Is #GamerGate misogyny posing as concern for ethics?

[Darth Yan]

I'll....actually have to think about this. I've been reading a lot of conflicting narratives to be honest.

One thing I will say; on the chance that Zoe had slept with people in positions of powers, both she and the dude would have been guilty of an ethical breach. If you sleep with someone for business reasons, than your sex life is involved in business and is no longer private (and no I'm not saying that's what happened. If the accusations were true than yes her sex life would be a matter of business ethics). As it stands, she's just an unpleasant person.

[Metahive]

"Hey guys, let's join my new movement against corruption in politics! It's called #WhitePowerforWhitePeople and its main targets are some small town's aide's black acquaintance who I've heard shoplifted once (OMG! ETHICS!) and some other black person that complains about racism publically (who does she think she is? THE FACE OF BLACK PEOPLE? The arrogance *sheesh*)! Come and help to put a stop to corruption in politics by showing those persons who's boss which will solve all problems forever! What are you laughing at? Are you some goshdang Societal Progress Soldier or something? We Status Quo Reactionaries don't take kindly to that!"

[Vendetta]

As it stands, she's just an unpleasant person.

So you know her personally then?

Oh wait you don't, when asked to present substantiation for this you have regurgitated lies which trivial research would have debunked or tried to tar her by association with the acts of others despite no evidence existing that she incited those acts in any way.

Shitgoblin.

[bilateralrope]

Another thing I thought about regarding the silence from GamersGate regarding Shadows of Mordor.

The Popehat blog post I linked earlier has a link to a GamersGate enemies list. That list includes Jim Sterling, the person who provided the detail on just how bad the Shadows of Mordor deal is.

[K. A. Pital]

*laughs and cries reading the list* Seriously, Wired and IGN? Colluded with Quinn in her... whatever? No, seriously, these fuckers are pathetic. As if any of these would even care about them.

[bilateralrope]

They aren't accusing Wired and IGN of colluding with Quinn. Those sites, and a lot of others, are just on there for no stated reason. Probably because people have complained about the ethics of those sites before, so including them on the list is part of the 'ethics' smokescreen.

One thing some people in GamersGate do when people talk about the misogyny is complain about guilt by association. Something the writers of that list are definitely guilty of.

[Darth Yan]

I mentioned the polygon and kotaku articles because the guys who ran those sites felt that the crowd funding of her work implied a connection. And technically it is. If you fund a game being made you're basically investing in it succeeding. You might want to give it a positive review.


Honestly, I'm able to accept the accusations of sleeping around are nonsense. What I am annoyed is people trying to play Zoe Quinn up as some saint who never did anything wrong.

[bilateralrope]

What I am annoyed is people trying to play Zoe Quinn up as some saint who never did anything wrong.

Which people are those ?

All I see is people defending here against all the bullshit accusations GamersGate are throwing her way and people pointing out when those allegations have nothing to do with journalistic integrity.

[PKRudeBoy]

I mentioned the polygon and kotaku articles because the guys who ran those sites felt that the crowd funding of her work implied a connection. And technically it is. If you fund a game being made you're basically investing in it succeeding. You might want to give it a positive review.


Honestly, I'm able to accept the accusations of sleeping around are nonsense. What I am annoyed is people trying to play Zoe Quinn up as some saint who never did anything wrong.

As the polygon article points out more politely, the only way you would see donating money through crowdfunding as a conflict of interest is if you haven't the faintest fucking idea what a conflict of interest actually is. Reviewing a product you have invested in is a conflict of interest because you have a financial interest in the success of the product, not just a vague desire for it to succeed.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I mentioned the polygon and kotaku articles because the guys who ran those sites felt that the crowd funding of her work implied a connection. And technically it is. If you fund a game being made you're basically investing in it succeeding. You might want to give it a positive review.


Honestly, I'm able to accept the accusations of sleeping around are nonsense. What I am annoyed is people trying to play Zoe Quinn up as some saint who never did anything wrong.

So... Does this mean that anybody who participates in a Kickstarter for something can't later post a review? And the same could be said for people who are playing an MMO, since if nobody else plays it the servers get shut down.

Can you even do the most basic of logic? If you place your hand on a stove and it hurts, do you touch the stove again and again, thinking the first time was a fluke?

[Siege]

If a reviewer participated in the Kickstarter he should at the very least disclose that he's done so when critiqueing the final product. It means he was literally invested in the project, he may have received perks depending on the funding tier (the highest of which ofentimes go all the way to being included in the game in some fashion), and his opinion of the project may therefore be coloured. The audience should be left to judge whether or not that affects his credibility in their eyes for themselves.

It's not up to the reviewer to decide how his audience should feel about his involvement in the project, that is firmly up to the readers / viewers.

I obviously don't give a damn if it's some guy on some forum reviewing the game he's funded, but if it's a paid professional then I expect professionalism. And part of professional journalism is disclosure of any possible biases even when the person in question thinks he's produced an objective piece.

[Metahive]

Heh, objective game reviews are just as much a mythological beast as objective movie reviews. You can point out things like bugs and stuff but unless they're utterly gamebreaking it won't mean much. Master of Magic has been a bug ridden mess from release to the last patch and yet it's still the gold standard of fantasy 4X games. Enjoyment is very subjective and very much up to the individual, it can't simply be objectively measured, that's also why I think any sort of scoring is just pretentious yet arbitrary bullshit no matter what.

[Eleas]

Honestly, I'm able to accept the accusations of sleeping around are nonsense. What I am annoyed is people trying to play Zoe Quinn up as some saint who never did anything wrong.

In the context of anything relevant to the goals GamerGate pretends to hold, Zoe Quinn never did anything wrong. But that's not really what you're lambasting, now is it?

[Siege]

Heh, objective game reviews are just as much a mythological beast as objective movie reviews. You can point out things like bugs and stuff but unless they're utterly gamebreaking it won't mean much.

I agree, which is why I feel it's important for reviewers to wear their preferences and biases on their sleeves. If I am told of a given critic's personal likes and dislikes I can weigh them against my own and come to a more informed opinion.

And yeah, the sooner we do away with scoring games, movies or music the better.

[Vendetta]

If a reviewer participated in the Kickstarter he should at the very least disclose that he's done so when critiqueing the final product. It means he was literally invested in the project, he may have received perks depending on the funding tier (the highest of which ofentimes go all the way to being included in the game in some fashion), and his opinion of the project may therefore be coloured. The audience should be left to judge whether or not that affects his credibility in their eyes for themselves.

A kickstarter is not an investment, it's at the very most a preorder for something which isn't even guaranteed to happen. A Financial investment is made in expectation of financial return, that's a very important point, because a journalist who had made a real financial investment in a game before purchase then has a financial incentive to manipulate its sales.

But a kickstarter pledge is not a financial investment, a journalist who kickstarted a product doesn't get any more or less out of it if he gives it a glowing review or savages it,

Now, given that the purchase is made before the product even exists the purchaser might become emotionally invested in the product, but that's no different from a journalist who is a fan of a given game series reviewing the next one in the series, they are emotionally but not financially invested in it being good (but that doesn't necessarily predict bias in their eventual content, disappointed fandom is notoriously critical).

[Siege]

Indeed I meant invested not in the income generating asset sense but as in the hope of future benfits sense. I don't mind if a critic backed a project because he liked the product it promised as long as this is disclosed: 'I backed this project because I am enthusiastic about XYZ and in my opinion the developers delivered / did not deliver'. That is useful information that allows the consumer to form their own opinion.

EDIT: Because let's be honest, if a critic were actually financially invested in a company whose product he's reviewing that's way beyond the pale. That should be grounds for automatic recusal.

[Eleas]

EDIT: Because let's be honest, if a critic were actually financially invested in a company whose product he's reviewing that's way beyond the pale. That should be grounds for automatic recusal.

"Should", perhaps, but that hasn't been the case since the beginning of games journalism back in the early 1980's. Instead, you did what the big developer houses said, or you got blacklisted.

[GuppyShark]

No Eleas

Video game journalism was fine right up until a woman dared to have sex.

Clearly.

[Eleas]

No Eleas

Video game journalism was fine right up until a woman dared to have sex.

No you're wrong

Clearly.

Dammit, all my objections foiled. How come I didn't see?

[Broomstick]

Why is it all these people calling Quinn a slut, a whore, and worse and accusing her of trading sex for reviews aren't also heaping scorn and abuse and dead animals in the mailbox on the men who were doing the exact same thing? Double standard, of course. Which is just further evidence this is a personal attack on Quinn and not truly an outrage against wrong-doing.

[Covenant]

Who knows. You'd think, if they're mad at journalistic integrity issues, they'd be shoving dead animals into the mailboxes of corrupt male journalists who are willing to whore out their reviews for money, sex, kickbacks and access. But that is usually the way these things work: people almost never demand that someone refuse an offer, but they will vilify anyone who offers it. The sex shaming thing is, I think, just pearl-clutching. Both sides are doing that though, so it looks absolutely ridiculous.

This is what happens when a useless, stupid debating tactic gets so popular that everyone uses it and nothing can be accomplished. This isn't a movement, this is such messageless mess that you can't call it anything but a "controversy."

Both the morons and the media are pearl-clutching, gotcha "guilt by association" blaming, outing others to "reveal" them for some reason, acting like the oppressed, and relying on identity politics. There is no "heart" to this argument because it's all smokescreens and shit-ass debating tactics designed to score points with an entrenched demographic. The activists in this fight are more like stage magicians trying to impress their audience and a few of their heroes. Those "heroes" of the opposing factions could probably cross the barricades and reach a consensus, but the inflamed masses in the trenches never will.

I put the lions share of the blame on the GG people because they're the ones going apeshit about a non-issue. Totally blowing things out of proportion is something you associate with childish behavior. There's no doubt that people on both sides are acting like the righteous warriors of some given cause, but GG is a disaster.

Otherwise they cannot expect anyone to really care much. You cannot "speak with" a controversy, you can have an opinion about it. People have a lot of opinions now. They're louder when organizing around the vague concept of media backlash and slandering a demographic, which are about as coherent and positive a message as you can write for them, but until they have a list of demands they cannot be engaged with.

This is the strength of GG at the moment, and the weakness with moving forwards. When you face an army and want to talk terms, you need to talk to a leader. If you ask who is the leader, and can speak for them, and everyone in the crowd responds with "I am Sparticus!" then it's no surprise that nobody can meet your demands. Mobs cannot make demands. Leaders can make demands.

So that means, for GG to ever go from being a mob defined by the perceptions of everyone else (rather than by their own objectives) they need leaders, statements of interests, and organization. Not a banner. Not some worthless hashtag anyone can use or hijack.

Anyway, blagh. I've dug as far down as I can go with these people and the core, original message is hateful and wrong. The fecal mess that it is has helped a tiny little sapling to grow, but only time can tell if that tiny bit of good will last as long as the ill-will created by this. At least it was a wakeup call for just how bad the politics of the gaming community are.

[Lagmonster]

You know what people who continue to defend the hashtag as something noble or purposeful sound like? Like those people who insist that the swastika is just a Tibetan good luck charm. Insisting that that symbol isn't really associated with that thing everyone in the Western hemisphere associates it with makes you look just so very stupid. Likewise, it doesn't matter what you say about that hashtag or what you make of it - it's synonymous with misogyny and young white male whiners.

[fordlltwm]

You know what people who continue to defend the hashtag as something noble or purposeful sound like? Like those people who insist that the swastika is just a Tibetan good luck charm. Insisting that that symbol isn't really associated with that thing everyone in the Western hemisphere associates it with makes you look just so very stupid. Likewise, it doesn't matter what you say about that hashtag or what you make of it - it's synonymous with misogyny and young white male whiners.

There was a piece on the bbc about reclaiming the swastika the other day

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29644591



I think in some ways it may be a good thing to try and reclaim something you believe in, but once a hashtag has become so polluted i.e. gamergate then it may be better to start from fresh.

[Vendetta]

GamerGate genius in action:

Tell female game developer to go an make her own games....

[AniThyng]

You know what people who continue to defend the hashtag as something noble or purposeful sound like? Like those people who insist that the swastika is just a Tibetan good luck charm. Insisting that that symbol isn't really associated with that thing everyone in the Western hemisphere associates it with makes you look just so very stupid. Likewise, it doesn't matter what you say about that hashtag or what you make of it - it's synonymous with misogyny and young white male whiners.

Only to a point though. If there is an example of legitimate cultural appropriation that really does hurt a culture, this may be one, because it is objective fact that it is also a Buddhist symbol and used as such today in east Asia, never mind that a Nazi swastika and a Tibetan/Buddhist don't actually look alike, unlike a hashtag. A better case might be made for the Finnish air force swastika....

Also the fruit swastika is obviously more Asian than a Nazi one, but i guess I am invoking sine sort of privilege ihave as an ethnic Chinese to say that where a white guy can't.