Gender Diversity / Politics in games (was Tropes Vs. Women)

[The Bag]

3 hours ago, NEG said:

Insert J.J.J picture here. Big publishers are able to walk on fire, no one should be afraid, if anything that's something that needs to be said more often.

 

JJJ?

 

There's a difference between deliberately courting controversy & bad press, for example the original shock stories in the papers about the first GTA were pushed by DMA's publicist, and bad publicity damaging companies & individuals.  To return to the topic of the previous pages, do you really think Zoe Quinn is thanking her lucky stars for all the publicity she's received?  (And before someone mentions the book & film, consider one of the others who hasn't)

 

And just to be clear I'm totally against censorship, I believe you should be able to make anything you want with the bounds of the law.  I think games are uniquely placed to be able to engage with and explore difficult subjects (we're definitely not there yet, but we're getting better).  I'm troubled by the simplistic view that is becoming more prevalent of creators condoning the troubling views of their creations.  Sure there will be some where that is the case, but not the majority and it hurts the ability to explore difficult topics.. So make what you will, but that doesn't mean make it blindly, do this and include that because that's the way it's always been done.  Think about what you're doing, know why you're making this choice, consider where your work sits in the cultural landscape, and know how the decisions you make can affect people.

[Rev]

20 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

 

The antifeminism thing had been rolling in various geek circles a bit before that. Penny Arcade were really mad that some people disliked a rape joke they did, Dawkins shit himself over that elevator commemt, lots of people got upset when PAX started telling people not to harass women etc. etc.

 

It doesn't have too much to do with Sarkeesian, there was a critical mass of reactionary crap before then.

 

Certainly, and I'm not saying there aren't committed misogynists in GG. But there were all kinds of other things too though. Zoe, Anita and Leigh's Gamerz Iz Dead were enough to make women a focus. I'm sure that something to do with Microsoft buying Minecraft, combined with a bank pulling funding from some developer and something else could have made it about money if they'd all happened at once.

[NEG]

Hard games = value was it's own kind of entitlement culture once upon a time. The likes of achievements killed off cheats/Action Replay and while I still disliked that shift to most AAA titles being glorified movies now with not much challenge myself (back in my day in the snow rant) I can understand why it had to happen if we wanted more people in the hobby able to enjoy games without hundreds of hours of investment or general cliff difficulty curve. I don't play most of those games, usually with the excuse that if I wanted a movie I'd watch one, but hey.

 

Hard/Skill games still exist and games which never, ever end also now exist. Some devs still provide cheats for fun too.

 

Did I like the entitled pride of being able to say I finished X game 102% back in the day? Sure. But I've grown, too. Time spent today = how lucky I am to even have the time to spend, if I get to show off with some achievements and trophies along the way, that's just a bonus to ego.

 

Amount of time spent with loved ones is the real value these days.

 

[NEG]

39 minutes ago, The Bag said:

 

JJJ?

 

Crotch shots! Crotch shots of Spider Man!

 

39 minutes ago, The Bag said:

There's a difference between deliberately courting controversy & bad press, for example the original shock stories in the papers about the first GTA were pushed by DMA's publicist, and bad publicity damaging companies & individuals.  To return to the topic of the previous pages, do you really think Zoe Quinn is thanking her lucky stars for all the publicity she's received?  (And before someone mentions the book & film, consider one of the others who hasn't)

 

Which is why I said big publishers but yes it would be horrible as a indie to deal with controversy to that degree unless they're really careful about it, but that's like asking to surf in a thunderstorm, can never quite know what'll happen. But this could happen even if you consider yourself to have thought about it. At some point all you can do is stand by your product. The comedian analogy on the previous page comes to mind

 

39 minutes ago, The Bag said:

And just to be clear I'm totally against censorship, I believe you should be able to make anything you want with the bounds of the law.  I think games are uniquely placed to be able to engage with and explore difficult subjects (we're definitely not there yet, but we're getting better).  I'm troubled by the simplistic view that is becoming more prevalent of creators condoning the troubling views of their creations.  Sure there will be some where that is the case, but not the majority and it hurts the ability to explore difficult topics.. So make what you will, but that doesn't mean make it blindly, do this and include that because that's the way it's always been done.  Think about what you're doing, know why you're making this choice, consider where your work sits in the cultural landscape, and know how the decisions you make can affect people.

 

I do believe you, if it wasn't clear. It's like you say, some creators/writers react in such a way to this stuff and GG takes advantage of that as censorship and all the rest. It's frustrating.

 

Fable 2 any good btw? Though I do remember Black & White always looking more interesting to me (the EDGE cover), forgot that had a sequel...

[The Bag]

Crotch shots! Crotch shots of Spider Man!

 

ah, I knew it was a reference I just couldn't put my finger on.

[NEG]

 

Interview BBC did with TotalBiscuit before the dark side of the moon article went up.

 

Edit: GG questions start at 25mins'ish

[Unofficial Who]

That's a great interview Neg and I'd encourage peopel to listen to the whole thing and not just skip to the gg stuff.

 

I disagree with a couple of his points the origins of GG of course, but also his feelings about death threats. I think he's right in dismissing random death threats against him, I think for women though it's something they take more seriously because it can esculate quickly.

 

He has some pretty good ideas on what Twitter should be doing to make things safer for their users.

 

Jesus though, people trolling him and his family about his cancer. That sort of thing is beyond the pale. I wonder if we need to create ethics classes for the generation still in school about improper uses of the net. I do think it's the sort of thing that should be taken seriously, I still find it astounding that if you send threats privately via mail you can be charged ad yet if you do it in full view of everyone online then "it's just the internet." We have laws that deal with "using a postal or similar service to menace, harass or cause offence". And (in my country at least) we use them regularly. (For instance Man Haron Moris who would later go on to hold hostages in a cafe in Sydney was charged in 2009 for writing letters to the families of soldiers killed there, in which he called the soldiers murderers,")

[Alex W.]

And nobody in government has any clue how to deal with it. Any individual incident of harassment has to count for very little, but the cumulative effect is enormous. It's like charging law enforcement with prosecuting ants. One idea would be to target the upstream figures like the doxxers and, dare I say it, guys like Gjorni who purposefully incite mass harassment.

[NEG]

Only the real end of anonymity on the internet would truly end death threat level of abuse on the internet.

 

Which of course will happen in due time (not for the 'good' reasons, but keeping an eye on everyone reasons), but not all anonymous comments on the internet are bad, obviously, and raises it's own privacy concerns just for speaking once it goes away. Making 90% of all commenters across all subjects vanish pretty much overnight.

 

I don't know if IP tracking as an alternative works (for the worst cases).

 

And yes, don't just skip to the GG stuff. I figured someone might moan that 'online abuse' isn't quite the thread subject and such, so edited in a time. Though online abuse ties into the Quinn stuff of course. How sad/attention seeking do you have to be to spend your time picking on a person with C. If they had any belief, well, God might be having a word with all these people eventually.

 

I don't think it's a case of 'people wrong in the head' like TB claims, though I'm sure there's some percentage of that. Just pure anonymity.

[squirtle]

Correct me if I'm wrong, bit wasn't TB one of the early advocates of GG?

[Alex W.]

He's been one of its most prominent supporters, yeah. Not that him being 100% wrong on an important issue and a bit of a prick on Twitter justifies any of that shit.

[squirtle]

Oh, I'm not saying that, just wanted to make sure I was remembering correctly.

 

[Unofficial Who]

6 minutes ago, APM said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, bit wasn't TB one of the early advocates of GG?

 

He covers that in his interview. I think he is either unaware or wilfully blind of the Zoe Quinn/ex story but in that sense he's much like most of my friends in that regard.

[squirtle]

Are most of your friends a part of that part of the industry. TB claiming ignorance of the whole thing stinks of someone lying to me.

[Alex W.]

That would imply that he is sufficiently aware of the facts at hand to construct a narrative that's inconsistent with them. I don't believe he's ever demonstrated that. Most of GG, TB included, came in with the "gamerz is ded" hysteria and the ground truth would probably come as a baffling shock to most of them.

 

So they make like good little Scientologists and ignore it.

[Unofficial Who]

1 hour ago, APM said:

Are most of your friends a part of that part of the industry. TB claiming ignorance of the whole thing stinks of someone lying to me.

 

Without going into it too much some are and some aren't. Amongst most of my male friends the attitude seems to be "both sides are as bad as each other."

 

Which makes sense because if you try to explain that it was started due to a jilted man deciding to drop his ex in the shit it comes across as too weird to be remotely real. From an outsiders perspective the ethics angle is totallly more reasonable.

 

[NEG]

GG started from that? It wasn't the tropes videos?

[Talvalin]

34 minutes ago, NEG said:

GG started from that? It wasn't the tropes videos?

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy

 

Just read the summary at the top. That just about covers it.

[Spacehost]

59 minutes ago, NEG said:

GG started from that? It wasn't the tropes videos?

Gamergate was started as a post hoc justification of the shit being hammered at Zoe Quinn after it turned out that none of the accusations made against her were true.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Totalbiscuit is genuinely thick as fuck - he's demonstrated that every time he's tried to comment on anything political - but convinced of his own superior intellect. That said, he's absolutely aware of what gamergate really is, he just doesn't care because he sees it as a support base for him. There's no possible 'ignorance' defence for him; he knows very well, but he chooses to promote it nonetheless. He's a piece of shit.

[NEG]

2 minutes ago, Spacehost said:

Gamergate was started as a post hoc justification of the shit being hammered at Zoe Quinn after it turned out that none of the accusations made against her were true.

 

Or so I see from the wiki. That doesn't make sense to me, as regardless of whatever the boyfriend wrote (haven't read, assuming a lie as everyone here), how has that got anything to do with scaredy mc males against things being pointed out in games, shouting censorship, choosing to ignore more thoughtfulness in a hobby for both sexes and all the rest. Aka the stuff GG seems to show itself as now.

 

Assuming 'grew from there' is the answer but what a silly way for a anti-fem movement to start. By picking on a dev for dating a games journalist? Has Kotaku even been relevant in years. How was a review, even 'if it were' a sold/bias review, affect these people more than all the bullshit practices the industry encounters daily? There will always be dodgy reviews, christ.

 

16 minutes ago, Rudi von Starnberg said:

Totalbiscuit is genuinely thick as fuck - he's demonstrated that every time he's tried to comment on anything political - but convinced of his own superior intellect. That said, he's absolutely aware of what gamergate really is, he just doesn't care because he sees it as a support base for him. There's no possible 'ignorance' defence for him; he knows very well, but he chooses to promote it nonetheless. He's a piece of shit.

 

What has he promoted and supported?

[Wroth]

The mindset was around before GG, it just didn't have a banner to rally behind. It starts with the basic "I just want games to be fun" mentality, then branches towards the negative "games that cover social issues make me uncomfortable" end of the spectrum, which causes some groups to react negatively to the likes of Quinn & Sarkeesian. On top of that, throw in some reactionary "No-one's going to take my precious games away from me" that was left over from the Jack Thompson era, aswell as some underlying misapprehensions that "games aren't really for girls, unless it's Sims or Bejeweled". Then, not too long after the "Doritos Pope" scandal, which showed some figures in the games journalism industry actively engaging in shameless promotion, and you have a big bubble waiting to burst at the thought that a FEMALE GAME DEVELOPER who made a game about DEPRESSION was CHEATING ON HER BOYFRIEND with a load of GAME JOURNALISTS just to get GOOD REVIEWS!

 

It needn't have to be true for it to sound like a legitimate controversy to this group. All that's left is for someone to give the whole thing a catchy, albeit unimaginative title.

 

 

[Anne Summers]

Yeah, there has always been a big contingent among gamers who are quite vocal about the fact that they don't care about social issues and they don't want games to "push agendas" on them. Obviously they completely ignore the fact that 90% of games don't actually do this and are happy just to give you a succession of bigger things to blow up, rather than asking you to tackle questions of social justice and equality. But even that remaining 10% is too much for some (stupid) people. 

It used to be obvious everywhere, even on this forum, and occasionally it sometimes still is. But I think some good has come out of GG, in that a lot of us have grown up, and the more sensible members of the "don't care" crowd have realised that a little bit of SJ in gaming isn't that terrible a thing, and certainly preferable to the future that Gamergaters would want to build. 

 

 

 

[Alex W.]

6 hours ago, NEG said:

 

Or so I see from the wiki. That doesn't make sense to me, as regardless of whatever the boyfriend wrote (haven't read, assuming a lie as everyone here), how has that got anything to do with scaredy mc males against things being pointed out in games, shouting censorship, choosing to ignore more thoughtfulness in a hobby for both sexes and all the rest. Aka the stuff GG seems to show itself as now.

 

Assuming 'grew from there' is the answer but what a silly way for a anti-fem movement to start. By picking on a dev for dating a games journalist? Has Kotaku even been relevant in years. How was a review, even 'if it were' a sold/bias review, affect these people more than all the bullshit practices the industry encounters daily? There will always be dodgy reviews, christ.

It made a lot of sense when you watched it from day one. Every confusing wrinkle in Gamergate is essentially because an outlet or individual pointed out that it was nonsense and GG crowdsourced a reason why that person was part of the conspiracy. I've never actually watched self-deception birth itself like this before, it's fascinating.

[macosx]

no, it's pathetic.

 

[Spacehost]

2 hours ago, macosx said:

no, it's pathetic.

 

Can't it be both?

[Anne Summers]

Pathinating.

[The Bag]

22 hours ago, NEG said:

Only the real end of anonymity on the internet would truly end death threat level of abuse on the internet.

 

It might get rid of the most extreme cases but people are willing to post an amazing amount of shit with their name attached.  Take GamesIndusty.biz, for example, from the start of the Tropes Vs stuff through GG people have been willing to post the most misogynistic crap with their name, job title, and company next to it.  It's become a good guide to people you don't want to work with.  The most extreme stuff, of course, gets deleted.

[MDY]

On 2/21/2016 at 2:38 AM, NEG said:

 

Or so I see from the wiki. That doesn't make sense to me, as regardless of whatever the boyfriend wrote (haven't read, assuming a lie as everyone here), how has that got anything to do with scaredy mc males against things being pointed out in games, shouting censorship, choosing to ignore more thoughtfulness in a hobby for both sexes and all the rest. Aka the stuff GG seems to show itself as now.

 

Assuming 'grew from there' is the answer but what a silly way for a anti-fem movement to start. By picking on a dev for dating a games journalist? Has Kotaku even been relevant in years. How was a review, even 'if it were' a sold/bias review, affect these people more than all the bullshit practices the industry encounters daily? There will always be dodgy reviews, christ.

 

 

It is ridiculous - doesn't mean it isn't the truth though..

 

Gjoni posted a seven-part record of his relationship with Quinn, along with annotated chat logs and intimate details, and posted the links in a series of forums known for their antipathy toward female and progressive devs. He later tweeted he suspected “The Zoepost” might lead to harassment but that he chose to publish it anyway.

 

Those forums quickly latched onto the post — particularly Gjoni’s allegation that Quinn had slept with a writer at a prominent gaming website (with the implication it was to score a good review - for what end is unknown as her game was free!)

Within days, the uproar over “ethics in gaming journalism” had grown from forum chatter to full-blown abuse, though next to none directed at actual gaming outlets or the journalist in question, but almost all at Quinn.
Gjoni publicly 'condemned' it, while simultaneously blogging and tweeting that he believed the hell visited on Quinn was deserved. 
Gjoni later told The Washington Post that, looking back on everything that has happened since, he would still choose to publish “The Zoepost,” only minus a joke about Five Guys that morphed into a slut-shaming meme.

 

It isn't as if there aren't genuine journalistic integrity concerns for them to get wound up about either..

Journalists routinely being on the receiving end of expensive freebies, trips, etc.. or being cosy with groups of devs (in several cases going to work for said company later.).

Publishers having so much influence over the press sites in general, threatening to withhold future games and sponsorship, or only allowing exclusive reviews if they score over a certain percentage.. Putting pressure to get a journalist who gave an unfavorable review fired.. 

It's all happened.. probably way more often than we ever realised..

 

But no, they go after a girl who wrote a personal, free game and dared have sex with someone else after breaking up with a sociopath.. 

 

[rumblecat]

Yeah, he circulated the post to places where he hoped that it would cause as much damage as possible to his ex. And he continued to fan the flames by handing out more info about her, advising the mob on how to cover the tracks with 'ethics in game journalism'... he's a genuinely disturbed, horrible little creep. That an entire movement sprung up around his lengthy blog post pretty much says it all. 

I mean, who does that? If I had an issue with a girlfriend or ex, I'd deal with it in private. I wouldn't write a fucking dissertation on it and then publish it on different forums. It's utterly disgusting behaviour, I'm not surprised she split up with him or even cheated on him- he's clearly emotionally stunted and not a little bit obsessive. This is a guy who spent weeks refining his draft, discussing and editing it with other people, calculating the percentage chances that his ex would receive harassment based on it... this wasn't some spur of the moment, emotional flare up, it was designed to go off exactly as it did. 

I'm glad she's made lemonade from lemons, that should be admired rather than castigated, although it's equally mind-boggling that people somehow think she's bad or her reluctance to lie down and give up somehow means that she deserved this. Or she complains about harassment but then she's writing a book on it that's also been optioned for a movie, so she can't really complain and so on. Basically 'a good woman should know her place'.