ESA, IGDA: Threats, Personal Attacks Have No Place in Games

roseofbattle

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Apr 18, 2011
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ESA, IGDA: Threats, Personal Attacks Have No Place in Games

The Entertainment Software Association and International Game Developers Association speak out in the New York Times and the Washington Post against GamerGate and harassment.

Spokespersons from the International Game Developers Association [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/entertainment%20software%20association] have both condemned the threats of violence and harassment sent to women in game development, journalism, and criticism. Speaking to the New York Times and the Washington Post, the ESA and IGDA agree this has no place in games.

The ongoing threats, including a Wu [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138046-School-Shooting-Threat-Sent-to-USU-about-Anita-Sarkeesian] have alleged GamerGate was involved in the threats.

"Threats of violence and harassment are wrong," a spokesperson from the ESA, the E3 organizer and trade group, told the New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/technology/gamergate-women-video-game-threats-anita-sarkeesian.html] today in a front-page article of the newspaper. "They have to stop. There is no place in the video game community - or our society - for personal attacks and threats."

Kate Edwards, executive director of the IGDA, told the New York Times game companies have made some progress in the depiction of women in games. She cited the rebooted Tomb Raider's Lara Croft as an example of an emotionally complex character with more realistic proportions.

In the Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/15/the-game-industrys-top-trade-group-just-spoke-out-against-gamergate/] Edwards spoke out against GamerGate and criticized the industry for catering to a demographic that is not supportive of women. "This group is out of touch. The whole community, the world around them has changed, but they think that's not the case," she said.

"The irony of this movement is that they want journalistic integrity, but are looking to squash the voices of women at all costs," she continued. "The logic is completely lacking."

Edwards told the Washington Post many women have approached her with their concerns of the industry, as they have considered leaving or discouraging other women from working in the game industry.

The IGDA began meeting with the FBI in June [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137521-FBI-Investigates-Death-Threats-of-Sarkeesian], before GamerGate began, to work together to prevent harassment of developers. Edwards had not talked directly to Sarkeesian but was using her situation to educate developers. The IGDA provides resources to developers with help from the FBI. The FBI was aware of other threats Sarkeesian has experienced and is investigating.

"One nice effect of this sad event is that it's tied developers together," Edwards said. "We need to be better at supporting each other not just during events like this, but all the time."

Source: Washington Post [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/technology/gamergate-women-video-game-threats-anita-sarkeesian.html]


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IamLEAM1983

Neloth's got swag.
Aug 22, 2011
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And yet, nobody on the more contentious side of the GamerGate fiasco seems particularly worried. I've seen academic papers related to game theory that had the misfortune of being penned by female writers, and who were almost successfully contaminated by an influx of idiots filling the online questionnaire's fields with witty banter along the lines of "Suck my dick" or "Get back in the kitchen, ho!"

And why? Because the GamerGaters have allowed morons like 4Chan's b-tards to pollute the debate. Dig around and you'll see that a few of them like to engineer situations in which they act as both perpetrator and would-be savior. One hand doxxes and actively threatens, the other creates iconography for the Feminist arm of the movement.

As much as I'm a fan of unregulated spaces open to discussion, that approach needs to be punished. Nobody should get to act as both abuser and rescuer, as that's not only illogical but also puerile.

At some point, the so-called lulz have to stop, and consequences have to be made tangible. I can't wait for the round of prosecutions to start scorching minors or immature adults who thought that horsing around on an imageboard was without consequences whatsoever.
 

Sanunes

Senior Member
Mar 18, 2011
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IamLEAM1983 said:
And yet, nobody on the more contentious side of the GamerGate fiasco seems particularly worried. I've seen academic papers related to game theory that had the misfortune of being penned by female writers, and who were almost successfully contaminated by an influx of idiots filling the online questionnaire's fields with witty banter along the lines of "Suck my dick" or "Get back in the kitchen, ho!"

And why? Because the GamerGaters have allowed morons like 4Chan's b-tards to pollute the debate. Dig around and you'll see that a few of them like to engineer situations in which they act as both perpetrator and would-be savior. One hand doxxes and actively threatens, the other creates iconography for the Feminist arm of the movement.

As much as I'm a fan of unregulated spaces open to discussion, that approach needs to be punished. Nobody should get to act as both abuser and rescuer, as that's not only illogical but also puerile.

At some point, the so-called lulz have to stop, and consequences have to be made tangible. I can't wait for the round of prosecutions to start scorching minors or immature adults who thought that horsing around on an imageboard was without consequences whatsoever.
I do agree, I am hoping that if they are able to find out the people that are making these threats it might stop the negativity from both sides and maybe we can discuss the matter that people saying the issue to be about. Now what I am finding troubling beyond this GamerGate fiasco, is the amount of recklessness towards other people the "gamer" culture is starting to present itself as. We have had terrorist threats against airplanes, bomb threats, mass shooting threats, and SWATing. I wish the consequences of those actions became as public as the acts themselves and maybe it wouldn't become so frequent.
 

SilverHunter

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Sep 22, 2014
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It's downright pathetic to see these people try to take the moral high ground. Instead of saying "deaths threat and the like are a terrible thing and we don't condone it for either side", they are taking the childish route of "They said it! Not me!". And yet the media clings to theirs because, of the two, the "anti" GamerGate group has more publicly seen and known group. As one journalist said on Twitter, it's a terrible thing to send death threats to Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian, but why should we care if a ten year old gets has his personal information thrown out on the Internet and threatened with physical violence towards his family and friends.

That right there IS disgusting, no matter what side that you are on. Yet again it doesn't seem to matter because one group has a public face and the other doesn't. Not that it matters that if, say, a female speaks up on and says she agrees with GamerGate she's immediately labeled a "house n-word", or the fact that in even the Escapist's female Devs speak out article, a couple actually spoke out against a lot of the nonsense that plagued both sides. You would never see them do that publicly however because this same sort of harassment and abuse exists on both sides, but it's easier to demonize a faceless mass - just ask everyone in charge of making war propaganda.

And that is what this is. You have insane people on both sides screwing everything up for everyone else. And while both sides have had others demonising the other group, this particular half is the one that gets the media. This side is the one who commits the sin of casting a wide net to catch a few fish, and don't care about if anything else gets caught up in it as well. I'll say it again, but it's disgusting. I also find it funny they talk about Lara Crofts rebooted character shown as a strong female lead like what people want to see, yet earlier in the year you had women decrying the need of her seeing a psychologist with the cry of "men don't do it, why should she!". Nevermind the more realistic tone the female writer behind a lot of the game was obviously going for a much more realistic tone overall compared to the general "I'll acknowledge but ignore it" that most videogame characters tend to apply with horrifying ordeals.
 

circularlogic88

Knower of Nothing
Oct 9, 2010
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Lara Croft is an emotionally complex character now? lol okay.

OT: Why has it taken the ESA and IGDA this long to publicly respond to the hate and threats? This has been occurring throughout the last few years especially with Anita Sarkeesian long before the hashtag of gamergate. People should not have to be driven from their homes and have attendees' lives threatened at a speech to have them take this long to issue a public response.
 

ASnogarD

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Jul 2, 2009
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circularlogic88 said:
OT: Why has it taken the ESA and IGDA this long to publicly respond to the hate and threats?
These groups, but especially IGDA will only choose a stance if they are forced to to remain relevant, IGDA took a hell of a long time to remove Tim Langell from his post at IGDA, and that was Langdell stepping down than any real action by IGDA... its a toothless organisation, all suits but no action.
Tim Langdell was a rather voracious IP Troll that claimed the word EDGE, and woe betide ANY small fry that dared to include that word... in the end he got funny with EA over Mirrors Edge and that was him undone, other snippets of his past included running from UK debts and failing to pay contracted artists and coders for his older titles.
He was also on the board of IGDA.
 

IamLEAM1983

Neloth's got swag.
Aug 22, 2011
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Sanunes said:
We have had terrorist threats against airplanes, bomb threats, mass shooting threats, and SWATing. I wish the consequences of those actions became as public as the acts themselves and maybe it wouldn't become so frequent.
One issue I do have with some arms of the gamer culture and, honestly, with the Internet in general, is that it tends to enable the kids as much as the adults. If you're a petulant kid or an adult still prone to bouts of really petulant spite, you'll find everything you'll need to carry out your ridiculously impulsive and utterly misinformed attacks or data-mining attempts.

It's not so much a question of whether or not we need to ban the young 'uns from using Pastebin, Pastie and the like or of figuring out how one goes about crafting a phone call that's dramatic enough to send a SWAT team to someone else's door; and more an issue of education. Manners, honestly, is what's lacking.

I mean, go figure. "Don't be a dick" is a basic axiom anyone would claim to follow in real life, but as soon as the keyboard enters the picture? Ooooh shit, all bets are off. The culture does have a serious issue with how to word things, seeing how I've sometimes been told to go die in a fire by people who should've just told me they don't agree with me. I think it's starting to seep into other areas, otherwise we wouldn't have 4Chan types considering that doxxing is a fairly basic procedure. It really shouldn't be.

Personally, the closest thing I've ever done that gets even remotely close to doxxing involves looking through the Yellow Pages to find a professor's phone number... That's kind of miles and leagues away from collating worrying files on people.
 

Areloch

It's that one guy
Dec 10, 2012
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IamLEAM1983 said:
And yet, nobody on the more contentious side of the GamerGate fiasco seems particularly worried. I've seen academic papers related to game theory that had the misfortune of being penned by female writers, and who were almost successfully contaminated by an influx of idiots filling the online questionnaire's fields with witty banter along the lines of "Suck my dick" or "Get back in the kitchen, ho!"

And why? Because the GamerGaters have allowed morons like 4Chan's b-tards to pollute the debate. Dig around and you'll see that a few of them like to engineer situations in which they act as both perpetrator and would-be savior. One hand doxxes and actively threatens, the other creates iconography for the Feminist arm of the movement.

As much as I'm a fan of unregulated spaces open to discussion, that approach needs to be punished. Nobody should get to act as both abuser and rescuer, as that's not only illogical but also puerile.

At some point, the so-called lulz have to stop, and consequences have to be made tangible. I can't wait for the round of prosecutions to start scorching minors or immature adults who thought that horsing around on an imageboard was without consequences whatsoever.
Your comment fascinates me.

I'm legitimately curious how anyone would be able to stop people from 4chan from arbitrarily hopping onto twitter with any given account, plopping a hashtag into their post, and messing with people to get the results they want.

You claim people "allowed" this to happen, but that gives the implication there is any ability to stop it whatsoever. So if you've got a solution, I'm sure everyone on the internet, not just people in this GamerGate business would love to hear about it.
 

IamLEAM1983

Neloth's got swag.
Aug 22, 2011
2,581
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Areloch said:
Your comment fascinates me.

I'm legitimately curious how anyone would be able to stop people from 4chan from arbitrarily hopping onto twitter with any given account, plopping a hashtag into their post, and messing with people to get the results they want.

You claim people "allowed" this to happen, but that gives the implication there is any ability to stop it whatsoever. So if you've got a solution, I'm sure everyone on the internet, not just people in this GamerGate business would love to hear about it.
My point is that I don't know. I'm no expert, I'm just a guy who's getting a little peeved by this fiasco, and who thinks that some amount of legislation needs to take place. You're right, stopping anyone from hopping on Twitter is virtually impossible, but once certain actions start to garner toxic results, some sort of comeuppance should come into play.

I mean, I have to admit that differentiating grassroots investigations from orchestrated slander attempts is pretty hard at the onset - but SOMEHOW, there needs to be repercussions to what 4Chan and its allies are orchestrating. There just needs to be. I feel like we're just stuck looking at mild sociopaths having a field day online, or idiots who haven't realized just how noxious their little charades are turning out to be - and that infuriates me.
 

The Lunatic

Princess
Jun 3, 2010
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It's very disappointing to see the awful view that people like this.



Don't exist and only people "Supporting Gamergate" are the ones saying awful things.
 

Areloch

It's that one guy
Dec 10, 2012
623
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IamLEAM1983 said:
Areloch said:
Your comment fascinates me.

I'm legitimately curious how anyone would be able to stop people from 4chan from arbitrarily hopping onto twitter with any given account, plopping a hashtag into their post, and messing with people to get the results they want.

You claim people "allowed" this to happen, but that gives the implication there is any ability to stop it whatsoever. So if you've got a solution, I'm sure everyone on the internet, not just people in this GamerGate business would love to hear about it.
My point is that I don't know. I'm no expert, I'm just a guy who's getting a little peeved by this fiasco, and who thinks that some amount of legislation needs to take place. You're right, stopping anyone from hopping on Twitter is virtually impossible, but once certain actions start to garner toxic results, some sort of comeuppance should come into play.

I mean, I have to admit that differentiating grassroots investigations from orchestrated slander attempts is pretty hard at the onset - but SOMEHOW, there needs to be repercussions to what 4Chan and its allies are orchestrating. There just needs to be. I feel like we're just stuck looking at mild sociopaths having a field day online, or idiots who haven't realized just how noxious their little charades are turning out to be - and that infuriates me.
I understand that and agree.

However, it's unfair to everyone involved to imply culpability in the actions of those toxic people merely because they have no power to stop them.

The best I've seen is publicly calling them out, and reporting them. But that doesn't deal with the source. They will just make a new account, and continue as they do.

So to harangue the people being "contaminated" by that stupidity is nearly as unjust as the people being targeted by said stupidity having to deal with it at all.

All I ask is to not blame people who are just as impotent as yourself in solving the problem simply because they cannot solve it. Absolutely call out poor behavior, but don't blame people that aren't doing it.
 

IamLEAM1983

Neloth's got swag.
Aug 22, 2011
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Areloch said:
All I ask is to not blame people who are just as impotent as yourself in solving the problem simply because they cannot solve it. Absolutely call out poor behavior, but don't blame people that aren't doing it.
I would agree, it's not fair of me to point fingers at anyone. However, I haven't seen that many indications of 4Chan's own members trying to take a stand by distancing themselves from the more toxic members in their group. 4Chan's internal policy's been one of general laissez-faire for years.

Blame my poor choice of words, then. Those that are specifically responsible need to be brought to justice, somehow. As to those B-tards that aren't doing anything more reprehensible than the board's usual counterculture stuff, that's fine. I have zero ill will towards people who basically just want to have fun on that platform while STILL remaining responsible and mature human beings.
 

V da Mighty Taco

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Apr 9, 2011
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Great. Just great. Yet another large organization going "the entirety of GamerGate are harassing, sexist assholes who just want to silence women". No acknowledgement of harassment towards GGers or anything, nor even a slight acknowledgement that not everyone in GG is like that (seriously, "the whole community"?).

Fuck, this is almost enough to make me support GG again. Almost.

Apologies if I'm seeming a bit hostile, btw. Absolutes and putting words or ideas into people's mouths are just pet peeves of mine is all.
 

Nimcha

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Dec 6, 2010
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V da Mighty Taco said:
Great. Just great. Yet another large organization going "the entirety of GamerGate are harassing, sexist assholes who just want to silence women". No acknowledgement of harassment towards GGers or anything, nor even a slight acknowledgement that not everyone in GG is like that (seriously, "the whole community"?).
Point is it doesn't matter. It's not a movement but it pretends to be one. That's why you get stuff like that.
 

V da Mighty Taco

New member
Apr 9, 2011
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Nimcha said:
V da Mighty Taco said:
Great. Just great. Yet another large organization going "the entirety of GamerGate are harassing, sexist assholes who just want to silence women". No acknowledgement of harassment towards GGers or anything, nor even a slight acknowledgement that not everyone in GG is like that (seriously, "the whole community"?).
Point is it doesn't matter. It's not a movement but it pretends to be one. That's why you get stuff like that.
It's thousands of people standing for a cause that they strongly believe in. That makes it a movement.
 

AceCalhoon

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Aug 8, 2008
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I feel that this video is pretty much required watching for GamerGate-related discussion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtzrUsi6Y1s
 

Chinchama

New member
Mar 1, 2009
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Too many B.S. shenanigans over something that is just a game.

List of how to avoid stuff like this:

1) Treat other's equally and fairly
2) Be honest
3) Earn your praise through hard work and effort
4) Learn how to form your own opinions instead of taking in one person's bias (however, if everyone went by #2 this wouldn't be needed)

This is all just people being shitty to each other for what they feel may be for their own self benefit, on either side. And at no point everrrrrrrrrrrr should someone threaten to kill someone over a freaking game....that's just so mind blowing and subhuman to take something to such an extreme over a game. It's not like the people making threats have anything riding on the well being of the game other than it didn't meet their entertainment expectations or whatever. No one has the right to be that pissed because when they screamed entertain me, they didn't get what they want...lrn2doforyourself
 

Nimcha

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Dec 6, 2010
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V da Mighty Taco said:
Nimcha said:
V da Mighty Taco said:
Great. Just great. Yet another large organization going "the entirety of GamerGate are harassing, sexist assholes who just want to silence women". No acknowledgement of harassment towards GGers or anything, nor even a slight acknowledgement that not everyone in GG is like that (seriously, "the whole community"?).
Point is it doesn't matter. It's not a movement but it pretends to be one. That's why you get stuff like that.
It's thousands of people standing for a cause that they strongly believe in. That makes it a movement.
No, it's not. There's no cause and there's no way to determine if people actually believe the same as what you believe.

It's like Occupy all over again.