Blizzard CEO Calls Out Those "Tarnishing Our Reputation as Gamers"

[delroland]

It just so happens that I am actually interested in finding a real solution, but so far all you've suggested is an alternative to gamergate because of how you and others perceive it to be distasteful and while I won't disagree that many people share that sentiment I'm not convinced that simply starting another movement will address these problems, especially not when I find - like in this topic - that the same accusations are being laid at the feet of the entire gaming community.

Any movement made by gamers, for gamers, is going to face these same accusations, and I hypothesize the capitulation of Gamergate will only make them worse. After all, why would the movement disband if the accusations about it being about toxic misogyny were false?

Saying, "I disagree with your solution," is a lot different than saying, "You haven't provided a solution." Again, you simply don't like the solution I have proposed.

Why is this so difficult to understand? If Gamergate isn't about feminism - as has been stated repeatedly by members of the movement - then why would anti-feminist statements from a smaller subset of people claiming to be part of the movement be matter? Gamergate is not defined by a handful of statements, it's defined by it's majority, that's how a movement without official membership or leadership works. Without evidence that a significant amount of Gamergate is anti-feminist, it is unreasonable to assume that the movement is.

No organization is judged solely based on the opinions of its majority. Quite the contrary: it is the anomalies which often help to understand the nature of the organization. If the anomalies are few and far between, like, say, the number of accidents at a job site, then they do not define the organization. But there reaches a point, and it is never a clearly defined point, where an organization is demonstrably unable to effectively police its own members' activities. Furthermore, when the same anomaly repeats itself on a regular basis, it ceases being an anomaly and becomes a pattern. I, and many others, believe GamerGate to be so far beyond this point that any just cause they seek to represent has been irrevocably sabotaged.

Obviously we disagree on the last point, but GamerGate is the party asking for reform, and if it is unable to get its message out due to poor public regard, wouldn't that render GamerGate impotent as an organization?

I don't even have any issue with people who do make anti-feminist statements, I think there can be valid criticism of feminism. But I don't think that's what Gamergate is about, and I certainly haven't seen any evidence of that.

I think it is dishonest of you to give the impression that you believe there is no evidence of anti-feminism sentiment within GamerGate. A more accurate position would be to state that there isn't enough evidence of it to alter your perception of the movement, even though it has clearly marred the perception of others. Also, generally speaking, people who are vehemently opposed to an idea make for poor critics. I do admit that may not make me the best critic of GamerGate, but as a fringe organization within a fringe group, GamerGate should have taken steps to ensure that they had all their ducks in a row and were beyond reproach in order to prevent their immediate dismissal by the media.

Bashing and criticizing people belonging to a movement does not equate to doing the same to the movement. And no, thirty posts are not enough when there's over five hundred posts in the thread, especially when that's not what the thread is even about, and I still don't buy that they're anti-feminist

Bear in mind that it's not just about what's being said, but also about what's not being said. If I were running an all-inclusive club and a member started spouting that the Holocaust was faked, I would kick them out of the club even if "everyone wass welcome" and I would feel justified in doing so. If I couldn't remove that person from the club, I would leave because I would not want my reputation tarnished by association with such a person. If I were to instead do nothing, it would make me look like I condoned if not outright supported such a belief.

It doesn't matter if there's an anti-feminist minority in Gamergate, it doesn't even matter if there was a anti-feminist majority in Gamergate, because feminism isn't what Gamergate is about. Someone can be anti-feminist and pro-gamergate, just like someone can be feminist and pro-gamergate, but that doesn't change anything about what Gamergate is.

It certainly does matter if it colors the perceptions of others. There are enough people vehemently opposed to GamerGate for reasons the organization claims are invalid that perhaps it is time for self-examination instead of turtling up and attacking critics.

Also, I have yet to see anti-feminist sentiment in the other side.

 

[UberPubert]

Saying, "I disagree with your solution," is a lot different than saying, "You haven't provided a solution." Again, you simply don't like the solution I have proposed.

Because if it doesn't solve anything, it's not a solution, or: It's a solution that ignores the problem.

Of course I don't like it: It's useless.

No organization is judged solely based on the opinions of its majority. Quite the contrary: it is the anomalies which often help to understand the nature of the organization. If the anomalies are few and far between, like, say, the number of accidents at a job site, then they do not define the organization. But there reaches a point, and it is never a clearly defined point, where an organization is demonstrably unable to effectively police its own members' activities. Furthermore, when the same anomaly repeats itself on a regular basis, it ceases being an anomaly and becomes a pattern. I, and many others, believe GamerGate to be so far beyond this point that any just cause they seek to represent has been irrevocably sabotaged.

And this is all the result of cherry-picking and confirmation bias. I could find just as many people who identify as feminists and make pro-feminist comments in Gamergate, but #notyourshield existed as a way to prove Gamergate was diverse, and it was dismissed out of hand as sock puppet accounts and when that was disproved it was ignored altogether.

Obviously we disagree on the last point, but GamerGate is the party asking for reform, and if it is unable to get its message out due to poor public regard, wouldn't that render GamerGate impotent as an organization?

Poor public regard is something to address, but it's not any reason to disband. I doubt anyone is participating in Gamergate to make friends, and considering the movement as a whole is a reaction to the gaming community's reputation being dragged to rock bottom by the very people it's criticizing, there's no way to go downhill from there.

I think it is dishonest of you to give the impression that you believe there is no evidence of anti-feminism sentiment within GamerGate. A more accurate position would be to state that there isn't enough evidence of it to alter your perception of the movement, even though it has clearly marred the perception of others.

Nothing I have seen qualifies as evidence of anti-feminist sentiment in GG. All significant actions taken by GG have had nothing to do with feminism - barring the funding of a feminist gaming charity.

Also, generally speaking, people who are vehemently opposed to an idea make for poor critics. I do admit that may not make me the best critic of GamerGate, but as a fringe organization within a fringe group, GamerGate should have taken steps to ensure that they had all their ducks in a row and were beyond reproach in order to prevent their immediate dismissal by the media.

The only thing you've suggested is worthy of reproach are anti-feminists, and even you have no idea how many of them there are, how could you possibly expect gamergate to have "silenced" them? And in what way is that reasonable or even a valid criticism of the movement? Gamergate isn't about feminism, and there's nothing wrong with being anti-feminist.

Bear in mind that it's not just about what's being said, but also about what's not being said. If I were running an all-inclusive club and a member started spouting that the Holocaust was faked, I would kick them out of the club even if "everyone wass welcome" and I would feel justified in doing so. If I couldn't remove that person from the club, I would leave because I would not want my reputation tarnished by association with such a person. If I were to instead do nothing, it would make me look like I condoned if not outright supported such a belief.

Comparing anti-feminism to holocaust deniers totally makes you seem reasonable and not at all biased. Besides that: Reddit isn't a club, it's a public forum anyone can post in, for any reason, and (supposedly) no one's getting banned unless they actually violate a rule of the board. But everyone there realized they're not representative of Reddit, and they're not representative of Gamergate, why should they care...unless someone's going to hunt around the boards to cherry pick and misconstrue statements into a poorly structured argument?

It certainly does matter if it colors the perceptions of others. There are enough people vehemently opposed to GamerGate for reasons the organization claims are invalid that perhaps it is time for self-examination instead of turtling up and attacking critics.

But the reasons are still invalid. There's no other way to address criticism when it's bereft of evidence and reason than with dismissal.

Also, I have yet to see anti-feminist sentiment in the other side.

Actually, in the page you linked to Smiliomaniacs post, you can clearly see two anti-GGers dismissing Christina Hoff Sommers, a feminist writer and philosopher. That seems pretty anti-feminist to me.

 

[kael013]

I love how every response you've made to every point I've made boils down to, "Nuh uh!"

"Nuh uh! That's not a solution! I'm talking about REAL solutions!"

To require a solution is to infer a problem. So I ask you, what is the problem that GamerGate is having that warrants the need for the solution you requested? I understood it to be the negative reputation GamerGate is receiving because its leaderless format has allowed toxic members in the group to tarnish GamerGate as a whole, thus detracting from their message and goals, to which leaving and forming a new organization is absolutely a solution that could fix the problem.

Except that wouldn't solve the problem. At best, it will be a repeat of GamerGate's history: a good start where they're taken kinda seriously, then the trolls - and if you're feeling Machiavellian/conspiracy theorist their opposition/feminists - come in and tarnish their reputation. Heck, it may not even need the trolls, people may look and notice that the new movement have the same stated goals and personnel as GamerGate and will tar it's name regardless of any wrongdoing on their part solely because of GamerGate's current reputation.

[quote/]"Nuh uh! A GamerGater making anti-feminist remarks has nothing to do with GamerGate as a whole!"[/quote]
It doesn't and to say it does is to fall prey to association fallacy.

"To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo." - Valerie Solanis, radical feminist, author of the SCUM Manifesto, and attempted murderess of artist Andy Warhol. Would you say that this woman's views are representative of feminism as a whole? Of course not, she was one woman among millions. Yet that's what you are advocating we do to GamerGaters.

 

[delroland]

Comparing anti-feminism to holocaust deniers totally makes you seem reasonable and not at all biased. Besides that: Reddit isn't a club, it's a public forum anyone can post in, for any reason, and (supposedly) no one's getting banned unless they actually violate a rule of the board. But everyone there realized they're not representative of Reddit, and they're not representative of Gamergate, why should they care...unless someone's going to hunt around the boards to cherry pick and misconstrue statements into a poorly structured argument?

Except, you know, there is that one guy who is considered a leader of GamerGate and who is a Holocaust denier. What's his monicker, King of Pol? I thought it a fitting rib to include in my analogy.

Actually, in the page you linked to Smiliomaniacs post, you can clearly see two anti-GGers dismissing Christina Hoff Sommers, a feminist writer and philosopher. That seems pretty anti-feminist to me.

You mean the woman who created her own branch of "equity feminism" so that she could remain opposed to mainstream feminism without being labeled as such?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Hoff_Sommers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_and_gender_feminism

People don't criticize her for being feminist, they criticize her for being a biased hypocrite.

 

[UberPubert]

Except, you know, there is that one guy who is considered a leader of GamerGate and who is a Holocaust denier. What's his monicker, King of Pol? I thought it a fitting rib to include in my analogy.

Like everyone keeps repeating: Gamergate has no leader.

And, seriously? King of Pol? What has he done of significance for the movement besides podcast? I've never watched or listened to the guy unless he was participating in somebody else's stream. He's a nobody with only 322 followers on Twitter.

People don't criticize her for being feminist, they criticize her for being a biased hypocrite.

I can't possibly see how anyone could interpret statements like these as anti-feminist, but you're totally right that people comparing Anita Sarkeesian to Patrick Bateman is serious business.

 

[delroland]

"Nuh uh! A GamerGater making anti-feminist remarks has nothing to do with GamerGate as a whole!"

It doesn't and to say it does is to fall prey to association fallacy.

"To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo." - Valerie Solanis, radical feminist, author of the SCUM Manifesto, and attempted murderess of artist Andy Warhol. Would you say that this woman's views are representative of feminism as a whole? Of course not, she was one woman among millions. Yet that's what you are advocating we do to GamerGaters.[/quote]There is a significant difference in scale we're talking about here which you are refusing to acknowledge. One among millions is a lot different than hundreds among tens of thousands.

Also, your invocation of the association fallacy is incorrect. An association fallacy occurs when you take one occurrence to be representative of the whole, but when multiple occurrences happen, it begins to establish a pattern. Furthermore, I am not claiming that all GamerGaters are misogynist; rather, I am claiming that GamerGate has been tainted by the quantity and visibility of the misogynists within its group.

Association fallacy:
All A are B.
All A are C.
Therefore all B are C.

My point:
All A are B.
All A are C.
Many C are B.
C makes B look bad.

The only thing we're arguing is numbers and whether or not they are significant enough to warrant a conclusion. We disagree, but in the meantime your side is losing the debate due to the perception illustrated in my point.

 

[delroland]

People don't criticize her for being feminist, they criticize her for being a biased hypocrite.

I can't possibly see how anyone could interpret statements like these as anti-feminist, but you're totally right that people comparing Anita Sarkeesian to Patrick Bateman is serious business.

It's a stance backed by research on my part. I'm not asking you to agree with my conclusion, but it isn't simply "she's a woman against feminism so she's bad". Her research is flawed and doesn't really stand up to scrutiny, and many of her "examples" are simple coincidence. So for her to be radically opposed to mainstream feminism then to push the notion that she's a better feminist is kind of offensive and hypocritical. In other words, she pretends to not see the forest for the trees in order to push her own agenda.

 

[UberPubert]

It's a stance backed by research on my part. I'm not asking you to agree with my conclusion, but it isn't simply "she's a woman against feminism so she's bad". Her research is flawed and doesn't really stand up to scrutiny, and many of her "examples" are simple coincidence. So for her to be radically opposed to mainstream feminism then to push the notion that she's a better feminist is kind of offensive and hypocritical. In other words, she pretends to not see the forest for the trees in order to push her own agenda.

Anita Sarkessian is not a good videogame critic. I'm not asking you to agree with my conclusion, but it isn't simply "she's a feminist against gaming so she's bad". Her research is flawed and doesn't really stand up to scrutiny, and many of her "examples" are simple coincidence. So for her to be radically opposed to mainstream gaming then to push the notion that she's a better gamer is kind of offensive and hypocritical. In other words, she pretends to not see the forest for the trees in order to push her own agenda.

As it turns out, criticism of people is more nuanced than attacking an entire movement. Maybe you should take that to heart and remember it before calling "anti-feminists" out.

 

[kael013]

There is a significant difference in scale we're talking about here which you are refusing to acknowledge. One among millions is a lot different than hundreds among tens of thousands.

Also, your invocation of the association fallacy is incorrect. An association fallacy occurs when you take one occurrence to be representative of the whole, but when multiple occurrences happen, it begins to establish a pattern. Furthermore, I am not claiming that all GamerGaters are misogynist; rather, I am claiming that GamerGate has been tainted by the quantity and visibility of the misogynists within its group.

Association fallacy:
All A are B.
All A are C.
Therefore all B are C.

My point:
All A are B.
All A are C.
Many C are B.
C makes B look bad.

The only thing we're arguing is numbers and whether or not they are significant enough to warrant a conclusion. We disagree, but in the meantime your side is losing the debate due to the perception illustrated in my point.

1. Fair enough, I'll concede the association fallacy point as it pertains to you.
2. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not refusing to acknowledge the difference in scale. I just don't see how it's relevant. Whether it's 1% or 10% to judge the whole group based on a minority - even if it is a vocal one - is discourteous. It's like saying all feminists are misandrist. Some are, they're pretty loud about it, and they scream often enough to have not only established a pattern, but a damn stereotype! But people don't say feminists need to reinvent their movement to distance themselves from the rotten members, the rotten members are overlooked. All I'm pointing out is that for some reason very few people do that for GamerGate and those that do are labeled as GamerGaters, and thus become "part of the problem" as shown in...
3. I am not a Gamergater. Nowhere in my post did I say I was. In fact, look at the last sentence you quoted "Yet that's what you are advocating [b/]we do to GamerGaters[/b]". I'm viewing them from the outside. Now, all I did was point out what I saw as issues in your line of reasoning. For that half my points were ignored, in this case my main one (I sooo love it when people do that /sarcasm), and I was dumped into the side you oppose. This is why this movement still exists; this is why nothing has progressed: "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy."

 

[Guffe]

The problem is not everyone reports it and the amount of, again; WoW players, players is so big that monetoring it all live is practically impossible.

But as you said in the start of your post. He is talking for a good cause and let's hope people can be "kind and respectful". Not only in games, but IRL as well!

Be well and have a good evening everyone on the Escapist!

I think the problem is more underlying than that. I think that WoW promotes, at a fundamental and mechanical level, a very low regard for other players /as people/ that makes such misbehavior inevitable beyond the background noise of basic human jackassery.

-interesting thoughts-

Interesting read, and I misunderstood your first post. As you said, I went for the community while you were talking more about the games system/mechanics in itself bringing out this type of behaviour.
I've never really thought about that to be honest....

 

[Lovely Mixture]

People don't criticize her for being feminist, they criticize her for being a biased hypocrite.

I can't possibly see how anyone could interpret statements like these as anti-feminist, but you're totally right that people comparing Anita Sarkeesian to Patrick Bateman is serious business.

It's a stance backed by research on my part. I'm not asking you to agree with my conclusion, but it isn't simply "she's a woman against feminism so she's bad". Her research is flawed and doesn't really stand up to scrutiny, and many of her "examples" are simple coincidence. So for her to be radically opposed to mainstream feminism then to push the notion that she's a better feminist is kind of offensive and hypocritical. In other words, she pretends to not see the forest for the trees in order to push her own agenda.

Funny, I say the same things about Anita. Who I think is a biased hypocrite.

What do you say to that?

 

[delroland]

Funny, I say the same things about Anita. Who I think is a biased hypocrite.

What do you say to that?

That you're wrong. How much of Sommers' work have you read, exactly? And how many of Sarkeesian's videos have you actually watched as opposed to just blowing everything out of proportion and taking individual quotes out of context? Are you next going to enlighten us about how she was "unable" to name three games on Colbert?

I also dislike your avatar.

 

[nevarran]

Sadly, when a dev talks nowadays, all I hear is:
"I want your money. Hey, the journalist, help me get this fools money."

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Funny, I say the same things about Anita. Who I think is a biased hypocrite.

What do you say to that?

That you're wrong. How much of Sommers' work have you read, exactly? And how many of Sarkeesian's videos have you actually watched as opposed to just blowing everything out of proportion and taking individual quotes out of context? Are you next going to enlighten us about how she was "unable" to name three games on Colbert?

It's funny how you make assumptions of me......when I was quite confident you would respond this way.
Opinions that differ from yours are not wrong, we see things differently.

I also dislike your avatar.

Ok.

 

[ShakerSilver]

snip

It doesn't help that most news outlets are forcing GamerGate onto this by painting Mike's message as "against GamerGate". Kotaku, Polygon, PC Gamer, Joystiq, even the Escapist itself (not in title, but in the page URL and article itself) are twisting his words to politicize his non-partisan message against harassment. Even during the post-show, Geoff Keighly makes a point to say that Mike's message was about GamerGate; to which Mike responds by staying eerily silent and waiting for the conversation to shift to something about their games.

 

[Augustine]

I think the problem is more underlying than that. I think that WoW promotes, at a fundamental and mechanical level, a very low regard for other players /as people/ that makes such misbehavior inevitable beyond the background noise of basic human jackassery.

....how so?

I could see MAYBE making this argument about a MOBA, although blame still lies squarely with the players. How is WoW, which is predominantly a cooperative game, "fundamentally and at a mechanical level" an enticement for harassment?

I will have to, on some level agree with the criticism.
I recently went back to see what WoW is about, nowadays... And I found myself being ASHAMED of enjoying the game for example - by that I mean I was pressured by others to skip all cutscenes, ridiculed for not having min-maxed my character. 'Tis true - Blizzard did a bunch to make the game more accessible, but I see that on a very deep level the populace of the game has something disturbing about it.
Certainly, there are many a nice person out there, but I dare say that's not due to any game mechanic.
Perhaps, due to it's repetitive nature, WoW creates in players a certain "alienation from one's labor" (to borrow Karl Marx's terminology), and thus creates a certain culture around itself? I deign not say.