Author: Damion Schubert (Page 40 of 136)

There’s been a lot of press coverage of Gamergate in the past few weeks.  Of particular note:

• The Verge (one, two and three)
• Breitbart (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine)
• Cracked (one, two, three)
• TechRaptor (one)
• Forbes (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight)
• Slate (one, two, three)
• Vice (one)
• TechCrunch (one, two)
• RealClearPolitics (one)

There’s more, but you get the idea.  So that’s actually a pretty wide mix.  Cracked and the Verge come hard from the left/anti side, whereas Breitbart comes from the right/pro- side and emphasizes the culture war aspect of the debate.  There’s also a wide range of beats: Slate, RCP and Breitbart are politics.  Forbes is financial.  Cracked is probably the best pop culture criticism on the net, masquerading as a humor magazine.  Agree with them or not, there’s a lot of coverage out there.  But there’s sure someplace where it’s missing: the Gaming Press. Continue reading

As part of a larger series of developer interviews, I gave my two cents to the Escapist.  They claim I asked for an alias.  I don’t recall doing that – I certainly wouldn’t have left so many obvious clues to my identity if that were the case (he’s fixing it now).  No matter, I clearly don’t have a problem being identified as such.

FWIW, this interview was done the week after Destiny went live, so it already reads as a tad outdated.

Quick thought of the day: if you’re complaining about how feminists are destroying your games, and the best you can give me as proof is Kali losing a little underboob in Smite, I gotta tell you, THEY’RE not the ones playing the victim card. Continue reading

Note: TotalBiscuit had a couple of key points in tweets, I appended to the end.

One of the questions that I’ve seen over and over is simple: “Why doesn’t Gamasutra apologize?”  I admit, I probably would have buckled by now, and apologized.  But they’ve resisted.  Why?  The answer is simple.

Journalistic integrity.

As an example, I realize that many people are critical of Leigh Alexander’s ‘Gamers are Over’ article (and the imitators that followed).  I have, in numerous places including on Radio Nero, described the article as mindbogglingly stupid – I actually think she was getting at a good point, but failed in execution. I do think she’s got a caustic personality.  But man, does she have some awesome motherfucking journalistic integrity.  Why?

Because journalists believe that you do NOT edit, retract or apologize for your editorial opinions based on financial concerns.

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Initially written late Friday, updated and copy edited late Saturday.

On Thursday night, I did a thought experiment. Basically, I was saying “I am not a #gamergater, but if I were, this is what I would do in order to take this anger and turn it into purpose and results.” Responses did not go well. Among the various feedback, there was enough common threads that I thought I might respond to some of them. However, I would ask that you read the article first. Like seriously. At least read it before yelling at me.  No, go read it. That being said, here are some responses to some of the more common responses.

“You’re a shill.”
The shill gambit is a logical fallacy that rejects a person’s ideas because they come from outside your cause.  Which means, quite literally, if #GamerGate holds this worldview consistently, as they are trying to do now, any sort of outreach to them is impossible, and therefore developers and press should just stop trying.  And so if this becomes the default answer when one of us not on your side of the fence throws out a proposal, you’re going to keep seeing what I see – press and developers choosing to ignore the cause, because really, what’s the point in engaging?

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Note: I have added a followup article addressing common complaints here.  Also, I’ve made a point to delete or moderate no comments in this thread.

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The core of GamerGate came from the cultures of Anonymous and 4Chan, and so that group has taken it on faith that being leaderless is good, and that having no central organization is good. I’ve come to the conclusion that that is exactly wrong.

Speaking as someone who has tried to engage #gamergate here, on twitter, on reddit, and in IRC, I can tell you that trying to move things forward in any direction is impossible. I say this as someone who is sympathetic to some of its goals, but cautious of its underpinnings, and highly critical of some aspects of it as well (as readers of this blog will note). I try to explain points of view to reasonable people, only to have other people throw unrelated stuff in my face and demand answers. I spent 20 minutes explaining that it was unreasonable for one #gamergater to want XBox to stop banning people from voicing rape threats to other players, only to have people shout at me on twitter “THAT’S NOT WHAT GAMERGATE IS ABOUT!” No, but that’s what I’m talking about IN THIS PARTICULAR CONVERSATION WITH THE GUY THAT MADE THAT POINT.  (Man, does twitter suck for this whole debate)

And then I go to Reddit and read how depressed people are because a loose cannon went off to yell at devs.  Seriously.  GamerGate is not going to get far until it can win over devs, because we are the ones who spend all of the money that make it so that games journalists can pay rent.

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