"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Gormongous]

They could at least get their facts straight, since, you know, gamergate is all about the facts.

The artist wasn't harassed, a bunch of people contacted the developer about it and the artist's boss decided to tell him to change it based on feedback. I guess in gamergate's twisted world that constitutes "self-censorship"?

The concept of "self-censorship" is practically Newspeak anyway. It reminds me of the "self-criticism" of the United Red Army in Japan in the early seventies, in which members were peer-pressued into often lethal tortures to force them to take responsibility for others' failures... except it's not that, it's people deciding not to be assholes based on good-faith feedback from fans.

Next they'll be saying it's self-censorship to drop a feature from a game after beta testers confirm that it's not working, but only if the dropped feature involves a sexy lady, of course.

[Problem Machine]

If not for GamerGate's watchful eyes, what would be the fate of games like Divinity: Original Sin, unfairly and unanimously maligned by a corrupt gaming press? Basically any success that game has achieved it owes directly to GamerGate's protective influence.

[BadHat]

Sorry if this was already posted, but this is a really, really great video that dissects GG as a movement instead of just criticizing them based on their "accomplishments." Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I've had some thoughts simmering about the larger political message behind GG and this guy does an excellent job at elucidating some of those things.

 

http://blip.tv/foldablehuman/s4e7-gamergate-7071206

[Blambo]

I was talking to a friend who is really into music cultures and genres about gamergate. He, while understanding how crappy and harmful the culture surrounding the movement is and was, places a special importance in preserving subcultures and communities that form "scenes" that produce unique identities and aesthetics. He likened the archetypal "broshooter" game to some kind of viking metal genre that I can't actually remember in that it's something that emerged from a very exclusive culture but left an artifact of something that's unique and interesting in terms of its cultural heritage and aesthetic.

 

This caused him to empathize a little with what evidently gamergate is about, which is preserving an aesthetic of the "gamer" subculture by any means (even though doing so reveals inherent, deliberate prejudices and toxic interactions in the culture). He argues that gaters don't feel like they're actively excluding anyone because they're preserving their culture, and that the culture should be allowed to exist even if it's harmful to society at large or is exclusive, simply because it's an artifact of humanity. Also there's a present idea that social activism will hamfistedly force diversity into this subculture, which will inherently destroy it because its aesthetic is built upon exclusiveness. I guess the correct response is that this subculture can be allowed to exist but it shouldn't encompass the entire medium, and that the aesthetics created by this kind of subculture can be abstracted and made more inclusive without destroying its heart (metal can be aggressive and hardcore without being just for men) but I was wondering what people here thought.

[Merus]

I think that things like gamergate are an inevitable result of having subcultures that exclude outsiders - after all, metal's had an ongoing problem with Nazis forming bands and demanding to be heard - and I think it's putting the cart before the horse to assume that creative freedom only comes when the forces of capitalism and homogeneity are excluded. Take Mouth Sounds and Mouth Silence, which are unique and completely depend on combining things that were never designed to be combined for its appeal.

 

Basically, remix culture.

[Glotal]

I think there are a few issues with your friend's interpretation, Blambo. Gamergaters are under the impression that gamer culture used to be 100% homogeneous and unified. The people they discriminate against have always been present in the community, they were just mostly silent. As gamer culture matured, more people have became socially aware of the the many different viewpoints and cultural and ethnic backgrounds that make up the culture. The composition of gamer culture has not changed, but the culture has changed how it perceives its own composition. Gamergaters, on the other hand, still maintain their earliest views of gamer culture as the "true" form. Instead of realizing that culture is composed of individuals who form a diverse social collective, gamergaters assume that any deviation from their ideal version of the culture is the result of outside invaders. Everything they do is to recreate the community that they perceived, but never actually existed. Gamergate does not want to preserve a subculture within a larger social context. It wants to create the one and only facet of a culture and dominate it.

[Synnah]

Yeah, agreed. The point here is that GamerGate isn't just trying to preserve gamer culture as they perceive it (and as Glotal says their perception is skewed anyway), they're trying to expunge everything and everyone that doesn't fit with their vision. Their manifestoes make lofty claims about wanting inclusivity, but their actions have proven again and again that these are just words.

To address your friend's points, Blambo, I'm all for preserving subcultures, but I think it's odd to want to mindlessly preserve the toxic elements of a subculture simply because they've always existed as part of it. I don't see what is gained from doing this. Take fighting game culture, for example; if you get rid of the sexism that is rife in the fighting game scene, and which is a barrier for a lot of people entering it, who loses out? If it's no longer acceptable to make sexually aggressive comments to female players, who is inconvenienced? Is the culture somehow diluted and poorer for it? I don't personally believe that it is. I guess that's just a difference of opinion.

[Mangela Lansbury]

There is no aesthetic attached to any kind if historical gamer subculture -- at least not one related to anything GamerGate is selling. Their interpretations of the way gaming used to be/is/should be rely on a revisionist history. They long for a time that, frankly, never was.

Beyond that, it's as dumb as saying we should put poorly crafted felt capes in the Smithsonian to preserve the aesthetic of early D&D culture. Dumb dumb dumb.

[James]

Yeah, for the music analogy to work it would have to be separate subcultures for different genres of game, not one monolithic unifying "culture". There isn't really a singular "music culture", which would be the better analogy, or even a pop music culture. It seems the strongest cultural identity forms around niche genres; whether that's because their outsider status causes people to want to band together, or because the basis of the subculture is something that renders the genre inaccessible to most, I don't know.

The aforementioned fighting game subculture seems very much to be equivalent with what you find in music, and as mentioned, it's troubled in similar ways as some of those. I think it is valuable to try to maintain the existence of such groups (without a community fighting games would be greatly diminished), but they absolutely must challenge harmful elements within themselves, such as sexist behaviour. Unfortunately it's a common mistake to equate the continued existence of the community with the preservation of the community's exact current nature. Kind of like the Gamer Gate rhetoric of SJWs invading to destroy their hobby. Which, I suppose, is where this tangent came from in the first place, so I suppose I'm contributing nothing at all.

[Ben X]

Also, I'm going to pull Godwin's Law on this one:

 

the culture should be allowed to exist even if it's harmful to society at large or is exclusive, simply because it's an artifact of humanity.

[Gormongous]

Also, I'm going to pull Godwin's Law on this one:

And totally justified, too. The argument that any cultural product of humanity is worthy of preservation, just because it is a product of humanity, begs the question in a way that really worries me.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Also it's easy to have that perspective as an observer and not a victim.

[Cleinhun]

It isn't like broshooters are in any danger of going away though. Comparing it to Viking Metal Whatever doesn't make a ton of sense, since Viking Metal Whatever is not already one of the most popular genres of music.

[Merus]

Games are at a stage in their history where no genre will ever really die, because it'll be revived as a retro experience ten years later.

[Henroid]

Games are at a stage in their history where no genre will ever really die, because it'll be revived as a retro experience ten years later.

You leave Etrian Odyssey and other dungeon crawling RPGs out of this!

[BadHat]

First they came for the dead prostitutes, and I didn't speak up because I didn't play GTA.

 

Then they came for the lurid porn camera angles, and I didn't speak up because I didn't play Bayonetta.

 

When they came for my skimpy loli belly dancers, there was no one left to speak up for Etrian Oddysey.

[James]

It isn't like broshooters are in any danger of going away though. Comparing it to Viking Metal Whatever doesn't make a ton of sense, since Viking Metal Whatever is not already one of the most popular genres of music.

I don't think mainstream FPS games would be a good example because, well, they're mainstream. But the comparison does work for things like fighting games, adventure games and serious strategy games, because they've all been very niche at some point in their history, if not now. I don't think anyone else was necessarily saying that all genres would have a strong subculture associated, but I think the comparison holds for some things.

[BadHat]

I don't know if the "broshoots" thing even represents GG that well, or at least not it's most forward-facing players. Two of the most prominent developers in favour of GG are Brad Wardell, head of the company who makes niche strategy games, and Daniel Vavra, head of the company making a niche medieval combat game (which I'm actually kind of looking forward to). I'm not trying to legitimize the whole "radfems trying to ruin our games!" angle at all, but they definitely have a pretty hardcore contingent. And, having been on my share of message boards, hardcore fans of a certain subgenre or era tend to also be the most protective of the things they see as representative of their niche.

 

In other news I googled Daniel Vavra to make sure I had his name right and popped in on his twitter. He's circulating an image of Randi Harper dying her dog blue, because...? A few people point out that there are safe ways of doing this but I guess they're trying to dig up any dirt they can. Which, you know, isn't the whole public shaming thing a rotten SJW tactic? Why am I even posing this as a hypothetical when they practically flaunt their hypocrisy at this point.

 

It was a facebook post from 2012, too, which I just find endlessly creepy. Soooo I followed the rabbit hole a little deeper and went to the source, one Mr Fart, and found this?

 

https://twitter.com/fartchives/status/547008289104752640

 

So "social justice extremism" now constitutes getting funding pulled from a site that openly hosts questionable images of actual children. Gotcha. Thanks for drawing that line in the sand, person who GGers apparently listen to and care about!

[James]

KIM JONG-UN IS RAISING MONEY FOR HIS SICK GERBIL. PLEASE SEND ALL AVAILABLE FUNDS.

Did I successfully dodge Godwin?

Also, reading comprehension is still an issue: a responder mocks Patreon for thinking "loli" is illegal in the US, despite their explicitly stating that they know it isn't.

[Denial]

I don't know if the "broshoots" thing even represents GG that well, or at least not it's most forward-facing players. Two of the most prominent developers in favour of GG are Brad Wardell, head of the company who makes niche strategy games, and Daniel Vavra, head of the company making a niche medieval combat game (which I'm actually kind of looking forward to). I'm not trying to legitimize the whole "radfems trying to ruin our games!" angle at all, but they definitely have a pretty hardcore contingent. And, having been on my share of message boards, hardcore fans of a certain subgenre or era tend to also be the most protective of the things they see as representative of their niche.

 

It's worth noting, however, that both Wardell and Vavra appear to be motivated by antipathy towards the games press, rather than concerns about the purity of their niche. Wardell for its reporting on the sexual harassment allegations against him in 2012, and Vavra, as near as I can tell, for this Luke Plunkett article in 2014. Which is a salutary reminder that Gamergate isn't really new - it's TumblrinAction with a slightly different name and user base.

[Ben X]

Why are they called Kotaku In Action and Tumblr In Action, anyway? I can't find anything via google without going to some shitty "Gamergate's History Of Gamergate" site...

[Nachimir]

Those are among that same category as other things I've tried to find out without much success, and when you get to the bottom of it it's usually just "LOL JOKES" anyway. Someone suggested a few months back that I was in a good position to write a kind of ethnography of GG, and for a while their behaviour was interesting, but I really can't be arsed tracing the provenance of bullshit internet things when the answers are always the same.

 

Also it's sometimes kind of like the extremes of the political spectrum, when if you go far enough in one direction spacetime just folds in on itself and ends up with a bunch of shitty people with really extreme (but sometimes paradoxically opposing) views set apart by increasingly small margins, continuously sympathising with each other and occasionally fighting.

[twmac]

I wrote to Warhorse studios and they very politely replied:

 

 

I am sorry to hear that. Thank you for your clarification and for beeing with us. It means a lot.
Best luck to you and enjoy the Christmas!  

[omitted from this copy/paste]
Warhorse Studios
www.warhorsestudios.cz
 
F: www.facebook.com/WarhorseStudios
T: twitter.com/warhorsestudios
G: plus.google.com/109413064918165877044
Forum: http://forum.kingdomcomerpg.com/Von: [omitted from this copy/paste]
Gesendet: Montag, 22. Dezember 2014 22:30
An: info
Betreff: Daniel Vavra's support for Gamergate

Hello,

After seeing your announcement for Kingdom Come: Deliverance I was really excited, especially after seeing the caliber of the people working on it (Operation Flashpoint, Mafia and Arma are amazing). I was also heartened to see that Daniel Vavra had gone out of his way to campaign for the liberation of the developers arrested while working on Arma 3.

However, I was disappointed to find out that Daniel Vavra is a supporter of the Gamergate hashtag and movement. As much as I am a fan of the work that you have produced and a supporter of Daniel's previous campaign, I find that aligning with a group such as GG makes it impossible for me to support you in good conscience.

I really hope that everything works out for you and I am sorry that I cannot throw in my lot with your project.

Good Luck.
 

[Merus]

Why are they called Kotaku In Action and Tumblr In Action, anyway? I can't find anything via google without going to some shitty "Gamergate's History Of Gamergate" site...

 

From what I understand, 'tumblr in action' was a Reddit meme to describe when Tumblr has opinions about social justice issues. There's a bit of a range there, from a tumblr user extremely upset that people are treating the scars of a man in uniform as some kind of sign of deformity, below a screenshot of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight at the start of the police force attack, to tumblr users making the same kind of points we make in the feminism thread. Reddit is already biased towards the easily digestible and unchallenging, and it has a strong libertarian, and later MRA, contingent, so they weren't really inclined to work out what is and is not an overreaction.

 

Kotaku in Action is pretty much straight GG; they're drawing an analogy between Tumblr and Kotaku, as part of their narrative that they are the true gamers defending gaming from interlopers who have infected everything and are trying to take cool games away in favour of walking simulators.

[James]

I took the "_____ in Action" thing as being similar to "social justice warrior": sarcastic mockery of what they perceive as ineffectual whinging. "In action" is being used as an ironically overblown description for a lot of talk and no action.

Alternatively, it could mean "the things we're describing are all that _____ does". As in, "here comes Kotaku, and inevitably they're doing saying something we disapprove of. Kotaku in full effect. Kotaku in action."

Those are my guesses, anyway. I obviously don't endorse the sentiments.

If my first proposal is correct, that would be pretty ironic given the pseudo-apocalyptic rhetoric levelled against Kotaku et al (killing gaming, etc.)