I Canceled my Publisher's Club Subscription Today

BathorysGraveland2

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Feb 9, 2013
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sky14kemea said:
Thanks for letting us know?

I posted a letter yesterday. In a letterbox.

Just thought you might wanna know that.
Ah, but you have not told us why you posted that letter. What prompted such a thing? What was the cause for it to be written in the first place? Will you post another? If so, why? Will you post it through the same letterbox?

You are withholding information from us. You are being very secretive, and that might be cause for concern for the rest of us. Perhaps we should all remain suspicious of you from now on.
 

KokujinTensai

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Feb 11, 2009
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I blame the 90's for telling us all that we're "Special snowflakes"

Damn the 90's really fucked up my generation
 

TheYellowCellPhone

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Sep 26, 2009
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Dirty Hipsters said:
No, I mean that's basically it. Archon (Alex Macris, the general manager for the escapist) did an interview with Alec Baldwin about GamerGate and journalistic integrity, and people are flipping the fuck out because they think it means that the Escapist is pro-gamergate. That's really all there is to it. Archon was just the interviewer. He didn't take a stance on anything, he didn't say something inflammatory, all he did was perform an interview and people on the Social Justice side of things are flipping the fuck out. That is in fact the entire rundown.

Here's the interview if you want to read it:

http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/10/06/news/interview-adam-baldwin-gamergate-politics-ranger/
I-I thought people liked people who were pro-GamerGate? I thought this site was a majority of pro-Gamergate?

I feel like walking into this unbiased and keeping opinions shelved is the purest form of reporting!?
 

sky14kemea

Deus Ex-Mod
Jun 26, 2008
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BathorysGraveland2 said:
sky14kemea said:
Thanks for letting us know?

I posted a letter yesterday. In a letterbox.

Just thought you might wanna know that.
Ah, but you have not told us why you posted that letter. What prompted such a thing? What was the cause for it to be written in the first place? Will you post another? If so, why? Will you post it through the same letterbox?

You are withholding information from us. You are being very secretive, and that might be cause for concern for the rest of us. Perhaps we should all remain suspicious of you from now on.
I always use the same letterbox. It's right by my house.

I posted it 'cause the city council wanted information from me. Dundundun!
 

KokujinTensai

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Feb 11, 2009
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TheYellowCellPhone said:
Dirty Hipsters said:
No, I mean that's basically it. Archon (Alex Macris, the general manager for the escapist) did an interview with Alec Baldwin about GamerGate and journalistic integrity, and people are flipping the fuck out because they think it means that the Escapist is pro-gamergate. That's really all there is to it. Archon was just the interviewer. He didn't take a stance on anything, he didn't say something inflammatory, all he did was perform an interview and people on the Social Justice side of things are flipping the fuck out. That is in fact the entire rundown.

Here's the interview if you want to read it:

http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/10/06/news/interview-adam-baldwin-gamergate-politics-ranger/
I-I thought people liked people who were pro-GamerGate? I thought this site was a majority of pro-Gamergate?

I feel like walking into this unbiased and keeping opinions shelved is the purest form of reporting!?
LOL there are legions of people who despise Gamergate. Those tend to be a majority of the games media and Tumblr SJW's.

Anyone who can think critically and keep their emotions into check can clearly see that this situation isn't black and white.
 

TheYellowCellPhone

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Sep 26, 2009
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KokujinTensai said:
TheYellowCellPhone said:
Dirty Hipsters said:
No, I mean that's basically it. Archon (Alex Macris, the general manager for the escapist) did an interview with Alec Baldwin about GamerGate and journalistic integrity, and people are flipping the fuck out because they think it means that the Escapist is pro-gamergate. That's really all there is to it. Archon was just the interviewer. He didn't take a stance on anything, he didn't say something inflammatory, all he did was perform an interview and people on the Social Justice side of things are flipping the fuck out. That is in fact the entire rundown.

Here's the interview if you want to read it:

http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/10/06/news/interview-adam-baldwin-gamergate-politics-ranger/
I-I thought people liked people who were pro-GamerGate? I thought this site was a majority of pro-Gamergate?

I feel like walking into this unbiased and keeping opinions shelved is the purest form of reporting!?
LOL there are legions of people who despise Gamergate. Those tend to be a majority of the games media and Tumblr SJW's.

Anyone who can think critically and keep their emotions into check can clearly see that this situation isn't black and white.
I meant people on this site seem to be overwhelmingly pro-Gamergate.
 

Foolery

No.
Jun 5, 2013
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Ok, whatever lifts your luggage, man. I'm not really here for the content. Stopped watching most of it quite some time ago. I just stick around to chat with the community, though I'm sure no one cares whether my presence is here or not. Bottom-line, is that there are some cool folks on the Escapist, and that's what makes the site for me, not half-baked articles.
 

MysticSlayer

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Apr 14, 2013
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cthulhuspawn82 said:
My only advice would be to stop believing in the "evil patriarchy" for a week. Pretend that the feminists and SJW are just blowing hot air, and the issues they are bringing up don't really exist. Just "try" to believe that for one week. You'll notice your life will get a "lot" better. No arguments, no frustration, no oppression, and not being forced to cancel long standing subscriptions.

Your beliefs are causing you problems, and not bringing any benefit to your life. If "social justice" is your holy grail, you should take Henry Jones' advice.
It's not the beliefs. It is what people do with them.

By your logic, I could say that GamerGate is just a bunch of people blowing hot air at issues that don't exist because a few people in the group have decided to boycott certain websites (e.g. Kotaku, Polygon) and indie developers that don't support them. They also spend a lot of time arguing, so apparently they're always frustrated.

Really, teknoarcanist's post is no more a sign that SJWs are being torn down by their beliefs any more than the more extreme supporters of GamerGate are a sign that their beliefs are harmful. It's a sign that some people are highly dedicated to their beliefs and will do things that others view as extreme for those beliefs.
 

Mikeybb

Nunc est Durandum
Aug 19, 2014
862
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sky14kemea said:
Thanks for letting us know?

I posted a letter yesterday. In a letterbox.

Just thought you might wanna know that.
I've no idea what you're talking about.

Where can I download one of these letterboxes and how do I make an account to use it?
 

VanQ

Casual Plebeian
Oct 23, 2009
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Considering your reason for leaving, I'm glad to see the back of you. I chose to cancel my Pub Club when The Escapist printed that Critical Distance article because of how biased it was, how it didn't talk about both sides of the issue. But when they chose to actually stand up and show some integrity, and allow both sides of the argument to have their say, I quickly reinstated it.

So really, you're the kind of person I can't stand OP. And I think this forum would be slightly better off without you. Don't let the door hit you on the way out and I hope you find a place that won't offend you.

 

bazingabro

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Aug 18, 2014
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Thank you so much OP for letting me know there was a subscription option! I honestly had no idea that it even existed.
 

PsychedelicDiamond

Wild at Heart and weird on top
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Truly there is no greater sign of evil than suggesting that maybe videogaming journalism might suffer feom alack of legitimacy and employ some unsavory business practices, especially after these have been a almost regular iccorence for well over a decade. And to add insult to injury these diabolical evildoers actually started a campaign to advocate for improvement! Truly, it's a crime against everything that's wholesome.

All sarcasm aside though, it makes me happy to see that The Escapist gives some fair coverage to the cause rather than getting defensive and trying to completely deny all the problems of gaming journalism an starting a smear campaign against those that are pointing them out. Oh, but maybe you prefer to blame the victims rather than the culprits?
 

CrazyCapnMorgan

Is not insane, just crazy >:)
Jan 5, 2011
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Dirty Hipsters said:
TheYellowCellPhone said:
I have no idea what's going on.

Are you mad they didn't pick a side about GamerGate?
Are you mad they did pick a side about GamerGate?
If so, which side did they pick?
And why should I be upset about that side?
What article are you talking about?

Everyone's shitting on you for putting your foot down and speaking your mind... those guys stink, you're rightful to do that (even if you'll probably never read this). I'm not shitting on you for going against what the site did or does.

I'm shitting on you because I have no idea what you're talking about, and you had a few paragraphs to try to convince me, and you missed.
Archon did an interview with Adam Baldwin and now people are making a stink about it. That's about all there is to it.
Perhaps Archon should do an interview with Keith Olbermann next, eh? [/sarcasm]

OT: I think it's a necessity to have an open mind for all sides presented, and then to apply constructive criticisms, critical thought and debate to the views put forth. When done, hopefully the paradoxes and contradictions are burned away until a singular product, the truth, is revealed. It may be that there are myriad truths to a matter; if so, then so be it. I would rather have all people put their ideas on the table, discuss them with their reasons and evidence and see where the truth in the matter lies than to mindlessly echo sentiment or to criticize without actual debate. To do either of the latter is to invite needless hatred and friction upon ourselves and others, as if the collective of humanity needs more of that.

Or maybe I'm old fashioned at 33 and I should go back to playing FF1 & 2: Dawn of Souls on my GameBoy Advance. I dunno...
 

Spartan448

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Apr 2, 2011
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...Does this kid know what journalism is? Yes the New York Times is not about to launch an investigation into President Obama's birth certificate. But they didn't exactly ignore that issue either. While it was rarely front-page news except on slow news days, the topic was certainly covered. And while they never investigated the certificate, they certainly investigated the issue and there were articles that detailed the points of view of each side, interviews with major figures in each side, and a basic overview of the point of view of each side. Good journalism means that you know that the whole birth certificate thing is bullshit. But it also means knowing that there is a faction of people out there willing to risk quite a lot on the chance that it's not bullshit.

Ultimately, journalism boils down to Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. If you can accomplish all of those, than you have at the very least halfway decent journalistic integrity. Take the birth certificate issue. Who? President Obama, his family, and a sizable faction of people claiming his documents are falsified, most from the political far right. What? A movement of people upset at the results of the latest US presidential election, who believe that the new President is in fact ineligible to hold that position, on the grounds of the documents stating his place of birth being falsified. When? 2008 - present. Where? The United States of America, mostly Hawaii, the President's birth state. Why? A variety of reasons, and this is one of two places where covering the issue with full truthful representation actually requires investigation. There are a variety of reasons why the "birthers" claim what they do. Some will straight up admit they are looking for anything to get the President impeached. Some well and truly believe that the President cannot possibly be an American, and that the documents of his birth are falsified. Some are participating purely for the attention, while others seek to gain political clout among the voters the group represents, which can actually be significant given the way the American Primary System works. For a Republican candidate, it can be especially prudent to associate yourself with a group like the birthers in order to generate a larger groundswell of support from the part of your party most likely to vote, which is statistically more likely to be the extreme groups than any other group. How? This is the other part your journalistic investigation goes into. Birthers have tried everything from bribery to court orders to try to dig up information. But that's a much more elaborate topic, and finding a politician heavily invested in the shadier side of this could be a story in and of itself.

Now consider how these apply to GamerGate: Who? A bunch of people on the internet, whose stated goal is to improve the journalistic quality of games reporting. What? A large scale movement carried out mostly on social media and internet forums, with very little real-world presence. When? Over the last few months. Where? Truthfully, internationally. Why? This is again the best place to begin to dig. As said above, the stated reason is to improve the quality of games journalism. And on the surface that story checks out, after all, there are no games sites that can truly claim to be "games journalism sites", because very few of their "journalists" actually hold journalistic degrees. Reuters, an international news agency watchdog, reported that although it reviewed several high and low profile gaming news sites, not one qualified for syndication, with the highest scorer achieving a 15 of 100 on a journalistic integrity test. Yet, other motivations clearly exist in the GamerGate movement, and as a journalist, it is your job to investigate and dissect all of these motives. And to do that, you have to cover the people who actually have something important to say, and you have to cover the shitheads. The New York Times does not shy away from this. Everyone from Mahatma Gandhi to Aldof Hitler has been quoted in the New York Times. Karl Marx used to be a NYT correspondent. If you're going to report the news, you are not doing your job unless you report every aspect of it. BBC has interviewed terrorists. CNN regularly interviews people charged with capital crimes after the arrest. None of this diminishes their journalistic integrity, nor does it legitimize the points of view of the persons interviewed.

The very principle at the core of journalism is that every issue, no matter how ridiculous, has more than one face. And to be fair and balanced you have to cover all of them, no matter how crazy or offensive any of those sides may seem. Your job is not to legitimize them, and if you're doing your job correctly, you won't - a true journalist collects and states facts, nothing more. It does not matter how wrong a point may seem - as a journalist your duty is to cover it. They never report a war and not report both sides. Hell, CNN is horribly biased and they were the first cable news network to actually cover both sides of a war publicly; specifically the Gulf war. CNN covered the American side of the war, why the US forces were engaging, and at the same time, they were getting their interview with Saddam Hussein - They reported live through American bombings and reported the damage American bombers were doing to Iraqi citizens. That was a perspective of war that had rarely been covered before. And there are many who would view it as the wrong perspective - after all, Hussein was a dictator and a terrorist. But as a journalist you still have a duty to cover it.

But really, though, the one thing that has me more ticked off than anything:

Why would you subscribe to The Escapist, or really any gaming news site, if you are looking for journalistic integrity? The industry parties are widely known facts now; The number of adds on the site should be more than enough of a giveaway; There's nothing on the site to indicate any sort of syndication by a journalistic watchdog like Reuters; and I don't think I've seen anywhere anything saying the writers for The Escapist have degrees in journalism.

You people complain that you want more journalistic integrity in your games news, yet your wallets say things are fine the way they are. Way to go, gamers.
 

thehorror2

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Jan 25, 2010
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OP, did you read the article? The only "bad" thing they actually included was the segment written by one of the people confirmed to be part of the BAD side of GG. (As in, he was an active member of their harassment campaign) The rest of them are a nice mixture, coming down on varied sides of the issue. I'm personally against Gamergate, I don't think the movement can be salvaged, but I can respect giving the sane, balanced people on that side a platform to argue their case. Maybe something good can come from the ashes of this ridiculous farce, but that won't happen as long as both sides keep talking (or in GGs case, rape-threating) right past each other.
 

Stg

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Jul 19, 2011
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I've noticed a trend among varying websites and I'm afraid to say this site has lost me as well. Escapist, while I'll still visit to watch new videos, I don't even browse the forums anymore because all I ever see is this gamers gate crap. Anytime a forum as a whole sparks up a major debate (ie. religion/politics), you will immediately divide the entire website down the middle with most to the left, most to the right, and a small portion bouncing between either side. Maybe it's just me, but I never like seeing my hobby torn down to its core and every pixel analyzed to the point where even UIs are coming under fire for not being "gender sensitive".

I think it just hit me. This site has become a more coherent Tumblr. Same crap, different website names.
 

marksibly

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Oct 11, 2014
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I'm not a subscriber, just visit here occasionally for the zero punctuation reviews (great!), but I've been following the gamergate discussions here. I think it's kind of cool that the escapist has provided this forum, but after todays '(male) game developer speak' piece, kind of disappointed that it appears to be less interested in the 'journalistic ethics' angle than the 'male rights' one.

Anyway, I'm all for uncovering corruption in game journalism (I mean, duh, who isn't?), but the whole gamergate scene just seems to be so antagonistic towards so many people (Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Indie developers in general at one point, SJWs always) it is really, really hard to get on board.

For one thing, I'm probably what most people would call a 'social justice warrior' - in other words, a 'progressive' if this was a political debate. And the level of vitriol and hatred towards SJWs is pretty intense. It makes it hard to think gamergaters are serious about this, if they're so willing to alienate a sizeable chunk of gamers from the crusade. It also gives the whole thing a very conservative feel (rightly or wrongly).

For another thing, I seem to have completely different views of what exactly entails 'corruption' than gamergate does. Big companies buying good coverage; firing reviewers that give their products bad reviews, all that sort of thing IMO sucks and should stop. Yet gamergate seems to be obsessed with the 'small fry' - Kyle Orland's mailing list; Ben Kuchera contributing to a kickstarter, that sort of thing. I mean, these guys are gamers themselves and of course they are gonna be involved in the industry. I agree that some kind of 'declaration of conflict of interest' would be a good idea in Ben's case (you could probably include shareholding interests too), but the idea that they have to withdraw entirely from the industry is IMO kind of stupid in that it would result in *worse* journalism. I mean, what does gamergate want here? Journalists that hate games or something?

Then there's the whole 'gamers are dead' backlash. Given I'm an evil SJW, I tend to think Anita Sarkeesian, Leigh Alexander and co. do have some valid points - women, in general, do tend to get a raw deal in terms of their depiction in games IMO. I value their input, yet I don't feel at all threatened as a 'gamer' in any way, and I really don't get how so many gamergate people feel like these personal opinion pieces are personal attacks. It's another 'barrier' to gamergate - if you agree (to any degree) with Anita/Leigh, you are *NOT WELCOME*.

Finally, there's the dirty genesis of the whole thing. No matter how you cut it, it's really hard to escape the fact that gamergate originally grew from a nasty piece of slut-shaming. And gamergate as a 'tag' hasn't been able to shake that - it STILL seems to attract a nasty, misogynist type.

IMO, if gamergaters *really* want to fix corruption in game journalism, they should:

* Abandon 'gamergate' as a tag altogether. It's just too poisoned. Come up with something new that is JUST about journalism standards - not misogyny, or harrasment, or 'gamers are dead', or 'home alone didn't deserve that score' (it did!) or whatever.

* Make it more inclusive - believe it or not, SJWs are concerned about journalism ethics too.

* Aggressively police it for the misogynist/hater aspect. Yes, this means 'censorship', but any successful movement will attract trolls that will be impossible to just ignore. Yeah, censorship sucks, but getting stuff done isn't always pretty.

But I doubt that'll happen, because I suspect for far too many gamergate supporters it's not really about fixing corrupt journalism at all.
 

xPixelatedx

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Jan 19, 2011
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teknoarcanist said:
And that's all I have to say about that.
I will not leave a nasty comment like some others, but rather wish you well.
But please, read these words even if you disagree with them.

While your philosophy of absolutes must feel comforting, I say this not for the sake of those you would damn, but for your own: We don't have as much time on this world as it seems when we're first growing up, and you will find life quite difficult and unsatisfying if you view everyone as enemies or friends rather then just people. Also if we all lived by the idea we can't talk/discuss issues/compromise to those we deem as "evil", no peace treaty in the history of our world would have ever been signed, and it is entierly likely humanity wouldn't have even reached this point before becoming extinct.