Over 1,800 Gaming Professionals Condemn Hate Speech in Open Letter

[ScorpionWasp]

The sad thing is, we people who took the time to research and fact check what's going on are and will probably remain a minority. I hazard the guess that the average reader peruses some articles and videos and that's that. And that's the demographic that matters. That's the demographic that has to be "protected" from us and our "contamination". These articles aren't meant to convince us. They're meant to try and keep who's still ignorant, ignorant. "Uninfected".

 

[hentropy]

If you want to know what the outrage here is all about, let me use a metaphor: yesterday, the leadership of faction A executed a highly coordinated carpet bombing operation that razed an entire town from faction B. People from faction B are furious and outraged. The next day, you open the newspaper and here are the headlines: "Random nobody from faction B witnessed being rude to old lady from faction A in bakery", "Faction B's beer more pricey and tastes like bear piss", "Wave of impolite behavior from faction B perplexes innocent Faction A's leadership", "Sign this petition to end the hatred"

No mention of anything relating to, you know, the carpet bombing that razed a freaking town yesterday. But how can you possibly be furious at something as innocent and agreeable as "Sign this petition to end the hatred"??? Only goes to show what an unreasonable savage you are. Which is precisely what they want people ignorant of what's really going on to think.

That's not a bad metaphor (for my purposes) because it applies to both sides. To one side, the unceasing harassment of Internet personalities for speaking their mind and driving of certain (female) figures from the industry is "the carpet bombing." To the other group, "corruption" (indie devs being close friends with journos covering them) is the "carpet bombing" or something close to it- and it's been going on for years.

What the latter side doesn't understand is that harassment and driving women from the industry is always, always going to be more goddamn important than hearsay about who was too cozy with who. Gaming reviews are simply not that important. Yellow journalism matters in mainstream media because it can start literal wars that end up with people dying.

It's a matter of perspective. Outside the gamer bubble, "X number of women being driven from the industry by #Gamergate" WILL NEVER LOOK GOOD ON YOU. No matter how much you try to tweet or repeat that it's about corruption and ethics, because no matter what you want it to be about, it has turned into a movement which has done nothing practical but sow more spite for gamers and is actively spooking people from the industry, as well as spooking people from speaking freely even in public spaces.

So stop it. Want to support the industry? Support the Fine Young Capitalists. Don't howl and scream about some kind of grand conspiracy that must be stopped at any cost when you're talking about video games.

P.S. guy I quoted, I don't direct any of the 'yous' in this post to you. You just brought up an interesting way to frame the argument, no matter what side you support.

 

[Something Amyss]

If you want to know what the outrage here is all about, let me use a metaphor: yesterday, the leadership of faction A executed a highly coordinated carpet bombing operation that razed an entire town from faction B. People from faction B are furious and outraged. The next day, you open the newspaper and here are the headlines: "Random nobody from faction B witnessed being rude to old lady from faction A in bakery", "Faction B's beer more pricey and tastes like bear piss", "Wave of impolite behavior from faction B perplexes innocent Faction A's leadership", "Sign this petition to end the hatred"

No mention of anything relating to, you know, the carpet bombing that razed a freaking town yesterday. But how can you possibly be furious at something as innocent and agreeable as "Sign this petition to end the hatred"??? Only goes to show what an unreasonable savage you are. Which is precisely what they want people ignorant of what's really going on to think.

I'm sure that made sense to you, but it's completely indistinguishable from a conspiracy theory on this end. Especially with this amorphous "THEY" concept.

 

[Artaneius]

Most basic example: The word "******". Black people can use it to refer to other black people all the time. I can't, since I'm a white guy, without, at best, getting dirty looks and at worst being called a racist. Why am I not allowed to use a word to refer to them that they use? Because it has negative connotations, yet they use it freely. That's privilege, not equality.

It's not privilege. It's a tiny, tiny rebalancing. Fact is, when you call a black person the n-word, you're participating in and contributing to an endemic and historically significant oppression of black people. When people laugh at your 'whiteness', it does you no significant harm, and it's not a product of any systemic harm being done to you and others like you. It's kind of a dick move, but it's not at all the same.

The thing is the literal word of equality has no symbolic meaning. If you ever want true equality to happen, which many minorities and feminists claim then your going to have to let others say things that you say to each other on a daily bases. Your also going to have to forget and forgive about things that no longer dictate what is right or wrong. Equality means being able to treat everyone the exact same. Historically, Africans enslaved themselves way before Europeans starting to setup trade in Africa. And slavery was something practiced since the stone age and all races did it. Look at things objectively rather than just what benefits your race, family, or ethnic origin. We consider ourselves smarter than previous generations but that's not the case.

 

[Something Amyss]

Horribly botched post. I'm going to try and fix it. Hang on.

 

[Something Amyss]

The entire problem is that they, and folks like yourself, are doing nothing but trying to limit the conversation to that initial ignition source.

You now, unless there's mind control involved, they don't have any power over you. Yet I keep seeing the "other side," so to speak, coming back to Quinnspiracy and Anita Sarkeesian. That's why

That would be where the desperate cries of "they just hate women" are originating from.

Sounds like crap. The people flinging poo at at Zoe and company are still doing so. It's bordering on ubiquity and looks like nothing more than a grudge match. To that end:

The community is upset because their legitimate concerns are being outright brushed aside by, again, the same people who's ethics are being called into question in the first place.

There should not be a politically (on either end of the spectrum) driven narrative, blatant conflicts of interest, cronyism, and incestuous behavior in an industry meant to cover games of all things.

And by and large, there has been no demonstration of the latter. Which is why the former sounds like conspiracy theory talk. Most of this is disparate information, cobbled together, taken out of context, to form a narrative, which you are accusing others of doing. A lot of this requires taking people at their word, while complaining about "the official story" and dismissing anyone who says things to the controversy. People should absolutely be against cronyism and conflicts of interest, but that sounds like nothing but more empty rhetoric at this point. The people who are "just asking questions" sound completely indistinguishable from truthers. And they use the same rhetoric.

If only someone had that power to simply not address the Quinnspiracy. If only it didn't sound like an Illuminati-level body would be necessary to keep things in check. If only there was more hard evidence for such grandiose claims. If only we loved just like before, there would be no war....Wait, that's a song. My bad.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Edit: Delete me. I'm not terribly bright.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Horribly botched post. I'm going to try and fix it. Hang on.

I was wondering about that...but sincerely, that exchange actually, somehow, ended on a surprisingly positive note. Any chance of just leaving it be?

I don't particularly want to get into this with ya.

Edit: God damn it. Too late.

You now, unless there's mind control involved, they don't have any power over you. Yet I keep seeing the "other side," so to speak, coming back to Quinnspiracy and Anita Sarkeesian. That's why

That would be where the desperate cries of "they just hate women" are originating from.

Sounds like crap. The people flinging poo at at Zoe and company are still doing so. It's bordering on ubiquity and looks like nothing more than a grudge match.

I'd really hoped "and folks like yourself" would be seen to encompass...well, all the "folks" who make a point of bringing that back up.

A decent chunk of the "dude, stay on topic" posts over in the mega thread have been toward people doing just that sort of thing, especially when some new information or accusation gets posted. They usually calm down, admit to having become distracted, and get back on point.

You do keep seeing it because, as I mentioned, it was the ignition source and, frankly, the narrative, from the other side, has been all about misogyny and harassment of women, so it's bound to be a recurring point of discussion, if only to offer reasons as to why it isn't about those things.

To that end:

The community is upset because their legitimate concerns are being outright brushed aside by, again, the same people who's ethics are being called into question in the first place.

There should not be a politically (on either end of the spectrum) driven narrative, blatant conflicts of interest, cronyism, and incestuous behavior in an industry meant to cover games of all things.

And by and large, there has been no demonstration of the latter. Which is why the former sounds like conspiracy theory talk. Most of this is disparate information, cobbled together, taken out of context, to form a narrative, which you are accusing others of doing. A lot of this requires taking people at their word, while complaining about "the official story" and dismissing anyone who says things to the controversy. People should absolutely be against cronyism and conflicts of interest, but that sounds like nothing but more empty rhetoric at this point. The people who are "just asking questions" sound completely indistinguishable from truthers. And they use the same rhetoric.

If only someone had that power to simply not address the Quinnspiracy. If only it didn't sound like an Illuminati-level body would be necessary to keep things in check. If only there was more hard evidence for such grandiose claims. If only we loved just like before, there would be no war....Wait, that's a song. My bad.

If you've looked through the amassed tweets, links, articles, infodumps, videos, and etc and still come to conclusion that accusations of corruption, with conflicts of interest/cronyism being the primary provable and not circumstantial (by admission of the people actually looking into this) facets, are nothing but people tinfoil hatting all over the place...then...all right? I'm glad you at least took the time to look through things before forming an opinion on the matter and I can't really argue with you on what you choose to believe at this juncture.

I do take issue with the "truther" comparison, however. It just comes off as hyperbolic.

I'm not at all claiming it's some big conspiracy and I take most "links" with a massive grain of salt, as we all should given the current atmosphere, but one can easily point to patreons and pre-existing relationships as points of honest contention in terms of conflicts of interest. At the very least, Kotaku and similar sites addressing the inquiries with changes to their policies illustrates that it is, in fact, a genuine point of concern, whatever you may think of the rest of it.

Apologies if I seem more disjointed or stupid (not hard) than usual. I'm going on 30 hours here.

Edit #2: ...My lack of mental faculties being further illustrated by forgetting to just edit my post.

 

[Six Ways]

The thing is the literal word of equality has no symbolic meaning. If you ever want true equality to happen, which many minorities and feminists claim then your going to have to let others say things that you say to each other on a daily bases. Your also going to have to forget and forgive about things that no longer dictate what is right or wrong. Equality means being able to treat everyone the exact same. Historically, Africans enslaved themselves way before Europeans starting to setup trade in Africa. And slavery was something practiced since the stone age and all races did it. Look at things objectively rather than just what benefits your race, family, or ethnic origin. We consider ourselves smarter than previous generations but that's not the case.

What you just said amounts to 'ignore inequality'. Inequality doesn't just go away because you act like it's not there. The poor stay poor, the rich stay rich, the oppressed stay oppressed etc etc. It's all very well saying 'just treat everyone equally', but the fact is the everyone isn't treated equally yet. So we have to fight actively for equality (not just passively say 'treat everyone equally', and in the meantime if black people reclaim the n-word as their own it's a total non-issue. When we get closer to equality in the more meaningful areas of life, then I'll care about that.

 

[Six Ways]

If you've looked through the amassed tweets, links, articles, infodumps, videos, and etc and still come to conclusion that accusations of corruption, with conflicts of interest/cronyism being the primary provable and not circumstantial (by admission of the people actually looking into this) facets, are nothing but people tinfoil hatting all over the place...then...all right? I'm glad you at least took the time to look through things before forming an opinion on the matter and I can't really argue with you on what you choose to believe at this juncture.

Frankly, the sheer volume of the stuff you refer to is a big part of why it looks exactly like conspiracy theorists doing their thang. The more of this stuff piles up, the more tenuous the links look and the more it resembles a chaotic assortment of newspaper cuttings plastered on a wall, scribbled on with red pen and webbed together with map pins and string.

one can easily point to patreons and pre-existing relationships as points of honest contention in terms of conflicts of interest. At the very least, Kotaku and similar sites addressing the inquiries with changes to their policies illustrates that it is, in fact, a genuine point of concern, whatever you may think of the rest of it.

There are certainly actual facts in there, and genuine concern. But as much as you personally might not take it as a conspiracy, in reality these are very small, innocent connections which only look sinister because they're being framed in the conspiracy narrative that GamerGate is formed around.

And I think a lot of it on 'our' side is refusal to engage with that narrative (which is again, based on conspiracy and born of sexism, even if that's not the only driving force now*), which can easily come off as a blanket dismissal of all concerns. Which I would say it's not, using the very Kotaku example you've given there.

*The reason I claim sexism is still a driving force is that a lot of this is going hand-in-hand with 'Get SJWs out of our hobby!', suggesting that at the very least, the sexist contingent of the community is using it as vindication and a platform for that agenda. For many, it's not about gender, but I have no doubt that it secretly is for a sizeable fraction, be it minority or majority.

 

[panador]

And where's the article about Boogie2988's petition, that has already gained over 8000 supporters?

 

[TKretts3]

Meanwhile, the trolls are furiously masturbating at all the attention they've received, and the games media and game devs alike get to have a guilt-free self-congratulatory wank over how they sure set those nasty gamers on the straight and narrow with the power of their self-righteous indignation.

The thing about trolls is that they really only want a certain amount of attention from a certain group of people. Some random forum goers giving them a bunch of exposure and attention? Yeah, cool, they laugh it off and celebrate. But when a lot of people, powerful people in a position do actually have an effect on things, take notice, that's when they have too much of the wrong kind of attention.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Frankly, the sheer volume of the stuff you refer to is a big part of why it looks exactly like conspiracy theorists doing their thang. The more of this stuff piles up, the more tenuous the links look and the more it resembles a chaotic assortment of newspaper cuttings plastered on a wall, scribbled on with red pen and webbed together with map pins and string.

The sheer volume isn't really a problem, to my eyes, as the connections being made (some of which are tenuous, I and those making them will and do readily admit it) aren't usually stretches of the imagination and, as I said in brackets, the far out ones are labeled as such or generally dog piled on for being that way. A driving ideal behind it seems to be "only bring forth and bank on what can be reasonably interpreted as evidence, back up your conclusions, and admit when you're wrong."

The idea seems to be to gather tidbits and context in order to cast as deep of a shadow of doubt as possible. To these people's credit, the saddest part about this whole thing is that they're not really having to try very hard in order to do it.

There are certainly actual facts in there, and genuine concern. But as much as you personally might not take it as a conspiracy, in reality these are very small, innocent connections which only look sinister because they're being framed in the conspiracy narrative that GamerGate is formed around.

And I think a lot of it on 'our' side is refusal to engage with that narrative (which is again, based on conspiracy and born of sexism, even if that's not the only driving force now*), which can easily come off as a blanket dismissal of all concerns. Which I would say it's not, using the very Kotaku example you've given there.

*The reason I claim sexism is still a driving force is that a lot of this is going hand-in-hand with 'Get SJWs out of our hobby!', suggesting that at the very least, the sexist contingent of the community is using it as vindication and a platform for that agenda. For many, it's not about gender, but I have no doubt that it secretly is for a sizeable fraction, be it minority or majority.

I'm glad that you can see there's at least some merit in what's being brought forth, but we just disagree on our interpretation of what is "innocent."

Journalists were and are reporting, positively, on the work of or in defense of friends, partners, and people they financially support without disclosing the information in their articles. Simply recusing themselves and handing it off to a peer or disclosing would have resolved that issue, but...no.

Frankly, this article by Erik Kain over at Forbes does a good job of outlining the problems involved here while being pretty even-handed, and still sort of falling on the non-gamergate side of things:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/

The primary problem is a fundamental lack of trust, which has been damaged even more during this debacle, and it's allowing for all sorts of ideologues to throw their hats into the ring and be taken seriously...well, more than there were to begin with anyway.

It's a bit of a cluster fuck in general.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Wow, a lot of people with backwards opinion with way too much time on their hands here in this forum. This community is toxic, and it's not Game Journalism fault that it's that way. It's ours. Their responses are the appropriate amount of disgust to how we behave, or nearly as damning, what we don't say and allow. Sure, I can see it being often tactless (the ISIS comment), and maybe a call for more thought is in order, but their condemnation is right on the mark. We constantly ruin the fun and some cases lives, for thousands if not millions of people with our terrible attitude and behavior, or our acceptance of it.

A woman can't even play online for one hour without being sexually harassed, nor can she show up at convention and be accepted by all as a legitimate fan of the hobby, or criticize the content of a game without being threatened with assault, murder, and rape of her and her family. And that's just our issue with gender and their still race and sexuality to contend with, so yeah, we need condemnation, and furthermore we need to purge any and every person that thinks that any of the above is acceptable.

This will probably be a bit offensive, but you're blatantly wrong and are (possibly unintentionally) being an example of exactly why so many in the gaming community are pissed off. Much of the gaming community is sick of being grouped in with the asshats that genuinely are misogynistic as fuck, and the notions that the way many high-profile gaming journalists have reacted is in any way appropriate is hypocritical at best. Telling people that they should die, putting words into people's mouths, deflecting all criticisms as misogyny and harassment, harassing and doxxing others - all of these thing are what many journalists are guilty of, and none of this is ever appropriate. That's not even touching the journalistic integrity side of this, either.

Simply put, gamers as a whole should not be written off as a bunch of misogynists, because most of us are not. We've gladly played with women in WoW, in TF2, in CoD even. We've followed women journalists, female devs, and lady gamers on their sites and channels. Just look at how popular Susan Arendt was on this very site as proof of that. To write all or even most of us off as women-hating douche bags who actively harass women at any given opportunity is... well, offensive. It's straight up offensive, and demeans us as people.

Yes, some people like Anita do get a LOT of crap, and there are misogynists that do harass and threaten her. However, most people who criticize her do so because of who she is personally, not because they hate all women as a whole. On top of that, even Anita's critics are nowhere near large enough to represent all gamers, so bundling them together only adds to the "grouping all gamers as misogynists" fire.

 

[kuolonen]

I spy with my little eye, companies called EA and Ubisoft. The two devils of gaming. And in any sane world this comment section should be full of comments talking about how we basically have Hitler and Stalin denouncing littering of streets. But no, we talk about the real problems with industry here. Like how we should tell people that making death threats are bad. God damn it.

Any sane person knows that that is wrong to do. Any person who does it regardless will not give a flying F*** no matter who tells him it is bad.

Man it must be party time in EA and Ubisoft right know!
*EA worker 1*:"Man, look at these dimwits arguing! What all stuff can we fly under the radar during this shitstorm?"
*EA worker 2*:"Well, we could make EA access a mandatory subscription to play any of our game?"
*EA worker 1*:"Ooh, I like that, nobody wont event notice if we can time it right with yet another "scandal".".

 

[Six Ways]

Spoiler

Frankly, the sheer volume of the stuff you refer to is a big part of why it looks exactly like conspiracy theorists doing their thang. The more of this stuff piles up, the more tenuous the links look and the more it resembles a chaotic assortment of newspaper cuttings plastered on a wall, scribbled on with red pen and webbed together with map pins and string.

The sheer volume isn't really a problem, to my eyes, as the connections being made (some of which are tenuous, I and those making them will and do readily admit it) aren't usually stretches of the imagination and, as I said in brackets, the far out ones are labeled as such or generally dog piled on for being that way. A driving ideal behind it seems to be "only bring forth and bank on what can be reasonably interpreted as evidence, back up your conclusions, and admit when you're wrong."

The idea seems to be to gather tidbits and context in order to cast as deep of a shadow of doubt as possible. To these people's credit, the saddest part about this whole thing is that they're not really having to try very hard in order to do it.

There are certainly actual facts in there, and genuine concern. But as much as you personally might not take it as a conspiracy, in reality these are very small, innocent connections which only look sinister because they're being framed in the conspiracy narrative that GamerGate is formed around.

And I think a lot of it on 'our' side is refusal to engage with that narrative (which is again, based on conspiracy and born of sexism, even if that's not the only driving force now*), which can easily come off as a blanket dismissal of all concerns. Which I would say it's not, using the very Kotaku example you've given there.

*The reason I claim sexism is still a driving force is that a lot of this is going hand-in-hand with 'Get SJWs out of our hobby!', suggesting that at the very least, the sexist contingent of the community is using it as vindication and a platform for that agenda. For many, it's not about gender, but I have no doubt that it secretly is for a sizeable fraction, be it minority or majority.

I'm glad that you can see there's at least some merit in what's being brought forth, but we just disagree on our interpretation of what is "innocent."

Journalists were and are reporting, positively, on the work of or in defense of friends, partners, and people they financially support without disclosing the information in their articles. Simply recusing themselves and handing it off to a peer or disclosing would have resolved that issue, but...no.

Frankly, this article by Erik Kain over at Forbes does a good job of outlining the problems involved here while being pretty even-handed, and still sort of falling on the non-gamergate side of things:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/

The primary problem is a fundamental lack of trust, which has been damaged even more during this debacle, and it's allowing for all sorts of ideologues to throw their hats into the ring and be taken seriously...well, more than there were to begin with anyway.

It's a bit of a cluster fuck in general.

Well - the main thing I'll say is, that was an excellent article. Probably the best I've seen on this whole thing. And yes, it's right about this being a culmination of a series of events and a general erosion of trust between gamers and the press. Which, again, is not to say it's simple - it's driven by a lot of factors, and I still strongly feel than sexism is one of the major ones. At the very least, that this would be far smaller without that factor.

Beyond that, I guess we're separated by how serious and/or important we feel the various parts of this to be, which seems to bring us down on opposite sides of the line. So... I guess I'll leave it there?

 

[ScorpionWasp]

I think what fuels the hostility to (specific) women in the gaming industry is not the fact they're women as everyone would like you to conveniently believe, but the fact that the bar is lowered for them. I'm sorry for the frankness, but this point needs to be made. Deep down, we all know that had Depression Quest been made by a guy, it would have vanished into the halls of oblivion and never been a thing. And yet, not only is its creator showered with coverage and acclaim and sponsors paying her a monthly salary just for existing, and sufficient influence to sink a game jam with losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over some perceived slight by staff; we are forced to accept the narrative that (up until this point, keep in mind) she's actually oppressed because random trolls say mean things to her online. Deep down, we all know no guy would get to raise $160,000+ to make a series of Youtube videos about one cultural aspect of games or another. But poor darling, having to endure all of the verbal abuse we had to endure in silence in one weekend of gaming on Battlenet, Xbox Live or Dota 2.

And the worst part of it all, is that you aren't "allowed" to point any of that out. Nobody is going to debate your points, nobody is going to try and dispute them with facts and evidence. What they are going to do, is call you a sexist woman-hater. The supreme irony here, is that the people who have a problem with preferential treatment being offered others solely on the basis of what chromosome they happen to have been born with are sexists, and the people who have no problem with that are not.

I don't think the resentment (yes, that's the right word) towards women in gaming is going to go away until men and women start being treated equally, *truly* equally. If there was an unspoken rule determining every game made by an Asian receives an automatic 10, you bet we'd be seeing hostility against Asians instead. It offends people's sense of meritocracy. But what do I know, clearly I'm just a misogynist.

PS: I'm still waiting for a project that will allow my privileged kind to come up with game ideas and have programmers and artists do all the hard work for them while they sit back and get 8% of the profits.

 

[Colour Scientist]

snip

That you Boudica?

How do you always spot this? XD


Do you have Boudica radar or something? Do your Boudica senses get all tingly whenever you see a suspect alt-account?

I'm always really oblivious to this kind of thing. She could come back with the name Boudico or Boudica2 and I probably still wouldn't cop that it's the same person.

 

[Six Ways]

Deep down, we all know no guy would get to raise $160,000+ to make a series of Youtube videos about one cultural aspect of games or another.

The only reason she got all that money and attention was because of the huge amount of misogyny she received merely for being a woman, talking about feminism in videogames. The hatred happened before 'the bar was lowered'. You've got cause and effect the wrong way round.

The way I see it, this is what happens the vast majority of the time with these things. The 'bar being lowered' is a response to misogyny, not the other way round.