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

[Wroth]

"Look at all this abuse we're getting over calling GG abusive. That sure showed us we were wrong!"

[Unofficial Who]

6 minutes ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

You always have such a negative outlook on things. GOG aren't going to look at a minor twitter rage and think "oh fuck, better court the larger part of the market - stupid hatenerds" after already outright stating that GG was an abusive movement.

 

I do hope for the best but given the current political climate nothing surprises me anymore. It's a bit of a tricky needle for them to thread here, most of their customerbase for most of their games are going to be unaware of the whole GG thing. However most of their customer base for Postal 2 are likely to be GG supporters.

[Unofficial Who]

Interesting article here on the tightrope employees in the game industry have to walk when acting as community managers.

 

https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/17/game-devs-have-three-choices-interacting-online-be-a-robot-log-off-or-risk-the-mob/

 

Quote

 

All this has happened before

What ever happened to game companies supporting and providing guidance for employees willing to talk about their work in public? For over a decade, Raph Koster was one of the creative forces behind some of the biggest online games of the time (primarily Ultima Online and Star Wars: Galaxies), so I asked him how things had changed. According to Koster, company policies varied, but his bosses at Electronic Arts put a number of people on the creative team through media training to facilitate talking to player communities.

Koster also reminded me of one of the most infamous player-developer conflicts of his decade in the trenches: the shutdown of Everquest’s “Ask Milo” column, where players could write in with queries for Milo Cooper, the senior artist and character modeler. Cooper was known for answering and often mocking even the most hostile and ignorant letters, which turned out to be his downfall. When a self-proclaimed Jeet Kune Do master wrote in calling him a fat moron and challenging him to a fight outside the Sony Online offices, Cooper responded with “Shut up and give me my ten bucks per month, little man. My Porsche needs some performance upgrades.” Although clearly a sarcastic piece of bait tossed at a puffed-up troll, this quote was snipped out, passed around by players, and quoted for over a decade as emblematic of developer arrogance, contempt, and greed.

Of course, very few Everquest employees got a share of player subscription revenue, and developer salaries weren’t sumptuous enough for the kind of luxury cars and hot rods infamously owned by successful studio founders like John Carmack. He was riffing on the mistaken notion that all game developers were rich, and he had to learn a lesson about sarcasm and the internet the hard way. Cooper had to shut down the advice column, and even as players continued to call for his head on a pike, Sony never fired him for it. He just never again spoke out online about Everquest: one less human voice, and one less visible game developer of color. In 2014, Cooper finally left the game industry.

There’s an alternative to letting players communicate with developers like human beings: dry press releases and official statements, of the blank-faced, robotic variety that can be met with howls of outrage, which in turn won’t receive a single human reply. In my experience, fans often say they prefer speaking with developers who can act like human beings as opposed to spokesbots — but somehow it’s always someone who has acted like an emotional, fallible, impatient human being, even for a moment, who ends up being accused of unprofessional behavior, fired, or with a harassment target painted on her back by her former boss.

Angry players may claim to want respect, but what’s really more respectful: a human who’ll tell you honestly if you’re getting on their nerves, or the fixed smile of a customer service rep who’s walled themselves off safely behind a feedback form and a scripted response?

 

 

The whole piece is quite good.

[PengTiki]

Quote

When we see a dynamic that pits workers against customers, we should always ask who might actually be benefitting from that conflict

 

The press.

 

Why can't we all be more polite and tolerant?

 

Twitter feels like a place where a lot of people think their 2 cents is worth 200 bucks and can't help but remind people of it. That goes for celebs, professionals and the average joe/jane. I'm happy to let them all get on with it. I hope they're enjoying themselves, but it doesn't look like it from here.

 

I guess 140 characters isn't enough for please and thank you. Let alone nuance and complex thoughts.

 

[Unofficial Who]

On 20/07/2018 at 03:03, PengTiki said:

 

The press.

 

Why can't we all be more polite and tolerant?

 

Twitter feels like a place where a lot of people think their 2 cents is worth 200 bucks and can't help but remind people of it. That goes for celebs, professionals and the average joe/jane. I'm happy to let them all get on with it. I hope they're enjoying themselves, but it doesn't look like it from here.

 

I guess 140 characters isn't enough for please and thank you. Let alone nuance and complex thoughts.

 

 

Interestingly enough one of the few counterpoints I saw on the GOG twitter thread was a sarcastic "thanks" for allowing GG an even louder platform to signal boost from. And I think the media might have caught on to this because whereas a few years ago every games media site would have think pieces about GOG making a mistep then making an apology this time around 24 hours later the media attention has been two news sites and a blog. (According to google news at least.)

[Alex W.]

On 16/07/2018 at 21:59, Smitty said:

 

Oh, how fucking convenient. One challenge and you evaporate. 

 

Better not come at me in future when you slink away from answering one question, after calling me ignorant and paranoid. There's nothing paranoid about what I'm saying - need I really go back and quote all the stuff either directly or indirectly implying this guy is a bad 'un? 

 

You're all addicted to these accusations, I think. When challenged you circle the wagons, hope the group will back you up and often shoot out fresh accusations. 

 

But I'm sorry - however much backslapping you get from your tribal sychophants it isn't going to hide your inability to answer a question. And people like me don't care about the inane fear-based popularity contest.

 

 

Smitty, I haven't been putting forward the argument you're going on about. God knows I've gone out of my way to make it clear hear that the "mansplainer"'s actions, any honest-to-goodness instance of mansplaining, isn't coming from a place of malice and that this situation as a whole needs to be considered in the context of a type of dysfunctional interaction. If you want to have a go at other people about this, some supposed cabal of evil-doers out to destroy someone? Fine. I'll leave you to it But if you're going to puff out your chest and demand that I provide some defence of a weird caricature of a viewpoint I don't hold in the first place, you're going to be waiting a very long time.

 

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 If it was you, you'd be outraged that you could be convicted and sentenced by a group of strangers based on this interaction .

 

Yeah, apparently I am.

 

For what it's worth I regret my original response to you and how it was directed at you as a person and not what you had said. It was a completely unconstructive tone. However I am not going to be accused of going on some absurd crusade because I'm a convenient example of someone in the group you are frustrated with.

[PaB]

On 19/07/2018 at 18:03, PengTiki said:

 

 

 

Twitter feels like a place where a lot of people think their 2 cents is worth 200 bucks and can't help but remind people of it. That goes for celebs, professionals and the average joe/jane. 
 

Damn straight 

[Alex W.]

I'm going to take another pass at that.

 

Smitty said some things which I took to be hostile misrepresentations of things some people on the forum have said. I then responded in a manner that was much more hostile and much less considerate of what he may have been trying to say. He then understandably responded defensively.. If there is some degree of nuanced, cool-headed argument to be made about the points that were raised, it hardly seems like I have much of a right to be attempting to make it now. I am sorry, Smitty.

[Radish]

Sort of related to the Jessica Price stuff: Disney have fired James Gunn (writing Guardians of the Galaxy 3, among other things) for making  jokes about paedophilia ten years ago on Twitter. As was said about Jessica Price, gender is irrelevant: anyone is at risk of losing their job if they publicly say something that the company they work for thinks will put them at risk of bad PR. 

[BadgerFarmer]

It's the alt-right digging this stuff up though, isn't it? Him being critical of Trump is unlikely a coincidence.

 

So no, this one's not about gender, it's about politics. And Disney haven't done any better with it.

[SMD]

It's the same GG playbook, one is against women just because they're women, the other is against outspoken critics of the right and fascism.

[Dudley]

46 minutes ago, Radish said:

Sort of related to the Jessica Price stuff: Disney have fired James Gunn (writing Guardians of the Galaxy 3, among other things) for making  jokes about paedophilia ten years ago on Twitter. As was said about Jessica Price, gender is irrelevant: anyone is at risk of losing their job if they publicly say something that the company they work for thinks will put them at risk of bad PR. 

 

The thing is, this was all known, public and apologised for (whether you think that should make a difference or not) before they ever hired him to make the first one.

 

So it feels a bit wrong really.

[Fry Crayola]

The Jessica Price / James Gunn stuff doesn't tell me that if you say something contrary to company policy, you'll lose your job.

 

It does tell me that it can and will be used as ammunition against you if you fall foul of the alt-right and your company would rather court them than have your back.

[Dudley]

Indeed, has Gunn done or said something recently that the incels wouldn't like?

[SMD]

2 minutes ago, Dudley said:

Indeed, has Gunn done or said something recently that the incels wouldn't like?

 

Come out hard against Trump.

 

Cernovich is a proper piece of shit, it doesn't excuse Gunn's tweets but there's no way anyone can argue it's in good faith.

[Unofficial Who]

3 minutes ago, Dudley said:

Indeed, has Gunn done or said something recently that the incels wouldn't like?

 

It might have been this that really made them go for it.

 

https://www.themarysue.com/duplass-gunn-shapiro-twitter-mess/

 

 

[Kiwi Cake]

James Gunn is an interesting case as he certainly came across as something of an edgelord early in his career. He said a lot of bad stuff on social media and his earlier films are reflective of that attitude, but he's matured into being quite a progressive director. He's been staunchly anti-Trump and the alt-right for a while now and has been quite open about his feelings on toxic masculinity and the likes, both in interviews and in his works like Guardians 2. It's pretty clear why the likes of Mike Cernovich would target him, a person who repeatedly says things far worse than Gunn ever did.

 

This looks like another case of a weak company not carrying out due diligence and falling for yet another alt-right campaign launched not because they give a shit, but because they think they can score some points in their ongoing culture war.

 

Nice work, Disney.

[Dudley]

1 hour ago, Unofficial Who said:

 

It might have been this that really made them go for it.

 

https://www.themarysue.com/duplass-gunn-shapiro-twitter-mess/

 

 

 

Yep, that'll do it.

[squirtle]

I barely follow this stuff, it's too depressing, but where do I recognise the name Mike Cernovich from?

[Unofficial Who]

17 minutes ago, APM said:

I barely follow this stuff, it's too depressing, but where do I recognise the name Mike Cernovich from?

 

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Cernovich

 

(edited for brevity but there's pieces everywhere about his growing influence and success.)

 

Quote

 

In 2014, Cernovich promoted Gamergate, a controversy during which several women in the video game industry were targeted by internet trolls, goading opponents with tweets such as "Who cares about breast cancer and rape? Not me."[7]
...
Cernovich helped popularize the false Pizzagate conspiracy theory[24] through his blog posts and believes that child sex rings run rampant in Washington, D.C. He has accused his opponents of being pedophiles on multiple occasions,[25] and in a YouTube video maintained that most people employed by the news media and "every A-list actor" in Hollywood were also pedophiles.

 

[Unofficial Who]

Also relevant I guess https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/mike-cernovich

 

Allegedly

Ignited by a blog-post by Eron Gjoni, an ex-boyfriend of female video game developer Zoë Quinn, in which he accused Quinn of sleeping with men in return for positive coverage of her game, #Gamergate turned into a full-blown campaign of harassment against women in the video game industry masquerading as a campaign for “ethics” in gaming journalism. Cernovich offered to give Gjoni pro bono legal advice in the name of “free speech” or more accurately, as he explained on Twitter, “to fight against the free speech hating SJWs” (a preferred acronym of the "alt-right" for social justice warriors.)

Cernovich obtained Quinn’s legal complaint against her ex-boyfriend and gave it to rabid misogynist pick-up artist Roosh so that he could write a piece attacking Quinn on his website, Return of Kings. Cernovich also covered the issue at length on “Crime and Federalism” (as a “free speech” issue) and “Danger and Play.”

 

And so it goes round again.

[squirtle]

Jesus. What a douche.

[Unofficial Who]

Polygon has an article up called Gaming’s toxic men, explained

 

https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/25/17593516/video-game-culture-toxic-men-explained

 

There's not much new here, however if you're new to the thread and want some snippets of the past four years it's not a bad starting point with a variety of views explored.

 

[Unofficial Who]

I've always hesitated to post links to columns or blogs like this (and then generally just not linked the piece) due to concerns about adding to things.

 

However this artist is on all the usual lists, she writes here about the harrassment and threats she's recieved from making interactive art pieces (she's actively resisted calling them games) and in one instance about how she's abandoned one of her pieces because of this.

 

You can read it here at http://www.nathalielawhead.com/candybox/a-10-years-of-experimental-work-retrospective-does-being-a-gamer-automatically-mean-toxic-fandom-and-can-anything-be-done-to-break-away-from-that

 

If games talk about these topics (topics similar to what “Everything is going to be OK” talks about), players demand these discussion to stay “safe”. By that I mean, emotions, vulnerability, and feeling bad feelings, are expected to be kept at a safe distance.
So you’ll get reactions along the lines of “How dare you make me feel like that?”
I mean, it’s a requirement that it stay fun, and it has to be something that the player is in control of. You cannot make them feel the more difficult emotions.
All that is problematic for art like this because you’re demanding that the discussion of these topics has to entertain.
Also, it cannot be made by a woman, or be based on her experiences. Topics of trauma after sexual assault, are something that will incur the wrath of an already sexist consumer base.

All this is extremely dysfunctional. It holds a medium back, because it keeps the voices of the creators in check. We cannot have diversity if we insist that this diversity stay “safe” and only talk about the “safe” pleasant topics. Diversity isn’t going to always be pretty and pleasing. It’s going to mean that we have to confront our inequality.
This inequality is going to be confronted in the art produced.

I think Stephanie Chan said it best in her article about the ArenaNet firing with:

The damage from ArenaNet’s decision isn’t just being done to the women who are being harassed. It’s being done to everyone who is now afraid to speak out on Twitter. The damage is in the pause, the moment where marginalized people will now hesitate before sharing their stories. It renders people’s struggles invisible, because the people who are struggling are often the ones who can suffer the most if their livelihoods are taken away.

 

 

[Unofficial Who]

And a great piece here about harrassment in games and why it's allowed to happen.

 

https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/43pndd/game-companies-can-serve-communities-or-customers-but-rarely-both

 

You know who does get banned with zero tolerance? Scammers, hackers, cheaters, and gold sellers. If you harm the company bottom line directly, you get smote instantly. Companies are upfront on how many bans they have issued for “Real Money Transactions” and hacking.

By making a point of quickly removing scammers and cheaters, companies send a very clear message about the steps they’re taking to protect the integrity of the game and its economy. By being silent on what is being done about harassers, they send a very mixed message about how they will protect the community. Are they serious about addressing toxicity, or not?

[Harsin]

I was sure the horrifying stuff about the culture at Riot Games had been posted in this thread already, maybe I was wrong.

 

https://kotaku.com/inside-the-culture-of-sexism-at-riot-games-1828165483

 

Anyhoo, King of the Dudebros, CliffyB, has decided to go to bat for them.

 

 

[Radish]

I see Cliff is busy writing his memoir.

 

[Wroth]

He also took back what he said and apologised

 

[Harsin]

1 hour ago, Radish said:

I see Cliff is busy writing his memoir.

 

 

[SeanR]

it's not just videogames

 

 

 

the fucking comments