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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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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).

 

That's not true at all. Just because they're products doesn't mean they must target the largest market, they can go niche just like every other type of product can. 

 

 

 

Regarding the whole "Games as art" vs "Games as industry" discussion going on, I feel like I'm seeing a strange conflation that mindless entertainment games are products of industry, and arty message games are the result of someone who just wants to share an experience with the world. People can make "arty" games for money, and they can make mindless entertainment games for free. Hell, if we were to count the games on the various flash portals of the internet, I bet games with pricetags would have a higher ratio of "This has a Message" to "This is a fun thing for you to play for fun" than free games do. I'm not sure I have anywhere to go with this, I just thought I'd point out that it's weird that people seem to have made that connection.

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Find like minded people and see if it can be sustainable, right?

 

It's not, though. This isn't some big unknown that we have yet to suss out, a lot of people have already tested the sustainability of these ventures for years at a time, and this is the conclusion they've drawn almost universally. Some people manage to get by for a while, and if they have any shred of self-awareness about them they'll tell you that's because they got lucky. Most don't.

 

The issue is that the encouraged and even enforced philosophy of seeing if you can make it actively contributes to the problem. It makes sure that the fundamentally unsustainable system never fully breaks down because new people willing to "pay their dues" always show up to replace those wrung dry by the machine, who quietly slip away to take up some sort of day job (if they're lucky). This loss is hard to quantify because it's impossible to tell what insights people would have given us if they got to write about games for a longer time, but I do think we're missing out by replacing so many of our thinkers with new people every couple of years.

 

From the outside all this looks like it must be working, else why would people keep showing up? (Naivete, youthful innocence, genuine enthusiasm, having been told that this is the only way. The machine feeds on these things) But after you watch the scene for a while you notice the pattern of people appearing and disappearing and new sites springing up that tell their writers that they'll be paid, eventually, and thus contribute (sometimes willfully, sometimes unwittingly) to the continued abuse.

 

I know this is going to sound hypocritical, because I too devote a lot of time to this thing I have no idea will ever be a real option for me. I don't know how to solve this, or that it can be solved, but increased awareness of the issue probably does not go amiss in the process.

 

 

I'm all for discussing merits and supporting things like healthcare and free education, but art and entertainment mediums are best to largely remain in unregulated territory. 

 

Rest assured that grants are never easy to come by. You also chose a pretty singular example to discuss this, I think of it more akin to state-funded or state-supported TV and theater productions or art shows we have around here, which are pretty widely enjoyed. A lot of people still consider it a waste of money, of course, but I don't think that outrage is necessarily justified: states are sometimes in the position of a parent trying to feed their child broccoli, after all. Art, culture and education are, on a certain level, essential to keep democracy going. People's right to choose depends on their ability to make informed decisions, which benefits from an enriched perspective on life - but that doesn't mean they'll agree that this is something worth funding opposite potholes that need fixing or more fighter jets for that sense of security.

 

That these efforts will not always turn out great is something you kind of have to accept when you deal in something fundamentally subjective, and good management generally tends to address this by spreading their efforts on a lot of different projects. The shocking thing about that movie shouldn't be that it's bad, which is always a possible result in making movies, but that they spent 200 million on a single thing in the first place.

 

EDIT: I remembered that I also wanted to point out that not all of this is necessarily about creating a thing, but also commenting on a thing, critiquing a thing, advancing the discourse around a thing, helping people who are doing one of these. This is a pretty good summary of why "maker culture," the idea that valuable creative expression always results in the creation of something, comes with some really bad baggage.

 

I can't understand how you could possibly have understood our previous comments to be against her in any way, shape or form.

 

I can understand that it can look pretty cynical to talk about the larger issues she raised rather than to focus on empathizing with her over the harassment she received, although I also don't see how doing that would have necessarily helped the matter either. I doubt she would have found our support here, and even good will sent directly to her hardly makes up for the horribleness she was on the receiving end of. These emotional extremes don't balance each other out,  I think.

 

Regardless, this is terrible news. I hope she gets to keep doing what she wanted to do and with less of the bullshit surrounding it. I apologize if I ever seemed callous about what she has to deal with.

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It's not, though. This isn't some big unknown that we have yet to suss out, a lot of people have already tested the sustainability of these ventures for years at a time, and this is the conclusion they've drawn almost universally. Some people manage to get by for a while, and if they have any shred of self-awareness about them they'll tell you that's because they got lucky. Most don't.

 

The issue is that the encouraged and even enforced philosophy of seeing if you can make it actively contributes to the problem. It makes sure that the fundamentally unsustainable system never fully breaks down because new people willing to "pay their dues" always show up to replace those wrung dry by the machine, who quietly slip away to take up some sort of day job (if they're lucky). This loss is hard to quantify because it's impossible to tell what insights people would have given us if they got to write about games for a longer time, but I do think we're missing out by replacing so many of our thinkers with new people every couple of years.

 

From the outside all this looks like it must be working, else why would people keep showing up? (Naivete, youthful innocence, genuine enthusiasm, having been told that this is the only way. The machine feeds on these things) But after you watch the scene for a while you notice the pattern of people appearing and disappearing and new sites springing up that tell their writers that they'll be paid, eventually, and thus contribute (sometimes willfully, sometimes unwittingly) to the continued abuse.

 

I know this is going to sound hypocritical, because I too devote a lot of time to this thing I have no idea will ever be a real option for me. I don't know how to solve this, or that it can be solved, but increased awareness of the issue probably does not go amiss in the process.

 

 

 

Rest assured that grants are never easy to come by. You also chose a pretty singular example to discuss this, I think of it more akin to state-funded or state-supported TV and theater productions or art shows we have around here, which are pretty widely enjoyed. A lot of people still consider it a waste of money, of course, but I don't think that outrage is necessarily justified: states are sometimes in the position of a parent trying to feed their child broccoli, after all. Art, culture and education are, on a certain level, essential to keep democracy going. People's right to choose depends on their ability to make informed decisions, which benefits from an enriched perspective on life - but that doesn't mean they'll agree that this is something worth funding opposite potholes that need fixing or more fighter jets for that sense of security.

 

That these efforts will not always turn out great is something you kind of have to accept when you deal in something fundamentally subjective, and good management generally tends to address this by spreading their efforts on a lot of different projects. The shocking thing about that movie shouldn't be that it's bad, which is always a possible result in making movies, but that they spent 200 million on a single thing in the first place.

 

About the first half, I would say that the problem you are pointing out there is more due to relative youth of the industry combined with 'low-entry-cost' than idea of producing and selling games as a business.

 

About the second half, we just flat out disagree there then.  I see state's proper role in art in almost exclusively 'preservation' of old (akin to preserving historical site) or educational and otherwise it should stay out of it.  But as I say, that I also see that all the examples you listed sounds pretty small time (maybe except for TV stuff, which I have no idea what the scale would be over there)... which is not against my train of thought at all.  Note I said states should "largely" stay out of it.  I don't really have much issue on micro scale level of state investment because sure, why not experiment the investment sources to see how it works out?  But it's the large scale funding that I'm against.  I'm talking about the idea of entities like ActivisionBlizzard or Disney getting that tax break or funding because of 'art'.

 

And as for the risk, isn't that hypocritical when that's your argument against primarily market controlled industry, only for you to just hand-wave that as "acceptable risk" when it comes to government funded industry?  And yes, you are right that 200 million spent is the shocking part but that's my whole point, that it's just pulled out of taxation under pretense of 'art' (I straight up think most of that 'budget' went into someone's (who took no part in production) pocket).  And because art is so highly subjective, it's really difficult to even begin to ask for proper management track because what qualify as $200 million worth of good work or not is so wildly different from each one of us.  And if you are actually against that sort of high budget investment then why are we even talking about this as if we are on opposite side ;) ?  That sort of absurd high budget government deals are what I'm opposed to when it comes to art and entertainment, and that's where I think the large scale market-economy-industry handles it much 'better' for art and entertainment.

 

Ultimately though, for low level support, I think just having good solid social safety net is often enough (something that's SORELY missing in USA for sure, much better almost every other 1st world).

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Speaking of things popping up to draw young people into the "industry" of games, GG has created a new hashtag and community called Solution6Months (WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GAMERGATE DO BASIC RESEARCH IMBICILE) to repair the damage(?) done to the indie games industry(???) by ~them~ by creating a "safe space" (safe because it is apolitical) for people to learn how to make games. 

 

If I had more time, I'd start a thread there about learning Twine, just to see what would happen

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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?

 

Yeah, somewhere between the long long run and the short run, things improve. If they didn't, if the deck wasn't so stacked in favour of co-operation and collective understanding, we wouldn't have survived to get to this point. If things were more even, at some point we would have backslid far enough to ensure the extinction of the species, and the fact that we have the society we do wouldn't make any sense.

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Just because a coin comes up heads 10 times in a row doesn't mean it will an 11th, and just because we're writing this at a comparatively free and progressive time and place doesn't mean that that's an inevitable evolution. Plenty of enlightened and egalitarian countries have fallen into dictatorships, and the Library of Alexandria burned down. Knowledge is not always accumulated, slaves aren't always freed, respect isn't always given. If things are going to get better, it's going to be because we make them better, not because of some inevitable and unnameable force of nature.

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Speaking of things popping up to draw young people into the "industry" of games, GG has created a new hashtag and community called Solution6Months (WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GAMERGATE DO BASIC RESEARCH IMBICILE) to repair the damage(?) done to the indie games industry(???) by ~them~ by creating a "safe space" (safe because it is apolitical) for people to learn how to make games. 

 

If I had more time, I'd start a thread there about learning Twine, just to see what would happen

Isn't this literally because Rami Ismail made gamedev.world ?

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Rami did mention on Twitter that GG seems to have misunderstood his attempts to improve things as an invitation to join in (read: hijack the project), telling them to piss off. I've not been following this closely though.

 

I suppose fiddling with development tools is by far one of the more benign things they could get up to. Shame that it won't last long, but they have always demonstrated much more interest in claiming they are doing something productive than in actually sticking with it.

 

EDIT:

 

 

And as for the risk, isn't that hypocritical when that's your argument against primarily market controlled industry, only for you to just hand-wave that as "acceptable risk" when it comes to government funded industry?

 

Only if you consider people not being able to pay rent or afford food and states maybe spending a bit of money on a project that's not so hot to be equal risks.

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God, "reality check." The mind boggles. I hate to armchair psychoanalyze people over the net but lord if that stuff doesn't read like paranoid delusions.

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Only if you consider people not being able to pay rent or afford food and states maybe spending a bit of money on a project that's not so hot to be equal risks.

 

Oh come on Deadpan, so you think every self proclaimed artist is automatically entitled to make a living based on such claim and that only risk about government funded project is that project may not be as good as you hoped for, when I provided an example where odds are, more than half of the $200mil budget probably never was intended to be funneled into any sort of production?   And you keep mentioning 'bit of money'.  How many times do I have to explicitly state that I don't have any problem with small scale stuff, it's the whole industry wide deals (or that $200mil deal that I don't think you were very fond of even in simple scale term) that I'm wary of because at that point, it's not 'bit of money', it's hundred of millions or more.

 

And I already supported having more generalized social security network to prevent someone from being homeless and foodless so why are you bringing that up as a counterpoint to me as if I was totally fine and/or thoughtless with starving homeless people?  I just don't think that government creating jobs in art and entertainment sector is the right way to provide such security net in large scale because the work involved is just too subjective and hence just way too open for corruption once the money grow in size.

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Agree with Megaspel. 

 

GG makes perfect sense if you imagine everything they say coming out of the mouth of a 15yo. 

 

They seem like every other shitty person, nothing special. I think they're just really confident in what they believe, which is scary to me because it means everything I am super confident in, could as easily be as bullshit as gamergate.

 

Well, it kind of is to some degree. The trick is being able to incorporate new information and perspectives when you find out, instead of descending into a siege mentality. 

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And I already supported having more generalized social security network to prevent someone from being homeless and foodless so why are you bringing that up as a counterpoint to me as if I was totally fine and/or thoughtless with starving homeless people?

 

Oh dear, sorry if it looked that way, I just didn't really want to argue about it much more since you already acknowledged we actually agree on some of these things and just fundamentally disagree on others. There's just a pretty big difference to me both between both what's at stake and the odds of success in these examples. Sorry I looked like a butt there!

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They seem like every other shitty person, nothing special. I think they're just really confident in what they believe, which is scary to me because it means everything I am super confident in, could as easily be as bullshit as gamergate.

 

Well, it kind of is to some degree. The trick is being able to incorporate new information and perspectives when you find out, instead of descending into a siege mentality. 

 

I think the siege mentality thing describes it well. As Gamergate has gone on, I've realized that anger over the "Gamer identity is dead" thing isn't just a manufactured talking point, a lot of them really seem to take it as a personal affront, instead of just saying "Well that's silly" and moving on. It's like they're all this guy:

duty_calls.png

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Hey now, I have that as a signed print of that over my desk RIGHT NOW. It gives me VIGOR.

I demand a signed and public retraction of that statement. #NOTALLXKCDFANS

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GG is exactly the kind of thing a 16-year-old me would do (I mean the twitter-argument part of it, not the swatting one). Their rhetoric and usage of terms like "prove", "debunk", "evidence" and stuff like that is what happens when you think you're much more clever than you actually are (which is the case for pretty much any "misunderstood" teenager).

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8Jxwxap.jpg

Source: https://twitter.com/anne_theriault/status/575369566664138752

So apparently libel can result in jail time. And a group which defines itself as leaderless and too diverse to be criticized can be a target of it.

By the way, extreme irony about the libelous accusation; see everything they say about Leigh Alexander, Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, etc.

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By the way, extreme irony about the libelous accusation; see everything they say about Leigh Alexander, Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, etc.

 

Eh, I doubt they'd see it, even if you walked them through it. In the Abrahamic religions, it's not blasphemy to denigrate the Devil or overstate his wickedness.

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Just because a coin comes up heads 10 times in a row doesn't mean it will an 11th, and just because we're writing this at a comparatively free and progressive time and place doesn't mean that that's an inevitable evolution. Plenty of enlightened and egalitarian countries have fallen into dictatorships, and the Library of Alexandria burned down. Knowledge is not always accumulated, slaves aren't always freed, respect isn't always given. If things are going to get better, it's going to be because we make them better, not because of some inevitable and unnameable force of nature.

 

This doesn't actually address my point, you realise.

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It does, unless I'm grossly misunderstanding your point. Our current society, such as it is, is just as likely to be a statistical anomaly as an inevitable outcome. Certainly we as a species are wired for some degree of cooperation, but it's an article of faith to say that this is inherently inclusive of diversity or inevitably associated with justice. Cooperation is something that can just as easily be harnessed towards fascism or mob brutality as towards justice.

Besides, only in the last 70 years or so have we really gained the power to initiate a global extinction, and we've come really close a number of times, and in fact may still be in the process of doing so slowly with global warming, so I don't take this as nearly the encouraging sign that you do.

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It does, unless I'm grossly misunderstanding your point. 

 

Yeah, I think you are.

 

Our current society, such as it is, is just as likely to be a statistical anomaly as an inevitable outcome.

 

This is the problem: it's treating arriving at this point or not as one event rather than the end result of countless dependent and independent events. All the dictatorships that didn't happen; all the great kings and queens stabbed in the back before they could take the power they'd use well; the discoveries lost; the wars not fought. The possibility space of where we could be is truly massive, but over those events we can get a sense of what the probabilities actually lie. They're not zero, by no means. Odds are good that some of the countries we know now won't exist in the future due to societal collapse. For those people, the world's ended. But we're not postponing our inevitable self-destruction as a species either, because if that was truly on the cards, the amount of events we've run, the amount of times we were capable of it, the odds of that happening have to be fairly low for it to have not happened yet.

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One complex event vs many simple events is just a different way of representing the same data. It's not important whether getting heads 100 times in a row is regarded as a single 1:2^99 event or 99 1:2 events. Statistically improbable things happen all the time, and just because something is unlikely is hardly a guarantee that it's not the way things are. Plus, even now, there are plenty of dictatorships, and no guarantee that they'll be shorter-lived than our 'progressive' countries.

 

Anyway we're going rather far afield here, if we want to continue this it should probably be in a different topic or something.

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Just to be sure...

 

Oh dear, sorry if it looked that way, I just didn't really want to argue about it much more since you already acknowledged we actually agree on some of these things and just fundamentally disagree on others. There's just a pretty big difference to me both between both what's at stake and the odds of success in these examples. Sorry I looked like a butt there!

 

<3  That's really appreciated <3

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One complex event vs many simple events is just a different way of representing the same data.

Er, no, aggregates are never a representation, the'yre an approximation.

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