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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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I haven't been following him that closely, but I don't think Levine is espousing what y'all seem to be saying. Maybe his language isn't great, but those tweets read to me like someone who is out of his element, and genuinely wants to help.

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Selma got a bad wrap for supposedly taking liberties with Lyndon Johnson's support for civil rights, but its depiction of well-meaning white people who'd prefer the civil rights movement not antagonise the situation is important.

 

What's being demanded isn't some new thing. Zoe Quinn did nothing groundbreaking by making a text-based game. What's being demanded is behaviour that should be assumed: make a game, put it up for people to play, people enjoy it, move onto the next one.

 

It's also pretty fucking ironic that this petition is apparently demanding the enthusiast press not report on scandal when Gamergate's figleaf was that the enthusiast press refused to report on scandal.

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I haven't been following him that closely, but I don't think Levine is espousing what y'all seem to be saying. Maybe his language isn't great, but those tweets read to me like someone who is out of his element, and genuinely wants to help.

 

What Levine needs to do is shut the fuck up and listen. He cannot help by tweeting, especially after Bioshock Infinite.

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Levine has already put his foot in his mouth once over this.  There was a series of Facebook posts where he tried to take a neutral, "both sides have valid things to say" approach.  I'll see if I can dig them up, they were pretty much the final nail in the coffin for me paying attention to anything he has to say. 

 

Edited to add:  I didn't quite remember that right.  There was this post about there not being a "political test" to work at Irrational.  Which sounds great on paper, but it's one thing to have ideological differences and another to employ bigots.  Then there was also his advice (along with a bunch of other white guys parroting the same thing at the time), about how you shouldn't talk about threats.  Because silence is the best answer.  Seems like there was something else, but I'm not finding it. 

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Levine has already put his foot in his mouth once over this.  There was a series of Facebook posts where he tried to take a neutral, "both sides have valid things to say" approach.  I'll see if I can dig them up, they were pretty much the final nail in the coffin for me paying attention to anything he has to say. 

 

Edited to add:  I didn't quite remember that right.  There was this post about there not being a "political test" to work at Irrational.  Which sounds great on paper, but it's one thing to have ideological differences and another to employ bigots.  Then there was also his advice (along with a bunch of other white guys parroting the same thing at the time), about how you shouldn't talk about threats.  Because silence is the best answer.  Seems like there was something else, but I'm not finding it. 

 

I had the same misremembrance as you, but for me it was Levine getting himself up in a wild lather a few months ago over select sites shutting down their own comments sections, with him using historical references to the fucking sixteenth-century wars of religion to make his point that it's better just to ride out the haters than to build a safe space:

 

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Because he made a mistake? Can you sum up a person by one thing they've said? We really need to stop being so hard on people.

 

Because he's tried to put the blame for #GamerGate on both sides at least twice now, this time by vocally supporting a petition that makes the gaming press the ones who are to blame for the broader cultural consequences of this whole mess? If he's trying to argue that you're part of the problem if you aren't part of the solution, he should really start by looking at himself.

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He made a mistake. The only way he will realize that is if someone helps him see why it is objectionable. You're right, but he isn't the enemy. We can't write him off.

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He made a mistake. The only way he will realize that is if someone helps him see why it is objectionable. You're right, but he isn't the enemy. We can't write him off.

Hey, we're just trading idle talk in a forum thread about some dumb thing a public figure said. Feel free to email him about it, I'm sure he'd be all ears.

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Point taken. I just have a hard time reconciling where this somewhat militant streak comes from, especially on this forum. I guess I haven't been immersed in this kind of thing enough to experience that anger myself.

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He made a mistake. The only way he will realize that is if someone helps him see why it is objectionable. You're right, but he isn't the enemy. We can't write him off.

 

It's not about one mistake for me.  Bioshock Infinite ended up so tonally deaf to the problems it had with sexism and racism (not the thematic elements it tried to address, but the actual unintended racism and sexism in it).  And that doesn't seem to be something that Levine has been able to recognize in the slightest.  Which, hey, seeing the flaws in your own work can be hard.  But that, plus the end of Irrational, plus his social media postings over the last year have just combined to really turn me off him.  I have limited time to listen, and there are many, many, many more interesting voices than Levine's to talk about the gaming industry, gamergate and feminism. 

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Point taken. I just have a hard time reconciling where this somewhat militant streak comes from, especially on this forum. I guess I haven't been immersed in this kind of thing enough to experience that anger myself.

 

I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of people who have issues with Bioshock Infinite or Levine's ill-timed comments on some other matter coming out of the woodwork here, but myself, I'm honestly just tired of notable public figures abruptly interposing themselves in the middle of #GamerGate, trodding on half-healed wounds in the process, in order to make themselves some kind of impartial arbitrator out of their pure intentions. There is so much literature out there now about what #GamerGate really is and what its consequences have been, so for Levine to come out of nowhere to stump for such a half-baked and wrongheaded petition as a panacea for the woes of the games industry tells me outright that either i) he has not read that literature and therefore shouldn't be presenting himself as authority and intermediary, or ii) he has read that literature, but has disregarded it, so his position in the so-called middle ground is a conscious decision rather than a well-meaning mistake. Either way, I don't intend to do more than comment briefly on the naivete and ignorance of his statements in a thread on an internet forum, then keep ignoring him like I have been since shortly after Bioshock Infinite's hype cycle began its final rotation, so I don't really see the harm.

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but won't someone please think of the rich white man ;_;

 

.... okay, to elaborate in a more hopefully productive fashion, I don't think anyone's calling for Ken Levine to be burned alive or drawn and quartered, but certainly it's fair that someone who habitually says stupid and tone-deaf things develop a reputation as such. That's what reputations are and are made of. There's nothing so special about Ken Levine that he shouldn't be subject to this process, and I don't think calling him on the stupid shit he says is an unfair punishment. If he later apologizes or recants, then swell, but that's on him, not on the people (correctly) pointing out that the things he is saying are dumb.

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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.

 

What a mysterious outcome.

 

(Come on Ken. Follow the thought through. You can do it).

 

(He probably can't)

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Cara Ellison continues to be one of my favourite people in games.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/2w8n12/cara_ellison_setting_things_straight_on_twitter/

 

Edit: As a sidenote, I think I need to stop visiting ghazi. I used to bounce between there and KiA to see how either end of the spectrum were reacting to the Latest Thing, then I stopped visiting KiA because it was doing nothing for me except maybe raising my blood pressure a little (I tend to have that reaction to exposing myself to viscerally bigoted or short-sighted bullshit). After that I kind of just kept visiting ghazi habitually as a bit of a popcorn thing... which is a little horrible and brings to mind Mattie Brice's words on the matter - http://www.mattiebrice.com/more-than-my-pain/

 

I guess I'm just torn between the urge to keep abreast of things and engage with this stuff emotionally and intellectually, and how much it's beginning to seem like more of a spectator sport as this thing dies down. Or if not dies down, then at least it seems like we're well past the point of productive conversation. Not because those conversations never took place, but because they already fucking happened in abundance, and the core of GG regularly displayed how little tolerance they have for anything that didn't amount to outright flattery and pandering. Then people like Ken blunder in like "why can't we talk about this," which only displays how ignorant he is to people who have actually been following the whole thing.

 

Which also kind of sums up my feelings on that petition!

 

Also: "anti-gamer rhetoric" is still fucking hilarious to me in this light, as someone who was at prime forum-ranting age when the Jack Thompson stuff took place.

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Cara Ellison continues to be one of my favourite people in games.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/2w8n12/cara_ellison_setting_things_straight_on_twitter/

 

'You told on us to the world' is such a fucking hilarious narrative. 'This shit is going down' is literally the point of the press.

 

Well, I could have saved myself several posts if I just had a Twitter account and followed her on it...

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That Mark Kern petition, it really is incredibly silly.

 

Gamers in large numbers have behaved like shitbags, and journalists have done their job – to call them out. Back in 2014, every journalist that didn't report [favorably] on gamergate was an enemy figure for the cult. Now Kern asks the press to look away so the healing powers of positive coverage on the medium could take effect. He's asking for 80s video game journalism, he's asking for advocacy, he's asking for the bias he calls 'fairness'. He's asking for what gamergate tries to paint as conflation.

 

In other words, Kern asks for more corruption in games press.

 

The wind of change will intensify in video gaming. Diversity will increase, because thanks to the press more people are becoming aware of and ask for complex narratives with less stereotypes. Gaters will undoubtedly react to that by crying louder and behaving more violently. Imagine Mark Kern right in the middle of the storm, demanding that no one reports. Sad little king of a sad little hill.

 

The 'sensationalist' - which Kotaku is very, very prone to - is to report in a way favored by the general public. Here, kotaku annoys their usual clientele while the gamergate opposing parties may not really like kotaku articles.

 

That's quite dangerous. I like that they're doing it.

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Funny how the narrative has changed from "Your sites can't live without us, you're going down!" to "Please, please help us." Funny, and also gross, as per usual.

 

To elaborate on that particular point, why wouldn't I get to write off Ken Levine? I have no plans to yell at the guy over any of this, but I'm also not obliged to read or consider his perspective on these things. It's an undeniable fact that he's sort of important in games right now, but it's also not an immutable law and I don't have to take part in continuing to build him up. Without any nostalgia for games he made decades ago, his entire claim to fame is making a couple of recent games that I don't care for, and some structural decisions for his company that I also don't care for. His statements on this are something like the kicker, and they look all the more damning when you consider that writing (supposedly, but not really) insightful commentary on social issues is part of his damn job. As has been said, it all fits right into that "truth is in the middle" false equivalence people took Infinite to town for.

 

For a more extreme example on all this: I get (or got, bless you autoblocker) similar complaints from gaters whenever I mentioned that I'd absolutely stop playing and writing about any games made by asshole developers who take part in all this. Even if I wasn't doing this on my own time and money, generally, even if I was paid to write about every game in the world 24/7 there'd be plenty of people I'd never get around to for simple reasons of time, and they think skipping somebody who harasses other people on Twitter is some sort of weird injustice. "But their game might still be good!" So what, there's a hundred good games going unreported on every direction I look.

 

In general, it sounds awfully nice to say that you're interested in fixing things, but it also suggests all sides are equally to blame for this. Levine is, at least, the actual petition has the gall to suggest this is entirely journalists fault... somehow. Probably in the same way it was Leigh Alexander's fault that people never bothered to read a single word of her Gamers are Over piece, and even managed to consistently misquote the title.

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in general, it sounds awfully nice to say that you're interested in fixing things, but it also suggests all sides are equally to blame for this. Levine is, at least, the actual petition has the gall to suggest this is entirely journalists fault... somehow. Probably in the same way it was Leigh Alexander's fault that people never bothered to read a single word of her Gamers are Over piece, and even managed to consistently misquote the title.

 

I actually still have to find that original "gamers are dead" article. Huh, funny, it's nowhere around...

 

Yes, Kern is aggressively asking for positive coverage in order to 'heal the rift'. Heck, if the conflict is buried and never mentioned again, maybe the violence will cease.

 

Personally, I think Merkel's peace treaty has worked out far better than this would.

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For a more extreme example on all this: I get (or got, bless you autoblocker) similar complaints from gaters whenever I mentioned that I'd absolutely stop playing and writing about any games made by asshole developers who take part in all this. Even if I wasn't doing this on my own time and money, generally, even if I was paid to write about every game in the world 24/7 there'd be plenty of people I'd never get around to for simple reasons of time, and they think skipping somebody who harasses other people on Twitter is some sort of weird injustice. "But their game might still be good!" So what, there's a hundred good games going unreported on every direction I look.

I've made the same decision to not buy games from developers involved in this. The only game that's actually had me worrying that I might really be missing out is Offworld Trading Company. It seems like a really cool game, and I'm left torn between wanting to promote a cool non-combat-focused game from Soren Johnson and the reality that Brad Wardell is President of Mohawk Games and the game is being published by Stardock.

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I might still be convinced to buy The Vanishing of Ethan Carter depending on how much in the tank that developer was.

 

I find it pretty self-serving that a former WoW dev doesn't want the enthusiast press to tell on him. That game fucking killed people, straight up, particularly in the early days before they started adding badges.

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He's also, by some accounts, hilariously incompetent.

 

The only game I'm bummed about is Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which looks genuinely pretty cool. I even agree with the lead dev that some of the outcry it received (female characters being a kickstarter stretch goal) might have been misplaced, but his attitude about the whole thing is just generally kind of horrible. (Well, maybe I'm being unfair, let's check his twitter f-- nope still a shit.)

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Oh god, the Ethan Carter guy has written a takedown of FemFreq.  So big, it needed two parts. I haven't brought myself to read part 2 yet, my mind is still processing part 1.

On the Damsel in Distress:

 

The idea that the trope as such is sexist makes no sense, unless you believe that a story of a woman disempowered then saved by a man is sexist. If you do, realize it means that any movie or book inspired by real world events of a disempowered woman saved by a man — like this one, or …aw screw it here is a thousand examples at once — would automatically be sexist. And we should not have that. Point me to the universe in which this makes sense.

But if you suddenly stopped liking Buffy for after watching Feminist Frequency you see “evil tropes” everywhere, it’s only because you have been exposed to how sausage is made and got depressed there’s actually a limited amount of plot devices in the world. Also, you have been lied to and indoctrinated, and tropes like Damsel in Distress, existing to celebrate the power of love and as a promise to never leave the beloved one alone in their troubles, now somehow look to you like a poison.

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Ugh, I looked at the dude's Twitter. That was a mistake. I got Ethan Carter a little while ago but haven't played it yet due to some PC shenanigans, but now I'm wondering if I should really play it at all. I guess the damage is done in terms of supporting the dude financially, I'll probably not buy whatever else he does in the future if he stays indie.

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Adrian Chmielarz from the Association of Indie Game Developers Fighting for Their Own Extinction [AOIGDFFTOE].

 

I wasn't kidding back then. The guy gets full on gamergate with the usual strategies - exaggerate Sarkeesian's position until it sounds as if the trope was bad in itself and games were effectively ruined by them, then show counterexamples to refute the strawman.

But let's not forget where Chmielarz stands. The guy's a core indie with a very strong tendency towards the narrative at the cost of gameplay mechanics. In the video where he claims to have found the "holy grail of narrative games", he expressly praises "Gone Home" as a great game (9:20). Quoting the words of "Sarkeesian Effect" maker Davis Aurini, it becomes all to clear what Adrian Chmielarz is to gamergate personalities:

 

The methodology of the Social Justice Warrior is that of the parasite. […] They’re jealous of the power wielded by artists and game developers, but lack the finer sensibilities needed to appreciate the art itself.  Thus they create mockeries of gaming like Depression Quest and Gone Home.”

(sorry for quoting Aurini, this is painful for me as well. I always hear Goebbels talking about Jews. Though here he sounds like Nietzsche talking about women.)

 

Chmielarz is hopping onto gamergate territory, maybe out of opportunist motives, maybe out of extreme stupidity. But it will end really bad for him, because the people who happen to like Ethan Carter are very, very likely to hate his new friends, and his new friends are very likely to hate Ethan Carter.

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The real hilarity of the petition and Ken Levine, is that "this is a rift, this is some equal participation chasm" that addresses the mostly male gaming development community, and mostly male gaming press (which neither group touched very much wholesale) to heal some sort of "faction war" that was a concerted effort from a small third party of mostly men to oust marginalized people, mostly women, from both communities. 

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