#GamerGate
#GamerGate
#GamerGate!
#GamerGate
#GamerGate!
The Zoe Quinn sex-for-reviews scandal
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
GasBandit
Staff member
GasBandit
Staff member
That wasn't the game that was sexist. No developer coded a 14 year old telling me he fucked my mom.
I don't think pretending there is no problem is the solution to the problem.
Who says the problem should be ignored? I don't think anyone is asking for that. There is a problem with variety of game types, and we do need more strong, less sexualized female characters. That is true. That is hopefully going to start happening.
What I want is more variety in gaming, but that means I also want games that someone like Sarkessian would deem "sexist". I don't want to lose the creative wonderwall of Bayonetta because someone like Sarkessian enrages the SJW crowd until Bayonetta wears slacks, sneakers, a turtleneck, and a sports bra.
It's the same reason I defend the creation of the new controversy on the block, "Hatred". I never plan to play it because I don't agree with the content, but that is no reason to just shut it down out of some moral controversy. It's just a game.
GasBandit
Staff member
And every school shooter loved him some video games.
Look, I'm not denying there's a lot of assholes, of the sexist variety or otherwise, who play video games. I deny it is the video games that make them so.
Anonymity is kind of like alcohol: it doesn't turn you into an asshole, but simply strips away your ability to fake not being one.
The biggest reason people look at video gamers as assholes is because video games are the one of the largest form of entertainment that allow competitive anonymous play.
When you allow people to hide behind the wall of anonymity they often say things that are deeper rooted through their own upbringing and life experiences that are not appropriate in civil society. Truth is, ANY time a person is given the chance to be behind that wall, whether a gamer or just a grandma who likes weaving, some horrible shit will usually find it's way out. Just go to any political message board on the internet.
http://moviebob.blogspot.ca/2014/10/another-long-collection-of-thoughts.html
I don't always agree with MovieBob, but he's pretty spot on with most of this.
I don't always agree with MovieBob, but he's pretty spot on with most of this.
GasBandit
Staff member
I disagree with just about all of his assertions.
It took you only four minutes to read all of that diatribe?
Had to skim through it because holy hell that is a novel of a report. I think he brings up some good points but ultimately once again falls to the idea that GamerGate is just yet another fight to stop "inclusiveness", ignoring the entire point of things like the #NotYourShield hashtag.
I still enjoy Bob's work, but his entire attitude so far has been "Our ends justify the means"... that whatever his side is doing, it's still going to make things better in the long run. My only response to that is No, it won't. It never has. Not for anyone.
fade
Staff member
I don't fully agree with this. Partly sure. A dumbell doesn't make biceps appear out of nowhere, but using it repeatedly sure makes them bigger and stronger.
GasBandit
Staff member
I skimmed the first sentences of his paragraphs and the ones with links. I especially object to his assertion that gamergate's root cause and continuing, primary motivation is merely to torment women out of video gaming, and that gamergate supporters don't care about game journalism corruption/collusion. He even comes out and says more or less "yes we all know video game journalism is terrible but they don't really care about that, it's all about misogyny."
It's largely an opinion piece. You agree with it, I don't, I don't really see the need for further debate.[DOUBLEPOST=1413903378,1413903294][/DOUBLEPOST]
So does a shovel, but that doesn't mean it's what it was designed for, and the primary characteristic of people who dig ditches all day usually isn't described as "bicep enthusiasts."
Isn't that more what you said? A dumbell is designed to make your biceps bigger over time, that is the reason for it's creation. By the example you are saying games are designed to make people sexist and violent. Not immediately, yes, but instead over time.
A shovel is designed to dig holes, but by the nature of using it you may also get bigger biceps in some people. It's the idea that someone really just wants to make this game where this woman looks sexy, and as a side effect, many may reinforce their own deep rooted sexism.
fade
Staff member
Ah, okay, I see what you're saying. It was an illustration, not an analogy. Okay, sure, fine, a shovel then might be a better analogy, because I didn't mean to imply that the games were doing it intentionally. The point I was trying to make still was that a game or comment section may not create the violent intent, but it may exercise it.
I don't think I've ever claimed that video games themselves are the problem, that they're made 99% by dudes is. It's the backlash against more and more women getting into the hobby and into the business of making them itself and the MASSIVE amount of shit that women in the industry take that is the problem.
This thread is about one woman getting shit on for apparently sleeping with a guy to get three extra mentions in an article about a failed game jam. That's INSANELY absurd and goes to show how shitty the whole situation is.
Issue is, anything can be used to exercise it. Sexism has existed long before games. Violence has existed long before television. I don't think video games or television are what formed the Saudi's opinion that women are not free enough to drive.
The only way to exorcise it completely is to knock everything down to a Farenhiet 451 situation and start drugging the populace until we are all emotionless mooks like Equilibrium. Even then it might never stop, because we are humans. We are, at root, still animals. We are intelligent enough for the most part to form a civil society, but we still have urges, needs, and desires we wish to fulfill, whether being part of a pack (one of the driving points behind Partisan Politics), being in a position of authority or power (which is the ultimate root behind most ills going all the way from rape and murder, to full on genocide), or just a desire to be safe and protected without fear (which often forces us to rob others of said comforts).
All we can do as a society is lessen those urges and try to grow, but they will always exist in some form, even subconsciously, and when anonymity allows freedom to release those urges, it can lead to "Shitcock!"
fade
Staff member
This is getting into a straw man argument. I'm not talking about the Saudi man, nor am I talking about eliminating everything. I'm talking about about the anonymity, and the immersion of video games. I don't think things like this have existed for centuries. I think they're new, and they give different, bigger avenues for exercising those urges. I know you guys disagreed with me about that before, and that's fine. I'm not saying that "video games cause murders" or anything extreme like that. I'm saying I don't know, and I'm not willing to dismiss it. I think we need to learn more about it.
I can agree with your last sentence. I just feel we need to approach it with open minds and considerations rather then just pointing and saying "Shit is bad, this helps create bad stuff, so let's abolish it to prevent bad stuff." If your intention is to understand the root cause, rather then just blame video games, then we are in agreement.
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GasBandit
Staff member
This thread hasn't actually been about Zoe's infidelity for over a dozen pages. I just don't change the initial thread title so that it's easy to find/rejoin. Also, I know you're using hyperbole but the "99% made by dudes" assertion is patently false. Furthermore, as noted repeatedly, gamergate associated people have done a great deal to fund specifically female-in-gaming driven initiatives.
It's the MADD fallacy all over again. If Phil Fish or Mike Maulbeck weren't male, they might be held up as more "evidence of misogyny in gaming culture, and the persecution of women in gaming" as well. When the truth is they're just unprofessional idiots. And much the same can be said for the individuals raised in this discussion as well - they're just getting the social justice shield put on them because "women are weak and men are evil."
As a side not, can I just state how irksome I find it that the term Social Justice has been coopted by this fringe element? Particularly because I will actually probably be working IN a social justice department in the future. Y'know, using actual research and evidence based science rather than wild assumptions, hyperbole, and caricatures of people.
No, but it started that way and this whole Gamergate bullshit started out of slut shaming somebody for REALLY shitty reasons. It's actually 79% men who make video games, so yeah, I was using hyperbole, but not by much.
As for people being unprofessional idiots and "deserving" what they get. How can you assert that Anita Sarkessian is that? You might not agree with her, but how in the holy hell is she anything but professional in what she does? How does she deserve the INSANE backlash she gets? How did Jenn Frank, who wrote a fucking 500 word editorial about online harassment deserve what she got?[DOUBLEPOST=1413909204,1413909144][/DOUBLEPOST]
It really hasn't though, social justice warrior has always been used as a perjorative towards people. Almost never as an actual thing people call themselves.
No, they replace the word warrior with advocate and still diminish the term "social justice" to the point that it's nigh meaningless.
GasBandit
Staff member
I'd like your source on that figure.
You're putting words in my mouth. I never said they "deserve what they got." I didn't even say that Phil and Mike deserve harassment and death threats, I said they don't get the same protections/champions because they're men and therefore don't fit the desired narrative.
Sarkeesian makes her claims with a straight face and a calm voice but it's the same firebrand sentiment, using fallacious logic and demonstrably false assertions. The aim of her work is to inflame and incite, and she's making her living doing so. She's the SJW movement's Baghdad Bob. Does that make death threats Ok? No. Does that make them surprising? No. Because people suck. Not just gamers - people in general. And gaming, being the inclusive superhobby that it is (and it's long ago surpassed movies or comics), is going to have a lot of those assholes in it.[DOUBLEPOST=1413910582,1413910525][/DOUBLEPOST]
Perhaps it can be reclaimed at some point. After all, it's no longer normal/acceptable to use "Gay" as an epithet even among teenagers, from what I can tell.
So says the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...rprising-facts-lost-in-the-mess-of-gamergate/
Now that I've finally gone through some of Sarkeesian's work, I have to say I'm kind of mixed on how to feel about it. She raises some good points and issues that the gaming industry does need to work on. The gaming industry absolutely *does* have some gender imbalance issues to work on, starting with the extremely low proportion of women in the gaming industry, and the reception many women who do enter the field receive.
However, Anita also tends to pick bad examples of what she's talking about, and her hyperbole, while attention getting, also undermines the validity of her point, just as with the example of Bayonetta, her statements about Hitman, etc. By choosing poor examples that are easily picked apart, she winds up weakening her credibility and strengthening her critics. It's also apparent that she hasn't played a lot of the games in question, and that really does alter perspective. For example, if you've played Hitman, and had to restart a level or had a much more difficult time of it because you casually murdered a hooker or one of the other things she claims the game encourages, you'd know quite well that she's wrong on that point. She's not wrong that there are games that treat female sex workers as disposable victims (which is unfortunately too true to life, statistically), but Hitman isn't one of them in the way that she's describing.
However, Anita also tends to pick bad examples of what she's talking about, and her hyperbole, while attention getting, also undermines the validity of her point, just as with the example of Bayonetta, her statements about Hitman, etc. By choosing poor examples that are easily picked apart, she winds up weakening her credibility and strengthening her critics. It's also apparent that she hasn't played a lot of the games in question, and that really does alter perspective. For example, if you've played Hitman, and had to restart a level or had a much more difficult time of it because you casually murdered a hooker or one of the other things she claims the game encourages, you'd know quite well that she's wrong on that point. She's not wrong that there are games that treat female sex workers as disposable victims (which is unfortunately too true to life, statistically), but Hitman isn't one of them in the way that she's describing.