Author: Damion Schubert (Page 32 of 136)

Over in my old stomping grounds on SWTOR, yesterday the lead community manager was forced to scold players for being self-entitled jerks.

However, following the posts John made yesterday, a few players formed a witch-hunt against John. These players tracked him down on some of his personal accounts and in some extreme cases, even those of his family members with the sole purpose of harassing, insulting, and threatening him based on those forum posts. The purpose of our forums, of our subreddit, and other official channels is to have a dialog. We know that sometimes we may disagree, and that’s ok. We want to have those hard conversations, we want to talk about what we can do to improve, and to pass on our thoughts on how we see things from the Development side. But taking that conversation off of official channels to make personal attacks against Developers is completely unacceptable.

Please understand John didn’t need to communicate his perspective about the class. John and the Combat team knew giving their views on Sentinels and Marauders, in some cases, would not be received well, but he did it anyway. The alternative, is that we stay silent.

Emphasis his, but I’m in full agreement – and in no way am I considering this unique to that game’s community.  Game developers want to be able to talk to their fans, but when the response to us talking is not criticism but steps outside of our work lives and into our home lives, the natural impulse of developers is to shut down that communication.  And when that happens, the dev attitude pretty much is forced into ‘you’ll take what you get and you’ll like it’.

I’ve written in the past about what we’ve lost in the recent catastrofuck – the desire for developers,  to engage wanes when they think that there is actual real risk – risk to their job, or risk to their family – from engaging with their playerbase.  But this is a problem that predates recent events, and runs parallel to them.  Jennifer Hepler and Jade Raymonde.  Ask the Call of Duty dev who was piled on by death threats for nerfing a gun.  Or the Bungie executive who was swatted.  Or for that matter, Brad Wardell, who I can remember mentioning at some point (I can’t find the link) that angry customers started reaching out to his family.

Criticism is fine.  Disagreement is fine.  Being opposed to changes in your favorite game is fine.  Designers aren’t always right.  Players aren’t always privy to all of the reasons that developers need to make changes.  Shit happens.  But when people stop arguing based on facts and start reaching directly for an attempt to indimidate, this ends up with a chilling effect for player/developer communications in the future.

So last week, the Society for Professional Journalists had ethics week, complete with their own hash tag (#SPJEthicsWeek).  Once GamerGate got wind of it, they – in their typically fair-minded and even-handed manner – proceeded to dogpile the hashtag to such a degree that the organizers of the event felt compelled to abandon the hashtag.  As one person from the SPJ wrote:

Abandoning the Twitter hashtag was simply the best course of action once the posts became sexist, homophobic, threatening, pornographic and – frankly – disgusting. I received some concerning messages, which were mostly deleted within a few hours. One person told me on Twitter, “man have you seen the giant mudslide of reckage[sic] we know as your (expletive) wake?”

This is, of course, not a new phenomenon.  #GamerGate recently dogpiled the Calgary Expo.  They recently dogpiled the GDC hashtag, and then got the vapors — lawd have mercy! — when the game development community openly rejected and shrugged off their attempts at intimidation and obfuscation.  #GamerGate dogpiled AbleGamers, for the crime of saying ‘we’d really like to NOT be associated either way with this brouhaha.’  In short, attempting to bully people on twitter is pretty much the MO for this hashtag.  In fact, leaders of their cause will happily direct these efforts, and then act SHOCKED when overzealous followers take it too far. Continue reading

Hey, whoever phoned in a bomb threat to the GamerGate meetup in Washington, DC: you’re an asshole.  Seriously.  Stop it.

Over the weekend, the Boston Magazine (edit: whoops, not the Globe) did an article which paints rather convincingly the image that GamerGate Firestarter Eron Gjoni is, in fact, the ex-boyfriend from hell. You know, as if ‘directing an international hate mob onto his exes’ girlfriend with malice and glee’ wasn’t enough.

Over the past several months, Gjoni has been working on a sequel to “The Zoe Post.” When I spoke to him in February, he had created a quick-and-dirty follow-up, which he described as “a full unminced explanation of why” he wrote the original, perhaps packed with even more of Quinn’s private information, and God knows what else. He was worried that he’d get thrown in jail for violating the restraining order, and so had set the sequel, like a time bomb, “to auto-publish if I don’t disable it 24 hours after any court date.”

Helpful tip: lots of people have had their hearts broken.  Lots of people have dated people who they think are crazy, evil, or otherwise bad news.  However, if you find yourself planning to do something like the above, willfully ignoring a restraining order, you are the bad guy.  Period.   Of course Eron doesn’t see it that way.  Eron is offended that the writer doesn’t seem to care that the Zoe Post is provably true (according to Eron) – look at the Facebook logs!  Dear Eron: that’s actually not the relevant part of the story.  The fact that Eron did not try to deny anything in the article having to do with the malice he wrote the original Zoe Post, nor the plans he outlined above, establishes that Eron is completely oblivious to the effects of his actions.  And, for example, why a court was utterly justified in their actions against him.

In related news, I wrote last week that the Honey Badgers were kicked out of the Calgary Expo.  They are now trying to fundraise so they can sue the Calgary Expo for their removal.  Funny thing, though, is that their affiliated men’s group, A Voice For Men, has NO PROBLEM kicking out elements they find disruptive from their own conference.  As pointed out by We Hunted the Mammoth:

They keep saying, “No feminist better try coming here!” Local police have dispatched four officers, and the conference attendees have deputized even more security from their own ranks. “Security” wears black polo shirts, and there are a lot of black polo shirts, but since the line is slow, security decides to sweep us all in with a request to return for a “check.” Nobody does. Only one feminist later attempts entry, an activist who goes by the handle “Dark Horse Swore.” The black shirts eighty-six her.

Hypocrisy is nothing new to any game-related discussion, but those following this odorous hashtag really do take the cake with the completeness of their projection and lack of self-awareness.  To wit, take a look at this graphic that was being passed around today on twitter, which is basically a full primer of the hypocrisy that is what is left of the very tiny GamerGate fringe group.  A response to the points on the graphic.

1. (SJWs say) “You disagree with me?  I will destroy your livelihood then”
Said the group who attempted to end the careers of Ben Kuchera, Nathan Greyson, Leigh Alexander, Sam Biddle among many other journalists, as well as try to engineer the firings or trying to organize boycotts against game developers who have spoken against their point of view, including myself, David Gaider, and CJ Kershner.

2. (SJWs say) “Please show support and donate to my Patreon.”
Here’s the Honey Badgers asking for money for their legal defense for the right to invade a private organization’s group for the express purposes of disrupting it.  Here’s Eron asking for money for the legal defense of his god-given right to continue launching hate mobs at his ex-girlfriend.  Here’s the Patreon for the Sarkeesian effect.  Here’s Liana K’s patreon.  Here’s Sargon of Akkad’s.   I actually don’t care about ANY of this – I find that kickstarter and Patreon are perfectly acceptable ways for people who have ideas that are not necessarily mass market to find an audience and make a living.  I do find the hypocrisy of attacking one side or the other for it.

3. (SJWs are) Openly racist.
The evidence cited here is pretty cherrypicked and thin.  Much thinner than, say, how the White Supremacists of Stormfront see kinship with gamergaters and see it as a recruiting opportunity.  Or KingOfPol going into full-on Holocaust Denialism in a GamerGate-themed podcast.  Or that bloke on the Sarkeesian Effect spouting racist shit between begging people for money.   I know, I know, these guys are rare nutballs who don’t speak for all gamergators.  Funny how that logic applies on THAT side of the table.

 4. (SJWs say) Sexism against men doesn’t exist.
A nice equivalent here is listening to gamergators try to say that sexism and threats of women in the games industry does not exist.  Such as when they accused Anita of not ACTUALLY calling the cops,  or when they accused Brianna of not feeling so threatened she felt the need to flee her home, or when they pretty much accused Zoe of making everything up.

 5. (SJWs say) It’s okay when I do it!
Oh, where to begin.  With how GamerGate excuses the extreme polemics of Milo, as well as disgraced former game journalists like Pinsof, because they happen to agree with them?  Or how they happily make black lists of media sites and game companies to avoid or boycott, but then get the vapors if anyone on the other side says the word ‘blacklist’?  Or how they hammer on the press for making even minute mistakes, but have no problems themselves leaping to conclusions and using Encyclopedia Dramatica for a source?

6. (SJWs say) <Unpopular groups> don’t deserve free speech.
This is the group that is literally rooting for the demise of sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Scissors because those sites have politics that they disagree with.  This is the group who decided that maybe Jack Thompson, who actually DOES want to ban some video games, may have a point, solely because he disagrees with Anita, who merely wants to culturally critique them and see them improve.  The people arguing for greater feminist representation in vidya games aren’t arguing for an end of video games, but there are definitely gamergaters who are arguing for an end to anything that may be considered academic or cultural criticism of video games — because lordy me, a game designer might actually read one of these and listen!

7. (SJWs) Won’t allow open discourse.
Hahahahahahaha!  This is the gang that attempts to effectively shut down social media for anyone who attempts to disagree with them via dogpiling , and openly cheer when they manage to do so so viciously that the stated individual flees Twitter or, in some cases the industry.  Gamergate doesn’t even allow much open discourse INSIDE THEIR OWN GROUP, as people who find themselves deciding to not toe the party line quickly find themselves torn to shreds.

8. (SJWs) use ‘internalised’ unironically.
Okay, you got me on this one.  Seriously, who gives a fuck?  I could make an entire fucking bingo card of stupid catchphrases that KotakuInAction uses unironically or otherwise incorrectly.

It’s everyone’s most favoritest example of rank hypocrisy on the net nowadays: a group of GamerGate sympathists lie about their organizations motives to get floor space at the Calgary Expo, hide the fact that they belong to an organization that sells T-shirts with rape jokes and that they’re affiliated with one of the scummiest MRA websites on the web, immediately start selling paraphenalia related to a hashtag that many gamers, especially women, feel is threatening or offensive due largely to the hashtag’s origins in harassing female professionals to the point of national notoriety, and then start going to panels on Feminism in order to grab the mic time in order to talk about how they feel feminism is a sham. Just as a note – if you do one of these things, maybe you’re fine.  Two, you’re on thin ice.  All five, and you’re way beyond the hat trick of being misogynistic jerks.  People who run conventions have shit to do, and they don’t have time to worry if whether or not MAYBE you’re going to cross the line.  Good for the Calgary Expo for trying to keep that shit clean.

You can read the widely cited account on the Mary Sue, but for my druthers the best writeup is the frequently excellent Amanda Marcotte.

Here’s a question: If geeks and nerds are fantastic as they are and should be allowed to carry on, why would you deliberately lie about who you are in an effort to disrupt a convention? Disrupting the convention and trying to ruin it for the participants shows that they do not believe that geeks and nerds are fine and should be left alone. On the contrary, they are clearly offended that geeks are having geeky discussions about feminism and representation in comics and other nerdy endeavors, and they want to shut that discussion down. Harassing people, by definition, is not leaving them alone.

Silly Amanda.  It’s the OLD geeks and nerds – you know the ones who are mad at Mortal Kombat for getting female body types to be down to the point where they’d at least be reasonable for playboy models.  All those new ones – you know the ones who have lady parts, would like slightly fewer half-baked rape references – these are the ones who aren’t TRUE geeks and nerds, those are a problem.  Clearly, despite the fact that comic book stores are still dominated by male heroes and male-leaning entertainment by about a 9 to 1 ratio, attempts to have a panel that talks about correcting this MUST BE STOPPED.

If you want to commemorate this historic moment in the march towards the rights of reactionary internet goons to harass the fuck out of women online so severely they flee geekdom, YOU TOO can purchase a t-shirt and express your pride!  And if you believe in these standards, I hope you wear it, as it makes it much easier to figure out who to avoid at cons.

But of course, the real thing that amuses is that, according to the Mary Sue article, the Honey Badgers fully expected to get kicked out.  They got kicked out  Then started merchandising that shit ASAP.  This is, for those not paying attention, exactly the sort of ‘professional victimhood’ that they like to claim feminists they disagree with, such as Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian, are up to.

As for the GooberGrape masses who have reached Lot’s Wife levels of saltiness about the topic in the last week, feel free to start up your own convention, because clearly GDC and CalgaryExpo will not be the first who will ask you to at the very least keep your very crappy attitudes towards other con goers to yourself.  Feel free to include blackjack and hookers.  Because you’ll need some sort of entertainment, as most game companies and press will choose to maintain a wide berth.  Hey, that might be why your previous attempts to create your own outlets didn’t pan out.

Jenn of Hardwire is more sympathetic to the kicked out, and tries to go more in-depth into the allegations.

That isn’t the type of behavior one would expect from an entity touting to be for equality under an #ExpoEquality campaign.

Yeah, it sure is a mystery.  Look, there’s no shortage of jerks and assholes with unconventional politics – on ALL sides of the spectrum – at a major con.  And let’s face it, no comic con is going to be a beacon of feminism – hell, the artist signing areas of these things typically is one massive cheesecake factory for eager nerds wanting half-naked harley quinns to plaster on the wall (man, do con-goers love harley quinn).  To get kicked out, you have to be percieved to be a major risk of disruption.  People who raise red flags are going to be on a short leash.

And if you proudly fly the GG banner, that’s a big ass red flag.