#gamergate megathread

[blueblur121]

Are head-mates still a thing?

[Ad Bot]

[McJobless]

Are head-mates still a thing?

BEYOND: Two Souls is literally head-mate simulator.

[Harm94]

To be fair, XOXO Fest was diverse. It included hipsters of all loveualities, head-mates, shapes and sizes.

except color

yes

These ethnocentric mindset of these nefarious persons and individuals who collaborate malice misdoings under the camouflage and guise of equal opportunities, fairness, and justice to combat misogyny are truly vile and toxic to this clique and great diversion that we share as well as this terra that we call our domain. You sir should eliminate such pompous and misguided behavior and ideals that plague us all.
Also

[Foxscotch]

These ethnocentric mindset of these nefarious persons and individuals who collaborate malice misdoings under the camouflage and guise of equal opportunities, fairness, and justice to combat misogyny are truly vile and toxic to this clique and great diversion that we share as well as this terra that we call our domain. You sir should eliminate such pompous and misguided behavior and ideals that plague us all.

wow, you mean, when you're trying to sound pretentious, you sound pretentious? what a surprise

[McJobless]

I'm not going to link it, but Kotaku did another stupid article about it.

[Harm94]

wow, you mean, when you're trying to sound pretentious, you sound pretentious? what a surprise

I'm glad you see it that way because that is that the guy who wrote this is:

Gamergate is a twitter hashtag that represents an uprising by "gamers" (video game enthusiasts) calling for better transparency and ethics among the people who cover video games professionally.

That is the idealized version of it. The reality is that GamerGate is like any social-media based movement: it's sheer and utter chaos with very little structure, no clear message and a cacophony of voices with many different axes to grind. Some noble, some significantly less so.

Twice I've started writing huge pieces breaking the whole thing down step-by-step and stopped halfway through because the whole thing is just so loving depressing and disappointing. I'm going to try to do this as concisely as I can.

An indie developer was outted by her ex-boyfriend for sleeping around and generally being a bad girlfriend. Some potential ethics issues arose out of said revelation. The internet responded in the stufftiest fashion possible (harassing, private investigating and threatening said indie developer). Because of said reaction, the gaming press (as well as the majority of the prominent internet forums) responded by banning all discussion of the topic. While their intention was noble (protecting a person from harassment and not contributing to a witch hunt), their complete lack of discussion of the potential ethics issues caused a full-on Streisand effect and made the whole thing seem far shadier than it actually was.

When there finally was a response, the gaming press released a strangely simultaneous group of a dozen different opinion pieces with the same thrust: the gamer identity was dead and that game developers and the "real" gaming community needed to rise up out of the ashes of that identity to form a newer, better (more diverse and less caustic) community. Once again, while their pursuit was noble (condemning the harassment of mostly female developers and voices and asking for more civility), there was little to no mention of the kerfuffle that prompted these pieces and a few of them were awash with pejoratives and general disdain for the video game community. Those who were already mad became apoplectic and those who weren't familiar with the preceding story didn't understand why they were being attacked.

As there was more or less no place to discuss any of this (the major gaming subreddits, most major website forums and eventually even 4chan), people started congregating on Twitter (the worst place for civilized discussion of anything anywhere ever). Adam Baldwin, actor and conservative firebrand, suggested using the hashtag GamerGate to centralize all discussion of the topic.

A lot of things have happened since then (some of it just hot air, some of it legitimately eyebrow raising) and extremists on both sides of the "discussion" continue to harass, dox and threaten each other.

What to make of all this?

There are two separate discussions taking place: the first is a long-time coming, honest outcry for a serious look at how the video games press operates. Not the old, childish arguments about Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo paying for positive coverage or the need for totally "objective" reviews. Serious discussions about how you can take an industry seriously when a large portion of its revenue comes from advertisements bought by the people whose content they're supposed to cover. How little transparency there is regarding the coverage of indie games particularly in light of how these games can succeed and fail simply based on the amount of exposure they get (as they largely have no marketing campaigns outside of the press) and how tight-knit the development communities and press are.

The problem is that all of these legitimate questions are difficult to take seriously because of the second discussion: an ugly identity politics pissing contest where the majority of folks sit in the middle (desiring more diversity in game development, game journalism and game players without some of the more negative yellow journalism) and two extremes (love-negative, "rape-culture" feminists in one corner and the conservative misogynists and dimwits who think that said feminists are coming to censor and neuter video games) loudly and publicly throwing stuff at each other on Twitter.

There are no easy answers to this. More press could do what The Escapist did and address those first issues head-on and attempt to make amends with the larger community but I'm sure most feel like that would be cowing to a vicious, bloodthirsty mob. And even if they did attempt to have an honest discussion, the trolls, children and extremists will still exist. Death threats will continue to happen and twitter will still be a terrible place to discuss anything. The larger question is what positive steps can be taken so that we at least learn something from all of this negativity and hatred?

[Foxscotch]

I'm glad you see it that way because that is that the guy who wrote this is:

I don't think you have any idea, at all, what that conversation was about

[Harm94]

I don't think you have any idea, at all, what that conversation was about

I'm pretty I do. The premise of this argument was about the use of large words to sound smarter that what you really are. How often are you going to use a word like inconspicuous, ubiquitous, or in cognitive? Not often. Of course using those words will add a lot of heft to argument, but the reality is no one likes an ass, especially a smart one.

[ZombiLoin]

I'm pretty I do. The premise of this argument was about the use of large words to sound smarter that what you really are. How often are you going to use a word like inconspicuous, ubiquitous, or in cognitive? Not often. Of course using those words will add a lot of heft to argument, but the reality is no one likes an ass, especially a smart one.

what the forget. an intelligent discussion using words that better describe what you're trying to say? words that i learned in loving 6th grade? who doesn't know what ubiquitous or inconspicuous means?

[Daedalus]

this just in: big words are Not Okay because you're automatically trying to sound smart

i bet if i used the word "ostensibly" some people here would lose their stuffting minds

[Katadeus]

If you actually read it, it was reasonable

Being a condescending starfish is not the solution

[Ipquarx]

If you actually read it, it was reasonable

read what thing? there have been like 5 things

[Foxscotch]

I'm pretty I do. The premise of this argument was about the use of large words to sound smarter that what you really are.

thanks for letting me know I was right. it was about the fact that "aggravated" and "frivolous" are not buzzwords

[joe411]

what the forget. an intelligent discussion using words that better describe what you're trying to say? words that i learned in loving 6th grade? who doesn't know what ubiquitous or inconspicuous means?

dammit
we already discussed this a page ago.
It doesn't matter.

[ZombiLoin]

dammit
we already discussed this a page ago.
It doesn't matter.

if you think words like "ubiquitous" and "aggravated" are words used to create a facade of intelligence then frankly you're just an ignorant tool.