A play in three acts.
Act I: Zealous Investigator slams TFYC for not really supporting women or giving to charity.
The most neutral way to describe TFYC is that they were ‘in the mix’ when the ZoePost event exploded in the chain of events that would lead into #gamergate. There was shitty behavior on both sides, but supposedly Zoe Quinn and TFYC made peace. However, TFYC emerged from the event as the ‘not Zoe’ female developer, with 4chan supporting the game with funding. The invention of #gamergate’s mascot, Vivian James, was in support of this effort.
One of the more spectacularly wrong things I see over and over again is this idea that ‘the mainstream gaming press won’t cover TFYC because of Zoe!’ Here’s the thing: the mainstream gaming press doesn’t cover enough indie shit – PERIOD. One of the biggest problems with the gaming press is that they get all their money from big developers, and they fill their front pages with orgasmic previews of these AAA games, and the guys making indie games and running indie events have a hellacious time getting any press at all. In fact, and I’ll say this bluntly, #GamerGate was by far the best thing to happen to TFYC. Fucking nobody would know, or care, about it. That’s not the way it should be, it’s the way it is.
Anyway, I found Vivian’s argument to be pretty weak sauce. Basically, what she’s saying is that what TFYC is doing is using the money to give a talented female designer a PAID PROGRAMMING STAFF. Will she actually run the team? I suspect she’ll be paired with a more experienced designer who can help her color within the lines of budget and feasibility, two things new designers struggle with. Her argument that the team, not the designer, will get all the credit is utterly fallacious. Any marketing around the game would undoubtedly center around this promotion. Even if the artist contributed zero past the initial design document. Because that’s what’s most marketable here.
So anyway, I thought this was all bullshit, and was just about to respond as such forcefully, when TFYC beats me to it. And then I was immediately glad I didn’t.
Act II: TFYC Makes It All About Zoe
This is literally the first full sentence of the response.
In the end, this project will alway be entwined with Zoe Quinn.
Wait, what? You mean, the one that shall not be named? Needless to say, I immediately did a search of Viv’s original article. Zoe’s name appears NOT ONCE. There are so many ways that you could legitimately counter Viv’s claims. Why do we immediately go here? Seriously, what the hell? But TFYC goes straight to repeatedly bringing up Zoe, including:
- Dredging up her donations and patreon earnings for no apparent reason.
- Accusing Zoe of being unexperienced
- Slamming Zoe for not really programming or building her own tech
- Effectively accusing her of spinning a victim narrative so she doesn’t have to create any real work (even throwing in that she’s using her looks to make it happen)
He closes with:
In the end, if we weren’t here, all that would be left for you to bitterly tear at would be Zoe, and her sins are far worse than ours.
WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT HER? Oh, that’s right. Because her name is a dog whistle that somehow brings all the worst trolls to the yard, and its the easiest albeit sleaziest way to circle the wagons.
Act III: Zoe responds with a completely appropriate ‘what the fuck’.
Not much for me to say here, other than the fact that her general befuddlement and outrage here is pretty much warranted as near as I can tell. Whether or not TFYC is clean or completely in the wrong, there is no good reason why Zoe should feel the need to expose her finances in response to TFYC’s ethical problems, be they real or non-existent. I will note that before this left-field attack, I thought they were non-existent.
But you don’t deflect in such a bullshit way as that if there’s not something there.
Zoe, in this twitter stream, has agreed to release any and all documentation to members of the press who are willing to help her cleanse it of private information and host it. I’d be surprised if any takers take her up on that. The press that would normally cover such things, like Polygon or RPS, are trying not to talk about #gamergate, not because they are ignoring it so much as because, due mostly to utter bullshit claims, they feel like they are part of the story, and must recuse themselves. The only games media talking about Gamergate right now are pro-gamergate sites, who are feeding off the movement. You have to go to cracked magazine to read a major site with an antiview (their view is that this bullshit is the stupidest scandal in games history).
Seriously, if #GamerGate isn’t about Zoe, then why do GamerGate’s Heroes like Milo and TFYC have such a hard time avoiding her as a topic?
“Basically, what she’s saying is that what TFYC is doing is using the money to give a talented female designer a PAID PROGRAMMING STAFF.”
I never got that impression. More like, they wanted someone to win a contest with their bright game design idea (red flag one) with no experience (two) who is being tokenized by gender (three) as a charity case, then they’d get the game made somehow (five, because it took a while to figure out TFYC is a Toronto based outfit that contracted some spot in Bogota, Colombia, that no one heard of before, to make the game no matter what,) and they want money up front to make all that happen (four.)
Horseshit. If it was couched as an educational endeavor, it might not have failed the sniff test. But if the best they could have done to get anyone with any cred to do work was to hire Zoe Quinn, who then tried to back out after SHE figured out what they were all about, then they are nobodies and not to be trusted.
NEVER trust anyone who wants money up front to put inexperienced people to work coming up with the design for a game that isn’t made out of pen and ink.
But, like last night’s kerfuffle illustrates, it might have all been for attention in the raw. The Capitalists knew they couldn’t come out of nowhere with no game and expect to get press. So they get it the old-fashioned way: get controversial.
That or they’re the biggest bunch of jackass name-droppers who only have one name to drop.
Here is an interview that TFYC gave a few weeks back
My favourite part? “We did not expect this question”
Lol
http://apgnation.com/archives/2014/09/09/6977/truth-gaming-interview-fine-young-capitalists
How wrong can you be on such a well documented subjected I can’t even comprehend.
Let’s see:
1) TFYC got responses from press that said – straight up – “I talked to ZQ and she said you are not supporting women, so I won’t cover you”.
2) Their initial attempt got shot down, because shitted on the whole affair – and she was wrong to do so. Then her shitty life choices got a reddit post into the spotlight and from there the project went from dead to funded. What they say is true: ZQ is a part of this. Her involvement made this happen, even if it was despite her or to spite her. To refuse your history is hypocritical. Others were into doing porn shoots and then play the super rad feminist talking about objectification.
3) Zoe should disclose her finances if she is claiming to be raising funds for charity (she wasn’t officially, which is not legal actually ). When you accuse others expect to be scrutinized.
As far as releasing documents to people that were discussing sending you a group gift: do I really need to dignify this with a response?
Which brings us to the real issue: this has not been covered because people preferred the audience not be privy to certain aspects of how they conduct business. You might say what you want about a mailing list, but it certainly doesn’t help your credibility, which is an aspect of business that other industries don’t really need to care for, so false equivalence here is not going to work.
Z is part of this, but she is a part: a) because this is how it all started and the reactions that led to, b) because she keeps thrusting herself into the limelight, exactly like any law enforcement professional would advice someone to act in such a situation (/s on the last bit).
I have one final thing to say on this: based Matt/TFYC