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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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It's not possible to stop people from harassing public figures is it? I just watched a video about IGF corruption because it was linked on a Twitter comment. These people have a hit-list. When one rumor no longer directs a hateful mob at their targets, they just make something else up. Eventually the stuff that is more complex and which borrows events from vague histories lasts longer because no one wants to take the time to disprove that mess. It's interesting to see how conspiracies are actually these genetic-algorithms whose fitness-requirements are based on how much Twitter-harassment they produce.

The only way I can see to shut them up is to just stop going on Twitter.

Now that I've watched this monster grow up in front of me, I can't help but see the Youtube subscribed-numbers and the Twitter follower-count as human bot-nets that are being rented out to put undesirable attention on anyone that doesn't meet their demands. It's rather creepy. Has anyone seen a news story where this extortion-method was used for explicit monetary milking? You know, "Give me 50,000 bit-coins or two of the biggest Youtubers and a Hollywood actor are going to spread some nasty rumors about your time as a boy-band member!"

Doesn't Twitter have some sort of private-account type that requires approvals for followers?

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So I actually logged into my Twitter account for the first time in forever, and realized my handle probably makes me look like one of the gaters: @thetheorist.  At the time, it was a pun on my Shoestring Theory blog, which was about doing shit on a shoestring budget (like starting a business or remodeling a house), though it never really panned out due to the intermittent attention I paid to it. 

 

I feel like there's probably some fun I could have with that handle, but not sure it's worth the time. 

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Anyone filing a police report over harassment is accused of not actually filing a police report (because of course "they faked it"). Most seem to think filing an FOIA request for documentation of an ongoing police investigation is fair play and won't be flagged in any way (This assumption in particular makes me think of them as flawed systems thinkers. It reminds me of how broken and biased toward the player game systems tend to be. The guards will forget you. You can always succeed. Means definitely justify the ends, etc.).

That's a really interesting connection there. I don't have anything to add other than to say that I really dig the observations in this post.

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The only way I can see to shut them up is to just stop going on Twitter.

 

The hardcore gaters will never be swayed, but they'll look more and more unhinged as time passes and the wider audience they've gathered will ablate.

 

You can lock your twitter account, meaning only people already following you can see your posts, and any new followers have to request permission to follow. Quite a few people I know did over these past few weeks.

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Doesn't Twitter have some sort of private-account type that requires approvals for followers?

Twitter does have a privacy level where your tweets are only readable by those you've given permission.

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Yeah, once I realised that you're talking about 'corruption' here and about labour in games in the Video Games forum, it became clearer that your position is strongly anti-capitalist and we weren't picking up on the difference in assumptions.

 

The art vs commerce question is incredibly difficult in games, because it's always been a hobbyist medium with a capitalist streak. It's simultaneously radically participatory and aggressively commercial in ways that confound both art critics and shareholders. The biggest game in the world was made by a guy doing a hobby project and he's a multi-millionaire. CCP games made an MMO that was what they always wanted to see, and it's one of Iceland's biggest companies. CEOs of gaming companies take turns proclaiming that they're going to focus on making "great games" at the expense of profitability. Major players are routinely outclassed, and even humiliated, by hobbyists who build on their work, and this is normal and expected. Entrenched powers get blown away every five years. The games industry is fucking weird in that capital only ensures you'll break even, but market leadership can't be bought at any price - no matter how many ads you buy, it won't stop a Minecraft.

 

I also note that games journalists obsessed for years over when a game with a strong artistic statement would gain mainstream recognition, but what ended up doing it was the industry making fuckloads of money. 

I'm not exactly anti-capitalist. I just think that that power ought to be distributed as evenly as possible because it has a tendency to corrupt people (which is a pretty mainstream position I think, though in effect many people are not cool with having their privilege called into question). 

Also Minecraft is a HUUUUUUUUUUUGE outlier. The games industry IS NOT an industry in which humble hobbysists blow up the Big Guys every five years. That's an empirical fact. 

Here's a video by Game Theorists on the subject of the myth of "innovation" in the video game industry (excuse the cringey presentation. They really need to do a little more study on fonts. Also this video was posted months ago, and is not gamergate related at all. In fact it is anti gamer in it's position) 

Minecraft is a rare outlier. And this isn't something that invades other industry as much. Oh sure, there's still big tentpole movies like Guardians of the Galaxy but indie films still do much better on average than indie games. Well, sorta. I mean if you look at Sundance films that get distribution they often lose money (but only for the investors not the filmmakers), but in games it's ONLY the Big Guys that make any real substantial money. Point is, the whole "innovative small games disrupt the market" is much less true than we'd often like.

 

It's not possible to stop people from harassing public figures is it? I just watched a video about IGF corruption because it was linked on a Twitter comment. These people have a hit-list. When one rumor no longer directs a hateful mob at their targets, they just make something else up. Eventually the stuff that is more complex and which borrows events from vague histories lasts longer because no one wants to take the time to disprove that mess. It's interesting to see how conspiracies are actually these genetic-algorithms whose fitness-requirements are based on how much Twitter-harassment they produce.

The only way I can see to shut them up is to just stop going on Twitter.

Now that I've watched this monster grow up in front of me, I can't help but see the Youtube subscribed-numbers and the Twitter follower-count as human bot-nets that are being rented out to put undesirable attention on anyone that doesn't meet their demands. It's rather creepy. Has anyone seen a news story where this extortion-method was used for explicit monetary milking? You know, "Give me 50,000 bit-coins or two of the biggest Youtubers and a Hollywood actor are going to spread some nasty rumors about your time as a boy-band member!"

Doesn't Twitter have some sort of private-account type that requires approvals for followers?

Okay so that video is crazy. I like Brandon Boyer a lot. I go every month to his Juegos Rancheros meet up here in Austin. I wrote a glowing article about it in Loser City. But the IGF is also kind of fucked up, and people have known that for years. 

The whole racketeering accusation in that video, hard to really substantiate unless you dig up the doxxed files from Polytron's website, so I'm going to wait until we see some actual legal action before I form an opinion on that. But people like Auntie Pixel, Anthony Burch, and Edmund McMillen have been complaining about issues with the IGF, for years, far before this gamergate bullshit got started. 

Two years ago a dev who entered IGF wrote this blog post talking about his horrible experience with the festival. http://therottingcartridge.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/whats-wrong-with-the-igf/

Basically he entered his game (which costs 95 dollars) and of the 8 judges, 

1 played it for a little under an hour, 

3 played it for less than 5 minutes

3 installed it, but didn't play it

and 1 didn't even bother installing the game. 

Now look there's plenty of bullshit that goes on in the award shows for movies too. I've been involved in the film fest scene and there's a fair share of cronyism going on*, but at least every single film festival I've ever entered guaranteed that it would watch my film (also they were waaaay cheaper than IGF. Even late submissions for SXSW are 1/3rd less than IGFs on time fee). Half of the judges who were assigned to judge that guy's game didn't even play the game! And yeah they're volunteers, yeah a game should probably grab you quick, blah blah blah blah. The judges didn't even give it a chance, and while this is going on many of the judges flock to play games with bigger name recognition, these games often being ones created by people who are friends with Boyer. (and many of these games are my favorite games, and I love 'em but still it's fucked up for the little guy)

*the Oscars is a complete joke. The only people who vote are the anonymous members of the Academy, which is like 98% white males. They gave Driving Miss Daisy the Oscar over Do the Right Thing. Fuck man, how did that happen? 

And JonCole, you were asking me about specific instances of cronyism in the industry. What's your thoughts on this stuff? I mean IGF isn't press exactly but this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. (like I said, I fucking love Boyer's crowd and what he does, but I also feel kind of gross whenever I see great local devs getting shot down for people who are from out of town and already have great publishing deals in hand)

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Okay so that video is crazy. I like Brandon Boyer a lot. I go every month to his Juegos Rancheros meet up here in Austin. I wrote a glowing article about it in Loser City. But the IGF is also kind of fucked up, and people have known that for years. 

The whole racketeering accusation in that video, hard to really substantiate unless you dig up the doxxed files from Polytron's website, so I'm going to wait until we see some actual legal action before I form an opinion on that. But people like Auntie Pixel, Anthony Burch, and Edmund McMillen have been complaining about issues with the IGF, for years, far before this gamergate bullshit got started. 

Two years ago a dev who entered IGF wrote this blog post talking about his horrible experience with the festival. http://therottingcartridge.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/whats-wrong-with-the-igf/

Basically he entered his game (which costs 95 dollars) and of the 8 judges, 

1 played it for a little under an hour, 

3 played it for less than 5 minutes

3 installed it, but didn't play it

and 1 didn't even bother installing the game. 

Now look there's plenty of bullshit that goes on in the award shows for movies too. I've been involved in the film fest scene and there's a fair share of cronyism going on*, but at least every single film festival I've ever entered guaranteed that it would watch my film (also they were waaaay cheaper than IGF. Even late submissions for SXSW are 1/3rd less than IGFs on time fee). Half of the judges who were assigned to judge that guy's game didn't even play the game! And yeah they're volunteers, yeah a game should probably grab you quick, blah blah blah blah. The judges didn't even give it a chance, and while this is going on many of the judges flock to play games with bigger name recognition, these games often being ones created by people who are friends with Boyer. (and many of these games are my favorite games, and I love 'em but still it's fucked up for the little guy)

*the Oscars is a complete joke. The only people who vote are the anonymous members of the Academy, which is like 98% white males. They gave Driving Miss Daisy the Oscar over Do the Right Thing. Fuck man, how did that happen? (and people wonder why there are so few female film directors in Hollywood)

 

 

That's fine and all, but the video is a hit-piece. Any discussion that implies suspicious methods or motivations of the IGF at this time are happening because of a hit-piece. The video is intended to punish people who are calling out the harrassment campaign against Quinn. This group is just trying to bring as much negative attention as they possibly can to people who are opposed to their attempts to punish Quinn. That's why I find it strange that people are discussing these issues right now. You have a semi-organized group of abusive pricks trying to create any controvesy they can about people who oppose them and then games-writers write think-pieces about the issue as if these trolls read. They don't fucking care. As soon as it becomes common knowledge that the accusations are bullshit, the hit-squad is just going to find out where Phil Fish lived in 2001 and interview the landlord to find out that he didn't get his deposit back. Then all the video game blogs will write pieces on whether or not it is ethical for game-developers to use their deposit for the last month of rent. They are  just moving the public attention around to show people that opposing them will be more effort than it is worth.

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Indiefund has a hard cap on the ROI it receives from investments, the IGF definitely doesn't force judges to only play their assigned games, a possible 8 person bias doesn't immediately turn the tide of judging, the judging process is decently decentralized and the organization encourages judges with links to the games they judge to shy away.

Not a lawyer, but I'm not sure if any of those things constitute racketeering, and if it does, the combination of all of that stuff seems to point to it all being a consequence of the industry being really small (and pretty imbalanced), plus the honest effort of people trying to promote a game that they think deserves it.

It's not symptomatic of corruption but it touches on something that's been said to death about the indie scene as an industry player: it's super small, super nascent, is individual focused and thus has a tendency to popularize solitary voices, yadda yadda yadda. I recognize these as actual problems but they're not worth the directed, hateful ire at the fortunate or assuming that there's a conspiracy behind everything. It's probably much better to focus on alternative voices and underground scenes and foster a culture of inclusiveness through diversity of taste and opinion in media.

The power structure that exists exists as a natural consequence of weird tribal tendencies and curation, rather than through authoritarian enforcement. The indie scene has always fostered a very inclusive, diy culture. I like to imagine gamergate people as Captain Ahab projecting intent onto the great white whale; it exists and its a potential problem but Jesus christ it's not out to get you.

Anyway does anyone have any links to constructive discussion about how the IGF is structured and how it could be improved?

EDIT: This last week weirded me out because I felt really compelled to make certain arguments in bad faith. I don't think I would've said that capitalism is a truly equalizing force if I wasn't so pissed about the whole situation to begin with. The conversation was started in bad faith so everything after it feels kind of illegitimate.

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That's fine and all, but the video is a hit-piece. Any discussion that implies suspicious methods or motivations of the IGF at this time are happening because of a hit-piece. The video is intended to punish people who are calling out the harrassment campaign against Quinn. This group is just trying to bring as much negative attention as they possibly can to people who are opposed to their attempts to punish Quinn. That's why I find it strange that people are discussing these issues right now. You have a semi-organized group of abusive pricks trying to create any controvesy they can about people who oppose them and then games-writers write think-pieces about the issue as if these trolls read. They don't fucking care. As soon as it becomes common knowledge that the accusations are bullshit, the hit-squad is just going to find out where Phil Fish lived in 2001 and interview the landlord to find out that he didn't get his deposit back. Then all the video game blogs will write pieces on whether or not it is ethical for game-developers to use their deposit for the last month of rent. They are  just moving the public attention around to show people that opposing them will be more effort than it is worth.

1. Their motives aren't important. I don't care what their motives are.* I only care if what they're saying is true. 

2. I don't even believe that video in the first place. If there were actually something to it, then I'll believe it when I see it in court, and not until then. Everything I brought up was the stuff not in that video. It was stuff that has been brought up in the indie community for years and years. People said in this thread "there's no issues with the indie scene, it's all cool. People are just jerks with bad motives", but that's clearly not true. The indie scene needs a good dose of self reflection. 

I mean this stuff happens in film etc, too, but I guess I kind of hoped people would do better than this. 

 

 

Indiefund has a hard cap on the ROI it receives from investments, the IGF definitely doesn't force judges to only play their assigned games, a possible 8 person bias doesn't immediately turn the tide of judging, the judging process is decently decentralized and the organization encourages judges with links to the games they judge to shy away.

Not a lawyer, but I'm not sure if any of those things constitute racketeering, and if it does, the combination of all of that stuff seems to point to it all being a consequence of the industry being really small (and pretty imbalanced), plus the honest effort of people trying to promote a game that they think deserves it.

It's not symptomatic of corruption but it touches on something that's been said to death about the indie scene as an industry player: it's super small, super nascent, is individual focused and thus has a tendency to popularize solitary voices, yadda yadda yadda. I recognize these as actual problems but they're not worth the directed, hateful ire at the fortunate or assuming that there's a conspiracy behind everything. It's probably much better to focus on alternative voices and underground scenes and foster a culture of inclusiveness through diversity of taste and opinion in media.

The power structure that exists exists as a natural consequence of weird tribal tendencies and curation, rather than through authoritarian enforcement. The indie scene has always fostered a very inclusive, diy culture. I like to imagine gamergate people as Captain Ahab projecting intent onto the great white whale; it exists and its a potential problem but Jesus christ it's not out to get you.

Anyway does anyone have any links to constructive discussion about how the IGF is structured and how it could be improved?

EDIT: This last week weirded me out because I felt really compelled to make certain arguments in bad faith. I don't think I would've said that capitalism is a truly equalizing force if I wasn't so pissed about the whole situation to begin with. The conversation was started in bad faith so everything after it feels kind of illegitimate.

I agree with pretty much every thing you said, though I do think that the "natural consequences of weird tribal tendencies" is exactly what constitutes systemic corruption. It's not the Illuminati or a conspiracy, it's just a lack of transparency and natural human desire. 

Also I espeically agree with your point about focusing on how we can be constructive. That's what I would much rather focus on. Rather than sitting around patting ourselves on the back saying how we're so much better than a bunch of socially stunted neckbeards. 

How can things be made better? I think Auntie Pixelante had some good suggestions. I think for one there's way too much centralization in the power, there needs to be more accountability to people who enter their games. Actually... I'm not really clear on how the IGF started. How did it become the premiere voice of Indie games? Why is it the only one? I mean you have large film festivals like Slamdance, Sundance, SXSW, etc, but there's no single Be All End All, and there's tons of small film festivals all over america. Hmm.... Maybe the issue is there's not enough support for games as an artform from traditional Art Grants. There's not a lot of government funding for people. I know the Texas Film Commission has started reaching out and supporting game stuff here, which is encouraging, but that's still pretty small. Maybe this is just something that the medium has to grow out of, it needs to become more mainstream and understood by the populace. 

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Yeah it seems like the IGF started as a suitable replacement for the lack of academic grants and public support, since it's focused on innovation and advancement. It has an image of being super messy now because it's suddenly become a big part the industry through sheer attention and the judges are often active members of the industry themselves, though I still feel that the more pressing issue is the fact that it kind of is the biggest and sometimes sole voice for "what's in".

That said there are plenty of examples where the IGF results were descriptive of an existing zeitgeist and didn't seem to sway anything one way or another, so its role in the industry seems a lot less clear than we're making it out to be.

I'd want to do a study comparing the academic character of games with that of film or the arts.

EDIT RE systemic corruption: the thing is the source of this kind of herd behavior is really decentralized and is indistibguishable from normal people choosing what they like the most in good faith. A centralized culture certainly seems to enable it but then it just seems like it's pointless to try to fix it at its core, which is human nature.

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Yeah it seems like the IGF started as a suitable replacement for the lack of academic grants and public support, since it's focused on innovation and advancement. It has an image of being super messy now because it's suddenly become a big part the industry through sheer attention and the judges are often active members of the industry themselves, though I still feel that the more pressing issue is the fact that it kind of is the biggest and sometimes sole voice for "what's in".

That said there are plenty of examples where the IGF results were descriptive of an existing zeitgeist and didn't seem to sway anything one way or another, so its role in the industry seems a lot less clear than we're making it out to be.

I'd want to do a study comparing the academic character of games with that of film or the arts.

Not only are the judges often members of the industry, that's a requirement. 

And yeah one reason the IGF crap makes me feel conflicted is on one hand, I don't like the crappy structure things, and on the other hand I pretty much consistently like the stuff that Boyer's crowd endorses. 

The academic character of games weird. I mentioned in the thread I started on the relevance of Labour Movements in the that one of the unfortunate reasons the industry is the way it is is because a large percentage of people who work in the industry get their training from technical schools and for-profit schools which are often extremely beholden to the industry. More academic academic stuff is pretty small. There's Ian Bogost. There's some cool dudes at NYU. There's the USC program (which is known for it's ties to Santiago, one of the Indie Fund people who got called out). There's not a whole lot of options, and most of them share a pretty huge Venn Diagram people already in the IGF circle. 

 

EDIT RE systemic corruption: the thing is the source of this kind of herd behavior is really decentralized and is indistibguishable from normal people choosing what they like the most in good faith. A centralized culture certainly seems to enable it but then it just seems like it's pointless to try to fix it at its core, which is human nature.

I mean, that's arguably what systemic corruption is. No one thinks (other than a few nutjobs) that the IGF is maliciously doing things. If you check out that dev who complained about the IGF, Brandon Boyer actually makes an appearance in the comments, and people respond to him by basically saying "Yo, we know you're not trying to hurt anyone but it's still a bad system". Systemic corruption is so hard to deal with because in most ways, everyone involved is at least consciously trying to do the right thing most of the time, which makes it invisible and hard to deal with. Campaign finance/First-Past-the-Post Voting/Electoral College etc in America weren't  systems created with in the intent of downsizing the impact of the individual citizen in democracy, but that's what it does in effect. Redlining wasn't specifically created to further racial segregation in America, but that's what it did. It was people trying to do the right thing, but doing so, filtered through their own perceptions of reality and society, and the practice wasn't outlawed until the 90s, because it was so invisible and hard to explain to people. 

And yeah, perhaps that is pointless to fix, because it's perhaps at the core of human nature, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't aspire to something better. That's the entire idea behind progressive. It's the idea that we can make things better. Human nature is flawed, but I sure am glad people haven't given up on it. 

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The Escapist has published some new journalistic ethics guidelines and a weird editorial to go with them. I don't understand the convoluted car metaphors, and I don't think it's because of me. Also, they try to play gatekeeper for some ill-defined notion of what constitutes a gamer which is just really bizarre to see in, like, a real publication that's trying to garner respect?

 

But imagine, if you will, an alternative universe where the only cars available are sports cars. In this universe, you are a Corvette enthusiast who has driven Corvettes for decades. Mustangs? No way. You're hardcore for Chevy in the Muscle Car Wars. Then one day, Chevrolet announces that the new 2015 Corvette will have a smaller engine, to make room in the back for a new set of pre-installed child seats. The automotive press lauds the fact that Corvette has become a more inclusive brand which has embraced the family driver. When you, an outraged Corvette fan, begin complaining loudly that this is a betrayal of the Corvette brand... you are criticized for hating children!

 

Is this paragraph actually implying that misogyny and the mistreatment of women is an integral part of why they enjoy games and that removing it would change the product irreversibly, or am I misreading them?

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You know, I locally blocked access to The Escapist when I saw that the Zoe Quinn thread was up to like 5000 responses and my blood started to boil, and I think I'm just gonna... leave that block up indefinitely.

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1. Their motives aren't important. I don't care what their motives are.* I only care if what they're saying is true.

2. I don't even believe that video in the first place. If there were actually something to it, then I'll believe it when I see it in court, and not until then. Everything I brought up was the stuff not in that video. It was stuff that has been brought up in the indie community for years and years. People said in this thread "there's no issues with the indie scene, it's all cool. People are just jerks with bad motives", but that's clearly not true. The indie scene needs a good dose of self reflection.

You know that the reason we are talking about the IGF right now is because the people who were in the raid-IRC that Quinn recorded campaigning against her made a video about it, right?

You say that you only care about the truth as if that's a noble cause. You are being used. This is the same tactic that people use when they provide anonymous tips to the police so they will send in a SWAT team to harass their target. The officers probably say to themselves "I don't care what the motives of the anonymous tipper was, I only care about whether or not there are drugs in the house." Motives are far more important than the truth.

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Motives are far more important than the truth.

I dunno that I agree with that per se, since I believe that the truth is important, but more like... the deeper truth of why this is the truth people care about is more important than the shallow and tedious 'truth' behind the IGF. There's a system of politics behind the truths that people demand, and more importantly those that don't: Exposing the truth behind that system of politics should generally take priority over exposing more 'trendy' truths.

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I think, from a purely psychological standpoint, allowing people you know to be dodgy to do the framing for you is going to lead to you asking the wrong questions. If someone dodgy is bringing up questions, your very first response should be: why these questions? Out of all the questions they could have asked about this topic, why these ones?

 

The IGF has problems (it's got a bias towards easily graspable mechanics coupled with unusual art styles), but that's mostly because these days there are a lot more indie games than the IGF can reasonably judge, and there's a lot more indie games that have radically different goals than the IGF rewards. The solution here is to make more awards that reflect the more diverse scene.

 

I've never really gotten into Brandon Boyer, to be honest. I get this weird wanker vibe from him that is totally prejudice and probably unfair.

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Honestly, I was unaware that anyone takes the IGF more seriously than a very loose recommendations system. Knowing the ridiculous workload of the judges, it seems obvious that the system could never be accurate or even complete.

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The Escapist has published some new journalistic ethics guidelines and a weird editorial to go with them. I don't understand the convoluted car metaphors, and I don't think it's because of me. Also, they try to play gatekeeper for some ill-defined notion of what constitutes a gamer which is just really bizarre to see in, like, a real publication that's trying to garner respect?

Is this paragraph actually implying that misogyny and the mistreatment of women is an integral part of why they enjoy games and that removing it would change the product irreversibly, or am I misreading them?

Pretty much, though their intent when saying this is probably more along the lines of "we don't like the smaller engine" vs "we don't like the baby seat". It's still a garbage metaphor because it's saying that suddenly the press has made it so you can't play different games, then leveraged this lack of choice and pinned a social agenda to it. They're saying "you hijacked our games and made them into stuff we don't like, then turned us into the enemy". Stupid, myopic, and shitty.

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Holy shit, I think I'm done even so much as mildly prodding the GG tag or people who support it.

 

Earlier this morning I saw someone claiming a dev doxxed someone for being transgender. I asked for information about what happened, and it came to light over the course of the conversation that no dev did any doxxing, nor was the doxxing a matter of someone being trans (that was revealed as part of the doxxing I guess). All the while, I was saying doxxing wasn't cool. But I was questioning whether or not it was the dev that did it. There was no proof, only some proof that she ended up linking to something that contained the info (which she then deleted).

 

I got distracted by other shit going on like the Apple event, and before I knew it, other nuts came flying at me accusing me of being in support of doxxing, not even bothering to read the conversation. A few of them, thankfully the ones who made actual accusations using my name, retracted it all, apologized and deleted their tweets with those accusations. But there's still a contingent of internet rubbernecking chucklefucks who will just say that now.

 

The conversation was literally, "Hey, let's be sure of things and not jump to conclusions," and it was taken with such hostility. It blew my fucking mind.

 

God. I can only imagine what people who actually get daily, non-stop harassment feel. That was just an hour of pure bullshit. I'm so mad still.

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I saw the 'doxxing' accusations too. The use of the word was blatant twisting of facts to defame someone. And it turned out that the article in question wasn't outing a transwoman, but outing a guy for posing as a transwoman online. So yeah, the main takeaway for me over the past couple of weeks has been how easily people will jump to conclusions, and how quickly these false conclusions are spread as fact. The burden of effort is then on those who have to take the time to disprove them. The internet in a nutshell.

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The Escapist has published some new journalistic ethics guidelines and a weird editorial to go with them. I don't understand the convoluted car metaphors, and I don't think it's because of me. Also, they try to play gatekeeper for some ill-defined notion of what constitutes a gamer which is just really bizarre to see in, like, a real publication that's trying to garner respect?

 

 

Is this paragraph actually implying that misogyny and the mistreatment of women is an integral part of why they enjoy games and that removing it would change the product irreversibly, or am I misreading them?

My reading was that paragraph was just part of it. The rest of it seems me that they were trying to say that making a wider variety of games doesn't mean that they will stop making the games that they are already making.

 

I read the whole post as a very mild statement but the people over on reddit seem to be ready to carry the Escapist around on their shoulders in celebration: http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2fuk8k/publishers_note_the_state_of_gaming/

If this is all it takes to make them happy then maybe there is hope yet.

 

Although now it looks like they have discovered the great cabal of gaming academics:

I'm just disappointed I wasn't included...

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Nobody pronounces Leigh "lei". Like, nobody at all.

 

Otherwise... this guy just seems to be reading website text. Does it get good?

 

It doesn't get good, does it?

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Honestly, I am too busy to listen to it. I know Mia and TL so I am really interested in what he finds so scandalous about their work. 

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Oh man, the Onion did a political cartoon about all this bullshit at some point.

 

 

LtocP7p.png

 

 

 

I want a podcast called "Downloadable Contempt."

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