I have a question about Gamergate

[The Rogerer]

I can't make a judgement on all the members of gamergate. My experience with Adam Baldwin is that he enjoys playing the cigar chomping Reaganite and he's addicted to arguing, and serious gamergaters should probably regret his involvement because he's a big shitehawke.

I don't think Anita's videos are very good. I thought her original youtube series was interesting enough and I was curious to see what money could to do them. I was pretty disappointed with the results there.

Anyway, the real problem with GG is that a)with the best will in the world, it will never be able to separate itself from the Zoe Quinn stuff, b)it's a breeding ground for shitehawkes on both sides and c)as I say, I think talking about objectivity and journalistic ethics just has no place in something that is enthusiast press, and I really cannot shake the feeling that the core arguments about this really are a disproportionate response to radical feminism. Tumblrites and these 'SJW' people, if I must, do often have a shocking lack of perspective and are probably contributing a fair amount of shit.

If all things are equal, and nobody commited any wrongdoing, I would still be against the aims of gamergate. Trying to place this at the feet of the press, now, doesn't make any sense. Gaming press had a power over the industry and a position to abuse it in the 90s. This was in reponse to their relevance at the time. Gaming press is now less and less relevant and any consumer is in a position to completely bypass them, not only from the wide range of opinions out there, but also the opportunity to instantly watch masses of streamed footage of a game, which probably gives the best impression on it's quality without any editorial interference.

To then complain to care about a lower review score because of a personal quabble that a reviewer has:

a)tries to deny the inherent personal subjective experience of engaging these things, which you'll never be able to successfully do and so it's better to meet it head on than try to repress it
b)implies that there's some sort of dishonesty from the perspective of the reviewer
c)tries to paint the notion of the 'core' gamer being the true voice, when that's a self defeating perspective as it is
d)plays into the hands of, as I said, people putting boobs in games because it takes money out of your pocket

I say let everyone have their say. I love reading reviews of things that hate what I love. I love reading reviews that love what I hate. Let my opinion change. I go back to things I played or watched or read years ago and I look at it in a whole new light, with my experience and age. I would crumple up those old reviews I wrote. We're young and dumb.

Aside from the logical fallacy fencing and freedom of speech and what not, GamerGate is just too embroiled in the origins of attacks against women, regarding an industry that has historically been a young boys club, and that's something I've always been conscious of. Once it got onto twitter and forums, it's too hard to pin it down to anything after that. The root of it is still that it too often gets away from what it pretends to be about, and I think what it claims to be about isn't good either. It doesn't make sense. Games journalism is already defanged. It's future is to be as subjective as possible. My favourite reviewer is Tim Rogers. His reviews are about 50,000 words long and usually end up mostly talking about what he was doing in the mid 90s or how the game reminds him of playing Mario 3. He is also absurdly game intelligent and is able to dissect the experience in a way that cuts right to the core. Objectivity means nothing to a Tim Rogers review.

[Kalyx triaD]

Originally Posted by The Rogerer I can't make a judgement on all the members of gamergate. My experience with Adam Baldwin is that he enjoys playing the cigar chomping Reaganite and he's addicted to arguing, and serious gamergaters should probably regret his involvement because he's a big shitehawke.

I'm fine with him only as a fellow supporter of GG. I have a dislike for ever tweet he does outside of that. Love him on screen, but he's somebody I otherwise would not follow. actually, there's several people I'm only in league with by a strange bedfellows set-up. GG naturally gained the assist of conservatives because the politics being pushed back are hyper left. I'm a left guy myself, so in this bizarre thing I'm sided with people I otherwise wouldn't communicate with on a social. But I think this is a strength of a movement, if it's able to build bridges between ideologies.

And honestly; whenever something comes along and actually gets rivals to join forces, it's a huge hint that the joined forces may have some legit issues there. Righteous causes have a habit of featuring bitter rivals joined together as opposition. That's just my personal observation on history anyway.

Anyway, the real problem with GG is that a)with the best will in the world, it will never be able to separate itself from the Zoe Quinn stuff

Sad but true.

b)it's a breeding ground for shitehawkes on both sides

How is this a specific problem with GG? This can be an issue with any movement ever. And can GG be blamed for creating assholes on the other side?

c)as I say, I think talking about objectivity and journalistic ethics just has no place in something that is enthusiast press, and I really cannot shake the feeling that the core arguments about this really are a disproportionate response to radical feminism. Tumblrites and these 'SJW' people, if I must, do often have a shocking lack of perspective and are probably contributing a fair amount of shit.

I don't think GG wants objectivity in the sense you're thinking here. We know robots aren't writing these articles. Nobody's silly enough to mean that kind of objectivity. I don't even think GGers posit this a great deal anyway. It comes down to ethics. It was a lack of this that led to GG at the beginning, and there very simple things the journalists could have done to kill this before it started.

To then complain to care about a lower review score because of a personal quabble that a reviewer has...

I don't think GG is concerned about some guy giving a low score. You are talking about the Bayo2 thing, yes? I have explained what the problem was with that piece and it had nothing to do with the score.

The root of it is still that it too often gets away from what it pretends to be about, and I think what it claims to be about isn't good either.

I wanna ask; what would the line be in your mind where something goes from pretending to being?

GG funded a feminist game jam. GG raised money for anti-bullying awareness. GG put women forward when anti-GG kept telling them to stand down and be quiet (fancy that). GG showcased the true diversity of the gaming community when anti-GG kept pushing their 'gamers are all white sexist' narrative. Every journalist who has had equal communication with both sides almost always notes how GG treated them great while anti-GG were shockingly harsh (the latest case being YTer David Packman).

At what point, to you, does this illusion of being a good cause become a good cause? Is there any action GG can take, for you, that would finally separate it from it's complicated origins (it was not about harassing a women, as somebody who seen this unfold live, but I'm done arguing this info)? Why can't you measure the good over the bad? Is it that you don't care about the lives that were improved because of us? Cancer research, female developers, people of color speaking out; are these not things you find impressive?

[The Rogerer]

Originally Posted by Kalyx triaD I wanna ask; what would the line be in your mind where something goes from pretending to being? GG funded a feminist game jam. GG raised money for anti-bullying awareness. GG put women forward when anti-GG kept telling them to stand down and be quiet (fancy that). GG showcased the true diversity of the gaming community when anti-GG kept pushing their 'gamers are all white sexist' narrative. Every journalist who has had equal communication with both sides almost always notes how GG treated them great while anti-GG were shockingly harsh (the latest case being YTer David Packman). At what point, to you, does this illusion of being a good cause become a good cause? Is there any action GG can take, for you, that would finally separate it from it's complicated origins (it was not about harassing a women, as somebody who seen this unfold live, but I'm done arguing this info)? Why can't you measure the good over the bad? Is it that you don't care about the lives that were improved because of us? Cancer research, female developers, people of color speaking out; are these not things you find impressive?

I acknowledge those actions coming out of GG, and I'm not trying to discredit them, but they came at a time when GG had expanded so much that practically everyone was involved one way or another. I've taken flak for my views before but I've said that charity is often used as a modern day version of buying indulgences from the church. I won't discredit it though, just say as I did before that by this point it's really hard to define what GG even is any more.

My original GG quarrel on rajah started because I was drawn into it with the first post. It started with him posting the 'Five Guys' video, ranting about how sick he was that this whore was getting away with it and that somebody should do something. I don't particularly want to brand him with the big misogynist iron, but throughout the following weeks, when he wasn't just reposting labyrinthian composite images of twitter, he would let some really weird things about women slip out. Nobody's simple.

So I already came into this thread with my dukes up. What really posted me over the top was the link to your twitter, seeing you directly message femfreq with a pompous challenge of telling her that her suffering was relativistic and you should see how [my ebonies] have it. Whatever you think of Anita, you know how many message a second she already gets, and I felt as bad for her as I did for you getting swept up in that sort of thing. I don't think everyone sits around plotting evil, I think we get swept up in things. I don't post on twitter any more because I think it's inherently a horrible medium, and it touched me somewhat. Bloody hell, I felt uncomfortable when DTTS posted a weird article about me in the music forum, so I can only imagine what it feels like for Anita. This is the way of the world, it's fine and it's not that bad, but you did this and you labelled it #gamergate, you refer to them as 'we' and I think you should unplug from that collective. I've always felt that way, it gives people false confidence. I've apologised for throwing a few closed fists your way - at the end of the day I figure that TPWW is a closed environment so to a degree roughhousing is within context. We don't have the whole world piling on

About actual gamergate now...

I think it's too big and doesn't make sense any more. The actions of bombarding advertisers to get them to pull from gamasutra/gawker is fine in isolation, but ultimately silly too. In a way it's a sort of endorsement of advertising funded coverage by trying to police that field into something that suits your goals. However advertising funded press is the number 1 thing that's holding coverage back from being what it could be.

It reminds me of the '"'lefts'"' No To Page 3 campaign in a way. They think they're dealing a blow to feminism by taking the topless women out of newspapers, instead I think it's just a tokenistic strike agains the working class, and ultimately it says "We'll accept this paper when that's taken out!" It's a fucking Murdoch rag! The topless women are the only honest thing in the paper, they're very strict about their implant rules. Everything else in it is dodgy mass media spin, and by asking them to remove Page 3 they're endorsing them as an otherwise legitimate medium.

What was the point of that? It's hard to have a movement (especially after that pizza) that knows what it wants. Like I said, taking all negative aspects out of gamergate, if I was going to be an activist about the industry you'd more likely see me writing to publishers, not crying for coverage. We don't need to change the press at all, we don't even need to destroy them because we can ignore them.

That's without talking about how absolutely boring the constant stream of porny women in games are.