Brad is far more sympathetic to GamerGate’s goals and tactics than I am, so I’m not totally surprised that he calls bullshit on Intel’s diversity announcement (which I discussed previously here). That being said, there are a couple of fallacious arguments that should be brought up.
During the event, Intel even featured the Feminist Frequency logo which, to me, implies that she’s either compromised her position or surrendered it outright if she’s now in favor of more people getting into game development rather than arguing how bad games are for society.
Welp, that certainly is a massive mischaracterization of both her goals and her tactics. Anita simply wants to see better and more games. She’s not always right, but she’s more right than she is wrong. As a reminder, enough devs thinks that what she’s doing is good and important to the cause of making games that she earned an Ambassador Award from the GDC last year – a forgotten part of the story where her appearance earned a bomb threat from assholes unknown. GDC isn’t going to do that for someone they think is trying to shrink the industry.
If that happens, maybe there will be less pressure on people like me to insert socially conscious robot wizards into my space ship games.
You know you can ignore them, right? You know that many companies, including Rockstar, make billions of dollars not just ignoring them, but actively pissing them off for the purposes of getting free press off the outrage, right? You know that even small studios have found they can make big noise by playing the outrage card, right?
What I found particularly strange is how some in the media have covered this. The Verge has made a very odd article literally entitled “Intel opposes Gamergate as part of $300 million effort to fix diversity in tech”. I’m not sure what that has to do with GamerGate one way or the other. Last time I checked, the issue GamerGate had was with journalists choosing who and what to cover based on their politics and personal relationships along with misrepresentation their critics as misogynists.
Well, the Verge probably got that line of thinking from Intel actually calling out the GamerGate kerfuffel as a major impetus. See the New York Times article on the subject.
In October, though, Intel unwittingly became a villain in a controversy over the treatment of women in gaming, which has come to be known as GamerGate. A loose-knit brigade of Internet users lobbied the company to pull an advertising campaign on the game website Gamasutra because it had run an essay attacking the male dominance of games culture.
Intel, which was caught off guard by the ensuing controversy over its actions, eventually resumed advertising on the site. Mr. Krzanich said he used the incident as an opportunity to think more deeply about the broader issue of diversity in the tech industry. The issue resonated with him personally. “I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age,” he said. “I want them to have a world that’s got equal opportunity for them.”
Here’s a hint: the people who are standing up to GamerGate, including Intel, aren’t doing it because of GamerGate’s stance on journalistic ethics. Heck, many critics of GamerGate (including this one) agree that ethics in games journalism is important and should be improved. We just believe it is not as important as, say, female game developers, journalists and critics being able to do their jobs and contribute to the scene without continual harassment and intimidation.
I’m kind of sorry now I bought Galactic Civ II in a $2.99 bundle a few months ago. Certainly not going to buy anymore Stardock Products, even though I’m their demographic (big 4x fan).
It is interesting though that Wardell is the only officer of an establishing gaming company that has publicly supported GamerGate. I wonder why that is.
It can’t be because 4x fans are sympathetic to GamerGate. On the contrary, as the adults in the room, you think they would be more supportive of the arguments for inclusion. For some reason then, Wardell does not appear to care about jeopardizing sales of his games.
The only thing I can come up with then is that game sales don’t mean that much to Stardock anymore. I assume their sales of Windows office software now eclipses any revenue from games. Since games are now a “hobby” for Stardock, Wardell can burn up their good will tilting at this particular windmill.
Fair enough, he’s the CEO. Never buying another Stardock game again though (even for $2.99 in a bundle).
Ethics in Games Journalism is a personal crusade for Wardell, due to prior events previously discussed here. I don’t want to discuss those events again for all sorts of reasons, but I think its a large factor in him being outspoken.
There are certainly other game devs who are sympathetic to GamerGate, but there are very few who have trumpeted it from the rooftops. Many more game devs have spoken on the anti- side, but for the most part, most individuals are choosing to shut up about the topic, for fear of getting harassed, causing a shitstorm among their fanbase, or encountering some sort of professional blowback.
When Kotaku and other websites were falsely accusing him of sexually harassing his emloyee’s, a lot of people said they swore off of StarDock. I don’t think he gives a shit anymore about whether or not you spent 2.99 on his game, because he has heard that threat for years.
I remember I thought about buying GalCiv 3 as early access despite having read this Kotaku article. My reasoning was that anybody deserve a fair trial, everyone is innocent until proven otherwise.
Now, I feel ashamed. Is it not because I think he is guilty (to be honest, I now believe he is) but because I didn’t notice the counter-lawsuit. It reminds me me of a SLAPP and I think the counter-lawsuit serves the same function.
Lets be honest, the accusation against this women are ridiculous. Elemental didn’t fail because she, allegedly, sabotaged PR efforts, it tanked because this was a substandard 4x game. I now think this lawsuit aimed at making the case of sexual harassment as difficult, expansive and painful for the victim, dragging the case for years or decades until the victim gives up or someone dies, as it happen in extended trials.
I don’t think it fair to say that a settlement was simply negotiated. I think that Wardell strategy was simply to ensure that justice can’t be done and the settlement was just giving her a door to escape the wraith of a guy too rich to sue. He spat in the face of the law and he got away. He did what he could to insure that truth can’t be found.
Since his defense relied on fully exploiting flaws in the judicial system and managing to be too powerful to face justice like a pleb, I am inclined to believe he is very likely to have done sexual harassment; bloating the case was his way out.
I am ashamed to have failed to notice that, having bought the Fallen Enchantress games when I should have noticed that he was acting like a CEO from a tobacco company. At least, I am glad that I didn’t gave him100$.
The sad part, Stardock’s product support is one of the best in the industry. I can’t boycott the thug without boycotting the great of Stardock. In the end, I rather avoid supporting one of the monster in the industry. That the price of calling myself an ethical man. There are thing more valuable than great products.
Seriously, enjoy GalCiv 2, remorse won’t remove Wardell’s profits. This is a great game and no matter how bad Wardell may be, the game will be awesome.
The idea that this was put together in the last few months, as a response to GG or for any other reason, is frankly idiotic.
Furthermore a large portion of this is about race – Intel is giving money to black colleges. By making this about women and GG people are completely erasing that part of the story and the work that Jesse Jackson has been doing. And in gaming black people are far more underrepresented than women.
Making this about GG is silly. It’s silly when GG people get all mad about it, or when anti-GG people gloat about it. Problems with representation in tech go back decades, not 3 months.
This is not me saying “Intel thinks GG is fine, they aren’t actively rebuking it.” I’m sure Intel thinks GG is very dumb. But this is not a reaction to GG. That’s not the timescale a company like Intel would operate on on an issue like this.
To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail and to people who love to argue about GG everything is about GG. In reality you’re all just trivializing what Intel is doing, making it about your silly holy war and reducing it to being purely symbolic and political.
“Making this about GG is silly. ”
Brad Wardell is many things, but he’s not silly. And he brought it up in his own article about Intel’s initiative from his own perspective about what it means. Damion merely reacted to that article.
GG is about nothing. GG is history. You have my permission to stop talking or caring about it.
You have my permission to say something intelligent for once in your life.
Go ahead, try it!
You’re still boring.
I agree with you that Intel has many motivations for this venture, and that this has likely been brewing within the company for a very long time. At the time time, however, the Intel CEO basically told the NY Times in a phone interview that the GamerGate incident with ads on GamaStura was a catalyst.
Obviously, GamerGate is not a prime mover in Intel’s push for diversity in tech. It is both too young and too small. But, I think GamerGate did, in its own way, provide Intel with both the opportunity and means to decide that this was the right time and moment.
For those directly involved in GamerGate, the latter half of 2014 was a year of spiking outrage and spastic fury. For those not directly involved, there was still a general malaise and during the heights of GamerGate around October and subsequent things like shirtgate, etc, a general background buzz of issues like diversity and harassment.
Obviously, GamerGate wasn’t in the original recipe when Intel mixed together their diversity program. But GamerGate did, I’d argue, set and preheated the oven temperature quite nicely.
Except the part where Intel was quoted by the New York Times as having started this initiative specifically in response to the events of GamerGate. This is not meant to trivialize the other aspects of the care that will come, but you’re definitely burying the lede on the origins of this effort.
For what its worth, I have friends on the inside of IGDA and Gamasutra, and these events have been long-time negotiated and planned meticulously, in the wake of Intel feeling like jackasses when they pulled their ads from Gamasutra.
No such quote exists. I suspect you don’t know what a quote technically is in journalism: it has quotes around it. (Your NYT link goes to an October piece well before CES)
The only quoted material in the NYT piece relevant to this conversation is this:
“I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age,” he said. “I want them to have a world that’s got equal opportunity for them.”
That’s literally it. That says nothing about when this got off the ground, and that same piece mentions Jackson, who started in spring. The piece leads off with Jackson and racial issues, so that is (if you understand how news stories are written) the most relevant information.
You’re talking about the lede while ignoring the actual lede of the piece. The lede I’m burying is the same lede the NYT buried – it is in fact not the lede at all. This is the actual lede:
“Over the last year, Apple, Google and other big technology companies have faced mounting criticism by civil rights leaders about the lack of diversity in their work forces, which are populated mostly by white and Asian men.”
You’re claiming the NYT doesn’t understand their own story as well as you do?
“For what its worth, I have friends on the inside of IGDA and Gamasutra, and these events have been long-time negotiated and planned meticulously.”
The IGDA is sending 20 girls to GDC. Are they doing anything else? Out of the $300 million Intel is spending that’s what, 20 thousand dollars or so? I’m going to go ahead and say that the scope of this is much, much, much larger than the IGDA or anything the IGDA has ever or will ever do.
Just to clarify my own comment, the actual lede of the piece credits civil rights leaders, then moves on specifically to Jackson and his coalition. It does not credit IGDA or Gama in the lede.
I think it’s reasonable to assume that the person who wrote the piece, after collecting all the relevant information, thought that was the prime motivator and most salient aspect.
New pieces are typically written in inverted pyramid style. The GG stuff is towards the middle-bottom of the piece – where the least relevant information goes.
You are really trying to pretend there isn’t an elephant in the room.
In October, though, Intel unwittingly became a villain in a controversy over the treatment of women in gaming, which has come to be known as GamerGate. A loose-knit brigade of Internet users lobbied the company to pull an advertising campaign on the game website Gamasutra because it had run an essay attacking the male dominance of games culture.
Intel, which was caught off guard by the ensuing controversy over its actions, eventually resumed advertising on the site. Mr. Krzanich said he used the incident as an opportunity to think more deeply about the broader issue of diversity in the tech industry. The issue resonated with him personally.
“I have two daughters of my own coming up on college age,” he said. “I want them to have a world that’s got equal opportunity for them.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/technology/intel-budgets-300-million-for-diversity.html
While it doesn’t paint GG as the cause of this investment, it paint GG as something that justify efforts in diversity related to women. Claiming that it say otherwise shows borderline malice, claiming this is irreverent because is it placed at the end of the article is negationism and crude revisionism. In other words, is it ggaters acting like usual.
Please learn the basics of journalism like what exactly is a quote and what the inverted pyramid form is.
I didn’t say the IGDA / Gama stuff was irrelevant, I said it was where the less important / more background information goes. That’s how newspaper writing works – this is not my personal pet theory. That stuff is not the lede, period. You literally don’t seem know what a “lede” is or even what a quote is!
You’re arguing out of passion and ignorance – are you sure you aren’t the gater here?
I’m sorry but saying something silly then concluding with “and if you don’t agree you must be a GGer” is idiotic. I’m not a GGer – GG is silly. So is your post. The fact that in your own mind you’re righting the good fight about GG doesn’t make obviously false things true, like false quote attributions and your inversion of the inverted pyramid.
You’re also exactly proving my point that to some people everything is about GG. I disagree with you so I’m part of GG now? It can’t just be that I took journalism at Harvard and know the form?
“Except the part where Intel was quoted by the New York Times as having started this initiative specifically in response to the events of GamerGate.”
This was a lie right? Or at least an example of someone simply believing what they want out of zeal. Can either of you show me this quote? You claim it exists – where is it? Does simply asking that question make me a GGer somehow?
Where exactly is “Intel” (or any Intel exec) quoted as saying this was started specifically in response to GG? This isn’t a trick question, it’s a very simple one you should have an immediate answer for. You say it’s in the NYT piece – ok, where?
@ a person
I call “Gish gallop” and malice on your part.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane_Gish#Debates
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop
Nearly everything you wrote doesn’t make sense. The only point you may have is that I ignore the finer points of journalism. On the other hand, you try very hard to bury the fact that Krzanich said that GG justify (not saying is the origin) Intel initiative.
I invite any reasonable person knowledgeable in journalism to correct me or say that you are full of it
I’ll won’t answer your question since you are just trying to waste our time. You just ignore the quotes. You are not really asking questions, you are just trying to silence us.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t call yourself a GGter, you mostly use their taking points, their harassing techniques, their troll tactics. In this forum, you have a persona of a gater and I deal with you like a hypocrite gater. Is it not unlike dealing with antisemites, they rarely identify themselves as such.
For the records, I didn’t call you antisemite.
And, stop moving the goalpost, Damion didn’t claim that the program was created as an answer to GG.
Damion made a claim that a quote existed. It doesn’t exist. This is a statement of fact – I am right, you are wrong, full stop.
“I’ll won’t answer your question since you are just trying to waste our time. You just ignore the quotes. ”
If these mysterious quotes exist point out where! You can’t! I asked you a question you can’t answer so now you throw a temper tantrum. “I don’t have time to answer a simple question but I have time to explain why I don’t have time to answer it!” Are you a Destiny NPC?
You’re embarrassing. The ultimate sign of a debate loser is that they get asked a very simple straightforward question and throw a fit.
“Nearly everything you wrote doesn’t make sense. ”
You didn’t point out a SINGLE THING I wrote that didn’t make sense. Not a single one. You’re like Bush appealing to “fuzzy math.” All you can do is make vague claims about how I’m wrong, without a single specific example of how I’m wrong. Meanwhile you continue to argue something that is factually incorrect, claiming that you have secret evidence that your factually incorrect claim is right but that you mysteriously just can’t share it.
Anyone without severe brain damage can read that NYT piece and see that the claimed quote does not exist.
“I’ll won’t answer your question since you are just trying to waste our time.”
Translation: I have no answer for this question so instead I’ll bloviate and hope people get distracted.
Go away moron. You’re out of your league.
@a person.
Look, repetitively pretending that the text doesn’t exist when it does is not a valid point, it just proves that you are a hypocrite. Repeating a lie 10, 100 or repeating until the sun shallows the earth won,t make it a valid point.
The quote exist, don’t be an asshole and accept it. Stop the false outrage while you are at it.
“Except the part where Intel was quoted by the New York Times as having started this initiative specifically in response to the events of GamerGate.”
Where is this quote in the piece? That’s not a trick question. A claim was made. That claim appears to be false. If you have evidence that it’s true share it.
Don’t call me an asshole, or a gater, or equate me to an anti-Semite. (I’m similar in that many anti-Semites can read a newspaper and so can I – great point!) Just point out where that quote is. Don’t cry, don’t throw a temper tantrum, don’t tell me to just accept your obvious falsehood or say “I don’t have time to show you the quote” despite the fact that you have time to respond over and over with pointless bloviating.
Just show me the quote!
Maybe instead of continuing to dig your hole you should just admit that no such quote exists. Anyone with basic literacy skills can verify that for themselves by simply reading the piece.
Do you also see a quote in there about how 9/11 was an inside job by the same people who staged the moon landing?
You’re embarrassing yourself.
@ a person
>The company also said it would invest in efforts to bring more women into the games business, partly as an antidote to the harassment feminist critics and game developers have faced in recent months. Intel became part of the furor last year when, under pressure, it withdrew an advertising campaign from a game website that had run an essay by a feminist game critic, a move it later said it regretted.
>“This is the right time to make a bold statement,” Brian M. Krzanich, Intel’s chief executive, said in a phone interview. Mr. Krzanich announced the plans on Tuesday in a speech at the International CES, a huge trade show in Las Vegas. “It’s kind of Intel’s culture. We march by Moore’s Law. We say we’re going to reinvent Silicon every two years even though we don’t really know how we’re going to pull that off.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/technology/intel-budgets-300-million-for-diversity.html?_r=0
I added the bold part.
That the same link as I posted erlier.
Dude……………. come on. Anita doesn’t matter in the game industry.
The game industry cares about how to create the best game cycle in order to hook the most money. Ok that is a bit over the top but you know what I mean. I don’t have a problem with that but it is the truth. Ultimately a great game means it can be played endlessly. Not figured out/finished and quickly discarded. Gotta give Chess credit for that.
That is the problem I have with your articles. You act like anit-GG is winning against GG. As if Anita is important. Fact is they are both loosing. GG is silly and now pretty much irrelevant but anti-GG has gone nowhere.
Why? Because to many in that camp think games are a vehicle for their politics. Angry birds had a good hook, it kept people playing. Guess what? It had nothing to do with gender or anything else. LoL is insanely successful, it really doesn’t have to do with anything other than pvp.
O, you don’t like the characters in a game or the story? Don’t play it then. There will continue to be ‘Gone Home’ games but guess what, they will never be as successful as GTA.
So alas the games industry will go the way of movies. Snobs insisting how what they like is sooooo much better than anything else and complaining that their choice is not as successful. While most people just enjoy the big stuff and not really caring or even knowing what the ‘diehards’ are into.
> That is the problem I have with your articles. You act like anti-GG is winning against GG. As if Anita is important. Fact is they are both losing. GG is silly and now pretty much irrelevant but anti-GG has gone nowhere.
Actually, as a near direct result of the increased attention on both Anita and the issues that Anita was attempting to (rightly or wrongly) point out, there is now more attention than ever on both her, her videos, her organization, and the issues she talks about.
So good job on that front, GamerGate. You managed to get Anita: in the NY Times, on Colbert Report, on CNN, MSNBC , and even a partnership with Intel on a massive push for diversity in tech.
> LoL is insanely successful, it really doesn’t have to do with anything other than pvp.
*cough* http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/24/5934675/league-of-legends-diversity-women-champions-riot-games
She was also on the cover of one of the major business magazines (Bloomberg or Businessweek, or maybe both).
Which pretty much means that because “the game industry cares about how to create the best game cycle in order to hook the most money” they have to care about Anita.
Which ironically wasn’t the case before GG decided to make her into a celebrity.
You should watch the fem freq stuff. what they want is a bit different. At any rate games like CoD and GTA will continue to be very popular.
Snobs aside, what you call “anti-GG” was at its best a rejection of backwards attitudes about women and how games get made, often dressed up in a whole lot of useless busybody-ism masquerading as a movement.
That GG got Damion writing again and chronicling what happened between now and the distant past of August 2014 might seem inconsequential now, but that’s only because enough time passed that the unmoderated backsplatter got recognized for what it is. That and it’s finally getting moderated, even on Twitter.
You have my permission to stop caring about GG. Go in peace.
“O, you don’t like the characters in a game or the story? Don’t play it then. There will continue to be ‘Gone Home’ games but guess what, they will never be as successful as GTA.”
Sure! I’ll just step into my time machine and make sure I don’t play the game in the first place, thereby avoiding the bit of playing the game where I discover I don’t like the characters!
You’re a genius!
We have reviews, previews, let’s play videos…if you’re really concerned about the content in a game you have a million tools at your disposal. GTA V is the 5th main-line GTA game, and actually like the 9th or so game in the series. How is it possible to still be shocked by the content?
Playing a video game is a very deliberate act. You have to own a game machine, then go buy the game, then install it, then play it, then continue playing it. It’s not leaping off a shelf and mugging you. This isn’t TV where you can be flipping through channels and see something you don’t like, to experience video game content you don’t like you have to actively engage with it.
GTA V is the 5th main-line GTA game, and actually like the 9th or so game in the series. How is it possible to still be shocked by the content?
Talk to anyone who’s worked at GameStop for more than 3 months, and you will hear some variation of the following story:
1. Adult comes in with child in tow. Child wants M-rated video game.
2. Adult requests to buy the game, and worker tries to explain why it’s not appropriate. Adult disregards advice and buys the game anyway.
3. Adult comes back to the store within a week, sometimes the very next day, to complain about the content of the M-rated game.
We’re never going to run out of people fascinated by video games, and it’s true that there are more ways to find out about a game’s content than ever before. Let’s Plays are huge, but they’re a closed loop — most of the people watching them already know what’s in the game and aren’t using them as a way to find out about content, they just want to watch someone better at the game play and comment on it.
This is not a solved problem.
Anti-GG doesn’t really exist as much of a coalesced force, and of those who have gathered in places (neoGAF, GamerGhazi), their only binding motive is exposing GamerGate for the sham that it is. If you think that GG is silly and irrelevant, then what you would term as Anti-GG has accomplished the only thing that binds them.
As for the rest of your stuff, politics does and always has imbued games, very deeply. Understanding HOW those politics imbues games is instrumental to figuring out how to expand to new markets. This is something that is important if you’re a AAA studio trying to expand to new markets, and even more important if you’re an indie trying to discover a relatively unexploited niche.
As for your thing about movies — movie criticism is HUGELY influential on directors, even if those lessons don’t always end up keeping Transformers 4 from happening. More sophisticated movie viewers enjoy criticism like Pauline Kael’s stuff, whereas more casual users just go and enjoy popcorn flicks. That doesn’t make those critics not influential.
It’s not ‘if I think they are silly and irrelevant’. I do. And have said so from their start.
As for the rest you said, yes critics have some influence but bottom line has more. Oscars don’t go to super heroe moves but well they keep making them. Why? Because they are very successful.
Also, being a critic is one thing, but being a critic to push your particular politics is very different. I think those types of critics get largely ignored.
Again… lets not pretend that Anita has any real influence.
GamerGate needs to make up their mind — is she ineffectual, or is she destroying the games industry?
The truth is neither. She is very effective at getting games makers to rethink their approaches to games, and some game makers take it to heart, and others ignore it. These game makers are pretty good at figuring out what to apply and what to discard and still retain their audience. You can thank Anita for a lot of the subtle stuff in the Ellie relationship in the Last of Us, a game of the year candidate. You can thank the work of cultural critics for the vast improvements in Far Cry 4 over Far Cry 3. The Dragon Age: Inquisition team was well acquainted with her stuff. These are not niche games, but are instead major, mass-market titles that still managed to reach huge audiences. Expect to see the same thing from the Saints Row series, as the lead designer has already embraced what she has to say. It’s STILL going to be a ridonkulous, violent crime spree. But all of these games show progress in showing more varied, more nuanced, and less appalling depictions of other cultures and minorities, especially women. And this is good for people who got tired of the same old space marines shooting the same old demonic things 20 years ago.
In early December, I created a Twitter account and, within a few days, found myself in a conversation with Wardell. At the time, if I remember correctly, Brianna Wu had just announced she would boycott Wardell’s games, and the Gaters were damn sure her announcement was breaking one law or another.
I can’t quite remember how that conversation started, and because of the nature of Twitter it’s impossible to put back together. I believe I became involved after he tweeted that he supported her right to boycott whoever she wanted. I responded that he had once boycotted UPS (as reported at, among other places, The Escapist) because UPS had pulled its ads from Fox News. To which he replied: “I am against boycotts designed to stop speech.”
Then I pointed out that it was exactly what Gamergate had been trying to do since the earliest days of the movement. I mentioned the “Bayonetta 2” case, especially how the Gaters singled out Polygon’s 7.5 review and tried to get Polygon cut off from press material by Nintendo because of it. Wardell conceded that “I suspect they think it got rated down there bc of their politics.” I then asked him what was the difference with UPS. He responded, in two tweets back to back: “I don’t support boycotts that try to restrict free speech. I may think their review is ridiculous but I support their right to print it.”
I don’t think he was hypocritical, because freedom of expression seems to be a recurrent theme with him (just now, his adhering to the #JeSuisCharlie movement). However, his beef with the gaming press seemed mostly that it was not talking enough, and in a positive light, about Brad Wardell. He seemed especially bitter that all the coverage seemed to go to relative nonentities like Quinn instead of, well, him, but he was quite honest about it. Not to mention the old allegations made against him that were never mentioned but seemed to explain everything, from his complaints about the press to his association with GG. He seemed oblivious to the fact that the GG “consumer revolt”, whose merits were clear to him, was in effect an operation of censorship, something which he, as a former boycotter of boycotters, should have realized.
But Twitter being Twitter, the GG supporters started retweeting every threadbare comment he wrote about the merits of GG, while dismissing me for not having enough of a Twitter pedigree: “I find it a good policy not to ague with eggs who have 0 followers and follow 0 people.” (This, naturally, by people who, unlike Wardell, are nothing outside of the Twitter hierarchy.) It doesn’t take much to figure out why Gaters are “winning” on Twitter: they can take whatever they want and ignore the rest; they can measure their clout based on likes (just like Broken Forum…) and followers; the 140-character format discourages long-form argumentation while it encourages selective quoting; the site’s structure makes conversations appear unintelligible after just a few weeks; and users can just delete away when cornered.
As for this latest Wardell controversy – at least he’s willing to address things in long form – I too found the inclusion of the Feminist Frequency logo jarring, but not for the same reasons as Wardell. Sarkeesian offered herself as an academic, and the greatest value of an academic is her independence. Imagine if she had been an economist and signed up to become a fellow at a think-tank whose views were well-known. She might have agreed with those views long before her association with that think-tank, but this association might suggest that what she might now write was subordinate to what the think-tank deemed acceptable. Even if everything Economist Sarkeesian wrote at that think-tank were honest, that association would become — how could I say? — the consecration of her predictability, as her boundaries could never stretch beyond those of the institution without putting her own career at risk (in the short term, at least).
So now, Feminist Frequency approves of Intel’s initiative. Intel thought Sarkeesian’s endorsement was good enough publicity to place FF’s logo amidst myriad foundation logos. But those foundations all have missions, which those foundations’ governors think are compatible with Intel’s proposal. But what is FF’s mission? Does it have one? Where is its stated? In what way is it compatible with Intel? Should FF be involved in Intel’s proposal in the first place? And I think it’s where I think FF has compromised itself intellectually. It is not a foundation or a lobby. It does not have stated objectives. It may have an intellectual approach, but it is one that should retain its independence by spurning such associations with clear goals or objectives.
Has FF/Sarkeesian asked it/herself WHY Intel was funding such a proposal? For PR purposes? For a larger worker pool to drive down wages? Never trust a corporation to be animated by noble objectives without an ulterior motive. Now how can Sarkeesian even address this question without appearing compromised?
FF is Anita’s show. She created it, she writes it, she speaks on it. It would have been nice if Intel had asked her before using FF as a cloak to wrap itself up in. But the only one that ought be concerned about it is Anita herself.
All academia has to answer to something, be it funding for research or the institution where the work is done. No individual or group is without fault or failure.
But I don’t see the problem here. It’s as apt to say, Intel’s leadership likes Anita/FF and in principle what she says influences our decision to put money toward the goal of improving gender diversity. Why wouldn’t she want to be associated with it?
Anita basically hates any depiction of sexuality in games. I don’t think that FF is a good influence overall, given that one of the key points of the last year was the debate about how games can be about anything: depression, mass murder, getting out of the closet, golden age sci-fi, etc.
Whether or not Anita hates all sexuality in games or not, I don’t know. That being said, her movies serve to catalog and point out trends in games – in most cases, what she points out is that in many games, women are ONLY used as sex objects, prizes and decorations. Which is lazy design, and which will short circuit your attempts to broaden your market if that’s a goal.
A better way to think about her stuff is that she is prompting designers to find new and interesting ways to depict women in games. If you look at her message as a challenge rather than a restriction, you may find she actually prompts some new game and character concepts we haven’t seen before.
In one of her videos Anita says that even if male and female characters were equally objectified, as supposedly society is stacked against women, that wouldn’t make a game fair for her. Also, her harsh criticism of Bayonetta, a character designed by a woman and totally in control of her sexuality and magic powers. I very much prefer Maddy Myers’s criticism of the character in that case. But Anita seems to want censorship more than true balance or equality of representation.
I really don’t understand how so many people think that Anita wants *censorship.* Of course, I haven’t read every interview with her or read all her tweets, but I’ve watched her entire Tropes vs. Women series, and most of it comes off to me as “stuff to think about,” not “this should be banned and here’s why.”
She may have those opinions, but her videos offer very little in the way of prescriptive fixes (“We should/must do this.”) Really, the only place she gets on a soapbox in this regard is when talking about sexual assault in games. In most cases, her videos act more as an archival of what’s happening in games. She’s holding up a mirror and asking us to take a hard look.
@Damion Schubert. There is something that cracks me up about those who claim that Anita want censorship. They are often the same voices that oppose things like gay Sheap in ME3. I remember that the opposition effectively wanted to forbid Bioware a way to openly catcher their numerous gay fans. This was effectively a campaign of censorship. Nothing is comparable in FF videos.
The oppositions to “hipster critics” are also a direct call to censorship. There is an explicit attempt of silencing anybody who views games as culture, not just “toys”. They say that games are only for entertainment and viewing them or using them as thought provoking tools, or analysing them as cultural item, is forbidden. If that not censorship, I don’t know what this is.
Anita doesn’t demand government censorship. She isn’t that dumb. She does however argue that certain things exploit and promote a toxic culture that is harmful to people.
She has taken the socially conservative argument that people like Fedric Wertham argued for so many years ago. That unregulated art will eventually create things of lower and lower moral value, and eventually artistic industries should censor themselves.
That’s how we get things like the Comic Code Authority or the MPAA come into so much power, and stay in so much power. Artists get on, either because they don’t want to be seen as morally delinquent and lose fans/support(We see an example of this on this page) or because they agree with the reformers complaints.
Some group got on a soapbox and decided their morals supersede everyone elses. it’s plain to see that history is repeating itself now but whatever.
Except, the ESRB already exists, and the only reason to be concerned about the above is the notion that someone else will take up the charge to get government to clamp down on game production or sales, like Estes Kefauver did after Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent became a best-seller.
We already had those people in the past 15 years: Jack Thompson and Leland Yee. Both of them got all the mockery they deserve. If you see someone with any real political axe to grind, go ahead. Anita doesn’t count.
Video games are not primarily regarded as “art” by most of its public, right or wrong. It’s also not publicly funded nearly as often (at least not in America) as other art forms are.
The ESRB is a joke. It’s a flimsy rating board created at a time to protect publishers and retailers from any sue happy lawyers who, at the time of it creation, saw videogame violence as an ambulance they could chase.
Anita and the SJW critique is effective because it’s not a government attack. it doesn’t carry the baggage of having to deal with first amendment issues, like Jack Thompson and Leland Yee had to do.
Mind you this same thing happened in american film during the studio golden era. Of course when people threw out the idea of national film boards and federal or state censorship the studios were angry, but at the same time held up Hays Code which restricted what studios would do.
Anita and GJ do “cultural critique” as if that somehow removes them from criticism, or forbids people from disagreeing. Considering that so many people in this industry already despise “videogame culture” I will continue to be critical of what our “cultural critics” say.
You are right about one thing. Jack Thompson and Leland Yee were mocked for spouting bullshit. For blaming videogames for creating a juvenile society that promoted violence against all people. Anita says the same things and gets an award. I don’t know why those ideas are now no longer mockable to you and so many other people, but they still are to me.
Jack Thompson was mocked because he didn’t know anything about what he was talking about and explicitly supported government censorship. Anita is respected because she DOES know what she’s talking about, is mostly pointing out obvious things but in ways to show how they work, and isn’t calling for any action other than for us to be aware that the tropes exist and are overused. She is, essentially, a video version of a tvtropes page.
And, of course, she’s providing critique, and people who care about videogames as art LOVE critique. It legitimizes the industry, in a way, to have people talking about it the way Anita talks about it, even if you disagree with every single thing she says.
She knows what she is talking about? That’s why many of her videos are full of lies and straw man arguments. Because she knows what she is talking about? Okay sure buddy. The next time she blames a shooting on toxic video game culture I’ll remember how respected she is.
Interesting enough for people who love “critiques” they sure are offended when lies and misinformation peddled by game journalists and critics like her are called out. They can’t handle criticism, which is funny.
Watch her Bayonetta video then say she knows what she’s talking about.
The plot of ****ing Bayonetta went way over her head. It’s like being confused by the Smurfs.
Bayo is somewhat confusing if you drill into the details of Umbran vs whatever, but the high level points she was confused about were plain as day. Bayonetta is a single mom? The hell?
It’s fascinating that she sees a game that has a child and woman and just assumes that they have a parent-child relationship, even when the game very explicitly says that is not the case.
Anita is not immune from criticism, but those who don’t like her work don’t always criticize. Haranguing and telling someone they’re wrong and need to die is not criticism.
But games need to be criticized in this way. Critics aren’t supposed to care what the public at large sees in the subject of their criticism — that’s why they’re critics. If Anita sees something, she calls it out.
I can only conclude that your comparison of FF to Thompson and Yee is that you don’t actually know much about what Anita’s said in FF, or what Thompson and Yee have said or tried to do politically. But you’re welcome to think what you like, based on the information available to you. I just hope that at some point, it’s not done out of ignorance.
ESRB is not a joke and is the best tool the industry itself has to fend off gummint regulation. Only thing about it is that its use of the “AO” standard means that a game will never be marketable in most outlets, but that’s effectively the same as X or NC-17.
So if it’s a joke, what else is there? Is the MPAA a joke, too?
Please, I’ve watched all of her FF videos and many of her her feminist video critiques about cartoons before she decided to hitch her wagon to video games to make a buck. She is no different than jack Thompson. She says the same shit. Makes the same accusations and uses the same argument. She isn’t supposed to care what the public sees, which is great because that means I can safely criticize her shoddy work without worrying about her feelings.
This idea that games need “critique” is laughable, but if you do believe that, shouldn’t you hope that critique is good? That it looks for truth and honesty instead of sensationalism and lies. I guess I’m asking for to much.
Yes the ESRB is crap and so is the MPAA. Our best protection from government intervention is the first amendment, not a bullshit ineffective ratings board most people don’t understand.
Adam, you’re being factually and completely dishonest. Anita has not called for government action, legal action or censorship. She has not demanded studios stop making stuff. She has held a mirror to games, and pointed out some stuff that she finds questionable. This is literally NO different than your average game forums, only the things that she doesn’t like happens to differ from some other guys.
If we had to rely on the First Amendment for protection every time someone said something another didn’t like, there would be a lot more federal lawsuits for something that ought to be handled by lower-level tort.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, Adam. GG HF PLOX.
“Except the part where Intel was quoted by the New York Times as having started this initiative specifically in response to the events of GamerGate.”
Still waiting for anyone to point out where this quote exists!
Spoiler: it doesn’t.
Damion, I never once said Anita called for for government action. In fact I will quote myself “Anita doesn’t demand government censorship. She isn’t that dumb. ”
Her entire video series and arguments are forum level critiques though. As poorly sourced and transparent as well. Which is ironic because if I criticized her argument in a forum no one would care. She can “hold up a mirror” to whatever she wants Damian, amd spout any bullshit she wants , but people who disagree with her can call her out on her misinformation. We can call her out on her b.s. Moralizing.
Sorry not everyone is going to bend the knee.
John, I think you should probably read up on tort law. The ESRB and the MPAA are not protecting us from government infringement on the first amendment. For fucks sake.
Look at how dumb you sound.
If Anita isn’t calling for government action, she isn’t like Jack Thompson. That’s what I was trying to say. You invalidated any parallel that existed in your own post with your own first sentence.
If the ESRB and MPAA aren’t a defense against outside interference on the industries they represent, then there is no reason to have them. Except, they do serve that exact purpose. It’s just that there are on occasion corrupt lawmakers that push the issue all the way to the federal court.
Leland Yee argued that the ESRB was like a “fox guarding a henhouse” because it served the interests that fund it. And then the ESA sued, and then the bills Yee got passed specifically putting state laws against the sale of M rated games, and it took a federal judge to rule it unconstitutional.
So to review, it took an elected state official with an axe to grind, and a state assembly that damn well should have known better, well before anyone like Anita Sarkeesian were making videos, to get the issue of video game sales into federal tort.
As a result, a lot more people are aware of what the ESRB is for.
And Adam, no one actually said you had to like Anita or what she says in her videos. Nobody is asking you to “bend the knee.” There is no knee to bend. Anita isn’t Jack, and she isn’t Fredric. Criticism is not in itself beyond criticism, and the only cure for bad free speech is more free speech. But let’s be real about what’s going on:
Anita isn’t going to get CISPA passed. The assholes who are running her and other LW-listers out of their homes are. The mess created since last August cannot be laid at the feet of SJW’s that were screaming impotently on Tumblr about the lack of social goodwill.
So if you’re really worried about big mean government fucking with your right to play the games you want, you don’t need to be looking at the cultural critics suggesting that they inspire bad behavior. You need to look at the bad behavior.
Can you read? I stated multiple times that Anita doesn’t want govt infringement. Her similarities with jack Thompson are the content of their arguments. The content of their arguments. I’ve made it clear multiple times and yet you still struggle with this.
There Is no reason to have an ESRB or MPAA as your own example proved. You said earlier the ESRB is the best tool to fight off “gummint regulation” but did the ESRB stop Yee from passing and enforcing a stupid bill. No the first amendment did. When push came to shove it didn’t protect video games at all.
That isn’t a flaw, that is by design. The ESRB and the MPAA don’t exist to protect developers/studios or film makers. They exist to protect cinemas and retail stores from shifty lawyers. And stop using the term tort incorrectly.
Being told repeatedly that opposing someone who is projecting their morality onto others is harassment. Criticizing a argument is hate speech and pointing out inaccuracies is attacking someone seems to be clearly telling me bend the knee. We’ll I got the message. Disagree with whoever gaming journalism and media has decided is the arbiter of good taste and you are a bad guy. Maybe that works for you, but not me. When someone says something wrong or argues something outrageously stupid, I’m going to call them out on it. Sorry that includes Anita. Criticism is not a shield from someone else’s criticism.
Also there are not enough lols in the world for people trying to hide behind the threat of CISPA. “Oh we can’t criticize someone on the internet. The government will pass a twice failed bill that is under threat of veto.”
You might want to read what the author of this site has said about Anita’s videos and what she’s actually said. The content of her commentary does not come close to what Jack Thompson said in his heyday.
http://www.zenofdesign.com/i-watch-anita-sarkeesian-so-you-dont-have-to-but-you-should/
CISPA failed under a different Congressional makeup. If I understand you correctly and you expect ESRB and the MPAA to actually be tort protection against legal action, then you’re right, that’s not what they’re for. I’m trying to say that it shouldn’t have ever come to that.
Leland Yee wasn’t motivated by anyone like Anita, though. He was motivated by greed and corruption. Meanwhile, CISPA is bound to end up in the courts again, and we’ve got mounds of material about how people can be seriously hurt by bullshit that starts on the Internet, since last August.
Criticism is not hate speech. Hate speech is hate speech. Anita has got criticism, but she’s also got hate speech. Don’t nail yourself to a cross if other people can’t tell the difference. You should be able to. You don’t have to like Anita. The objection is not to criticism itself, but hate speech itself.
Yeah I’ve read Damion article about it. I’ve read 20 other articles gushing over her work as well, rarely taking a critical approach to anything she says. So what? Damion agrees with her, so i have to agree with her as well?
When did I say the ESRB/MPAA is tort protection? What is going on with people putting words in my mouth. First I was accused by Damion of saying Anita called for government action, and now this?
I’ve stated, multiple times, that industries create codes like the MPAA and the Hays code that censor certain work. Censorship boards immune from first amendment criticism. You brought up the ESRB and tort law. Why? I have no idea. Especially since Tort law doesn’t apply to any situation here.
Leland Yee was motivated by outdated and flat out wrong information that perpetuated a myth that videogames, uniquely on their own, encourage violence and juvenile behavior. I doubt Yee knows who Anita is, but that doesn’t change the fact they make similar arguments about the “effects of videogames” on younger people, especially boys.
Any criticism of Anita is considered hate speech. That’s kind of the problem
“Any criticism of Anita is considered hate speech.”
No, it really isn’t. And if you get accused otherwise, you should be able to argue your point.
“You brought up the ESRB and tort law. Why? I have no idea. Especially since Tort law doesn’t apply to any situation here.”
I amend my previous accusation that you don’t know what you’re talking about. I now concede that I don’t get what your point is at all, other than you don’t like Anita’s work and want people to know, and also you’re angry. Sorry!
>Any criticism of Anita is considered hate speech. That’s kind of the problem
No it’s not
http://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/2si4ak/critiques_and_criticism_against_anita_sarkeesian/
Yeah it really is. If you honestly believe you can criticize Anita’s idea and someone won’t call you a bigot or some other nonsense, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell you.
And yet here we are on a website where the owner has criticised Sarkeesian, yet nary a ‘bigot’ slur in sight. Ditto daemonpro, ditto the critical gamesutra article, ditto several of the results you get googling “non-sexist criticisms of anita sarkeesian”.
It’s almost as if you’re wrong and haven’t actually read the articles you’ve been directed to and have claimed to have read. Or done any competant basic research. Or followed what non-gamergaters have actually been saying about Sarkeesian.
“Someone” gets called a bigot by “someone” on the Internet about 500,000 times a day. Is that supposed to keep you from getting out of bed in the morning?
Some of the people using “criticism” to describe their objections against what Anita has said and stands for, are in fact using hateful speech to express themselves. If you don’t do that, I don’t have a problem with you not liking her.
That’s a problem in and of itself. She isn’t entitled to being “liked”. You shouldn’t care if I dislike her. You should worry whether or not someones argument against her is inaccurate
I’m worried that people on the Internet use their dislike of someone’s expressed opinion as a reason to actually be hateful and destructive and dehumanizing. That’s what I care about. That’s all anyone should care about.
If you’re telling me what I should care about, then I get to do the same: Stop worrying what strangers on Tumblr think about you. Be at least as brave as Anita.
“I’m worried that people on the Internet use their dislike of someone’s expressed opinion as a reason to actually be hateful and destructive and dehumanizing. ”
No you aren’t! You do this exact thing all the time – you even have your own idiotic catchphrase – “well don’t you sound dumb?”
You’re worried that more people on the internet are going to act like you?
Come down off the cross, we could use the wood.
Which I assume means not be brave at all. She refuses any debate of her work and consider herself and her fans consider any critique sexism. That’s not a sign of bravery in my opinion.
Sarkeesian has absolutely no dominion over any debate of her work, so the claim that she ‘refuses debate’ is an odd one. If people mean that she refuses personal public debate then I must ask : who offered the public debate, what rate of pay did they offer for her time, was it an online debate or a public appearance? If a public appearance, what security arrangements did they offer, how could they guarantee her safety, how would they have kept the tone of the public questions civil given the known behaviour of the bulk of her critics?
It’s rather silly to accuse her of refusing public debate if no-one appears to have ever made her any sort of serious and viable offer.
I’m not sure Sarkeesian has ever made any statement that she considers *any* critique to be sexism, and given that several of her fans here (including myself) have already pointed to non-sexist critique of Sarkeesian (including an article on this very site that has already been referenced multiple times in this discussion) then extending that same claim to include her fans is observably counter-factual to the point where the intent and bias of any person claiming so must be held in utmost suspicion by any right-thinking person.
@Adam Ryland : I read many of her “critics” and the material for debate is, quite frankly, rather rare. Those “critical” of her often attack an “alternative” Ffreq, have no clue what they are taking about, are clearly dishonest or, what appears the most common, do mostly hate speech. Let be honest, there is no debate possible in those conditions. Hell, there isn’t even a legitimate “other side”.
That quite similar to climate change, there is no real debate anymore and it had been this way fore, more than a decade, maybe two if not more. Contrarians claims repeatedly that there is no warming or it had stop despite the proofs and they have been doing that for decades. Some publications decided to stop pretending that contrarians have valid points and just decided to disable comments on this subject.
Debate can create an illusion of legitimacy to argument that have no merit whatsoever, you don’t have to give them legitimacy and you shouldn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, there are legitimate critics, there aren’t the one asking for a simulacrum of debate.
While I’ve seen rational critique of Anita’s points — including, as pointed out, on this blog — I’ve never seen anyone calling for a debate (or complaining about comments being shut down) WITHOUT there being a bunch of misogynistic bullshit attached to it. (And, if there were, it would be hard to pick up that signal out of the misogynistic abusive noise. )
Also, I’d pretty much support Youtube removing the ability to comment on things entirely. It’s just not worth it.
…hm, wonder how hard it would be to code a plugin to remove them for my browsers, so I can live in a world without Youtube comments.
She has a Twitter account, and sometimes replies. But no one is owed debate. The bravery comes from making the statement and having to own up to the consequences. Anita is not dodging anything.
@Trevel I think another problems with the calls for « debates » is that most of those who call them seem more interested to attack AS’s credibility and especially her legitimacy. The common argument that she is not a real gamer is, at its core, an attempt to paint her arguments as illegitimate since she is not a part of the “market”
Take this guy, he say that if she makes Mirror Edge 2 and it bombs, the “market” would have decided that her idea are useless and she should shut up.
http://channelawesome.com/rerez-talks-anita-sarkeesian-should-make-mirrors-edge-2/
I take him for example because he illustrates quite well the inability of many AS critics to understand actual criticism, their tendency to go for the speaker instead of the message and their inability to see anything of value outside of the consumerist framework.