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Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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Gamergate Discussion

I'm surprised this hasn't shown up here yet.
said by Wired :

Gamergate Goons Can Scream All They Want, But They Can’t Stop Progress

Games aren’t very fun these days.

As anyone paying even tangential attention to videogames likely knows, the medium is in the throes of a misogynist backlash so virulent it often could be described as terrorism. In the past nine weeks, three female games professionals—Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and Zoe Quinn—have been driven from their homes by death threats. Sarkeesian, a critic who received a bomb threat when she accepted an award at the Game Developer’s Conference earlier this year, recently became the target of a terror threat promising “the deadliest school shooting in American history” if she gave a scheduled lecture at Utah State University.

Harassment is a sadly commonplace reality for women on the internet in almost any field—yet the ongoing death threats, rape threats, and harassment campaigns directed at women in games has eclipsed other media. But why has the emergence of new female voices in gaming provoked such a disproportionately violent reaction?

There’s a reason “gamer” has become a singular term in a way “comic book fan,” “movie buff” and “TV viewer” aren’t. For some who play videogames, it’s not a hobby, it’s an identity— one in the midst of a cultural shift that has produced ugly and often frightening reactions specifically because it cuts so deeply to the heart not only of what people like to do, but who they are.

The tl;dr as I understand it is that a female indie game dev got accused by a jealous ex-boyfriend of sleeping with a gaming journalist in exchange for favorable reviews of her game. That was debunked, but not before the full fury of 4chan was brought down on her (classic example of roasting an innocent target, remember the Boston bombings?).

Social Justice Warriors (extreme feminists, yada yada) jumped on the "gamer identity" as misogynistic and sexist. There's probably some truth to this--real "gamers" (not counting casual/Facebook games) are still predominately male (IMO), middle class, and between 16-35.

The 4chan crowd has since brought harassment, rape/death threats, and doxxing activities against several other female journalists (Anita Sarkeesian and Leigh Alexander) which, whatever you think of them (Sarkeesian's gaming "study" was pretty worthless and unintellectual in my book), such harassment is never justified. Such (illegal) behavior has now framed this debate within the lens of a bunch of sexist assholes harassing legitimate female gaming devs and journalists.

Which is really unfortunate, because the real issue being lost here (IMO) is the lack of intellectual integrity and rigor in gaming journalism. Most "reviews" of games are soft advertisements for said media (and this has nothing to do with the gender of the author). You really have to turn to folks like Angry Joe and TB to find actual, principled criticism of games coming out nowadays. Most reviews from mainstream "journalists" are something like "shitty game, would not buy[Ed - 'new twist on enjoyable formula'] - 9.5/10".

That said, I harbor no ill will towards women in the gaming industry, either as developers, writers, or consumers (gamers). Come and join us and get judged equally based on your talent. I honestly don't get how people can be so close-minded as subscribe to the racism/sexism that seems so prevalent out there.

So what are everyone's thoughts here, as PC gamers? I know we consider ourselves the "true" gaming brethren, filtered several levels from what society considers a "gamer" (no consoles or no casual games). What's the real issue at stake here? Do the SJW's have valid complaints about gamers or are we talking just internet trolls, and should there be a real effort to separate the two in the public's eye?

Adalicia
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Adalicia

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I think the discussion needs to be focused on what it originally was, not what it has become. In short: a look at the ethics of Gaming Journalism. I couldn't give two fucks less if Zoe Quinn banged five dudes. I would, however, give a fuck if she was banging five dudes for publicity and positive reviews for her game (Depression Quest). Just like I would care if (INSERT DEVELOPER HERE) was paying money to (INSERT JOURNALIST HERE) to get positive reviews or coverage. Which was what the whole shit show was about initially. I mean, I won't lie, I bum around on 4chan from time to time (I've been going there since 2007) and it can be the most vile place on the internet, but not all the time. They've gone full potato over all this shit and it is just annoying as hell. They're called /b/tards for a reason, they're generally idiots. But more than anything, I'm just annoyed by the shift from ethics in journalism to all this SJW 3rd Wave Fem-nazi shit. I totally support equal rights across the board regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, ect (even though I'm CISHET scum or whatever the fuck the tumblr shit lords are using these days), but I don't think that battle needs to be held on the fields of video games.

This was a good chance to actually take a serious look at the type of bullshit that does go on in the industry. Was.

Mentat
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This is what happens when a bunch of autistic incels are 'leading voices' in 'gamer media'.

You know how fundamentalist muslims hate women, want to control them, and treat them like second class citizens because they have never seen a woman before, much less had sex with one?

That's what this is.
IamGimli (banned)
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said by Adalicia:

I think the discussion needs to be focused on what it originally was, not what it has become.

Actually it's perfectly fine for the story to also be about how 4chan morons do not represent "gamers", just as gangbangers don't represent "firearm owners", or strippers don't represent "single moms".

Idiots extending a small group of criminals to represent a larger group of people different from themselves is not a new thing but it's wrong nonetheless and actually takes resources away from dealing with the real problem, which is the criminals.

SixOfNine
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I finally caught up with this recently and saw three interrelated stories:

1. An emo describes in excruciating detail how his girlfriend cheated on him. I dare you to read all of it:

»thezoepost.wordpress.com/

2. The fact that, as part of #1, emo pointed out that his girlfriend is a game designer, and her cheating on him allegedly included a gaming journalist.

3. The misogyny in the gaming industry, both in terms of the treatment of female characters in games themselves as well as alleged attitudes toward women in the gaming industry. #2 spread into a wicked backlash that included death threats against "Feminist video game critic" Anita Sarkeesian, forcing her to cancel a speech at Utah State, various doxxing incidents, and other lulz-style antics against women in the gaming industry.

From what I've read so far, part of the reaction to #2 (whose origin is much more than the story in #1) is a legitimate call for ethical behavior in gaming journalism. But part of it is also fappening-level crap directed at women. Good luck hoping the mainstream press manages to separate the two.

Mike
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If Tim Cook banged a bunch of dudes for amazing reviews of the new iPad, people would also find offense to that.

This is nothing different.

Blockgorilla
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I have no issue with woman in journalism, especially "gaming" related journalism. My problem is with the field in general, not any subset of the journalists. It's the ethical issues I'm concerned with.

I could care less if this person was sleeping around. I can believe that something like this happened but there's no way to know the motives around it. She is a "gaming" journalist, so she spends quite a bit of time around game developers, etc. It's not a giant leap, intelectually, to guess that she would somehow get involved with another person in the industry.

I don't approve of the misogyny coming from the 4chan crowd and from the mental midgets of the gaming community in regards to women who play games. I've been around internet gaming since it's inception and it's always been this way, although it seems to be getting better but that could just be the fact that I'm getting older and seem to gravitate towards fellow gamers around my age, which means I'm not spending time around 13 year old adolescents or people with that mindset.

Part of the problem is the same across the board on both sides. There are several "gamer girls" who perpetuate all of the gaming "myths" about female gamers making a bad name for female's who play games or are involved in the scene in any way. Just the same as these 4chan idiots perpetuating the "obnoxious, male gamer" stereotype.

El Quintron
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I've been scanning headlines about this on Twitter, various news sites and blogs, but I haven't really wanted to talk about this with people I don't interact with on a regular basis. So in short the only people I would talk about this to; are DSLr and a few real life people.

Seems to be an unnecessarily volatile topic.

EQ

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The Zoe Quinn stuff is questionable, at best. Becoming romantically involved within a close proximity of that person being involved pretty closely with stuff you're working on, is pretty suspect. Nevermind when it happens multiple times. I also really haven't seen any outright debunking of it, more just "This didn't happen because the article was posted on march 31st and they became romantically involved 3 days later!!1!one!"

4Chan has been taking a lot of heat about it. It's a huge community, getting pegged on the actions of a few assholes who post about it there. They did also do some good stuff on the back of it.

The same people up in arms about the whole Zoe Quinn/Gamers Gate/whatever also then went off on that fundraiser for taking money from people associated with.

The entire thing is essentially the crazy side of feminists (read: Mostly of Tumbler in this case) getting up in arms and turning what was more or less a pretty big discussion on journalistic ethics in gaming into a feminist circle-jerk about how all gamers are misogynists.

A huge part of the drama is about the over-sexualization in video games, which this video touches on pretty well:

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· L2wvlq0Q


All said and done though, the entire thing is a huge joke at this point and most people on both sides just have their fingers in their ears and are just going "NANANANA I CANT HEAR YOU".

PhoenixDown
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I'm not a big gamer any more but the integrity of game reviews has been an issue since the mid to late 80's from what I recall.

Rogue Wolf
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Gamers brought bad game journalism on themselves.

Think about it. When you're looking forward to that hot new game, but you're not sure if it'll actually be good enough to warrant preordering, so you want previews and early reviews, right? Well, publishers and developers control who gets those advance copies- and if they decide that they don't want someone (a magazine, site, independent YouTuber, etc.) giving a bad preview or review that keeps someone from buying the game, they won't give that person or company an advance copy. This means that the audience will go somewhere else for that information- more than likely someone who's "playing ball" with the dev/publisher- and they get the clicks/views/mag sales. People can say what they want, but it's money that talks, and we all know what walks.

As far as the whole GamerGate controversy, both sides are wallowing so deep in the mud that I'd much rather they all just shut up and went away. You've got hardcore feminists saying it's okay to harass and threaten an 11-year-old boy, and you've got gamers who sent death threats to Treyarch because of weapon tweaks in Call of Duty. And those who aren't being absolute tools are just shouting slogans past each other and demanding that the other side somehow muzzle their extremists while claiming they can't do anything about their own.

It's like "this is why we can't have nice things" writ large.

chip89
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IT needs to STOP NOW!!!

El Quintron
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El Quintron

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What needs to stop?

The whole of Gamer's gate, the corrupt gaming press, or both?

TigerLord

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Bad gaming journalism is no longer such an issue when you have Angryjoe/TB types of channels.

Gamergate is a very sad affair. What fascinates me the most is that I don't think we understand the perpetrators. They're another kind of extreme radical group when you look at it from an ideology standpoint, and how they function.

Honestly the biggest shock of the week so far is Renee Zellweger's new look. It's sorcery or witness protection program level surgery.

El Quintron
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said by TigerLord:


Gamergate is a very sad affair. What fascinates me the most is that I don't think we understand the perpetrators. They're another kind of extreme radical group when you look at it from an ideology standpoint, and how they function.

At the end of the day, Gamer's Gate are going to be tainted by what their members did. Uttering threats is never acceptable, especially the threats they were uttering.

Back in the early 90s when I was obsessed with being the king of punk when people and bands were not up to code, we'd call the sell outs, or poseurs or alterna-jocks (if anyone remembers that ), but this business of uttering horrible, violent, threats needs to stop.

EQ
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What better way for feminists, SJW, and the compulsive white-knighting media to whitewash all male gamers as anti-woman? Generalizing the behavior of the minority of male gamers here (most of whom are just looking to make SJW even more butthurt) to the entire population is the third wave feminist agenda. There's sexism and then there's this. This is political, thanks to the efforts of media attention whores like Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. The entire thing is a farce.

TigerLord

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Felicia Day is a pretty big icon in the gaming culture since she is an avid gamer herself and her WoW addiction was no secret. She also did a lot of videos with Sean Plott (Day9) on not just SC2 but others as well.

Yesterday she came out on Tumblr saying she was terrified of Gamergate because of how easy it is to be doxxed, and as faith would have it, some human shitstain doxxed her in the comments of her own post.
quote:
Chris Kluwe, the ex-NFL kicker and avid gamer who recently condemned Gamergaters as a pack of "slopebrowed weaseldicks," tweeted, "And for the record, none of you fucking #Gamergate tools tried to dox me, even after I tore you a new one. I'm not even a tough target. Instead, you go after a woman who wrote why your movement concerns her. Fuck #Gamergate and anyone aligned with it."
These people hiding behind keyboards should be exposed and brought up on charges for their behavior. It's just so easy to do what they do while remaining hidden in the shadows, if there were consequences, perhaps it would help keep the psychopaths in line.



Mentat
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said by 54761437:

What better way for feminists, SJW, and the compulsive white-knighting media to whitewash all male gamers as anti-woman? Generalizing the behavior of the minority of male gamers here (most of whom are just looking to make SJW even more butthurt) to the entire population is the third wave feminist agenda. There's sexism and then there's this. This is political, thanks to the efforts of media attention whores like Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. The entire thing is a farce.

I spy something pimpley and alone.
Its ok, lil bro, one day you will talk to a girl, and if you're lucky, she might even respond.

Krisnatharok
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said by TigerLord:

These people hiding behind keyboards should be exposed and brought up on charges for their behavior. It's just so easy to do what they do while remaining hidden in the shadows, if there were consequences, perhaps it would help keep the psychopaths in line.

I certainly would like to see more law enforcement action on these death threats. I can't imagine every 13 year old is using a VPN.

That said, increased enforcement would probably just lead to increased use of VPNs, and the last thing we want is the government deciding it has to know the identity of everyone posting anything on the Internet.

I guess there is no easy answer.

TigerLord

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TigerLord

If you actually doxx someone, and not just vomit bullshit on the Internet, that's crossing the line.

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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said by TigerLord:

If you actually doxx someone, and not just vomit bullshit on the Internet, that's crossing the line.

Any threat to harm, harass, rape, kill, torture, ETC is crossing the line and should be taken as intent to commit a criminal act or incite to violence (not 1st Amendment-protected free speech). I'd love to see these shitlords thrown in a gangbang prison with no computers for 5-10 years, and perhaps have being banned from using social media as a condition for their probation (or ban them from computers completely?).

They'd probably lose a lot of weight!
Krisnatharok

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said by TigerLord:

"slopebrowed weaseldicks,

Awesome term. I'll have to borrow this when talking to Arch.

TigerLord

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It does sound like something he would say.

The other alarming factor with Gamergate is that the majority if conspirators are NOT teenagers or 13 year old ignorant tweens. They're fully grown dysfunctional adults who are funneling their self-hatred and rejection at the group of homo sapiens who routinely reject them the most.

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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said by TigerLord:

The other alarming factor with Gamergate is that the majority if conspirators are NOT teenagers or 13 year old ignorant tweens. They're fully grown dysfunctional adults who are funneling their self-hatred and rejection at the group of homo sapiens who routinely reject them the most.

Hence the correlation to that sexually frustrated teen in California that went on a shooting spree earlier in the year. Probably too much porn + skewed attitudes towards women + being a virgin despite their best efforts of getting a girlfriend.

Mentat
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Mentat

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The word is INCEL, or involuntarily celibate.

The dude from the Hatred promo was not incel.
Gamergate losers are.

TigerLord

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I actually took the time to read parts of the published manifesto that teen released before going on his spree.

Much like when you read Mein Kampf, you get a sense of profound disillusion from the author. On a social evolutionary scale, kids like him and the gamergate participants are socially inept specimens who failed to adapt. They're the neanderthals of societal evolution.

The kid who went on a spree actually had good looks, money, a car, etc. Genetically speaking, he seemed to have it all on his side. He was simply creepy, devoid of normal social aptitudes and perhaps empathy. He had an abnormal brain which made him incompatible with the rest of society.

We like to imagine gamergate participants as the ugly, unshaved, fat, pimpled-ridden losers who still live with their mom, but some of them might be what appears to be normal and functioning adults, some might even have families.

The problem with the fat, ugly frustrated guys, is that a majority of them could probably find a good partner in life if they just made the effort to turn their lives around. I have someone like that in my family. He was once handsome, then he left his "fat wife" to marry his thin secretary, who had no qualities as a human being other than being a good fuck. He moved to another state, abandoned his family, all in the name of good fucking. Then he got cheated on himself, and the secretary dumped him for her new boss which made even more money. He hasn't recovered since. It's been over a decade, he hasn't taken care of his unibrow, his body, his teeth or appearance beyond the basic hygiene requirements of life. He still harbors hatred for her a decade later, he can't accept she cheated on him, even though he cheated on his first wife with that same woman. At family dinners he will inevitably go on about how romance his dead, people are shit, and it's impossible to find a hot looking woman in his age group anyway (51).

What nobody has had the courage to tell him, because he is family, is that no hot looking 51y old woman will want to go out with a fat ugly man, unless he is very rich, which he isn't. Looking good or physically attractive to at least some people requires daily efforts and sacrifices that my dear uncle is unwilling to make. He'd much rather stuff his face with two double BigMacs and two fries than eat only one bigmac and then hit the weights for 45min three times a week. So even in his educated eyes (he is university educated, and I'd qualify his intelligence and reasoning skills as above average) women are to blame for having too high standards or being dishonest/untrustworthy.

Imagine how uneducated morons will reason around the same situations. They'll blame the women who reject them (or guys) and enter a cycle of self loathing and bullying. They will never realize they are the abnormal specimens that require further study in a laboratory.
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said by Krisnatharok See Profile
Hence the correlation to that sexually frustrated teen in California that went on a shooting spree earlier in the year. Probably too much porn + skewed attitudes towards women + being a virgin despite their best efforts of getting a girlfriend.
[/bquote :

This really hits the nail on the head. I know several people this. They've lived their lives in front of a PC (ironic for me to be saying this on a gaming site, but most of us balance it) - and watched way too much porn (unrealistic depiction of women in most cases). As a result, they have as Kris says a "skewed attitude toward women". We're not talking about teenagers here, I'm talking about guys in their 30's. Quite disturbing.

I find it's a vicious cycle, too. Their messed up view of women / inability to talk to them (because they've never tried) leads to rejection when they DO try, and just enforces their world view. Instead of taking steps to fix it, they just reinforce their negative patterns. I know this leads to anger, depression, and bitterness.


Jobbie
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Here

Blockgorilla
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Is that a pic of Arch in high school?

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said by TigerLord:

Imagine how uneducated morons will reason around the same situations. They'll blame the women who reject them (or guys) and enter a cycle of self loathing and bullying.

Which is completely the wrong way to look at rejection and getting into a relationship. Relationships aren't a conquest or measure of status and self worth, it's about two individuals that share affection and common interests coming together.

Once that happens, then the real work of getting along, sharing space, and even raising kids begins. The fact that these guys (or mostly guys anyway) can't handle getting rejected gracefully how are they supposed to handle the ups and downs of a normal relationship they claim to desperately crave?