Gamergate discussion thread (one and only, KEEP IT HERE)

AHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAHAH AHAHHAHA

Good one, tell me man, do you even read any of the nonsense that passes as "games journalism" the last few years? I mean i see words like "patriachy" and "toxic masculinity". Come on. Maybe not on gamespot but still.

Anyway dannys video was on point, if only he was willint to talk instead he would find out we are 95% with him.

@super600 I have gone pretty deep and i have not seen this hate group and harrassment that people talk about. Granted there will be a few pissed off people in youtube or that site that cant be named but for the most part everyone is civil. Infact gamergate has a herassment patrol on twtter and when they told certain individuals to stop attacking people, these idnividuals fought back and did alot of damage. You see there are groups of people like the AYY team which are shtposters, all they do is go around and troll people, they have been doing this a long time way before GG they hate sjws and love to troll them and they will keep doing it and have fun doing it. No one can do anything about them, GG told them to stop and they ruined the site that cant be named GG board. There is littearly nothing that can be done about them, but my poing is GG doesnt let them go around and attack people, they told them to stop and they attacked GG. They do not care. They will continue to do this even when gg is over.

The GDC 15 hashtags takeover on twitter is a good example of the bad things gg'ers can do at times. To find a lot of the bad stuff you have to look in the right places especially on twitter and some of the other sites they go on. Usually the people being attacked by gg'ers provide evidence of what they are doing and sometimes you have to look for it yourself.

Anyway,do you guys think obsidian's response to the the POE incidient was appropriate

The CEO describes what they did in detail here(I know you guys don't like polygon, but I will still post the article)

https://www.polygon.com/2015/4/10/8383627/pillars-of-eternity-transphobic-kickstarter-hate-feargus-urquhart

If I can find similar examples of Anti-gg'ers doing the same thing, will you take a similar position on them? Cause there is this one rather prominent one calling 80% of women scum who don't belong in gaming, and that is without even digging.... I am sure if I go to special internet sites I can find evidence of a whole lot worse.

As for your edit: The whole thing is stupid. A whole bunch of people got their undies in a bunch over their extremely subjective interpretation of a rather lame joke. Heck, when I first pictured the joke I pictured a man waking up embracing another man, jumping out of bed and dashing out the nearest window leaving a Wile E Coyote shaped hole. Lame, stupid, but harmless. No transgender anything in the mix, just a lot of booze.

Why is it harmless? How on earth can people claim to be victimized by other people committing suicide? I mean seriously, how far do we have to lower the victim bar for something like that to clear? Just ignore such complaints, you can never appease someone who will claim they are victimized by such things.

Danny doesn't mention GG once in the video. I think his opinion of GG as expressed in his tumblr post can still fully apply, regardless of this video. He's not acknowledging that GG is just ordinary gamers who are sick of the gaming press. He's acknowledging that some gamers are sick of the gaming press. I think his opinion of GG remains unchanged, even though he's sympathizing with some of the sentiments expressed by GG-supporters, which he also did in his tumblr post.

The only thing you linked that was even remotely close to the kind of censorship we should be worried about is the Australian retailer declining to sell GTAV, and even that is completely permissible because it is the decision of a private entity.

You say that 'boycotting' is fine but 'demanding the work be changed' is not, but they are in effect the same thing. In organizing boycotts, groups of consumers are attempting to communicate to the content creator that particular elements or tropes or what have you are economically unviable inclusions. This is historically the heart of consumer feedback. The same goes for petitioning vendors not to carry certain products. These are not top-down impositions.

By your definition, basically everything is censorship. Developers choose to include or exclude all sorts of things because of financial concerns. If something is perceived as problematic or potentially detrimental to sales, it will be changed or excised. That's how the business is run. Hell, you're basically arguing that the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut was censorship, which is nonsensical. The notion of free speech requires the ability to change one's speech, and that is not censorship.

Since it's apparently necessary, let me clarify. Feminism has absolutely nothing to do with ethics in video game journalism.

@loafofgame:

Danny doesn't mention GG once in the video. I think his opinion of GG as expressed in his tumblr post can still fully apply, regardless of this video. He's not acknowledging that GG is just ordinary gamers who are sick of the gaming press. He's acknowledging that some gamers are sick of the gaming press. I think his opinion of GG remains unchanged, even though he's sympathizing with some of the sentiments expressed by GG-supporters, which he also did in his tumblr post.

Most of the vocal disdain towards the Gaming Press, has been from Gamer Gate. Although even to those who do not consider themselves on either side of Gamer Gate, it definitely exists on this site, the reaction to the Dead Rising 3 review is an example. However my point still stands --- he said that Gamer Gate, a group which has vocally shown disdain towards the gaming press (literally in their thousands) needs to be ignored; but then makes a video acknowledging how Gamers have fell out with the press. His Tumblr post was emotionally misguided, but I think this video..is a step in the right direction.

Fair enough. I just think it would be naive to assume that Danny is now all of a sudden sympathetic towards GG. It is still very possible that he thinks GG represents the bad side of the critical people, no matter how misinformed that might be. I think he very consciously and intentionally refrains from explicitly mentioning GG in that video, because he doesn't like that label.

Really? You mean like pointing out truth? How is that bad LOL? Are you serious, show me examples of "bad" tweets. No, you nor others have provided evidence... You tried to link Baphomet to GG...

They bitched out on the game itself and censoring the game

Developers at the conference and other people were complaining about gg'ers hijacking the tags and how they couldn't get any news about GDC from the tags because of the hijacking. They literally had to use a twitter blockbot to view GDC related stuff on the tag. Posting in a tag is okay occasionally, but if a group of people are trying to hijack a hashtag it's not okay and it hurts legitimate discussion happening in a hashtag.

Mark Kern even had to jump in a tell people to stop at one point.

https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/572606218805497856

Anyway I thought the POE joke was awful and did not really fit the game that well. The second joke is way better.

"peacfullly"?! Are you fucking kidding me? Anita and Wu are fucking admins there and they're spewing hate...

That didn't answer my question. My question was if I find Anti-GG'ers doing similar stuff, if you will classify the movement similarly. Personally I think the whole "GG is a hate group, no Anti-GG is a hate group!!!!!!!" debate is pretty asinine. If however people are going to list off things like using a hashtag someone else is using as the sort of behavior that makes a pack of people comparable to a hate group, I am going to point out that both groups engage in such silliness. Heck both groups engage in far worse.

See above, regarding prominent Anto-GG'er proclaiming that 80% of women are scum that don't belong in the fandom. In my book that sort of thing makes that particular doof comparable to an idiot, it doesn't put everyone around them into the same category as the Klan.

As for the joke: Yeah it was stupid. Considering that Obsidian games lets you commit horrible atrocities like joining a pack of slavers so you can gun down parents and capture their kids, the idea that entire groups of people are victimized by it is an epic face palm kind of moment. The replacement joke however mostly makes me sad. The last thing the political correctness debate needs is more people claiming to be victims.

In my book getting into a game of who is the biggest victim is kind of the worst probable outcome for any internet argument.

Curious enough, I always find the same 2 topics in every answer: "I am not responsible" and "show me proof". And I didn't sayd "full of" I said "The louder voice in front of the media"

Well, Responsability comes when those scmucks use your movement and message as excuse for that kind behabiour, that happens and we all saw it. The proof is as easy as jumping to youtube and write "gamergate" on it, a good number of those videos (not all, of course) are little more than insults towards people against GG. Responsability for something that somebody generates (or, in this case, atracks) is the ethic way of doing things. The fact that GG claims that Ethics are the core of their movement, one expect at least a "Yes, me attracted this idiots. Our bad. we'll clean the house now"

But if still you want proof, the very existence of that patrol you mention is a proof. Aside from that, well... I'm anti-censorship and anti-biased press (or any biased media) yet is this kind of behavior that I saw multiple times that keeps me from choosing any side.

But anyway, I already got that info from @SambaLele so, for the moment, I have little else to add.

Cheers

I am not responsible for other people's behaviour... If you're making the claim, the burden of proof is on you, not me...

Nobody condones that behaviour. I would like to see that and where you're getting this from. No, show me a video. Don't use the fallacy that there are videos out there, show them to me... Insults isn't harassment either. Again another fallacy with that we have to clean up a hashtag... That's not our responsibility, yet there are people that go out of their way to do it. You clearly don't get this

Show me

Weak Logic.

There are a group called 'Americans'. In the 30s some Americans were Fascists. Ergo, All Americans are Fascists, Forever.

Oh, and, whenever I'm asked, I refuse to give evidence that I have ever seen an American be a Fascist.

The Fact American's had to fight 'Fascists' is proof enough!

Are you smart enough to see why this bigotry and prejudice doesn't wash yet?

Perhaps it's about Ethics and Games Journalism and Consumer Value after all.

What's the big deal? How about how a "rant" during the IGF awards was scripted... How about how the presenter got everything wrong about GG. You've yet to show me that GG is malicious and evil. How the hell can you support the blockbot when it's a blacklist of people... Nobody is stopping anyone from posting in the hashtag, SJW's couldn't handle the discussion by getting red pilled. How can you even support such a thing?!

Nobody has to listen to Mark Kern, he isn't really in GG. We do hear what he says, but we don't always agree. You however support horrible people who lie and are corrupt to the bone

It's not disdain when it's pointing out corruption and the media responds with calling all gamers dead... No, he's contradicting himself by doing that. He's flip flopping on an issue he seems to have no goddamn clue of

Ethics?

Could be a potential problem for the first example in the video, but I'm not sure about the second example in the video. Whoever uploaded the second video on the channel may have gotten the permission of the developers of that game before it was uploaded on that channel.

@super600: It's still a fucking problem, actually stealing footage and not giving credit... Gamespot! Fix this!

Also this is a really good video for perhaps the biggest ignorant opponent of GG

Just for the complete picture: the first example seems to have been removed, arguably as a result of the complaint. The other one is still there. Fair example regardless.

Why did they even use the footage and just straight out steal it?

I don't know. If I have to speculate, I'd say it's the result of rushed and unprofessional editor work. I don't think there was any intention to actually steal footage, though. If that was the case, it would be the equivalent of robbing a jewelry story without a mask, walking outside and then parading around with the jewels in front of the store. It still doesn't make it any less objectionable, though. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a pattern here. It appears none of the Gamespot Gameplay videos refer to external sources, so one would have to verify all (or most) footage to find out what is theirs and what isn't. If there are only two instances (one of which has been rectified), then I'd say it's lazy or careless editing, which one could dismiss as a minor slip-up if it doesn't happen again. If it turns out that there are many instances, then I would seriously question GS's policy when it comes to uploading footage on youtube.

Still, whatever the case, I think it's more likely that we're dealing with unprofessional editor work than with questionable people deliberately trying to steal other people's footage. Both scenarios should be pointed out and rectified, but at least the former doesn't immediately turn the responsible people into horrible good-for-nothing thieves.

Again, this is all speculation.

The Last Ride: An Honest Question I do not mean to be offensive in any way:

Do you think you have changed a single person's mind?

I can't speak for The Last Ride, but with aGGro's, their minds, for 98% of the time cannot be changed. This is because they love the idea of Gamer-Gate being a harassment campaign. These are the same people who will preach on never to judge groups of people, but use 0.2% of Gamer-Gate's harassment tweets to smear the entire movement.

aGGro's want Gamer-Gate to be a hate group because it makes them feel good about themselves; it's finally a change for them to fight for something good, even if it isn't true, it gives them a purpose. This is why they religiously believe that Gamer-Gate is hate, the idea of Gamer-Gate being a force for good would crush their ideology.

This is why Gamer-Ghazi bans debate. They want no part of it because their beliefs are open to scrutiny.

This also applies to Gamergaters. It would be nice to see some actual discussion go on bout this, but neither side seems to want to address what the other actually says. KIA is just as bad as Ghazi, don't pretend it isn't. All they are is just people pretending they are under attack when they aren't and constantly misrepresenting what people say. The entire movement originated from misinterpretation, people got so mad about those gamers are dead articles but none of them even seem to understand what "Gamers are dead" even means, and then there's sockgate and the countless other occurrences of people either lying and intentionally misrepresenting someone just so they have something to argue against.

Just look through the posts of gamergaters here. They are all pretending that they are part of something big while doing nothing. And then there's the constant lies they post here about anyone who doesn't agree with them.

GamerGhazi has never been a debate sub.There are other subs for that. It always has focused on supporting victims of the movement and also focuses on mocking dumb things respectful that gg'ers say. It focuses less now on the mocking and more on topics related to gaming and diversity and supporting the victims of the movement.Gamerghazi is not perfect and it's getting better.They have done stuff I don't like.One more thing the problem with the harassment is not that it exists it's the fact that it's crowdsourced which makes it way worse.

Just because my name is mixed up in all that:

I actually agree! The only thing I think you three are missing is the realization that everything you all just said applies equally to the loudest and most determined voices of on both sides. This isn't even unique to Video Games. Just about any time a person gets all political or religious or whatever on the internet, a bunch of people who need an outrage fix will swarm in and use it as an excuse to pretend that everyone who disagrees with them is a super jerk.

Edit* Possible exception would be banning debate. Don't have the data to make that claim.

@super600:

GamerGhazi has never been a debate sub.There are other subs for that. It always has focused on supporting victims of the movement and also focuses on mocking dumb things respectful that gg'ers say. It focuses less now on the mocking and more on topics related to gaming and diversity and supporting the victims of the movement.Gamerghazi is not perfect and it's getting better.They have done stuff I don't like.One more thing the problem with the harassment is not that it exists it's the fact that it's crowdsourced which makes it way worse.

Gamer-Ghazi is a sub to which various members assert views on what they think of Gamer-Gate. If these views are questioned, the person questioning them is banned. That is the type of sub it runs --- they have a narrative and they do not want it challenged. You say it focuses on ''supporting'' victims yet we have people like Liana K ousting Ghazi for harassing her; hell, we had a Ghazi member leave to join KIA because of the racism at Ghazi. Ghazi has never been about supporting victims, they are a circle-jerk of mocking Gamer-Gate while refusing to allow anyone to question their views. The closest to so-called ''support'' they give was to Kim Crawley and that woman scammed Ghazi to kingdom come and back.

She was fired for writing an inaccurate, agenda driven hit-piece. She claimed Gamer-Gate harassment and Ghazi shilled for her.

1.26% (correction from my last post) of the tweets from a hashtag is harassment, and there are members in Gamer-Gate who attempt to stop this with the Gamer-Gate harassment patrol.

@toast_burner:

This also applies to Gamergaters. It would be nice to see some actual discussion go on bout this, but neither side seems to want to address what the other actually says. KIA is just as bad as Ghazi, don't pretend it isn't. All they are is just people pretending they are under attack when they aren't and constantly misrepresenting what people say. The entire movement originated from misinterpretation, people got so mad about those gamers are dead articles but none of them even seem to understand what "Gamers are dead" even means, and then there's sockgate and the countless other occurrences of people either lying and intentionally misrepresenting someone just so they have something to argue against.

Just look through the posts of gamergaters here. They are all pretending that they are part of something big while doing nothing. And then there's the constant lies they post here about anyone who doesn't agree with them.

What?

Gamer-Gate DOES want to address this. We have constantly invited aGGro's to streams and debates. We have asked them to debate wherever they want. The response, for most of the part is refusal to debate. And for the minority of aGGro's who do debate, they get schooled, and then proceed to return to their faux-narrative after the debate. Look at Sargon's BBC Interview, Milo's Interviews or the Al Jazeera debate, Gamer-Gaters schooled across the board yet after the debate, those same people who lost returned to their faux-premise.

We understand what ''Gamers are Dead'' means pretty clearly; ''obtuse shit-slingers'' sums up their viewpoint. The Sock-Gate was to give aGGro's a taste of their own medicine with their faux-outrages. Gamer-Gate is one of the best things to happen to Gaming, because now, only the truth will prevail. And the truth lays with Gamer-Gate.

Which is an odd thing to claim as in this thread you can see examples of gamergaters refusing to debate and just making shit up. You really don't need to look far.

So you admit that sockgate was just gamergaters pretending to be victims? Then how are we to know that they aren't just pretending with everything they say?

So what exactly is wrong with saying gamers are dead? I probably play more games than the majority of people in this thread and I'm working on making my own games, and even I think it's accurate. The word gamer never should have existed in the first place, gaming isn't a culture it's a hobby. People have moved on from seeing gamers as a bunch of neck beards and so "gamers are dead" now "gamers" are just regular people from a wide range of backgrounds.

@harisinghnalwa said:

@super600:

GamerGhazi has never been a debate sub.There are other subs for that. It always has focused on supporting victims of the movement and also focuses on mocking dumb things respectful that gg'ers say. It focuses less now on the mocking and more on topics related to gaming and diversity and supporting the victims of the movement.Gamerghazi is not perfect and it's getting better.They have done stuff I don't like.One more thing the problem with the harassment is not that it exists it's the fact that it's crowdsourced which makes it way worse.

Gamer-Ghazi is a sub to which various members assert views on what they think of Gamer-Gate. If these views are questioned, the person questioning them is banned. That is the type of sub it runs --- they have a narrative and they do not want it challenged. You say it focuses on ''supporting'' victims yet we have people like Liana K ousting Ghazi for harassing her; hell, we had a Ghazi member leave to join KIA because of the racism at Ghazi. Ghazi has never been about supporting victims, they are a circle-jerk of mocking Gamer-Gate while refusing to allow anyone to question their views. The closest to so-called ''support'' they give was to Kim Crawley and that woman scammed Ghazi to kingdom come and back.

She was fired for writing an inaccurate, agenda driven hit-piece. She claimed Gamer-Gate harassment and Ghazi shilled for her.

1.26% (correction from my last post) of the tweets from a hashtag is harassment, and there are members in Gamer-Gate who attempt to stop this with the Gamer-Gate harassment patrol.

It's not a debate sub for the final time. They don't have to listen to gg because debating is not a point of the sub, but gg'ers do post on the sub sometimes that are not trying to invade the sub or pull dumb things that get them banned..Multiple people besides crawley have praised that sub for supporting them despite some issues with the sub. A lot of that post on the sub do support the big three targets of gg. I don't care about the harassment patrol because it's been useless in stopping the actual harassment that is still going on. A lot of people including me will most likely be interested in debating you guys if certain elements of the movement had less influence over it anyway.

@super600:

It's not a debate sub for the final time. They don't have to listen to gg because debating is not a point of the sub, but gg'ers do post on the sub sometimes that are not trying to invade the sub or pull dumb things that get them banned..Multiple people besides crawley have praised that sub for supporting them despite some issues with the sub. A lot of that post on the sub do support the big three targets of gg. I don't care about the harassment patrol because it's been useless in stopping the actual harassment that is still going on. A lot of people including me will most likely be interested in debating you guys if certain elements of the movement had less influence over it anyway.

It doesn't matter if it's a debate sub, the premise that Ghazi has on Gamer-Gate is absurd. Gamer-Ghazi is built on the notion that Gamer-Gate is a misogynistic movement consisting of right-wing nut-jobs {which is absurd; most Gamer-Gaters are Left-Leaning Libertarians}. The entire foundation of the sub-reddit is false, so why can this not even be questioned? If someone challenges that, they're banned. You're right in the sense that the sub isn't a debate sub, it's a circle-jerk of lies. I've posted a few comments and was immediately banned, yet Ghazelles are fine to post KIA whenever they want.

The fundamental difference between KIA and Ghazi:

• KIA allows different opinions. Ghazi does not (that's why KIA thrives at 32k subs, whereas Ghazi lags behind at 6k)
• KIA encourages to verify, whereas Ghazi encourages to ''listen and believe'' (devoid of skepticism)

The ''major victims'' of Gamer-Gate include:

• Brianna Wu, a serial abuser who is not only a troll but has on record, sent threats to herself and deleted them
• Anita Sarkeesian, a woman whose threats were found non-credible by the police. In addition to this, this woman has flat out conned aGGro's out of 160k
• Zoe Quinn, a liar

Ghazi will believe whatever is thrown at GG, yet question aGGro threats towards GG (which is statistically higher). I'd like to know what ''certain elements'' you refer to? The harassment is attached to the hash-tag and anyone can hijack it...the media will only report on the 1.26% because everything else breaks the narrative.

@toast_burner:

Which is an odd thing to claim as in this thread you can see examples of gamergaters refusing to debate and just making shit up. You really don't need to look far.

How is the claim odd? There have been constant attempts to create debates. These attempts to reach out have been archived; and they never end with aGGro's agreeing to debates.

So you admit that sockgate was just gamergaters pretending to be victims? Then how are we to know that they aren't just pretending with everything they say?

Not really; what the Sock-Puppet guy did was to erase the voices of minorities, it was pushing the narrative that any minority who disagrees with him is fake. However, the trending and constant shit-posting wasn't needed; but it was done anyway, because many felt that aGGro's had it coming. aGGro's responded by saying Gamer-Gate needed thicker skin, yet also opposed a harmless joke in Pillars of Eternity and Lion-Head liking boobs.

So what exactly is wrong with saying gamers are dead? I probably play more games than the majority of people in this thread and I'm working on making my own games, and even I think it's accurate. The word gamer never should have existed in the first place, gaming isn't a culture it's a hobby. People have moved on from seeing gamers as a bunch of neck beards and so "gamers are dead" now "gamers" are just regular people from a wide range of backgrounds.

Well, saying ''Gamers are Dead'' carries a connotation but saying ''obtuse shit-slingers'' is something else; it is designed to flame Gamers. A Gamer is different to someone who just plays Games. A Gamer is someone who regularly plays Games, competes and has an understanding of the industry, to an extent. Someone who is involved with the Gaming world.

From what I've seen, gamergaters pretty much fall into your standard Brogressive Redditor category when it comes to political leanings. They like to claim the label of 'liberal' insofar as it lets them rail against the conservative Old Guard, but when it comes to a lot of issues that effect minority groups, you can almost pinpoint the exact moment that they become reactionaries.

e: and the obsession over the term 'gamer' is a pretty good example of that. It's an unnecessary and meaningless label with no constructive purpose, and the only reason gamergaters get so hung up on it is because they need it so they can prop up their exclusive little club. No one describes themselves as movie-watchers, or readers, or any of that shit. But 'gamers' take a perverse pride in the label so they can deny it to others with whom they disagree as a way to delegitimize their opinions.

It's an odd claim because it contradicts how the majority of GGers act. I'm sure what you're saying is true, but remember that it is only a minority that actually want to do anything either positive or negative. The majority just want a circle jerk.

You should watch Tim Schafer's speech and this time listen to what he actually said and not what some shit stirrer wanted you to think he said. He never attacked minorities, the sock puppet was used to represent the anti-gamergate voice, not the minority or gamergater voice. The outrage about his joke is a perfect example of professional victims creating drama where there is none. At least the joke in Pillars of Eternity was blatantly transphobic so they had a bi of a point (the outcry was still stupid though)

And I will argue that person is still not a gamer. We don't have a word for someone who watches a lot of films and understands how the film industry works. So why are games different? Gamer is an outdated term for back when games were just for some small group of white nerdy boys, so when you cling to that outdated term you cling to that image. Games are not an exclusive club, yet there are still some people who think it is.

The elements that I'm referring to are the people that talk about SJW's/opponents a lot which is a significant portion of the movement and people who have aided/ participated in the harassment of their opponents which also makes up a portion of the GG'ers that like to talk about their opponents and SJW's a lot.And your three points about those three women were all GG supported. I don't believe anything from GG in the first place about those three women. Those women all had awful hit piece filled with lies written about them by a bunch of gg'ers.

This this this

We don't call people music junkies or movie goers anymore. Gaming is now widespread throughout culture. The term "gamer" has no meaning, everyone is playing video games today. Trying to claim it as some sort of elite status is dumb.

@super600:

The elements that I'm referring to are the people that talk about SJW's/opponents a lot which is a significant portion of the movement and people who have aided/ participated in the harassment of their opponents which also makes up a portion of the GG'ers that like to talk about their opponents and SJW's a lot.And your three points about those three women were all GG supported. I don't believe anything from GG in the first place about those three women. Those women all had awful hit piece filled with lies written about them by a bunch of gg'ers.

SJW's have made Gamer-Gaters lose their jobs, contributed to much more harassment (statitically) and attempted to destroy Gamer-Gate. It would be foolish not to oppose SJW's, they are a counter-movement with the sole aim of opposing Gamer-Gate. They're part of the culture war; freedom of expression (pro-GG) vs censorship happy slacktivists (SJW's). Atheism, Sci-Fi, the BSDM community, Metal and Comics have fought the same fight (and still are). The SJW ideology, also underpins shitty gaming journalism.

Again, as my pictures showed, a very small minority of Gamer-Gate harass people - and they've been continuously denounced by most supports of Gamer-Gate.

Why do you not believe me? It's been archived, with evidence. You don't have to listen and believe, you can look at the evidence. Brianna Wu created a thread hating on herself and deleted it once she realized she was still in her account. Anita Sarkeesian lied about liking gaming. These women are not only con-artists, but liars and part of the hypocrisy.

Let me take a milder approach by pointing out that using the term 'gamer' is problematic, because it suggests shared traits that might not be there (anymore). Many people often use the term very broadly: "gamers want this" or "gamers don't want this". As if all gamers generally have the same opinions and desires. I think I fit your definition of a gamer, even though I'm not particularly fond of the label, but I didn't feel addressed or attacked by some of the "gamers are dead" articles. Yet, there were people saying the gaming press (in general apparently) was attacking gamers (or people passionate about games).

I follow the news as broadly as possible and while I certainly see reason to question some conduct, I'm still hesitant to accept the press is as rotten as some people feel it is. Through my discussion with @SambaLele I came to realize that my standards might not be as high as others and that I'm probably fairly tolerant when it comes to certain conduct (especially regarding reviews). Still, I've never been limited by the press in my quest to find trustworthy information. I have not been misled by the press. I have not been insulted or attacked by the press. I have always been able to fully rely on the 'traditional' gaming press in order to make an informed decision about buying games I'm interested in. That doesn't mean I'm going to deny questionable conduct or a gap between the press and its audience (because I know my view is merely based on my personal experience), but I do feel the situation is more complex than some people think it is. It doesn't seem to be as simple as 'the press is bad and gamers are sick of it.' That would be rather dismissive towards the wide variety of views that are out there.

As such, I'm not sure if confidently using the term 'gamer' when making claims is the best way to approach a situation, because it might cause unnecessary opposition from people who label themselves gamers but do not agree with certain views or from people who don't want to label themselves gamers, but are still passionate about videogames. I don't think the videogame audience is quite as broad and spread out (and more importantly, sectioned off) as movie or book audiences, but I do think the use of the term 'gamer' is becoming more problematic. It's starting to approach the domain of the term 'fan' (or rather 'enthusiast'), which I guess applies to all of us to a certain extent, but which tells you very little about what people think and want. I mean, the apparent gap between some prominent figures in the gaming press and their audiences already points in the direction that 'gamer' is becoming a rather complex term. Both sides are probably passionate about games, but they arguably have different ideas about what to focus on when discussing them.

Maybe I should have specified what kind of boycotting I was talking about. I was talking only about boycott as consumer activism, in demanding due price for due quality, and good market practices. Which is, for example, the situation of the ME3 backlash you mentioned, and not a political act to dictate public discourse. Otherwise yes, boycott can serve censoring purposes, though this wasn't the type I was refering to. For example:

1 - Not a spontaneous economical decision, but a forced political one, derived not of "wallet votes" but political pressure. Plus: not a decision made in accordance to their own pre-established policies and rules, but an arbitrary exception (discrimination) made to please the group pressuring them to do so. The most important part: the purpose was only to make it impossible for others to buy that product (even if these others might desire to buy it), by those retailers, and possibly others. Putting in other words, it's an effort to force others into a boycott they don't want or might not want to engage in. This authoritarian act is as much censorship as all the other instances mentioned, especially because it's based on political causes.

2 - Boycott, as consumer activism, is just to choose what to reward and not to reward with your money, which can also be done collectively. It's not authoritarian: it's your choice to decide what to spend your money on, and of those who agree with you and join you willingly as well. It's authoritarian and potentially censoring to prevent others from having this choice. In this sense, it's an act made after a product is made, after it's available for sale. You can buy it as it is, as the developers wanted it to be, and how the publisher thought it would sell better. But you don't want to buy it, for whatever reasons, like those you mentioned. In censorship, though, pressure is to make that choice impossible - the pressure is for the product to not be made, or for it to cease to be the way it is, politically, not just quality-wise. The message here is not that you don't want it or you're disatisfied with it - it's that it shouldn't be allowed. More commonly, due to political reasons - it shouldn't exist as it is, it should be changed to be allowed to exist and be put on sale because of the ideas or information it bears. It's a lot different from boycott as consumer activism, which is an economical act first, political second, not the other way around.

3 - Maybe on how you interpret what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is very far from that. Developers "choose" as you say so yourself. They are using their own volition to do so, deciding and taking risks. Financial concerns will guide how they act, this is normal business. But they are free to pursue the objective they defined accordingly to said risks. If they made that decision, and you pressure them to change it or to suppress their work from existing in the market, then you are not letting financial concerns dictate their decision: you are using moral, politics, etc., as a means to overthrow the financial concerns making them secondary, a potential side-effect of the decision under political terms. Again, I'm focusing this on censorship - the question here is about what's said, what's stated, not how good, how entertaining, etc., the product is.

On Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut you are making a false equivalence: there was no backlash to political opinions, identity politics, philosophical messages, etc., of any kind, there was no pressure to lose a certain view or to adopt any specific one. It wasn't directed at the axiological aspect of the story, it wasn't directed at the developers' freedom of expression. It was directed at a business promise not delivered, a promise of notable variety, whatever the messages, views or opinions the game makes might be. It was consumer feedback on a false expectations marketing strategy. But more importantly, there wasn't a push to not let the product exist to begin with, or to not let it show a specific message or view, or to adopt any message, character portrayal, premise, conclusion, etc., of any specific ideology. As a matter of fact the solution didn't involve that anything was cut or changed, only added, still without changing what happened in the story, why it happened, how it happened. It wasn't censorship, and there is no equivalence in the situations you are comparing.

On your last phrase, I do agree with it, but the funny part is that it doesn't disagree with anything I've said, though you make it seem as if it was supposed to. Changing one's opinion is part of free speech, while forcing others into changing theirs or to withdraw them, is censorship. Boycott is a word with many meanings, more importantly it's an act or tool, and it can also be a means for censorship, of course. You only have to see what's being asked, what is the kind of pressure going on, and what are the intended effects. If a boycott is directed not at a product's quality, or bad market practices, and the such, but at the speech behind the product or made through the product, and is directed at changing that opinion or suppressing it, yes, that'll be a censoring effort.

You have a very strange notion of what is 'political' and what is not. All art is political. By extension, all video games are political. The act of 'demanding due price for due quality and good market practices' is a political one.

1. I don't know what you mean by a 'forced political one.' Was there any pressure on the Kmart from a government organization to pull the game? No? Then why do we care? To clarify, I don't necessarily think it was a good decision, but I definitely don't think it was a worrisome one. Your classification of a decision made by a private entity about how to administer its own affairs as 'authoritarian' is laughable.

2. Your definition of censorship is so broad as to be meaningless. If you're going to define 'censorship' to include situations in which decisions are made based on economic viability or even changing ideas on artistic quality, then why is anyone supposed to care when you or gamergate or whomever cry about it? By your definition of the word, there is absolutely nothing intrinsically wrong with censorship.

3. There is absolutely no difference between the two scenarios you put forth here. You acknowledge that financial concerns guide how developers act, but then for some reason you try and draw a line between 'financial concerns' and 'morals, politics, etc.' of the consumer, which ARE financial concerns for the developer. Simplified, it is the developer's job to create a product that the consumer considers of sufficient quality to merit a purchase, but it is the consumer's prerogative to decide on their own standards for what constitutes quality. Those standards may include things that you consider 'political,' which is a misnomer because you are narrowing the scope of what is considered 'political' to things that you personally disagree with or do not care about. But even though these standards include these things that you are trying to treat separately than 'financial concerns,' they are very much financial in the eyes of the developer.

The decision to change the ending of ME3 was political, you just don't consider it political because the decision to change it was not offensive to your political sensibilities.

You consider changing one's opinion to be part of free speech but apparently you do not consider being convinced or persuaded of a differing position to be the same. This you call 'forcing others into changing their opinions' and deem censorship. This is ridiculous. I'll ask again, with such a broad-sweeping definition of censorship, why should anyone give a shit about it at all?

Yes we do. Cineaphile. We have audiophile for people who listen to stereos all the time. We have readers for people who read books (seriously, go a library sometime). Bikers for people who ride motorcycles. Cyclists for bicycles. Swimmers for people who swim. Knitters for people who knit. Foodies for people who love eating. ****... We have names for people who participate in EVERY hobby, so I don't get why we can't say we're gamers!

Seriously, I'm so fucking sick of this argument.

Yup, i've changed people's minds on my streams

Streams? Also: Thank you for taking the time to answer, particularly given my stated position. No real point to the question absent curiosity.

Audiophile doesn't mean that, it means people who try to create the highest quality sound either professionally or personally. Cinemaphile refers to people interested in film theory, typically used to refer to professionals rather than consumers, and seeing how many of these self proclaimed gamers hate the idea of game theory and criticism it can't really apply.

The big difference is that gamer is being used to refer to a culture that doesn't actually exist. At least biker culture is a thing.

Yeah i do youtube streams about GG.

Food for Thought(germs.)