Intel has confirmed to Adland that they have pulled their advertising for their experimental RealSense platform from the website Gamasutra;
Intel has pulled its advertising from website Gamasutra. We take feedback from our customers very seriously especially as it relates to contextually relevant content and placements.
We can deduce from that statement that the promised boycott I wrote about in #gamergate - insulting consumers shrinks the market is very much on, and that Intel has listened to the consumers they are targeting. Called "operation disrespectful nod", those who self-identify as gamers are emailing gaming related companies to ask them to pull their ads from certain publications they feel have misrepresented who gamers are. Why Gamasutra? Gamasutra published articles like Leigh Alexander's 'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over and Devin Wilson's A Guide to Ending "Gamers" which set their comment-boxes on fire. This is what Leigh Alexander believes games culture is:
‘Games culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online ‘wars’ about social justice or ‘game journalism ethics,’ straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences. Because of video games.
Leigh's article argues that games and the industry has largely been shaped by 'a generation of lonely basement kids had marketers whispering in their ears that they were the most important commercial demographic of all time', and this in turn has spawned 'shiny blouses and pinning bikini babes onto everything they made, started making games that sold the promise of high-octane masculinity to kids just like them.' As someone who has played computer games since I got Stugan (The Cottage) on a literally "floppy", floppy disk, and who works in advertising, I think Leigh's observations are wrong. Games, and those playing them, have always been accused of being male-centric, sexist and only played by weirdo-dweeb-loners. While those who played games soon discover that there's no community in the world more accepting of everyone and anyone who plays games than players of games. Inside a video game it doesn't matter what religion you have, what body you have, what colour of skin, language, social status or amount of money you have - all that matters is how good you are. Gaming is both a social activity with D&D games played together, or couch-tournaments on your consoles - to giant LAN-parties that lasts for weekends and leave your computer full of sticky residue from Jolt Cola, as well a solo activity if you so choose. Marketing does not think adolescent boys are the worlds most important demographic. The "games are sexist" trope has been argued since long before Lara Croft wore shorts and a t-shirt. If you slammed her into a wall, she'd make a moaning sound which some people argued was "sexual". Those people really need to get laid more often. Not to mention, when media couldn't blame school shootings on rock and roll, any and all games had to take the blame. Both Gamasutra and Leigh Alexander also confirmed Intel's departure in conversations on twitter.
@BuckSexington Yes, our partners at @intel were flooded with complaints over a recent opinion piece, and they did pull an ad campaign.
— Gamasutra (@gamasutra) October 1, 2014
Other companies that create games and related goods, such as Activision, Ubisoft, and EA can expect many emails in the days to come, and should sit down and figure out a course of action right now - smart PR companies might want to stay ahead of the game (pun intended) by contacting their clients now. Some people have already begun emailing Intel to ask them to place ads on Gamasutra again, one example is Brett Douville, former game developer on Skyrim, who wrote this open letter to Intel today. Gentlemen and women, expect more ahead, this will not go away by being ignored it must be addressed. Advertising agencies - what's your strategy to present to your gaming clients on this?
Update Friday 3rd Oct 19:05 UTC. Statement from Bill calder at Intel:
We removed the ads based on customer feedback. We take feedback from our customers very seriously especially as it relates to contextually relevant content and placements.
RELATED: Insulting consumers shrinks the market. Intel Clarifies - we are not anti-woman #Gamergate OP deleted from Github the official reply to "why?"
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It seems that no matter how an industry tries to wall it's self of to a community that community's effects on other groups can have a direct effect on the games journalists. Surly this was a possibility and surely it could have been handled better.
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PermalinkIt's hard to take a strategy to clients who aren't in vocal opposition to the controversy. I suspect you're right, this will be the beginning of a realignment, and I'm certain what comes out of the backside won't be a bunch of half renegade vehicles who bring little to the table except traffic stats...
If the client doesn't want a new strategy, don't go down with their boat, just my two pennies. We all know who gets the captains jacket tossed on them at the very last minute. Better to duck out if a gaming client doesn't take this seriously. Anyone can take blame, there doesn't seem to be much talent or inclination to do anything but, so if you're talented, run for the hills and don't look back.
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PermalinkIf a client isn't taking your advice, the client-agency relationship is probably going to fail sooner rather than later so in a smaller agency it would be wise to cut ones losses before too many billable hours are swallowed up by jumping on command.
It feels like this is a terrific opportunity for agencies and PR-agencies, in-house strategy and so on to stay ahead. It's clear that the promised boycott is actually taking place now, and being proactive instead of reactive is golden. Most of the time events unfold in such a manner that PR doesn't ever get the chance to be proactive, but in they case they have that opportunity. I think it would be an awful waste to squander it. Any and all gaming related companies and those who have them as clients should map out a strategy now. How often does PR get to be proactive?
I'll also take this moment to reply to asianastroboy below. First, I never StudlyCap my name Dabitch as I'm not Irish, please don't ever do that again. Second: I mainly play PS 4 (as seen here), and on networked computers so I'm well familiar with both trash-talking, trash-talking macros and the mute & ignore. I'm a woman who has already explained in the article above that I've played games since the seventies, but my lived experience is clearly not good enough for you, so you're not listening to what a woman is saying. Ironically enough, coupling that with the marring of my name, and then scoffing at my words asking if I'm joking is coming off as kind of patronising and sexist, whether you intended that or not.
I'll make no further comments. Please try to stay on topic, people.
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PermalinkApologies Dabitch I didn't mean to spell your name incorrectly. This looked like a slang type handle.
Secondly I did not scoff at your lived experience because you are a woman, I'm happy you can enjoy mic-enabled online gaming, however it was still surprising to me as I do not enjoy the disproportianate sex/race based slurs, and the evidence I cited shows that the majority of women experience this far type of abuse in far greater ratios than male gamers.
Its a topic worth talking about, not abusing critics over, and Intel have already privately discussed their shame at the ignorant PR dept who authorised this action.
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PermalinkIs this one of those non-apology apologies? Instead of just spelling Dabitch's name the way she does, you used your own assumptions about "slang type handle" to shape how it should be spelled. Second, you did say "is this a joke!?" when Dabitch described the gaming community she is part of, and threw some poorly done research at her instead, while questioning if she's played games (or a specific console to be precise). So again, your assumptions shaped the discourse.
Another topic worth talking about is peoples inability to read about Intel removing ads from a publication, on an advertising trade site, without showering the comment feed with the same two links over and over.
Asianastroboy (tautology?) >> "Intel have already privately discussed their shame at the ignorant PR dept who authorised this action." What is your source for this statement?
We'll never know. I suspect it's "duck and cover" though. This is all in the hands of Edelman and other PR agencies now.
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Permalink@DaBitch is this a joke? Have you ever been on xbox live? I have been abused for the colour of my perceived skin/ ethnicity to the point where I don't play online (or with mic disabled). Women and gay people are routinely abused for their gender and sexuality. For unending recorded reams of proof see: Not In The Kitchen Anymore , fatuglyorslutty.com
For more proof see Emily Matthew's interesting study at blog.pricecharting.com
She observes that
I feel Intel are supporting bullies who wish to further silence critics and journalists that are willing to challenge the status quo and push our media to be more inclusive to diverse audiences.
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PermalinkIntel is not supporting bullies. They are supporting the consumer by choosing not to advertise on a site that stereotypes its readers. Visitors have been at an all time low for Gamasutra because readers are tired of being misrepresented by the very sites they support.
I have no idea what those statistics even have to do with an anti-consumer site like Gamasutra.
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Permalinka bias analyst of the situation. Does bullying occur on line? Of course it does - it happens to everyone, and those bullies always target your weakpoint. Does this mean we should let these people dictate what games will be? Will sucking fun out of games
somehow solve the human desire to harass others? Of course it won't. But your side is always intellectually dishonest when you argue for your brand of change.
Right in front of you, you have a movement that is telling you exactly what it wants and why. but for some reason, you close your eyes & ears, label them with a buzzword and continue repeating the same rhetoric.
i recommend this article for anyone interested in a complete picture of this situation
https://medium.com/@ryansmithwriter/a-weird-insider-culture-d1c3cc644c29
from an actual former insider who was part of their little GJPs google clique and witnessed their fearmongering and watched them control debate and force consensus all in the name of "progress"
Bullying people to stop ppl from bullying Doesn't solve the problem.
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PermalinkDoes bullying occur on-line more for women than men? Those previous links prove yes.
Does bullying occur on-line more for people of colour? My personal experience says yes
If we push to improve the diversity of games might that exposure to diversity reduce harrassment of minorities?
Putting more black faces and PoC for fans to aspire to in football certainly reduced racism over time on the terraces.
The 'movement' is not telling me what it wants. Its roots were in sexist harrassment and I've already discussed how its goals for journalistic integrity are a paper thing front.
Your link demonstrates nothing about the legitimacy of any specific issue just that most people disagreed with him on the internet. Flimsy nothingness.
I'm not interested in screencaps of nonsensical squabbling held up as proof of some conspiracy What is the specific cause or legitimate goal?
If there is none, Intel should be absolutely be ashamed of their actions today.
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PermalinkWhat you linked isn't a study. It can suffer hugely from sampling bias (who chooses to respond to the questionnaire?). Here are ACTUAL studies:
demos.co.uk
pewinternet.org
No one is supporting harassment. You can keep ignoring the "paper thin veil," but that's what actually has people upset. Journalists are boosting devs who agree with them ideologically, and destroying those who don't. You're in a ship full of Suey Parks. #CANCELCOLBERT
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PermalinkSorry but it is a study. The Matthews study sampled 600 people in the relevant subculture.
Your links are irrelevant and broad. They are about celebrities and online harassment NOT harassment specific to our gaming culture.
However I appreciate another attempt to bring this to a more reasoned quantitative debate. So instead of blindly referring and trusting some offtopic studies lets analyse what you have presented:
PEW report pewinternet.org
- 13% of women are harassed online vs 11% of men (sounds about equal yes?)
- However when you read it the study is about privacy and security online in general, not specific to our gaming subculture
DEMOS stats demos.co.uk
- abuse on twitter to celebrities is even more irrelevant? Whatabout gamers?
- Looking at the spreadsheet women are abused more in every single category (apart from politicians where men massively outnumber women)
- In every single category abusive tweets come more men more than women on a consistent ratio of about 7:3 ie gamingMen are more then twice as likely to be abusive on twitter
MATTHEWS Study
- specific to gaming cubculture
- 63% of women were harassed gaming online
- 15% of men were harassed gaming online
There are several reasons I can't take the "paper thin veil" justification seriously and this is one of them. If you are so earnest about these other journalistic issues being real and significant, why do you have a problem accepting the seemingly separate issue that in gaming harassment, abuse and sexism is a big problem?
Because admitting it is a problem , justifies real journalists talking about it.
Which reveals the real historical cause (and motivations) of gamergate.
No journalist has 'destroyed' anyone. Journalists jobs is to write, which they have done. Its this kind of hyperbole which also makes your cause sound more ridiculous
Can you at least accept the stats?
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PermalinkWe are all about fixing boys.
how about we start talking to girls about how to deal with harassment, it's a fact of life - not some patriarchal conspiracy
harassment is a cowardly act of someone with no other way to garner your attention. The tradeoff for being highly desired is you attract more attention. This is a reality. Humanity has accepted that celebrities must learn to deal with this.
Women should be expected and taught how to learn to deal with it. I'm sure some are ready to toss out (VICTIM BLAMING) there's nothing wrong with pointing out a reality and learning to deal with it. But i realize giving up personal responsibility is something your side tends to be an advocate from, so i do this will help you.
Harassers thrive off the feedback and the fear they instill. Block & Move on. starved of attention they will naturally move on.
Asking Us to Child Proof the World because you refuse to deal is the worst solution to come out of your school of thought.
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PermalinkYou're correct, what you've said is literally the definition of victim blaming.
But even if I did take a bipartisan approach to this argument ie. Lets fix boys AND tell girls how to block and ignore.
The problem is; gamergate is utterly against "all about fixing boys". All of the sites who have championed against sexism are the enemy of gamergate (under the guise of journalism ethics).
And girls already have to block and ignore; 67.5% of women said that they had obscured their sex when gaming online.
The message is girls keep quiet and take it, and shut up anti-sexism journalism.
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PermalinkIt's just banter. Grow a thicker skin. Everyone faces abuse online, you're not special, you're just another gamertag, but if you happen to be female of of a certain colour, the insults will become more specialized.
Reminder that playing Bejeweled, Candy Crush and Farmville doesn't make you a gamer.
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PermalinkSaid like a true victim blaming sociopath. Women, people of colour and different sexualities don't just get more 'specialized' kinds of abuse, they get it in greater quantity and more violent than the rest of gamers. See the proof for following.
Not In The Kitchen Anymore , Fat, Ugly or Slutty, Sexism in Video Games Study
Reminder that you don't get to tell anyone who is a gamer or not.
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PermalinkYeah then by that logic, neither can these fucking idiots at gamasutra. Look I completely oppose this bullshit with co-ordinated attacks against the gaming user base, all to further some twitter war that I don't give a shit about.
Being anti one thing doesn't mean you are pro the opposite. And this is a vital point to remember.
I am very much anti the harassment and disorganised side that GG seems to be associated with. They raise a load of great points about the current state of journalism, but that is blended in with idiots, who are just fighting for the sake of it, and a bunch of abusers, but you know what the same can be said for the Social Justice/ Game Journalist Side as well, I agree that sexism in games is a huge issue, and sexism in the community is an issue as well, mainly caused by teenagers and anti social people. These people though are present in all walks of life. Saying all gamers is like saying some people are murderers, and some murderers watch tv, therefore tv watchers are murderers. Stop with the generalisation.
I believe the expression "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" covers this.
People here need to look at the facts and stop jumping to support a side just because its one or the other. Look at the legitimate issues and points that are made and discuss them. Big props to Total Biscuit for actually trying to make a discussion occur. I generally disagree with half of the points that Anita was bringing to the table, but supported her because the discussion was occurring and part of her message was valid but unfortunately that is now impossible due to the ground that disagreeing with her is now become a minefield to cross.
The issue that is at hand, is that discussion and critical thinking is now at risk because people brand the opposing sides views as stupid/evil/wrong. No progress is being made, and that is the most detrimental situation that is occurring right now. I know many people currently who are siding with GG solely for the fact that their side will argue but not censor an opinion. Personally until everyone calms down slightly and twitter isnt used for the main forum of discussion this isn't going to get any better.
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PermalinkThose articles were not saying who is a gamer and who isn't, but that the definition of a gamer is broadening and maturing, and the hardcore gamer needs to mature with it.
No one has ever said all gamers are sexist?! So the phrase "only a sith deals in absolutes" is not relevant and is an absolute declaration in itself.
But you don't get this level of vitriolic and coordinated abuse in the music, film or TV industry when their critics talk about the tough subjects.
The problem is not that both sides are too polarised, its that one side is hiding its sexism behind a flimsy fake agenda.
Is this a joke?! Journalists didn't try and ban stores from stocking sexist games but Gamergate has tried to censor Gamasutra from doing its job by bullying its sponsors!
GG people need to grow up and take real journalism, not as an attack on their toys, but as a necessary (if sometimes unpleasant) part of a maturing artform.
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PermalinkListen,
It isn't about what problems exists, what matters is what is the net result for your proposed "solutions"?
This is why these culture wars start - one side gets it in their head "THIS PROBLEM IS SO IMPORTANT EVERYONE ELSE IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN SOLVING THIS" This is the first step down the road to tyranny of thought. Which is why we rose up to oppose you. But did you learn anything from this experience? Of course not, all their sites are still churning out lie after lie - the wikipedia page on the gamergate controversy has YET to be updated to reflect all the lies we've pointed out to be true. Wikipedia is about 2 steps from being the E-Ministry of Truth at this point when it comes to their social agenda. Just know this, we are watching, and we know how to win, and you aren't going to get away with your little pseudo-commie fauxtopia on our watch.
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PermalinkWomen and black folk eventually achieved universal suffrage, better representation in the media and a greater acceptance in society. Equality and progress is inevitable and not something you should be trying to fight against under some fake conspiracy BS.
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PermalinkWhat does that have to do with video games and why to a quarter of all articles posted on a game site have to be about it? Assisted suicide, abortion rights, and child abuse are important social issues, too, but I done see dozens of articles about them on my gaming sites every week written by a bunch of drop outs one paycheck away from a job writing copy for supermarket flyers.
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PermalinkI don't understand how you can possibly equate the printed attack on their target demographic *that was quoted in this very article* as being equivalent to supporting inclusiveness in gaming.
You have to be either mentally incompetent, or willfully obtuse to think that characterizing your core demographic as retrograde social misfits and telling people to ignore them is inclusive.
Unless there is some secret context in that message that was printed by Leigh Alexander, then your arguments make absolutely zero sense. If I sent out an email to all my clients calling them a laundry list of names and insulting their abilities to function as normal human beings, I don't think that this action would be defensible in the way that you seem to suggest it is.
Maybe you should understand the context of this argument before you jump in astride your charger Sir Knight. I absolutely agree that there is some bullying going on here, but it was done by Leigh Alexander and aimed directly at the people Intel are trying to market their products at.
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Permalinkkeep in mind it was your little mind game was what created this entire thing - pro tip - get better at printing propaganda, we aren't as stupid as you think.
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PermalinkHave you seen the stats when both females AND males are asked if they've been harassed online? There's 1-2% difference between them, and 40% of the harassing of women is done by other women. Trolls online pick on whatever trait they think will get the biggest rise - be it gender, race, age, whatever. Women are nothing special with being harassed, but for some reason it's misogyny when they get harassed but just trolling when men do.
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PermalinkYes I have Sexism in Video Games Study
63% of women have been sexually harassed online, 15% of men have. Not sure how that works out as 1-2% difference. Harassment to either sex is bad but women are 4 times more likely to be taunted.
Don't you agree that's wrong?
And don't you agree its a fair topic of discussion for games journalists to talk about?
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PermalinkAn online survey distributed to gaming communites published on a blog? That's not going to get you very far. How about the official data referred to by the factual feminist channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm8nBt9rQBo
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PermalinkThere is nothing that makes any data or presenters more 'official' and 'factual' than others, apart from the degree of impartiality and robustness of individual methodologies.
However I appreciate your attempt (and the videomakers) to bring this to a more reasoned quantitative debate, despite the curiousity of female anti-feminist presenters. So instead of blindly referring and trusting some video lets analyse what she is referencing:
First up the video is titled "Is the Internet unsafe for women?" not online gaming. The former being the broad set of people and the latter being the gaming subset that we are interested in.
WHO@ - haltabuse.org
- WHO@ stats mostly reports on interpersonal cyberstalking (53% of people knew their harasser) not online gaming harassment
- Even so Kitchens confuses the total no. of victims as only being 288 / 100,000,000 as if the self reported sample size is the actual total count?! A bizarrely amateurish analysis for a 'Senior Research Associate' to make.
I recently did a study where 25 obese people volunteered for analysis. I doubt even a high school student would interpret that as meaning there are only 25 obese people out of 100s of millions of people in the world.
- Even for this different type of interpersonal cyberstalking the male harassers still outnumber the female.
PEW report pewinternet.org
- This also addresses broader issues of privacy and online security, not in relation to harassment in gaming
For example I can imagine only 13% of dads and 11% of mums might even be harassed online but the percentages and ratio of gaming harassment witnessed by a brother and sister would be much more severe.
So where are those gamer culture relevant stats? Fortunately Emily Matthews published a survey directly focussing on this: Sexism in Video Games Study Her participants were not self-submitted like the WHO@ stats but were randomly collected from online gaming communities.
Her sample size is much bigger than WHO@ and almost as big as PEWs.
Her sample population is not broadly targeted at online users but specifically online gamers.
Her results quantitatively demonstrates that female online gamers are 4 times more likely to be harassed than men.
Is that thorough enough and are you willing to accept the hard data reality that women are harassed more?
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Permalink"The hard data reality"? A blog post claiming to survey less than a thousand people, survey participants self-chosen from "various gaming websites, social media and twitter", with no peer reviews, does not constitute "hard data". It barely even constitutes anecdote, since we're provided with zero evidence that this survey even took place. What an absolute farce.
Here's some hard data reality for ya:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sexism-cyberspace-men-receive-more-twitter-abuse-women-110858728.html#9EL1bnv
The study of over 2 million tweets found that men were more likely to be victims of online abuse on Twitter, and that most abuse women received was from other women. This lines up with what we already know about female victims of bullying: the bullying is much more likely to come from other women.
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PermalinkWhy is sexual harassment worse than say, receiving death threats? Or attacks on one's character? Or any one of the myriad other forms of harassment that EVERYBODY faces now and again when they dip their toes into the internet ocean? Get over your victim complex, kid, and grow the hell up. Everybody deals with trolls. Only the perpetually self-oppressed deal with them by turning it into public display so they can spread their misery around to whomever will listen. Ever thought that maybe you catch a lot of flack online because you're just an unpleasant, irritating person to be around? Probably not because social justice warriors are incapable of seeing their own errors ... of being accountable for their own mistakes and failures. There's always someone else to blame.
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PermalinkAll forms of bullying is deplorable. The clear problem you fail to see is that not all bullying is equal.
- Women are 4 times more likely to be harassed in our gaming subculture.
I don't think women are 4 times more of an "unpleasant, irritating person". So how are they to blame for their own "mistakes and failures"?
You need to open your mind to the reality of the situation and listen to some unpleasant but truthful criticism if you want gaming to be taken seriously. You are free to ignore these articles if you want but don't hide behind elaborate and flimsy conspiracy theories and bully their sponsors because you don't like what they're saying.
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Permalink>Not sure how that works out as 1-2% difference.
Allow me to explain. You were so excited to find numbers that backed up your argument, you forgot to actually read what you were responding to.
They said:
>...if they've been harassed online? There's 1-2% difference between them...
You said:
>63% of women have been sexually harassed online, 15% of men have.
Notice anything? Yep, you changed the discussion from harassment to just the subset of sexual of harassment in the blink of an eye. Assuming both of you are citing valid data (and who am I to doubt a random blog), you've successfully shown that, while men and women experience online harassment with roughly the same frequency, harassment towards women is much more frequently sexual. Just as I'm sure you'll find harassment towards racial minorities is more often racial and harassment towards gays or lesbians is homophobic. People harassing others push on whichever facet is the most obvious and stands out the most from their perception of the herd. Do you know WHY the perception is that those things stand out? Because you have idiots like Leigh Alexander perpetuating dated and inaccurate stereotypes.
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PermalinkThe former survey is less accurate than the latter because PEWs focusses on ALL online, whereas Matthews focusses on online gaming.
Even so I did not change the discussion from harassment to a subset of sexual harassment.
- 63.3% of all female participants responding that they experienced taunting or harassment (in general)
- 35.2% said they have been the subject of “sex-based taunting, harassment, or threats"
Read the survey more carefully Sexism in Video Games Study:
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PermalinkEveryone is abused on any online game. It doesn't matter what race or sex you are, you will get abuse, insults, and threats.
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PermalinkEmily Matthew's study is indeed 'interesting':
Less than 900 respondents.
Survey posted on various gaming communities online as well as through social media such as twitter and facebook.. Yes, and.? So, not necessarily gamers and certainly no agenda free guarantee.
Respondents were self selecting in response to an emotive topic. So much room for bias here, I can't even begin to.
No one denies that arseholes exist on the internet, all of the internet, they are not unique to gaming.
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PermalinkLess than 900 respondents?! Clearly you've never done an survey based research. I'm lucky to get 150 responses (with incentives). Her study response rate rivaled that of the PEW Research report on online harassment (1002).
It may have been distributed also through social media but it was about gamers so only gamers could respond.
The questions were openly worded with simple unbiased binary choices.
Respondents self-selected to participate (like many professional studies) but the extremely large sample size, simple questions make it clear to evaluate as fair.
No arseholes are not unique to gaming. According to the PEW report:
- 13% of women were harassed online
- 11% of men were harassed online
But arseholes are about 6x worse to women in the gaming subculture. According to Matthew's study:
- 63% of women were harassed gaming online
- 15% of men were harassed gaming online
Is that clear enough?
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PermalinkDid it ever occur to you that some people are more sensitive than others? I have been called all kinds of names, "offered" all kinds of sexual acts and received oodles of threats online too. But you know what? It doesn't faze me because I know that most of that is in the heat of the moment and it's not "real".
Of course if I'd be a woman and be told by people like you just how harassed and in danger I am, I may weight these words differently and conclude that I am constantly one step away from getting raped by some faceless individual on the internet.
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PermalinkThe former survey is less accurate than the latter because PEWs focusses on ALL online, whereas Matthews focusses on online gaming.
Even so I did not change the discussion from harassment to a subset of sexual harassment.
- 63.3% of all female participants responding that they experienced taunting or harassment (in general)
- 35.2% said they have been the subject of “sex-based taunting, harassment, or threats"
Read the survey carefully Sexism in Video Games Study:
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PermalinkSorry above post was wrong reply:
Differences in female sensitivity could be a (justified) difference however Matthews survey noted that
- 79% of both women AND men agreed that sexism is prominent
- Women are 4 x more likely to be abused than men
So not all quantities of abuse are the same.
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PermalinkOne should note that the study you cited did not ask how many experienced harassment, but how many experienced sexism. It would make sense that trashtalk wouldn't be percieved as sexist as much when directed towards men
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Permalink- 63.3% of all female participants responding that they experienced taunting or harassment in general
- 35.2% said they have been the subject “sex-based taunting, harassment, or threats"
Read the survey carefully Sexism in Video Games Study:
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PermalinkThat is incorrect. The article with the 63%/15% number was referring only to "sex-based taunting, harassment, or threats while playing video games online," not ALL harassment.
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PermalinkBlatantly false use of statistics
I can guarantee you that vast majority of people who played Call of Duty or something similar online with randoms have been abused. Sexual preference, color of your skin etc. has no bearing on that. Go ask Adam Baldwin how many threats or abusive tweets he gets daily. The difference is he doesn't run crying to his media friends every time
Gamergate has nothing to do with misogony, it's about a corrupt gaming press that is controlled by a closed knit group of friends who pushes a 3rd wave feminist agenda. It's about indie gaming awards being rigged because one of the devs is close to people in the jury or because jury members has invested in that particular game. It's about gaming websites being moronic enough to lable all gamers, their customers no less, misogonysts based on the behaviour of a few bad apples. It's about trying to silence these unhappy gamers through censorship, again because they have friends in the right places, on reddit/4chan/Neogaf/pretty much everywhere except for a select few places like The Escapist. Heck, Ben Kuchera actually tried to get The Escapist to close their thread on gamergate but fortunately they didn't listen
As for Intel, they aren't taking any sides here. They are simply choosing not to advertise on a site that is hostile towards gamers. You know, the people who buy a lot of Intel products. By the way, Gamasutra was home to the most toxic of all the gamers are dead articles, the one by Leigh Alexander
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PermalinkAs discussed above, women are 4 more likely to be harassed whilst gaming. Not all bullying is equal and that should be fair game for discussion, yes?
- Gamergate preceeded a torrent of misogyny to Anita Sarkeesian, it was founded during a torrent of misogyny towards Zoe Quinn, and the current bullyboy tactics targeted at Leigh Alexander Editor in Chief at Gamasutra
- If its not misogyny why the overemphasis on a lone, female, indie dev with minor influence in the alleged corruption of some piddly indie awards instead of a AAA publisher like 2K games using corrupt PR tactics for reviews of Duke Nukem?
- You claim bad apples but the data shows this is an endemic problem worth of discussion and Gamergate have shown they want to get aggressively defensive and claim rational criticism as an attack.
- I'm not a fan of censorship but if Zoe Quinn felt allegations were libellous it was as much her right to threaten legal action as it was JLaw's right to threaten legal action against her hacked pics.
- Its like if Coca-Cola had taken bus ads down because the KKK didn't like black people on their buses.
Intel have bowed to sexist bullies and that's super depressing.
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PermalinkGamers don't give a damn about the sex and zoe quinn. They care about the ethics of covering people you have sex with. Why the focus on sex and women? Because the game journalists made a concerted effort to ignore the complaints about ethics in their business and ONLY focus on writing about sexism and supposed threats and other unprovable garbage. In other words, they misrepresented what gamers were really talking about.. Intentionally. This was stated by the writers themselves in the emails from the private mailing list they had that leaked last month.
Stop telling gamers that what they say they care about is t what they care about and stop telling women who care about ethics in the business that they are stupid or are someone the victims of men for not sharing the opinion the writers do. And stop doing the same of any mi ority (like myself) who cares about the ethics involved. Stop treating us like stupid naive babies who need your protection and stop dismissing our ethical concerns by reporting that we all (including gays, women, different ethnicities, etc) actuLly just HATE women and that's why we laimto care about ethics. That is idiotic.
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PermalinkMaybe get a backbone?
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PermalinkGamasutra is NOT a consumer site. It is an industry site used by game developer professionals. A failure to understand what the site is an who the intended audience demonstrates the lack of intelligence and reasoning behind this bullying of a sponsor.
What stereotyping are you talking about? Their readers are GAME DEVS not consumers so how can they be anti-consumer?
It's like racists spamming a governor to shut down a school in the 60s because its headteacher wants to integrate more racial diversity. That's not an attack on the majority of white parents, kids or education but a push to be more expansive, inclusive and socially conscious. At the end of the day everyone suffers and Intel will look terrible having backed a horde of sexist bullies.
Those stats are a response to the quote I referred to by the original poster.
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PermalinkGamasutra and all the rest of those sites have taken it upon themselves to bully developers, talk down to the players and trump up charges of "oppression" "sexism" "misogyny" etc to justify trying to Backdoor their way into affecting change in the industry.
On some level they pretend this will "solve the worlds problems" but this is dishonest. This is about control. They want to take it away from the people working hard everyday to make games, create ideas, and actually DO something, while these people sit back and critique it - Poorly i might add. They've invested themself with the morale authority to do so and
push the idea that gamers are somehow at the mercy of whatever game we play. We reject that assertion. it is no more valid than
it was when jack thompson tried it.
i realise my tone takes away from my point, but it's hard to be callm when such blatant dishonesty is being peddled. All these sites and the Editors who control them police debate, bully each other over what should and shouldn't get printed or discussed and are trying to inject their our "vision" into the scene - but not through hard work, or merit, but with rhetoric and allegations to those
who agree as being 'against change" "sexist" whatever sticks for the moment.
If you people think you can make a game, Why Don't You Go Make One?
And Leave every other studio alone to make their games. The one who makes the best games and markets it well wins
Why haven't you tried that yet?
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PermalinkWikepedia's definition of bullying "the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominate others."
Journalists jobs are to report, review and challenge their subjects through writing about issues they believe are important. Which is what they've done.
Gamergate has been trying to threaten the financial stability of the most important game critics and development site by coercion of sponsors. Intel as a corporation shouldn't support these bullies.
Your 'movement' still villifies gamedevs who support improving equality and diversity in games so we can't win either way?!
I never once said I can make a game and nobody needs to make one to qualify as a critical voice. But by your standards gamergate should have made its own gamer websites, left the others alone and see who makes the best journalsm. But instead it turned to bully boy tactics showing its true colours as a hate mob.
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PermalinkAsian Astroboy, I must respectfully disagree.
Yes, a journalist's job is to report, review, and challenge their subjects; the problem is, they haven't been doing it for quite a long time and on top of that, they're forcefully injecting their own rhetoric into discussions while banning and censoring anyone who has a different viewpoint. Just look at how many of the recent 'Letter from the Editor' columns have comments turned off - they don't like being disagreed with. Hell, look at a bottom of the barrel site like Kotaku that continually runs clickbait pieces which attempt to shame developers for their creative decisions. They did it to Dragon's Crown, Battlefield, Hitman, and a ton of other games.
I'm also unsure how you think the GamerGate movement vilifies developers who support diversity. So long as the diversity isn't being forced in the game by an outside force, GamerGate supports the devs. In the end, #GGers are gamers who hate seeing developers told 'You're sexist!' because they wanted to design their games a certain way. It's nonsense. A creator has the right to make the product they want. The free market can decide if they agree or disagree with it.
And please have no illusions - there is legitimate bullying occurring as part of GamerGate, but the majority of it seems to come from the anti-GG side who make it their mission to censor, dox, DCMA-takedown, and DDOS sites, places, and people with whom they disagree.
Information should never be censored and people have the right to say what they want to say and make the games they want to make.
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PermalinkHow are they using force? They are writers, and they are writing.
Comments sections wouldn't be banned if the opposition could provide reasoned, rational debates but the reality is those comments sections are full of ugly, vitriol and hate. I'm sure you've read some of them http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/images/anita-threats.JPG
The problem you've hit upon is the true core of gamergate not journalism ethics. Its the fact they have called out games like Dragon's Crown and Hitman for being sexist and most gamers get aggressively defensive. But the worst of it is the journos are right to call out Dragon's Crown and Hitman. Lets all be honest, that game was full of bouncing tits, it was ridiculous. On its own its one designer's right to make whatever the hell he wants and it looks beautiful and I wanna get round to playing it at some point, but in the larger scope of games culture you've got to be honest and admit it was sexist, and the journos were right to call him out on it.
That's the uncomfortable truth at the heart of it.
A creator has the right to make the product they want, consumers in the free market has the right to decide what to buy but journalists have a right to ask the hard questions without gamers throwing their toys out the pram and coercing Intel and trying to censor Gamasutra by proxy.
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PermalinkThe "bouncing tits" that you deride in Dragon's Crown were a deliberate and over-the-top stylistic choice. The bloody dwarves were oiled-up bears in thongs for fuck's sake, get over yourself.
This is part of what Gamergate is about: it's about rejecting culture warriors who think picking on de-contextualized and isolated bits of a game to prop up a narrative of victimization is somehow productive and contributes to diversity. Hitman PENALIZES you for killing civilians. Dragon's Crown had a ludicrous art style across the board. Stop trying to appropriate gaming culture to feed your need to carry the white man's burden.
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PermalinkAt no point in your comment did you explain why bouncing boobs are bad. And if you'd tried to, I'm pretty certain you'd have made yourself look completely ridiculous. The hidden tone of this whole debate is that male sexuality is something that must be denied, that men finding a female form desirable is morally questionable and that male fantasies need to be policed.
This is the crux of the issue for me.
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PermalinkHopefully when your balls drop, you won't be so scared of breasts, joke.
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PermalinkSJWs have been using shaming tactics, ostracization and the pressuring of people's sponsors for YEARS in order to silence people. Sucks to be on the other end of that treatment, doesn't it? Your ugly cadre of social crusaders practically invented bullying individuals to silence them. The main difference here is that Intel is a multinational corporation who can't be bullied. But their bottom line certainly will listen to reason.
Face it, you and your ugly group of hypocritical cronies have been exposed for the pond scum they are. This djinni isn't going back in it's bottle and you've lost the initiative on your war against gaming. You aren't getting back. May as well start your sulking now. You're going to lose this one.
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Permalinkthanks for this article. Those of us who have been at this since the beginning, 6 weeks and counting now.
We could tell you some stories, it's very long and took many turns, but it ends with the same thing
a huge multi-site (RPS kotaku polygon gamasutra destructoid et all) smear campaign against
"women-hating misogynerds" who "can't stand women in gaming."
Let me give you a little background, the only reporter to cover us at first was a gay guy from the Uk.
NotYourShield was started by a black man in atlanta (i'm from there too) and he was doxxed and lost his job
a week later. (many others got doxxed dropped out, some stayed in to have the doxx threats carried out)
Later Milo, our friendly UK reporter received a filled syringe in the mail. Many other supporters
have been doxxed & harassed via mail - facebook, at work, one i know had bomb threats called in at their job.
The first site to post even a Neutral article (Techraptor) - had their site pulled by their host
who wouldn't reply as to why for hours. same with GamesNosh - they had to amend their article.
Theescapist endured DDOS attacks shortly after this (there are others, i am forgetting some)
simply for allowing debate.
For 6 weeks they've leveled all the usual accusations, smeared and maligned our intent, repeated on twitter
and in every article they could churn out to broadcast and sell this image of us.
but never once
would they address any of the issues we investigated and brought to light.
First the line was - "you're just a bunch of white male scum" then, Our black asian mexican, Uk Aussie and
female supporters announced themselves.
they were accused of being sockpuppets from 4chan. from this fustration #NotYourShield was born,
It spread and started to trend, they posted pics and timestamps as proof. more doxing took place
some youtubers weighted in. Jontron & totalbiscuit, our opposition started #IstandWithJontron to mock and harass him
for siding with us, later he withdrew. same with Boogie, another ytber. only TB tried to stay in and tried to
understand our intent.
Now the story is, "You don't have any proof of wrongdoing" The denial is strong. And i'm not sure why
But that just made us want to try harder. Before Adam Baldwin coined the phrase #Gamergate
i was shuffling through my days with no drive and no desire to do anything. But when those
10 "gamers are dead" articles dropped on Aug 28/29 over 12 hours & 25,000 comments on reddit on the initial scandal
were culled - when virtually all gaming site forums 100% eliminated threads about this. It was surreal.
Only two public sites forums allowed discussion mmo-champion & escapistmagazine. & (1 or 2 other small lightly moderated forums)
It was the strangest feeling. We all talked about it, we didnt know what to do, but one thing was sure.
We were on to something, and they were scared. And you know what happens when prey runs..
Again, i want to reiterate, our cause is just, we are not trying to "set back progress" or "hate women"
or harass anyone. there are many opportunists who used this controversy to have fun trolling both sides
but those dedicated to the ideals of #gamergate knew that any harassment or trolling would only hurt us and our goal.
We Completely Reject the assertion the realism in a game somehow warps a gamer into a monster.
Gamers control their experience, they are not controlled by it. We established this with violence, and we can do it again.
any vision a developer decides to bring to his audience should not be infringed upon by extremist idealogues
that have bullied and leveraged their way into power by slinging buzzwords at any opposition to their rise to power
The audience is the ultimate consumer and their wants decide the content.
Not people with no appreciate of journalistic ethics,
of the games they play at writing about.
Gamers have access to game creators now more than ever before.
If these journalists can't understand and agree to appropriate ethics and standards we will gladly bypass them
if they cannot accept the medium requires this reform in good faith from them, we suggestion they move on.
Those who wish to rewrite gaming in their own image will step aside and find another avenue to "change the world"
we play games for fun. these people write articles about how "maybe fun shouldn't be important in gaming"
"kindly, depart swiftly in what way seems best to you" is our answer to that.
let people who love games, free expression, artistic freedom and the free market decide where gaming goes.
We vote with our hearts our wallets and our clicks.
and we aren't going anyway until this happens.
#GG
(sorry for the heated words, i just wanted to get that out.)
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PermalinkSorry but a lot of that read like incoherent babble by someone bored who has suddenly found a flimsy cause to fill their time with.
What are the real objectives of gamergate meant to be (without going off on a random diatribe of tangential screenshot 'proofs')?
The claim that its about journalistic ethics in games seems like a total fraud:
However in past instances of REAL but reversed ethical questions of publisher-journalist issues where was the gamergate outrage?
That's because they weren't about criticising sexism and gamergate isn't really about journalistic ethics.
I haven't heard about these alleged reverse harrassments but it sounded like #NotYourShield was another concerted fabrication in 4chan.
Milo Yiannopoulos is also a joke. An offensive ubertroll tech journalist bully who writes absurd remarks like he hoped the police "beat the shit out of those wankers" at the G20 protests, right before they did. Bad company to associate yourself with if you are trying to convince anyone of your legitimacy.
I agree there felt like some blackout but if an ex-partner of yours had libelled you to the most notorious, hacking mob on the internet would you exercise your legal rights against defamation (and the highly likely ensuing harrassment)?
If Zoe had enacted here legal right to block defamation it might not have been the wisest move, considering the Barbara Streisand effect, but it was the legal right of a lone vulnerable young woman.
Most game journalists deny a direct link between gaming and violence, so why bring it up? (and even if some did, that should be the right of free speech without fear of reprisals) Is this mean to be another non-existent cause you are claiming gamergate represents?
What extremist ideologies are you talking about?! Greater inclusion of women, different ethnicities and sexualities, WHAT?
The audience is the ultimate consumer but their wants should not always decide the content. Otherwise all we'd have is CoD, FIFA and Angry Birds games or superhero and action films.
It is up to critics to push beyond and above the obvious mainstream desires to challenge creators to do more, to be more experimental and inclusive.
As I said before journalistic ethics could be an issue worth debating but in this instance it is clearly not, its an excuse and smokescreen for sexism and bullying.
I'm a gamer so these issues matter to me too. Or do you think games should only be for you? No blacks, girls or other points of view allowed?
So you want a future where we ONLY play CoD and ONLY watch Transformers movies? You don't think games like Dear Esther or Gone Home are even worth talking about or exploring as alternatives?
You want us out of this door? No is my answer to that.
You need to step out of your boredom and open your eyes to what this movement is masquerading as, and then open your mind to accepting journalistic criticism (not just an attack on your toys) that is meant to push gaming to become a better medium.
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PermalinkClear and rational explanation of the reality behind Gamergate. A lot of us gamers are pretty sickened by what these misogynist CoD fanboys are doing to our hobby.
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PermalinkYou mustn't have been keeping up if you think Gamergate is a misogynist crusade.
It's always a pity to see people swallow the party line without thinking.
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Permalink"Are people really schocked that journos talk to each? or are friends with developers?"
Nope, but we expect that they won't collude to push the party line and will disclose conflicts of interest. Unfortunately, the group polarization inherent in self-segregating communities has convinced that that they are the rightful torchbearers of middle-class armchair slacktivism.
"However in past instances of REAL but reversed ethical questions of publisher-journalist issues where was the gamergate outrage?"
I direct you to the shitstorm over Mass Effect 3, Kane and Lynch (i.e. Gerstmann), Doritogate (must the US label any scandal "-gate"?), and DmC. There was plenty of outrage, but you might've missed it from the crucifix which you insist on being lashed to.
There are several factors that contributed to Gamergate being a particularly vociferous outpouring of anger. Chief among them would be the display of excessively chummy behavior as demonstrated by :
a) mass censorship of the original brouhaha regarding Zoe Quinn and the Streisand effect
b) simultaneous release of a ream of hate pieces decrying the gamer identity.
"I haven't heard about these alleged reverse harrassments but it sounded like #NotYourShield was another concerted fabrication in 4chan."
Isn't confirmation bias the damnedest thing?
Newsflash: in any sufficiently emotive topic there will be some small proportion of muppets who lose all sense of perspective and go off the deep end. For fuck's sake, Neil deGrasse Tyson has received some very alarming letters because he demoted Pluto from planet status. A myopic focus on the actions of these idiots and subsequent conflation with the majority not doesn't inspire confidence in the veracity of your argument. Anti-GGers and GGers alike have indulged in reprehensible behavior; while their actions are good for whipping up a mob they're in no way representative of the majority opinion.
A concerted fabrication? Wait, so minorities aren't allowed to be tired of seeing social media slacktivists claim the white man's burden? Minorities aren't allowed to reject the appropriation of their "oppression" by these self-aggrandizing members of the leftist counterpart of the Tea Party? Really now?
"Milo Yiannopoulos is also a joke. An offensive ubertroll tech journalist bully who writes absurd remarks like he hoped the police "beat the shit out of those wankers" at the G20 protests, right before they did. Bad company to associate yourself with if you are trying to convince anyone of your legitimacy."
Ad hominem is a notoriously weak logical argument.
And yes, left-leaning people in Gamergate have commented on the irony of appreciating the existence of Brietbart's work on the issue. We're entirely aware that it's likely that they've seen an opening to take a poke at their ideological enemies and are appropriately wary, but for now our goals re:GG are aligned in the same general direction.
"Most game journalists deny a direct link between gaming and violence, so why bring it up? (and even if some did, that should be the right of free speech without fear of reprisals)"
This is a point where flip-flopping is not unusual. It seems to depend on the particular ideological flag the blogger in question is flying. Back in Jack Thompson's day, they'd have you believe that games have absolutely no influence on violent crime. In an age where baseless complaints about soggy knees are milked for clickbait, it depends on what's easiest to fit into a pithy and appropriately controversial headline.
"What extremist ideologies are you talking about?! Greater inclusion of women, different ethnicities and sexualities, WHAT?"
i.e tokenism to appease the white guilt complex that these culture warriors wield as a weapon.
Need I remind you about the shitstorm over the lack of black people in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, despite it being located in a white-dominated locale in Europe? Or the current intellectual masturbation being promulgated over how Shadow of Mordor is apparently a white power fantasy involving killing black proxies of another powerful white man? Or heck, that the use of sneaking up on and kissing the protagonist's wife to demonstrate the stealth mechanic somehow constitutes an egregious violation of agency and is morally equivalent to jumping out of a bush and shanking orcs repeatedly? We want this post-modernist psuedo-intellectual bilge out of gaming, thank you very much. Cultural studies hipster muppets who scraped bare passes can fuck off back to making overpriced coffee instead of cluttering gaming sites with shitty clickbait.
I'm sure that I speak for the majority of the discerning gaming community when I say that we're more interested in genuinely interesting CHARACTERS than in meeting some kind of diversity quota. I'll use the example of the Avatar animated series: Korra has been uninteresting for the most part (barring some existential angst) because she's largely a one-dimensional meathead whose decision tree can be summed up with "punch harder" and she's rarely been meaningfully challenged before deus ex machina bails her out. Conversely, Aang's journey was interesting to follow because his life philosophy is so diametrically opposed to the duties and powers thrust upon him and he finds a way to reconcile the two while getting the job done. If he gets up shit creek he paddles himself out with the aid of his friends, he doesn't get a prior Avatar giving him the bloody answer sheet.
"As I said before journalistic ethics could be an issue worth debating but in this instance it is clearly not, its an excuse and smokescreen for sexism and bullying."
When lacking in substantive counterarguments, one can always revert to the tried and true way of sticking fingers in ears and calling them misogynists regardless of the truth of the matter. People have built entire careers on this.
"So you want a future where we ONLY play CoD and ONLY watch Transformers movies? You don't think games like Dear Esther or Gone Home are even worth talking about or exploring as alternatives?"
The definition of what constitutes a game is another debate that should be hashed out. As I see it, the likes of Gone Home are functionally slideshows, and without a failure state or mechanical ability associated with consumption it's hard to see what meaningful difference there is from watching TV. It's hard to call a piece of media a game when they're even less gamey than bloody visual novels. At least you can fail those.
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Permalink- There is no party to collude over, only some journalistic consensus that the medium needs to mature.
What conflict of interest? Nathan Grayson might have slept with Zoe Quinn, and then DIDN'T review her game?
Standards have improved slightly as a result and I'm all for footnotes declaring any free review copies, trips or patreon supporting. I don't think these minor improvements justified such a conflated 'movement'.
- Excellent examples, Jennifer Helper felt bullied out of a career at Bioware with rape and death threats.
No one else involved in the Gerstmann, Doritogate and DmC was doxxed, had threatening calls to their parents, threatened with rape and bomb threats.
I remember the outrage and considering the larger size of their scandals it was disproportionate to the level of hate levelled against individuals as it has been against Jennifer Helper, Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Leigh Alexander.
- Again I don't support censorhip but I'm not clear on the causes of it. It sounds like Zoe might have had libel laws on her side, in which case websites have to comply.
Most of the sites gamergate is attacking, are trying to improve not only videogame as a medium but videogame journalism with stronger critiques of themes, representations and reflected social issues. If you want to take it as "hate" and stick your fingers in your ears, fine go to other sites, but don't try and silence their free speech by bullying their sponsors.
- Gamergate was founded in a hate campaign against zoe quinn, and is being driven by a flimsly journalistic ethics cause.
I believe the core of Gamergate is a group of gamers who want to ignore and reject social critiques as 'attacks' on their toys and they want to redirect it back at the journalists making them.
Criticism is hard to take, it doesn't mean the critics hate gamers or the entirety of the games. If we want games to be considered an artform like literature, cinema, theatre, food we need to be able to take these criticisms as constructive.
- People can be tired and reject arguments. They can engage in meaningful debates, the internet is a free place to post retort articles and to find non-politicised websites to enjoy games as nothing more than entertaining toys.
What is deplorable is bullying socially conscious game developers' and journalists' free speech by coercing sponsors.
- Ad hominen is attacking something about a person that is irrelevant to their argument like saying Milo wears stupid clothes therefore you're wrong.
Its not fallacious when its refers to the lack of credibility of facts or fact givers like saying Milo is not a gamer, has no knowledgeable credibility on the subject and has a proven track record of sexist attitudes "men and women are different, men are better at tech, deal with it" and dubious journalistic creds.
Try looking up the definition.
- Jesus, just checkout the articles on Breitbart and some of his older shit on The Kernel. It makes the sexism in Anchorman sound like a documentary, not a satire.
- Most gamers and journalists have always laughed off a direct causal link between specific sexual/ violent acts in games being replicated in the real world
The problem is there is a disproportianate amount of sexism in game design compared to other media and a disproportianate amount of sexist abuse in online gaming compared to other media .
This suggests games media affects gamers broader attitudes and culture. This is an issue worthy of journalists' attention
Tbh I've not heard these particular debates. but where do you draw the line between tokenism and being more inclusive of the real gaming diversity?
I can't comment on those individuals games but the quantity and agency of female/black game characters does not represent the percentage of female/black gamers. FACT.
- Trying to paint reasonable minority gamers as extremist just for wanting to be represented better is belittling.
You'll agree there is a disparity and its worth discussing?
Who speaks for the minority of gamers if Kotaku and the like are bullied out of it?
- You're saying fuck the minority of black and asian gamers? Well it matters to me.
and fuck the minority of female gamers? And fuck the female gamers even if they now make up 52% of gamers?
- A bizarre analogy to make; that of a fictional character and realworld social issues but ok. Aangs problems were personal, Korras problems are societal. And to top it off ALL of his previous avatars aid him in meditation on how to defeat Ozai nonviolently and a bloody Lion Turtle teaches him to energybend to resolve the entire conflict. Either way its a bizarre and not unhelpful comparison to make.
- Gamergate has provided flimsy screenshots and accusations. I have provided data based facts.
- your opinions are your opinions and no has the right to shut you up.
It is journalists' full time jobs to talk about what a game means, is violence a necessary game mechanic, does a game need a starting condition or fail state? etc
You may say no but films like Adaptation explore the necessity of conflict in narratives and films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Irreversible without start and end conditions. They do this within a culture of harsh, rigourous but beneficial critics and may not have even existed without them.
Gamers need the same journalistic brutality to grow, innovate and mature.
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PermalinkWhen you get back to Earth, let us know.
Well that's the trouble with being hateable.
Wow, that's some damning accusations. Say, could you provide proof of this please? :)
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PermalinkThe Guardian didn't break the expenses scandal. It was the Telegraph.
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Permalink>I agree there felt like some blackout but if an ex-partner of yours had libelled you...
Libel is publishing a false statement to defame. Posting someone's own words, as they were written and in the context in which they were written, doesn't even come close to meeting that.
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PermalinkPosting someone's words about someone else
The thing is there may have been some nugget of truth worthy of journalistic investigation beyond any legal constraints, but the level of outrage at a female gamedev was astronomically disparate to the level of outrage of say a for richer, more powerful and influential AAA publisher like 2K using corrupt PR tactics on poor Duke Nukem Reviews, or potential conflicts of interest of influential critics like Charlie Brooker appearing in Sniper Elite III.
The sites gamergate has attacked, covered those more serious issues but there was little to no outrage from the so called gamers. But when a lone female gamedev who might have cheated on a fellow bro does something, 'gamers' lose their mind.
That's why none of this cause rings true and I call BS.
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Permalinkthese are the stated lists of demands.
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PermalinkAs white, male gamer who owns a business, all I can say is that I will be very reluctant to buy Intel related products again. They can give in to misogynist hate campaigns if they wish, but that has consequences. And that is from the likes of me. What happens when this shameful failure of CSR gets out to the wider community? 'Intel backs misogynist trolls who call in bomb threats and promise to rape women journalists and developers' is not just how it is but how it is seen. Gamergate is a horrific mess because of how it is making us technologists and gamers seem out there in the world. This is brand poison.
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Permalink"As white, male gamer who owns a business, all I can say is that I will be very reluctant to buy Intel related products again."
Do you even understand what patents Intel owns? They own the patent on x86. Good luck running a business with no computers.
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PermalinkAs a gay native american sysadmin who finds white knights like you hilarious; I hope you understand that that you know nothing about computers and wish you luck with the Macs you're obviously going to try and buy to solve this "issue" you perceive.
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PermalinkWhich misogynist hate campaigns are you speaking of? The ones where female gamergaters have been threatened with death? :)
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PermalinkThis is about journalistic integrity & censorship, and being declared dead. Pro gamer comments were censored on Reddit, 4Chan, NeoGaf. Do you support that censorship? Yes or No answer only please. Some gamers lost their jobs when SJWs phoned their employers. You support that - Yes, or No? Several people had their identities revealed online - you think that's okay?
See, if you think threats are bad, then you must admit threatening gamers is bad too. Gamers are human too, right? Zoo (whatever her name is) is also a mere human. If you think it is bad to threaten her, then it is bad to threaten gamers too. The guy who lost his job was a black man. Is that ok with you? Same standards & laws should be used for everyone, no?
Fact remains that there was, and is, strong censorship of gamers on many forums. On the other hand you wish to make gaming more inclusive and you do it how - by censoring dissent?
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PermalinkAnd as a NON WHITE Male gamer who also owns a business (A Software Company even :) ) I am very happy that Intel distanced themselves from the Identity politics and hate peddled by a handful of SJWs. Keep your money in your pocket, SJWs, we are millions of gamers and our wallets are deeper.
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