Gaming Community takes a stand against anti-equality gamers

Whether its fair or not that all gamers are being put in the same category is irrelevant. The fact is that its happening and the community as a whole isn't doing enough to stop it. The main reason why gamers are being generalized is simple. While the number of of gamers who are complete neckbeards may be a minority, the number of gamers who actually stand up to them is even smaller. Most gamers just passively stand aside while they are making us all look bad. The fact that some communities have had enough and are starting to act against them lately is a good sign for gamers. Maybe we can change people's view of our community as a whole by showing people that we don't support that kind of behavior.

Also, you must take into consideration that many gamers that one may find offensive are just from another culture, and probably do not mean to insult. That's what happens most of the times. Jokes and attempts to just annoy someone are easily lost in translation. I know I faced that many times.

The online gaming community is only limited by the reaches of the internet and language... so, yeah. But like you said, the US alone is enough to prove how farfetched is saying that a large % of gamers are like she said.

Right? So many people with an axe to grind.....please take it away from gaming.

@hailtothequeen: Actually, it is relevant and I will tell you why. Its relevance is actually at the core of the agenda you are asserting is righteous. I am referring to treating people fairly. You saying it is not when this topic is about equality is hypocritical.

The community does not need to stop what this is about. That is the duty of staff and moderators. What the community is recommended to do is stand against this foulness. However, claiming righteousness and acting foul yourself is self-defeating.

Have a nice day.

@SambaLele: Sure. Sociology, psychology, and anthropology are all relevant to this discussion. I do not see many making an effort to address all of the aspects with due diligence. Discussing them along with other factors would be preferred to this repugnant generalization and stereotyping smear campaign going on because that is what it looks like.

Whatever. Gamers are idiots anyway.

TC you replied to a post of mine in an earlier topic, I only just saw it and figured I'd reply to it here since it's similar rather than bumping an old thread.

On Zoe's ex:

I think you're absolutely right that it's not simply altruistic. I don't doubt that revenge and resentment toward zoe played a large part in her ex's decision to post his blog, with warning others perhaps being a secondary motivation or something to give it some credence. However I think you are trivialising it by comparing it to bad break-ups. Serious abuse, be it physical or mental abuse, is a far worse experience. I mentioned knowing people close to me who have nearly been broken by abusive relationships, those people have also had their own share of bad breakups which left them angry and bitter but those were far tamer than their experiences of abuse. If those people posted massive blogs about their abusers then I wouldn't believe for a second that they didn't get some enormous satisfaction from carrying out that action of revenge, but I also don't doubt that they'd be doing a public service by warning others of an intrinsically bad person who deceives others with a pleasant exterior. I had my own experience with a partner who was a very skilled and persistent liar and manipulator who tried to gaslight me once, and who I eventually concluded puts on a fake personality of niceness that I noticed them drop instantly as soon as it stopped working. I certainly wouldn't post a blog about them, we weren't even in a serious relationship, but I would have no qualms talking openly to others about them, should it come up in conversation and be relevant, to tell them what this person is like and not to be fooled.

Everything Zoe's ex describes about her is abusive behaviour (the cheating is only a part of that). Whether it's true or not is another story, he could just be being melodramatic. But I'm not arguing that people should believe him, just that they should keep an open mind. Zoe's ex has made a large number of posts on reddit (username qrios) since this and frankly he doesn't strike me as a particularly bitter vindictive person. I'd encourage you to read what he's written to get a better understanding, frankly I think he's been the most balanced and rational person in all of this zoe stuff.

The reason I say all this is because I think abuse is something that is trivialised far too often and this makes it worse for the victims. Worse still, many of the people writing him off without even considering his claims of being abused are some of the most vocal defenders of human rights (particularly womens' rights) in the gaming community. Consider it this way: Anita Sarkeesian, as you said in your first post of this thread, has been driven from her home as a result of threats she has received. Some people, even in this thread, have pointed out that has attracted abuse for a long time by virtue of simply being a vocal, controversial prominent figure, as many other such people have. By equating threats of serious harm with run-of-the-mill scathing, vitriolic criticism, do you feel they are trivialising the abuse she has received and setting a precedent for criticism toward others who speak openly about abuse?

BranKetra, I'm glad that mods in GS are allowing free speech and showing that they can themselves have an opinion on the matter. This reflects positively on the website.

For what you said above... well, just like you're doing, I've tried many times to bring this discussion to a more informed level. This jumps too quickly into assumptions based on pre-backed premises, mostly heavily ideological, and rarely subjected to a healthy level of self-criticism. Data, studies, statistics and professional's opinions are being summarily discarded with a mere repetition of the premises all over again. The discussion does not go forward, instead, it goes back to where it started, often only added with offensive remarks, the lighter ones being something in the likes of "if you truly think that then you are naive..." or just with twisting your arguments, evading them or going full ad hominem.

I'd point to my posts number 106 and 165 in the current thread. There is interesting data there. Complement it with the point n. 1 of this article. That's directed at everyone reading this. Like you said, there are many factors to consider before we blame patriarchy for the entirety of the present configuration of things, and labeling as misogynistics those that try to approach the question with more careful and slow pace, trying to look at as many different elements as possible before making a diagnosis, is unfair to say the least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB6TiRJNI-Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB6TiRJNI-Q

BTFO SO MUCH. Never seen anyone so BTFO.

I hope this is the start of better things in nerd culture

So Zoe Quinn screencapped a bunch of shit in a 4chan IRC that indicates that the #gamergate and #notyourshield hashtags were fabricated as smokescreens, that TFYC was a front, that a lot of the harassment from supposed SJWs was actually a false-flag (they actually baited Baldwin into commenting), among other things.

I am utterly shocked and surprised. Please link to us the statements of cannibalistic channers in a relay chat so that we may adapt our personal notepads.

Sounds more like some whiny bitches promoting censorship.

@CreasianDevaili: Here

That... was amazing.

Its a shame not a portion of the world will see his side of it.... instead of these stupid magazines and people like anita playing the victim card...

That shit was hilarious. Best part was when someone got a screenshot of someone telling everyone in the IRC to "abort, abort" when they realized she had been monitoring them.

I'd like more information before I jump to conclusions - Zoe obviously has a motive in doing this for damage control purposes - but it's certainly amusing, and if the allegations are true it certainly turns a lot of things on their head.

Makes me wonder if the folks that complained about The Stanley Parable's PSA gag were fake.

You realise that 99% of us (ok made up statistic) have not experienced any of this minority crap right?The only experience we have with such nonsense is the feminist agenda telling us Mario is sexist.... that female spiderman is sexist even though the male poses the same. that most of us gamers play hitman to kill 2 out of 500 NPC's that happent o be female for sick pleasure?

I know pleanty of woman from MMORPGs.... none of which experience this crap. can you even provide any examples of "Why we are not doing enough?" when there is nothing to be done, this whole bloody started because of a feminist with an agenda decided to comment on a field that she admitted not even liking... just to find examples of why we are passively-sexist .....

How are we suppose to defend your "Ideals" when they seem so hypocritical. Most male super heroes or game characters are 6 foot friggin hard men with muscles and some sort of ridiculous level of talent that none of us will ever achieve... yet "oh no woman has slim body and big breasts..."HOW DARE THEY" .... for the most part, all I can see is woman being far more insecure than men on the subject.

Because clearly woman with slim bodies and big breasts... cant be heroes or strong characters... no.... should be flat chested and muscular like all the stereotyped males...

oh I could go on with many many examples of why I think this whole agenda is a joke. but it boils down to "If you want more female focused games, then encourage woman to take Computer Science. abolish this "Nerd = bad" from the female sheepish hive mind in school-age-ranges. MENS INTERESTS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM, WOMANS LACK OF INTEREST FROM AN EARLY AGE IS!

And don't give me that bullshit 52% male, 48% female statistic.... because we are not playing the same games in those statistics.... they include solitaire, candy crush and the likes. because most big action games are aimed at men. because men show interest. then that much lower % of woman maybe like yourself or zoe or anita come in and go "where are my versions of this?" NOBODY IS MAKING IT BECAUSE and I quote anite "I DONT PLAY ACTION VIDEO GAMES BECAUSE VIOLENCE IS ICKY" ...

Cannot win.... men are not allowed male power fantasies because apperently it will cause us to hate woman... (Same s*it logic as Jack Thompson saying we are all now trained killers)..

Can't win... Modern Feminism isn't about equality to many who are involved.... its about anti-sexualisation, banning male pill and generally minimising Woman's disadvantages while not caring about mens remotely.

This entire sjw/ cult /rackets are over in gaming I think.

I just hope there's goverment investigation and massive arrests.

No they know what they are doing.. They are providing click bait to up their viewership by not just "angry" gamers but by people originally not interested in the gaming community.. Until the dopes out there who are going against the "gaming media" realize that the best way to combat them is to IGNORE them and avoid them, they aren't going to change.. Daily Mail makes ridiculous headlines and stories all the time, and constantly are questioned for their ethics, yet they keep going because the dopes keep viewing the shit.. The more the dumbasses rant and rave about them being "attacked" the more attention these gaming sites and the supposed victims are going to get..

The only thing over in all of this are the 'GamerGate' morons.

This out today, from The Escapist:

But to explain is not to excuse. Our editor-in-chief, Greg Tito, having reviewed the facts at hand, concluded we ourselves have been imperfect in maintaining journalistic standards. A particularly problematic article, the one which generated his review, was about the alleged harassment of an indie developer by a forum community which denied the allegations but was itself victimized as a result of them. The article failed to cite the harassment as alleged, failed to give the forum community an opportunity present its point of view, and did not verify the claims or secure other sources. Mr. Tito has personally updated the article and spoken to all our editors about the importance of adhering to standards that will prevent such bad incidents from happening again. We, as a team, apologize for this error, both to our readers and to the forum community that suffered as a result. I, personally, apologize for this error, as well.

Different companies must address the challenges I have described above in different ways, depending on their business model, audience, and content. Today, we are unveiling a set of revised ethical standards for content creators on The Escapist (indeed, on all Defy Media sites), in the interests of creating transparency for our audience and the larger industry. For your convenience, I have pasted these standards on the following page. Please take a few minutes to review these policies and learn how they relate to conflicts of interest, advertiser relations, and more.

Good article I'd say. Worth reading the 5 pages.

First of all, the title of this thread: "Gaming Community takes a stand against anti-equality gamers".This shows how deluded you are in several levels. WE are the community, not the gaming websites. The gaming websites are the gaming press and they are supposed to represent the community that are all of us, not to misrepresent and alienate us.

They are also supposed to speak about games...

The "anti-equality gamers" is a boogeyman. An invention from you paranoid people who have no clue what the hell you're saying. The gaming community (see above)is and always was the most inclusive community of all. Yet there are still paranoid people who refuse to understand that, and unfortunately they are part of the gaming press. Well, if the gaming press is this much misinformed and misrepresents us so erroneously, and on top of all that doesn't speak about games, what the f*** do we need the gaming press for?

It's articles like that one that demonstrate the lack of journalistic integrity in these websites. The "journalist" has no clue what's going on. It demonstrates how he's less informed than gamers themselves...

That article demonstrates the reasons why #GamerGate and #NotYourShield exist.

Yep because nobody complained about having gay characters in Mass Effect, and nobody has ever said anything racist online.

Not all gamers are against equality, but to pretend that those people don't exist is pure lunacy. Just read the comments for Gamespots GTA5 review and you'll see that not all gamers are kind and accepting.

@toast_burner: But the majority of the press is not treating the case with attention to the proportion and proper representation of gamers in relation to those evil acts.

You speak as if there were never rules or regulations on the existing websites and servers. Yes, some people say stupid homophobic and racist shit online, and you know what happens? They get banned. And you know why that happens? Because the rest of us aren't and never were willing to let any of that slide under the rug. You speak as if we were, when in reality these rules and regulations have been imposed ages ago because that isn't and never was the case. (besides that, and perhaps due to the regulations, they are pretty rare).

The ones that complained about Mass Effect, I can't speak because I didn't see it. I will assume, though, that if they were truly unjust, they surely got backfire from all directions. If not, then maybe they weren't upset because the characters were gay, but something else. I say this because it wouldn't be the first time people jump to the wrong conclusions, the most prominent example being Sarkeesian's supporters thinking people are against her because she's a woman, when the reality is far from that. This is not uncommon stupidity, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was what happened with Mass Effect...

I can't find any comments on the GTA5 review (either I'm blind or they've been shut? The latter doesn't help anyone), but it doesn't take too much reading to find out why people are likely to be upset by it. After all, she takes no more than 6 lines of text to infuse her "women issues" and "misogynist" crap into it. The real problem in all of this mess, is that people like her and probably you, still neglect to understand why that is complete nonsense. There's been no shortage of people trying to explain it for two years already...

Did you just disregard someones views for being "woman issues" so much for being accepting.

It seems you're just putting your fingers into your hears and going "lalalala we are perfect lalalala". You also clearly don't accept different people, if you did then you wouldn't mind if people like Carolyn review games. It seems all you want is to only have reviews that cater to you.

"Did you just disregard someones views for being "woman issues" so much for being accepting."

This is the exact problem I was talking about. If you understood why people take that as complete nonsense, you wouldn't be asking that. It's not accepting, accepting was never an issue in the gaming community, it's... You know what, go and try to understand why Anita Sarkeesian's views are considered utter bullshit, because Carolyn's "woman issues" are an extension of that. It's been discussed and explained thoroughly in the last 2 years, there's plenty of constructive youtube content about it, I shouldn't have to be wasting my time explaining it for the billionth time.

"It seems you're just putting your fingers into your hears and going "lalalala we are perfect lalalala". You also clearly don't accept different people, if you did then you wouldn't mind if people like Carolyn review games. It seems all you want is to only have reviews that cater to you."

And here you're demonstrating exactly the kind of stupidity I was talking about. You're already assuming that it's all because it's Carolyn's review, and that it's all about her gender, and bla bla bla, and that I don't accept transsexuals... And your use of the word "clearly" is the most interesting part, since nowhere have I even hinted to or implied any of what you're accusing me of.

"It seems you're just putting your fingers into your hears and going "lalalala we are perfect lalalala".

And there is irony in your words, as you disregarded everything I said in favor of your preconceived notions.

Why do you keep bringing up Anita? I never mentioned her, I don't even like her videos. Carolyn's women issues have nothing to do with Anita. She was told to write an article on what she thought of the game and that's what she did. She thought the game was great but some of the sexist material in the game made her feel a bit uncomfortable. What is wrong with that? If someone is made uncomfortable while playing a game then that should definitely be mentioned in the review. It would be dishonest to not mention it.

I never mentioned transsexuals or her gender. Part of accepting people is also accepting different view points. If you don't care about sexism in games then just ignore that part of her review, it's important to mention stuff like that because there are people out there who care about that stuff and for a review to ignore that stuff would be incredibly misleading.

Reviews aren't supposed to be a objective analysis of a game. It's an opinion piece explaining what they liked and didn't like about the game. By comparing your views to theirs you can determine whether it's a game you will enjoy or not. I've read many negative reviews that have actually encouraged me to buy the game and many positive reviews that made the game sound terrible.

@toast_burner I explained why I brought up Anita, which should be enough to explain what's wrong with her (Carolyn's) issues with "sexism". Furthermore, for the billionth time, complaining that a game involving the lowest of criminals has instances of mistreatment of women is like complaining that a horror movie has blood. That's how much sense it makes, especially when considering it's not just women who are in those situations they criticize. When I read a review (if ever), I'm expecting the writer to be impartial and fair.

I care about all the people who are discriminated against on a daily basis, especially transsexuals, and I don't find one inch of value in what these people are doing in game reviews. Not only it mostly verges on paranoia because no one is being discriminated against in video games, I also don't care about that when reading a game review, I care about the game. Everything has it's time and place.

When a person reviews a game and says they don't like violence specifically against women in games and , I will wonder why is this person reviewing this game instead of someone who has no personal susceptibilities to be hurt by it, because I'm not interested in their susceptibilities and what hurt them, that's not relevant to their assessment of the game. And it becomes overly annoying when statements like "Characters constantly spout lines that glorify male sexuality while demeaning women", and "billboards and radio stations of the world reinforce this misogyny", and "With nothing in the narrative to underscore how insane and wrong this is, all the game does is reinforce and celebrate sexism." are presented throughout the article, because not only is this unfair because the characters just act the same way to male characters, this paranoia is freaking everywhere, it's uncalled for, and it's bogus. And it derives from Sarkeesian's bullshit (and by the way, these are the people who do not accept different views - otherwise they'd not be complaining).

too much logic.....

In criminal games woman are stereotypically treated differently to what us normal people would expect.... SHOCKER.... the game must be promoting sexism! sigh....

But hey guys, according to Anita... Watch Dogs promotes female slavery because you witness a sex slavery underground show! (Even though you are trying to bring it down) .... totally sexist... yup....

You're both ignoring that her complaint wasn't that the criminals are sexist, but everyone is including the advertisements and radio stations are sexist. "With nothing in the narrative to underscore with nothing to underscore how insane and wrong this is"

Satire doesn't work unless you have juxtaposition. The game attempted to satire but failed, so what it ended up with is just imitation of sexism (which is still just sexism even if the creators themselves aren't sexist)

No I'm not ignoring that, I quoted that exact same statement, and even emphasized certain parts of it.

If anyone wanted to legitimately criticize a piece of media for promoting and celebrating sexism, misogyny and patriarchal values, then one would have to look at the pieces of media that, seemingly, actually do so, such as the Gor novels, for example. Even then, it's in the author's creative and artistic freedom to do what the hell ever he wants with the characters of his stories, because an author expects his readers to have the common sense and decency to distinguish between fantasy and reality, because most people don't fail to make that distinction, and because there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that any of it is capable of affecting the real world (like these people want us to believe).

The women that have been publically screaming that gamers are sexist, nerds must die etc.. are basically just doing this all for money. Simple as that. They make vidoes, post nonsence on twitter and slander people who just want to play games in peace. They get a small group of people who probably don't even play games harassing them and then they scream death to gamers. Meanwhile they make thousands of dollars a month in donations from their supporters.

The harassment is wrong, but most gamers are too busy playing their games to care what a couple females are screaming about. The biggest problem is they want gamers to be open minded but anyone who tries to talk to them and have a civil discussion or a debate is met with harassment in return. They are crying over being harassed but they are doing the same thing to others. Everyone involved in the harassment is wrong. Zoe is trying to make out the issue is over sexism.

Most of the actual gamers that have posted could care less about how women are portrayed in games, they just want to play and enjoy their games. The issue to gamers is weather or not the places we get our info on video games are posting legit articles or if they are purposely trying to sway us to buy their friends games, or games that publishers paid them money to give high scores too. Zoe wants more indie games to come out, yet if the big gaming news sites only post articles about their friends games, then you won't have any media attention for your game if you aren't in that "circle". This doesn't help the gaming industry at all. It'll mean less games, less people being in the industry. Not to mention Zoe is a huge attention seeker which anyone can see from her posts. She flat out attacks "gamers" and "nerds" which is basically her core audience.. yes, lets make games and then abuse everyone of my potential customers because some random people harassed her. As things quiet down she turns around and posts more controversial things so her name is still mentioned.

This whole thing needs to stop and blow over so she can fade back into being non existent like she was before and everyone can play games and read about games without having to read about how some woman allegedly slept with 5 guys.. because who cares. I don't know her, I don't care to ever know her. If she put half the effort into making games as she did trying to get attention she might actually make games that are worth playing,

You're still ignoring what both I and she said. Having a problem with a way characters are portrayed in the media doesn't necessarily mean you think that it will have real life implications. This has nothing to do with not distinguishing reality and fiction. You're just shifting the goal posts.

Why don't you address what people are actually saying rather than trying to twist their words into something that is more easy for you to argue against?

Inequality? In Video games? What? How did this manage to spark any sort of discussion? I just want to play TF2 and watch porn without being called a misogynist.

So if it doesn't effect reality its just media... what is the problem exactly? I can't remember the bit about billboards ect. but it seems like grasping at straws to me.

So for something to be negative it must have an effect on reality? So surely for something to be good it must also have an effect on reality.

Obviously that isn't true. Games aren't criticised because of how they effect the world but just on how they effect themselves. GTA doesn't cause violence, sexism or racism in reality. But in it's own fictional world it is sexist and violent, and it's the fictional world that reviews focus on. If someone made a game that is entirely about killing babies should reviewers ignore how tasteless and how uncomfortable it made them feel, or should they give it an honest review and say that it was a completely unenjoyable experience?

This is also ignoring that GTA5 was given the second possible highest score Gamespot can give a game. Only 7 games in Gamespots 18 years of reviewing games have gotten a 10. So she wasn't even that critical of it, she made it one of the highest rated games of Gamespot history.

Wait, what?

So when a review complains about a games controls they aren't talking about how it negatively effects the game, but complaining because it somehow damages society? It should be common sense that a review of a game is about the game and how enjoyable it is.

Wait, what again?

Stephen King as done as much as to kill children in his books (PET SEMATARY, Jerusalem's Lot), use children as ransom for devilish blackmail (Storm of the Century), use children as cold blooded murderers (Children of the Corn), among others (Boogieman, The Shinning, etc), in many cases (when dead) reviving them as some form of undead. PET SEMATARY being the most impressive/difficult one to read.

Do you think that a reviewer who doesn't understand the genre and/or is sensible to violence against children, even if fictitious, would be a good choice of a reviewer for the job?

Again reply to what I actually said not what you want me to say. I didn't say a game where you can kill children. I said a game ENTIRELY about killing babies. How about one about leading Jews into gas chambers? As long as it's well made should reviews have to give it a good review regardless of what they actually thought of the game?

Why do you want reviewers to be dishonest?

I gave you an analogy to what you were saying. An analogy that you ignored, otherwise you wouldn't have asked the question "Why do you want reviewers to be dishonest?". I wonder what else you ignored from what I've been saying, because the notion I've been trying to convey is actually the exact opposite to that of your question.

NOT
YOUR
SHIELD

@Revan_911:

omg what is that?

I got it I got it!! Make your own fucking games. We the evil blue eyed horndog devils of the world like to make games we want to play. See we are doing the work and taking the risks so we do whatever the F we want. If you want some black people and women in games then make the mother fucking games yourself. Get an all black studio or all female studio and show us devils how it's done. Afraid of failure? Afraid you will make a shit product? pfft

In the future it will be "Game with black protagonist poor sales blamed on whitey. Why didn't you buy our game you evil racists?!"

It's a joke. The #notyourshield tag was created by a black indie dev. Sort of like "SJW stop acting like irrational assholes in the name of equality you are doing this for no one but yourself"

@Revan_911:

Yeah, I'm just curious where the gif came from.

I don't think women, gay people or different races of people are ruining anything.

I think social justice warriors are taking advantage of these people for their own personal gain and stir up drama where there shouldn't be any, find problems in SUPER MARIO, a derogatory term I use for video games and act irrational, aggressive and obnoxeous because they know deep down the things they pretend to stand for are a lie.