The Big Picture: Remembering the Real Jack Thompson

[Jaytr13]

It IS about ethics in games journalism. Anita went on the Colbert report to talk with him about GamerGate. Did you forget that? because I didn't.

Also, GamerGate is everyone's issue. Just because she isn't a journalist doesn't mean she can't talk about it. She has a voice now, even though I hate that she does.

She's going to express her thoughts on it. Only thing i don't agree with is using her newly found voice to try and co-opt our medium as a fall back for a career opportunity. You realize she gets funding for the stuff she's done, right? Jonathan McIntosh writes for her series.

but she has absolutely nothing to do with game journalism. Yes she went on Colbert to talk about the harassment she received from gamergate people.


So how does she even factor into the Gamergate push for ethics in journalism if it is really about that?

I'll repeat myself with the part of my argument you chose not address.

except as people defending it have pointed out THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO PLAY THE GAME. The game designers had to program the game so this was all possible. They had to program the strippers AI so they cower in fear instead of fighting back or running away. The only reason they would be designed in such a way is as she said as to give the players pleasure in killing them. The strippers will even stand still and not notice that you have killed the girl standing right next to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPqTm3KgABM

Ok here we go.

While there is no inherently off limits way to play the game, the game itself doe have systems contained within in that encourage or discourage certain approaches.

The most evident one is losing score and as such rating if you decide to play the game a different way. It won't end your experience instantly but it will place sanctions. There sanctions instantly are less score, slightly later it might be higher alter from guards making the game harder.

In older some of the older Hitman games they tried a notoriety mechanic where by your performance or lack there of in previous missions would cause you to be more or less easily spotted thus actively punishing you for not playing the game a certain way.


The same argument you're applying to Hitman for allowing these behaviours can be levelled at The Sims


Now while the Sims doesn't even as actively punish people for creating a Sim just to be mean to. You can do it. The game does punish you in a way by slowing progress.

So is that problematic in the Sims that you can create people just to torture them ?
The only reason the pool was in the Sims was to drown Sims.
The only reason Knives exist is to stab people.
Can you see a problem yet with only allowing one interpretation to be allowed ?

As for the Stripper Standing still and not realizing........ poor AI coding the AI coding most likely was done such that they only realise when they have line of sight of a body. Remember these are the equivalent of programmed robots trying to act human. Trying to claim it was malicious because it's not realistic enough discounts the far more simple explanation. The designer was lazy or didn't have the time / money to make the coding more complex.

Of course... if Gamergate really is about ethics in Journalism then Anita should never be brought up as she isn't a games journalist or a game developer. She has absolutely nothing to do with Gamergate if it is indeed about ethics in journalism

GamerGate is everyone's issue. Just because she isn't a journalist doesn't mean she can't talk about it. She has a voice now, even though I hate that she does.

She's going to express her thoughts on it. Only thing I don't agree with is using her newly found voice to try and co-opt our medium as a fall back for a career opportunity. You realize she gets funding for the stuff she's done, right? Jonathan McIntosh writes for her series.

 

[The Deadpool]

What's more is that our comparison with her argument that games make people sexist is just one of her arguments. Her call for more valid representations of females is an entirely separate argument that has nothing to do with Thompson. So rejecting her baseless argument in one area doesn't mean she's necessarily wrong all around. It certainly doesn't dismiss arguments that a female consumer should count for the same as a male consumer. That's something many if not most of us are fine with. Many of us think fair and equal treatment where one dollar counts for one dollar no matter the chromosome it comes from is the right thing to support.

I agree. I would love to see more female PCs and female players to be taken into consideration more often. This is something I think most everyone could get behind.

But the effects media has on the thoughts and minds of the impressionable has been proven to be negligible at EVERY step... at EVERY form of media. It's kind of absurd that it's still going on...

 

[Silvanus]

Fundamentally, they are arguing the same thing: That media influences our outlook in life as opposed to our outlook in life influencing media.

That media influences outlook shouldn't really be the source of much disagreement. Of course it does. Whether it causes it is another question entirely.

Obviously, the position that media influences outlook is not mutually exclusive with the position that outlook influences media. Not sure it's stated as an 'either/or'.

Jack picked Violence. Anita picked Sexism. Otherwise, their argument is essentially the same.

Only if you reduce their positions to that premise. They were advocating wildly different approaches to handling the media.

 

[The Choke]

Ahhh, but just because you THINK critical thought protects you, then it means it harms you MORE!

I was actually suggesting that a deconstruction of feminist support for Anita Sarkeesian would, rather than try to disprove, use the third person effect to show how people predisposed to support feminism or think negatively about sexism (most people) are more likely to support an unsubstantiated claim, or the limitation, censorship, or banning of something perceived to be against the thing people are predisposed to support. It's one of the more dangerous aspects of the third person effect. You can have that one for free, GGers.

If games made gamers misogynistic then there would be no gamers to agree with her. The fact that most of her stuff is met with approval from gamers proves that gamers aren't affected by games that badly...

I'm actually not 100% on what you're driving at here and so don't want to respond too pointedly to it, but I would say that the popularity of her work actually is a part of the Streisand Effect. I was a fan of her videos before her Kickstarter campaign (I think her two parter on Legos and advertising is probably her best one, but I actually appreciate how the original videos were much shorter and delved into comics, television shows, and movies) and I can tell you that there were never that many comments on them. After the Kickstarter, all the videos comments filled up with some pretty vile stuff. That was two years ago, and perhaps these days there wouldn't be the same reaction, but that media approval is likely spurred on by the undeniable wave of harassment that happened during the 2012 Kickstarter campaign. I certainly don't think she would have been a guest on the Colbert Report if there hadn't been such a violent reaction to her, for instance.

 

[The Deadpool]

That media influences outlook shouldn't really be the source of much disagreement. Of course it does. Whether it causes it is another question entirely.

Does it influence in any meaningful way?

You think women are treated better today than they were fifty years ago? You think we consume more media now or fifty years ago?

Consider our timeline. If you were to plot a graph between amount of media consumed by the average human consumed vs. female rights, you'd find the two increase together.

Humanity has been moving (super slowly) towards equality just as it moves towards more free time and more forms of media. Seems to me TIME has more of an effect on these proceedings than media every has or will.

Only if you reduce their positions to that premise. They were advocating wildly different approaches to handling the media.

Who cares WHAT they are advocating? If the basic premise is wrong, how they want to react to that premise is irrelevant.

Also, are you saying that wanting to have the government regulate something that causes children to murder each other is the worst thing he could do?

And you're still ignoring the reaction the public had between the two and the media had between the two DESPITE BEING THE SAME ARGUMENT. Everyone jumped at the chance to prove violent games don't cause violence. No one seems to have a problem with sexist games causing sexism... Everyone jumped at the chance to defend Anita against death threats. No one seemed to have a problem with death threats to Jack Thompson...

 

[The Deadpool]

After the Kickstarter, all the videos comments filled up with some pretty vile stuff.

That is actually untrue.

She used to close off her comments section before the Kickstarter. FOR the Kickstarters she opened them, and stated (herself) that she was doing so to prove that there would be a negative reaction.

The comments were... Largely positive. You can find screen caps of it online still if you want to check yourself, but most of them were positive and agreement. A (very) few were thought out, negative comments. Some were simple "No, you're dumb." and a surprisingly small amount were sexist comments (get back to the kitchen!).

The amount of vitrol and vileness, death threats and rape threats and the such were a very small percentage of the comments.

but that media approval is likely spurred on by the undeniable wave of harassment that happened during the 2012 Kickstarter campaign.

Right. But IF the harassment came from misogynistic gamers, as she likes to imply, and those gamers got that way from the sheer volume of games they play, as she also likes to imply, then there shouldn't be many gamers left to DEFEND her.

But that's not what we find. The large majority of people find the harassment against her appalling. A small minority even agrees with her arguments, and the number of people who disagree are the minority by a fair margin.

How then do games cause misogyny when most gamers are on HER side?

 

[The Deadpool]

Who cares WHAT they are advocating? If the basic premise is wrong, how they want to react to that premise is irrelevant.

Do you really want to argue that the media we consume has no influence on peoples views, beliefs and behaviour? Really?

Sure. But I wouldn't even have to do much work. I could just google back every game news outlet back when Thompson was active and copy and paste THEIR arguments.

Hell, I could just repeat the court that denied his legal argument by saying there was insufficient proof that media affected our behaviors...

 

[The Choke]

That is actually untrue.

Uh, buddy, don't try to pull that shit on me. As I said: Fan of the series. Watched the video. Watched the comments happen as the events were unfolding. Commented on videos that came out before the Kickstarter back before the flood of crazy. Read some really vile shit, one posted right after the other. Show me all the screenshots you want, but I was actually there, so... I'm not buying it.

Right. But IF the harassment came from misogynistic gamers, as she likes to imply, and those gamers got that way from the sheer volume of games they play, as she also likes to imply, then there shouldn't be many gamers left to DEFEND her.

Sorry, still not following you. Are you saying that her videos changed all the minds of her critics? Because she and I still have some differing viewpoints on male gaze.

As to you implying what the videos are apparently implying, I'm gonna need Hans Zimmer in here for the soundtrack and possibly an audience-insert character to hear some boring exposition explaining that one.

 

[Silvanus]

Does it influence in any meaningful way?

You think women are treated better today than they were fifty years ago? You think we consume more media now or fifty years ago?

Consider our timeline. If you were to plot a graph between amount of media consumed by the average human consumed vs. female rights, you'd find the two increase together.

Humanity has been moving (super slowly) towards equality just as it moves towards more free time and more forms of media. Seems to me TIME has more of an effect on these proceedings than media every has or will.

I'd say gender equality is at a better place today than it was fifty years ago (though issues, of course, remain). I'd say we consume more media (and perhaps more significantly, more diverse media) than we did fifty years ago.

...I'd also say that those two facts may be related. Whoever said media has only a negative impact? I would argue that diversifying media has potentially had a positive impact on gender issues in recent history.

Who cares WHAT they are advocating? If the basic premise is wrong, how they want to react to that premise is irrelevant.

A lot of people care what they were advocating. That is precisely what made Jack Thompson a threat to artistic freedom. The "premise", if it is solely that media influences outlook, is not wrong.

Also, are you saying that wanting to have the government regulate something that causes children to murder each other is the worst thing he could do?

I have no idea where this came from. I never said anything to that effect.

And you're still ignoring the reaction the public had between the two and the media had between the two DESPITE BEING THE SAME ARGUMENT. Everyone jumped at the chance to prove violent games don't cause violence. No one seems to have a problem with sexist games causing sexism... Everyone jumped at the chance to defend Anita against death threats. No one seemed to have a problem with death threats to Jack Thompson...

Once again; using a similar premise, but actually arguing completely different things, is not "the same argument".

And, yes, people do have a problem with Jack Thompson getting death threats. They're just not talking about it as much any more, because Thompson hasn't done anything in years, and Sarkeesian is the one getting threats now.

Also, "nobody seems to have a problem" with games causing sexism? There are dozens upon dozens of threads criticising that idea in the strongest of terms. It's absolutely unavoidable. I don't know how anybody could possibly think that people have been mute on that subject. It's everywhere.

 

[The Deadpool]

Uh, buddy, don't try to pull that shit on me. As I said: Fan of the series. Watched the video. Watched the comments happen as the events were unfolding. Commented on videos that came out before the Kickstarter back before the flood of crazy. Read some really vile shit, one posted right after the other. Show me all the screenshots you want, but I was actually there, so... I'm not buying it.

Confirmation bias.

I was bored and actually counted them one night (well, about 300 of them). Surprisingly positive.

You can doubt it. That's okay. Finding the damned thing is surprisingly difficult 2 years later... But they do exist.

Sorry, still not following you. Are you saying that her videos changed all the minds of her critics?

Grant her points.

Games make people misogynistic. Gamers play lots of games. Gamers then are largely misogynistic.

Who is agreeing with her?

 

[Jaytr13]

Who cares WHAT they are advocating? If the basic premise is wrong, how they want to react to that premise is irrelevant.

Do you really want to argue that the media we consume has no influence on peoples views, beliefs and behaviour? Really?

Sure. But I wouldn't even have to do much work. I could just google back every game news outlet back when Thompson was active and copy and paste THEIR arguments.

Hell, I could just repeat the court that denied his legal argument by saying there was insufficient proof that media affected our behaviors...

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You don't think that the public has ever by swayed by media opinion? so, you don't beleive in "appeal to authorty" then? because what you just said

Who cares WHAT they are advocating? If the basic premise is wrong, how they want to react to that premise is irrelevant.

Do you really want to argue that the media we consume has no influence on peoples views, beliefs and behaviour? Really?

Hell, I could just repeat the court that denied his legal argument by saying there was insufficient proof that media affected our behaviors...

is saying "these peoples viewpoints correlate with my own thus they validate my opinion". That's the very DEFINITION of by swayed by media bias.

 

[Lightknight]

Fundamentally, they are arguing the same thing: That media influences our outlook in life as opposed to our outlook in life influencing media.

That media influences outlook shouldn't really be the source of much disagreement. Of course it does. Whether it causes it is another question entirely.

The way media influences people is usually to play on existing behaviors. People are usually talking about ads, for example. So if you want to try a new soda, Coca-cola will inform you about a product that caters to your need (or that they claim caters to it).

What people do not mean is that media necessarily makes you sexist or violent. We can tell the difference between reality or fantasy as long as we're not schizophrenic. So I would never once have considered it legitimate to take the lessons on femininity that Princess Peach taught me (which is nothing, FYI, she did not teach me anything at all) and apply them to real life because even as a kid I understood that she was a character.

So, you've got some steep evidence to amass here that Jack Thompson tried and failed to get.

What's more is that our comparison with her argument that games make people sexist is just one of her arguments. Her call for more valid representations of females is an entirely separate argument that has nothing to do with Thompson. So rejecting her baseless argument in one area doesn't mean she's necessarily wrong all around. It certainly doesn't dismiss arguments that a female consumer should count for the same as a male consumer. That's something many if not most of us are fine with. Many of us think fair and equal treatment where one dollar counts for one dollar no matter the chromosome it comes from is the right thing to support.

I agree. I would love to see more female PCs and female players to be taken into consideration more often. This is something I think most everyone could get behind.

Precisely, her call to more diverse and meaningful female characters is something we can really benefit from. Lazy writing and inane characters really sink a game.

But the effects media has on the thoughts and minds of the impressionable has been proven to be negligible at EVERY step... at EVERY form of media. It's kind of absurd that it's still going on...

Word, good sir. Word indeed.

 

[The Deadpool]

I'd say gender equality is at a better place today than it was fifty years ago (though issues, of course, remain). I'd say we consume more media (and perhaps more significantly, more diverse media) than we did fifty years ago.

...I'd also say that those two facts may be related. Whoever said media has only a negative impact? I would argue that diversifying media has potentially had a positive impact on gender issues in recent history.

So your argument is that games have a positive effect on gender issues? Then welcome, you disagree with Anita too. Have a nice stay.

if it is solely that media influences outlook, is not wrong.

Also, are you saying that wanting to have the government regulate something that causes children to murder each other is the worst thing he could do?

I have no idea where this came from. I never said anything to that effect.

Games are violent (undeniably so). They glorify and incentivize players to to acts of violence (also, undeniably so).

If games affect behavior, then violent games makes people more violent, leading to extra assaults and death, etc... Why WOULDN'T you want that regulated?

Once again; using a similar premise, but actually arguing completely different things, is not "the same argument".

Is there any meaningful difference?

And, yes, people do have a problem with Jack Thompson getting death threats.

Yeah... That's not true. No one defended him when it happened. Certainly not the media. Hell, several articles thought it was kinda funny...

Also, "nobody seems to have a problem" with games causing sexism?

A minority. Every news outlet, not just online but even TV, largely agrees with the premise all of a sudden.

 

[WhiteNachos]

except as people defending it have pointed out THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO PLAY THE GAME. The game designers had to program the game so this was all possible. They had to program the strippers AI so they cower in fear instead of fighting back or running away. The only reason they would be designed in such a way is as she said as to give the players pleasure in killing them. The strippers will even stand still and not notice that you have killed the girl standing right next to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPqTm3KgABM

Ok here we go.

While there is no inherently off limits way to play the game, the game itself doe have systems contained within in that encourage or discourage certain approaches.

The most evident one is losing score and as such rating if you decide to play the game a different way. It won't end your experience instantly but it will place sanctions. There sanctions instantly are less score, slightly later it might be higher alter from guards making the game harder.

In older some of the older Hitman games they tried a notoriety mechanic where by your performance or lack there of in previous missions would cause you to be more or less easily spotted thus actively punishing you for not playing the game a certain way.


The same argument you're applying to Hitman for allowing these behaviours can be levelled at The Sims


Now while the Sims doesn't even as actively punish people for creating a Sim just to be mean to. You can do it. The game does punish you in a way by slowing progress.

So is that problematic in the Sims that you can create people just to torture them ?
The only reason the pool was in the Sims was to drown Sims.
The only reason Knives exist is to stab people.
Can you see a problem yet with only allowing one interpretation to be allowed ?

As for the Stipper Standing still and not realising........ poor AI coding the AI coding most likely was done such that they only realise when they have line of sight of a body. Remember these are the equivalent of programmed robots trying to act human. Trying to claim it was malicious because it's not realistic enough discounts the far more simple explanation. The designer was lazy or didn't have the time / money to make the coding more complex.

As for the stripper. The other NPCS fight back, run away and notice you killing other people. That means they were coded NOT to do those things.

Nope. I've seen them run away, I've seen others cower run or fight back. I think it's randomly determined what each individual NPC does or at least its partly determined based on what type of NPC they are (waiter vs. guard for instance)

The sims does punish you for torturing others. Your mood and behavoir of your main character is greatly affected by acting mean to other characters. Not to mention in the Sims there is permantnet death.

And hitman Absolution does punish you for killing civilians

In Hitman the strippers are there for one purpose. They can not be altered from that purpose.

You say you haven't played the game and yet your positive about this? Well I have and I can tell you it's bullcrap. They're there to either give background information on the club when you listen in on their conversations, or they can be there as a hinderance. If they catch you sneaking around backstage when you aren't disguised as a guard or whatever they'll raise the alarm, so you have to avoid them if you don't have the right disguise.

Do you want to know why you can kill non-target NPCs in hitman?

Have you ever played a crappy stealth section in an action game?

You may have thought to yourself during during those stealth sections "I can't get past this one person, can't I just kill them and move on"

Crappy Stealth Section: No.
Hitman (which is a stealth game): Sure, but it'll cost you.

Later: Couldn't I just kill everyone in the level?
Hitman: Sure but it'll cost you even more.

And as I explained earlier the point of dragging bodies around is to hide them.

These rules apply to every NPC in the game (except the designated targets which you're supposed to kill but you can still hide their bodies).

Some people don't care about the negative consequences just as people don't mind getting negative karma in Fallout or Infamous or having their sims be in a bad mood (I assume anyway, haven't actually played the Sims).

I find it funny the only people i have ever met who play and enjoy hitman are people who support Gamergate. I've never met anyone in real life who has ever said they enjoy the hitman games.

I'm not part of gamergate, and the original topic wasn't about it so I don't see your point.

 

[The Deadpool]

is saying "these peoples viewpoints correlate with my own thus they validate my opinion". That's the very DEFINITION of by swayed by media bias.

No, it's my pointing out that the same people arguing FOR her argument now were arguing AGAINST her argument when it was presented by someone else.

I didn't say "believe it because smarter and wiser people have it." I simply pointed out we've had this argument presented before TEN YEARS AGO and it lost.

 

[The Choke]

Confirmation bias.

That's fair since it's based on the anecdotal evidence of my own experience, but I wouldn't consider a screenshot from another biased party to be a reliable source of information, nor would I consider a sampling of three hundred out of thousands comments- especially if that sampling ignores things like the wikipedia vandalism, impersonation accounts, and doxing- to be effective evidence.

 

[The Deadpool]

Confirmation bias.

That's fair since it's based on the anecdotal evidence of my own experience, but I wouldn't consider a screenshot from another biased party to be a reliable source of information, nor would I consider a sampling of three hundred out of thousands comments- especially if that sampling ignores things like the wikipedia vandalism, impersonation accounts, and doxing- to be effective evidence.

You talked about comments in her youtube videos specifically.

Were the youtube videos NOT deleted by her, we could go count ourselves. I counted what I had access to (the top 300) and they were largely positive.

Considering there were thousands of comments spread across several social media and over the course of days and she pulled about 20 super negative ones... Does it really seem that unlikely that the trend remained the same?

 

[Lightknight]

Confirmation bias.

That's fair since it's based on the anecdotal evidence of my own experience, but I wouldn't consider a screenshot from another biased party to be a reliable source of information, nor would I consider a sampling of three hundred out of thousands comments- especially if that sampling ignores things like the wikipedia vandalism, impersonation accounts, and doxing- to be effective evidence.

You talked about comments in her youtube videos specifically.

Were the youtube videos NOT deleted by her, we could go count ourselves. I counted what I had access to (the top 300) and they were largely positive.

Considering there were thousands of comments spread across several social media and over the course of days and she pulled about 20 super negative ones... Does it really seem that unlikely that the trend remained the same?

I apologize for interjecting but I can't seem to see what the argument is here. What point is choke trying to make? Are we somehow surprised that negative comments are happening on the internet?

 

[Belaam]

Not sure how in the world you think you can claim a media that makes more money than movies and music together.

Nice logical fallacy yourself. ..you don't understand the first thing about strawman and logical fallacies, lol.

Sorry, I guess I should have used "people" instead of "you"; it's moronic to think anyone can claim to represent all gamers. I guess I thought the context made that obvious.

If you don't like current gaming journalism, go start your own site.

Not how games journalism works. ... When you see something wrong, we have this thing called "vote with your wallet and call people out on their bullshit". Because we have the right to do so as game consumers.

That's exactly what I said, and exactly how journalism works. People thought there was a liberal bias in news and so there was a market for FOX News' creation. You, or any other GGer, are perfectly free to start your own site and those appalled with "ethics" are free to join you. Instead, you seem to be giving more hits/ad space to a Big Picture ad directly opposed to your stated goal. In other words, every time you watch a MovieBob vid or post on an article on one of his vids, you are indeed voting with your wallet towards the very argument you claim to be against. If you were having this argument on a GG gaming site, you would instead be giving that money to GG instead of Bob.

That's what GG was SUPPOSED to be about, ethics in games journalism before everyone started getting their political agendas involved.

I think you're working from a faulty timeline if you think that's what came first. What came first was a false accusation of trading sex for reviews. GG would be on FAR stronger footing if the instigating event and continued focus was Shadow of Mordor marketing or the like.

Sure. Just like you for example, I don't have to take everything seriously and I don't have to take Ms. Sarkeesian's "analysis" of games seriously either. I can call BS when I see it.

Exactly. I would love to see more critical analysis of games.

So if it isn't why are feminists so afraid of analysis of themselves then?

Are you ignorant? Feminist theory can be traced back to the 1700s. Feminist analysis has been pretty much going on steadily, with much debate for, against, and within, for almost a hundred years. There has been constant and regular analysis and criticism of feminist analysis for ages. Schisms within, offshoots of queer analysis, and quite literally mountains of analysis of feminist thought, theory and analysis. Just at the academic level, it would probably take a lifetime to review all the analysis of feminist theory. Purude has a nice basic overview and some basic recommended reading here:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/11/

Though I would certainly recommend some Judith Butler to that list as well. Michael Foucault can be read as feminist arguments regardless of gender and might also be of interest to you.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

Bravo, sir. Your good coherence and rational behaivor are something rare in those kind of statements in the Internet. Hats off to you!

Now, I'd like to point out that not all comments against her are legitimate criticism of her points. There is a lot of delusional criticism of feminism or mere name-summoning of Thompson in a Godwin-esque law fashion (and a lot of other things that aren't even criticism, but they aren't part of this topic). Who can hear the former when the later are much noisier?