The whole gamergate thing has totally passed me by, but the related posts have caught my attention and a heated discussion is always fun, so after seeing the request to move the chat from the demote thread I'd like to invite you to continue it here. If anyone knows of a link where I could get a decent precis of the story I'll gladly try and play catchup. In the meantime I'd like to take Nexxo up on his assertion that gamers must disassociate themselves from the kerfuffle. It's essentially saying 'guilty until declaring yourself innocent, and not only innocent but in condemnation of the true culprits'. This is a very 'politically-correct' stance and totally blows in my book. If I'm an innocent bystander and you're too lazy/ignorant to make a distinction beyond one common factor then that's your tough ****. It may be beneficial in terms of PR to disassociate, but it is by no means obligatory.
Depends on what you want to achieve. If you want to create a movement that changes people's hearts and minds it is important that you state your position clearly and unambiguously. If someone claims to speak on your behalf and advocates violence towards those who disagree with your cause, then it behoves you to distance yourself from that. Politics? Why, yes. If you're starting a movement What did you think you were engaged in? Example: both the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society have spoken out against therapy that aims to 'convert' people from homosexuality to heterosexuality. This is in response to some psychologists offering this service from the ethical standpoint that homosexuality is bad (mmmokay?). Rather than leaving people to think that all psychologists endorse that view, or just going: "How very dare you..." against anyone who might, judging the whole profession by these few misguided practitioners, accuse us of being homophobes, we think it makes sense to state our view on this clearly. What we are getting at the moment is gamers being more upset by people taking offense at threatening behaviour by those who claim to speak on their behalf, than by the threatening behaviour of people who claim to speak on their behalf. I think that shows messed up priorities, at least.
I don't even know what Gamergate is. I've seen a few little news stories here and there. Haven't made the decision that they are worth my attention. Something about women who play games, or report on them? something like that? And apparently some men(boys) are pissed about this? If i'm even close to being correct, I say bring on the ladies! The more the better. Women can have awesomely different perspective's from men. And the more variety of opinions that we can learn from, the better we all will be. Of course i'm still not even sure what this is all about... And have zero interest in researching it. Someone can spoon feed me. Now.
Personally I am against every scandal being called XXXXgate. Watergate was the name of the hotel, not a scandal about water. Damn 'journalists' and their cheap, lazy ways.
If the very people victimised by the gay conversion therapy nonsense openly admitted they support therapists, then it must be clear that the profession is not represented by a nutty minority. Lets not forget gamergate is not an organised body. It does not have spokesperson. It does not have a creed or any other sense of organisation. Its a bunch of people pissed off about something they care about. It will never meet your criteria because it doesn't exist in a manner that meeting that criteria is possible. If this discussion continues on an analogous/metaphorical route, I'm dropping out as it inevitably becomes a fruitless endeavour in dissecting how the metaphor applies to the topic and not about the actual topic itself.
Ah great, I was expecting a thread about this. Really interested in what the rest of bit-tech thinks. For those looking for an accurate summary of GamerGate, you won't find it. There's a huge number of ideas floating around under the hashtag GamerGate and not everyone supports all of them etc., which makes it very difficult to talk about. I've been in discussion about this scandal since the very beginning, and this is what I would describe as generally the most prominent ideas under the banner: 1. Allegations that Zoe Quinn had sex for favors 2. Allegations that the above is common practice within the gaming industry (and that this is for example the only way a person like Anita Sarkeesian could've gained her current popularity) 3. Frustrations against the writings of so-called "Social Justice Warrior" journalists who "keep bringing their agenda/politics/feminism into video games" 4. Allegations that these journalists are only writing the articles in question as "click-bait" or to "white knight", and in real life don't believe any of it 5. The feeling that they, as gamers, are being misrepresented and bullied (literal quote) by the SJW journalists 6. Allegations that a group of SJW journalists is colluding and actively "controlling the narrative" 7. Allegations that the people receiving harassment are either (A) faking it, (B) calling for it, or (C) using it for personal gain 8. Allegations that the anti-GamerGate side is harassing just as much/even more and 9. could be "It was never about X, but Y", with X and Y being any of the above Notice that 3, 4, 5 and 7 are nothing new BTW. And also "GamerGate" is indeed a really stupid name. --- I found this very interesting video on the topic today, not about the specific arguments that get brought up, but about the nature of the movement itself. Worth a watch if you have a few minutes: http://blip.tv/foldablehuman/s4e7-gamergate-7071206
@Pliqu could you wind back and explain wtf if is because not having heard of Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian, I feel a bit lost before I started.
From what i understand a game developers ex boyfriend published details of said developers affair with a journalist who worked for a prominent gaming blog, this prompted accusations that said game developer and journalist colluded. From then on everything gets blown out of all proportions with anyone standing up for the developer or journalist being accused of collusion.
That is what is lacking here. I don't see gamergate advocates express any concern or aupport for those who received death threats. And thus we have: I am a Gamergate supporter and I am for X I am a Gamergate supporter and I am for Y I am a Gamergate supporter and I am for Y but not X I am a Gamergate supporter and I am for Z but not X and not Y I am a Gamergate supporter and I am against Y I am a Gamergate supporter and I am for W but not Z I am a Gamergate supporter and I don't believe in W ...Now tell me what a a Gamergate supporter is? As such it is not even a movement. We don't know what they are so pissed off about. We don't know what they want to change. We don't know who to engage in a sensible debate. There is no sensible debate. It's a bar brawl, and some have brought knives and guns and are picking on women. Corky45 pretty much sums it up in two sentences, but Wikipedia has a useful summary of the main character to get you up to speed.
Sounds to me like the sort of thing where I just say to myself "leave them to it". Whoever thinks it's their business to be upset can carry right on, but there's no need for the rest of the world to give a ****. A lot of police time is spent between two parties who are just habitual grief merchants where petty conflict is their raison d'etre. Leave them to it. Thanks for the summaries, Pliqu and Corky.
Yeah, same thing really, mostly by the same people. Suddenly the integrity of gaming journalism is a huge issue, as if gaming had somehow avoided the corruption prevalent in all mass media until only just now. What about the outbreak against Zoe Quinn? I didn't hear anyone criticise the Kotaku guy that she supposedly slept with. I haven't even heard his name, but I know hers even though I don't even know what game she made. If the real issue is the gaming press then the blame should have fallen on him for accepting the alleged sex favour, not on her for offering. What about her douche ex? No repercussions for him either for misleading the gamers. Felicia Day said that she's afraid to take a stance on the issue for fear of getting doxed. Shortly after saying that she was doxed. They doxed Felicia Day of all people, the most harmless nerd around, who didn't even say anything particularly severe against gamergate. Two other male public figures flamed gamergate with no consequences. And then you have non-extremists, who try to validate the "movement" by trying to make out that it's about press integrity. Except that it all sounds like a sick joke when - in light of people being forced out of their homes under threats of violence, rape and death - these people are crying about their video game reviews. Good job on getting the world to take gamers seriously. Good job on only just realising that reviewers are opinionated, or biased, or sell-outs, or liars. They don't want feminism in their gaming reviews, completely disregarding the demographic of feminist gamers that might appreciate a review that is more relevant to their point of view. They've reacted way over the top out of fear that a couple of feminist reviewers are somehow going to influence the development of "their" video games. They're really intimidated about people encroaching on "their" territory, because gaming isn't as inclusive as you thought it was. The worst thing that gamergate has done is to validate everything that knucklehead Sarkeesian has been saying all along and vilify gamers. But it's ok. Maybe this needed to happen so that people can realise that it's really not ok to threaten people with rape and murder. Maybe it's better if some people have their privileges curbed a little. Ultimately, if anything actually does happen, gaming will probably come out worse for this. Gamegaters will only have themselves to blame, because Sarkeesian on her own wouldn't have grown half as much without her haters feeding her attention.
Have any of the threats been in a form other than written on social internet exchange eg. twitter, fbook, forums?
This. I don't identify as a gamer anyway so to me it's a storm in a very small teacup, irrelevant to a wider audience.
Internet = empty when it comes to threats as far as I'm concerned. This is ever more clearly just a self-serving piece of attention-grabbing.
Leaving aside the facts fo the case and I'll come back to misogyny later but I'm bemused as to why people are shocked at this idea that there can be puff pieces in consumer journalism. While respectable sites such as bit-tech that have been around for a while will have resonable standards, some indiviuals and sites will be tempted to keep their reviews positive in order to keep the flow of shiny hardware coming. Not that this is particularly a tech issue. I've asked my wife before about whether her magazine are ever critical of products or ask why women's shoes seem to be designed to last 2 months wheras a decent air of men's shoes will go on for many years. It seems that they see their job as pushing the fashion and products rather than as a critical consumer magazine, despite their focus being almost enitrely on fashion and cosmetics.
Playing devils advocate and for a sense of balance. The threats while unacceptable have probably raised the profile of what some are seeing as real problems with gaming journalism. Going on the site GamersGate setup to argue that there is in fact a power struggle over the issues of corruption and ethics reforms in an $80+ billion industry. Note: Personally i think threatening behavior does more harm than good as it detracts from what may actually be valid concerns.
