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Roderick

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That's odd, I haven't followed what they've done with the character of Bane, but wasn't he originally a political prisoner in a fucked up dictator state in the comics? Strange for him to be espousing a pro-fascist stance. Maybe I'm putting too much thought into it though.

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This is absolutely true but none of it has anything to do with anything that's been going on with any of the accusations this week. Nobody calling for Quinn's head (or making any of the other ridiculous accusations being made) are concerned about the factors you're talking about. That doesn't discount the points you raise, I'm just saying it's not what I was responding to. Nepotism isn't the same thing as general class disparity and racial privilege, it's more specific. The subjects of nepotism are weighted in various directions because of those other things, but so is everything else, because it affects everything. 

I mean technically this whole Quinn thing isn't nepotism at all because nepotism is only family members. But it can be called, by the sociological definition of the word, favoritism.* Regardless of any sex stuff going on, the fact is games dev and journalist peeps are tight. I think it's more obvious in games because it's a small, young industry. I mean no one is really denying that there is an unhealthily close relationship between the two right? Hypothetically you take the whole Quinn thing off the table, and there's still a problem here, you know? The Quinn thing wouldn't even be the worst example of it, but the reason the shit hit the wall is 1) there are bigotted shitheads exist and 2) because the Streisand Effect. If Gjoni had gone through the proper channels, if Kotaku had addressed the issue officially, if people hadn't constantly escalated the rhetoric then things might have not blown so out of proportion. That's the thing, this is misogyny but it's not just misogyny it's also a lot of poor decisions and mob mentality. And if instead of being self righteous about it, people actually tried to foster discussion and openness, then maybe things wouldn't have gotten so toxic. That is asking a lot, but I would like to argue for a rhetoric of peace and non-violence even in the face of fascism and hatred. My point is that the Quinn thing might be an example of a real problem the industry that should be dealt with, and that the way to avoid all this drama shit is to deal with this stuff out in the open, in a mature fashion, that doesn't just give more ammo to the trolls. It may feel good to make snarky comments about fedora tipping virgins but it does nothing to actually move the conversation forward. If that's even possible at this point. 

*and I'd argue that favortism is not more specific than racial or class issues, I'd say it's actually fundamental to all those issues because fundamentally all those inequalities stem from "I like people in my tribe, and I do not like people who are not in my tribe"

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My point is that the Quinn thing might be an example of a real problem the industry that should be dealt with, and that the way to avoid all this drama shit is to deal with this stuff out in the open, in a mature fashion, that doesn't just give more ammo to the trolls. 

 

Sadly, however, to my knowledge none of us has the power to go back in time and suggest to Eron Gjoni that the best way to go about this might not be to write a blog post about his relationship with Zoe Quinn that appears to be longer than his relationship with Zoe Quinn, and then share it with 4chan. As it is, we are where we are.

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Nepotism = family. Cronyism = friends.

 

That said, I still really don't think that either of the terms apply because there isn't really a very hierarchical structure in the games industry and usually a tenet of either of those is that not only are you promoting someone not particularly qualified to a high position, but you also erode competition among subordinates as not to undermine the person granted the privileged position.

 

You're saying a lot and seem to be convinced that everyone judges this to be a problem, but I really don't see much evidence that 1) there is an unusually close relationship between media and creators 2) it has any effect on anything. Ethics and strange hiring practices + "culture" problems don't seem all that related to me.

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That perception definitely has a lot to do with how people consider games media to be ideally objective, rather than the collection of subjective opinions that may help enrich one's own experience that it is. Friendly creator-journalist relationships can't seem to reach far beyond a few people are one or two outlets, in which the opinion is still one of a sea of possibly dissenting ones. If a work isn't inherently interesting, no amount of coverage will change the experience that individual people and outlets have.

 

The two problems I see with publishing dishonest opinions (if even that would occur) are that I guess this case requires each outlet to have equal power and coverage, and there is this social effect of people tending to like things that their friends like, potentially "jumping in the bandwagon" and giving opinions in bad faith. The latter seems to be minimal to nothing when you consider the fact that most reviewers or journalists take their jobs as honest subjectivities pretty seriously.

 

EDIT: sorry this is uber off topic, I wish I had something to share or discuss that's actually about feminism.

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I mean technically this whole Quinn thing isn't nepotism at all because nepotism is only family members. But it can be called, by the sociological definition of the word, favoritism.* Regardless of any sex stuff going on, the fact is games dev and journalist peeps are tight. I think it's more obvious in games because it's a small, young industry. I mean no one is really denying that there is an unhealthily close relationship between the two right? Hypothetically you take the whole Quinn thing off the table, and there's still a problem here, you know? The Quinn thing wouldn't even be the worst example of it, but the reason the shit hit the wall is 1) there are bigotted shitheads exist and 2) because the Streisand Effect. If Gjoni had gone through the proper channels, if Kotaku had addressed the issue officially, if people hadn't constantly escalated the rhetoric then things might have not blown so out of proportion. That's the thing, this is misogyny but it's not just misogyny it's also a lot of poor decisions and mob mentality. And if instead of being self righteous about it, people actually tried to foster discussion and openness, then maybe things wouldn't have gotten so toxic. That is asking a lot, but I would like to argue for a rhetoric of peace and non-violence even in the face of fascism and hatred. My point is that the Quinn thing might be an example of a real problem the industry that should be dealt with, and that the way to avoid all this drama shit is to deal with this stuff out in the open, in a mature fashion, that doesn't just give more ammo to the trolls. It may feel good to make snarky comments about fedora tipping virgins but it does nothing to actually move the conversation forward. If that's even possible at this point. 

*and I'd argue that favortism is not more specific than racial or class issues, I'd say it's actually fundamental to all those issues because fundamentally all those inequalities stem from "I like people in my tribe, and I do not like people who are not in my tribe"

 

Is the problem we're discussing a class issue, or is it that "games dev and journalist peeps are tight"? It feels like you're just shotgunning a whole bunch of issues in every post. Just because things are related doesn't mean they're all equally relevant to the situation at hand. EVERYTHING is related somehow. But it's difficult to have any kind of meaningful conversation about everything at the same time.

 

I don't agree that there's anything particularly harmful going on because of the closeness of developers and journalists, at least not in the context of anything people are making accusations about, such as inflated review scores or whatever--those things have a totally different source in my opinion. If you have an argument to make about this, instead of just saying it's a problem, go for it. (Although that's probably outside the scope of this thread at that point.) Also, Kotaku did address the situation officially. The editor Stephen Totilo made a post about it fairly quickly. Before that point, there was no need for Kotaku to address anything because there was nothing to address. (There still isn't, but people decided to start acting as though there were.)

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It shouldn't surprise me that these guys love their fascism. I watched one of the youtube videos (I know, I know, mistake) about the supposed ethical breach in games journalism and the guy narrating the video ended it with a warning against anyone not on his side, and then he spliced in clip of Bane from the most recent Batman movie to hammer home his threat. So you have an unquestioning support of fascist principles espoused by a "badass" fictional cartoon character. 

 

I'm impressed you made it through one.  I've started a couple of the Sarkeesian ones, and couldn't get past the two minute mark. 

 

Also the Bane thing is hilarious, since the Bane in the movie was just a glorified puppet dancing on the strings of a mastermind evil genius woman.  Can you link the video?  If someone hasn't pointed that out to the guy, they should. 

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I'm impressed you made it through one.  I've started a couple of the Sarkeesian ones, and couldn't get past the two minute mark. 

 

Also the Bane thing is hilarious, since the Bane in the movie was just a glorified puppet dancing on the strings of a mastermind evil genius woman.  Can you link the video?  If someone hasn't pointed that out to the guy, they should.

 

 

Skip to 23:12 if you just want to see this Internet crusade favorably compared to Tom Hardy with a cheese grater on his face.

 

(Edit: Before this current incident, I had never delved so far into this part of the Internet. Watching and reading all of this garbage is doing nothing but making me sad and angry so I need to stop.)

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So, wait... Youtubers are going to break the necks of games journalists while that dude from Torchwood looks on in horror?

 

OK. That makes things a lot clearer.

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But it's difficult to have any kind of meaningful conversation about everything at the same time.

 

Pfft, amateur.

 

I mean no one is really denying that there is an unhealthily close relationship between the two right?

 

Close, no. Unhealthy? Yes. I don't know how you're supposed to convince developers to show journalists their commercial product that's completely broken if developers can't trust journalists to give it a chance.

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I mean no one is really denying that there is an unhealthily close relationship between the two right?

 

I am. I'm going to deny it, until I see actual proof that any of the "too tight peeps!" are actually having a detrimental effect on games journalism I honestly don't see the problem here?

 

EDIT: Oh, and maybe we should have an actual thread about journalistic integrity, or whatnot?

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It feels like you're just shotgunning a whole bunch of issues in every post.

Frankly, it reads to me like someone trying to derail the thread through concern/noise trolling.

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Skip to 23:12 if you just want to see this Internet crusade favorably compared to Tom Hardy with a cheese grater on his face.

 

(Edit: Before this current incident, I had never delved so far into this part of the Internet. Watching and reading all of this garbage is doing nothing but making me sad and angry so I need to stop.)

 

I'll try to watch a bit of it later, not going to ruin a start to my Monday morning workday listening to something super negative.  I am starting to wonder just how many crazy long manifestos Quinn has spawned though.  That video linked another one in its description.  

 

EDIT: Oh, and maybe we should have an actual thread about journalistic integrity, or whatnot?

 

Yeah, I'm not entirely comfortable with having the general ethics conversation in this thread, it ought to have a thread of its own.

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It seems like the only people willing to make threads are the ones who don't give a shit about integrity in games-journalism (whatever that is).

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http://nichegamer.net/2014/08/the-schism-of-gaming-zoe-quinn-nepotism-and-white-knight-journalism/

 

I can't stop myself from reading this stuff. The views expressed in this article and elsewhere are so far afield from what I responsibly feel like I can understand and yet I continue to try. Something I've noticed is that many of these pieces repeat the mantra that gamers made games what they are, not the journalists or writers, who are actually seen as threats to this gaming paradise. The unjustified and unearned entitlement is staggering. Years of tying the gamer identity to consumerism has given these people a sense of ownership over games, which is why they feel threatened by anything that can be seen as weakening that ownership. That's a horrible environment for producing meaningful and honest art. 

 

That page is amazing. The random images, the overblown rhetoric, all the way down to the strategically place N-G on the anime logo. It's basically self-parody.

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(Edit: Argh, sorry, I failed to spot how many pages were after that post, and JonCole's thread. Moved post).

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Imagine how much time this must take. To get the perfect footage from all these games is a full time job. Anita Sarkeesian has a full-time job playing video games and somehow this means she hates video games.

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Christ the God of War bit is horrible

 

One of my favorite speed runners was doing a God of War 3 run, and during that section the otherwise cool chat got really ugly. I don't have the vocabulary to describe the phenomenon. That scene is pure exploitation and these guys were drooling over it, wallowing in their own spittle. I wonder if the people who developed the game knew what they were doing when they made that. It's like they wanted a part of the game to prompt their audience to tell rape jokes and have a good laugh.

 

Imagine how much time this must take. To get the perfect footage from all these games is a full time job. Anita Sarkeesian has a full-time job playing video games and somehow this means she hates video games.

She mentioned on Twitter that she played a game for eight hours only to miss an opportunity, or lost the footage, and had to do it all again. She loves games a lot more than I do!

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