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.
————————
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.
The real tragedy is that GamerGate could potentially be a positive force for change if they would organize to form a consumer group. They could weed out the crackpots. They could vet the rumors, and throw all of that righteous fury towards actual wrongs, instead of bullshit that’s proven untrue with a cursory examination. They could send people to talk to game developers at conferences. They could have sit down meetings with VIPs at EA and, hell, testify before congress. They could make websites BEG for their official Stamp of Approval, much as every gunmaker in america is terrified of pissing off the NRA.
But instead, they’re convinced that being unorganized is a strength. Being unorganized is the reason that, ultimately, they’re going to be ignored. Because, quite literally, there’s no one to talk to, no one to negotiate with, and no one who can come up with a reasonable criteria for success, so pretty much everyone goes ‘welp, it really seems the best course of action is to ignore this and hope it goes away.’
So here’s my proposal: A powerful consumer group should be forged out of the righteous anger that is GamerGate. It should not REPLACE #GamerGate. No. It should use #GamerGate as it’s blunt instrument. Forming a consumer organization that can act on GamerGate’s behalf won’t weaken it. It will be an awesome FORCE MULTIPLIER. You think GamerGate has power now. Imagine them with DIRECTION.
Here’s the general idea.
-
- Form an organization. I’m going to call it GAMR for this document (“Gamer Advocacy Mumbledymumbledy Resource”).
- Forge a ‘constitutional congress’ from 5 or 6 #gamergaters who are reasonably respected by the population of #gamergaters at large, and who have enough knowhow and experience to actually get shit done. My initial list off the cuff is: @Totalbiscuit, @oliverbcampbell, @missAngerist, @Archon (to represent press), @raphkoster (to represent devs). Of those, a streamer is most important, in order to help explain in a very human way to #gamergate how this can empower the movement, not depower it.
- The ‘Constititutional congress’ first order of business should be to replace themselves with a public election, as well as the rest of my list of suggestions below with a real constitution.
- GAMR should elect officers on a regular (yearly?) basis. Officers should choose spokespersons (and if possible, hire professionals if Patreon funding allows.
- GAMR should immediately set up a Patreon or Kickstarter, so they can fund directly from the fans and be free from corruption (Consumer Reports also accepts no advertising).
- GAMR should sell T-Shirts ASAP, so that people who go to Cons can make sure that people understand that GAMR and GamerGate are an organized presence worth respecting.
- GAMR should hold regular (monthly?) town halls, either in IRC or in an AMA chat style, so they can stay in constant contact with what players feel are top concerns.
- GAMR should constantly poll members, in order to be sure they are always focused on the top 3 concerns of gamers. Is GamerGate really anti-Feminist? Is SJW coverage really a top concern for all members? How far SJW is too far SJW? GAMR can work to identify exactly where the line is so that developers like myself can consider and debate a tangible, concrete position.
- GAMR should set up a web site, called the Games Ombudsman. The purpose of this website is to give seals of approval or letter grades to the various gaming press outlets. It should also report on questionable press practices as they are discovered, for proper public shaming. It is a site that focuses on press coverage, not games.
- GAMR should give yearly awards, both to the best and worst of reporters, news organizations, and developers/publishers.
- GAMR should find and/or hire spokespeople. These people should always be in sync with GAMR’s message, and should be prepared to speak on streams, to EA, to media outlets and if necessary, to congress. These people should never be really known by name – think of Aaron Eckhart’s character in ‘Thank You For Smoking’. He is a replaceable cog, and as such, easily replaced in the offchance their integrity is impeached.
- GAMR should be aggressive in disowning individuals acting of their own accord who make #GamerGate and GAMR look bad, or who try to drive #gamergate off course from the community’s top concerns.
- GAMR should be encouraged to leverage their mailing list to address problems, by boycotts, mailing campaigns, twitter campaigns and other actions. However, they also should vet these causes to be sure they are both accurate, non-trolled causes as well as aligning with their overall goals before throwing the hordes in that direction.
- GAMR should set up public forums, with as liberal a moderating policy as is feasible.
- GAMR should do an annual ‘State of the Gamer Union’ at PAX, GDC and E3, ensuring that the game public’s views are kept in mind.
- In time, GAMR can expand their mandate to include problematic dev/publisher concerns as well (such as excessive microtransactions, misleading advertising, early access & kickstarter concerns, and other such trends gamers find troubling).
Once again, I stress that this is not to end or replace #Gamergate. Indeed, GAMR only works if it has #GamerGate’s legions it can use as a hammer, and if they did, hammer they would. An organization like GAMR would act as a massive force multiplier for #GamerGate’s effectiveness.
Now, I’ve been told that there’s already a Game Consumer’s Advocacy Group, the ECA. However, the fact that we’re in the middle of #Gamergate and I’ve never heard their name in the last two months suggest they aren’t being hugely effective. At any rate, I think the new advocacy group NEEDS to be forged from the belly of GamerGate. It needs to feel like something that GG made in order to make it powerful.
I want to stress. I know I’m not a #gamergater, and that there’s probably some sort of type of ‘shill’ that I am. Fuck that, I don’t care. I am a game developer, and I see nothing but a landscape of frustration ahead if GamerGate doesn’t either get stronger, or go away. This is a path for Gamergate to get stronger. Most everyone else not in #gamergate is burying their heads in the sand and hoping it will go away. Which it probably will, but not for an agonizingly long period of time.
I need a functioning game press-player relationship. I am tired of seeing other game developers retreat from social media because they’re afraid of getting asked questions about it. It’s not good for us. It’s not good for the press. It’s not good for the gamers.
I know I’m not going to be part of this organization. This thrills me. I know it will have faults. That’s fine. Those faults will be less egregious than those of Gamergate right now. And GamerGate will get some real focus, some real clarity, and some impressive victories.
Someone pick up this ball and run with it.
Editor’s note: I’ve been thinking about this idea a LOT. I’m still not the right person to run it, but if asked for, I am happy to come onto shows to advocate for it, or talk to and through problems with the idea. At the end of the day, for this to work, though, it needs to be by gamers and for gamers. Also, I forged this after some discussions with some key twitter people – you can see those discussions in this pastebin. I have added a followup article addressing common complaints here.
no.
Yeah that’s a big No from me as well. kthxbye you shill.
A resounding ‘NO’ from me too.
This is a badfaith article written by a shill looking to de-fang and confuse GamerGate.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shill_gambit
I like that that is literally it’s name.
He literally wrote an article a day ago about how GG is driven by anti-feminist ideology. Today he writes how to make GG into a powerful consumer group even though its driven by anti-feminist ideology? Wtf? This post is the textbook definition of shilling. He’s concerned about something hurting the movement he’s ideologically against? Doesn’t compute.
Chi: Do you want GG to be about anti-feminism, or do you want it to be about raising the noise level to the point where people in a position to change anything about games or how they’re reported on, to do nothing out of fear?
Because right now, it’s both. Also, Damion is a game developer. His bias should be obvious. Also, you should read the IRC chat he linked at the bottom.
John,
That’s a false choice. GG isn’t specifically about anti-feminism, anti-journalism, or corruption. Its different things for different people. It might very well be a combinations of these things. Its not GG’s job to figure out what’s wrong. Its the job of creators of content, whether it be games or websites, to figure that out. When they do, people will come back.
I am sick and tired of being told what I can like and shamed for liking something else. I am sick and tired of the very people who should be advocating for me becoming the PR mouths of gaming developers. I am sick and tired of being told I’m sexist, misogynist, a nerd, a terrorist, and many other terrible things just for liking video games by the people who should to be advocating for me. And now you and Damion wonder what’s gone wrong? You wonder why I’m upset? You think its because I hate women and feminism? Yeah, journalist and developers like Damion have lost touch with the ordinary gamer. That can only end badly for one side and its not my side.
I can’t tell you what other people want. And I don’t want some “constitutional congress” to tell you what I want. That’s the very problem we have with gaming journalism. They were once our brothers and sisters. They advocated for us. Now they don’t. Now they’re our industry’s cultural censors with a splash of collusion with publisher’s PR teams.
“GG isn’t specifically about anti-feminism, anti-journalism, or corruption. Its different things for different people.”
So, it’s noise with no goal, and no leadership. It’s a multi-edged sword.
“I am sick and tired of being told what I can like and shamed for liking something else. I am sick and tired of the very people who should be advocating for me becoming the PR mouths of gaming developers. I am sick and tired of being told I’m sexist, misogynist, a nerd, a terrorist, and many other terrible things just for liking video games by the people who should to be advocating for me.”
Why do you need an advocate? Are any of those things true about yourself?
If the answer is no, then consider why anyone thinks that about anyone else who likes video games.
And then YOU become an advocate, without being angry about it.
There are ways to do this. Extra Life, Child’s Play. Ways to make being a game player something positive.
If you thought authors on sites you don’t read are going to know and respect you personally, show them how wrong they were by being the best version of you, that you can be.
You’re right, it is a false choice. A lot of anger, and a lot of fear, with no set goal, meant to go on ad infinitum.
Is that really what you want to associate yourself with? Because you’re angry?
Be better than that.
I’m an advocate for myself. Every letter I write, ever game I buy, ever website I don’t go to, every video I watch advocates for what I want. If I have to do this ad infintum then fine. I’ve been doing this all my life.
Journalists used to be my advocate and look how that turned out.
The thing is we SHOULDN’T be afraid to be labeled anti-feminist, because on what platform are those who would destroy and gamers poised upon? If anything we should OWN it, and flatten anyone using that label and against us without mercy. We allowed previous, smaller iterations of this to go too long with no clear direction of attack. Sure, DmC, ME3, and Dragon Age 2 protests targeted specific companies, but they neglected to target the key people making those companies be wrong in the first place. I am damn proud of the boys, girls, and the in-betweens for having created a bulleted list of who, what, and where, and subsequently a how, of how to get them removed from unjustified positions of power. With this knowledge the racist, classist MFers heading the opposition can be brought to heel, or bring their sites down with them. Now, finally, opportunity is here to remove those that prevented us from engaging the olEAgarchy directly. My greatest hope is that it leads to the breaking of not only these sites, but nationwide bringing investor/shareholder faith in the EA/Acti/MS trinity to the level of distrust consumer faith remains already. These monolithic zombies are quite literally being held up by one to three main franchises, and will flounder without them. The revolt must eventually lead to an informed boycott to truly succeed. To convince people that no, they can deal just fine with last year’s version of CoD or FIFA or Madden, that none of their friends will jump ship as well, and to hold their ground until these companies capitulate to terms such as removing DRM. The rotting stench of these corpses and the Napoleonic feminist pigs propagating this decaying system will finally be aired and swept clean.
And perhaps, just perhaps, this movement will explode in a separate direction, and cleanse with holy fire actual journalism and academia as well, returning the second wave scholars to their original posts. Keep your wits about you, elegant gentlefolk, and bolster yourselves in the knowledge that those like Vavra and I who have grown up beneath the thumb of fully authoritarian societies see this takeover of your favoured media for what it is, and believe you are fighting on behalf of a truly noble struggle!
We’re honestly sick to death of being told we have to “police our own” when that’s exactly what we’ve been doing for the last month. The ultimatum ends up essentially saying ‘either GamerGate become absolutely perfect, otherwise they’re completely invalidated’.
All this is contrast with the fact that the anti-gamergate media has made no attempt to even mention any of the abuses their side has made. http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2hrdau/i_am_an_indie_game_developer_and_this_is_how_i/ckvc80n
We’re done apologizing. You act like a mediator but you’re only satisfied when you get your way entirely. If you don’t you storm off ignoring everything we’ve said.
Do you support getting advertisers to pull out of publications you don’t like? Because that’s shitty.
By “you” I mean you personally, whoever you are.
Yes, it is the way of capitalism and the free-market. You have the right to free speech, not to: no consequences.
Also I have this for you:
– are you for destroying personal careers over twitter?
– are you for calling people at their job trying to get them fired?
The first one has actually been done – more than once – by the person that led Intel to leave Gamasutra: Leigh Alexander. She even brags about it and her friends commend her on yet another swatted young faithful.
Is it nice when these accusations are hurled your way?
Are you saying Leigh Alexander has tried to get someone fired by calling them at their office?
Citation, please.
“Do you support getting advertisers to pull out of publications you don’t like? ”
That’s how a public market and consumer advocacy works. We don’t like a publication or product, thus we have the right to not support it.
We also have the right to inform advertisers about the rather underhanded tactics of the “journalists” involved.
It’s not shitty, it’s capitalism.
Again, who are you? Oh right, no one. Start advocating on social media or your own blog, instead of playing White Knight for Damion on his.
And feel free to link to them, because I could use the entertainment.
“That’s how a public market and consumer advocacy works.”
A public market would mean you stop giving business, i.e., attention, to publications you don’t like.
Did you even read Gamasutra regularly before Leigh’s article ran?
A consumer advocacy would have a structure. Damion said there should be a structure. There are loads of people here saying NO WE WON’T. So you want a leaderless advocacy group with no face?
There is no such thing in the real world. Only the Internet.
Yes, I’m nobody. So are you. So is everyone. This is Damion’s blog, not mine.
We don’t die, we respawn. #GamerGate
Address our issue with the press.
That is all of what we want.
How hard is this to understand?
What issue? Ask 4 gamergators what they want and you’ll get ten different answers.
That’s not true. Almost all gamergaters give the answer “fighting corruption”. Even if you include people against gamergate in a poll you still get the overbearing answer of “fighting corruption”.
You’d get a great number of definitions of “corruption” though.
Maybe that’s because there’s numerous instances of corruption going on right now.
It’s really simple, doesn’t take hipster glasses to see it.
“The war on terrorism is about fighting terrorism!”
“What constitutes terrorism? And how do you fight it?”
“We have very specifically answered these questions.”
“You have?”
“THE WAR ON TERRORISM IS ABOUT FIGHTING TERRORISM!”
How do you know when you won a battle against corruption? Do you get to control the corruption, or is there no more corruption?
Is the corruption that 11 (or 12?) writers from different sites all wrote articles chiding “gamers” for bad behavior exhibited by a few, and implied there was a bad case of malignant culture going on that probably sounded patronizing?
You can fight that by not reading the sites at all. And then, presumably, gamer press will near completely die off.
What then?
If you believe the commenters below, there are two hundred or so problematic writers.
I’d like to see a list, along with a brief explanation on how each of them are corrupt.
“How do you know when you won a battle against corruption?”
Easy. You obtain transparency.
Corruption can only exist so long it hides in darkness.
Once you shine upon it with light, it cease.
Said the member of the group that insists on remaining anonymous and unaddressable.
this is a new level of shill
Yeah we read your ridiculous email conversation. I for one dont appreciate it one bit. Especially coming from the very people associated with the folks we have issues with. Thanks but no Thanks.
correction.. irc
We all read those logs. Shill harder.
Nah.
GamerGate will stand as a leaderless movement, that’s our strength.
I AM THE LEADER OF GAMERGATE!
I AM SPARTACUS!
I am the leader of #GamerGate
I remember Occupy tried that. Whatever happened to those folks?
Lol! No. Just No. Gamer gate is well ahead of this shill. Carry on. Nothing to see here.
Nope, not on it. They already know what we want and we don’t need leaders or a “new” whatever.
no, fuck off
an organization like GAMR would act as a massive BOTTLENECK for #GamerGate’s effectiveness
this manifesto is bad and you should feel bad
i’m feeling generous enough to rebut you point-by-point
2. a “congress” cannot faithfully represent an amorphous group of people that anyone can enter and leave anonymously
3-5. see 2
6. this is slacktivism
7. #burgersandfries and /gg/
8. see 2
9-10. /v/irgins have done this for years and we’ll continue to do it
11-12. see 2
13. i seriously hope you’re kidding about the mailing list
14. see 7
15. this deprives us of agency as an audience
16. irrelevant to gamergate
0/10, see me after class pete
An excellent response from a guy named JEWS.
what is the point of any of this
To put it shortly…
No.
This is the shit that led to the OWS collapsing in on itself.
We all know what we want.
We don’t need IRL tripfags and community representatives derailing it for us.
To paraphrase Scary Movie,
“We can do it ourselves.”
No, of all the reasons that OWS collapsed, getting too organized was not one of them.
Also, the comparison between OWS and GG is an interesting one. OWS was constantly asked what their demands were. OWS said they had no demands, that making demands would only legitimize the institutions they were objecting to. “We are not protesting. Who is there to protest to? What could we ask them for that they could grant? We are occupying.” OWS saw itself not as trying to reform institutions they protested against, but trying to replace them, or at least get people to imagine that they could be replaced.
GG, on the other hand, makes plenty of demands. Some of them are trying to build their own media, and I suspect that that’s the most fruitful avenue of change going forward. But most of them don’t want new media, they want the existing media, the enthusiast media they always carried as a security blanket, to change to suit them.
If you want to imagine something new, you don’t need organization.
If you want to change existing institutions, you need organization.
I agree all we want is to adress our issues with the press (and there are many). If you make ethicalguidlines show us how they can be enforced. As for the content of those guidelines there are many decent ones out there(e.g. no blacklisting of developers and so on). And also some want history to be corrected (i.e. the wikipedia page needs to be much more unbiased). Others want apoligizes. Should not be to hard o figure out what people want.
The only element that would be left within gamergate when all the upper things are fullfilled would be the ‘get rid of digra’ element not quite sure how many these are they seem to be growing each day, but are not the mayority atm.
So my advice better listen to the costmer and fast since we keep being attacked we keep getting worse.
Absolutely not. There is no negotiation. You will reform the press, or you will disappear. That’s all there is to it.
Yeah, an ultimatum pretty much IS the end goal for us.
Did you reform the gaming press and it standards & practices? Good, war’s over. Back to playing video games.
Did you refuse? Not advised. We’ll continue to bleed the offenders dry through polite boycotting and debating our side of things.
Picking a fight with a massive community of folks who are no doubt competitive and clearly geared to win… that was a horrible decision.
Eventually, the sites involved will either give in and reform because they can’t handle the loss of revenue from a prolonged war of attrition, or they’ll eventually become irrelevant with the still-growing popularity of YouTube personalities and other bloggers.
GamerGate isn’t done until these “journalists” want it to be.
So what is involved with reforming the press? Give us a blow-by-blow of what’s needed. And no useless vague demands like ‘fix corruption’. If you have demands they need to be spelled out. Concepts to be addressed need to be described. What is corruption to you? Presumably sex for good reviews is corruption. Presumably ad dollars for good reviews is corruption. Are free copies of video games for reviews corruption? Is running any video game advertisement on a video game website corruption? Some in the movement have demanded nothing less than the firing of all ‘social justice warriors’. So what makes one a social justice warrior? Who makes the call if one should be fired?
While you may have the numbers to scare away advertisers who have no idea what’s happening beyond ‘boy, we sure got a lot of mail about this, so let’s resolve it the fastest way possible’, you cannot effect real, positive change without knowing what the change you want to effect is, and you can’t know what that change is without drilling down to specifics. Apply these vague notions to anything else and the absurdity becomes apparent.
“Let’s clean up the neighborhood!”
“Okay, what do you want to do?”
“Make it clean!”
“Like pick up litter? Remove graffiti?”
“It needs to be clean!”
Lists are good. Everyone likes lists. So make lists. Lists of lists. Give devs and journos and site editors a solid listing of where they are failing and what they should do to fix the problem.
And make sure everyone else in #gamergate agrees with the list you made, or else someone will probably call you a shill.
At this point you seem to be either willingly ignorant or just antagonistic for the fun of it.
1.So what is involved with reforming the press?
Greater transparency between the press and the consumers when it comes to special relationships whether it’s from the journalist and the subject they are writing on, or the magazine itself and an advertizer.
2.Presumably sex for good reviews is corruption.
Yes. It is. Not presumably. It is.
3.Presumably ad dollars for good reviews is corruption.
Yes. It is. Not presumably. It is.
Are you familiar with the term bribe? Something which is presumably illegal?
4.Are free copies of video games for reviews corruption?
Yes if they’re given with the purpose of getting a GOOD review, and if the fact that they were given to the reviewer wasn’t disclosed.
5.Is running any video game advertisement on a video game website corruption?
Now you’re just being a silly little noodle.
6.Some in the movement have demanded nothing less than the firing of all ‘social justice warriors’.
I’m sure there’s a nazi jew somewhere out there as well. And he’s sitting in a tree full of cherries, waiting to be picked.
7.So what makes one a social justice warrior?
A socialist who fights justice.
8.you cannot effect real, positive change without knowing what the change you want to effect is, and you can’t know what that change is without drilling down to specifics.
I just outlined the specifics for you . No need for deep drilling, or trying to make this sound so much more complex than it is. It’s not. Ethics are pretty clear cut especially in a case like this.
9.Lists are good. Everyone likes lists. So make lists. Lists of lists.
Done. I hope you like it.
10.And make sure everyone else in #gamergate agrees with the list you made, or else someone will probably call you a shill.
People who say “make sure everyone agrees” sounds off. I don’t exactly know why but yeah. Anyway – people in gamergate who speak out, are in the majority rational human beings who have logical and CLEAR opinions on what was done wrong and how to adress it.
Serious questions were asked, patronizing bullshit was given in response.
Sounds about right.
idk, Polygon’s Alexa scores haven’t taken a hit. I don’t think GG has nearly the effect you seem to think it does. If anything, it’ll just get individuals to leave because of harassment and in that case, uh. Good job?
You will be Assimilated. Resistance if Futile. We are the Borg.
“Dear Customers: please become an organization because otherwise you aren’t really customers because reasons.”
Well that’s a really stupid position.
More like,
“Dear customers, please become a group so we can attack and label you more easily and you can’t defend against it, kthx.”
Sorry but i think ill pass on this #GamerGate
I passed on #gamergate too.
Listen, for one, you don’t hold much credibility to me since you already went sour grapes and blocked me for making a mockery of some of your arguments on twitter.
Consumer groups are completely useless in the middle of a consumer revolt. It’s only useful after to play the role of a watchdog. Right now? It’s just something that 1 – wouldn’t be listened to anymore than we are right now, 2 – would be targeted for harassment and smearing campaigns and I’m sure some folks would love that.
A decent press with ethical guidelines and that doesn’t all push the same toxic political agenda through our throat through its news and reviews. It’s all we want but you’d think we’re dealing with Scientologists by the resistance to our demands.
Without looking it up I’d like you to, off the top of your head, tell me what you think ‘sour grapes’ means.
You want an organization to corrupt back into the status-quo? Pass.
Let’s see here…
“1. Form an organization. I’m going to call it GAMR for this document (“Gamer Advocacy Mumbledymumbledy Resource”).”
No. Groups with leaders are easier to infiltrate and co-opt, and easier to attack. Becoming a group with one singular voice is how movements die. Look at the Homestead Strike, how quickly workers were demonized by the press and private security forces once they elected “leaders”.
If we organized as one voice instead of many outraged voices, it would be FAR easier for the “other side” to paint us with the wide “misogynerd” brush. Being a leaderless group gives us advantages.
Do you *really* think these people aren’t drooling over themselves with anticipation for us to become more “organized”? The moment something like that happens, we’d be labeled as “MRAs” and “anti-feminists”, and compared to Klan members or ISIS (which has already happened on an small scale).
“2. Forge a ‘constitutional congress’ from 5 or 6 #gamergaters who are reasonably respected by the population of #gamergaters at large, and who have enough knowhow and experience to actually get shit done. ”
This also goes along with my response to #1: No. No single voice or group of voices should speak for gamergate. This isn’t a civil rights movement, it’s a consumer revolt. We’re voting with our wallets and boycotting those that support demonizing gamers. So far, it’s working.
The rest of the bullet points fall under my above responses. I don’t know about you, but I’m not young. I’m old enough to remember the rise and fall of quite a few movements, not to mention the majority of the Cold War.
Revolts are easy to squash when they have leaders. When everyone falls under a single voice or small council of voices, the opposing side has a much easier job.
Propaganda can be written up.
Sects of the group can be infiltrated and turned sour, members turned against one another or convinced of a different path.
Leaders can be bought and sold. Or worse, blackmailed. Fairly easily, from what we’ve seen in the GameJournoPros group.
Slowly, a revolt with leaders will die, because individual members no longer have a voice. Nor do they have a way to defend themselves against being lumped in with the actions of other group members they don’t agree with, or against criticism from the other side.
And all the while, the other side is laughing straight to the bank.
I don’t claim to speak for every voice, but as a woman who’s dealt with revolts and riots before, even been part of some myself, I’ve been through enough to see this for what it is.
Take your shilling elsewhere. GamerGate is still plenty strong as a mob.
For some reason the comment which I am replying to is held up in moderation. Probably because it refutes some points of the OP’s.
No
This is hilarious. We know what side you stand on. The fact that you even suggested something like this is testament to your being out of touch with the game “journalism” audience, and the whole of #GamerGate.
No.
You want something done, you do something about it. Make an organization of devs/journos that makes proposals for us to consider or reject. We are not doing your job for you.
We want an ethical press that doesn’t fuck with us. This is a bare minimum standard that ought to be done without any kind of watch dog.
PS: It is false that there’s no way to negotiate with us. As The Escapist how’s done.
As the king of gamers, I agree to your parlay. I suggest we talk this over in a town hall meeting in reddit.com/r/games, you make the thread and link it here!
I may in the morning. I really need to sleep.
Interesting how you let one of my comments through, but not the one that calls out your terrible points. Hmmm.
Same here
Pretty sure that his “moderation” system is a simple anti-spam filter that holds the first comment in the moderation queue and lets all subsequent posts through (as most blog spammers just “drive by” with single comments these days).
–Dave
No Kthxbye
Ooh, now every comment I make seems to pass moderation. Let’s see if I can put it all in again!
“1. Form an organization. I’m going to call it GAMR for this document (“Gamer Advocacy Mumbledymumbledy Resource”).”
No. Groups with leaders are easier to infiltrate and co-opt, and easier to attack. Becoming a group with one singular voice is how movements die. Look at the Homestead Strike, how quickly workers were demonized by the press and private security forces once they elected “leaders”.
If we organized as one voice instead of many outraged voices, it would be FAR easier for the “other side” to paint us with the wide “misogynerd” brush. Being a leaderless group gives us advantages.
Do you *really* think these people aren’t drooling over themselves with anticipation for us to become more “organized”? The moment something like that happens, we’d be labeled as “MRAs” and “anti-feminists”, and compared to Klan members or ISIS (which has already happened on an small scale).
“2. Forge a ‘constitutional congress’ from 5 or 6 #gamergaters who are reasonably respected by the population of #gamergaters at large, and who have enough knowhow and experience to actually get shit done. ”
This also goes along with my response to #1: No. No single voice or group of voices should speak for gamergate. This isn’t a civil rights movement, it’s a consumer revolt. We’re voting with our wallets and boycotting those that support demonizing gamers. So far, it’s working.
The rest of the bullet points fall under my above responses. I don’t know about you, but I’m not young. I’m old enough to remember the rise and fall of quite a few movements, not to mention the majority of the Cold War.
Revolts are easy to squash when they have leaders. When everyone falls under a single voice or small council of voices, the opposing side has a much easier job.
Propaganda can be written up.
Sects of the group can be infiltrated and turned sour, members turned against one another or convinced of a different path.
Leaders can be bought and sold. Or worse, blackmailed. Fairly easily, from what we’ve seen in the GameJournoPros group.
Slowly, a revolt with leaders will die, because individual members no longer have a voice. Nor do they have a way to defend themselves against being lumped in with the actions of other group members they don’t agree with, or against criticism from the other side.
And all the while, the other side is laughing straight to the bank.
I don’t claim to speak for every voice, but as a woman who’s dealt with revolts and riots before, even been part of some myself, I’ve been through enough to see this for what it is.
Take your shilling elsewhere. GamerGate is still plenty strong as a mob.
Aw, it double posted. My bad.
You’ve expressed well my concerns for organizing a gamer advocacy group but I still feel we could benefit immensely from a gamer-interest-focused watchdog we trust.
“The core of GamerGate came from the cultures of Anonymous and 4Chan”
Completely wrong; the movement organised on 4Chan out of necessity since the subject was verboten everywhere else. Tens of thousands of comments on reddit were needlessly deleted for example. We don’t need leadership because our outrage is righteous. If you don’t understand the basic facts of the matter then don’t bother commenting on it. I suspect you know well and are just being disingenuous to fit your ludicrous narrative.
“I can tell you that trying to move things forward in any direction is impossible.”
It is moving forward. Are you blind? The corrupt gaming “journalism” industry is being burned to the ground because they insulted the people who pay their ill-gotten wages.
You can shove your consumer advocacy group right up your hole, shill. It’d be a God-tier laughingstock if anyone was stupid enough to set it up.
We’re winning because we are in the right. We will not forget and this has gone on far too long for us to accept apologies.
The people who actually make things had better get onside with Gamergate because if they support the inutile parasites who insulted us we’re going to have to boycott their businesses as well. Enjoy trying to insert token queer themes into the candy crush and flappy bird clones you’ll be designing for your new audience.
“I need a functioning game press-player relationship.”
Tough cheese then m8. They’ve enthusiastically burned their bridges and are on their way to bankruptcy.
“I’ve been thinking about this idea a LOT.”
What a monumental waste of time. Next time you consider thinking about something don’t bother. You’re shit at it.
“It is moving forward. Are you blind? The corrupt gaming “journalism” industry is being burned to the ground because they insulted the people who pay their ill-gotten wages.”
Five articles exist on the ProjNod document.
You are reacting to exactly 5 articles that said mean things about “gamers”.
That’s what this whole thing is about.
Am I wrong?
Yes you are wrong. Clueless in fact.
And a patronising clown to boot.
There were 12 articles on the 28th of August alone. Many more were churned off the lies they disseminated – even to this day. All to distract from the authors’ malfeasance.
Supposed professionals called me p¡ssbaby, sh¡tlord and worse than ISIS on social media. Not long after ISIS had murdered two journalists. These unemployable idiots have all the charisma and business savvy of Gerald Ratner.
I’m not sure what rarefied atmosphere you exist in, but close the planet’s surface people who insult those who pay their wages lose their jobs. Businesses that do so close down.
Make no mistake that 100% of these “journalist”s’ wages are sourced from the gamers they insulted. If you doubt that statement then you’re in for a learning experience.
So, people called you nasty names on the Internet?
Had you been reading them fairly regularly before that? Without using AdBlock?
You should totally stop reading them, then.
Reviews are not journalism. Opinion pieces are opinion pieces. If you don’t like an opinion, it’s OK.
Like two boys kissing in a Catholic church, sonny.
It’s more than the five copies of the same article.
It’s the thesis that the copies were based off of.
It’s the constant attacks against NORPs.
It’s the constant derision levied against gamers–male, female and otherwise.
It’s the constant nullification of women and minorities who disagree with their narrative.
It’s the constant collusion to push a meddlesome and wholly poisonous agenda.
It’s the fact that they’re covering click-throughs with some special agenda and calling it gold, instead of picking apart legit AAA games for their technical aspects.
It’s the fact that they’re trying to get us together to take us apart, like the sacred cows they’re told to hate.
You should totally go start your own site for gamer news. Except, wait, you’re not going to do that, because Damion suggested it. Or you just like watching the Internet burn.
OK, just making sure.
weve started several already.
Get with the times.
We dont need you anymore
You fucked up son.
Who are you, again?
You aren’t important, stop trying to play White Knight for Damion. The man can defend his own opinions.
If you don’t need existing game news sites, why participate in trying to tear others down by lobbying advertisers? Why not just try to get readership and solicit ads yourselves?
That would take organization, and editorial, and sales. Good luck!
Agreeing with me = white knighting?
John knows I can take care of myself. He just enjoys pointing out idiotic arguments. Lord knows it’s been a smorgasbord of that lately.
Thanks for trying Mr. Schubert. I personally liked the idea. The thought of TotalBiscuit being the lead on a large gaming consumer protection agency sounds sooooo good. So much could be done.
Even though people just shot down the idea without ever trying to discuss its merits, I ask that you please keep trying to engage GG.
We DID discuss his idea. Long before he stated it. We predicted exactly these events.
We are not falling for this.
We shot it down because it’s a terrible idea. We’ve got plenty of moderate voices in GG and they’re not buying it either. They’re smart and calm enough to realize exactly the pitfalls of such a move.
Sure, plenty of angrier voices, but believe me, the moderate voices briefly entertained the ideas and came to a quick conclusion : it’s just a bad idea.
All this for a “possible promise of talks”. Yeah, no, the press is not gonna be more receptive to it. Didn’t you read the latest leaks of the GameJournoPros? Absolutely no remorse whatsoever. There’s even an idiot laughing at his employers being mad he was on the list (and he got fired for it, ha!).
We already got some form of organized chaos anyway when it comes to the boycotting. Word-of-mouth plus technology makes sure we’ll all kept in the know.
>I ask that you please keep trying to engage GG.
if he wants to engage gamergate, he can do so using the link i’ve provided (note that dropping off the rebutted manifesto and leaving won’t count as engagement)
As feminazis and SJWs continue to infect the industry, the press and the gaming public, it would be too risky to form such a hierarchical organization. Just look at what happened with moot. I’m afraid that the corruption will not end until SJW poltics/political correctness are purged from gaming.
That’s a war you’re going to lose, I’m afraid. As Dr. King Jr said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
Social Justice, that is.
Games will become more diverse. White men will no longer be privileged above all others. This is a war you will lose, and the SJWs/feminazis will win.
See you on that day, gentleman.
“I’m afraid that the corruption will not end until SJW poltics/political correctness are purged from gaming.”
So only the politics you agree with are acceptable? No sale I’m afraid and you betray your own politica, bent by using such laughable terms as feminazis, SJW and culutral marxism.
The subset of gamergaters who want to chase out anyone who they percieve as threatening their hobby by critiquing games just like every other form of art and media is critiqued aren’t going to win.If you don’t like such critiques and analysis then don’t read them, just as I avoid the Spectator due to my disagreement with its goals and methods.
So what, you want games to show women as sexual objects? Why is that a good thing, in your mind? Why not do the same for men, too? Give a coherent and complete explanation on this point. If you say that is not what you want, then explain coherently and completely exactly what you want in a game.
Nope, sorry, way too easy to co-opt, we are not your personal army.
No, you’re Milo’s.
that you actually belive that is amusing and shows how little informed you are
Is it amusing, or merely interesting? Sometimes I wonder if anyone knows how to smile anymore. You sound angry. Are you angry?
If I built an army, it would be one built on ideals I actually agree with.
You can just eat shit out of my asshole. You suck, your games suck. You’re human garbage. Swallow your own tongue.
Well argued.
sorry we’re not interested in becoming like you
we’re no interested in dictating what devs should make, that’s what you guys do. we’re for freedom of expression, not about stifling that
You’re for freedom of expression, yet part of a group that is trying to stifle the expression and opinions of the other side by taking away their advertisers?
So, you’re all for freedom as long as it agrees with you in your little baby echo chamber?
This response is hilarious. No wonder GG is a laughingstock.
Suck my dick. Choke on it.
Well argued.
Well look at the name, no wonder it’s a terrible rebuttal.
I agree in principle. All past attempts of leaderless movements have fallen apart, from Occupy to the various continental Pirate parties, and nothing suggests that this one will fare any better. Without a hierarchy, the deranged will always drown out the sophisticated, simply through excess energy.
My main concern would be internationalization. I have a hunch that #GG is big globally (or could be), and a US-centric organization would exclude many.
But of course it won’t happen anyway. Perhaps, again like Occupy, the viral infection must spread still further before it can break out and accomplish something truly new.
Can you stop comparing us to occupy
this is a completely different thing
To be fair to twex there are multiple #gamergaters who are comparing GG to the Occupy movement.
Perhaps you’d rather compare it to the Arab Spring? Gamer Spring sounds better than the utterly hackneyed ‘gamergate’.
OWS was trying to bring down the global financial system.
GG is trying to bring down a couple of hundred corrupt pretend journalists who are propped up by companies with razor-thin profit margins.
Christmas is coming.
A couple hundred? Can you name twenty and a quick explanation of what they did that was corrupt?
While technically based in reason, I have to pick apart your statement a little. It’s nothing personal, I just need to jack off with how different this is(n’t) from OWS.
With OWS, the radicals got in, and basically made boorish twits of themselves, which pushed the rational and level-headed voices out, leaving it to the incapable hands of our Blue Haired Young [s]biblethumpers[/s] Progressives. With #GamerGate, however, I’ve been shouted down and questioned, myself, and thus have learned to self-moderate to an extent.
Where were the voices telling me to mind my goddamned P’s and Q’s in OWS? Going back to work/trying to find a job once the screechy striges made the protests a laughing stock.
With this, at least, our rational voices have the time to remind us to be respectable, as opposed to camping out and worrying about hungry mouths at home.
::vomits on the floor and leaves::
Well argued.
Seems to me like you have some rather fundamental misunderstandings about what 4chan is, about Gamergate in general and even what gamers are “about”.
Of course, it’s perhaps not difficult to understand your perspective, given your connection to Bioware and the historic problems that organization has had in communicating with the Gamer demographic.
We want to play games. Good games. The thing is, there are as many kinds of gamers as there are games to play – perhaps even more. And we don’t always agree on things. Infact, we hardly EVER agree on things – which is why, of course that /v/ over on 4chan is so rowdy and fractious.
So it needs to be understood that anything that can bring a large number of gamers – people from across all spectrums – together to shout down any one particular thing is Kind Of A Big Deal. It doesn’t happen often.
Here are a few: The state of Dragon Age 2. The ending of Mass Effect 3. The blatant corruption of Video Games “journalism”. That last one is particuarly notable, because it’s brought gamers together as at least three times in my memory. “Driv3rgate”. The Rab Florence-Eurogamer debacle. And this.
So, before you blame and condemn “4chan” and “anonymous” as organisations, remember that they’re no such thing. They’re just a collection of people, from across broad spectrum of political and gender divisions with just one thing uniting them.
They’re pissed. They just want to play video games, and this is cutting into their gaming time.
Bioware has produced hit after hit. What troubles have they had connecting with the gamer demographic?
This wouldn’t be needed if SJWs just pissed off.
We’re not going to, thanks! Like, ever. Sorry. It’s not going to happen.
ahahahahah no. No to this very stupid notion.
HAHAHAHAHA NO I DONT THINK SO NICE TRY THOUGH
NO. kkthxbye
No
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmRpLLs7SNE
Get well soon!
The idea has it merits, and problems. One major problem is that these most often only function if they’ve got some teeth through legilsation. And i don’t know how well that would be functioning for an international problem.
But one might as well try that. I don’t think it could make things worse then they already are.
No. Try to shill better next time.
“Anyone who disagrees with me is a shill!!”
I think forming a gamer advocacy group is an excellent idea. We could have, as a focused movement, a similar, if not, greater influence than the NRA.
This is good idea.
Thank you for the advice.But no.
If you wanna talk to us you can do it on one of the many #GG streams that are going on daily.Thank you.
Also writing this after Intel decided to pull their adds from Gamasutra is a little transparent.
It’s not as though this hadn’t been suggested before by others, before the Intel news broke.
But getting advertisers to pull on sites you don’t care to read is shitty.
Again, who are you?
Last I checked the person was speaking to Damion.
and last time i checked John Henderson was talking to Madbrainbox so, to use your own turn of phrase, ” who are you?”
If Madbrainbox wanted his comment to be private he could have emailed the author. Instead he made his comment on an open public forum where anyone can resond which John did
Here’s the thing.
Fuck EA and fuck Bioware.
I haven’t seen a decent game from either since I started playing EVE Online by CCP.
Who the fuck even are you?
You are a middle aged, white, balding man.
Could you please avoid writing like a teenage girl online?
It makes you appear creepy as fuck, not to mention sexist.
Could you avoid acting like all teenage girls write in the exact same manner? It makes you appear sexist.
I sense a disturbance in the For….um moderation
No, you’re making an Atheism+ out of Gamer Gate.
We need no leader to do what is right for there is not a man or a woman that’ll be able to represent all of GG, which is the beauty of it.
!
Wow, you are good at missing the point. Even if all these things happened, it would just result in the formation of a group separate from GamerGate. An anonymous organization can’t become de-anonymoused. It can only give birth to non-anonymous splinter group.
Also, you’re an out of touch moran with no understanding of what’s happening at all. Please just shut up if you have nothing of actual worth to contribute to.
Hear that, everyone? He’s a Moran.
[20:29] I mean, it was literally a game to us. Unfortunately, with all anonymous born things, the crazy follows us.
I tried to tell you, Damion: Bag of cats.
Best thing about this article, really shows how little people in the comments understand how groups like the Civil Rights movement or Women’s Suffrage got stuff done.
Nothing would have gotten done if the powers that be weren’t worried about the extremist wing off in the corner. I’ve said before that we need a Huey Newton and a Malcolm X. I am thinking perhaps Roguestar will be our Newton. But X is the most important, the leader who can gather the reactionary elements and throw them into a single direction, time and time again.
The peaceable elements of a movement need no cohesion, past a place to protest, but the diggers and muckrakers need someone who can aim them, weaponise them as they need to be. I unfortunately have too many real life political commitments to do it, or else I would have already taken up the mantle. This simply came about at a bad time. It is quite jarring the analogies one could draw to Ferguson and Bruges, most damning being those flayed by public opinion like Wardell have yet to see their tormentors brought to justice. But over time, this will change. Already they begin to buckle in small ways, but a much quicker fall would be had with an X to hammer the foundations to dust like John Henry.
An interesting article and by the responses engendered accurately highlights the issue.
I think point 13) is the most important aspect. At the end of the day the industry is governed by the flow of revenue. Having a large enough group of people boycotting a product/review site should be the main tool of an unofficial organisation. However, it HAS to have a large enough following of people, and people that will actually carry through on their statements. I’ve known so many people who will say things like ‘Man this game sucks, I’m never buying anything by this studio again.’ or ‘This site is so biased in their reviews I’m not reading anything they say again.’ and yet next game comes out and they’re down the gameshop with their pals queuing to be one of the first in line to play, or are still moaning about Games Magazines/ review sites with every purchase/visit.
I’m not sure if this is a particularly American movement, or if it really isn’t getting much of a following amongst people I speak to who ‘game’ but don’t spend a lot of their time in secondary gaming activities such as the social media aspects, but I’m really not hearing a lot about this amongst my closest circle of game playing friends. They like to spend their time playing their games, not reading about them.
On the note of harassment and anti-feminist aspects, I’m kind of glad that in the UK there are laws that can protect against this level of activity. A few notable cases but one of the most recent, and one centred on anti-feminist sentiment was this one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29411031
Okay, it’s not ‘game’ related, but it does highlight the aspect of intimidation and threats against open dialogue and opinion. And the fact that it carries a jail sentence.
Perhaps more salient. I’ve always thought anticipation and delayed gratification can enhance an experience.
A large problem with the role of ‘games journalism’ is that it goes hand in hand with promoting a game for a large pre-order and first days sale pitch. Look at the amount of time courting those pre-order sales with special packs of content to varying vendors, or of ‘In development’ articles in the game press.
A lot of the bias and frenzy disappears if you are able to wait a week or two (it really isn’t that long to wait 😉 )so you can investigate the actual content of what has been released through streamers and review sites with a copy of the playable game with no NDA or direct advertisement revenue standing in the way.
Lastly, it’s important to remember that not everyone will have the same opinion as you do. The devs may not see an intellectual property in the same light. Or, the dreaded metrics may suggest that the desires of the most vocal fans of a game do not mesh with the actual quiet userbase.
The real solution to this is to play on a PC where it’s easier to mod your game to a version you DO want to play 😉
Germany is a large part of this movement (in particular two high profile womens’ rights campaigners), which is why to shut down gg discussion on 4chan that turncoat Chris Poole had to ban damn near 85% of the whole country. Those most committed to destroying the support network of those that wrote the attack articles are in or near the country, having seen where allowing this belief structure to form uncontested leads to in the former soviet satellites and eastern Germany.
Thank you, but no.
no
GAMR? You’re already dead to us.
/read comments
/force brain into remembering gg is apparently “not about harassment” and is about letting all voices be heard
/give up
Infantilised hacks who can’t accept they’ve painted themselves into a corner.
Precious bullies who megaphone abuse and cry harassment when their lies are called out.
/me laughs at their impending comeuppance
Vehement disagreement with an opinion is NOT harassment. Get that through your head.
Harassment is unwanted. Damion clearly wants responses.
I was unaware that “suck my dick choke on it” meant “I vehemently disagree Sir”
Must be my education.
You might want to take a look at the name of individual who made that comment.
Yes indeed. It’s not as if anyone could write anything in that text box.
and all the cries of shill, sjw, feminazi and the other nonsense is just vehement disagreement…
And here’s the thing. Before yesterday, this blog had a nice conversation going
Pro and anti GG were respected, and heard
And last night, the gates were flooded
Not sure if someone succeeded in bypassing Damion’s moderation. Or if he let them in just to prove a point.
Also, seen calls on #gamergate tag to use throwaway mails if commenting here.
I haven’t searched 8chan, but i’d bet 50$ that there was a call there to flood the site.
Anyhow.
I’m out oft here until some moderation is restored.
It’s possible I was just letting a point be made.
No. We don’t need leaders. Our methods of blunt force anger sleuthing on all fronts is working out quite nicely.
GamerGate is too political to have some leaders that the vastly diverse populace of GamerGate might disagree with. Also, leaders offer targets. I’ll not have my argument more easily discredited by ad hominem/association.
Sorry, Damian, I’m not with you on this. Staying leaderless is the best way to avoid being co-opted. Note what happened with Atheism+.
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana
Damian = Damion, sorry about that, man.
The answer is no, we wont do you tell us.
Damion. I see from Twitter that you are considering going on Radio Nero. This would be an exceptionally bad idea. All you will achieve by going on his show is to legitimize it. At the moment it is just an echo chamber. Leave it that way.
If you go on you can forget any idea that you will be treated fairly. Yiannopolous isn’t interested in debate or even in gaming – he is interested in himself and that is all. What he has found in gamergate is a vehicle through which he can peddle is distasteful views and which have fallen on fertile ground. He has no interest in gaming or in gamers.
There is absolutely nothing, not a single thing, to be gained by your going on that show except for Yiannopolous. Please do not do it.
Much like everyone else, you don’t get to tell Damion what to do.
If he decides it’s a good move that he wants to make, then that’s up to him. He’s an obvious shill anyways, but it would be nice to have some dissenting opinions (or at least moderate) on RadioNero. I for one support the decision to join the podcast.
No, it will just make it easier for SJWs to take over.
I like the way this guy thinks!
Why continue on the march to victory when we can voluntarily divert ourselves?
(You idiots should have picked someone who doesn’t have an easily researched history of hating gamergate to try and pitch this to us. That is why you will continue to lose. You aren’t smart.)
LMAO at thinking GG is on the march to victory.
The march to obsolesence when all the new AAA games come out and you get distracted by Call of Duty The Next One and Super Smash and whatever else you R34L G4M3RZ play
you mean like destiny was supposed to kill us?
lol
One game? Nah. Many, many games? Yeah.
GG will peter out. You will move on to the next Outrage, like one game having too few pixels or whatever.
Yeah,keep telling that to yourself.
Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The shitty way you’ve been slagging TFYC only makes me suspect of your motives among other shit written up here, keep your tshirts.
Well argued.
Who are you, again?
You don’t matter.
And here I thought that in the GG movement every voice mattered. 🙁
Don’t forget about how gg is not about abuse or silencing people either, just “vehement gisageement” voiced, in this case, by someone basically telling you to shut up and how you don’t matter but if you dare say anything similar about gg then you’re censoring them and denying them their freedom of speech (see the hysterical response to the common rhetorical tool of “such and such is dead” that’s commonly used in opinion columns.)
Methinks the beam is totally obscuring the eye here.
Sorry there is no easy mode.
ktnxbye
“Easy mode”? Perhaps not. “Easier mode”? Yeah.
Whatever struggles you have in your life, they are made easier for your privilege. Women have obstacles in their paths men do not, POC have obstacles whites do not, disabled people, people with mental illness or chronic disease have obstacles that abled people, neurotypical people or the healthy do not.
Whatever hardships you have faced in your life, if all else were equal, you’re still ahead for whatever privilege you possess, though that doesn’t mean you can’t be disadvantaged on another axis of your identity (for instance, a white woman vs a black man; one has white privilege but female disadvantage while the other has male privilege but black disadvantage).
Oh, the struggles of women: https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1385/95/1385950285135.png
The fact that you knew there was an image like this and knew where to find it and link to it proves your politics.
Also, google false equivalence.
And showing one’s politics disqualifies evidence that one proposes because..?
Don’t you think that proposing a meaningless google search on a fallacy meme without explaining why it applies should disqualify one even more?
Also again with blaming substances. Don’t write if they affect, you wait until you are not under their influence. This is your statements, not mine: had three glasses of whine and under the effect of Niquil.
Come on sober up, it will do wonders to that SJW-itis you have been diagnosed with.
SJW-itis, aka empathy and a sense of justice.
I think it’s hilarious that GG is literally Anti-Justice. That sounds like an awful Legion of Doom knockoff from a kid’s comic book.
No, I can tell you they are quite PRO-justice, elsewise they would not have taken up arms to crusade on the behalf of Wardell, Temkin, Roguestar, Eron, Devi, Lizzy, IvyTwisted, Jason Miller, etc and so forth.
Hey, snake, could you stick your head out so I can cut it off? kthxbye.
Wow… Just wow… The comments here are amazing.
I’m beginning to see why so many are just trying to avoid engaging GG.
But then again “who am I. I don’t matter.”
You being a sjw shill, you have NO right to ask or even demand anything from us.
Thank you for proving why trying to engage with GG is a waste of time. Someone pointing out how GG can actually accomplish things is a “SJW shill.”
Classic Shill Gambit http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Shill_gambit
It seems like GamerGaters all get the same Word of the Day toilet paper. They all discovered ‘collusion’ on the same day and now they’ve all discovered ‘shill’.
They should probably start looking at the sheets before using them, though. As it is they just keep saying nothing but a bunch of shit.
Senator Armstrong responds to ZenOfDesign “Dear GamerGate – Please form a Consumer Organization Kthxbye” article while ‘aiming all sides’
https://twitter.com/Sen_Armstrong/status/518131519366643712
Cool, is @Sen_Armstrong asserting himself as a leader? Er, wait, maybe he isn’t. Never mind.
Kthxbye: the only thing I needed to read to understand the entire tone of this ‘piece’.
So you admit not reading it?
hmm…
i think you still dont understand what “gamergate” is not. It is not a group of entitled people like the flocks of Injustice warrions i would now like to call them. People who supports gamergate as a way to say “hey guys, we dont care about your political and social agenda and want to play games”. It´s quite that simple. That you threw “gender” into gaming was your fault and the fault of your anitas. No “gamer” whatever you are think a “gamer” might be…. EVER argued about gender or racism because a “gamer” usually thinks about games and play. PLAYING a game makes a “gamer” a “gamer” not to talk about any affilitation he has so whatever political group of people.
I usualy respect game devs because you create games but please be honest about the things you walk about Sir.
thank you and regards
from an old bioware “fan” back in 2004 and a “gamer” aka dude in his late 30s!
damn something went terrible wrong with my grammar. Sorry for that. I swear i didnt write so many errors in it! hehe, hope you can make sense out of it anyway because there is a misunderstanding about gamergate that is fueled by defamation and misrepresentation on a daily basis. Its not a pro-gamer (whatever gamer you want to be doesnt matter) and a pro-honest journalism “movement”.
Screw that… i wrote pro-gamer and out comes “not” pro-gamer! Is your site haunted by a troll2 ?
Ok, one last try to give you a “hint” what the people who supports gamergate wants.
1: dont educate people about games
2: let people who play games have fun and dont force political nonsense into gaming
3: be a honest journalist
4: dont try to fool your own customers
5: we dont need the press to know what games are appropriate
6: keep “political” oppionions out of gaming
7: no one needs biased social commentary on a game when you dont like it´s message!
Okay, so we want to keep “political” nonsense out of gaming.
But there’s so much political bullshit on the other side that’s been going on for so long it’s not seen as political, it’s just “normal”
I love games, I’ve played games since I could pick up a controller. But I play with mic on and people tell me they’re going to “Shove a parking cone up my C**t” and that I, being a girl, let everyone down and should be kicked, despite being the ONLY competent person on the team.
I play a game where the female character is wearing armour that is basically a metallic thong, and I roll my eyes and mouth off on twitter and I get told I’m “jealous” because I’m a fat bitch and the player character is prettier and has bigger boobs than me.
Can we keep those politics out of games please? I just want to play games! I just want to have fun. So can we keep mens wing-wangs and sexual fantasies out of it? Can we quit sending dick-pics to anyone who is openly female on Xbox live?
I’m trying to play a game! I don’t want to be part of your social agenda.
All I can say is that we’ve got this momentum going here, and definitely bring that up once the smoke clears. They’re not only finally willing to fight back against their critics, but police themselves as well. Although I’ve seen, I’m not really sure whether it is a counterculture within a culture, or that they just plain hate those games, but there’s a lot of anti-AAA sentiment in gamergate (as evidenced when gamejournos gave Destiny the hard sell to try and shut gamergate down and literally nobody bit.) so do be mindful there’s a good chance nobody even knows someone who has done that. No WoW, no CoD, no Battlefield, pretty good chance 85% don’t play those sorts of things. I’ve definitely never seen gamers so united, normally this sort of thing would have devolved into console warring on the third week, but they’re finally realising there are far more important battles to fight if they wish to keep their hobby industry free of the things they like the least about it. I totally think you can bring that up once it’s not so heated. (Even people who LIKE boobplate seem to be tired of it being the only option, they’ve been overindulged in blatant fanservice to the point it’s like eating two pounds of fries and then being given a baked potato for dessert. Ironically they also don’t get the fanservice they request catered to, such as Konami’s mystifying decision not to port Rumble Roses XX to the system a majority of its fanbase resided on.)
If you are offended by a game then dont play it. If you talk a walk in a park are you offended by people sitting on a bench and are smoking or do you just walk by and keep your thoughts for yourself ? Would you like that everyone out there would express that he/she thinks that your clothing is harrasing him/her because your style just suxs or do you want to just “live and let live” without intereference ? If you see a movie that is disturbing do you just turn it off and forget it ? Or do you sue the director how dare produced a movie that is not your taste ? This list can go on and on so i suggest you to just accept that the world does not centers around your oppinion what you think is “appropriate”. Thank you and no i dont share your views but i respect that you have an oppinion!
The question though is, _why are so many_ games like that? Why don’t we see so many games where the _male_ characters are similarly dressed up in “mankini”-like whatevers?
And I cannot help the suspicion that if someone defends that, then on some level they either agree that at least that’s how women should be depicted, or even worse, that that’s how women should _be_. And agreeing with the depiction suggests they also think it on some level to be true, and that’s where the problem lies.
That suspicion could be wrong, but that’s why I’d like to have a clear explanation.
If the “pro-women” side broke journalistic ethics, then all that goes to show is neither “side” is worth a damn, because this “gamergate” side is definitely pissing all over any sense of ethics with the threatening behavior it has engaged in. It’s very ironic and very telling that one group may have done something unethical, then the other responds with unethical behavior of their own.
And that means it’s time to dispense with BOTH “sides” and take a new approach to this to address the real issues both pointed out to and exhibited by BOTH sides.
And that means coming at this from a non-partisan, unity-advocating framework. While I never became a committed follower, I can see the wisdom in the Bahá’í religion’s rule to abstain from “Partisan Politics”… when “partisan politics” goes up, ethics and morals go down, and in the end, NOTHING gets solved, or one thing gets solved and two more problems get created. And a whole lot of people get hurt in the firestorm.
But also as another religion I am familiar with, yet did not become a committed follower of either, Buddhism, says that one of the causes of pain is the attachment to viewpoints and opinions. From this pov, there is a great deal of that on both sides, and it is causing a great deal of pain.
In all of that, what happens? Important points about the possibility of our culture’s attitudes toward women as being harmful may be ignored or downplayed. Cultural criticism is a good thing, imo. And the gamergate side tries to suppress this with violence of words coming perilously close to violence in body. If ethics are breached on the journalists or cultural critics sides, then that point must also be addressed. In fact, there is no reason why both sets of issues cannot exist simultaneously. Yet the crap on both sides means it is not going to be solved this way. These problems will continue and they will continue to hurt. Divisive partisanship to the point of violence only causes more harm, both directly and indirectly. It solves absolutely nothing. Whereas a rational and dispassionate-yet-compassionate (there’s a wordful for ya!) person would try to look at the issues in themselves. Free from partisan politics, one can also be freed of the shackles of the corresponding ideologies, and one can then look at the issues as they really are and have freedom to explore solutions that neither side has thought of, and would never be able to pursue anyways due to their belligerent and destructive approach.
“The reason they want us to pick a leader is because it’s easier to attack and tear down a leader to discredit the rest of the movement.
The second you say something like “Internet Aristocrat is our leader”, they’ll focus all their effort doxxing and harassing and silencing them, and digging up anything he’s ever said in his entire history of being online, that they can blow up to discredit him. Some quote from some message board he made under a different name 10 years ago will be taken out of context and plastered across the front page of every news site that wrote about how “gamers are dead” and they’ll basically say “See, he’s a bad person, so these are bad people and this movement is bad”.
Before the Internet, picking a leader was a good tactic because that person could give speeches and such to represent our concerns in a unified way, and their credentials could help give legitimacy to the movement. But times have changed, with doxxing and spreading misinformation the way the Internet allows, especially on the side that controls the media, picking a leader just gives them a clear target to attack. This is how SJWs silence arguments they don’t like…it’s why when you bring up a reasonable question, they instantly respond with “MISOGYNY! You’re an MRA troll!” Because they don’t want to debate your actual point, they want to discredit you as an individual which in turn discredits your opinion and makes you defend yourself instead of defending your argument…it’s basically a way of side-tracking you into a defensive position.
With no leader, they can’t grab onto anyone specific to tear them down as a person, we become like water where they try to grasp it but it keeps slipping through their fingers. If they can’t demonize and tear down a specific person or a few top people, then they’re forced to debate the actual facts. And our arguments are based on truth, logic and facts. Our arguments speak for themselves. I’m using a burner account because it doesn’t matter who I am, what matters is what I’m saying and people can make their own minds up on that. Because you don’t know who I am, all you can address if you reply are my points themselves.
The reason they’re working the “argument to moderation” angle is that they can’t get a grip on us to discredit our arguments, and they can’t actually debate our arguments (because we’re RIGHT), so they’re hoping they can get us to go “ok look, we both got a little crazy there, let’s just say we both have some valid points and let it go”. It’s classic abusive “look, I’m sorry I hit you, but you just make me so MAD sometimes, you know I love you I just wish you wouldn’t make me do that to you baby” behavior, and I don’t think they even consciously realize it.
And that brings me to my second point: We can’t convince them directly. That’s the mistake a lot of people who try to oppose SJWs make. There is NOTHING you can say that will make people like Leigh Alexander or Literally Who or Anita, or even the lower tier people like Phil Fish or Anthony Burch, go “hmm, you know, you make some good points, I take back everything I said, I was wrong, I’m sorry, I give up and I’m joining your movement. I’m going to write some articles about how you guys are right and spread them around.” They have too much invested, whether it’s their career and income or reputation or just that they’re so completely convinced themselves they’re doing the right thing that admitting they might be wrong would destroy their entire identity.
You can see it in that dev AMA from the other day (no hard feelings to him, he’s not doing it consciously)…no admissions that the SJW have done anything wrong, the general vibe was “well you know, maybe there were some outliers who did some stuff, but you guys are WAY worse as an overall group. All that stuff the journalists wrote, that wasn’t harassment, sure it was maybe obnoxious or mean but it wasn’t HARASSMENT”. Their side has too much invested to even acknowledge that their actions are wrong and that their side is doing the exact same stuff they accuse us of (except they justify it because they’re “the good guys”). I’m not saying that guy was a shill, I think he was trying to help, but he’s too far inside the bubble to even understand why we’re fighting.
This is also why they want us to debate them live. Don’t do that. Discussing it between us live is fine, but don’t debate them in public live. This is an emotional subject for us and they have way more experience shouting down dissenting opinions and talking over people who are trying to play nice and debate actual facts. It’s way too easy to trip us up and drag us off on a side-tangent into an area where they’re prepared to bring out attacks that we’re not expecting and anything you slip up with live will live forever because it’s the Internet and gives them ammo to keep using.
There’s no benefit to a live debate. Take your time and write your opinions up, plan out your wording, re-read it and make sure your points are valid, and post that message instead. It’s like defending yourself in court when you know everyone in that room thinks you’re guilty, you don’t walk in there and just wing it, you plan your arguments out and present them coherently. Don’t get sucked onto their battlefield. It also has the side effect of making you a temporary “leader” where they can try to discredit you (with facts or lies, whatever they feel like spreading around the media that day), to try to discredit the movement. This is what happens when someone tries to debate an SJW on the news: they accuse the person of misogyny and derail things with emotionally charged arguments and basically troll their opponent into looking bad and not being able to present their facts because they naively thought they were going into a fair discussion where they’d get to present their side.
To win this, we just have to convince the normal people on the fence who are looking at this stuff from the outside. The media is ultimately a reflection of popular opinion…if a site that’s promoting the anti-GG side tanks and loses significant money as the GG side grows, they’ll start writing articles supporting GG. That’s just how business works. So we need to convince normal people that our points are valid. The SJWs understand this, which is why they demonize us and keep saying it’s about hating women and trying to make our side seem so repulsive that no normal person would dare side with “those evil misogynists” or listen to our arguments. They’re hoping to block normal people from even listening to us because then they’ll hear our side.
As long as we stay cool, calm, and keep focusing on facts and infographics and posting evidence etc. and posting them to comment sections on these articles, normal people reading an article about how gamers are dead scroll down and click a little infographic link or a calm and rational list of facts and go “oh wow, did this person really say these things?? That article didn’t mention that at all…hmmm” and not give the article the instant credit that they might have.
The boycotts and E-Mails and about:today stuff is great, we have to keep all of that up. Those attack the financial and public opinion side of things on the back end, and if on the front end the comment sections begin to turn toward supporting us, that site is going to have to change their message. As some sites turn to our side and we reward them for it by supporting them, other sites will see “okay, that’s the way the tide is turning, we’d better get on this”.
It’ll be slow-going but we have the benefit of not having our personal finances riding on the outcome. We can fight this for years, it doesn’t cost us anything, but it costs them more and more every week that this goes on. That’s why they’re doing stuff like buying hits and buying retweets and rallying for donation support etc., because they want us to feel demoralized and say “ugh, Kotaku is back up to full hits, we haven’t accomplished ANYTHING this is pointless” and let it fizzle out. But advertisers are only going to give it a month or two (if they have a long history with them and those sites are promising that this’ll all blow over soon) of low returns before they bail on them. That’s why they were hoping Destiny’s release would kill GG, because they’re hoping this won’t last more than 2 months where shit will REALLY hit the fan for them. (and if anything, I’d say a AAA title being disappointing just gave our side more motivation to see unbiased reviews and objective critique in the industry, as well as seeing indie developers given a fair shake to try new ideas out and have creative freedom to explore new ideas, instead of knowing from the start that if they don’t conform to the Cool Kids Club’s demands they won’t get any news coverage, but that’s a side-tangent)
I’ve also seen the advice of “let’s have devil’s advocates and debate ourselves”. Don’t do this. I understand the idea is to practice strengthening our arguments, and if you want to do that in PRIVATE somewhere (not a public chat channel but in legitimate private), cool, but don’t do this in a public forum or anywhere where logs are recorded. Even IF the intentions behind that idea are good, all it does is give them ammo to go “ok we don’t know how to attack you, so how would YOU do it if you were us? What are your weak points?” It’s like Achilles shouting in front of the other side “I sure hope no one attacks my heel, boy would I be screwed!”
Three things that I can get behind are:
1) Organized presentation of our points/evidence. Clean organized nicely designed infographics are great because they summarize massive chunks of evidence/facts in an easily linkable and readable form. So we can drop these in comment sections all over the place to help quickly summarize our points instead of having to constantly rewrite our arguments out from scratch each time.
2) Targeted campaigns have a lot of impact. Everyone E-Mailing the same company at once forces them to at least go “woah, okay, something big just happened” and look into it. 100 sites receiving one E-Mail doesn’t have the same impact as one site receiving 100 E-Mails. So I think having a daily/weekly target the way I’ve seen happening is a great idea. Keep that up.
3) I won’t say we need a formal list of demands, but I WILL say that for the sites who WANT to switch to supporting us, it can help for them to have a set of steps they can follow to gain our approval. For a site like Gamasutra, I’m sure the firing of Leigh Alexander would be something we can all agree on. So we can present to Gamasutra, in our E-Mails etc. our concerns with her, the evidence of the things she’s done, and let them know we can’t continue to support their site until she’s been fired. It’s basically giving them an “out”…saying “look, you guys messed up, and if you write up a formal apology and remove the people who have been attacking us, then we can support you again. These are the steps you can take to win us back”. So these have to be realistic things, and they have to be presented repeatedly (in a nice clean looking infographic, perhaps). If 100 sites get the same list of 3 steps to follow to win us back, there’s a much better chance they’ll do them because we’re providing the “out” for them…without providing that “out”, they have to try to figure out on their own what to do and it’s reasonable to assume that they aren’t anywhere near as versed in #GamerGate as we are, and don’t have the time to look into it beyond what they read on Kotaku about it.
Note that 2 and 3 are exactly what SJWs do when they want Milo Manara’s Spider-Girl covers cancelled or apologies from the Dragon’s Crown developers, etc. They laser-focus their efforts instead of firing a shotgun blast, and they do it because it works…it will work better for us because we actually have valid points we can back up.
Keep going, you’re slowly winning this but no one will admit it until they have absolutely no choice because they’re all hoping it’ll blow over soon. The only way this movement can die is if we let apathy sink in. But to stop fighting is to allow them to continue slandering us and painting us all as misogynistic angry white neckbeards who just like to harass women and want them out of the industry. So we have to keep cool and keep fighting, and we can outlast them.”
http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2hphxl/were_doing_good_theyre_changing_up_their_tactics/
“and they can’t actually debate our arguments (because we’re RIGHT)”
Except we can, and you aren’t. Go on, try making some.
lol KIA.
When have any of you debated anyone over GG? All you guys do is yell “OMG THEY HARASSED ME!” whilst you doxx people and you think this is debating or refuting any valid points made? You’re fucking delusional man.
A hydra is strong since without a head there is no headquarters to destroy or kill or co opt. It is immortal and possibly one of hardest to be rid of animal. But with huge amounts of hydras they can move oceans. Gamers may not change the world but we can vote with our wallets.
If the game I’m playing pulls me out and talks about someones plight or social justice claptrap, there are plenty games on the line and I’m betting that capitalism in its ugly but useful form will win.
Screw cohesion
You do realize that a hydra has heads, right? Um, like, multiple heads.
GamerGate is closer to some sort of dungeon ooze.
I’m actually considering a pro gamer advocacy organisation and have been for the past few days now.
Like, a cross between a non profit organisation and a trade union, except that backs gamers and deals with attacks on the gaming world and its culture. Like the EFF does for the internet.
Maybe with some sort of system to verify who’s a decent person, complete with badges marking the sites that don’t attack their audience and that don’t have any connections to the industry other than an interest in games. Maybe even some of browser extension like the web of trust thing was, which notifies the user when a site has a proven reputation for dodgy behaviour that goes against gamer/gaming consumer interests (like bribes, embargoes, etc).
Could be useful.
Start simple. Build Politifact For Games Media.
I don’t think anything Damion said was bad. I might tweak some of it.
But this idea that a leaderless mob is somehow more effective than an actual organization is ummmmm stupid. I also think it is more of an excuse for people that don’t really want to have to commit to something beyond just ranting on the internet.
Lets look at some historical examples. French revolution vs. American revolution. French one was much less organized and chaotic, ended with a dictator who promised order and effectively ended their revolution. The American one was well organized and was successful, the country they created exist still today.
Chinas various mob revolts in the early 20th century…. all died out. Moas organized communist revolution won and that government still exist (though much changed).
MLK civil rights movement vs the hippie protestors. MLKs movement which was largely organized through black churches was successful in achieving equal rights under the law. Hippie only managed to guarantee Nixon be elected after the chaotic DNC at Chicago.
How about a modern example. Tea-party vs Occupy Wall Street. Occupy was quite disorganized and confusing. Even potential political allies backed away from them as their more radical elements came to the fore front. Tea-party however played a central role in shifting the leadership of the House in 2010. Even today there are senators and house members that openly support many of their platforms. They are considered a fairly solid block in the electorate and republican politicians occasionally have to kiss their ass.
Sorry but if you want to effect real change in whatever your after organization beats disorganization every time.