Why you're wrong about GamerGate.

As I thought: can't even stand by your own convictions. Just another reason Gamergate is a joke. They talk big until they're forced to actually make sacrifices or stand up for their beliefs. Then it's just excuses excuses.

what the hell are you talking about. What people do privately is their own freaking business. Gamespot has not come out and gone with or against GG. What the **** are you talking about?

Yes it is, when you are head of an organization and you tell people how to behave and what to say, it is.OMG! How many times do i have to tell you this. GG is not a bunch of womenhaters. I've told you before, go to Twitter and look at the tweets. You won't find anything hateful there. GG does not shelter misogynists... How capitialism works is that Gawker is losing all of their advertisers.

They aren't driven out of their homes, because they won't let the threats stop them. They don't go on kickstarter or on tv to bitch about it. That's the difference.

GG doesn't tell anyone anything. It trusts that all of its members draw their own conclusions. That's why it has gotten so big. The media has been slow, but they are coming around finally having discussions on the subject instead of trying to make the GG look like crap before we have even presented our case.

Because you claim that GG is consisting of womenhaters...

A boycott isn't very effective when you're willing to make loopholes on the fly to avoid inconveniencing yourself. You'll boycott Giant Bomb for mentioning Gamergate by name in their statement, but not GameSpot because, even though they share the same views on the movement, they didn't explicitly invoke Gamergate's name. (For the record, GameSpot's statement was anti-Gamergate; I have it on very good authority that was it's intent.) That's pretty hypocritical, if you ask me. Doesn't exactly help your message if you can't even stay true to you're movements.

And this talk about private business? Laughable. Gamergate was founded on the exposure of Zoe Quinn's private life. (It all started because Adam Baldwin coined the hashtag in response to a video about her.) You've already gone on and on about how awful a person she is because those details became public, yet here you are saying people's private lives are their business, not yours, because it conveniently serves your needs. You're grasping at straws to justify your own hypocrisy because you don't want to own up to it; because you don't have the conviction to stand behind this movement you apparently believe in so much. You'll harp on and on about how noble it's intentions are, but crumble the second you need to actually stand up for it in any meaningful capacity.

If any of you were truly serious about any of this, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now because you'd be too busy fighting alongside the rest of your kind instead sitting around here making a bunch of empty statements about the "good" of Gamergate. But that would require action, so of course you don't. Like every other joke movement out there, it's all valor and glory until it's time to take a stand; then it's all excuses to justify standing on the sidelines doing nothing while still claiming to be on their side.

Because GiantBomb mentioned it on their site. The statement was anti harassment.

No, it was the discovery that journalists slept with her. Nathan Grayson even wrote about her game on Kotaku. I don't care who she slept with, i care that it was journalists covering someone they had private relationship with. Patricia Hernandez did the same thing. So did Ben Kuchera at Polygon. Gawker has had no problem going against gamers and bullying them. Neither has Kotaku. Totillo, the editor in chief, has yet to disclose the whole situation and avoided it completely. What the hell are you talking about? I am not going to support these sites and just put up adblock and not visit them at all. You have yet to make a counter argument, you just claim i am hypocritical without any claim... You haven't managed to refute my arguments either. You can try to bash me personnally all you want, something i have not done towards you. Because you clearly support the harassment Milo and others have recieved in the movement.

What the hell are you talking about? I am not waving some sort of banner 24/7. I want to you to see what you are going against, and you have no problems calling a movement something and not adress the concerns. You have not adressed anything in actually. You just like to say that i am a hypocrite and that i am supporting a movement that's against women. Based on what exactly? There' s a reason it's lasted two months and will continue to last. It is a consumer revolt. People are sick of that crap. You can call the movement all you want, but your pathetic attempt to discredit the movement will not work on me

I may not understand every aspect of GamerGate at this point but this is what it seems like to me. A female game maker got caught sleeping with journalist that covered her game. It made everyone involved look bad so they attacked those who questioned their integrity. Lines were then drawn in the sand and here we are now.

I don't understand why some people see this as invading her privacy. Doing what she did set Women in gaming journalism and game development back 10 years. Women have been fighting to be seen as something other than sexual objects. Then a women in the industry uses herself as a sexual object to further her career. This makes her a victim how?

And who is standing up for men who are sexualized and stereotyped in games? Where is the outrage over JRPG's always featuring characters that look like Americans? Where are all the African American or hispanic protagonist. Gears of War characters and FF XIII characters like Sazh sure do seem racist.

There sure are a ton of hypocrites in gaming.

An article that was written way before she and Grayson were together. But facts like that don't fit your tidy little narrative, so of course you'd overlook that.

I don't need to discredit the movement; you're doing a good job of that yourself. It never had any credibility to begin with. Hard to take it seriously when it's nothing more than another faceless Internet mob shouting into the void, living your own little fantasy world where you're right and everyone else is wrong no matter how much the facts fly in the face of your ideals.

But I'm clearly talking to a brick wall at this point, so why even bother. There's no evidence I could provide -- of which there is ton of -- that you wouldn't counter with "that's not what Gamergate's about" or some other derivative thereof. There's no discussion to be had here so long as that's the immediate response to anything that isn't abject agreement.

Or it's a sign that those in charge of reddit and 4chan have strong affiliations to the gaming journalists and websites being exposed by gamergate.

Yes, because a bunch of struggling writers are oh so powerful. So much so that they can bring even the most powerful and popular Websites to their knees with but a single word.

Dogg I've been to the hashtag. I've seen plenty of people concerned about gaming journalism and I've seen plenty of people tweeting misogynist bullshit. That's the problem, there's no way to preserve the former and excise the latter. If you truly believe that there are no MRA-type misogynists adopting the hashtag, then I'm not sure what to tell you because you've clearly descended into a kind of religious zealotry and are shutting out reality.

Gaters aren't driven out of their homes because people aren't publicly identifying their places of residence and sending them threats of rape and death, or phoning in bomb threats to venues where they have speaking engagements. You are assuming a parity here that doesn't exist. One is clearly worse than the other and gaters will get no sympathy from anyone who isn't already a supporter until they actually do something about the vocal misogynist element other than say 'well I'M certainly not a misogynist, I just care about ethics.' That is insufficient.

M00t's close friend, Mallory Blair, is one of the leading PR reps for Gawker media. Do you honestly not see how a PR rep from Gawker media might have some influence when it comes to what her close friend chooses to censor on 4chan?

edit: not girlfriend - close friend

The fact that there aren't more female developers isn't necessarily always because of sexism or discrimination. I'm sure there are cases of that happening, but it's just as likely that women simply aren't as interested in pursuing careers in gaming as men are.

Look at a career like sonography. There aren't hardly any men in this field. I have heard reports of sexist hiring in this field as well, but it is just as likely that men simply don't pursue that career.

As for gamergate being linked to misogony this isn't as much a problem with the hashtag as it is a problem with the anonymous nature of twitter and the internet in general. If you want to shut down a hashtag because of anonymous harassers you might as well shut down twitter itself because any controversial hashtag can be 'corrupted' in the same manner. Do you honestly think if a new hashtag was created about gaming journalism that the same crap wouldn't happen again?

Movements aren't defined by the extremists who piggyback onto their cause. Having said that, there is no reason to think these threats are endorsed by gamergate. Anita has been receiving harassment ever since her kickstarter campaign began.

And if you think the media isn't spinning a one-sided narrative against gamergate, then why don't we hear about all the threats and harassment spewed by anti-GG?

Here is a full hour of anti-GG threats and harassment.

Should I now assume that the anti-GG 'movement' is based and founded on the hatred of all gamers? Should I threaten the future career of anyone who identifies with the anti-GG movement?

Isn't it obvious that if the gaming media feels like its dirty laundry is being aired it will use its own tools, as the producers of that very media, to spin itself in a good light and demonize any group that speaks out against it?

They still had intimate relationship and did not disclose it to Totillo. So no, i have no overlooked that.

I did not say everyone in the movement was right, people want different things from this movement. Some want better reviews. Some want more transparancy. Some want less corruption. So what the hell, lol...

How come that someone like the Factual Feminist has pretty much debunked everything you would claim in a 5 minute video? You have none, just admit it. There are people from the GG movement weeding out assholes who claim to be part of the movement.

How about the firing of Jeff Gerstman? How about the firing of the journalist that uncovered corruption from Eurogamer? DoritoGate? These thing pile up mate. People have had enough. The sites no longer speak for the people, but for the industry

Assuming fair hiring practices (an enormous and incorrect assumption, but necessary here), you'd still have to confront the question of WHY women don't seek jobs in the industry. They comprise half the consumer base but less than ten percent of the professional side. This cannot be explained by random variance. The interest in consuming video games is clearly there, so why not in creating them? It would seem that the culture is somewhat unaccepting of them, to say the least, and that's a problem that should be addressed, not skirted around.

Movements can very well be defined by extremists who piggyback onto the cause if they aren't dealt with. It's happening right now. Outside dedicated gaming circles, what is the image of gamergate? Most lay people have only been exposed to the element that are harassing and doxxing women who speak out against misogyny in gaming culture. They'll never hear or care about ethics in gaming journalism. Right now, it looks like gamergate's legacy won't be exposing media corruption. It will be Wu and Quinn being driven out of their homes. It'll be Felicia Day getting doxxed instantly for a simple blog post about being afraid. That is real and immediate damage to innocent people and it will always be given more weight by mainstream media than empty online tirades against anonymous gamergate supporters, because those people are safe at the end of the day.

It's a strange and warped worldview that sees media attention to rape and death threats as an act of corrupt and dishonest self-preservation rather than, you know, scrutiny of a salient and entrenched problem within the industry.

So much this. Careers A, B, C, and D won't always have an even gender split.

In 2011, men represented 8.1% of licensed nurses. http://www.census.gov/people/io/files/Men_in_Nursing_Occupations.pdf

In 2011, females represented 87% of primary teachers http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/primary-education-teachers-percent-female-wb-data.html

It's always for the best to remove discrimination and barriers of entry in any career, but to expect things to even out are absurd.

There are assholes that do send these threats, i've never said that wasn't true. GG is doing the best to report these guys, because they are not what the movement is about. But you are literally saying that most of the GG movement is saying this crap. That is not true. There is data that proves that 90% of tweets are not hateful.

Yes they are. I've mentioned Milo, who you can find @Nero on twitter who recieved a needle in the mail. Mike aka playdangerously got a knife in his mail. I could go on. But you don't seem to believe me. Brianna Wu bailed on the interview with Milo, which cost him and the company money. No, one is not clearly worse than the other. If they are anything. They are just as bad if you are going to by that.

Ya know, it's very telling how people try to portray the gamer population as half female when it suits their purposes, but then suddenly label gamers as an exclusive boys club when the conversation switches to feminism.

The stats showing that half of gamers are girls invariably include casual phone games, and their ilk, whereas the hardcore enthusiast side is still predominantly male. Tapping into a mass market of hardcore girl gamers has been the holy grail of publishers for DECADES. And why wouldn't it? There is a lot of money to be found there if you can find a way to develop products that they want. The problem has always been girls just aren't as interested in being hard core gamers.

We're a sexually dimorphic species - if women simply aren't attracted to certain careers who are you to say they should just to fulfill some quota you have in mind? You can't force women to be more interested in certain careers. Why would you even want to?

The lack of female representation extends to the whole tech industry. If there is evidence for sexist hiring practices then it needs to be proven, and then rooted out, on a case by case basis - because it is illegal. If I had a game company I would want the best people for each job that can help make the most profitable product, regardless of gender.

I recently saw a panel with the creators of the Oculus Rift, and one of the audience members posed the same question. They basically asked why don't you have more women working for you? Their answer was that they don't discriminate and are actually having trouble finding people to fill many important positions that they really need filled.

As I understand it, women are now getting just as many, if not more, degrees than men. If you want evidence for sexism in the gaming/tech industry perhaps you should first look at how many women are actually pursuing gaming/tech degrees vs. men pursuing the same and then compare that ratio against the industry, because nobody is stopping people from picking certain degrees.

I mean, it's really easy for you to say that without backing it up in any way so that you can make gamergate look concerted and blameless, but that simply isn't the case. I'm not saying that most of the gamergate tweeters are tweeting misogynist shit, I'm saying that there's a vocal minority who is poisoning the well and the well-intentioned members simply aren't taking the necessary steps to shut them out.

Also Wu is under no obligation to do an interview with anyone. The profits of someone else's enterprise don't concern her. Why does that matter?

It's telling when you point out that half of the people who buy games are women but that 90% of the people who make games are dudes, which inevitably leads to the bulk of game output being disproportionately male-oriented?

I mean, you can SAY that developers have been desperately trying to find the game that would tap into the dormant female-hardcore market, but that doesn't really hold water when you look at releases. How many games out there even offer well-rounded, compelling playable female characters? How many of them even offer female characters that exist for anything other than to be the object of a dude's romantic interest? How many games pass the Bechdel test? Precious few. Most games cater to straight white dudes, and that is because the people making them are overwhelmingly straight and white and male.

Sexual dimorphism has nothing to do with this conversation unless you really think that your interest in video games comes from your penis and the reason a girl might not care about video games is because she doesn't have one.

You do know you are blaming a movement without any leader. You are blaming people who have had nothing to do with threats. Where facts prove that most GG don't harass and call out those who blend themselves in it and try to keep it clean. Even if they don't have to. I do agree with you that that crap has no place in the movement

Because she knew fully well what would happen if she just bailed. Now she's calling him a liar. Why would he lie about lost income?

Yeah I am. If well-intentioned gaters REALLY gave a shit about the misogyny filtering in, they would create a centralized gathering place where they could curate content and ban the misogynysts. But they don't really care, they're fine with some perfunctory hand-wringing and then whining about hey they're the real victims here. And that's why the whole thing will never achieve any of its goals.

Exactly, why would you want to stop the entire discussion? If a site wants to moderate the issue or ban people because of crap. That's fine. But this is censorship

And where do you get that data from?

GamerGate in a nutshell.

@the_kiwi_gamer: you know that's just one game that no one no longer plays, meaning you are talking about yourself

I watched the Colbert Report last night where he and Anita Sarkeesian ripped into gamergate. It was hilariously awesome.

@the_kiwi_gamer said:

GamerGate in a nutshell.

I don't get the joke. Did this guy trying to buy a Gem Finder affiliate himself with GamerGate?

I've got one too, though this one supports my original message that "ethics in games journalism" actually means "ethics being pushed by games journalism".

@Archangel3371: I didn't think it was hilariously awesome. When Stephen asked her what about claims that GamerGate is about corruption in games media, she answered that it's a fake front for spreading misogyny. She didn't even entertain the possibility that there could even be one gamer that believed what we preached. This was extremely insulting. At least Extra Credits, The Idea Channel, and other channels critical of GamerGate admit that the core message was hijacked.

Here's one

Here's another

Well to each their own.

I do not think that is a good reflection as many make it out to be. Who they define as video gamers is to broad and does not reflect those who would enter into gaming career. In other words I think those number of poor for what you are trying to do with them.

Here This video show a female counter those number and give some other number that I think make more sense.

Too broad? Which games would you cut out of the consideration, then, and on what basis?

@wiouds: don't continue this thread of debate any further, wiouds. There's no place you can steer this that doesn't make you say something sexist in the end. You're getting checked into a foreseeable checkmate situation. Edit: I mean the thread of hardcore "real" gamers versus casual "not a real gamer" direction./Edit

Crap. I accidentally deleted my post when trying to edit that part in, and I only rescued the above from my clipboard. I'll have to re write it all.

@Abbeten: The discrepancy between the ratio of minority developers (not just women) to minority gamers is a real thing. But considering the developers of today are the child gamers of a decade or two ago, this discrepancy is understandable.

The market forces pushing toward more inclusiveness for long term gain (attracting a hardcore female demographic toward triple-A titles) is counter to the market forces seeking short term gain by selling to the current demographic. You've read the articles about how developers had to fight their marketing team in order to get females on the box art.

Developers today are comprised majorly of white males, and yes they oftentimes oblivious to the needs of minorities, but as a whole they are not sexist or racist or otherwise intolerant. The small number if women un the games industry isn't for lack of want. It's more a supply issue than a demand issue.

I know the following is only anecdotal evidence, but during my years in The California Art Institute I started in animation instead of game design as my major because my GPA was too low. When I switched to game art & design, the classes had a noticeable drop in females. Steep, actually.

I just find you can not use a "kitchen sink" for gamers for the number of those that want to enter into gaming.

Well board game base program can be taken out a place more with board games.

The ISO and Social games market and design are different enough that they should be given their own place.

I like how you you seem to think there is not bias in the report you link.

I don't want to be a douchebag, i just want to correct you on that she slept with 5 journalists. Nathan Grayson covered her game in an article aswell. But otherwise you are right there

Nobody is standing up for men because nobody gives a crap.

The thing is that these women Zoe, Anita and Brianna all got threatened and they made it seem that it was GG who did it. That's why we are here right now. Anita has even been on the Colbert Report aswell, spewing out hate. It takes the whole focus away from the issues GG is trying to change

Except that's not what happened. Nathan Grayson wrote one article about an indie game show that Zoe happened to be featured in prior to them having a relationship and he didn't write anything about her game after their relationship started.

http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346

And here's the article. It doesn't even really talk about the game at all: http://tmi.kotaku.com/the-indie-game-reality-tv-show-that-went-to-hell-1555599284

Here's another article Grayson wrote prior to the other article that mentions Depression Quest in a list of games that Steam recently Greenlit.

This whole thing is just ridiculous.

-Byshop

@c_rakestraw: Quinn behaves unethically by sleeping with people who are reviewing her games and you say that it's her private business? As a game reviewer, you think that's acceptable behavior?

If she had actually done that, it would be very shitty, yes.

-Byshop

GamerGate is as much about Zoe Quinn as WWI was about Franz Ferdinand.

Nice analogy. It's not about her, she was just the catalyst to form GamerGate

If she were really trading sexual favors for favorable reviews (reviews which don't exist), no -- that wouldn't be acceptable. Her being generally involved with a journalist, though? I don't see the problem. You date who you know. Long as neither party is trying to use the other for professional gains, who cares? People's sex lives aren't any of my business.

Gah this thread only reinforces how pathetic GamerGate is.

White privelige mixed with misogyny = GamerGate. Bunch of babies.

While you're whining about a girl talking I'll be busy conquering GDI

Seriously. More time is spent whining about journalists by Gamers than playing games.

Yeah, this is the part that just cracks me up. The idea that she slept with someone for a favorable review (a review which no-one can produce) has been thoroughly debunked yet gamergate supporters keep throwing it around like it's a fact. But hey, when you're crusading for the cause of "journalistic ehtics" why let something trivial like "facts" get in the way? How can one not see the irony there?

-Byshop

I'm not white. In fact, a lot of GG supporters are minorities and women. But let's not argue ad hominem. Perhaps you weren't talking about me or my original post, but I'm not whining about a girl; I'm complaining about the structure that supports anything "progressive" even when it's bad, and suppresses anything that's "offensive" even when it's good. Both from the media and from a social army.

I'm not misogynistic and I carry no white privilege, but I support GamerGate. There are people on both sides of the GG issue and they all equally spend time "away" from games in this argument, but we all have lives and we all play games. I'm asking that you not pigeonhole us into your perceived notions of what a GamerGater is.

lol what? So please show me evidence of this misogyni that is directly linked to GamerGate. Pretty please

Because we are fighting for the industry itself. It's about our passion, why the **** is that so hard to understand..?

Well even if there are no reviews, there are repeated promos and advos from receivers of sexual favors for multiple partners from her, who was in a relationship at the time. Plus an attempted cover up of the situation. That's still pretty unethical imo.

And then there's people like Sarkeesian who gets paid to stir the pot and benefit from propaganda. She seriously tried to say that Mario was trying to own or possess Peach when he's clearly trying to rescue a kidnapped friend. I mean who takes her seriously?

How can anyone align themselves with these kinds of people? You don't have to be for GG but damn, the other side is filled with extreme liberalism with a clear agenda. Both sides are full of hot air.

Because she was explaining the trope, not the particular in-game motivations for the characters of that universe. I don't see what the problem is.

Explaining? She was perverting the truth with outright lies. Defending people like her is laughable. Siding with the fem movement in games is akin to agreeing with Limbaugh's politics on the extreme other side of the spectrum. Only people in the center of politics have any sense or grounding in reality.