what is gamergate

we've already had gategate so I'd be happy to drop the idea now honestly

gamerdorf

I dunno how many of you remember Kazerad, but the dude's got a tumblr and he's been writing stuff about gamergate.
Like, walls of stuff.

https://kazerad.tumblr.com/tagged/GamerGate

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, but as long as we have this thread, I guess we can have a couple relevant things.

more like kazerbad

seriously i dont understand gamergate. there are too many opposing sides and its such a heated debate that idk who to back. so im backing nobody.

e: kazerad's posts are very nicely thought out though!

honestly you should back the side that doesnt literally try to shut down the voices of non-male devs but whatever

the thing is both sides are claiming that the other side is being oppressive. i am not really good at seeing through duplicity (mafia history shows this) so it's just been confusing and frustrating. but theres been an increasing amount evidence supporting gamergate so i'm leaning towards backing gamergate now.

https://storify.com/EffNOVideoGames/stop...een-a-spin

I am glad to know that I can continue to not go wrong by taking the opposite position of Kazerad in all matters.

Garuru,
I think there are a lot of Gamergate supporters who really, sincerely believe that it's really all just about corruption in games journalism.
I think it's also worth observing that Gamergate started up right at the same time that Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian were receiving serious death threats, supposedly "justified" by the fact, at least in Zoe's case, that she was involved in some corruption in games journalism or other, which... probably wasn't a coincidence, eh, that this movement suddenly forms around the same issue?
So whatever they may claim, whatever they may even believe, GamerGate still has its roots in some pretty awful stuff. This seems very apparent to me.

I'd like to say that okay, however it started, maybe it can be a force of good now and actually do something about corruption in games journalism, except - wait, corruption in games journalism? Really? REALLY? Since when is that even a thing?

But for what it's worth, I think a lot of its members probably really do view it as a defense of some gamer identity thing, not an anti-feminist thing. They're kind of being dupes, but they're not horrible, malevolent people or anything, they're just, I dunno, under-informed. (Meanwhile, some smaller fraction continues to do stuff like send bomb threats to Anita Sarkeesian's talk venues, which is why it's nevertheless a problem.)

Dunno where you're getting your evidence. I was present enough on Twitter when this stuff all came together - and saw enough posts retweeted directly from Zoe - to be fairly sure that GamerGate is not in the right here, though. The best you can say about it is that maybe the bulk of it is hapless rather than evil.
(I'll go see what Kaz has to say. In the past, I've thought his tumblr posts - at least, those I've read - have been fairly intelligent and insightful, though I'll be sorely disappointed if it turns out he's backing GG.)

i was wrong (misinformed). that is all.

Yeah, no worries. I hope that didn't come across as too aggressive.
"Informative" was more the tone I was shooting for.
And heck, maybe I'm missing something important that makes me way off the mark, too. I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff.

no problem. its just that you were too late. we had an extensive discussion of this on irc shortly after i posted, and i was too busy speaking against generalizations and hateful opinions to realize that no matter how this is spun, it started from the harassment of women. so yeah gamergate is kind of fucked up.

i just feel really bad for having bought into it some time ago and seriously thinking zoe quinn made it all up.

...and now that I've read Kazerad's posts... well.
The picture of GamerGate that he paints doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, actually.
Harassment is, of course, inexcusable. But I'm starting to think I've been too hasty in framing things in terms of black and white.
I don't know. I'm going to have to think about this some more. I'm not about to do a 180 and start supporting those guys based purely on a series of tumblr posts, but I'm definitely, you know, shifting the weights a little. Maybe they at least deserve more credit than I've been giving them.

I think the most descriptive thing about Kazerad's posts is how in his most recent one he says "Zoe Quinn actually wasn't guilty of any wrongdoing" and then in his descriptive drawing of the situation, decides that the best picture representation for Zoe Quinn would be someone holding onto a dripping, bloodied knife, as if they had just committed a murder.

Kaz sounds convincing if you believe "nobody who hurts my movement should count as part of it, even if they wholeheartedly believe what the cause represents" is a convincing argument and not a transparent logical fallacy, which he decided to demonstrate in his post on the matter with the example of a literal nazi who is totally down with genocide and eugenics but causes repeated casualties to his own army, so shouldn't count as a nazi. For some reason. Because that totally makes sense.

He doesn't hide the fact that he's trying to manipulate people, he is proud of it. He thinks it makes him more honest than everyone else.

Like literally the only thrust his argument has is "you shouldn't call your customer base bad people, because that's bad capitalism" and that's not even a rallying point or a movement. That just means that if he's right the industry status quo will continue regardless of any gamer gates.
Nor is it actually even what ever happened, it's an overreaction to a bunch of articles that said "It's kind of pointless to use 'plays video games' as a self description now that it describes almost all of America's consumer base huh?"




The #gamergate tag was literally created by Adam Baldwin, an actor famous for appearing in Firefly and also for comparing homosexuality to incest, so that he could share some libellous videos. Anything about general games journalism conspiracy was added after the fact, that claim is and always has been a smokescreen.
In two months literally all #gamergate has achieved is bullying multiple women out of their jobs and houses. Women who chiefly have nothing to do with what any of games journalism's problems are. Their "boycotts" have all been against small web publications rather than the AAA studios who actually buy reviews, and if you ask any actual contirbutor what they are fighting for none of them will give you the same answer (a lot of them will tell you that it's to removed "those damn sjws" from having so much input over gaming though).

There are "problems with video games journalism" but they literally aren't important and they aren't things that gamergate are actually focusing on. Video game Journalism is chiefly made up of reviews, an inherently subjective topic, and is progressively becoming less and less and less important, especially in the days of twitch and youtube where you can literally watch someone playing the game on day one and make up your own mind, rather than having to read about it and try and guess what's going on from there.

Nobody thinks video game press is influential today! Printed publications are dying off left and right, and nobody has actually thought the larger sites were trustworthy for a decade! Cite a game's metacritic score as "proof that it's [good/bad]" and you'd be laughed out of the shop.

There are so many places you can find opinions on video games now, from people who are not paid and whose only biases are their own, that anyone at all can find someone whose opinions will largely match theirs to use as a purchase guide if they so desire.

But despite this fact, rather than focus on any like, actual corruption, what gamergate chiefly wants to get rid off is any sniff of feminism or minority politics in gaming. Like, that's gaming in general too rather than games journalism. In fact, they'd be pretty happy to see it gone from the internet completely.

Instead of focusing on AAA companies who can make or break publications by denying demo code to people who give them poor reviews, Gamergate decided to focus on independent writers like Matt Lees or Jim Sterling who work from home, and indie developers who use patreon. People with absolutely no economic capital, whose sole crime was "being sjws". Even when the latter refused to even associate himself with a side until pushed into it by repeated gamergate harassment.
Instead of getting mad at Shadow of Mordor's youtube stranglehold, Gamergate decided that their higher priority should be to the fact that some sites gave Bayonetta 2 less-than-perfect reviews because they thought it might be a little misogynistic.

Three of Gamergate's most notable "celebrities" are a transphobic journalist who said he despised gamers until he realised he could make a profit off "these nerds", a lawyer whose "origin story" is almost like a carbon copy of the journalist, and a guy who is mostly famous for being banned from several youtube networks for being a notorious stalker (Gamergate is against harassment though!).

There is nothing good or redeeming to be found within this "movement". It cannot even truly call itself a movement.

Gamergate sounds like "it could be convincing if you ignored all the bad people, it is at least well-intentioned" because it uses a vague and agreeable message as its cover, one with a wide appeal. It is not true that Gamergate stands for journalistic ethics though.
There is no good message at the heart of gamergate. There is a palatable lie to sucker people in, but there is no meat to the lie. Under close inspection, it vanishes immediately. Every move the group has made, every victory it has scored, has been against ethical journalism, not in support of it.

If you still believe Gamergate has goodness at its core, consider this:

When did Anita Sarkeesian take part in unethical journalism? She was entirely self-funded through kickstarter (thus demonstrating that there's definitely a market for what she wants to say), is highly critical of games despite playing and enjoying them (so does not buy into their bullshit), and clearly documents all of her sources.
What Gamergate is upset at are that she is trying to inject feminism into their hobby. Not that she is unethical. Anita Sarkeesian has never commited any breaches of journalistic ethics.

Why would a movement that wants to increase the ethical standards of the industry hold such an individual in such great contempt? On what basis is Anita Sarkeesian the second-largest target of Gamergater harassment? It's nothing to do with ethics.

If they were for journalistic ethics, an entirely independent, self-funded critic would be their hero, not their mortal enemy!

This bullshit has gone on for two months. It really needs to end.

If you want more info, here you go:

• The Gamergate origin story.
  
• The founding tenets of Gamergate aren't true.
  
• Gamergate's figureheads are literally just trying to create controversy because it makes them money.
  
• The "Ethics" Gamergate claims to promote are not actually ethical, and no there isn't a "good message" at the core obscured by the bigots.
  
• The movement hasn't achieved anything at all that is good.
  

I don't think anyone here actually needed serious hardcore convincing or anything but damn I still needed to get that off my chest.

kazerad is a fucker who has bad opinions and makes rape jokes.
He writes a comic which is literally about nothing except horrible things happening to a young woman.

I'm getting pretty tired of gamergate and crazy fiascos about video games, my dad brought it up at dinner man, my gosh ducking dad who doesn't even play games that much at all anymore. what the hell Internet, why'd you have to steal my dad's claim to coolness??

Also Kazerad has been pretty rude in the past if I recall, but I dunno enough about him to really comment so yeh

Dalmationer, I've read Prequel and I think that's a pretty unfair description of it. Maybe you're right about the rape jokes, though. Can you link me to them?

Jacquerel, I think some of what you're saying about Kazerad's stuff is fair, and some of it isn't accurate. Overall, though, I agree there are definitely problems with his position.
I might talk to him about this stuff over Steam. (He seems to me like a reasonable person. Apparently, some of you feel otherwise. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.)
Jac, if I do, do you have a problem with me pointing him in the direction of your post? Or is that a bad idea?

Katia has, multiple times, had sex while black-out drunk which is presented as hilarious hijinks.

Edit: Here and here.

Dalmationer, I've read Prequel and I think that's a pretty unfair description of it. Maybe you're right about the rape jokes, though. Can you link me to them?

Jacquerel, I think some of what you're saying about Kazerad's stuff is fair, and some of it isn't accurate. Overall, though, I agree there are definitely problems with his position.
I might talk to him about this stuff over Steam. (He seems to me like a reasonable person. Apparently, some of you feel otherwise. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.)
Jac, if I do, do you have a problem with me pointing him in the direction of your post? Or is that a bad idea?

i got up to the bit where she gets everything stolen by the kvatch mage's guild and was just like "Fuck this it's just going to go on like this isn't it."

honestly I'd rather you didn't because if you show him my post he'll come talk to me about it and I have very little desire to interact with the guy

snitches get stitches from witches.

He doesn't hide the fact that he's trying to manipulate people, he is proud of it. He thinks it makes him more honest than everyone else.

Man, i totally forgot about that episode of our internet lives. That was something else.

Thanks for clearing that up Jac, i didn't pay much attention to the whole gamergator incident because i didn't really have much time to investigate.

honestly I'd rather you didn't because if you show him my post he'll come talk to me about it and I have very little desire to interact with the guy

I kind of agree, if only because gators have a bad habit of showing up at places where people react to them negatively.

In other news, fuck Total Biscuit (more, if you already didn't like him.)

Edit: Let me be clear on this.

There is no longer any room to debate on this shit. There is no room for any sort of 'two sides' argument. ANY sort of 'good discussion' that gamergate might have engendered has long since been poisoned by their actions.

It needs to fucking stop.

honestly I'd rather you didn't because if you show him my post he'll come talk to me about it and I have very little desire to interact with the guy

Fair enough. If I talk to him, I'll leave this discussion out of it.