In what can only be described as one of the more hilarious events of GamerGate, Ice-T was Sea Lioned by GamerGaters last week. The summary of the whole event is quite hilarious, but without a doubt, this would be my favorite part.
Eat A Dick…. What did that do to YOUR gamer cred.. Lol https://t.co/T7WwWdjCoD
— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) August 27, 2015
It was embarrassing enough that one person (whether seriously or not) felt the need to form a petition apologizing to Ice-T on behalf of ‘the idiots’ in the cause. Still, GamerGate – in what is becoming a running joke in terms of covering the movement – desperately tried to spin these events as a victory. On Friday night, GamerGate-friendly subreddit KotakuInAction had five full threads describing the event as a victory, with GamerGate sop website TechRaptor leading the charge. Yes, once again, GamerGate was peddling the myth that they are primarily concerned about ethics in games journalism — an angle that would be undercut by the fact that they immediately began a witchhunt towards the author of the aforelinked Daily Beast article, impigning her credibility for the high crime of being friends with Devin Farici, a known GamerGate hater! Still, given Ice-T’s battles with the press in the past, it was a sympathetic audiance. But over the course of several tweets, Ice-T basically told the GamerGate Sea Lion Brigade that it was fucking dumb to waste your time worrying about the press disagreeing with you, and they should just play games and move on with their lives. Which incidentally is what the rest of us have been telling GamerGate for a year now. But this is what I wanted to talk about here.
FIY: Gamers: I am not your Enemy.. I am your ally.. I’ve been fighting the press and censorship my whole career. F em. Keep it moovin. — ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) August 28, 2015
See? Ice-T is on the side of gamers! Thus, he must support GamerGate! Right?
Wrong.
Whether Ice-T would be pro-GG if he knew more about the last year, I could not say. But what I can say is that being pro-gamer has nothing to do with being pro-gamergate. I am a game developer, and I am pro-gamer. I’ve devoted my career to building games, teaching others how to build games, and improving the state of the art. Anita Sarkeesian is pro-gamer. She’s trying to teach game developers how to increase the size of the gaming tribe. Tauriq Moosa is pro-gamer – he’s trying to explore ways in which gamers can be built to be better and more inclusive. Also, Kotaku and Polygon are massively pro-gamer. And they have been rewarded by large, enthusiastic audiences of game fans who appreciate the viewpoint of their coverage. You may disagree with their opinions, but describing them as anti-gamer is ridiculous.
GamerGate is only pro-gamer if the gamer in question agrees with their narrow, frequently misogynistic or close-minded worldview. They fight attempts to bring games to new audiences. They fight against those trying to study games to understand them better and make them better. They fight against attempts to clean up and improve the toxicity in game chat & message boards. They fight against game developers who change their games to remove elements that crept in that were accidentally or blatantly offensive to some of their audience. Meanwhile, many of them embrace and are embraced by racist, misogynistic and homophobic or transphobic voices. And let’s not even get into how they embraced Jack fucking Thompson, who most assuredly is in favor of the kind of political and legal games censorship they accuse Anita of being in favor of.
And having opinions about games isn’t bad! There is certainly a place for ‘conservative’ gamers who fight against political correctness in games and fight for ethics in games journalism. There is certainly plenty of vaiue in fighting censorship of games. I’ve done all of these on this blog myself over the last 10 years. The problem is one of tactics. Once GamerGate attention turns to a potential target, their targets get doxed, DDOSed, dogpiled, chased from their homes, slandered, and otherwise harassed endlessly. Even as GamerGate tries to ascribe these acts to nameless, faceless trolls, there is no doubt that they take pride and glee in being utter and total jerks to these voices in an attempt to belittle them, dismiss them, and frequently try to chase them off social media altogether.
Being pro-gamer means being eager to have the discussion about how to make games better. GamerGate is working their asses off to do the opposite, and silence dissent to what they view is the ‘right’ way to make games.
GamerGate is not pro-gamer. Gamergate is toxic to gaming, and has directed their toxicity over the last year towards not just game journalists, but also game developers, game academics, gaming-focused celebrities, and plenty of gamers who happen to have opinions different for them. It is no accident that most of the pro-gamer voices across the political spectrum of the gaming community have repudiated and ignored them. It is no accident that their numbers have dwindled from last year, as they work harder to embrace anti-SJW causes. It is also no accident that the game dev community mocked them mercilessly at GDC, and went out of their way to ignore them at E3.
You are decidedly not anti-gamer if you oppose GamerGate’s toxicity. Quite the opposite, I cannot think of a thing that is more ‘pro’.
Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go play Payday 2 and shoot at cops with Ice-T.
I’m sure the guy who wrote “Cop Killer” loves people who preach about how harmful entertainment is. And he was giving that “eat a dick” to a gamergater who was trying to use the dumb “fiction oppresses us” logic that police unions always use to whine about gangster rap.
If you read his tweets in context, it is clear that he thinks that the GamerGate idiots who were bombarding him with tweets need to get off of their persecution complex and get on with their fucking lives.
In France, in the event of 1968, dissident marxists (mostly students, Situationists or from Socialism or Barbarism) coined a term when stalinists and maoists tried hard to control the revolt.
maspérisation \ mas.pe.ʁi.za.sjɔ : Falsification of meaning based on the use of extracts of a text to give it a meaning different from its original meaning.
It was a publisher (editor ?), controlled by the communist party (who had full power at this time), to make them look good when everything goes against them. They published truncated version of everything criticisms (rewritting books, articles …) that goes against the party.
I’m proud today to give you today a Maspero award. You truly deserve it.
(soory for my broken english)
Oh, just call him a commie if you really want to. Less drama.
Aboslutely not my opinion. And you can’t put Debord or Castoriadis on the “liberal” political field in any way. Outside USA, socialists (and communists not so far ago) is a rather common opinion. And even if Damion was a communist, I really don’t care (my dad was a communist).
I just wanted to illustrate a word, not so many know (even french themselves), still used a bit in the littérature field. It describe a practice, not a political view.
“huehuehue”.
You’re being disingenious. The people who are most likely to reshape coverage to suit their ideological bent is (shocker) GamerGate.
GamerGate tries to convince the world that they’re not cultural conservative reactionaries, and then invite Milo and Sommers to speak on their behalf. GamerGate actively tries to deny that they began as a harassment crusade, which is laughable to anyone who was paying attention to it when it was #Quinnspiracy. GamerGate tries to convince the world that the gaming press is full of corruption, posting weak-ass shit as examples and frequently inventing stuff out of whole cloth. GamerGate tries to convince the world they’re pro-free speech, and then works their ass off to silence and marginalize viewpoints they don’t like, such as Anita, Tauriq & myself.
In short, I roll to disbelieve.
We will not redo the gamergate debate, I think a lot of lines have been crossed.
Just saying, sometime your verbal contortions are amazing 😉
Again, sorry for my english.
“Being pro-gamer means being eager to have the discussion about how to make games better. GamerGate is working their asses off to do the opposite, and silence dissent to what they view is the ‘right’ way to make games.”
Blatant lie, but keep pushing that narrative, someday it might become true.
We’re not the ones trying to get “problematic” games like GTAV pulled from shelves. We’re not the ones sending bomb threats to meetups or doxxing and hacking groups like The Fine Young Capitalists. We’re not the ones trying to institute litmus tests or industry wide blacklists for “problematic” people who don’t agree with a certain group’s politics. We’re not the ones telling a rape victim that she doesn’t deserve help because one of her friends is a GamerGate supporter.
That’s all Anti-GamerGate. The Social Justice Warriors. The “Good Guys.” I’ll take being an evil GamerGater any day rather than have to pretend people like that are in some way morally correct.
TFYC is so last August. And no one’s messing with GTAV.
GamerGate started as a concerted attempt to harass Zoe Quinn – back when it was known as the Quinnspiracy. Since then, GamerGate has, in the last few months, attacked Anita Sarkeesian to the degree she needed to flee her homes. They DDOSed and doxed me, as well as contacted my employers with lies. Recently, they berated Tauriq Moosa and, when he blocked them, they proceeded to start attacking people on his friend’s list. They stalked Randi Harper to her workplace, and proudly showed pictures standing out front, in an attempt to intimidate her. And let’s not forget their utterly awful treatment of people like Felicia Day and AbleGamers who happened to pretty much almost accidentally earn the mob’s ire, and gotten a fistful of harassment, abuse and generally jerky behavior for their trouble. On any given day, you can go to KotakuInAction and see them gloating about, in general, being awful towards ‘SJWs’ who have done them wrong.
And there is no ‘AntiGamerGate’ to speak of, just like there aren’t ‘Anti-Larouchians’ in politics. There are no two sides of this coin. There is a mob of easily outraged stupidity merchants trying to convince people the world is out to get them, and there is the rest of the world, most of whom are happily ignoring your little charade. There is also a contingent of trolls who have taken delight in poking at the easily outraged stupidity merchants to get them wound up. Pretending that this is the same group of people who gamergate is harassing, terrorizing or even most charitably just being a jerk to is farcical. Anita is not telling SomethingAwful to fuck with you. Kotaku is not getting the Waggoner Crew or AyyTeam to poke you with a stick.
In short, the reason why nobody gives GamerGate the benefit of the doubt on this shit is that GamerGate has, through their actions, not earned it. GamerGate has consistently been jerks to everyone they come in contact with – gamers, game developers, game academics, game reporters, game celebrities as well as other people, feminists, reporters and others who happen to spin close to this shitshow — and then they seem shocked — UTTERLY SHOCKED – when people are jerks to them back.
If people want to talk about political correctness in games, debate the merits of Anita’s work, or worry about ethics in games journalism without attaching themselves to this whirling shitshow, there are places on the Internet where this can and does happily occur without this stupidity. Stop martyring yourself by attaching yourself to this farcical movement.
-You acknowledge trolls exist, yet seem incapable of acknowledging they may attack you as easily as GG
-You acknowledge rude behavior begets more rude behavior, with apparently zero self-awareness
You realize the people you are attacking are your customers, right? And the people you are defending don’t play your games?
Look, say whatever you want, but SJWs are parasitic cannibals. They always eat their own. Writing articles like this won’t save you from them when the ShameTrain pulls into Damiontown. They’ll find some reason to complain about your next game being misogynistic or racist or some other nonsense; and if you actually do make a game to all SJW specifications no one will buy it, because it will be Sunset 2: Sweep Harder or some other horribly non-fun piece of crap.
Trolls did attack me – I was part of the Waggoner Crew attacks, which attacked both sides freely. They were, however, not the only ones to attack me. GamerGate is more than happy to boast about their constant and neverending petty, extremely shitty behavior, particularly on KotakuInAction. So much so that KiA is constantly terrified they’re going to get banned – because they know, in their heart of hearts, that they deserve it.
I’m sorry if pointing out that gamergate is decidedly anti-gamer is something you find rude. It is however very true.
Gmaergate is a tiny, tiny subset of gamers. If you’re talking about customers who will treat my other customers as poorly as some in GamerGate has treated women, minorities, gay and trans gamers and people they disagree with. These are the people who tend to get banned from games anyway, if they try this shit in most chatrooms. Gators who can play nicely are more than welcome to do so.
Also, you’re flat wrong when you say ‘these other people don’t play my games’. You have a viewpoint of gaming culture that is 15 years out of date.
I’ve pissed off people on the left before, and I’m sure I’ll piss them off again in the future. So fucking what? My worst encounters with feminists and with the gay lobby (both of whom have people within capable of quite crazy distortions of reality) have never resulted in the level of hatred and abuse that GamerGate has proven they are capable of.
In short, everything you say is a parody of reality and common sense. The fact that this nonsense is pretty much the party line from KiA and similar GG nests shows why the industry has taken to ignoring them.
Regarding the statement about attaching your customer, even assuming the troll was right (he is not), it could be argued that you should defend the non-customers against the gaters. Or at very least, distancing yourself from your “customers” may be a compromise between ethics and self-interest.
This is quite impressive, a movement that invoke ethics as a shield but don’t have a shred of interest in ethics.
GamerGhazi doxed developers and still enjoys the support of many on your side of the fence, you didnt personally call them out either, you arent pro-gamer, pro-developer or pro anyone but people who agree with you and attempting to project that flaw onto GG is pretty transparent.
I’ll try not to be too shocked over an authoritarian using an appeal to authority fallacy. You worked for EA, one of the most staggeringly anti-consumer and anti-developer companies to have ever existed to the extent of winning the worst company in america award multiple times back to back. But of course instead of ever owning up to your broken unfinished messes laden with DLC and microtransactions you labled that harassment too.
You’ve cried wolf far too often and claiming the people who disagree with you are evil harassers is a tactic that is very quickly running out of time
But what does this have to do with Ice-T?
Your definition of “pro-gamer” means attacking gaming culture. Anita and all of those webisites you mentioned have been attacking us for years now, even before GG was a thing. You even called us ” racist, misogynistic and homophobic or transphobic” right in this very article.
Whenever anyone wants to learn more and go to both GG and anti-GG sources they quickly discover who is reasonable and who are the zealots. Gamers aren’t gong anywhere, and as long as they are being attacked neither is GG.
No. My definition of ‘pro-gamer’ includes people who have criticized games. Categorizing Anita’s work as an ‘attack’ is a disservice to what art and social criticism actually is – another viewpoint on the medium. Additional viewpoints on the medium help game designers to actually evolve and push forward the medium in new directions other than ‘new shiny shit!’
As for ‘the growing popularity of GamerGate’, given that GamerGate is a ghost town, getting fewer than five tweets a day, and that the gaming media and major gaming companies have all collectively decided that they have their heads up their asses, I’d say that you’re living in delusion. GamerGate isn’t dead, but it’s a marginalized and very small group of outrage junkies who are completely as thin-skinned as the feminists and other SJWs they demonize.
Damion, it’s fucking dumb to waste your time worrying about GamerGate disagreeing with you, and you should just play games and move on with your life.
Tragically, I feel that an eye must be kept up on things. GamerGate has been a hugely corrosive element on the games industry, an industry I adore and love. They are not just trolls, sadly.
I’m not sure if you’re being facetious, but topsy charts show as of October 7, 2015, we’re getting over 5 thousand tweets per day, not 5.