Why you're wrong about GamerGate.

It hasn't, the journalists and the sites themselves think it's fine

@elheber: yes

@jimmy_russell: Then stop replying.

Gamergate is a mess. It's honestly embarrassing. I'm going to get shit on for this, but I am more allied with Anita Sarkessian than the gaming community against her. The oversexualization of females in games is embarrassing, and makes video games look like some adolescent boy's hobby. It has to stop. I'm all for putting minorities in games/changing female roles in games. I'm not saying Anita is 100% correct- her videos can get pretty ridiculous. But this whole Gamergate situation has gotten out of hand and needs to stop. Death threats? Male gamers up in arms? Get over yourselves. This is insane. No one is trying to invade video games and and ruin them- I'm glad that attention is being brought to give Women a fair shake in games. I've been a gamer since I was little, and I hate the gaming community. We are the worst part of the industry. Whatever Zoey Quinn did, I don't really care. Gamergate is a joke.

Whatever Gamergate's goal was- it did not work. Gamers now look even worse to the general public. I understand wanting to separate gaming journalism and development, but this thing has blown up... in a bad way.

Gamergate is not a 'male' issue, it is an ethics and integrity issue, and if you really start looking into what's been going on you'd realize this stuff is important to ALL gamers. Zoe Quinn's role is only the tip of the iceberg in all this. Her exposure simply set off a chain of events long in the making, similar to how the assassination of Ferdinand triggered WWI. The harassment and threats are also not condoned by Gamergate at large. Even though they try to shut it down, there's only so much you can do vs the anonymity of the internet, unless the cops get involved.

As for the sexualization of both males and females in gaming, I don't see that going anywhere; we are all sexual creatures, and there is a market for it. The good news is there is an incredible variety of games out there, so there is no reason you'd ever have to play a sexualized game if you don't want to, unless your definition of 'sexualized' includes someone like Princess Peach (like Sarkeesian would) - in that case I don't know what to tell you.

Sarkeesian is a con artist. She can't open her mouth without lying and misrepresenting the topics she covers. Offer up any example, and I guarantee she will find a way to make it into a sexist plot perpetuated by the patriarchy. If you still love games, I highly recommend you watch KiteTales More than a Damsel in a Dress.

I get what you're saying. But gamers already have a bad reputation, and this Gamergate thing has only made it worse. I'll definitely check out the video.

@Shmiity: A big part of that dip in reputation is because the gaming media (well, all professional media to be honest) is manipulating a one-sided narrative in order to deflect away from their own corruption, which is kind of the whole problem. ;)

Again, not excusing people who threaten and harass, but notice how the media is only reporting one side of that harassment when several people on both sides have suffered such attacks.

P.S. I know you'll love her video - brought a tear to my eye the first time I watched it. I didn't realize just how special Peach and Zelda truly are until I saw KiteTales talk about them.

I don't even agree with the way that Sarkeesian makes most of her points but the way in which the majority of the backlash decided to address her claims made it impossible for me to sympathize with them.

Anita Sarkesian has recieved 160k for doing videos based on nothing. She's been debunked so many times it's not even funny. She is not a gamer, yet she claimed to be in her Kickstarter video. Her videos lack evidence and facts. She has used the recent Ottawa shooting to sell a book she is in. Fpr example taking Hitman Absolution. Where you can shoot women, however she never said you get punished to kill non-targets... Yes you get punished for doing that, and the object isn't even to kill women... You can kill women and men like that. But you get punished for doing it. You get most rewards by killing the right people.

There was even a recent game called Bayonetta where a stronge female protagonist is the main character. Yet she had no problems telling us that it was sexism...

She has been quick to blame combined with Brianna Wu and Zoe Quinn that all the threats that have come are from GG. Without any proof of course. They also claim that criticism is the same as harassment. The whole movement is based on giving women a fair representation in games, and just look at notyourshield hashtag. A bunch of women that are developers and gamers standing up and getting behind #GamerGate.

Sites have attacked gamers by calling the term dead. There have been discoveries about corrupt journalists and shady business practices. Brianna Wu has even claimed that ISIS is better than GG. GG has been linked to the Ottawa shooting. Kotaku with their parent company Gawker have bullied gamers. The answer they have gotten is that Adobe, Intel, Colgate, BMW, Mercedes, etc have all abondoned that site.

The decentralization of gamergate is what will ultimately be its undoing. There's no central authority or legitimate gathering space, just an uncurated hashtag, so there's no way for the 'legit' supporters to distance themselves from the people who are sending Quinn and Wu rape and death threats. Whatever conversation that the hashtag might have sparked about journalistic integrity is quickly being consumed by the real and immediate damage that has been done to women who speak out against the movement.

Because censoring boards and threads on NeoGaf, reddit and 4chan makes it so much easier right?

I don't take your point.

Funny you should mention Adobe...

what do you mean?

What's your point? They still removed the logo from Gawker

I mean I don't see what you're trying to say.

You didn't read the post, did you? *sigh* Of course not... I'll just post the relevant parts then.

A quick recap, in case you haven’t followed it: A Gawker reporter posted a series of tweets that appeared to condone bullying of gamers. We were mistakenly listed as an advertiser on the Gawker website (which we are not), so we asked Gawker to remove our logo (which they did).

...

We are not and have never been aligned with Gamergate. We reject all forms of bullying, including the harassment of women by individuals associated with Gamergate. Every human being deserves respect, regardless of gender, orientation, appearance, personal hobbies or anything else that makes individuals who they are.

They were never an advertiser on Gawker to begin with, so there were no ads to pull, no ad money lost. Plus they actively denounced Gamergate, so to count it as a victory is disingenuous at best and a gross misrepresentation of the facts at worst.

@Abbeten: how are we suppose to have any place to go to when every place we try to have a conversation it gets deleted?

read again mate. They say they are not aligned with gamergate. Doesn't mean they denounced GamerGate. They said they were against bullying. Doesn't matter where it comes, even if it is from GamerGate. Which has not been proven

Perhaps you should take that as a sign that this little movement isn't so altruistic as you think it is. If everyone's banning discussion, that should tell you something about it's reputation.

Create your own? Those are privately owned forums unaffiliated with whatever gamergate is, they're free to elect not to host that conversation.

so you would say that deleting TB thread was justified? boogie was even banned for being neutral? No, it's censorship. If it someone was talking shit, they should be banned. They are banning people and don't want anyone discussing the issue on any level on those sites. How come it's alright here then? Nobody here has threatened anyone...

That's not how GG works, we are everywhere

Yeah and that's part of the problem, with no way of distancing yourselves from the misogynists who are doxxing and sending rape or death threats to women who speak out, you're shooting yourselves in the foot. The narrative that reaches most anyone who isn't already deeply entrenched in 'gaming culture' is going to be about the misogyny, not whatever point you want to prove.

Yes there is... Gamers under that hashtag have distance themself from it. There has been made a bounty to those who find out who made the threats. How is that not enough. We are not the internet police... There have been many that have criticized it and have tried making sure that these assholes do not speak for GamerGate. GG doesn't even want to talk about feminists, they want to talk about Kotaku, Rock Paper Shotgun, Polygon, GameInformer, etc. We want transparancy and want them to acknowledge our concerns. Yet we have been met by hatred of threats, doxxing, being told we're worse than ISIS, linked to Ottawa shooting, etc. There has so far been one interview on tv about GG from the other side/neutral side. All radioshows have been against GG. All sites have not sided with GG or even had a neutral article about it.

We want debate, yet there is no arena to do it on. Washington Post has been the only one of any major outlets to talk about it from a neutral perspective. GG consists of gamers. Gamers who have been talked down to like myself all our lives. We know how it feels like to feel like shit. Why would we want this on anyone else?

IGN, Gamespot and GiantBomb have been the only ones not taking a stand so far. Meaning they are neutral

Yeah, definitely not enough distancing. It's impossible for gamergate to distance itself functionally from the people who adopt the banner because there's no mechanism by which to do it. Whatever 'bounty' you're talking about is meaningless, there's obviously no accountability, no expectation that it will be pursued or honored.

'Gamergate' doesn't want to do anything because it's not a distinct body, it's just a name that anyone can adopt for their own intentions. That's the problem. You can SAY that Gamergate has all these noble intentions, and I'm sure some people who tweet under the hashtag do, but I could easily point to the numerous misogynists tweeting under the hashtag and say that their intentions are sinister, because there's no way to block them out of the movement. No one is going to see gaters as the victims because hyperbolic comparisons to ISIS and complaints of unfair treatment by the media simply don't measure up to the real and dramatic damage done to the women who voice their concerns about the movement.

There is nothing stopping the well-intentioned supporters of gamergate from joining a website devoted to media transparency or starting one of their own if there does not exist a website suitable to their needs. If it truly is a vital and broadly-supported movement like you claim, it would easily command the resources to do so. The fact that it hasn't means that it either is too disorganized to accomplish anything substantial or just is fine with tacitly condoning the misogynist elements that have snuck under the banner.

@Abbeten: Not enough distancing?You want thousands of people to say sorry for something they didn't do? Yes it will, because it's done by an organization called heforshe.

So even if i post you data about Brianna Wu GamerGate tweets showing you 90% of the tweets being neutral doesn't help? I could point to numerous people calling me shit. I even have tweets baiscly saying **** off nerd... SJW are just as bad, if not worse. Even if we report these guys and get them banned? So lets see, Nero got a knife sent to him saying kill yourself, another one got a dirty syringe in the mail. Several have been doxxed and gotten severe threats. This has yet to be reported from the media.

This is what we are fighting mate

yeah literally none of those things are even close to as bad as entrenched misogyny sorry bud

I don't want them to apologize, I want them to do the bare minimum to stifle the misogynist voices that have become an increasingly vocal element of the movement. Instead of trying to purge them from their cause, individuals simply wash their hands of the whole thing. That is insufficient, and it is reflected in the hashtag's treatment at the hands of the media.

You getting called a 'nerd' is bad and all, but it simply does not carry the immediate threat nor the historical and cultural weight of the death and rape threats and doxxing that have met the women who dare speak up and voice their dissenting opinions on the movement. When you complain about the media refusing to give the plight of the gamer consideration equal to the misogyny entrenched in the movement, that says more about your insular worldview than any media bias.

You'd have to ask the staff about that. They make the rules around here, not me.

If I had to take a guess, however, I'd assume it's because Gamergate has been co-opted by people using it as a launchpad for death threats that those sites want to distance themselves from the subject, especially since they were, for a time, major congregation points for supporters.

I take it you didn't read this, either, or watch Giant Bomb's morning show where they've explicitly stated their opposition to Gamergate. Or saw the all the outpouring of opposition against Gamergate the GameSpot staff has posted via social media.

I think Jeff hits the core of the issue pretty well here:

But you might want to really look in the mirror and ask yourself if you're spending your time crusading for the right fight. That's all. Make sure this is the position you want to take and, more importantly, how you want that position to be represented. If you genuinely care about ethics in games journalism, GamerGate is not the spot for you. To some of them, "unethical" is being used as a synonym for "a viewpoint I don't agree with." That's not an ethics discussion. That's an attempt to silence criticism. Again, if you do care about ethics in games journalism, GamerGate is destroying your message.

so a threat against a woman is worse than against a man?! Wow... You seriously believe that?

LOL what? It's not entrenched, look at #notyourshield. It's not... You're using women as a shield to simply bash the entire movement. The reason we exist is because we discovered corruption and they are trying to cover it up...

I say that rape and death threats against women are much worse than calling dudes nerds. This is not a radical position to hold.

If you truly think that misogyny is not entrenched within the video game industry as well as the broader culture of the country, I'm really not sure what to tell you. The 'not your shield' thing is nice and all but it really does nothing to counter that.

I'm trying to tell you that the reason the movement was started doesn't even matter at this point. It isn't about what it was intended to be, it's about what it turned out to be. And what it turned out to be is a hashtag with a significant misogynist element that has doxxed women that have spoken out against it and sent them rape and death threats. That is what its legacy will be unless it does a better job of weeding out that element.

@c_rakestraw: Agreed. I think Jeff hit it spot on there. I know I certainly would never want to be associated to GamerGate myself.

And there has been no such sort here

Well too fucking bad, i am now adding that to my boycott list.

You might want to add GameSpot to that list as well, given the staff is openly against Gamergate. You know, just to be consistent.

No, because i specifically said that there were threats made towards GG. Even threatening developers to support GG.

Really, you're saying that a bunch of minorities and women being on the GG is irrelevant? Wow...

And the anti-GG will be containing the same, except their hashtag died out pretty quick

Yeah dude there is a massive difference between saying that supporting Gamergate is probably deleterious to your career as a developer since you are associating yourself with a movement that has super misogynist elements and sending death and rape threats to women for expressing dissent. This should be evident.

I'm not saying they're irrelevant. I'm saying they don't offset the misogyny.

And the fate of the anti-gamergate thing doesn't matter since the actual gamergate phenomenon will fail to achieve any of its nebulously-defined goals as long as they are unwilling to weed out the toxic elements of their ad-hoc community.

@Abbeten: So let me get this straight. It's alright for someone to threaten future developers not to take the GG side? That's censorship and something that shouldn't even be allowed in a free western country. You also say the GG is irrelevant? Even though we have had impact on Gawker, made Escapist, Gamespot and Polygon rewrite their ethics guide? This even becoming this big with prominent acedemics supporting GamerGate, and no one with facts behind except for baseless accusations for a whole movement is alright?

Even when i point out to you there are female gamers and developers, you just brush it of? When i give you evidence of shadiness of Zoe Quinn sleeping with journalists, she or someone she knows doxxing another game jam. Brianna Wu claiming there is a hit piece of her, when she is asked logical and fair questions. Anita Sarkesian blaming violence on games. Yet all of them aren't even part of the discussion and make themself part of the discussion when they post stupid shit like that. Yet when they get criticized, they call us misogynists? There haven't been any cases except two perhaps in the media where anyone has actually had any balanced view on this.

We are fighting a system that is rigged and want to do something about and we won't stop until we manage that. GG was brushed of to be over in a week. Yet here we are after Mundanematt's video was falsely taken down by Zoe Quinn herself and two months later. You have yet to adress my argument of GG members being attacked

Yeah, it's alright to tell people that associating themselves with a movement that is closely identified with misogynist assholes will prove harmful to their career in the long-run. This isn't censorship, it isn't even a threat.

Making online magazines go through basic PR maneuvers is barely an achievement, and one that has already been overshadowed by the doxxing and threatening of women by people who identify with the gater movement.

I don't know what you mean by brushing off female gamers and developers. For one, females are severely underrepresented in the game development industry. For another, the fact that half of the consumer base for video games reflects badly on developers since the industry as a whole poorly serves its female fanbase. Your claim that the media doesn't offer any 'balanced' views is without merit since the only 'balanced' view in your eyes is one that portrays you in a positive light.

I've yet to address any argument of gamergate 'members' being attacked because you haven't offered a coherent one. You've been called a nerd? That sucks, sorry dogg. It still doesn't compare in any way to the doxxing and threatening of women by people who post under the banner you support.

I do not get this statement. The only way that make sense is if you are pulling out a magic number of how many females should be apart of it.

Please do not try to misuse that one study that have a wide range of what a game is.

If you take the stance that women are equally competent as men, you should expect their representation in the gaming industry to be roughly 50%.

That is clearly not the case.

That is only true if you take the view point that females must be what you want them to be. It is the same attitude as someone saying "Woman should stay in the kitchen."

Thank you for pulling magic number so you can feel like you viewpoint is valid. No career field out there has required numbers of any type be it gender or race.

It's like some forgot humans like fucking each other. Now I'm beginning to ask whether asexualism actually exists.

Welcome to a male dominated industry. Sorry, developers seem to know their fanbase. Who wants an ugly woman? Males want perfect tit's, ass, and face. Females want chizzled abs, ass, and sexy everything else.

I find weed skins and Snoop Dogg sound packs to be more embarrassing.

because a bunch of 4chan and 8chan trolls made death threats and doxxed people?

I feel like I'm one of the few outside of 4chan who knows what's really going on.

The site hasn't, what people personally do is their own business

I don't think saying that women are equally as competent as men is the same as saying they should stay in the kitchen. Those two views really don't seem comparable. If you agree that women are just people and there's no strange genetic or cosmic thing making them worse than men at things, then it stands to reason that the split of men and women in the industry would shake out roughly to 50-50. That's not a magic number, it's a statistical one. The fact that the actual split is FAR more lopsided in the favor of men suggests that women could and probably should be better represented within the industry.

Which site the real Gamersgate or the fake american PC GC site? because if its the first its a bunch of BS why attack a gaming site, if its the latter then who cares.

And i wouldn't follow something i dont care about and that have no influence outside a small circle in San Francisco. Also i didn't compare you to a troll, i said you or another regular , meaning regular on the gamespot forum.

Really? You think it's alright to threaten people who are part of something that is not misogynist but slandered by the press? Really?! You think it's alright to take away future earnings because of that? I seriously don't know what censorship is then

No, people have been reported that have so called GG and threatened people. That is flat out lie. You are still ignoring my argument that there are threats that have gone towards GG aswell

And why do you think GG was created? It was to be more open to females and to stop making the being corrupt... You're using women as a shield now, again, there are women in the GG movement who can speak for themselves... Really? The media is balaned? Just look at the amount of anti-GG articles. That gamers are dead. GG is to blame for everything, when they have no fucking proof for. If they had, it still wouldn't mean anything. Because some individuals don't speak for millions. Look up the factual feminist. I beg you

Link

Here is proof

Telling people that they have bad and shitty opinions isn't censorship. People who tweet under the hashtag are free to say whatever they want but they are not free from the repercussions of what they say. If developers choose to hitch their wagons to a movement that shelters misogynists and people choose not to buy their games as a result, that is market pressure. It's how capitalism works.

How many gaters have been doxxed and driven out of their homes for voicing an innocuous opinion?

I don't care why gamergate started, I care what it's become, and that is a disorganized mess whose better intentions are drowned out by the misogynist elements it can't or won't excise. Why is the onus on the media to sift through the misogyny when that is the most salient part of the current movement? Why is it the media's job to do something that gaters won't do themselves?The situation on the ground won't change at all

The female supporters of gamergate are free to say what they want. I'm not speaking for them, just for myself. You throw the buzzword 'shield' out there, but I'm not the one using them as a token to prove something about myself or a movement I associate with.

It is the same. You are telling them what must do base on what you think. "Woman should stay in the kitchen because I said so." and you say "Woman should become game designer because I said so."

Just as the number are just what you pick for ratio. You can not take your simple view point on it and expect something complex, like the gender and race ratio in a career field, to follow you ideals.

I am going to use the number from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MxqSwzFy5w

She says that 1/8 of the heavy gamers are female that is about 12.5. From what I understand getting into the game field is hard so I can only see only those that are heavy gamers to enter that and using the number from http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/01/27/women-remain-outsiders-video-game-industry/275JKqy3rFylT7TxgPmO3K/story.html saying some like 11 percent game designer are females that is only 1.5% off the number should be. So by these number females are not underrepresented when you compare the work force to the the consumer base.