Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Category: Gamergate (Page 9 of 10)

GAMR: You Have Angry Statements, I Have Snarky Yet Mild Responses

October 4, 2014 /

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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Little Green Footballs Has Something To Say About GamerGate

October 3, 2014 /

I think Little Green Footballs was exploring what Milo is up to nowadays.

Dear GamerGate – Please form a Consumer Organization Kthxbye

October 3, 2014 /

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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Is GamerGate Anti-Feminism? Well, Duh

October 2, 2014 /

In the wake of Intel’s unfortunate and (I believe) misguided decision to withdraw their advertising from Gamasutra, I’ve seen some amount of bile aimed at The Verge for their headline: “Intel buckles to anti-feminist campaign by pulling ads from gaming site.”  This has prompted no small number of people in my twitterfeed to erupt in anger.  “Do you really that #gamergate is anti-feminist?” many gamergaters have ranted.

Well, of course it is.
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Response to a Response on Anita, Turtles All The Way Down

October 1, 2014 /

@FringeNerd asked me to respond to his response to my article generally praising Anita Sarkeesian’s work.  As mentioned previously, I agree with a lot, but not all, of what Anita has to say. I do definitely think she has an important voice, and that she was a worthy recipient of the GDC Ambassador’s Award.  Even if I still like boobplate.  (Note, I cut out a couple places in order to shrink this down)

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The SJW Press Didn’t Kill Divinity’s Boobplate. Capitalism Did.

September 30, 2014 /

I’m generally pro-boobplate.  I mean, I’m not going to go and slap a pair of DD knockers on a Pokemon or anything, but as my friend Scott once pointed out, “I just think it’s hilarious that you’ve been labelled a Social Justice Warrior when you pretty much are the staunch defender of the right of the male gamer to have funny thoughts while playing Bayonetta.”  And that’s not to say that I insist on boobplate: I’m equally a fan of Batgirl’s new look.  In fact, I freakin’ love it. I like a variety of characters, both male and female in my entertainment, and love great character design anywhere up and down the sexy spectrum.  But still, I have no problems agreeing with a lot of Anita’s points, and yet still defending boobplate.

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This Is The Worst Games Media Ever, Except For All The Ones Before

September 28, 2014 /

You can take my thesis statement with a grain of salt, but it’s true.  We have, today, the biggest, most diverse, and most interesting Gaming Journalism we’ve ever had.  Whether that’s good enough, I leave as an exercise to the reader.  I suspect that many readers, particularly GGers would think not, and to be honest, I think that most developers, including many of us who challenge #Gamergate on many points, would actually agree.  As a matter of fact, at the end of the infamous Milo post, I gave several examples of things that merit actual investigation rather than crappy indie fundraisers and feminists who go mostly ignored anyway.

Big league games like Destiny and GTAV cost more than 9 figures, and a third of that at LEAST is usually earmarked to marketing. Is anyone following that money? Some years ago, a Gamespot journalist was fired right after giving a bad review to a AAA game. Games from big studios seem to rarely get reviews below 70%, but indie devs who can’t afford to advertise routinely do. Some companies have been caught giving payola to Youtube streamers . Companies routinely fly press around the country and wine and dine the journalists that will review them. Here’s a story about a company who hired a reviewer to do a mock review, solely so he couldn’t legally write the bad review they thought he’d give them.

Here’s the thing.  We used to have a smaller, more focused games media.  It was sharp.  It was glossy.  It printed just the previews, and once the game came out, it printed just the reviews.  It was the amazing world of Print Media: PC Games, PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, Nintendo Power, EGM and NextGen magazine.  Let ol’ cranky grandpa developer tell you about it.

It was fucking DREADFUL.

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Ms. Sommers Just Can’t Let It Go

September 26, 2014 /

So it’s been a week since I pointed out that Christina Hoff Sommers logic in her ‘games aren’t sexist’ movie is, like, really, really logically flawed.’  She responded by… I’m not making this up… attacking my spelling.  She also intimated I smeared her while, at the same time, misrepresenting my point enough that a whole bunch of people thought I was calling gamers Nazis and Klansmen. Which was a nifty bit of gold-medal caliber trolling.

But hey, my original argument was a tad emotional and a little abbreviated because, er, I was trying to squeeze in a few Milo slams, but really because the article was more about how this was evidence that SOME people were attempting to hijack #gamergate in order to shut down certain voices in the games industry that are already underrepresented. And, er, she sure isn’t doing anything to disprove THAT point, but whatever.

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The Most Important Part of This Escapist Article Is the Anonymity

September 25, 2014 /

Some time ago, Alexander Macris from The Escapist asked me to write up my thoughts on #gamergate. I sent him a response (it’s still coming, I think), and told him that I hoped he was talking to some women. With my response, I told him frankly that I thought it would be a bad idea for him to ignore diversity for this topic, because much of the roots of this topic are based in minority viewpoints, particularly women. He latched onto this idea and ran with it. It’s a good read. Seriously, go read it.

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