Actually, none of it really was, because it never really actually is. But it does highlight that ActuallyEthics is my new favorite Tumblr.
This developer tells GamerGate that “You are Not My Shield.” Continue reading
Category: Social Justice Stuff (Page 5 of 11)
Chris Kluwe, who continues to be one of my favorite people in the universe, has a very vitriol-laced take on the situation:
Thus, when I see an article titled “Gamers are dead,” referring to the death of the popular trope of a pasty young man in a dimly lit room, it fills me with joy, because it means WE FUCKING WON. So many people are playing games now that they are popular culture. They are not going away. All sorts of cool things, that I like, are now things that a whole bunch of other people like! There’s enough space now for people to make games that are strange and disturbing and maybe highlight a different perspective of the world, because gaming is no longer a niche activity, it’s something that everybody does. There is room for art in video games. That’s awesome!
Someone used the term #Gatesplaining in twitter today. This is a term that really needs to catch on. But now, onto other links!
Last week, I put up a very long article about the stories of harassment I could find. I’ve made some minor corrections based on additional details I’ve gotten. I have an open invitation for more women to send me their stories, and will correct any bad information I’ve gotten. As I’ve mentioned before, the stories from the gamergate side are much sketchier and less detailed than the ones on the other side, largely because the other side has endeavored to document their harassment in long form.
One question I’ve gotten over and over again has been ‘what about the men?’ Continue reading
There are three excellent must-reads related to GamerGate this last week, plus one oldie but goodie. All of them look at gamergate skeptically, not from a position of extremism or reactionary politics, but from a sense of moderation. I’ll recommend them, and then write my own thoughts before I take a bit of a self-imposed exile from the blog for a few days. Seriously, read them.
I keep getting hit with people going ,’Well Jaffe, these journalists are SMEARING devs by saying bad shit about them!!!!’…ok, well welcome to the big leagues of putting something out in the world for public consumption and getting judged for it.
Writer’s Note: if more harassed women have stories they want to share – on both sides or outside of Gamergate altogether – and can provide links that are well-sourced and thorough, add them to the comments. I will try to add the best, most thorough stories to this page. Unfortunately, most pro-GG stories I could find are just a couple of tweets, and therefore lack much in the way of context or depth. Ladies, tell your stories, in longform, for the record. It’s important.
This article is about harassment. And it’s not just about attacks on anti-gamergaters. Some are #gamergaters who were harassed – either by antis or anarchistic assholes. But many of these are from events that predate #gamergate, in totally different scandals and explosions. As an aside, I’ll note that the stories coming from the pro-#Gamergate faction are much lighter and sketchier, because they aren’t capturing the experience in any sort of verifiable longform. This is probably a factor of the anti-GG side having a lot of writers on that side of the fence. Still, I encourage the harassed to tell their story in a way that can be archived in a readable format for posterity and verifiability. And I will note that #Gamergate has been saving harassment, large and small, aimed their way in this Tumblr.
But it’s pretty clear to me that most people on both sides are good people who believe harassment is wrong. It’s also pretty clear that a tiny minority of people on both sides, and probably on a third side that is ‘pro-watching-the-world-burn’, are using the outrage of these people in order to camoflauge doing some truly heinous shit, with the express intent of keeping the outrage engine going.
I’ve said from the beginning, as long as there are people harassed, and my friends and colleagues are afraid to speak freely on the topic – pro or con, then I don’t give a shit about the cause of journalistic corruption. Worrying about what an op-ed writer said a month ago, and whether some shitty independent games award was won legit means NOTHING to me because right now, bullies (on both sides) are trying to silence dissonant voices. Most frequently, that means women, especially women who don’t ‘pick the right side’.
I’ve been concerned about harassment of women online since even before gamergate – I believe the fact that Sony and Xbox won’t address that what you see on FatUglyOrSlutty is something any online gamer will tell you is all-too-normal — THAT is actually holding the games industry back from expanding our markets (and cynically, our sales and profits as well). You shouldn’t need thick skin to play a video game.
So I’m so happy that people finally want to talk about harassment.
Continue reading
In the wake of Intel’s unfortunate and (I believe) misguided decision to withdraw their advertising from Gamasutra, I’ve seen some amount of bile aimed at The Verge for their headline: “Intel buckles to anti-feminist campaign by pulling ads from gaming site.” This has prompted no small number of people in my twitterfeed to erupt in anger. “Do you really that #gamergate is anti-feminist?” many gamergaters have ranted.
Well, of course it is.
Continue reading
@FringeNerd asked me to respond to his response to my article generally praising Anita Sarkeesian’s work. As mentioned previously, I agree with a lot, but not all, of what Anita has to say. I do definitely think she has an important voice, and that she was a worthy recipient of the GDC Ambassador’s Award. Even if I still like boobplate. (Note, I cut out a couple places in order to shrink this down)
I’m generally pro-boobplate. I mean, I’m not going to go and slap a pair of DD knockers on a Pokemon or anything, but as my friend Scott once pointed out, “I just think it’s hilarious that you’ve been labelled a Social Justice Warrior when you pretty much are the staunch defender of the right of the male gamer to have funny thoughts while playing Bayonetta.” And that’s not to say that I insist on boobplate: I’m equally a fan of Batgirl’s new look. In fact, I freakin’ love it. I like a variety of characters, both male and female in my entertainment, and love great character design anywhere up and down the sexy spectrum. But still, I have no problems agreeing with a lot of Anita’s points, and yet still defending boobplate.
You can take my thesis statement with a grain of salt, but it’s true. We have, today, the biggest, most diverse, and most interesting Gaming Journalism we’ve ever had. Whether that’s good enough, I leave as an exercise to the reader. I suspect that many readers, particularly GGers would think not, and to be honest, I think that most developers, including many of us who challenge #Gamergate on many points, would actually agree. As a matter of fact, at the end of the infamous Milo post, I gave several examples of things that merit actual investigation rather than crappy indie fundraisers and feminists who go mostly ignored anyway.
Big league games like Destiny and GTAV cost more than 9 figures, and a third of that at LEAST is usually earmarked to marketing. Is anyone following that money? Some years ago, a Gamespot journalist was fired right after giving a bad review to a AAA game. Games from big studios seem to rarely get reviews below 70%, but indie devs who can’t afford to advertise routinely do. Some companies have been caught giving payola to Youtube streamers . Companies routinely fly press around the country and wine and dine the journalists that will review them. Here’s a story about a company who hired a reviewer to do a mock review, solely so he couldn’t legally write the bad review they thought he’d give them.
Here’s the thing. We used to have a smaller, more focused games media. It was sharp. It was glossy. It printed just the previews, and once the game came out, it printed just the reviews. It was the amazing world of Print Media: PC Games, PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, Nintendo Power, EGM and NextGen magazine. Let ol’ cranky grandpa developer tell you about it.
It was fucking DREADFUL.
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