So, remember that Kane & Lynch firing?

[SineSwiper]

I think I found something that could top that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-51PfwI3M

Serious fucking drama bomb going on with this Zoe Quinn mess.

http://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/commen ... _of_games/

[Don]

I remember reading these sports article about how soandso talks about smack about another guy and this gives them the motivation to be awesome and I always thought if this actually worked their own team should hire guys to talk smack about their own team and then the team will become super awesome. This is kind of like that but for financial reasons, and I guess it actually works. It reminds me of how every random guy I got into an argument on the Internet is either super rich or is suffering from a rare disease and only has 3 months to live, or both.

[Julius Seeker]

I am not sure who either of these people are. From what I gather some guy is accusing his ex-girlfriend of sleeping around with people of gaming websites for good review scores.

From what I've read, the story seems extremely unlikely to me, and this looks more like some sad and petty guy attempting to ruin his ex girlfriend's career.

[Anarky]

It's a bunch of fucking neckbeards on a witch hunt. What kind of asshole writes a blog post like that as an honest to god adult. Even if she did cheat on you move and and live life well.

Also I like Total Biscuit, but you can't fucking make a post like that and not delve into the issue of misogyny more. I realize he just wanted to talk about the potential press issue, but you're just going to get flack.

https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status ... 6250316800

[bovine]

I agree with Anarky about this being a witch hunt. I feel like this could be a story about journalistic integrity, but the posted video was so misogynistic and awful in its slut shaming - all the while claiming it was not there to judge her actions (I'm not racist, but...), anti-social justice journalism, and also just its tone about gaming journalism.... It's entertainment journalism! Looking at the broader social contexts and writing opinion pieces means that this is a maturing form of journalism. It's not just recycling press releases by companies, previews, reviews, and interviews. It needs to be more by asking relevant and important questions. The loudest voices of the people who are resisting the progression of games and games media into something more mature and representative of the needs of the entire audience, not just the majority of the audience, are becoming increasingly more directly slanderous and hurtful as they get more desperate to stop the progress of the industry.

Zoe Quinn can now join the likes of Jennifer Hepler, Anita Sarkeesian, and I'm sure many more who are being assaulted by an embarrassing portion of the gaming audience.

[Anarky]

http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-be ... 1624707346

In recent days I've been asked several times about a possible breach of ethics involving one of our reporters. While I believe no such breach occurred, I feel it is important for Kotaku readers who have questions to get clear answers.

The questions involve Nathan Grayson, who began writing for us part-time in March and joined us full-time in July.

The allegations have been extreme. Nathan has been accused of in some way trading positive coverage of a developer for the opportunity to sleep with her, of failing to disclose that he was in a romantic relationship with a developer he had written about, and that he'd given said developer's game a favorable review. All of those are troubling claims that we take seriously. All would be violations of the standards we maintain. Having spoken to Nathan several times, having looked closely at the numerous messages sent our way by concerned readers and, having compared published timelines, our leadership team finds no compelling evidence that any of that is true.

On March 31, Nathan published the only Kotaku article he's written involving Zoe Quinn. It was about Game Jam, a failed reality show that Zoe and other developers were upset about being on. At the time, Nathan and Zoe were professional acquaintances. He quoted blog posts written by Zoe and others involved in the show. Shortly after that, in early April, Nathan and Zoe began a romantic relationship. He has not written about her since. Nathan never reviewed Zoe Quinn's game Depression Quest, let alone gave it a favorable review.

Given the information available to us both from Nathan and all sources presented online, I have no reason to believe any further action need be taken. The situation is fraught for all involved, including our readers, whose trust is paramount; inquiry is always welcome.

[Julius Seeker]

Heh, you can fool Reddit and Kotaku users, but NOT tOWS

[Anarky]

Heh, you can fool Reddit and Kotaku users, but NOT tOWS

I can't speak for all of you but I grew up with a sister who played video games too, and I remember there was a time before this became some bullshit boys club with misogynist undertones. Plus it helps I married a woman in the games industry that has to deal with some of these white knight neckbeard fuckwits, and I see some of the real struggles she goes through.

That video that lasted for 24 minutes had no substantial evidence beyond some guy who wrote a blog post. Apparently that is enough to slut shame someone into oblivion on the internet.

I do appreciate that most of us are in our 30's now and have had substantial relationships. Definitely helps the dialogue of maturity.

[Eric]

Yeah, the whole story was a shitstorm of bullshit.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah the level of misogyny surrounding gaming is pretty disgusting. On the topic of games journalism going to shit, he has a fairly flawed point. Comparing articles that highlight racism and misogyny in gaming to the ethical breakdown of televised news is just wrong since it's an example of the maturation of gaming journalism. It's far different from the fluff/comedy pieces that you see on popular gaming journalism sites like Kotaku which I would never go to for serious gaming journalism since I see them as the gaming/male equivalent of, say, a Cosmo magazine. I realize Cosmo and Kotaku aren't completely devoid of value and legitimate journalism, but fuck man long story short I'm not into what they're selling. But, yeah, stepping into the shoes of someone else and analyzing games from a female or minority perspective... I don't see how that is anything but valuable. Inclusion is almost never a bad thing.

All the crazy violent shit people say regarding races and women on the Internet... there was a time when I could pretend like a lot of it was just people making jokes but the older I get the more of it seems completely serious.

As long as companies like Twitter literally profit off the harassment instead of turning in the truly disturbing death/rape threats to law enforcement (who probably wouldn't give a shit unless you got a lawyer involved), the biggest problems are going to continue.

[bovine]

The latest Tropes Vs. Women in Games is up.



TLDW - Women being used for both sex appeal and objects of violence by men - and how these are just lazy shorthand to make game worlds seem grittier. The exploitation of women as both sex objects and victims of violence (because they are supposed to be seen as weak/off limits to normal videogame violence) is just a lazy way for developers and storytellers to show their worlds as being gritty, dark, or dangerous. The video is just a showcase of the lazy ways that women are used in sexist characterisations.




I think it's all pretty straightforward and true. I don't understand all the fuss that is being kicked up by a vocal minority on the internet. I'm sure that there is an audience for this sort of thing, so it's not going to go away - but by casting a light on it, it can show developers that they are getting lazy and rehashing the same sexist garbage in game after game. Instead of showing that someone is evil by having them kill/harm/sexually assault a woman, we can have a more interesting and developed way to characterise them as evil to the character. Again - it just shows how videogame storytelling just goes back to the same well over and over again, and rightfully puts a bit of shame into how it isn't just lazy, but sexist too.

[Anarky]

My wife sent me this today:

https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/504718160902492160



What the fuck is going on anymore. Where do you even begin to stop shit like this, and how can you tell the trolling from the legitimate threats.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah I follow @femfreq and saw that today. She gets an awful lot of that stuff. Like I said previously, Twitter literally profits off that kind of shit (it's third party created content that generates clicks and gets shared across the internet through literally no effort on their part) and the worst thing that'll happen to the dude is his account will be suspended, but since that account was clearly created to harass femfreq, that's clearly a completely meaningless punishment. You can't take anything written like that lightly. It has to be treated like a real threat. If the guy clearly was just talking shit then it should be treated like any other threatening statement made by an individual.

Law enforcement can't really do anything, especially if they hide themselves well enough. Also if he's in a foreign country, you have to depend on that country not having asshole law enforcement who don't care and that'll play ball. I'm going to take a wild guess that basically the entire world's law enforcement, including ours, couldn't care less about internet harassment made to an internet celebrity on the fringe of gaming journalism. In the harsh light of day most of her harassers would probably never do anything, but it's a sad truth that she'll probably have to be careful for the rest of her life.

[Shrinweck]

Oh, I missed the part where the threats literally drove her from her home this week. Would hope law enforcement takes that seriously.

[Eric]

4Chan's amusing take on all this.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wFW ... wJxGs/edit#

[Shrinweck]

It's funny how they describe the so-called Social Justice Warriors as reactionary when that term probably more correctly applies to them.

It's telling how a lot of the evidence that isn't someone just posting behind an anonymous veil to a website that doesn't have any sort of fact checking just straight up isn't included. I also keep seeing her game's poor reception on Steam as proof of her game being shit, but Steam is known for shitting on any game that doesn't 'have gameplay.' This is evident in their game forums and reviews for games such as Gone Home (okay, I guess that should be singular, there isn't really anything else like Gone Home out yet) and also visual novels, which are basically just games where you click through text, make an odd choice here and there in a choose-your-own-adventure kind of way, and once in a while the art backdrop changes. They go after "Papers Please" as an indie darling that's gameplay light as something the average gamer likes (IRL 'average' gamers tend to hate it), but if it wasn't for the massive amount of press that game received that educated people that would enjoy the game on the game's existence, then the forums would be people just complaining (and last time I checked there were still quite a few of these threads).

The biggest thing these vocal Steam users seem to keep saying is that games such as these don't belong on Steam. So, yeah, fuck them, why do they think they get to judge what should and shouldn't be on Steam. That's 100% Valve's prerogative.

[kali o.]

Oh god, fuck off with misogyny bullshit already. Its the internet, where everyone turns into a racist, sexist, opiniated asshole bigot. Been like that since the 90s. Nothing special about "gamers" here and painting them all with that brush is just what these little SWJs want you to do. Manufactured outrage as usual.

As for games, considering its focus on gameplay and rarely complex narratives, they do a good job and represent women fine. SWJs and "feminists" can tunnelvision all they want on specific examples...games are evolving as a medium. And besides which, if a market shows desire for gay or strong female lead games (which exist), then the industry responds.

[Shrinweck]

I think the entire point is that there is a desire for strong female leads and that the representation of women is clearly horrible. And there's no excuse for judging women on different criteria from men. It isn't tunnel vision when there's dozens of examples. In fact, the tunnel vision term correctly applied here is that there ARE games with strong, exclusively, female leads.. Like one or two a year.

The amount of death/rape threats are also completely loaded much more into this issue then other things in the past.

[Don]

Like Kali I don't see how this is anything new. I played with guys who threaten to kill people for wiping a raid 10 years ago. I'm sure if Twitter or whatever is around back then that guy would be doing the same thing here. I don't think there's this sudden explosion of crazies on the Net but maybe it's easier for them to make their presence known, though it wasn't hard to notice these guys even when all you had was some kind of rudimentary chat.

For the female representation, people don't like Lightning not because she's a strong character but because Lightning is dumb who acts like she's cool. If Lightning was actually as cool as Cloud Strife, people wouldn't have a problem with her leading FF14.

[Shrinweck]

There's a difference between someone talking shit in game chat and personally sending someone a threat. The people have always been out there, yes, but things like Twitter allow them to find and send these people threats. It's different because there's really no greater example of hypocrisy (i.e. threatening violence against women while maintaining that violence against women isn't a problem) and vitriol for something as mundane as women not wanting to be represented as sex objects to be abused. (Edit: Further clarification - Maybe these threats and ideas have always been out there but being able to collect them all in one place and target people in a way that they'll definitely see it is new)

I'm not talking about shitty characters from mediocre games as a form of representation. I'm talking about women being portrayed in games as, say, the abused whore or shallow sex objects that basically give sex in exchange for hollow objects and words. The idea is that they're characteristically overly sexualized. Shitty writing is another discussion that is probably relevant but not what I was going into.

[kali o.]

Utter and complete horse shit. Its the anonyminity of the internet and everyone is a target (including males).

Selective outrage, manufactured issue. SJWs need to go jump in a fucking pit along with the so called "feminists"..

Waaahh, the game industry is sexualizing males. We are not all dark brooding heroes or cut white knights good with women. Where are the games portraying overweight middle age contractors with bad backs and early onset impotence (well ok Mario...but who else?!).

Smh...

When this becomes a discussion about writing in games and not feminist bullshit, it will have relevance. Telltale is putting narrative first and clearly there is a market for complex story-first games.

[Anarky]

I think you're off base Kali. Have someone you care about work in the games industry and have them tell you about people assuming she is a booth babe and not a Senior PR manager for a large gaming company. Or the fact she doesn't want to to play games because if she uses voice chat she'll be harassed and threatened. I hate the cliche but check your privilege.

[Shrinweck]

I'm thinking he's just fucking with us so something interesting will actually happen in this thread/forum.

This is all coming from a guy who posted in a thread that he was (for kicks) taking the alternative position to me being against civilians being executed in Iraq and Syria :P

[Anarky]

Perhaps. We have been around each other for far too long.

[SineSwiper]

Heh, okay, so I come back after a week of posting this, and most people here seems to dismiss it as misogynist slut shaming. Honestly, I'm not that surprised. Anita and a lot of other folks have done a good job of controlling the messaging. In fact, about a day ago, Anita's PR company (SilverString Media) did a huge blitz campaign that put very similar "is the word 'gamer' dead" articles on various gaming web sites. People who are friends with Zoe or Anita or some of the other connection points are also pushing articles.

But, believe me when I tell you that the popular opinion being pushed isn't true or an accurate picture of the real discussion. There is a -lot- of whitewashing going on and a lot of knocking down of straw men, attacking only the supposedly anti-feminist crowd that is attacking Zoe Quinn. Though Zoe has been the catalyst for a lot of this discussion, her cheating on her boyfriend isn't the issue. It's not about some witch hunt attacking female developers, or "slut shaming", or any of that other bullshit that is being pushed.

It's about cronyism, nepotism, and overall corruption going on between the gaming and the "game journalism" industry.

Since the original revelations around Zoe Quinn, there have been a lot of connection points between these two groups or other groups that would otherwise have a conflict of interest. For example, here's some damning evidence connecting Independent Games Festival with SilverString Media with the winners of IDF's contest. In other words, if you weren't part of the cool kids club, you didn't win the $60,000 in prize money, free publicity, and prize stamp to display on your game description. InternetAristocrat's third video barely talks about Zoe and goes into several other conflicts of interest, especially Kotaku.

People are pissed off because this is going on rather blatantly and there is a ton of evidence from their own web pages and conversations from social media to prove that it is happening. Gaming journalism is more of a joke than ever, and we deserve better for a $10 billion industry.

Hell, the one positive out of this whole mess is that 4Chan basically stood up and donated $25,000 to Fine Young Capitalists in retaliation of Zoe's attack on both 4Chan and FYC. And they created this Vivian James character. Yes, -that- 4Chan. It looks pretty cool, and I hope they produce a good game out of that.

Sure, you can call me some neckbeard asshole on a misogynist rampage. Whatever. But, I just want some honest reporting of the truth and have this someday result in some real game journalism with real reviews, instead of the corrupt bullshit that is out there now. Of course, this is probably wishful thinking, considering the game "journalism" industry hasn't changed their ethics much since Nintendo Power first launched to start pushing their own products. If anything, the amount of money in the industry has just made it more blatant and pervasive.

[SineSwiper]

Yeah I follow @femfreq and saw that today. She gets an awful lot of that stuff. Like I said previously, Twitter literally profits off that kind of shit (it's third party created content that generates clicks and gets shared across the internet through literally no effort on their part) and the worst thing that'll happen to the dude is his account will be suspended, but since that account was clearly created to harass femfreq, that's clearly a completely meaningless punishment. You can't take anything written like that lightly. It has to be treated like a real threat. If the guy clearly was just talking shit then it should be treated like any other threatening statement made by an individual.

She literally profits off of that kind of shit, too. She posts the screenshot, gets attention, and people donate or subscribe to her cause.

She fakes a lot of that shit. Who the fuck is Kevin Dobson? Why does he have no avatar? Why would a person who uses his real name (yet for some reason doesn't have an avatar) post that kind of shit on Twitter? People aren't stupid.

Who do you think taught Zoe how to do that? When she was at risk of not getting Depression Quest greenlit by Steam, she faked doxxed herself and blamed Wizardchan, because they are an introverted group that isn't going to fight back. Then she posts about it to garner support. It worked. A game that probably should have never been greenlit gets approved because of sympathy votes.

They are both professional victims. They make money off of being professional victims, and right now they are making more money than ever.

[Anarky]

Sorry to ask this Sine, but are you a individual that likes to look into conspiracies?

[Don]

I think the gaming industry in general is too bloated which is why it leads to this kind of behavior. Let's say Blizzard hired one of us to work as Lead Designer for World of Warcraft 2. Despite the fact nobody here is qualified for such a role it's not going to be obvious until at least an year after WoW2 comes out and then after you get fired you can just blame something else and don't worry, some other company is going to hire you because you were the lead designer on WoW2. There used to be some kind of correlation between quality and profitability. You don't have to like Mario or Final Fantasy but they're quality games. Maybe you disagree with how successful they are but it's not some kind of freak accident that Zelda turns out to be very profitable. I think somewhere around the dawn of the MMORPG era we started getting into some kind of 'easy money' deal. Nobody thought UO, EQ1, or WoW was going to be making the kind of money they are. That's not to say they're not good games but if you'll be lying if you thought WoW which is like a marginal improvement over EQ1 is going to turn into a $1 billion an year franchise. For that matter I had no idea why EQ1 was able to keep a population of around 500K while offering no content whatsoever during its time either. And if you have no idea why a game is successful that invites all kinds of corruption/cronyism/nepotism. I remember the credits for Megaman 9 had like 50 guys that are involved in areas that have nothing to do with the game itself and most of them are PR guys. Why does Megaman 9 need 20 guys on PR? Probably because they think if they have enough PR guys it might somehow sell like hotcakes despite looking 20 years out of date. I'm sure Capcom might still be thinking if only they paid off the review guys enough maybe MM9 could've sold a ton.

To be fair some of it is from fans too. Players don't give games a second chance as you can see failed MMORPGs almost never recover even if they managed to fix all the problems later, and now with F2P games it's even harder to recover from that. And while I don't think WoW's success can't be all attributed to its quality, it's safe to say most games aren't going to come anywhere near its quality either, so it's not like you can even compete there. It seems like faced with the prospect of one strike and you're out people either end up listening to stuff that's borderilne voodoo, or they go F2P and just try to steal all your money before you bail.

[Anarky]

Don you're describing the Peters Principle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

Trust me, I've had plenty of bosses move company to company because they held such and such title at this company and they were terrible and incompetent.

[Don]

Sorry to ask this Sine, but are you a individual that likes to look into conspiracies?

If you ever thoroughly owned someone in an argument on the Internet to the point where the normal techniques don't work, you'll likely see the following excuses:

1. Guy was dying from a terminal disease.
2. Guy is on welfare and missing all limbs.
3. Guy is currently in Iraq/Agfhanestin fighting a war.
4. Guy makes 6 figure easy at home.

And none of that, whether it's true or not, changes the underlying argument at all. Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone is really harassing you doesn't make everything wrong you ever said suddenly totally okay.

[Don]

Don you're describing the Peters Principle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

Trust me, I've had plenty of bosses move company to company because they held such and such title at this company and they were terrible and incompetent.

I don't think it's your standard incompetence deal. Recently I saw an article on WoW and they're asking why did it took so long to make new content and the dev said they hired a bunch of guys with no experience so it took a long time to get them caught up to date. While that sounds pretty shocking for Blizzard, if you think about it, don't WoW already have most of the guy who are qualified to make content for AAA MMORPG? So if they need more people, where can they possibly get more from? It's even worse for anyone else because WoW probably has most of these guys and they're not leaving, so you're literally buying on faith. The best credentials you can have as a lead designer of a MMORPG is that you worked on a game that totally flopped, because there are maybe 3 MMORPG that didn't flop and the lead designer for those games usually aren't available, so your best candidates will come with a resume of 'totally flopped a game under my direction'. I'm not even saying these designers are incompetent. But when your best shot is someone who was in a game that totally flopped, how can you possibly know anything about the likelihood of the game's success?

The credits roll for games has been getting bigger and bigger, and there are some I swear that number goes to the thousands. When you got thousands of people working on a game, there's just no way you can possibly know who actually did something useful and who did not. For all you know the guy who bribed the IGN reviewer for a 9.0 review could very well be the most important contributor on the team.

[SineSwiper]

Sorry to ask this Sine, but are you a individual that likes to look into conspiracies?

Normally, no. Most conspiracies suffer from a lack of evidence and a lack of understanding of how human nature actually works. You cannot have secret societies and governmental conspiracies with large organizations go on for decades and decades without some minority of people gathering evidence and whistleblowing the whole thing.

Yet, as we've seen with the recent Snowden/NSA incident, it can go from a crazy off-the-wall conspiracy to something that is actually true pretty quickly. As far as the whole GamerGate thing, the evidence exists because all of these people are very chatty on social networks, and proving a link is as simple as showing some conversations or business' About pages. And, given that this industry is as large as it is, it's not unreasonable think there is some corruption in that industry. In fact, you should to expect corruption in such a large money-making industry.

Do I think GamerGate is a conspiracy theory? Yes. But, it's also one that is actually true. Some of this sounds rather incredible, but hey, the posts are right there. I don't believe every little detail, and I think some of the lead speakers can be rather angrily charged at times. But, when you're being compared to ISIS, that tends to piss off people. (Seriously, why the fuck is that guy not fired? He's a writer for BadassDigest. If it was any other industry, his ass would have been toss to the street!)

I think it should be viewed with much more weight than the popular opinion is giving it. Yes, some of it is kinda complicated, but life is complicated. Most POVs can't be boiled down to some overused catch phase like "misogynism".

[kali o.]

[Shrinweck]

She fakes a lot of that shit. Who the fuck is Kevin Dobson? Why does he have no avatar? Why would a person who uses his real name (yet for some reason doesn't have an avatar) post that kind of shit on Twitter? People aren't stupid.

I don't buy into this at all. Why would she need to fake anything when she's clearly constantly being inundated with threats and insults? He doesn't have any avatar because, yeah, it's a dummy account and who cares? Kevin Dobson is just an average white guy type name and in all likelihood it belongs to someone the guy who posted it doesn't like. It's completely meaningless. There are probably hundreds, if not more, of people with this name. A Twitter post that some random guy posted saying that it's probably a lie is even more meaningless. I could make a Twitter post right now saying I was present for Joan of Arc's burning and I saw Obama sipping tea with Rasputin while they were riding unicycles while watching it.

There is also the idea of pulling out shitty feminists to discredit people who are actually working working to bring positive change in the industry. There will always be shitty people in any movement or group. Just because "welfare queens" exist does that mean that everyone on welfare is an asshole who's gaming the system and thus should be shamed and the system taken away? No. Just because there were shitty black people during the civil rights movement, does that mean that they shouldn't have rights? Also no, but reactionary types had no problem living in that world. The portrayal of women in video games obviously can't be compared to the legal murder and slavery of blacks, but there are obvious correlations in how people react to these types of movements and groups. Just because there are always going to be idiots in any movement, doesn't mean that the movement is not credible.

Like that ISIS comparison Sine posted... If you get involved with petty Twitter arguments sooner or later you're going to say that stupid shit. Should he get fired from an online journalist position (lol)? No, probably not. It's petty. Firing him would be even more petty. Also being an online journalist requires no prior establishment of credibility. Honestly, they have about as much journalistic integrity as a tabloid journalist, if not less (probably less). Do people even go some place called BadassDigest for journalistic integrity? No, they probably go there for to find people like-minded or to be exposed to things that are predictably offensive. They're opinion pieces. Editorial journalists don't deserve to get fired for pulling inflammatory shit out of their asses, unless it's just crazy and lazy "Women cook gud so they should stay in the kitchen making me sammches" type drivel. It's kind of their job to be offensive to a point because that's what keeps people reading.

If half (not including the personal life shit) of the stuff Zoe Quinn did is true, then yeah to a certain extent she deserves to be ostracized and ignored until she probably ends up leaving the industry. The problem here isn't that women deserve their just desserts after feasting on corruption and taking advantage of the system. The problem here is that people are attacking her for being a woman. There is no real male correlation. As a male, if I pulled that alleged shit I would expect to be ostracized and treated like shit on the internet and in person. What I wouldn't expect, and wouldn't happen (at least to the degree it happened to her), is people to make violent threats against me and to threaten to rape me. I, in all likelihood, would never have to worry about some guy following me from my apartment and beating me to death for something as trivial as what she has done.

[kali o.]

I'm thinking he's just fucking with us so something interesting will actually happen in this thread/forum.

This is all coming from a guy who posted in a thread that he was (for kicks) taking the alternative position to me being against civilians being executed in Iraq and Syria

My opinion is always my opinion -- even if my stance isn't always my stance. Feel free to question my motivation though...that's always fair.

I stand by the fact that this isn't a "feminist" issue, anymore than it is a bullying issue, a LBGT issue, a fat kid issue, a man hating issue, a racist issue or anything else. People are assholes on the internet to everybody thanks to a certain degree of anonymity and just because people tend to go for the 'low hanging' fruit (sexuality, race, age and gender) doesn't mean shit...except trolls are lazy.

Also, despite what the SJWs want you to believe, this has nothing to do with gamers. It's evident in every single social outlet on the internet, as soon as people start arguing (and arguments start alot easier online, where there is no fear of the other party punching you in the face).

The reason I posted that youtube video was to make the point any asshole can deconstruct anything and come up with cogent bullshit to support any stance. That's exactly what that Tropes in Videogames series is. When you take an objective look at the medium, and compare it to other mediums (tv & movies), fully considering the relative infancy of the industry and the fact that most do not put narrative before gameplay, you are going to have a hard time justifying that feminist BS. They can cherry pick all they want, but for every contemporary example they offer, you can show 3 counters. And when you really start researching the nonsense claims being made, the series falls apart even more.

As for Zoe Quinn, I don't care who she fucked. I don't even care about this journalism nonsense (this is like expecting impartiality out of movie reviews...). If she is some mean spirited cunt, I am not condoning harassment, but not surprised either. You don't pick a fight / piss off "the internet". Right or wrong, you'll never win. Millions of bored assholes ready and waiting for the next cause / lulz.

[SineSwiper]

I don't buy into this at all. Why would she need to fake anything when she's clearly constantly being inundated with threats and insults? He doesn't have any avatar because, yeah, it's a dummy account and who cares? Kevin Dobson is just an average white guy type name and in all likelihood it belongs to someone the guy who posted it doesn't like. It's completely meaningless. There are probably hundreds, if not more, of people with this name. A Twitter post that some random guy posted saying that it's probably a lie is even more meaningless. I could make a Twitter post right now saying I was present for Joan of Arc's burning and I saw Obama sipping tea with Rasputin while they were riding unicycles while watching it.

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/510204648394076161

Even if she did, the first thing they tell you is to not broadcast that she contacted police, as it would tip off the guy making the death threats. But, she didn't, so she lied.

"Hey, look at me, I'm so victimized. Please take pity on me and donate to my cause!"

[Don]

I remember people faking their death over things considerably less important than this and while I don't know what's going on in this scenario, faking stuff sure isn't anything unusual on the Internet.

[Shrinweck]

I don't buy into this at all. Why would she need to fake anything when she's clearly constantly being inundated with threats and insults? He doesn't have any avatar because, yeah, it's a dummy account and who cares? Kevin Dobson is just an average white guy type name and in all likelihood it belongs to someone the guy who posted it doesn't like. It's completely meaningless. There are probably hundreds, if not more, of people with this name. A Twitter post that some random guy posted saying that it's probably a lie is even more meaningless. I could make a Twitter post right now saying I was present for Joan of Arc's burning and I saw Obama sipping tea with Rasputin while they were riding unicycles while watching it.

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/510204648394076161

Even if she did, the first thing they tell you is to not broadcast that she contacted police, as it would tip off the guy making the death threats. But, she didn't, so she lied.

"Hey, look at me, I'm so victimized. Please take pity on me and donate to my cause!"

Not buying it. Also not buying yet more tweets from another empty internet source even if he does write for an internet news site that doesn't look like total shit. You can literally see people threaten her in real time. I really don't give a shit if she's profiting off it. She's hardly some fat cat asshole with in a penthouse. Her work has value.

[Anarky]

Well shit is really hitting the fan this week.

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/ ... -community

http://www.businessinsider.com/gamergat ... ts-2014-10

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/trolls-will-always-win/

The whole GamerGate thing needs to go. There might be some realistic concerns about games journalism, but it's been tainted from the beginning because of the origins that are misogynistic.

Three main points of GG supporters:

1: I consider your Freedom of Speech to be an attack on my Freedom of Speech, therefore I revoke your Freedom of Speech and demand that you not say anything that I don't agree with.
2: We're not a harassment campaign, but you need to realize it's part of our cultural identity to harass people, and we're tired of you harassing us about how much we're harassing other people.
3: Game reviewers should never critique games unless they're completely positive (see the "Kane & Lynch" incident where it was revealed that big publishers were paying for positive reviews).

[Anarky]

Actually this is pretty succinct:

"The problem is that when an activist group is defined entirely by its amorphous, anonymous nature, it's impossible to hold it accountable for anything, because everyone's reasons for being part of it are different.

You see it in people's reaction to anti-GG people already – 'GamerGate isn't about THAT, it's about THIS!'. Everybody passes the buck constantly, and nobody is willing to admit that the ship is sinking.

As long as GamerGate – or its successor – is populated and piloted primarily by the anonymous masses of the internet within Reddit and the chans while additional hangers-on join via Twitter, it's going to be impossible to make any progress because there's just not enough cohesion to the whole group. It's like a hydra. Too many heads, not focused on any one thing so they keep biting each other instead of attacking their prey."

[kali o.]

GamerGate is not relevant -- anyone that expects impartiality for paid critics is an idiot. Everything today is one big marketing machine (note: I still obviously believe in credible journalism).

That said, Anita is still a fraud and a hack. And this has nothing to do with gamers -- it has to do with the internet and trolls.

[Julius Seeker]

That second link you posted sums up my feelings fairly well.

To anyone who is not a hardcore video gamer, the "GamerGate" controversy is completely baffling.

Some video game fans claim that game developers and journalists have relationhips with each other that are too close, breaching ethical guidelines for writers reviewing video games.

The GamerGate movement has resulted in widespread outrage — at least on Twitter — among game fans.

And now some women who have criticized video games, or those who play them, are being subjected to death threats by men who play those games.

Yes, it's bizarre. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Add in the irrefutable fact that the motivation that these Gamergate people conjured up is beyond ridiculous. It's like a South Park episode without the humor.