Removed

[Brainwreck]

FEAR IS THE LITTLE-DEATH THAT BRINGS TOTAL OBLITERATION.

Yes, the only reason I posted was because I noticed the title.
Now I feel stupid for remembering the Litany against Fear, because it is dumb.

Also, guy in question is skumbag and can go choke on a chode. But that's obvious.

 

[SonicWaffle]

When the hell did we get to the point that online multiplayer environments in which people voluntarily sign up for danger have been placed under the control of Barney the Dinosaur?

I'm with you. I realised that WoW is nothing for me when someone started berating me for PvP in a PvP area which you could only enter if you reached maximum level and that was classified as an open PvP area with events based around it (Tol Barad).

I just roamed around and killed everyone on sight, he was one unlucky bastard to cross my path 3 or 4 times, I didn't even realise that. Then he started talking how people would start hunting me down and I won't have any fun on the server anymore. He couldn't grasp the possibility that I wanted that to happen because the situation I was in could not be classified as fun in any way (the situation where PvP was only accepted in battlegrounds on a friggin PvP server). For fucks sake, I was in the one guild that throughout WoW was known for camping raid entrances and attacking cities to provoke open PvP. During the end of Burning Crusade I was among the most hunted players (there were several people that had me on 'Kill on sight', a lot of fun times resulted out of that).

This was literally the day where I stopped and realised that even with my delicate 21y back then I was from another time and not really welcome in the modern MMO(RPG)s. I moved to TF2 and never looked back (though I miss the fun I had with my warlock Kaspar - the namesake of my nickname).

I actually hate PvP. I dislike losing my stuff, I dislike losing my invested time (assuming I've been earning XP and then been killed before I could spend it), I dislike the grudges and the petty bitching and the people with a kill-on-sight list and the people with a kill-everyone-upon-login mentality. It interferes with my game, and I get negligible benefit from it because while I do enjoy stealing from other players I don't like the combat aspect, or the fear of being randomly attacked whilst going about my business.

My simple solution to this was to start a new character, and not to go PK. Just because I hate it and can find absolutely no fun in it doesn't mean the concept doesn't have merit for people other than myself. The root of the current dumbing-down problem seems to be people who can't accept that, and who want to entire concept of PK/PvP toned down so that they can play it their way.

 

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Fair point, the response of "oh please, don't look into this" does not bode well for what a critical examination might find, but it is a different matter. Who knows, maybe people were freaking out over nothing and games will actually be acquitted of having problematic content. Seems unlikely, but still.

I'm not quite sure that's what the response was indicating. It seemed to me that people weren't so much worried that Sarkeesian was going to uncover some X-Files-style conspiracy in the world of game development that endeavoured to keep the wimminfolk in the kitchen, but that they were more angered by the suggestion that video gaming is inherently sexist. There are probably a lot of gamers who took offence to that, because the (bad) logic at play is that if you love something inherently sexist then you are probably sexist.

A lot of the commentary surrounding The Anita Affair gave the impression that people felt personally slighted by her, amidst all the rants from anti-feminists and other assorted lunatics. Video games are bad, and you are a bad person for liking them, if you see what I mean.

Yay, free high-fives.

You say that as if people usually charge

Oh, sure. I suppose targeting her as "the cancer killing BioWare" while blaming her for things she was absolutely not involved in (like, of course, the ME3 ending) had nothing to do at all with her gender. No no.

I realise I'm now getting mixed into a part of your post that was directed at someone else, but still; I think you're off-base with this part. Was Hepler's gender a factor in the hatred she received? Undoubtedly. I'm not so sure it was a major part, though. It was more about making her a scapegoat and attacking her on the basis of general anger with BioWare after her comments got her noticed.

I'm not naive enough to say gender didn't play its part, but the fact that sexist epithets were levelled against her and that assuredly some of her detractors were largely attacking her for posessiong of a vagina doesn't mean it was an event entirely driven by sexism.

 

[DeadpanLunatic]

I have removed my words from this site.

 

[DugMachine]

I'm not scared of women, I have many female guild members in WoW that can kick my ass but if you're flaunting your boobs for views then I have no respect for you.

The issue with that line of reasoning is that it tends to place the impetus on women to cover themselves and hide rather than men to simply not perv out and drool over the slightest chance to maybe see some cleavage. It's the same basic assumption of men being entirely unable to control their urges that (following one hell of a slippery slope far enough) leads to things like defending rape with provocative clothing. I mean she was there, and looking all sexy. What was he supposed to do, not rape her?

Oh I agree. The fault ultimately falls with guys who can't control their urges and want to fuck everything with a pulse. But, my point was that there are in fact women out there who do abuse their good looks for views. They don't need to cover up. Hell, if you want to stream completely naked go for it but when they have thousands of viewers, I won't be surprised is all I'm saying.

 

[SonicWaffle]

You say that as if people usually charge

They sure charge me.

Have you tried washing your hands occasionally?

Oh there's certainly more at work there especially considering the outrage mostly concerned her not even playing games ( like that's integral to a writer's job) but then I am battling the assertion that it was an entirely neutral affair until she decided to bring gender into things here.

Well, for one I think a games writer does have a responsibilty to play games, because it's an entirely different narrative medium and one they should at least be familiar with. They don't have to be hardcore addicts who play games all day every day, but they should at least make the effort to play a few games a year and keep their hand in. Someone who exclusively writes for video games couldn't just write a play without actually watching one, and vice versa, so I think a basic familiarity with the medium and the way it tells stories is a must.

Secondly, she didn't actually say she doesn't play video games, just that she doesn't enjoy those parts which are not storyline related. Fair enough, though it does give me cause to wonder what she's doing in the industry rather than trying to work elsewhere.

Thirdly, I don't think that's the assertion at all. Given that five-year-old comments were dredged up and posted along with a torrent of abuse, it certainly didn't start from a neutral position. It started from a vehemently anti-BioWare position, she was attached to BioWare, ergo it was hardly neutral. The fact that she was chosen as the scapegoat rather than someone else smacks of underlying sexism, but I still think sexism was a distant second position to hatred of her company and position coupled with the anger roused by her comments.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I was hoping for a thread about Dune. Son, I am disappoint.

Less misleading thread titles can only be a good thing.

I thought this thread was going to be about Rez. Getting over the disappointment.

Sounds like this Shrine character has either never been laid or married to a total harpy; either way, he's taking it out on the wrong people and if he stays in that mindset his future will either be spent in continuing virginity or with an equally abusive harpy. I didn't realize anyone was feeling threatened by girl gamers. I didn't realize it was a thing. Girls have been gaming for as long as games have been around; shit, in ancient times it was one of the only things they were allowed to do. Why is it an issue now? I realize they're small, petty, pathetic boys, but they have to have some sort of reason, or is it really just the childish notion of putting a "no girls allowed" sign on the clubhouse.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Oh I agree. The fault ultimately falls with guys who can't control their urges and want to fuck everything with a pulse.

I'm not picky, pulse is optional.

But, my point was that there are in fact women out there who do abuse their good looks for views. They don't need to cover up. Hell, if you want to stream completely naked go for it but when they have thousands of viewers, I won't be surprised is all I'm saying.

There's no real problem with abusing your good looks to get views. Work with what you've got, and if you're reduced to using your looks to get attention then maybe you haven't got a whole lot else to work with. It only becomes a problem if you (or someone else) then cries sexism. I'm not sure how it's sexist when you're aware that men like to look at hot women in various stages of undress, you have offered them that, and they've taken you up on the offer. If you voluntarily became a sex object, you don't really have a right to complain that people are viewing you as a sex object. It's like giving free cake to fat people and then calling them disgusting pigs because they ate it.

 

[SonicWaffle]

FEAR IS THE LITTLE-DEATH THAT BRINGS TOTAL OBLITERATION.

Isn't "the little death" what the French call an orgasm, or am I mis-remembering something? I don't know about you, but I generally don't orgasm out of fear.

It requires at least one chipmunk and a heavy-duty industrial shredder.

 

[Savagezion]

Trolls showing up is not simplistic, the nature of her assertion was so simplistic and broad stroked that trolls were bound to show up. Go start a kickstarer and say "Books are sexist" or "Movies are racist" or "Music is homophobic" and see if trolls don't pop out. This is a no brainer.

And what of that? What of showing that some of the things games do are problematic? Is that not an argument, simply because, oh, that's what she must have thought from the start? I find the "She's not approaching this objectively!" complaint perfectly irrelevant, honestly. Of course she's approaching games from her background in feminism, and there's nothing wrong with that. Has she already decided that games are sexist? Possibly, but do you think it takes more than a passing glance at the industry that produces Gears of War, Army of Two and Call of Duty to see that maybe things are slightly off over here?

Hehe, "possibly"... that's funny. Her kickstarter video basically starts out with "Have you ever noticed how games are sexist towards women?" Paraphrasing, of course. You still arent grasping what I am saying. Objectivity isn't even the point I made in that post although, it is a valid claim. I am saying the faux pas she is pointing out are like the ABCs of tropes. This is not new information thus worthless idea to spend all that time and money on. Who seriously needs 2 episodes on Damsel in Distress? Even if it is being looked at objectively? It's elementary crap that children understand. However, if we look at it objectively, we would need to look at how cultural roots influenced this as it came from gender roles in all cultures. Moreso, we would want to look at possible reasons BESIDES SEXISM that this may be the case.

Do you think it takes more than a simple plot device to deem an entire work sexist?

Look, if you don't want to consider games or other things through that lens, that's fine, but this is getting a little weird. It's hardly shoehorning to include an example of possible sexism, say. The entire damn show is about sexism and the many ways the content we consume can be problematic.

You must have skipped the part where I mentioned I am all for the idea people are rallying behind on your side. Since you mentioned objectivity let me point something out to you. You can skew just about anything to an certain point of view so long as you go into it looking for it or intending to express it, that is where innuendo comes from. If you do that long enough you will start to just look at things in that perspective, naturally. This word is called bias. A show that is based not on the topic of sexism but on pointing out sexism that tries to determine if "possibly" games are sexist is heavily biased. That is not mental acrobatics, that is just a natural conclusion.

they are afraid she is gonna spread a lot of stupid into the world for no reason.

I think this can go without comment.

I think it speaks for itself too.

she hasn't even made a statement yet.

Nah, but fortunately we did. I suppose there's also the backlog of material to consider and, well, that it simply doesn't take much work to see how our industry is skewed towards masculine power fantasies.

Exactly! It doesn't take much work! Tah-dah, my point. Do you know why? Or are you just taking her word for it that it is sexism despite the fact that she won't show any proof of it, but instead make the assumption and show you a plot device.

Of course you're the ultimate judge of how mean I'm being, but I guess you're going to look pretty silly if I don't finish this Flash game about beating you up now.

Seriously? I have much thicker skin than that. Hell, I am tempted to make one real fast for you. I don't think you grasp just how much I think she cried foul just for the attention. I don't believe anyone willing to put their personal identity into the public via youtube or such doesn't have thicker skin than that. I don't buy into the whole "they're mean" crap, man. Save that for someone else. It's called being in the public eye and public image. If you ... oh, I don't know start a youtube series and can't handle the pressure of such, maybe you aren't that smart OR maybe you are using it as a ploy.

 

[Auron]

Whoever you are you're going to be ganked numerous times, as many as yours and the ganker's skill/boredom allows in fact, in a pvp server. The easy solution is going to a pve server, otherwise don't complain. Furthermore it's an ungodly amount of work to track someone and you need to have a high level character in the same server too.

Well certainly this one poor example shows that at least one guy is willing to put in the work for hunting a specific subset of people. Or what of the part where he goes into detail on ways for trolling the evil girl gamers on PvE servers? If you want to talk WoW at large, yeah, it probably isn't such a large issue, but if large scales is what we're after there's plenty of online gaming venues where tracking and harassing targets is easier.

The general and trade chat windows are usually, sadly, toxic enough against all kinds of species, sexes, colours and nubz(the worst kind of people obviously.) one more thing for the girl to /ignore is not a big deal in my eyes. Almost every single MMO nowadays has the same ruleset of Faction vs Faction and no talk between them, most allow you to have characters on both sides(which is how I suspect he does it, didn't care to watch enough of it to be honest.), I maintain that I think he's just generally trolling unless those streamers all play the same server which I don't think is the case.

If we start talking other genres, yes it's fairly easy to get into a fps server and harass someone. Mute and ignore usually exists in them so it's easy to solve, it would be nicer if we could just make people not be assholes but human history shows it's pretty unlikely.

One thing we tend to forget when discussing this is that men get trolled pretty hard too, in fact just as much. Xbox live is an extremely toxic environment for everyone I've seem numerous pieces detailing how it's misogynist. I don't consider it exclusively misogynist, they hate everything and everyone for free just to get a rise out of people I don't know why women deserve special consideration.

Lastly, I kind of agree with his assessment that some of these women are just trying to monetize their appearance, don't think mercilessly tracking them down on wow servers is the right answer though.
http://www.twitch.tv/tarababcock This is an excellent example, I watched a Starcraft game, she's a below average gold player. If a guy streams this kind of gameplay he gets trolled to death for being a noob she's earning money(no matter how much.)

 

[Brainwreck]

FEAR IS THE LITTLE-DEATH THAT BRINGS TOTAL OBLITERATION.

Isn't "the little death" what the French call an orgasm, or am I mis-remembering something? I don't know about you, but I generally don't orgasm out of fear.

It requires at least one chipmunk and a heavy-duty industrial shredder.

Well, you should ask the french about that.
Oh, and a tip: Last time I asked the french, I got a savage beating, so I'd advise you to first offer them wine and cheese.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Edit 3: Just looked at your profile and saw that you are a male named Joe. Clearly not Ms. Hernandez. So thanks for re-posting her article - I've bookmarked it for future reference.

Sadly I am indeed not Patricia Hernandez, but I did write this thing here. It also seems that streaming does not pay that much. [http://kotaku.com/5982137/theyre-attractive-theyre-women-and-they-play-games-live-on-the-internet-but-theyre-not-camwhores]

Yes, I read that one already. Still, I'm already playing games for free. Even 2 bucks an hour for a stream would be 2 bucks more than I'm earning during that time now. I'm not suggesting I quit my day job, just considering the possible benefits of earning some cash doing what I do already. The issue of needing a moderator to keep the chat clean is rather daunting, however.

Also - ah, I see! The way you linked her article at the bottom of yours made it seem like it was "more by this author" so (since you name isn't on the article and I can't access the pretty version through the top link) I thought that was the attribution rather than a related link.

Anyway, I will re-edit my original post to reflect how awesome you are. Great article!

 

[BabySinclair]

?I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.? - Dune

Because somebody had to post the quote and this not being a Dune thread is disheartning.

Anyhoos, there are some special people on the internet, some of whom post on this site that are intimidated by women. 20-1 there is one if not at least two threads on the Sarkeesian videos that are set to come out and you will find people wailing and gnashing their teeth on them. A number of socially awkward men thought they could escape women in the virtual world and are finding their isolationism less effective. There will be complaining and idiocracy.

 

[trouble_gum]

Well, this is just depressing, isn't it? Nevermind the videos, the comments sections are pretty short on sense, even by Youtube comments standards.

FEAR IS THE LITTLE-DEATH THAT BRINGS TOTAL OBLITERATION.

Isn't "the little death" what the French call an orgasm, or am I mis-remembering something? I don't know about you, but I generally don't orgasm out of fear.

You're not misremembering. La petite mort, or the little death is indeed a literary euphemism for orgasm.

One thing we tend to forget when discussing this is that men get trolled pretty hard too, in fact just as much.

Lastly, I kind of agree with his assessment that some of these women are just trying to monetize their appearance, don't think mercilessly tracking them down on wow servers is the right answer though.
http://www.twitch.tv/tarababcock This is an excellent example, I watched a Starcraft game, she's a below average gold player. If a guy streams this kind of gameplay he gets trolled to death for being a noob she's earning money(no matter how much.)

Generally, though, they're being trolled over how bad they are at , not trolled for being a guy.

And I feel that's the crucial difference here. Everyone would be reacting very differently to this whole thing if ShrineNI had pitched this as "How To Gank Terrible Streamers Who're Bad At WoW," as opposed to "How To Gank Girl Gamers." Possibly even if he'd pitched it as "How To Gank Girls Who Are Bad At WoW And Use Their Gender To Earn Money From Being Bad At WoW." I mean, I agree to a certain extent that GOTIS (Girl On The Internet Syndrome) shouldn't be a protective shield to exclude female gamers from being treated the same as male ones; with all the bad as well as the good. But that cuts both ways; gank them for being terrible at the game, gank them for earning money despite being bad at it, gank them because you can because they're not good at PvP and they're choosing to play on a PvP server. But don't do it and justify it with "cuz they're girls and whorez lul." And certainly don't encourage people to go do it with that justification.

 

[Cheesepower5]

I was wondering where the daily gender thread was. I don't much like Patricia Hernandez, but from what I see here, this Shrine character is a degree or four more abrasive. Hopefully a little backlash will show him the error of his ways, but I kind of doubt it. Wish I could be there to Shield of the Avenger everyone involved.

 

[Sonofadiddly]

"One woman wants to explore whether games might be sexist and our community jumps to attention to prove that they damn sure are."

GOLD.

These are pretty much the exact thoughts I have been thinking for some time now. It's downright baffling the way people react to anyone saying anything about sexism in video games by flipping out about free speech and censorship as though talking about a thing is somehow going to lead to video games being outlawed. I LOVE video games and I also regularly discuss the prevalence of sexism in the industry and the community. Why? Because I'm not a crazy person who thinks that video games are going to be banned. They couldn't even ban alcohol, and that actually can directly kill people. Nor have they made alcohol less potent. RELAX. Video games will be fine as long as they keep making a few people ridiculously wealthy! That's how capitalism works.

I am, however, concerned about the state of the industry and the stagnation we see in certain companies. I am also concerned about the image of the gaming community, as seen here:

Yeah, THIS IS THE EXACT REASON I AM ASHAMED TO TELL PEOPLE THAT I PLAY VIDEOGAMES AND WANT TO GIVE THEM UP ALTOGETHER!! Sorry for the caps, but I just had to get that out of my system. This is the single most disgusting gaming-related news I've seen all year. ARGH, I feel like kicking that little fucker's teeth down his throat right now. I cannot for the life of me think how a sane person can adapt such a vile mentality. My guess is that the guy's crush didn't want to go to prom with him and then he thought "Hurr all wimmen urrr eivull hurr durr".

Fuck that fucking fucker.

Do we want people to continue to view all gamers as incomprehensibly racist adolescent boy women haters? Because that's pretty much our image right now. How much creative brilliance have we missed out on because some genius programmer was like "Video games? I don't want to go near those hateful weirdos." Combating things like racism and sexism and homophobia in a community doesn't destroy it. IT MAKES IT BETTER.

As for Shrine, fuck that fucking fucker.

EDIT: PS. bartholen, I don't mean to say that you think gamers are racist little boys or to demonize you in any way. I quoted you mainly because MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY. I'd like to be proud of being a gamer, but some people make it so hard.

 

[Sonofadiddly]

Urgh, so an antisocial troll on the internet is mean to girls? Well boo-hoo.

I'm sorry, but this is not evidence for a "rampant sexism", saying it like that turns it into useless hyperbole that in no way helps anyone. Sure there's a lot of these weird creeps out there, but what do you expect+ there's millions upon millions of gamer around the world, some of them are going to be antisocial pricks, that's just how it is.

So the article is badly written hyperbole of the same useless crap we've seen a million times over, and what is there to discuss, that sexism is driven by fear? The article provides no reason for this to be the case, it just says "Oh feeeaarrrrrr, it drrrrove the mighty sexist horrrdes to strrrike down upon these purrre-hearrrted frrrredom fighterrrrs." It provides no reason why inexperience might as well be the case (it's usually the fear of the unknown that's the cause of sexism, racism, homophobia and all that).

Quick question.

If you've seen the same kind of article written on sexist stuff in video games a million times, isn't that pretty strong evidence for rampant sexism?

I love how people are constantly complaining that people are constantly complaining about sexism in video games, like every time there's a sexist thing they have to complain about it, it's all the time, geez, so annoying.

And then each time they make the argument that this single instance isn't evidence for rampant sexism. If something problematic pops up in the industry that frequently, I'm pretty sure we can call the problem "rampant."

 

[Deathmageddon]

I can understand a hatred of posers, but suggesting that all female gamers are posers? Noop. Love the Dune reference in the title of this article.