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

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I bet if you put all the stupid things games journalists have said then compared that to all the death threats and stupid things gamers have said just against Anita it wouldn't even be close.

Look at any female game reviewer's comments and see how many comments are about her boobs or how pretty or ugly she is.

Look at the way gamers treated Carolyn Petit for her GTA 5 review.

Gamers have been treating reviewers and journalists like shit for so long it's not even comparable.

If you didn't engage in all the shitty behavior then I'm not talking about you, so don't bother me with your comments telling me how great you are and that it's only a handful of gamers that act like dicks.

I bet if you took a per-capita number, you'd see that maybe 0.5% of gamers have said stupid shit but I wonder how much the journalist percentage would be. I'm willing to bet a whole hell of a lot more.



There's infinitely more gamers than there's game journalists, hundreds of thousands of times more. It's disingenuous to look at instances of harassment and compare the sheer numbers of them. When 30% of game journalists wage war on gamer identity, that's a MUCH bigger deal than 0.5% of gamers being sexist assholes since 0.5% of ANY group will be sexist assholes and to make gamers a scapegoat for sexism is unfair.

 

[DarkRawen]

I'll make this clear for you by what I mean by purge: I want you removed from this site. You're shouldn't be welcome here. The existence of your account and your ability to comment is a detriment to community and has no value. I would like to see The Escapist take a heavier hand in moderating people like you. You're viewpoints are terrible, and have no business to be expressed. I will take ever opportunity I can to make my disgust known to the moderators, the editors, and to the content providers not to tolerate your comments and others like it. I have and will continue to submit feedback to encourage they lower the threshold of suspension and outright banning, until this site and the community it represents becomes a little more bearable. Maybe it won't change a thing, but maybe it will. In short, no this isn't posturing. I want you gone, and I'll keep pushing for it until it happens.

0_0

Wait... are you actually serious? You would have someone removed from the site for not sharing your opinion?

Wow. That's... wow.

OT: I wish the letter was less ambiguously worded. At this point, it's pretty hard to know if it's harassment of everyone that's considered bad, or of a chosen few, which makes it hard to judge. :/ Obviously, I'd hope it's the former.

Edit: Also, no offence to Tyriless, I simply don't agree with removing the voices of those who don't agree with one view-points.

 

[ByzantineEmperorInExile]

I'll make this clear for you by what I mean by purge: I want you removed from this site. You're shouldn't be welcome here. The existence of your account and your ability to comment is a detriment to community and has no value. I would like to see The Escapist take a heavier hand in moderating people like you. You're viewpoints are terrible, and have no business to be expressed. I will take ever opportunity I can to make my disgust known to the moderators, the editors, and to the content providers not to tolerate your comments and others like it. I have and will continue to submit feedback to encourage they lower the threshold of suspension and outright banning, until this site and the community it represents becomes a little more bearable. Maybe it won't change a thing, but maybe it will. In short, no this isn't posturing. I want you gone, and I'll keep pushing for it until it happens.

0_0

Wait... are you actually serious? You would have someone removed from the site for not sharing your opinion?

Wow. That's... wow.

OT: I wish the letter was less ambiguously worded. At this point, it's pretty hard to know if it's harassment of everyone that's considered bad, or of a chosen few, which makes it hard to judge. :/ Obviously, I'd hope it's the former.

Will you two please take an hour off the forum to cool yer brains and not engage on more kind words that might result in multiple bans and general frustration for both of you and the entire community? I recommend a beer and Netflix.

 

[The Bucket]

Can you stop making political/ethical/philosophical statements and start making good games... like in the old times? Please?

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.

Wow that's a lot of self flagellating hyperbole for one post!

Love how you write off ISIS as "tactless" but then claim "millions of lives" (that's "millions") are "ruined" (not "mildly inconvenienced", not "upset", actually "ruined").

The solution - "a purge"

And you probably wonder why few people take this PC posturing drek stuff seriously!

If you didn't engage in all the shitty behavior then I'm not talking about you, so don't bother me with your comments telling me how great you are and that it's only a handful of gamers that act like dicks.

I'll make this clear for you by what I mean by purge: I want you removed from this site. You're shouldn't be welcome here. The existence of your account and your ability to comment is a detriment to community and has no value. I would like to see The Escapist take a heavier hand in moderating people like you. You're viewpoints are terrible, and have no business to be expressed. I will take ever opportunity I can to make my disgust known to the moderators, the editors, and to the content providers not to tolerate your comments and others like it. I have and will continue to submit feedback to encourage they lower the threshold of suspension and outright banning, until this site and the community it represents becomes a little more bearable. Maybe it won't change a thing, but maybe it will. In short, no this isn't posturing. I want you gone, and I'll keep pushing for it until it happens.

I literally cannot fathom what you find so disagreeable about his post. He accused you of hyperbole, that doesn't even qualify as an insult. Unless this is some kind of next level irony i'm not getting.

 

[DarkRawen]

I'll make this clear for you by what I mean by purge: I want you removed from this site. You're shouldn't be welcome here. The existence of your account and your ability to comment is a detriment to community and has no value. I would like to see The Escapist take a heavier hand in moderating people like you. You're viewpoints are terrible, and have no business to be expressed. I will take ever opportunity I can to make my disgust known to the moderators, the editors, and to the content providers not to tolerate your comments and others like it. I have and will continue to submit feedback to encourage they lower the threshold of suspension and outright banning, until this site and the community it represents becomes a little more bearable. Maybe it won't change a thing, but maybe it will. In short, no this isn't posturing. I want you gone, and I'll keep pushing for it until it happens.

0_0

Wait... are you actually serious? You would have someone removed from the site for not sharing your opinion?

Wow. That's... wow.

OT: I wish the letter was less ambiguously worded. At this point, it's pretty hard to know if it's harassment of everyone that's considered bad, or of a chosen few, which makes it hard to judge. :/ Obviously, I'd hope it's the former.

Will you two please take an hour off the forum to cool yer brains and not engage on more kind words that might result in multiple bans and general frustration for both of you and the entire community? I recommend a beer and Netflix.

Huh? I haven't engaged with this person before, nor posted in this forum, I was just addressing their former post... ):

Edit: Also, I can't see any issues with my language, I was simply expressing surprise/shock over that someone would go that far.

 

[ByzantineEmperorInExile]

I'll make this clear for you by what I mean by purge: I want you removed from this site. You're shouldn't be welcome here. The existence of your account and your ability to comment is a detriment to community and has no value. I would like to see The Escapist take a heavier hand in moderating people like you. You're viewpoints are terrible, and have no business to be expressed. I will take ever opportunity I can to make my disgust known to the moderators, the editors, and to the content providers not to tolerate your comments and others like it. I have and will continue to submit feedback to encourage they lower the threshold of suspension and outright banning, until this site and the community it represents becomes a little more bearable. Maybe it won't change a thing, but maybe it will. In short, no this isn't posturing. I want you gone, and I'll keep pushing for it until it happens.

0_0

Wait... are you actually serious? You would have someone removed from the site for not sharing your opinion?

Wow. That's... wow.

OT: I wish the letter was less ambiguously worded. At this point, it's pretty hard to know if it's harassment of everyone that's considered bad, or of a chosen few, which makes it hard to judge. :/ Obviously, I'd hope it's the former.

Will you two please take an hour off the forum to cool yer brains and not engage on more kind words that might result in multiple bans and general frustration for both of you and the entire community? I recommend a beer and Netflix.

Huh? I haven't engaged with this person before, nor posted in this forum, I was just addressing their former post... ):

When you walk the streets and a drunken dude pukes on you, you don't stop to argue about morals or how you don't deserve the puke.

You go home and clean yourself and forget about it.

 

[AkaDad]

I bet if you put all the stupid things games journalists have said then compared that to all the death threats and stupid things gamers have said just against Anita it wouldn't even be close.

Look at any female game reviewer's comments and see how many comments are about her boobs or how pretty or ugly she is.

Look at the way gamers treated Carolyn Petit for her GTA 5 review.

Gamers have been treating reviewers and journalists like shit for so long it's not even comparable.

If you didn't engage in all the shitty behavior then I'm not talking about you, so don't bother me with your comments telling me how great you are and that it's only a handful of gamers that act like dicks.

I bet if you took a per-capita number, you'd see that maybe 0.5% of gamers have said stupid shit but I wonder how much the journalist percentage would be. I'm willing to bet a whole hell of a lot more.



There's infinitely more gamers than there's game journalists, hundreds of thousands of times more. It's disingenuous to look at instances of harassment and compare the sheer numbers of them. When 30% of game journalists wage war on gamer identity, that's a MUCH bigger deal than 0.5% of gamers being sexist assholes since 0.5% of ANY group will be sexist assholes and to make gamers a scapegoat for sexism is unfair.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, game reviewers are shit on by gamers. Female gamers told to stop reviewing and make sandwiches. Reviewers being accused of taking bribes.

Then journalists say they wish those asshole gamers to figuratively die off it's a fucking outrage. How dare they say hurtful things! Show us some respect!

It's fucking hilarious how people get indignant when they're on the receiving end.

 

[ByzantineEmperorInExile]

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, game reviewers are shit on by gamers. Female gamers told to stop reviewing and make sandwiches. Reviewers being accused of taking bribes.

Then journalists say they wish those asshole gamers to figuratively die off it's a fucking outrage. How dare they say hurtful things! Show us some respect!

It's fucking hilarious how people get indignant when they're on the receiving end.

That is not what happened, that is not how it happened, you should check your facts and stop believing the bullshit news that are being sold to you. Seek the truth. Think for yourself. And try to do so calmly.

 

[DarkRawen]

I'll make this clear for you by what I mean by purge: I want you removed from this site. You're shouldn't be welcome here. The existence of your account and your ability to comment is a detriment to community and has no value. I would like to see The Escapist take a heavier hand in moderating people like you. You're viewpoints are terrible, and have no business to be expressed. I will take ever opportunity I can to make my disgust known to the moderators, the editors, and to the content providers not to tolerate your comments and others like it. I have and will continue to submit feedback to encourage they lower the threshold of suspension and outright banning, until this site and the community it represents becomes a little more bearable. Maybe it won't change a thing, but maybe it will. In short, no this isn't posturing. I want you gone, and I'll keep pushing for it until it happens.

0_0

Wait... are you actually serious? You would have someone removed from the site for not sharing your opinion?

Wow. That's... wow.

OT: I wish the letter was less ambiguously worded. At this point, it's pretty hard to know if it's harassment of everyone that's considered bad, or of a chosen few, which makes it hard to judge. :/ Obviously, I'd hope it's the former.

Will you two please take an hour off the forum to cool yer brains and not engage on more kind words that might result in multiple bans and general frustration for both of you and the entire community? I recommend a beer and Netflix.

Huh? I haven't engaged with this person before, nor posted in this forum, I was just addressing their former post... ):

When you walk the streets and a drunken dude pukes on you, you don't stop to argue about morals or how you don't deserve the puke.

You go home and clean yourself and forget about it.

Edit your mistake, then, because this is quite rude, and pretty uncalled for. :/ I didn't engage in the conversation before that, yet you told me to calm down for words I haven't used.

I'll leave the thread and go to sleep, just stop acting like it's my fault for simply disagreeing with the notion of pushing for the removal of someone one does not agree with. ):

Edit: I'm sorry for having derailed the conversation as well, I suppose I should just have kept quiet from the start. :/

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I bet if you put all the stupid things games journalists have said then compared that to all the death threats and stupid things gamers have said just against Anita it wouldn't even be close.

Look at any female game reviewer's comments and see how many comments are about her boobs or how pretty or ugly she is.

Look at the way gamers treated Carolyn Petit for her GTA 5 review.

Gamers have been treating reviewers and journalists like shit for so long it's not even comparable.

If you didn't engage in all the shitty behavior then I'm not talking about you, so don't bother me with your comments telling me how great you are and that it's only a handful of gamers that act like dicks.

I bet if you took a per-capita number, you'd see that maybe 0.5% of gamers have said stupid shit but I wonder how much the journalist percentage would be. I'm willing to bet a whole hell of a lot more.



There's infinitely more gamers than there's game journalists, hundreds of thousands of times more. It's disingenuous to look at instances of harassment and compare the sheer numbers of them. When 30% of game journalists wage war on gamer identity, that's a MUCH bigger deal than 0.5% of gamers being sexist assholes since 0.5% of ANY group will be sexist assholes and to make gamers a scapegoat for sexism is unfair.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, game reviewers are shit on by gamers. Female gamers told to stop reviewing and make sandwiches. Reviewers being accused of taking bribes.

Then journalists say they wish those asshole gamers to figuratively die off it's a fucking outrage. How dare they say hurtful things! Show us some respect!

It's fucking hilarious how people get indignant when they're on the receiving end.

They're still only a tiny miniscule fraction of us "gamers" as a whole. Use a different word. If you used "black people" instead of "criminals" in a story regarding daily gun violence just because some criminals happen to be black or "women" instead of "prostitutes" in a story about prostitution just because some prostitutes are female, do you think that'd be acceptable in any way shape or form?


You don't even know they're "gamers". They're "people who post horrible shit online" as far as you can know. Anyone with a phone or PC can do that. They're not us.

 

[The Bucket]

I bet if you put all the stupid things games journalists have said then compared that to all the death threats and stupid things gamers have said just against Anita it wouldn't even be close.

Look at any female game reviewer's comments and see how many comments are about her boobs or how pretty or ugly she is.

Look at the way gamers treated Carolyn Petit for her GTA 5 review.

Gamers have been treating reviewers and journalists like shit for so long it's not even comparable.

If you didn't engage in all the shitty behavior then I'm not talking about you, so don't bother me with your comments telling me how great you are and that it's only a handful of gamers that act like dicks.

I bet if you took a per-capita number, you'd see that maybe 0.5% of gamers have said stupid shit but I wonder how much the journalist percentage would be. I'm willing to bet a whole hell of a lot more.



There's infinitely more gamers than there's game journalists, hundreds of thousands of times more. It's disingenuous to look at instances of harassment and compare the sheer numbers of them. When 30% of game journalists wage war on gamer identity, that's a MUCH bigger deal than 0.5% of gamers being sexist assholes since 0.5% of ANY group will be sexist assholes and to make gamers a scapegoat for sexism is unfair.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, game reviewers are shit on by gamers. Female gamers told to stop reviewing and make sandwiches. Reviewers being accused of taking bribes.

Then journalists say they wish those asshole gamers to figuratively die off it's a fucking outrage. How dare they say hurtful things! Show us some respect!

It's fucking hilarious how people get indignant when they're on the receiving end.

If you step outside gaming for a moment, you'll see this is true of virtually every hobby. You can't stop assholes being asshole; you can report and condemn the ones who go too far (as we all should) but there are always more. That doesn't give you the right to climb up into your ivory tower and attack the whole group for the actions of a few.
And regarding reviewers taking bribes; as with everything there are people who take things too far; but after the Kane and Lynch debacle, the Dorito incident and many more examples of unethical behavior, games journalists shouldn't take healthy skepticism as abuse

 

[AkaDad]

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, game reviewers are shit on by gamers. Female gamers told to stop reviewing and make sandwiches. Reviewers being accused of taking bribes.

Then journalists say they wish those asshole gamers to figuratively die off it's a fucking outrage. How dare they say hurtful things! Show us some respect!

It's fucking hilarious how people get indignant when they're on the receiving end.

That is not what happened, that is not how it happened, you should check your facts and stop believing the bullshit news that are being sold to you. Seek the truth. Think for yourself. And try to do so calmly.

I've been gaming for close to 40 years. I've been online close to 20 years. I've watched this all play out. How dare you accuse me of lying and being some propaganda receptacle who can't think for himself.

Asshole gamers have been giving the hobby that I love a bad name for way too long, I and others are fed up with it.

 

[ByzantineEmperorInExile]

I've been gaming for close to 40 years. I've been online close to 20 years. I've watched this all play out. How dare you accuse me of lying and being some propaganda receptacle who can't think for himself.

Asshole gamers have been giving the hobby that I love a bad name for way too long, I and others are fed up with it.

And in all your experience and wisdom you haven't thought about not using Appeal to Authority as an argument? Calm down, take a breath, think, then write, and I'm sure we can have some sort of meaningful discussion.

 

[Aramis Night]

Is it just me or is there just this consistent theme among those that defend the gaming media lately, where the sentiment seems to boil down to arguments stemming from ignorance? I just can't help but notice that subtext always seems to be that:
1. They don't know what is going on and they don't honestly care to know because either no one should care in the first place about something they don't see the big deal about and therefore not worth the effort to find out. or...
2. They heard that this is all about gamers ganging up on women and they buy the smoke screen that the media journalists themselves are under attack because they dare to defend women in the industry because they saw some tweets or comments put forth by the less disciplined or articulate among the "gamers" and decided they we are all bad people by association with no real purpose rather than to be sexists.

I don't think I have yet ran across any comments from anyone in opposition to the "gamers" who actually seems to know what this is even about. What is even worse is that the ignorance appears entirely willful or just a product of laziness or apathy. I can appreciate that maybe they don't trust that any of our sources on the matter will be unbiased. The irony is that neither is the information that you likely have about this already, and that is precisely why the "gamers" are mad.

 

[AkaDad]

I've been gaming for close to 40 years. I've been online close to 20 years. I've watched this all play out. How dare you accuse me of lying and being some propaganda receptacle who can't think for himself.

Asshole gamers have been giving the hobby that I love a bad name for way too long, I and others are fed up with it.

And in all your experience and wisdom you haven't thought about not using Appeal to Authority as an argument? Calm down, take a breath, think, then write, and I'm sure we can have some sort of meaningful discussion.

My deepest and sincerest apologies for not being calm after someone accuses me of lying. What was I thinking?

Thanks for suggesting the proper way to comment, I'll take that into consideration.

Anyone who wants to ignore the abuse that gamers, reviewers, and journalist have taken over the years can, that's up to you, but it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Jim Sterling still gets shit on for his Vanquish review.

I also shouldn't have to put up a disclaimer that says I'm not talking about all gamers, I mean come on.

 

[AstaresPanda]

Nope same games we play together. L4D2 and TF2. Perhaps its less of an issue with the PC gamer community ?

perhaps these hateful people were never more than a minority and everyone exaggerated the issue

Often the minority in these cases that have the louder voice as everyone else is getting on with cappin points and pwning each other. Would say perhaps an age thing ? PC gamers seem to be older due to assumed cost of a gaming pc next to the assumed cheapness of a console.

maybe, tough i wouldnt dare say anybody playing dota 2 is over 12 years old hehe

theres harassment and hate in MOBAs, but its pure undirected hate, it has nothing to do with gender or race, if you are sucking in one of those games (or if everyone else is sucking but they dont want to admit it) you will get insulted

Thats how ive always seen it. I dont play MOBAs i guess the cloest thing is Dawn of War 2 but either way it does get very competitive, and if the game is going on the anger rises and the spew of hateful commments come out. Its not based on the players gender, sexuality or race. They cant know this all the time i mean all you have is a mic to find out if its male or female. But its just that game is going bad FUUUUUCCCKK SHIT DICKS GAY MOTHER FUCKING DAMIT FUCK ***** CARPET LICKING N00B !!! or somthing along those lines.

 

[ByzantineEmperorInExile]

Ah, the Twitter accounts of gaming journalists. You won't soon find a bigger hive of scum and villainy. Also, Adam Sessler said that? Seriously?! Wow, he's become a little bitter, hasn't he?

You're also not going to find a bigger hive of people who should have taken one of those corporative e-learnings on how to behave yourself professionaly on the internet.

But then again if these glorified bloggers were actual professionals they wouldn't have got themselves into this mess in the first time, ese.

Social extremists? The statement says "Diversity is good, please report harassment when you see it, make online communities a more fun place to be." What is so extreme about that?

Buddy that is NOT their statement. Sarkeesian herself was caught on tape talking about how she didn't play video games until a couple of months before starting her KS, and the exact same video game footage used on her videos can sometimes (not always, sometimes) be found to have come from Let's Plays on youtube. Their statement is that YOU, GAMER, don't know what is best for your hobby. THEY, political activists, know. And that you need to be taught what to think by professional activists.

 

[R0guy]

How dare you accuse me of lying and being some propaganda receptacle who can't think for himself.

Well, certainly looks like you are. You're utterly incapable of seeing anything in the other side of the argument. Which makes you the definition of a Fanatic.

We have many women/black/gay gamers in the Zoe Quinn thread. Are you gonna tell them about their "internalized misoginy/racism"?

 

[chadachada123]

Is it just me or is there just this consistent theme among those that defend the gaming media lately, where the sentiment seems to boil down to arguments stemming from ignorance? I just can't help but notice that subtext always seems to be that:
1. They don't know what is going on and they don't honestly care to know because either no one should care in the first place about something they don't see the big deal about and therefore not worth the effort to find out. or...
2. They heard that this is all about gamers ganging up on women and they buy the smoke screen that the media journalists themselves are under attack because they dare to defend women in the industry because they saw some tweets or comments put forth by the less disciplined or articulate among the "gamers" and decided they we are all bad people by association with no real purpose rather than to be sexists.

I don't think I have yet ran across any comments from anyone in opposition to the "gamers" who actually seems to know what this is even about. What is even worse is that the ignorance appears entirely willful or just a product of laziness or apathy. I can appreciate that maybe they don't trust that any of our sources on the matter will be unbiased. The irony is that neither is the information that you likely have about this already, and that is precisely why the "gamers" are mad.

I don't quite know how to express just how right you are, just how perfect your post is, as it encompasses EXACTLY what nearly everyone that isn't part of the minority of misogynists/harassers/trolls has been saying for the past two (three?) weeks.

Luckily, gamers as a whole are seeing through this massive misdirection and the massive media blackouts.

 

[Racecarlock]

I'd like to make a point here.

Who didn't stop those trolls? Who didn't report them? Who didn't at least post a reply saying "No, it's not okay to say that, I don't care what medium of speech you're on"? Who refused to stop any of these trolls because "Well, there's just so many so let's not even try"? And then you're getting all mad at gaming journalism because it has the GALL to finally stand up and respond to the tide of shit we let them get away with?

I mean, you don't need to call the cops or anything. Just reply to them. Just say something back. "Don't feed the trolls" is not a good excuse to let them run wild and post hate with impunity. You wonder why this happened? It's because you didn't do shit.

People still smoking doesn't stop anti-smoking campaigns. People still dying in car crashes doesn't stop others from trying to prevent as many as possible. The point is, they're at least doing shit. And we're sitting around here feeling all sorry for ourselves because "Games journalism" actually decided to give a shit and respond to these assholes. Could they have used a better word than "Gamers"? Sure they could have. But we refused to call out toxicity when we saw it and now we're dealing with the fallout. You want to know why the press is against you right now? This is why.