goes for any church in America.

 

 

SinisterDeath, on 29 Oct 2014 - 08:13 AM, said:

How did that Anon thing go for you guys a couple years back?

I don't know what you're talking about. 

I have a hard time believing you don't know a thing or two about Anonymous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)

Specially since it, like gamergate spawned out of 4chan/8chan.

And Gamergate is, by all rights modeled around the Anon movement..

[Nolder]

Really?

Tangible/physical means real. They are in this world and not in the digital world. They are hosted/governed by real people. Not anonymous names and people behind them with unknown agendas.

Thanks for defining all that for me.

Doesn't tell me anything about your point though.

Why are you saying this?

 

1. Muslims/Catholics all have various places of worship. If your a catholic or muslim in NYC, it stands to reason, you also attend said church/mosque. If you don't, there's a good chance you claim to be a catholic/muslim but aren't actually one. By having a physical location, you gain power over who can claim to be a member of your doctrine. You also have the power to CONDEMN anyone who isn't following your rules, but claims to be one of you. 

Remember those people that claimed to be muslim after attacking/beheading someone? And it turned out that the local mosque's say the person wasn't a member? There's a reason that holds far more sway in public opinion than simply some random people on twitter claiming they aren't members of gamergate, and reporting them to twitter.

 

2, You also claim not to playing the victimization card, yet your first defense is an analogy is with muslims and how the public has victimized there image? #IronyGate

1. Not everyone who calls themselves a Christian attends a church. You wouldn't deny they're still Christians.

 

2. I don't feel victimized. I think you're just holding double standards and unreasonable expectations. You can do that all you want, doesn't "victimize" me. Like I keep saying, we're winning.

 

So now you know -everything there is to know- about Islam?

Did I say that?

 

It's no secret that Mosques, like catholic churchs can and do decide who is part of there mosque/church, and who isn't.

They, like Catholics often have certain procedures.. Like meeting with its leaders. Simply going to a mosque for 2 weeks, doesn't make you a Muslim, or a member of said mosque. 

Same goes for any church in America.

Sure, that's pretty much what I said.

But when we're talking worldwide, for people and places that don't all have access to churches and record keeping and whatnot all that's required to be part of a religion is to say you're part of that religion and practice it's tenets. Maybe there's an induction ceremony but nothing beyond that. You're not likely to be declined for example because you were caught lying once. It doesn't judge your moral character because that's god's job right? Likewise no one is there to say hmmm your twitter account once tweeted favorably to Kotaku or once tweeted something mean to Polygon, you're not allowed in. We make it clear we don't support harassment and when we see it we denounce and report it. Expecting people to do more than that is silly and/or deflection from the ethical issues at hand. A minority of trolls has nothing to do with the majority of people concerned about ethics.

 

 

I have a hard time believing you don't know a thing or two about Anonymous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)

Specially since it, like gamergate spawned out of 4chan/8chan.

And Gamergate is, by all rights modeled around the Anon movement..

I know what Anonymous is. I don't know why you're bringing them up.

They have nothing to do with Gamergate.

[SinisterDeath]

 

 

Thanks for defining all that for me.

Doesn't tell me anything about your point though.

Why are you saying this?

Gamergate is not Tangible. It is Digital.

 

SinisterDeath, on 29 Oct 2014 - 8:04 PM, said:

I have a hard time believing you don't know a thing or two about Anonymous.

http://en.wikipedia....onymous_(group)

Specially since it, like gamergate spawned out of 4chan/8chan.

And Gamergate is, by all rights modeled around the Anon movement..

I know what Anonymous is. I don't know why you're bringing them up.

They have nothing to do with Gamergate. 

I said it 5 times already.

Gamergate is following the Anon model.

Anyone can claim to be Anon. And That worked out so well with anon with Lulzsec.

 

 

Sure, that's pretty much what I said.

But when we're talking worldwide, for people and places that don't all have access to churches and record keeping and whatnot all that's required to be part of a religion is to say you're part of that religion and practice it's tenets. Maybe there's an induction ceremony but nothing beyond that. You're not likely to be declined for example because you were caught lying once. It doesn't judge your moral character because that's god's job right? Likewise no one is there to say hmmm your twitter account once tweeted favorably to Kotaku or once tweeted something mean to Polygon, you're not allowed in. We make it clear we don't support harassment and when we see it we denounce and report it. Expecting people to do more than that is silly and/or deflection from the ethical issues at hand. A minority of trolls has nothing to do with the majority of people concerned about ethics.

Take feminism as an example.

They have hundreds upon thousands of groups around the globe. They have a tangible presence both individually as a group, and as a whole. (both IRL and digitally as websites, blogs, ect)

Many people belong to individual groups, while also belonging to the movement as a whole. Correct?

 

So if someone does something in the name of Feminism, all it takes is one of those tangible groups to come out and condemn them as not following the tenants of Feminism. And thus public opinion isn't all feminists are man-hating nazis. 

 

Gamergate doesn't have even an a single group to reference to. It is made up entirely of individuals with the hashtag Gamergate.

 

Gamergate is closer *And really just an off shoot IMO* of ANON.

They aren't a collective of like minded people by any means. They are a group of people all identifying under the term anon (gamergate) But what Anon(Gamergate) Is, is entirely up to the individual. 

It attempts to shirk off any responsibility of the whole and laying it upon the individual who committed said crime. (Lulzsec) But, the public doesn't care about the individual.  You call your self Anon (gamergate) and Anon (Gamergate) keeps getting people coming up, doing horrible shit, the entire thing gets a bad name.

 

If Gamergate Centralized, or even republicizes its groups with solid tenants of what they stand for,  they can start battling against the Lulzsecs of the world.  But until that happens, your' just a couple of educated guys in a swamp of trolls.

[Suttree]

Werthead with a solid breakdown:

 

GamerGate is best seen in the larger social/cultural context of the changing demographics of video gaming. GG supporters tend to back away from this analysis because it is not good news for them, but it's the only way for the thing to make any sense (so it appears only mostly insane instead of completely inexplicable).

 

Basically, video games started off (in the late 1970s and early 1980s) as being relatively gender-agnostic. After the great gaming crash of the early 1980s, the games that became popular again and saved the industry from extinction tended to be violent action games. These were successful so gaming companies and publishers tended to push them more, creating a positive feedback loop in which gaming de facto became predominantly aimed at young men and boys. This was not completely the case - adventure games (the Monkey Island series has a strong feminist subplot in which our hero constantly fails to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend because she is vastly more capable than he is and has usually sorted out the crisis long before he shows up) and console games aimed at youngsters tended to be a lot more diversity-friendly - but up until the mid-1990s gaming was completely dominated by male players.

 

The arrival of PlayStation in 1995 changed that, first through being a console aimed firmly at the living room rather than the bedroom, encouraging the whole family to play, and then through massively popularising games with female protagonists. Tomb Raider is the original example of that and also demonstrates the confusion in the industry: Lara Croft is a jokey, tough action hero and very capable female protagonist, but also had huge breasts and the camera spent a lot of its time pointed at her backside. This coincided with the arrival of more female-friendly games on PC as well, such as BioWare RPGs (the first, Baldur's Gate, was released in 1998). MMOs and games like the original The Sims (released in 2000) also expanded the larger number of women playing games. The PS2 era and the arrival of smartphones, casual games and so on radically increased that as well.

 

Simultaneously, we also had the conversation about the art and culture of gaming. As many gamers entered their 30s, there was widespread dissatisfaction that the artistic merits of gaming were being ignored, and (ironically) the whole medium was being dismissed as just being violent and male-oriented. The fact that gaming overtook cinema in terms of worldwide revenue generated in 1998 (!) and it continued to be ignored was seen as ridiculous. This reached a peak when film critic Roger Ebert dismissed gaming as an artform in 2005. This led to a lengthy debate within and outside the industry (some of it in discussions here and on thousands of other forums). It culminated in 2010 when Ebert effectively conceded the argument, admitting that some games he'd played in the meantime had some artistic merit. We also saw an explosion in games coverage in non-traditional venues at this time, such as Forbes Magazine, Rolling Stone and in major newspapers and online. These saw gaming being covered from different viewpoints than purely from within the industry.

 

Finally, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the explosion of the indie gaming scene allowed games creators to tackle more difficult and sensitive topics (like depression and mental health) than would be possible in a big budget, AAA title costing tens of millions of dollars to make. So a perfect storm took shape, made up of much more widespread outside scrutiny from cultural and political viewpoints (rather than purely mechanical gameplay or graphical ones); greater freedom to make more challenging and different games; and a substantial rise in the number of women (and POC, transgender and other 'minority' groups) both making and playing games.

 

The irony is that the apparent victory - the games were now being considered as a cultural artform - directly led to people like Anita Sarkeesian being able to examine gaming from those cultural/societal viewpoints. And of course what they found in many cases was disturbing, because whilst women had become much more widespread as game-makers and game creators, there was still a core of AAA titles aimed at being as violent as possible and being either indifferent to women as players and characters, actively ignoring them or even being (consciously or not) misogynstic and sexist as a result. Where Sarkeesian is criticised - sometimes correctly - is that gaming has certainly made massive strides away from where it was ten or fifteen years ago and things are better. Where Sarkeesian is correct herself, however, is that core gaming still has some way to go. It's the central tenent of modern feminism: critics claim that because things are much better than they were, we should slacken off because freedom of speech or something. Feminists argue that getting 85% or 90% of the way (being generous here) to full spectrum equality is great, but we need to be 100% and should not take our eye off the ball until we get to that point.

 

This led to the situation of the previous three or four years where proto-GGers discovered that gaming was being analysed and taken seriously as a cultural medium, with lots of coverage of the artistic merits of games like The Last of Us, Braid and Journey - which was great - but that this cultural analysis was also discovering a lot of asshattery and lots to criticise in the most popular types of games (militaristic shooters, the GTA games etc). This led to a low-simmering state of cultural siege in which self-proclaimed 'hardcore gamers' (note: logging the latest CoD for 500 hours does not make you a hardcore gamer, it just means you have a lot of time on your hands) suddenly felt they couldn't read a review of their latest favourite game without seeing criticisms for being 'non-PC'*. They reacted badly, targetting any critic or commentator who stuck their head into view. Sarkeesian came in for the lion's share of fire for her profile, her use of Kickstarter to fund her campaign and for her initially self-acknowledged state of not being a regular gamer.

 

The GamerGate situation itself blew up earlier in the year when developer Zoe Quinn released her game Depression Quest. It's a pretty debilitating text-based game about the experience of going through depression. It's certainly not a 'fun' game. The proto-GGers initially blew up because the game was very simple (it's a text game consisting of Q&A roleplay scenarios) and because it attracted a fair bit of outside coverage for its unusual-but-important subject matter. However, what caused the controversy to go nuclear was the following sequence of events:

 

1. Quinn's ex-boyfriend posted a rant revealing that Quinn had gone into a relationship with a journalist from Kotaku. This gave the proto-GGers an excuse to attack Quinn's morals and ethics directly. Initially it appeared that Quinn had cheated on her boyfriend but later it was clarified that this was not the case (although it is still widely reported now). Exactly why that is relevant is unclear. It appears that the proto-GGers were Outraged Morality Crusaders and seized on the alleged infidelity as proof of Quinn's bad character. Or something.

 

2. The gaming press, which itself had been diversifying in recent years with more female reviewers and greater coverage of non-AAA titles (necessary as the number of indie games being released became inordinately high), posted a series of articles criticising the stereotypical gamer identity, of the young man sitting at home with lots of time on his hands enjoying violent shooters and using racial and gender-based slurs online. The press suggested that "Gamers" should be "over", referring to the stereotype rather than literally every gamer everywhere (which would be nonsensical). However, several of the articles phrased this badly.

 

3. The proto-GGers seized this on an attack on all gamers everywhere. They claimed that the gaming press was in bed with developers - in this case literally - and this was a corrupt practice. They conveniently ignored the immutable fact that Depression Quest had never (and still hasn't) been reviewed on Kotaku and the journalist in question had only mentioned the game in one article before having a relationship with Quinn. They also ignored the sheer mind-numbing avalanche of journalistic corruption that had been going on for the past 20+ years with regards to Triple-A publishers funding the gaming press through advertising and threatening to pull adverts when critical reviews appeared. Finally, they also ignored the fact that Depression Quest was free, so no money was changing hands at all.

 

4. The movement got its name when actor Adam Baldwin described it as "GamerGate". He was, to be fair, apparently more angry about the conflation of "all gamers everywhere" with "basement-dwelling, murder-obsessed misogynists" rather than suggesting that all games should be misogynstic and violent towards women. However, this almost instantly became problematic when many of the basement-dwelling, murder-obsessed misogynists did indeed adopt GamerGate as their shield and even put forwards a lengthy plan on how they were going to use it to this end (laid out in a 1,000 page IRC chat mentioned previously).

 

5. Now the situation has become chaotic because many people who completely missed the original Quinn Saga (but have despised the degree to which the gaming industry and journalists are in bed with another) have now jumped on board to help target corruption in the gaming press and are genuine in that desire. However, there's also a huge number of women-hating arseholes (ranging from standard or garden mysoginists to active members of the "anti-PC" brigade to those who just want Lara Croft to have big tits again) who have also adopted the GamerGate moniker. The GamerGate community - which isn't a community at all really, with no leader and no core identity - is therefore difficult to deal with because it has a spectrum of members (including women) ranging from people who genuinely want reform of journalistic standards to trolls to disturbed people who like dishing out rape threats and exposing the identities of their enemies online.

 

tl;dr: GamerGate is a direct attempt to threaten, marginalise and halt the greater diversity of people making games and characters in games which is simultaneously being used by some genuinely well-meaning people to target corruption in gaming journalism. It's bascially a clusterfuck which would be helped by those who are interested in journalistic reform (which I think all gamers regardless of their stripe agree is a problem) adopting a different moniker or identity. It's clinging onto the toxic and poisonous GamerGate identity which is now causing a lot of the problems, failed definitions and missed opportunities for genuine progress.

 

 

* This is the definition of political correctness as, "I want to be a total shitberg and anything that stops me being a total shitberg is political correctness gone mad violation freedom of speech oppressed waaaah."

 

If anyone truly is interested in the ethics angle, they best jump of that toxic ship.

[Suttree]

Sorry to double post but this is all sorts of amazing.

 

[Nolder]

Gamergate is not Tangible. It is Digital.

Sky is blue, ice is cold, dogs wag their tails.

I can make statements too.

I don't understand why you're making yours.

What is the point of saying this? 

 

I said it 5 times already.

Gamergate is following the Anon model.

Anyone can claim to be Anon. And That worked out so well with anon with Lulzsec.

Lulzsec wasn't part of Anonymous.

As I recall the members that were broke away specifically because they wanted to stir shit "for lulz".

I think Gamergate has more in common with Occupy Wallstreet than Anonymous actually.

The significant difference being that they aren't letting stupid things like the "progressive stack" tear their movement into obscurity.

 

Anyway, are you trying to say that because anyone can call themselves part of Gamergate it's destined to fail?

If not then I don't understand why you're bringing up Anonymous.

 

Take feminism as an example.

They have hundreds upon thousands of groups around the globe. They have a tangible presence both individually as a group, and as a whole. (both IRL and digitally as websites, blogs, ect)

Many people belong to individual groups, while also belonging to the movement as a whole. Correct?

Ok, sure.

 

So if someone does something in the name of Feminism, all it takes is one of those tangible groups to come out and condemn them as not following the tenants of Feminism. And thus public opinion isn't all feminists are man-hating nazis.

I think that specific example is more complicated, as I'm sure you know, but I would hesitantly agree.

I say hesitantly because there is kind of a difference between public opinion and reality.

What the public believes is not always true.

 

Gamergate doesn't have even an a single group to reference to. It is made up entirely of individuals with the hashtag Gamergate.

Yes but it's not hard to understand the stated goals and understand the movement.

Spend some time in the hashtag and ask about what people want, what they think, etc.

You'll get different answers to be sure but on the important things it wont vary much.

We don't support harassment or doxxing, we are for ethics, etc, etc.

You're not going to find many (if any) people saying yeah we need to doxx more.

And if you do find one guy who says that you'll have 50 more ready to say this guy is an idiot or a shill and doesn't represent the rest of us. If you're a substitute teacher and you walk into a class and one kid keeps throwing papers at other kids...do you send the entire class to the principals office? No. Individuals are responsible for their actions. This guilt by association shit needs to stop. When you have one guy sending threatening messages on twitter how many people do you need to counteract him and say he doesn't represent us? 10? 20? 50? 500? 5000? At what point to go ok I have all these people over here saying we're not about that and a handful of people saying they are so I'm going to believe the majority. Honestly at what point do you do that? You personally SD. Because I think it's getting kind of ridiculous when you have thousands of people participate in the Thunderclap alone and you're trying to say that Gamergate is a haven of misogynists or whatever.

 

Gamergate is closer *And really just an off shoot IMO* of ANON.

I don't agree with that.

You can say it has some origins in anon culture but it has nothing to do with the group Anonymous other than similar origins.

 

They aren't a collective of like minded people by any means. They are a group of people all identifying under the term anon (gamergate) But what Anon(Gamergate) Is, is entirely up to the individual.

You'd be right but the problem is that Gamergate IS made of mostly like minded people who have the same goals.

There's some disagreement of course, you'd get that even with official membership and organization, but the opinions do not vary that wildly. We're all pretty much in agreement about what's ok and what's not in regards to Gamergate.

 

It attempts to shirk off any responsibility of the whole and laying it upon the individual who committed said crime.

Is that wrong?

Listen to yourself man.

Read what you just wrote.

If you sent me some hate mail do the cops need to shut down Dragonmount?

If I say I hate teachers and tomorrow a friend of mine shoots up a school am I part of that?

Again this guilt by association shit needs to stop. I condemn harassment and so does 99% of Gamergate.

We're not responsible for what nutjobs do in our name. You may want to spin that as a matter of convenience but at some point I think you need to leave the realm of reality to do that.

 

(Lulzsec) But, the public doesn't care about the individual.  You call your self Anon (gamergate) and Anon (Gamergate) keeps getting people coming up, doing horrible shit, the entire thing gets a bad name.

The entire thing "has a bad name" because media wants it to have a bad name.

There are people who have ideological leanings that have jumped into the fray on the side of the Journalists who are more than happy to have some more support on their side since they obviously can't defend their actions. These "things that keep coming up", they don't actually have connections to Gamergate other than the people saying it.

 

If I said I got an email today from Barack Obama saying he was going to run me down on the street you'd say bullshit you're lying show me that email but on the flip side you're just gobbling up the unsubstantiated claims others are making about Gamergate. The connections aren't there and in the few instances they might be real (as in sent by trolls in Gamergate's name) they're still not published or shown. I can only conclude from this that these people only have an interest in shutting down the conversation we're trying to have about ethics by continually bringing unsubstantiated harassment into the picture. Yes we know harassment is occurring, yes it sucks, yes it shouldn't be happening but it's happening on both sides and frankly even if Gamergate was entirely responsible that wouldn't somehow cancel out or diminish the question of ethics one bit. It's time to end the deflection and address the reason Gamergate exists in the first place.

 

If Gamergate Centralized, or even republicizes its groups with solid tenants of what they stand for,  they can start battling against the Lulzsecs of the world.  But until that happens, your' just a couple of educated guys in a swamp of trolls.

My point is they shouldn't have to.

I think it's people like you that enables those trolls in the first place.

Stop giving them attention.

[Nolder]

JFC what the hell is wrong with your formatting SD?

I try to fix it and it breaks the quotes every time.

[Leelou]

An article on Wu in today's Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/style/2014/10/29/threatening-video-gaming-industry-movement-grows-arlington-game-developer-forced-flee-her-home/BRHwDSGjMsSnHquH9jYQIJ/story.html?hootPostID=eb62bc0dce61f16449439972c99189fe

[Nolder]

Just to be clear, I do believe people are getting threats.

I don't believe a word Wu says anymore. She's been caught twice that I know of committing false flag attacks on herself on Twitter and 8chan.

I think that's really dumb of her because if/when the threats are ever real there are going to be a lot of people out there like myself who aren't going to believe it.

[SinisterDeath]

JFC what the hell is wrong with your formatting SD?

I try to fix it and it breaks the quotes every time.

I was having the same problem when I quoted yours. DM's being funky.

[Nolder]

 

JFC what the hell is wrong with your formatting SD?

I try to fix it and it breaks the quotes every time.

I was having the same problem when I quoted yours. DM's being funky.

Yeah...it does that. The thing I hate the most is the 3 o'clock pause.

I've lost many posts to that.