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"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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What exactly is going on? I hate Twitter's format and can't follow that mess.

 

Tauriq Moosa has dumped Twitter, apparently because of the sustained harassment following his Witcher 3 criticism. 

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Tauriq Moosa has dumped Twitter, apparently because of the sustained harassment following his Witcher 3 criticism. 

 

We've already been over this before, but even if his criticism of CD Projekt Red's all-white fantasy of Poland in the Middle Ages wasn't spot on, it's still ridiculous that anyone would be hounded from Twitter for having an opinion. The hypocrisy of #GamerGate is astounding.

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How they can continue to believe that they are the ones "fighting against censorship" when the entirety of their activity is hounding people into silence is completely beyond me.

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How they can continue to believe that they are the ones "fighting against censorship" when the entirety of their activity is hounding people into silence is completely beyond me.

 

Who censors the censors?

watchmen2.JPG

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How they can continue to believe

 

They readily believe this...

http://thegg.net/general-news/leigh-alexander-and-the-sunset-fiasco-the-aftermath/

 

...and they readily believe this...

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/06/29/breitbarts-milo-yiannopoulous-convinces-gullible-mras-hes-been-hired-as-a-mens-studies-professor-by-oberlin/

 

 

In both cases, there's no sense in going the "disprove the bullshit" route. On the contrary, a bit of applause for this level of stupidity is in order. What an achievement. :blink:

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They readily believe this...

http://thegg.net/general-news/leigh-alexander-and-the-sunset-fiasco-the-aftermath/

 

...and they readily believe this...

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/06/29/breitbarts-milo-yiannopoulous-convinces-gullible-mras-hes-been-hired-as-a-mens-studies-professor-by-oberlin/

 

 

In both cases, there's no sense in going the "disprove the bullshit" route. On the contrary, a bit of applause for this level of stupidity is in order. What an achievement. :blink:

 

Holy shit. They saw this:

anita-sarkeesian-money-talks.jpg

 

And took it seriously. I wish there was any way to tell to what extent they're being genuinely stupid vs willfully misinterpreting things.

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And took it seriously. I wish there was any way to tell to what extent they're being genuinely stupid vs willfully misinterpreting things.

 

Yup. I saw this posted in a forum, and the next post praised the good find.

 

Another wonderful entry for the gamergater wiki or deepfreeze.it... 

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As Anita Sarkeesian pointed out, it's kind of ironic for a game that treats its female characters so poorly to be making cracks about GG.

 

The blogpiece that has been linked here already is good, but ultimately you have to bear in mind that these games are made, there is a market for them. The developers getting in a jibe against GamerGate is good in that it shows more of the industry climate against GG (not that that's particularly necessary, but eh).

 

Does it excuse the other issues inherent in such games? Or really, Batman in general because all the game does is model the Bat-universe exquisitely? Not at all.

 

But those issues don't mean this is any less of a decent snipe against GG. Trying to draw a link between the two smacks of pedantry, given how indescribably minor this footnote against GG is in the first place.

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Saying it's a perfect depiction of the Batman universe is a tad silly considering just how many universes the Batman universe encompasses. Sure, it emulates some of them, but there are decisions made about which aspects of Batman to keep and which to leave, which to emphasize and which to deemphasize, and that's an authorial choice in every case. I don't think it's fair to blame that on Batman generally, though it is perhaps fair to lay much of the blame for the grossness in those games at the feet of the same culture that generated the Furiosa comic.

 

In the end, as long as that culture exists, snipes against GG are just going to create more no-true-scotsmen situations where the same culture of harassment thrives under different names. And, as pointed out, this is hardly a very good snipe against GG in the first place, since it doesn't seem to have any real point behind it.

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I guess they really think that little of their targets that they see them as not merely conspiratorial, but incompetently conspiratorial.

On the one hand it's utterly baffling that anyone would take that at face value, but on the other, perhaps that kind of selective credulousness is the only way any of that bilge makes any sense.

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For the Milo thing, it's internet stupidity, but not exceptional internet stupudity. A lot of the people commenting on that probably saw the headline reported as fact, failed to click through for context or fact checking, and responded based on that. I feel like everybody's probably done that at one point in their lives or another.

 

The Sunset "conspiracy", however, requires a special kind of idiot.

14238065455699-b49zg.jpg

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Jesus fucking christ on a cracker.  How?  How do you look at all that and see conspiracy? 

 

Well, there are eleven comments on that article right now, but only one is showing any awareness that sometimes people joke or lie on the internet. The rest are too busy rubbing their hands with glee over such a "scoop." I mean, it's the classic failure of amateur journalism, right? Given the choice between finding something and finding nothing, only professionalism keeps one from choosing the former.

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Well, there are eleven comments on that article right now, but only one is showing any awareness that sometimes people joke or lie on the internet. The rest are too busy rubbing their hands with glee over such a "scoop." I mean, it's the classic failure of amateur journalism, right? Given the choice between finding something and finding nothing, only professionalism keeps one from choosing the former.

 

I'd almost just truncate that and call it the classic failure of journalism.  Lots of pros do it as well, and sometimes just as badly as the amateurs (its been days and I'm still laughing about this). 

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Far as I'm aware Tauriq has requested people not talk about GG as the reason for him leaving Twitter since it has just exacerbated the harassment issues that were already there.

 

In other bad news, Gita Jackson of Paste fame has also recently deleted her Twitter account. So with them gone for the time being, it falls to us to promote their work on there. More productive than arguing with gaters over it certainly.

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Far as I'm aware Tauriq has requested people not talk about GG as the reason for him leaving Twitter since it has just exacerbated the harassment issues that were already there.

 

Alexander said something similar in a series of tweets:

 

I just heard about Tauriq. I understand very well the stress that taking a stand on social media can induce — But attributing it to ‘GamerGate’, as if we were ‘fighting’ some organized ‘group’, is not constructive — This is the same hate that we’ve always gotten in this field, just organized under a banner. And it could also happen in other fields.

 

Even talking about ‘GamerGate’ or whatever lends erroneous legitimacy to the idea they have a special distinction. Nah, just shit bigots. Stop talking about ‘GamerGate’, seriously — fuck yr panels, yr documentaries, all that shit. Pay attention to the real issues. The reason Tauriq and many others can’t talk about diversity in games safely is not ‘GamerGate’. Don’t disrespect us by forgetting that.

 

On one hand, I agree that the problems, hate and harassment predate and are bigger than gg.  On the other, there's no doubt some of the hate and harassment is organized under the umbrella of gg.  There's definitely a problem with trying to shove it all under gg though, since I'm sure some of the people harassing Moosa are people who never go to Reddit or 8chan or interact with gg in any way. 

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I'd be all for it... really, I'd be for it. The term 'gamergate' is shoved into the discussion, and I'm all ready to abandon it.

 

We have a pretty universal activist problem in geek culture. To mere narrative, people react in a hyperbolic and highly emotional way. Mere details are supposed to 'ruin' an entire work of art. Criticism is directed against the creator/author directly, thanks to the wonders of the internet. And it often centers on only one central and possibly vulnerable person. Insults, threats, harrassment are common. Customers are asked to boycott franchises or entire companies. And all that is common regardless of the individual ideological motivation. All that may happen with feminism in mind. It may happen with free speech in mind. It may happen with the sole goal of harrassment in mind. 

 

Sure, video game culture sure takes that basic problem to the next level: Narrow and distorting perspectives from the US political sphere applied to ancient literary motifs of diversity and inclusion. Conspiracy type theories are concocted as to an organized or planned shift in narrative ideology. Attacks are diversified to include not just creators, but also academia, journalism and other media critics. "Corruption" becomes a concept that works without money involved. Women are targeted and women's interest and involvement in the media dismissed. An objectivity in art critique is asked for that is entirely alien to art. And essentially all criticism is seen as coming from forces outside the medium.

 

If the problem is reduced to the activist, 'social outrage' problem, we approach the problem from a far broader perspective and definitely include what Alexander calls "shit bigots". I'm all for that. Yet of course the 'special distinction' of these problems is there in video game culture. Call it gamergate, call it cultural suicide of video games. That distinction would be lost.

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Jesus fucking christ on a cracker.  How?  How do you look at all that and see conspiracy?

 

Out of all of that, what surprised me most was the theory's third pillar:

 

I was not surprised to hear that Tale of Tales game Sunset flopped really hard (both when it comes to grades and sells), nor the fact that Tale of Tales actually had to shut down their studio because of this, and this is the reason why:

– Sunset was made especially with Anita Sarkeesian in mind

– Leigh Alexander was the consultant for the project

– No advertising in the whole world can save a mediocre game

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Saying it's a perfect depiction of the Batman universe is a tad silly considering just how many universes the Batman universe encompasses. Sure, it emulates some of them, but there are decisions made about which aspects of Batman to keep and which to leave, which to emphasize and which to deemphasize, and that's an authorial choice in every case. I don't think it's fair to blame that on Batman generally, though it is perhaps fair to lay much of the blame for the grossness in those games at the feet of the same culture that generated the Furiosa comic.

 

In the end, as long as that culture exists, snipes against GG are just going to create more no-true-scotsmen situations where the same culture of harassment thrives under different names. And, as pointed out, this is hardly a very good snipe against GG in the first place, since it doesn't seem to have any real point behind it.

 

It's a perfect depiction of the regular Batman universe that most people can identify with, using a consistent set of voice actors and tying the general aesthetic look and feel with DC's mostly-recent offerings, from the Bale era to the upcoming Bats vs. Supes affair. Yes, there is a multiverse, yes, lots of crazy stuff happens, yes, DC (and often, Marvel) have no idea how to manage their a billion and one variant products, but that's mostly an aside.

 

There are important points to be made about the game as a series, absolutely, and I'll try and avoid going to deep into the game in this thread, because we have far more important things to be looking at. But my point is that doesn't mean that this jibe isn't still a jibe aimed at the same place.

Culture is a very interesting point going forwards, though. There is always a culture of harassment. There has, generally, always been one. GamerGate is simply the latest vaguely-mainstream manifestation with significant overlap with feminist theory and how it's more recently been rising in video games. I think we need to start looking at the how we fix this, and I don't think nixxing everything that could potential contribute to an idiot's worldview is going to help - that in itself will end up significantly repressing creative efforts ironically in the way GG is currently crying about (which, obviously, isn't happening at the moment. I'm speaking in theoreticals, to be clear).

 

Better nuance within the troublesome parts of the medium we're exploring - more awareness of the connotations of violence, thinking exercises, the works (Batman actually does a bit more than the average smash-them-up here - which is why I say the Bat-universe is what isn't helping contribute to the general tone of the game(s)). More thought around the notion of a freeform fighting system that magically incapacitates enemies instead of what reality would dictate by the force of physics involved - killing them. That's a fine criticism of the Arkham series and especially of Knight, from what I've read of the Batmobile.

 

But this takes time. We've just got to keep on getting better, as individuals, as an industry, as a sector, all of it. Criticise the bad bits, but don't use that as reason to not have a bit of a laugh at the lighter-hearted bits.

 

(I mean really, was that single tidbit on an ingame computer worth an entire news article? Or multiples thereof?)

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I think it's worth observing and commenting on how the games industry interacts with GG, far more than commenting on the antics of GG itself. Devs like Rocksteady and publishers like WB were conspicuously silent when GG was at its height: Is this going to be the extent of their response, then? Toothless jokes that elide the actual harm that GG and the ethos behind it has caused as well as the role that game culture has in shaping that mindset? I think that's worth taking a look at.

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Devs like Rocksteady and publishers like WB were conspicuously silent when GG was at its height: Is this going to be the extent of their response, then? 

 

Almost certainly. It would be bad business to make any kind of stronger statement, because that would result in lost sales. That kind of principles over business decision is something you might see out of a smaller developer, but I'd be genuinely shocked to see it out of the risk-averse AAA industry. It seems obvious to me that until GG's membership shrinks to the point of becoming a historical footnote, every company where decisions are made by profit maximizing execs will maintain an official policy of "No comment".

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From Twitter:


 

You dogpile anyone who dares says insulting things about you.

CI78PKpUYAIN-kb.jpg

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