Personally I like that kind of review as I find it funny and interesting to see what a outsider thinks. I have not seen the review myself but I can imagine what it might being saying and that sort of makes me roll my eyes a bit.DizzyChuggernaut said:
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Oh of course reviews like that are entertaining. It's funny to see people that are not accustomed to a certain genre try to wrap their heads around it. After all, it's that approach that was the basis for the "Moms hate Dead Space 2" advertising campaign.sexy=sexist said:
But Polygon (the site in question) consider themselves "serious" journalists. They're not being Yahtzee they're being actual critics that are trying to inform their readers what's worth buying and what isn't.
I'm personally not upset at the review. Opinions are opinions. I just understand what the criticisms are (perhaps better than most of the people throwing a tantrum).
Polygon's analysis of Bayonetta 2 is nowhere near as batshit insane as Feminist Frequency's though, who are reacting to Bayonetta 2 the same way fundamentalist Christians react to Harry Potter for "promoting witchcraft".
Yah no kidding. Calling her a fighting f**k toy also hardly sounds feminist to me. She really really hates sexy depictions of women. I can understand annoyance, or even anger that very sexy women are mostly what you will find in gaming... but her hate, I thing the word for it is misogyny.DizzyChuggernaut said:
I was just listening to this podcast about Punisher: War Zone with Patton Oswald and a bunch of folks, and one of the things they were talking about was how so many people were just shocked and put off that a Punisher movie would be so violent... many of whom were fans of the comic.DizzyChuggernaut said:
Last night I was reading Jim Sterling's Duke Nukem Forever review (2/10) where he went after (among other things) the completely unfunny sexist behavior.
And there's Greg Tito's GTA 5 review where he found the three protagonists to be so unpleasant that he simply couldn't enjoy the game.
Point is, sometimes you can expect something, be willing to enjoy that something, and not like the presentation. They can go too far (War Zone) or not execute it properly (Duke Nukem) or just not be to your taste (GTA V).
And sometimes the reviewer just doesn't like the idea of something and reviews it to hate on it.
I said later on that you should feel free to criticize any review, but the objection I have to Operation: Bayonetta is it's encouraging a game publisher to pull future review material... because they didn't the review. And from a group that is so "concerned" about journalistic ethics.
All because they don't like the opinions expressed by a games reviewer.
There's not much I can argue with in your response, I agree with almost all of it.Netrigan said:
People are overreacting. They're just reviews. I write reviews and I specifically avoid reviewing anything that I'm not familiar with or I don't understand.
Duke Nukem Forever and Bayonetta is a very interesting comparison when it comes to depiction of sexualised women in games. Duke Nukem Forever is in extremely poor taste (its humour is literally scatological), designed by men for men. It's a self-indulgent mess with no self-awareness and its treatment of female characters is apalling.
Bayonetta is similarly ludicrous... however the main character was designed by a woman for her own self-expression. Instead of being in "poor taste" it ramps up the camp factor to ludicrous levels. It's very self-aware and even artistically beautiful sometimes.
It's strange how a few small distinctions can make a huge difference.
But there's no One True Opinion about her sexualization. A bit too much salt can spoil the taste for some.DizzyChuggernaut said:
I can easily see someone wanting to like Bayonetta and having a problem with the Fan Service shots... because they do seem to be on the excessive side.
I've found myself on many occasions trying to express my problem with violence in certain violent movies. The highly mockable way to describe it is mean-spirited violence, where the character doing the killing is so repellant and the movie/game is so into his actions, that I'm turned off by it. I love violence but I hate this for its violence.
And its incredibly tough to articulate because the moment you start, some dickhead is saying "if you don't like violent movies don't watch them."
The use of control groups, that's a step in the right direction. But personally I'm not convinced. That statement is still a value judgement and I don't see it that way. By no means do I think gamers are less sexist than non-gamers. In an age when even construction workers don't dare to wolf-whistle for fear of causing offence, I don't see similar behaviour in the forums and social media surrounding gaming. The Escapist may seem like an egalitarian utopia, but that's because it's heavily censored to produce that outcome.The Deadpool said:
But pointing out that ecological fallacy was just an academic exercise. Personally, I don't think there needs to be a demonstrable effect on society in order to be wary of sexism in games. I'd say the risks of any harmful effects are enough to warrant a meaningful discussion, because the slight discomfort of having that discussion is so much smaller than the negative fallout of sexism plaguing society.
Well Farther than stars I disagree with you. I think gaming culture is overall more fair and less sexist.
Yes I agree the conversation about sexism is needed but if your going to claim something is harmful then proof will be needed or the argument can be ignored. Also this sometimes feels less like a conversation and more like a lecture that that tends to make heavy use of censorship.
Yes I agree the conversation about sexism is needed but if your going to claim something is harmful then proof will be needed or the argument can be ignored. Also this sometimes feels less like a conversation and more like a lecture that that tends to make heavy use of censorship.
If Bob's excellent "article" (in the way a book-on-tape is a novel) hasn't sunk in for some I would suggest watching the movie "Elmer Gantry" (also the earlier "A Face In The Crowd") or (for those who still can) read the novel by Sinclair Lewis. Then go read everything else by Lewis. Then read everything by John Brunner.
My reaction to the Red Cross statement was more along the lines of "Don't they have better things to spend their time thinking about than video games?"Goliath100 said:
Honestly, I've never seen anything that in a game that comes close to a War Crime, unless it's perpetrated by the villains, who are punished by way before they make it to the Hague. (which was referenced in COD Advanced Warfare when talking about SPOILERS Atlas' bioweapon Manticore)
This is why I've personally never wanted to see games like movies/art/books are seen. It adds a level of pretentiousness and over thinking to the medium. Everything has to become a symbol/movement/political statement instead of just being there for fun or because it's good story telling.Izanagi009 said:
As far as Anita goes, I have no issue with her doing her thing on YouTube, or talks or whatever. She has freedom of speech rights just like we all do, and no one should threaten her life ect. But that being said, I can criticize her in return, by being to heavy handed in her critique and finding tropes when (in some cases) there are none, or may not have been the true intention of the creator of the content.
Do I really have to link the game theory episode about this? Also, I don't think you know the entire list of war crimes, hell I don't know more than a couple. To answer the question: Apparently yes because you just did deny the existence of war crime being done by the player. "You" don't represent the industry in any way, but it's still worth noticing given the complete statement from the Red Cross.Brockyman said:
As far as I can tell, "secret" is about the only way people are actually using the term. They coordinated the event in secret. That's collusion. In fact the etiology of the word is exclusively used as "secret" with the possibility of illegal being added later.Netrigan said:You stepped into my very devious trap, Comrade Moose.Lightknight said:
I do have a certain something to say about the "collusion" surrounding the "Gamers Are Dead" articles.
So a quick google of the word "collusion"I have used a definition, so everything I say in this post is completely irrefutable by Laws Of Idiot Internet Debaters. See also any use off the word "cherry-picking"
About the only way it could possible fit the definition is through the use of the word "secret" and since two of the authors discussed said articles openly on Twitter prior to their publication, not even that.
As far as I can tell, no one has claimed that what they did was illegal. Just that it was coordinated in secret rather than an organic and random attempt at it.
Well, I am unaware of any such tweets but this would still only work if they were the only authors. Also, were the twitter posts the result of already secretive discussions on the matter or were they early posts that evolved into more secretive group discussions? Did they elaborate on the scale of the coordination efforts that were undertaken and were these particularly major players in the article posting? Likewise, how far before the event were these tweets? Also, does it magically make the rest of the group not collusive if a couple people break radio silence? I don't think so.
Do you disagree that it was coordinated? That huge collusion scandal in the mainstream media in 2010 was also widely deemed as collusion despite not being illegal. Collusion is also commonly used as a synonym for conspiracy. A coordinated attempt to do something nefarious.
As for your comments on Gamergaters, it depends on what they're doing. If a few people are getting together to discuss doxxing someone or harming someone then you've got collusion there too and it also dings the bell on the illegal side of the street. Now, while those few individuals should absolutely be held accountable, they're also not in control of gamergate in some meaningful way. The journalists bear a fiduciary responsibility to their readers as the press. They conspired to post in unison in a way that attacked gamers and decided to redefine the term gamer as bigots or something insulting. Individuals colluding to do something illegal is a crime. People in a fiduciary role colluding is a scandal and may or may not be illegal. Just secretive and nefarious in nature as this was.
It is fun to see you say that they were merely telling publishers that they should cater to other audiences. But that wasn't what was going on. They were saying not to cater to a group at all. What's more is they foolishly used the term "Gamer" which isn't theirs to redefine.
Basically, they decided to take a group that grew up being insulted and bullied for their passion of gaming and decided to bully us as a group by insulting us and claiming that we deserve being insulted because we're whatever they want us to be that is negative with the industry. At some point they decided to change the name of gamer. Leigh Alexander decided that we (gamers) are the worst scum of the world. Who gets to change the meaning of a term? As far as I can tell, gamers as a group are unique of any other unifying qualifier other than a passion for games. Leigh Alexander, were she to enjoy games, would qualify as a gamer by such definitions. So somewhere along the way she decided that she could redefine the term into something negative and shame on her for doing that. For being that kind of bully. Unless you personally believe that a qualifying definition of a gamer is indeed "shit-slinger".
We are generally using the term heavy on the synonym with conspiracy side of things. It's just that the word conspiracy largely brings up the idea of nutjobs whereas this conspiracy is fairly blatant so as to desire a better term than something which evokes people believing something crazy.
So, if you're going to set a semantic mousetrap you should make sure the trap is set. Because even in the absence of all of this I could have merely claimed linguistic drift as common use of the term collusion includes just people who are coordinating their efforts to do something bad.
So the point we are trying to make here isn't that they did something illegal. It's that they went full ass-hattery on gamers. That they actively strategist and spoke together and conspired to attack gamers of all people by insulting and trying to redefine the term amongst other things. How in the world do you think this isn't a negative thing they did?
Well, to be fair we also don't know that there wasn't any romantic relationship involved then either.The_Kodu said:Except it can easily be shown they were good friends at leastSilvanus said:
Taken from the source code of Depression quest's website
Check yourself it's from March 2013
https://web.archive.org/web/20130328034916/http://www.depressionquest.com/dqfinal.html
Long before Nathan Grayson's article.
https://twitter.com/OneMrBean/status/347504703287984130
How about if your work requires you to talk about said developer do you not think it's in the public interest to know you might not be unbiased and might have ulterior motives to promoting someone else's work rather than informing consumers ?
Was it Sexual ? No
Was it clear they were friends ? Yes pretty clear
was it clear there should have been a disclosure that the the article may be unbiased as it's about a friend ? YES
But you're entirely right, the friendship relationship is established and, most importantly, he is credited in the game. Should absolutely have been disclosed. The entire article was pointing directly at that one game on the list. Out 50 he was indicating that it was best in show. Again, he titled the article after that one game, the only picture in the main article was taken from the game, and when he listed standouts Depression Quest was the first to be mentioned.
So he was absolutely benefiting Depression Quest for better or worse and whether or not the game deserved it is irrelevant. You still disclose that relationship so people understand the potential bias you're coming from. Like if I were a journalist and was best buddies with the developer's of Naughty Dog. The game would still be one of the best games I've ever played but as journalist I would HAVE to do one of two things: Recuse myself from writing about my best bud's work because I'm too close to the topic, disclose the relationship so as not to mislead the audience into thinking that I'm an unbiased voice on the matter. Whether I think I'm being biased or not is entirely irrelevant.
There are several things she did that a lot of people can agree on as being bad. For example, regarding the WizardChan scenario, journalist sites like the Escapist actually went back and edited the original article. The false DMCA take down was also generally accepted to be her. The blacklisting of TFYC was largely accepted as being her responsibility and the doxxing of the TFYC creators was correctly attributed to her PR guy or whomever TFYC sited when they claimed that Zoe doxxed them.DizzyChuggernaut said:
The only thing I see in response is complaints about the nature of TFYC and whether or not it was ok for them to require transgendered individuals to have identified as female before the start of the competition to prevent men from signing up and stealing the show as well as ruining the intent of the charity event that was supposed to give development resources to women (in addition to giving proceeds to charity, of course). So even if she had a philosophical issue with that, where the hell did she get off doing that to a charity group centered around giving development resources to females? How aren't feminists livid about this? Just because some people dragged her personal life through the mud? That doesn't negate the particular kind of evil it takes to derail a charity just because it's competing with your own non-charity event. Holy crap, Batman.
This is entirely relevant. That someone was able to tell journalists to run a story to benefit her greenlit game or not to run a story to prevent a competing organization from getting facetime? That's shitty. That's shitty and innocent people were harmed and harassed because of it.
Now, if you mean it's not going to do anything? Then I've got to disagree with you there too. It is a point of nepotism/cronyism in the industry. The fact that she was able to do this is what's the most harmful thing. How many other articles were only told to benefit friends of some kind and how many other stories haven't been told for similar reasons? It's a major problem.
People against Gamergate seem to get really giddy about sabotaging charities. Beyond TFYC they've also tried getting charities to refuse (very large) donations purely because of a difference in opinion. It's like when Christians lobby to get atheist donations refused because they're "immoral".Lightknight said:
These people think they're infallible so any bad things they do is for "a greater good". It's insane.
Some feminists are very angry actually. However there does seem to be a problem with many feminists in realising that feminists can be really bad people. When they disagreed with Christina Hoff Sommers the response wasn't "we're both feminists but I take issue with your opinions", the response was "you're not a real feminist". They don't want to accept the possibility that there are geniunely troublesome people amongst them because in their mind it dilutes the "feminist" group.
The same thing's happened with Gamergate. People with differing opinions have been accused of "not really a part of Gamergate". In the Zoe Quinn scenario, her harassment claims coincides with the narrative many feminists cling to (ie. women are oppressed and face constant harassment). They are more likely to believe that than "a narcissist did bad things and didn't even realise that she was doing bad things which made her think it was okay".
Those journalism sites are garbage anyway. Zoe Quinn is just one of the more recent examples in a long history of favouritism.
What we should do is call Gawker Media out for being an awful company, not go after individuals like Quinn. They're losing advertisers left and right and their arrogance is on social media for all to see. I'm not sure which they'd rather do, see their business crumble or admit that they were wrong. Because eventually one of these things will have to happen.
Because Jack Thompson hated games and wanted them gone, whereas Anita wants games to be better. That's a massive difference, and it's exactly what Bob was trying to say in the video. Hell, I can't be arsed to watch Anita's videos, but if I'm not mistaken, she's not even saying that games cause sexism, she's just saying that a lot of games are sexist.faeshadow said:
Also, I don't agree with the sentiment that games can't affect people. If you take that as true, I assume that you also believe that games can't improve people either. I believe that media does affect people, but that doesn't mean I think that playing a poorly thought out game instantly makes you a neo nazi or a crazed killer the same way that I don't think that playing a well-designed game enlightens you and transforms you into the Heavenly Buddha. When I say that a game can affect someone, what I'm asking is for the developer to be careful with its design and affect the players positively, rather than accidentally affecting them negatively.
Yeah, that's kind of the point. You don't prove things with poor evidence.Silvanus said:
To compel: to force or drive, especially to a course of actionSilvanus said:
I don't know if this is a willful red herring or just being obtuse here...
If you want to discuss your hypothesis, then present it.Silvanus said:
A few things.Farther than stars said:
a) Construction workers don't dare to wolf whistle? Ask any woman walking down a busy street how shy about making comments men are.
b) Comparing the real life antics to the anonymous, online antics is kind of false equivalency here.
c) You may FEEL that way, but let's look at this: The people who play games the most and are most deeply involved in the industry are the people who play for pleasure AND professionally: Testers and journalists.
Now the testers have been largely quiet here, but the journalists are falling OVERWHELMINGLY on one side of the conversation... That kinda contradicts what one would expect based on the hypothesis.
How do you get out of the house? Any risk of harm sky rockets the moment you do...Farther than stars said:
The "hedging your bets" arguments is kind of weak when the risk isn't quantified.
On phone so I'm only responding to this bit. I actually haven't read the rest of your post so I may or may not respond later.Lightknight said:
I personally don't find 24 hours to be too little time for people to respond to the first articles with articles of their own.
We'd been having this conversation for two years previous to this and it was a Hot Button issue at that time, so I'd expect this old conversation was swirling around in a lot of minds.
The Twitter exchange shows two people independently planning similar pieces prior to their release. Some of the articles reference earlier articles. There's just oodles of time in the 24 hour window.
I could probably pop out a similar piece of similar length in a couple of hours because, again, I've got over two years thinking about this exact subject. If you count my comics experience, more like a decade of insisting that an industry shouldn't be catering only to the hardcore base.
If ten authors popped out articles about why there needs to be a Shogo 2, all saying variations on the same thing, I'd be suspicious because no one is thinking about Shogo.
But everyone has been thinking about the hardcore gamer and his relationship to the game industry... for the last two years. An article on the subject would be child's play to write and likely include commonly held opinions. All it needed was a tiny nudge to get rolling.