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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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I'm still not sure what you're taking issue with here, specifically. Her mentions are disconcerting to say the least, but I don't really see a common thread in there besides the usual garbage mansplaining.

 

I certainly didn't want to suggest that everything is going well, either! Academia is pretty messed up, there's not nearly enough funding in it around here (and probably not anywhere else either) and a lot of people who have a say in it still look down on games. I was just saying that this has all been going on for a while, so I don't really share her view of GG specifically having messed things up, even if I don't doubt her experience with it.

 

To repeat, I don't think anybody here is saying that things are great, just that they have not suddenly become bad for this specific reason.

 

As for the wider perception of game-based academia, that also seems to be muddled in a much larger conversation about how the humanities in general are valued in society. I know plenty of people who openly scoff at the idea of writing a dissertation about a book, too. For them it's just all a right waste of time, across all these lines.

 

So, what are we talking about here?

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Yeah, I also want to make it clear that I don't mean to criticize her at all. Archiving video games is something that should definitely be done; I'm very glad she's doing it; I'm dismayed that she has to fight to have it recognized as important; and I'm angry that GG has made it harder for her to do so. But I'm just as upset at the school she's at. Basically, I think this is as much a problem with certain branches of academia as it is with GG in particular.

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She specifically mentioned GG affecting her (edit) universities employers view of video games and willingness to fund games archiving related study and projects. She's now getting widely and simultaneously shat on by GG, GGhazi, and assorted mansplainers, and you guys are busy picking holes in her here too.

 

I think I'm done with this thread. For sure this discussion.

 

A week or two ago someone said here they were uncomfortable with the constant exhausting dissection of whether people were good people or not, and I've been strongly feeling that too. It is deeply unempathic and I absolutely despise it.

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She specifically mentioned GG affecting her employers view of video games and willingness to fund games archiving related study and projects. She's now getting widely and simultaneously shat on by GG, GGhazi, and assorted mansplainers, and you guys are busy picking holes in her here too.

 

I think I'm done with this thread. For sure this discussion.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't think I'm "picking holes". It's important to be critical, and there's just not enough information being presented here. I felt this conversation had moved on to talking about GG, academia and public discussions of intellectual critiques of games.

 

Sympathy for her position should not lead directly to complete acceptance of her version of events. Given my own experience in academia, it is fair to point out that her fury at not being funded, though understandable, is not necessarily justified. It is also fair to point out that there is a ton of context missing from her version of events. I don't think that noticing that and commenting on it puts me in the same camp as the people harassing her on twitter. 

 

I'm not saying that lack of context equals lack of truthfulness here. That's not at all what I'm saying. What I will say is that the presentation of her archival work being thwarted by academics and administrators that are dismissive of video games BECAUSE of GG strikes me as being simplistic. Keep in mind I'm not saying she's misshaping the truth. The missing context may be context she herself does not have, which as I know myself can be incredibly frustrating when your work and your career is so closely involved.

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Really sorry you feel this way. I certainly didn't intend to pick anybody apart, so my bad if it came off that way.

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EDIT: Nevermind, the discussion has clearly run its course.

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EDIT: Nevermind, the discussion has clearly run its course.

 

Agreed. Also, Nach, I would like to be clear that I certainly wasn't trying to pick on her either, nor would I want it to come across that way.

Let's get back to shaking our heads at Total Biscuit being awful.

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I wouldn't say anything about this woman's experience, but my girlfriend is in the final few months of a PHD program, and basically there is nothing egalitarian or meritocratic about it. She went in unfunded as well, which she was heavily warned against, but hustled her way out of it, relentlessly applying for grants and taking weird jobs, like the department IT person. In her case there is a happy ending (three tenure track offers out of three campus interviews), but the whole thing was rough and unfair, and I'd have trouble pointing at just one thing as a tipping point.

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This reminds me that during her talk, Anita Sarkeesian shared that moot had gone to one of her talks and she didn't know, which made the bit where she advised no-one to ever go to 4chan because it's a breeding ground for hate groups really awkward after the fact.

I am not sure Moot would disagree would he?

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or my part, I still regularly meet people who don't play games at all and, for instance, scoff loudly when they hear a friend of mine just completed a PhD in video games and the sublime. Similarly, I deal with hundreds of developers and not many of them have any understanding of culture or how video games work as a medium outside of industry. "Industry" is deeply coded into their vocabulary, go to phrases and habitual discussions. Nearly every conversation gets dragged back to the selling-focussed methods and perspectives that often alienate non-industry people who work in fields such as academia and art.

 

I'm glad your work and careers seem to be going well. Maybe things are different in your neck of the woods, but when the audience for games and the industry that feeds it are both largely impenetrable and occasionally hostile to outsiders, it's dispiriting. In 2004 I saw an immature industry that didn't really take care of itself or understand its need for a wider foundation. A lot has changed in the intervening decade, yet not that.

 

I've been thinking about this a lot since you tweeted a similar sentiment. People always talk about the "Video Game Industry", even though the word industry has had such negative connotations in the past. Like you say, it's so mechanical and sales-focused. By calling everything part of the "industry", you build up the GGer perspective that video games are Products, not weird art things, and that they should therefore appeal to the Average Consumer (the young white cis male, of course).

 

Where does the industry end and the rest of the world begin? indie developers? games press? games writers in mainstream media? enthusiasts?

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Why would you not want games to be products?  If you think some arts and its creators effort have high enough value, you should be willing to put monetary value (something more than praise) on some of it so they can be produced with professional effort and eat.

 

Trying to reject industry element rings like a hallow hipster sentiment to me.  Real people got to eat by being compensated for what is perceived to be valuable labor.  I think high quality arts qualify as valuable labor, and the fact that it is done on industrial scale (meaning high demand and high production, which means REGULAR PAY) is awesome (despite so much flaws in the process, which most certainly exists, like relatively poor labor law regulations).
 

Perhaps you mean games should not be 'perceived only as products'?  Which is totally fair.

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Go tell it to the poem industry, Gaizokubanou.

 

By calling everything part of the "industry", you build up the GGer perspective that video games are Products, not weird art things, and that they should therefore appeal to the Average Consumer (the young white cis male, of course).

 

Where does the industry end and the rest of the world begin? indie developers? games press? games writers in mainstream media? enthusiasts?

 

 

My experience at the moment is that "industry" is too deeply embedded in everyone's psyche to have a distinct boundary within games. The term automatically rolls off everyone's tongue, including mine, still, sometimes. You have to go a very long way out to the fringes before you find someone who feels any kind of hesitancy over the word, let alone pride in non-industrial work. Most routes toward developing the skills required to craft video games also happen in contexts that are heavily biased toward industrial output too.

 

IMO one of the symptoms of this is a lack of appreciation and respect for support roles, such as the archivist above. Mature industries have, understand and value these roles. At video games industry events, people still assume you're either a developer, a journalist, or maybe a musician.

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I think that pretension to industry has done a lot of good for video games as a respectable medium, actually; I noticed a solid uptick in respect given to games when the industry started making money hand over fist in a way that the very good, artistic games that we've seen over the past few years never inspired.

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Sure, people follow the money because looking at and talking about big numbers is easier than thinking about stuff. The "bigger than Hollywood now!" thing is still repeated, and has been for nearly a decade. At some of those times, particularly the ones further back, it's been a blatant fabrication or massaging of figures in a desperate effort to claw some validation from the rest of the world. Largely, that validation was lacking because the industry drove itself into a trough of appeasing teenage boys, and the resulting stigma is still clinging on.

 

It's done some good, but led us to a point where, say, major games organisations still think "art" is putting something in a frame then on the wall, that they can absorb aesthetics of respectability by doing that without having to put time or thought into what they do beyond their existing production process. We're left with an industry that has a massive tantrum when someone says its commercial products aren't art, yet has (for instance) persistently ignored or marginalised a history of computer arts going back to the sixties as irrelevant.

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Trying to reject industry element rings like a hallow hipster sentiment to me.

 

I think you are misunderstanding why people might take that stance though. A lot of the alt-games and alt-crit community I move in prefers not to think of their work as a product, and it's not because they don't want to be paid or are afraid of the corrupting influence of money (a fear that only people who are well moneyed for other reasons get to indulge in). It's because calling it a product suggests that it should be subject to the laws of the market, and the market has traditionally shown that it's unwilling to support certain things, important as everybody might agree they are, because they're not terribly popular. See also Nachimir's example of poetry. Or theater at large, any kind of fine art that depends heavily on subsidization.

 

Not calling it a product or rejecting the whims of an industry that would leave you to starve is a way of saying "What I'm doing isn't saleable or marketable. It still deserves support. What now?"

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Gaizokubanou, paypal me ten bucks and I'll reply to you. Until you do that, I can only infer that my posts are worthless to you and that I should, as a rational economic actor, save myself the trouble. If any of this perplexes you don't worry, the invisible hand will be along shortly to clear it all up.

 

In other news:

After two days of solid harassment, 8BitBecca has locked her account and appears to be moving out of the games industry. Good job everyone!

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Gaizokubanou, paypal me ten bucks and I'll reply to you. Until you do that, I can only infer that my posts are worthless to you and that I should, as a rational economic actor, save myself the trouble. If any of this perplexes you don't worry, the invisible hand will be along shortly to clear it all up.

 

Stop trying to flamebait like that Nachimir, unless you seriously think I'm trying to extend all interaction into purely monetary form but my post shouldn't read like that so I'll clarify if you made those snarks in good faith but on simply misunderstood terms.

 

I think you are misunderstanding why people might take that stance though. A lot of the alt-games and alt-crit community I move in prefers not to think of their work as a product, and it's not because they don't want to be paid or are afraid of the corrupting influence of money (a fear that only people who are well moneyed for other reasons get to indulge in). It's because calling it a product suggests that it should be subject to the laws of the market, and the market has traditionally shown that it's unwilling to support certain things, important as everybody might agree they are, because they're not terribly popular. See also Nachimir's example of poetry. Or theater at large, any kind of fine art that depends heavily on subsidization.

 

Not calling it a product or rejecting the whims of an industry that would leave you to starve is a way of saying "What I'm doing isn't saleable or marketable. It still deserves support. What now?"

 

Find like minded people and see if it can be sustainable, right?  Let me be clear here, I'm not suggesting some sort of free-for-all-jungle-capitalism push on entire society here because things like social security and services deserve more look at than simple "do people want it"... but here we are talking about entirely subjective medium where value is highly contentious.  Linking this to easily accessed, say, government grant is just ripe for corruption.  Imagine all the failed kickstarter games outrage except now the money is coming out tax...

 

I'm all for discussing merits and supporting things like healthcare and free education, but art and entertainment mediums are best to largely (minus some bare minimum stuff like how labor must be paid, etc. or some really rare government support) remain in unregulated territory.  Like for example, there was government funded animated movie in South Korea... I think the funding went close to $200 million?  Movie got produced but the general consensus is that it's just... poor quality and people are rightly outraged that this was funded by tax through god knows how (like who decided on it?  how the animation company was chosen?).  But hey, they ticked off all the boxes (made 'art' in specified format).

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In other news:

After two days of solid harassment, 8BitBecca has locked her account and appears to be moving out of the games industry. Good job everyone!

 

I can't understand how you could possibly have understood our previous comments to be against her in any way, shape or form. If anything, the response in this thread was more against how other people used her words rather than what she herself said. I saw what went on in her Twitter feed; that shit is terrible. The reason I brought up my concerns about those ideas here rather than her Twitter feed was precisely because I knew what kind of garbage she'd be receiving, but I figured this forum was somewhere where people could have reasonable, thoughtful discussions without worrying about them being misconstrued or hurting others.

 

Even after that, I still shared her post with others because I think it's an important thing to talk about. I just had some specific thoughts to share in the conversation. You've been taking any comments in this conversation in the worst faith possible.

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Sure, people follow the money because looking at and talking about big numbers is easier than thinking about stuff. The "bigger than Hollywood now!" thing is still repeated, and has been for nearly a decade. At some of those times, particularly the ones further back, it's been a blatant fabrication or massaging of figures in a desperate effort to claw some validation from the rest of the world. Largely, that validation was lacking because the industry drove itself into a trough of appeasing teenage boys, and the resulting stigma is still clinging on.

 

It's done some good, but led us to a point where, say, major games organisations still think "art" is putting something in a frame then on the wall, that they can absorb aesthetics of respectability by doing that without having to put time or thought into what they do beyond their existing production process. We're left with an industry that has a massive tantrum when someone says its commercial products aren't art, yet has (for instance) persistently ignored or marginalised a history of computer arts going back to the sixties as irrelevant.

 

This is also true, and I mean to say only that it's a complicated issue and a gambit that has done both good and ill. This medium has been a commercial one for almost all of its existence, and that does shape how people are willing to see it, but I also note that we've had artists like Tale of Tales working in this medium for a while now, and the 'industry' has grown to include them. Their next work feels more commercial than what they've done in the past, I think, but I also think some of their earlier works wouldn't be out of place in the 'industry' now.

 

It might come as a surprise to some of us that the view of progress only ever going forward and making things better is a false one. Progress has been lost, and things get worse; it's worth remembering, however, that it's not just happening in games, and that, in the long run, the forces of good win out. What happens in the next few years, as it becomes clear just how fucking terrified people are over how fragile and hostile capitalism is, as it becomes easier and easier for the vulnerable to be heard and to see the system rise up to strike them down, as we see how little power we actually have despite the constant assurances that our vote and voice "matter", is not going to be pretty. That fight might be lost - but it will be fought again, and again, until it is finally won for good.

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in the long run, the forces of good win out.

I mean, do they though? If we're talking about the long run, the forces of entropy win out. So somewhere in between now and then good wins? Temporarily? I dunno, sorry to be a downer, but that whole moral arc of the universe bending towards justice thing is primarily just a thing that feels nice to say, not something that actually means anything in particular.

 

The fact is, if we want 'good' to win, we have to make it happen. The universe is not on our side here, and failure is definitely a possibility. That's why it's a fight, not a nap.

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Gaizo, if you look at Depression Quest. It's a game Zoe Quinn made to say something to people, it was made as a piece of art for them to enjoy. Her main goal is to spread the message it contains. If she charged even a penny for it, less people will play it because they're now purchasing a product.

It's possible she only made this decision because she didn't think the market would pay, but I suspect her goal was not monetary and thus decision served the goal of making art much better.

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Gaizo, if you look at Depression Quest. It's a game Zoe Quinn made to say something to people, it was made as a piece of art for them to enjoy. Her main goal is to spread the message it contains. If she charged even a penny for it, less people will play it because they're now purchasing a product.

It's possible she only made this decision because she didn't think the market would pay, but I suspect her goal was not monetary and thus decision served the goal of making art much better.

 

Yes, and I don't see how that's a problem with anything I said.  Just because I like the strong industry presence in game making doesn't mean I oppose those who do it for non profit.  I just don't like the hate that industrial aspect gets because it is for profit.

 

Unless I did say what ultimately meant I disapproved of non-profit elements then I clearly misspoke by big margin.

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