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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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 I think the big difference is that in those cases the conversation was rooted in Walker's understanding of the games themselves - questions of interpretation and specific examples - while this time it's rooted in his understanding of how the development of a game works, which quickly turns out to be flimsy at best, and then it starts circling around itself and gets into increasingly petulant territory like why can't he give a perfect estimate for how long something will take even after doing this for thirty years, and how dare he be in a fancy hotel a couple of days ago when there was work to be done.

 

I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who just think games are a way to print money.  They see that 60 dollar price tag and think that you can just multiply that by how many copies are sold to figure out how much the studio made.  They typically also hold that developers are cavalier in their attitudes, and fully expect that most people who work at well-known game development houses are millionaires.  I don't really get the cause of this other than possibly the fact that game development has become so much more accessible and standardized in recent years gives people this impression.

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I think it's also worth pointing out that grilling Molyneux as spectacle pulls away from looking at some actual issues in the game industry that Molyneux no doubt was underneath. I think the guy has personality issues but let's not pretend that going overbudget, overpromising, underperforming, people being mad that you can't always predict development time, needing to use Kickstarter to fund game development isn't a symptom of larger issues. We talked about this a lot last night while recording Justice Points with Austin Walker and Ian Williams and the largesse with regards to labor in gaming is awful - especially when poised as consumer advocacy versus labor advocacy.

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John Walker has far too much experience to be excused. Which means he set the tone intentionally. At some point he decided that, yes, the obtuse, combative, accusation-centric approach we see in the GG crowd was perfect for interviewing Moylneux. I just can't understand that. Having really enjoyed his writing in the past, to see him trade in arch wit and high quality snark for froth and bile is a bummer. 


If Molyneux were a more acerbic person he could have responded to that 'pathological liar' jab with 'I don't know, John, when did you stop beating your wife?' and it wouldn't have been out of place.

 

Also, I maintain that based on other Kickstarter shenanigans and Molyneux's track record -Who is actually surprised at this point? Who? I want to meet them and see what other obvious things they are surprised at. Peter Moylneux, for myself and many others, has been the face of caveat emptor for years.

 

 

 

Edited

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I've heard plenty of people in the industry don't like John, but that's mainly old guard, and all I heard largely centred on some people publicly tweeting that after he criticised the GMAs (Games Media Awards, which are run by a games media company).

 

I think it's also worth pointing out that grilling Molyneux as spectacle pulls away from looking at some actual issues in the game industry that Molyneux no doubt was underneath.

 

Yes. I've seen a few people arguing on Twitter (I think via Sophie Houlden retweeting) that Molyneux is just a symptom.

 

Today I learned that when you search a hashtag, Twitter shows you posts from people you've blocked. How dumb is that shit?

 

Eugh. It should at least be a toggle, like the "Are you sure you want to read these tweets?" thing on pages of blocked users.

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I think it's also worth pointing out that grilling Molyneux as spectacle pulls away from looking at some actual issues in the game industry that Molyneux no doubt was underneath.

 

For sure. The interview could have gone into discussing issues of crowdfunding in a substantial way, but it felt much more like Walker was interested in getting Molyneux to confess being personally responsible for every problem in that environment.

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That interview reads like John drew on the energy of every angry forum nerd who's ever called Molyneux a hack like Goku forming a fucking spirit bomb. Like christ, I've heard the term "hit piece" thrown back and forth a lot during the controversy, but if anything truly qualifies, it's that.

So... this is a few days old now as I was behind on the thread and only just bothered catching up. Brianna Wu wrote this article condemning gamergate (so far, so ordinary). In it she calls upon Reddit CEO Ellen Pao to call /r/kotakuinaction to task for being a "hate group" (which I don't find entirely disagreeable, but... given Reddit's libertarian approach to leaving objectionable subs up in the past this seems like a bit of a pipe dream), and the Obama administration to arrest the owner of 8chan (wait, what?). So, while I didn't take issue with most of the article, I had some questions coming out of it, and posted them to the ghazi thread I'd found it on.

I wake up the next morning and there's a KiA post about the article with enough upvotes to make it to the front page of /r/all, and my post is quoted in the top comment (I'm #1).

Reactions from Ghazellesylvania:

  • Do KiA really post doxx? Or rather, do the mods let them? No doubt it's scummy as shit over there but I didn't know that was being allowed to happen openly.
  • I lurk both there and here, and AFAIK doxxing isn't allowed. Defending doxxing, yes ("what? All they did was share info you could find anywhere"). But not doxxing.
  • Never seen one myself. The rule 2 says that admins would site ban doxxers (probably a rule for any sub).
Uh-oh. They're becoming self-aware, some of them have not taken the Kool-Aid. Listen-and-Believe fields are weakening. Quick, someone do something before the other Anti-GG's hear!
So... yeah, that's not condescending at all. Thanks, random shitheel!

Also worth noting that they still don't grasp what "listen and believe" is meant to mean. :crazy:

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That stuff is kind of complicated. Baphomet are apparently the forum doing the majority of doxxing and swatting, and they absolutely loathe most of GG for not being willing to go as far as they do. In turn, most of GG seem to think this absolves them of any accountability for bad stuff that happens to the people they go after, and, as quoted above, that people finding that out will suddenly see them as good people.

 

Internal shitheel politics!

 

:sartre:

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Yeah, the party line is that 8chan/baph doesn't represent gamergate. Which... explains why they'll bend over backwards providing justifications for CP...  :crazy:  :crazy:  :crazy:

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Yeah, the party line is that 8chan/baph doesn't represent gamergate.

 

Somehow exactly the central gamergate agitators are only ever perceived to be at the fringes of the movement, 'helpers' and 'supporters' at best.

 

The main argumentative assaults are led by 'not really gamergate' figureheads – "neutral" Hoff Sommers and Yiannopoulos from the far political right, prime conspiracy theorist Davis Aurini right from the very heart of misogynism, John Bain from the wing of imprudent consumers and MRAs, or Adrian Chmielarz from the Association of Indie Game Developers Fighting for Their Own Extinction [AOIGDFFTOE].

 

All 'not really gamergate', all their immediate advocators.

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Another terminal round of stupid seems to be going around.

 

 

I was just trying to write something to kinda contextualize that link.  The only thing I got was what I just posted, and then I saw you just dropped it here.  It's kinda breathtaking how stupid this latest round of shit is, even in the context of what has come before.

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Jesus. Does anyone have a handy list of devs throwing their support behind gamergate? I'd love to know who to not buy from, besides Brad Fuckin Wardell.

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Jesus. Does anyone have a handy list of devs throwing their support behind gamergate? I'd love to know who to not buy from, besides Brad Fuckin Wardell.

I seem to recall gamergate having a steam curator page that covers some of them.

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One of the main guys behind The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is pretty pro-Gamer Gate. That got the game taken off my Steam wishlist because it made me feel scuzzy even having it sitting there. Here is the Steam curator page which also notes that the Orion main developer supports GamerGate which makes sense because that guy's an asshole.

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There's that one ubisoft writer (think he was the lead writer on ac:unity dlc?)

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Wow. There's a lot I don't like about how gaming websites handled the GG situation, but presenting a 'narrative of hate and fear' is not one of them since that was what was actually fucking happening. In fact, most of these sites really fucking dragged their heels in terms of describing a situation that was causing real and ongoing harm to vulnerable people in the games industry, a system of abuse that was in part enabled by developers staying silent. For them to now claim that that silence was the correct path and everything else clickbaiting yellow journalism... wow.

I'd certainly think twice about buying the game of anyone who I knew signed that drivel

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I like how this is a rift between two parties and not a giant chasm that GG dug out themselves and are trying to push marginalized people into wholesale.

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Ken Levine's been back at it since that article was written:

 

 

I think the VAST MAJORITY of folks agree that a) threats are NEVER acceptable and b ) guilt by association is not productive.

When you look back at the last, horrible, don't you want to be able to say, "I helped end it." I know I do.

I'm only interested in helping reunite the vast majority of the gaming community that wants it to end.

The press SHOULD report on unpleasant things. THAT IS THEIR JOB. But now the view of the world is that our industry is a cesspool.

As a note, people are writing to me from both sides saying "THEY did it!". The question I care about is "Who is going to fix it?

 

 

Do you want it to end? I do. And I have no prescription. Open to hearing some. But note: everything that we've done so far has failed.

 

To people who have noted, hey, you haven't exactly spoken up about this:

 

From August, I've said threats are never acceptable. I said that it's nobody's business who sleeps with who.

 

 

1st thing I wrote on the 1st day: "Time saving tip: Don't worry about someone you don't know fucking someone else you don't know."

 

It's sad. 

 

Guys, I've sat here and gone out on such an incredible limb to say things like "harassment is bad", and still that's not enough?  What is this going to take?  Alternatively, are you sure we couldn't just get you all to shut up instead?

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Honestly those tweets could perfectly fit in with Bioshock Infinite's "truth is in the middle, both sides are bad" take on racism. 

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One of the main guys behind The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is pretty pro-Gamer Gate. That got the game taken off my Steam wishlist because it made me feel scuzzy even having it sitting there.

 

Mannnnn I just bought that game :(

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Wow. There's a lot I don't like about how gaming websites handled the GG situation, but presenting a 'narrative of hate and fear' is not one of them since that was what was actually fucking happening. In fact, most of these sites really fucking dragged their heels in terms of describing a situation that was causing real and ongoing harm to vulnerable people in the games industry, a system of abuse that was in part enabled by developers staying silent. For them to now claim that that silence was the correct path and everything else clickbaiting yellow journalism... wow.

I'd certainly think twice about buying the game of anyone who I knew signed that drivel

 

It's the classic truth, becoming more classic by the day, that calling out wrongdoing is always taken to be worse than the wrongdoing itself. Being racist or sexist? Not great, but human nature, so whatever. Saying that something or someone is racist or sexist? Unbelievable injustice, is there no mercy or decency, etc.

 

Levine saying in effect that there are certainly problems, but that it's more important to keep up the pixel wall of silence, is really the pinnacle of that attitude, though.

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