Vainamoinen

I'd love to take a look at them, but it seems I need a proxy even for that. Oh, Steam, you very heart of censorship.

A somewhat blunt parody of the 'outrageous preview', but here it is. http://www.p4rgaming.com/i-went-to-a-fallout-4-press-event-and-ignored-it-because-i-didnt-feel-like-writing-about-it/

Also correct: "Ex-video game journalist". But deys no likey da video game journalists. Also, this: http://realgamernewz.com/46187/why-i-quit-gamergate-by-alexander-hinkley Should be an interesting part of the show. Not sure his "boo-hoo, I wasn't hired because that website hired female gamergate celebrities instead" whinery is cutting it under the scrutinizing eyes of woman worshipper Jordan Owen.

In popularity (i.e. concurrent present players), it's number 154 right now. Yet, again, not much can be inferred from that.

Two week old reflection on The Witcher 3 criticism, one in which A. Chmielarz gets utterly owned (and then he wrote a response, missing the point once more). http://www.girlsongames.ca/2015/05/18/opinion-why-polygons-arthur-gies-the-witcher-3-review-is-not-toxic-to-the-industry-but-crucial/ I do hope that journalists gain more skill in writing about these issues. In general however, I see the critics of the critics mainly arguing that "they're doing it wrong" without explaining an alternative approach. Which leads to the old impression that the whole idea of putting video game narratives in a societal, real life context is frowned upon by gamergate. The same old "there's no problem, so no one needs to write about it" idea.

There are indeed some reviews out there which stress that Hatred was "stomach turning". Personally, I agree most with the RPS review instead...

It's a spectacularly subjective and honest review preview that WILL help the people indifferent to those games find out whether they can still have a halfway enjoyable evening with Rock Band 4 if peer pressure coerces them to try it. I kind of doubt that Colin can write another review piece in the same vein though, so the irritation will probably cease with time.

I don't see Chmielarz as spectacularly vile, he's just a tool like Mark Kern, hoping to get something out of it. Sooner or later I'd like to experience his creation, if only to see if it lives up to his claims of having found the holy grail of storytelling via games. It's quite an egomaniac position from which he slanders critics and questions their knowledge of basic narrative principles... let's just say, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter would have to be an extraordinary game with an extraordinary story, and from what I've seen he fails on count one already. Well, it's the new age of video game sales. Buy a game for less than three bucks and, regardless of Valve's protestations, you don't help the developer in any sensible way. That's what I intend to do with the Astronauts game.

I see all those cries of "censorship" (ha, ha) on GOG, but these people are not just the usual gamergate people. However, what's strong there regardless of gg alignment is the SJW conspiracy narrative ("as in: "Hatred was pulled from Greenlight/GOG because of SJW outrage"). So forces might be joined here, which could have an added effect on sales. Well, I guess Steam Spy will tell us a thing or other about how Hatred fares.

Yes, that certainly has an "all your base are" level of embarrassment to it. However, the developer advertisement plan has worked out with a vengeance. They've quickly been through Greenlight with much of a spectacle, including what must be perceived as a personal endorsement from Gabe Logan Newell, had a few dozen articles about their game written up by all the major sites well in advance of release and generated a 'SJWs won't let us sell our game' counter reaction to boot (which is still going on on GOG.com, as GOG doesn't sell the game). Hatred sales will turn out to be far more than adequate. The game is mediocre at best. That was to be expected – the game vocally strives to not be art. Hence it isn't even creative in its violence. The shooter stuff is pretty standard from the violence perspective, and the non interactive execution cutscenes so repetitive and boring that practically everyone deactivates them immediately. Taking civilians down for renewed energy, that's the legacy of Kain (1996) kind of old, execution cutscenes are white-bread shooter/beat'em'up stuff, and "kill civilians" as a mission requirement is found in such harmless ventures as Roundabout (2014) already. A truly controversial product generates shock by breaking conventions. Hatred has turned out, top to bottom, a conventional game because its developers just didn't have it in them to make anything else, and never even wanted to. Still they reaped ample rewards for making a stupid fuzz and for having their ties to the radical ultra right revealed in detail. A victory for no one, I'm afraid.

Grrr... I probably won't finish Transistor. It was interesting and all, but then GOG released DarkSiders and I got into that one far more seriously. Then came Technobabylon... well, it's strange, but I have more than enough to play in 2015, it seems! For a Steam/Origin/Uplay denier who is quite picky about games, that's quite a novelty.

Hey, I even intend to buy Armikrog. You're right of course. Individual buying decisions can hinge on an assessment of the creator's character. What just rubs me the wrong way is organized boycott. The literal "vote with your wallet, people".

So do many. But I somehow doubt we'll even see a single shot from inside Aurini's apartment. After all, he bought a car from backer money so he could reach all his interview partners...

I'm not a big fan of the 'boycott for opinion' approach. It reeks far too much of gamergate itself. I've stopped following the wacky exploits of Mr. Wardell some time ago. I've read his central interview though... the one where he fantasizes about 95%+ of all 'core' gamers being male... which is not even true for his own strategy games, and these indeed are the genre with least female interest... Looking forward to the Sarkeesian Effect. No, seriously, for several reasons. Paul Elam interviews are always hilarious. Put Roosh in there as well (and they surely have done that, no doubt about it, interviewed by Aurini because Owen hates his guts) and you have gamergate put in exactly the corner they've protested their asses off to not be in. I don't consider gamergate to be primarily misogynist – or rather, implicitly more than overtly – but when two misogynist pricks are making a movie and are inviting their misogynist friends to elaborate on their "views", that's something you can shove in the movement's face for all eternity. We may even see some gaters protesting that these people don't speak for them. Also, any kind of concrete accusation and definition of the "Social Justice Warrior" enemy concept may help to disprove the existence and at the same time dissect the techniques of constant dehumanization applied by no one in a more extremist way than Davis Aurini. (By the way: TotalBiscuit may be a prime gamergate agitator, yet for once, kudos for his Hatred review... focusing on the gameplay and finding it incredibly wanting)

I'm still all for "funny hair and hat person" for both SJW and Social Justice Warrior. Doable? Doug?

I really had an overload of SJW conspiracy nuts today. Could we get the term censored on this forum, like "politi cally c orrect"? (written without the spaces, it gets transformed to "opinionated in a way that is different from me")

Entirely related: An analysis of gamergate's attempts to troll DiGRA in 2015, with a particular focus on the conspiracy idea and the "influence" legend. Interesting is especially how Vidya's main ideas are definitely echoed by gamergate at large, only just devoid of comparisons to Weimar Germany and the "degeneration" of art... http://ungaming.tumblr.com/post/119569355555/observations-on-gamergates-belated-response-to http://torillsin.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/digra-2015-aftermath-hashtag-anger.html Very important words by Torill Mortensen (bold font added by me): This last part echoes what I expressed in my last post, I guess. It's interesting how Mark Kern enters the debate – the guy who started that "heal the rift" poll which actively demanded more journalist corruption and a return to the 1980s, when game magazines were nothing but mere fanzines, mere advocacy for the fledgling game industry. I've described video game journalism's progress like that months ago, yet here Mortensen applies the same kind of hobby advocacy to the early stages of academic research: "fighting for the value of a thrashed and disrespected medium". I also urge everyone to read Mortensen's comment responses in the second linked article.

I didn't see their argument like that. It's strange how gaters reject Owen and Aurini, together with Roosh, as central gamergate ideologues – but still rely on their pamphlets and websites as credible sources, and pick up their thoughts as gamergate morals. Aurini and Roosh have cultivated actual misogyny and racism in the movement – zero backlash. The whole "Sarkeesian Effect" movie is about gamergate's fictional enemy conspiracy which, if that poll I posted a few pages ago is accurate, easily more than 90% of gamergate supporters think of as something factual. What can be done? Not sure. The situation is just too ludicrous. But there is a reason why gamergate is so damn scared of the academic view. As a result of gamergate agitation, we should strive for a new era of Enlightenment, benefitting the art of the video game. And, of course, topics of diversity/inclusion will undoubtedly become more reflected in games, with more game developers becoming accustomed to the basic problem. Education, on the one hand, ends this. And creation, on the other. Which makes Jón here a big help, although he pleads for the nuke.

That site, hein? Remains a thorn, because it's so pretty with that clean responsive design and all those stolen pictures. On the most basic level of criticism, they're declaring most of the mentioned journalists their enemies just for having their email appear on a simple journalist mailing list. If that wasn't an accusation of sorts for them, they'd only have a handful of people left to accuse, hardly a 'database' any more. Just to make it look like a case at all, they had to rest it on a burnt match. A great opportunity for the SPJ to embrace or renounce McCarthyism here! Yet, hey, it wouldn't be the first time I wept for the state of the USA.

Also, we've already seen what the academic voice means to gamergate... zip. It's just one gamergate voice... although you'd find a heap of apologists once you'd ask for opinions on the article in gamergate circles. I tried this once with the infamous reaxxion "John Birch" article. The results were horriffying (right down to "I didn't read the article, but if the SJW gets it, I'm sure I'll agree"). And what can you do? Tell them it's fascism, to their face? Yup, did that as well. Didn't take. The Vidya article is as clear cut as it gets. Of course, I find it telling how easily the guy is drawn to Nazism in an attempt to describe what threatens games and what gamergate should do. There are, of course, other gamergate descriptions that sound more euphemistic. But some eerie elements are often the same: The art form "belongs" to certain self entitled people, the constructed "we", and this art form is under "attack" from outsiders, which justifies violent "defensive" action. By the way, Vidya has corrected Wiemar in the meantime. Well, that settles that. Time to ask ourselves who this Nichetze guy is.

Hey, I'm almost glad someone finally speaks of centuries. It's considerably hard to prove a vastly destructive influence of something that has been around for centuries if the thing that supposedly is attacked still exists. The truth, of course, is that there's no destruction, there's no conspiracy, and the truth is that the motifs of inclusion and diversity that gaters perceive as "political" have served as the spice shelf of fiction writers for millennia.

THAT ARTICLE. There's no way to add hyperbole to those statements. It's the communist Untermensch and his Entartete Kunst, and gamergate intends to kill off existing game culture, finding a Final Solution for the SJW game designers. Like Hitler did in "Wiemar" [sic!!] Germany.

The more I read into this, the more I'm reminded of fascist propaganda trials. What proper journalist would actually subject him/herself to THIS? /edit: A propos ! I've written about FemFreq's new video elsewhere yesterday and was happy to not to mention gamergate at all. However, seeing this attempt at... ah, heck, let's call it interpretation for the sake of hyperbole... Hah! Let's take a look at this. Beyond Good & Evil opposes hate infusing state propaganda, but heralds journalism – in particular, the journalism of a handful of professionals who are just struggling to make a living. These journalists publish anonymously, as they are in perpetual fear of being attacked – by people who are attempting to control citizens by lying about fighting in a war that does not exist, against an enemy they themselves have created. Only the innocent are ever attacked. Particularly interesting here is that the forces who vow to defend this world, who have in fact declared themselves the only protectors without anyone asking them to, are in reality destroying it swiftly under false pretenses. Journalists who would dare to portray the false protectors in a negative light, who dare to question their motives, are ostracised as corrupt, as part of the fictional enemy conspiracy. Jade, the game's hero, is 'reporting' on something way beyond the political sphere. She's into animal photography! Only when the life of her loved ones is threatened, only when it's clear that social justice is an absolute must, does she report on issues of culture and society. Sounds like something you've experienced recently?

The problems with the "committee" only start there. They have a Breitbart journalist, a self proclaimed failed game designer and a high school pupil who suspiciously sounds like an SJW conspiracy truther to me. They're putting five hours of their ranting about "being fair" online (that sounds like an Owen/Aurini thing to listen to. I certainly won't). Anyway, brilliant stuff in the comments regarding the all male thing. Just crazy brilliant. Come to think of it, maybe "sadly the gender worked out that way" should be gamergate's motto.

Been discussing this elsewhere. Hot Toys makes one ridiculously expensive Black Widow action figure after another, and sells like crazy. So here, the problem may not be that "boys don't buy BW action figures". The problem may be that acquiring the likeness rights for Mrs. Johannsen are significantly more expensive than those of Mr. Evans – we won't have to discuss who's in better business. Just a theory though.