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JonCole

"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

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I didn't want to editorialize before anyone else got a chance to read it and form their own opinion, but yeah that's basically my take on it as well. By the time I read to the bottom I was furious. I'm glad I didn't break anything, but damn if I didn't come close.

 

Yeah, that's fucking insane, comparing the police actions in Ferguson to how the media treats "gamers." Wat da fuq? You can see his comments in context, with followups, here.

Also, Cracked has continued to pile on the gaters.

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Amusingly, at the moment one of the top contributors to this week's Humble Bundle, whose charitable donation is a fund which helps young women get into game development, is going by the name "#GamerGate."

Wait, I thought one of the first things GamerGate declared was that they hated the Humble Bundle. Is this people trolling them?

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Amusingly, at the moment one of the top contributors to this week's Humble Bundle, whose charitable donation is a fund which helps young women get into game development, is going by the name "#GamerGate."

It's been a while since I've been interested in a Humble Bundle. Unfortunately, they don't work well into my backlog reducing goal of beating more games than I purchase. Maybe I can buy it for my wife instead.

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Hah! I saw that as proof that leigh is mean or something when I randomly decided to see if the SA gg thread was shitty or not. It is shitty.

Believe it or not, that thread isn't as unbelievably shitty as the first thread, which might as well have just been transplanted from 4chan or something. The new thread at least has a handful of reasonable people in there, where the last one did not.

That first thread is actually what finally pushed me to come register over here, because it was just so fucking disgusting.

The one bright point of both threads? They're great resources for compiling a good ignore list.

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Yeah, that's fucking insane, comparing the police actions in Ferguson to how the media treats "gamers." Wat da fuq? You can see his comments in context, with followups, here.

Wow, I thought that might help, but no it completely does not.

Fuck video games*

 

*Congrats video games**

 

 

 

**FUCK video games.

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It must be comforting to all those gaters that their winning entrant for "worst company in the world" two years running is on their side.

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Ralph Koster fielding questions at /KotakuInAction, one of the #gamergate hubs:

 

http://www.reddit.com/user/RaphKoster

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction

 

Thanks for this Flynn. I think this shows that there is opportunity for healing on all sides. (I admit that I corrected myself from saying "both sides". As Raph says, "I am not even sure there are less than eight")

 

Illuminating in particular Raph's summary of the discussion

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2hgv5x/veteran_dev_saying_ama_here/ckteydp

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Well the Thumbs have now been official declared part of the conspiracy by Milo Yiannopoulos

 

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/516658750590320640

 

The responses to what is already an old and somewhat histrionic image don't even make me mad. There's an odd lassitude in their attempts to imply conspiracy that's almost kind of funny. "I mean even i can probably make a more interesting story then [Gone Home]," "Remo only did the music for the game, but still," etc.

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@Nero @mylittlepwnies3 fun fact Steven change his name 2gaynor 2prove how progressive he is. While you fight gay stereotypes. #GamerGate

Hahaha

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So one thing that I hadn't even considered until I saw someone on tumblr (bogleech, who is a feminist but isn't even very interested in games) bring it up: The most flawed part of the notion that game journalism has become increasingly interested in social issues as a result of being paid off is that in their golden era when games journos weren't SJWs (and thus weren't being paid off) didn't even try to hide the fact that they were paid off.

 

I mean.

 

Nintendo owned and operated their own magazine for nearly twenty years.

 

If you ever bought a game because you saw it in Nintendo Power when you were a kid, you bought a game because a game critic/journalist was literally on Nintendo's payroll.

 

You are a corporate shill.

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@Nero @mylittlepwnies3 fun fact Steven change his name 2gaynor 2prove how progressive he is. While you fight gay stereotypes. #GamerGate

Hahaha

More comedy gold from this guy:

 

"We need #GamerGate because if girl sleeps with drunk/high guy it's not rape in California. If it's other way around. It's rape."

 

Is that what GamerGate's actually been about this whole time?

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These Gamergates really are grasping at straws for their conspiracy truth these days, since this was all discussed last year. You'd think they would have dug up something more substantial at this point if what they say is true instead of just constantly being jerks and repeating the Zoe Quinn thing.

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Nice! TotalBiscuit here to set the record straight on Dota 2's gender issues!

 

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/ngiujr

 

He totally doesn't cherry-pick one or two accidental-and-totally-reasonable-misunderstandings and use them to prove there's no problem at all! That doesn't happen!

 

He also totally doesn't then use that as justification to take yet another jab at Anita! Wow TotalBiscuit you are the paragon of integrity and objectivity!

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Wow TotalBiscuit you are the paragon of integrity and objectivity!

I mean, yeah, he's a British Man with a Top Hat. That's peak rationality! You can't get more objective than that!

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As much as I respect TotalBiscuit for what he has created, I feel as though he doesn't know what to do from this point on.  In each of the responses I've seen from him, on gamergate and other issues, he seems to have this desire to come from some new viewpoint as if that perspective is somehow more valuable.  He seems to be pushing a narrative that both sides are wrong and responsible for reinforcing a conflict that need not exist, but fails to see this view is not the result of taking into account more information but less.  I suppose his heart is in the right place, but man do his methods need some work.

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I don't think his heart is in the right place at all. He acts as if the article is nothing but "gender politics", when it's really just one fucking paragraph. He's a dummy and all he wants to do is stay relevant by siding with the gamers. He might pretend the gaters are too extreme, but everything he says puts him right on their side every time.

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Nice! TotalBiscuit here to set the record straight on Dota 2's gender issues!

 

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/ngiujr

 

He totally doesn't cherry-pick one or two accidental-and-totally-reasonable-misunderstandings and use them to prove there's no problem at all! That doesn't happen!

 

He also totally doesn't then use that as justification to take yet another jab at Anita! Wow TotalBiscuit you are the paragon of integrity and objectivity!

 

I do think the criticism in that Verge article was poorly argued and bit of a mess, which is unfortunate since it is plainly obvious that DOTA has some fairly sexist content (personally it drives me nuts when Windranger dies and says "you hit a girl?"), but yeah that TB jab at Anita is so inappropriate.

 

If he really wanted to be "above the fray" or whatever he could point out what's wrong with the Verge article, and then go on to say that nonetheless there are some problems with the representation of women in the game. But of course he doesn't do that, he's just telling his audience what they want to hear.

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I don't think his heart is in the right place at all. He acts as if the article is nothing but "gender politics", when it's really just one fucking paragraph. He's a dummy and all he wants to do is stay relevant by siding with the gamers. He might pretend the gaters are too extreme, but everything he says puts him right on their side every time.

 

Well just because the end result is he ends up on the side of the gaters doesn't mean that was his intention.  I think his ultimate position isn't that social issues in games are good or bad but something he'd rather not have to deal with in his escapist hobby.  As much as I disagree with most of what he says, I have a hard time blaming him for wanting something different, and allow me to explain why.  When we talk about games we like to see something then ascribe intent or reason to it.  For example if I choose to pick one skill or another in an RPG you could say that the reason was that I liked that skill, however the actual reason for that behavior could be a multitude of things.  Maybe I didn't care so much and just clicked a button, maybe I picked that skill because I didn't like the alternatives rather than liking the specific skill I chose.  Without the input of the one making the decision, it is simply impossible to know the exact reason for that decision.  So when TB responds to the quote regarding Crystal Maiden's death sequence he criticizes the author for describing, what is known to him to be the result of a bug, as sexualization.  I think this is a perfectly valid criticism, but then TB goes on to make the same mistake he is criticizing the DOTA 2 review's author for, namely ascribing intent based on an observed behavior.  In my opinion this is because TB knows how to be the up-and-comer/disruptor, but doesn't know how to be whatever authority that naturally comes with getting that kind of exposure.  So yes, he has said and supported some dumb things, but most likely not out of the desire to harm a particular viewpoint.  He appears to want to see the quality of the discussion improve, but doesn't quite know how to articulate that desire.

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In general, I have very little time for 'critics' who are chiefly interested in tearing the works of others down, disregarding a| whether they're the intended audience, b| whether the piece in question has other merits, or c| whether their audience can glean any useful information from the review. I believe he would respond to this criticism by saying he's primarily an entertainer: Fine, then. He's an entertainer who entertains by being an asshole to other entertainers and artists. As popular a niche as that one tends to be, it's not one I personally have a lot of respect for. That he's also turned out to be a passive-aggressive fence-sitter has done nothing to endear him to me, but I didn't have an especially high opinion of him before.

 

That said, a couple of years ago I did get a kick out of his Terraria LP with Jesse Cox. It's pretty much Dumb and Dumber.

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The Verge author rewrote the paragraph TB was criticizing (it's noted in a correction at the bottom of the piece), the current published version is quite a bit different from what he posted.

FWIW, TBs longer comments just basically remind me of the kind of bullshit I could go and read on almost any gaming forum on the 'net. I rarely see anything particularly original or well thought out in his writing (I don't watch his videos, don't know if they are better).

 

One of the artefacts of the game being designed by young males is in its presentation. Female characters tend to perform clichéd support or witch roles while dressing in form-fitting costumes that seem to have shrunken in the wash. One of the long-standing bugs in the game involves the Crystal Maiden hero, whose death animation sees the character momentarily stripped down to her underwear before disappearing. Some moves have been taken to rectify this imbalance, such as the re-gendering of the Legion Commander hero from male to female. That at least gives one recognizably female character among the Strength class of fully armored and uncompromisingly fierce heroes. It’s also worth acknowledging that Dota 2 doesn’t take itself too seriously, as evidenced by its bright color palette and predilection for puns. Gabe Newell’s favorite hero, the Sand King, makes a habit of asking his fallen enemies if they were expecting "Sandy Claws."

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He had a followup tweet speculating they might have been fulfilling a quota. What a fucking turd. Man I hate that dude. He's the smug face of douchey gamers to me.

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Is TotalBiscuit the Richard Dawkins of video games? Find out in this shocking exposé. I don't know how to end this thought.

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