"We are not your shield"? Gamergate, you need a new motto.

[RexMundane]

I'm saying that I've had it thrown at me directly in conversations that weren't about race at all, and I'm not a journalist.

Well, people have been known to accidentally misuse or even entirely misappropriate terms for their personal benefit. Doesn't change the term itself or its definition if it has one.

Here's a legitimate article on the hashtag if you want to know how it is and should be used. Then you can at least call those people out when they misuse it.

Saying it's "about" one specific complaint but watching it get used for roughly everything, implicating as it does that anyone who doesn't support, say, harassing journalists into leaving their field is somehow vaguely racist for doing so. I mean it might surprise them to learn that some of those journos are themselves non-white, non-cis-males (well, fewer now than before this started, and again, thanks for that) and that they are "#NotTheirShield" against blanket harassment, too.

The term, used correctly, sidesteps the identity of the journo trying to speak on the minority's behalf. A gay black female doesn't speak for all gay people, all black people, and all female people. They can only speak for themselves and members of any of those communities can ask her to stop using them as a shield to deflect questions about the larger issue.

It's much like how, though "everyone agrees" Gamergate is only ever about vaguely specified ideals of "corruption" and "ethics," the second an opportunity is presented to slag off on Zoe Qu... oh, I'm sorry, "Literally Who" or "Literally Who #2" (Jesus you must think we're idiots) they're all champing at the bit to release some of that sweet, sweet rage-o-hol.

Actually, I advocated against the nonsense of the literally who stuff. But their intention was good. They wanted to distance the movement from just having to do with someone who turned out to be a minor player in the whole thing.

Speaking from the outside of it, whatever it's "intent," it seems to be used just as a way to keep on about ZQ. You can't give someone a nickname and keep talking about her, just to say you weren't at all because "Literally Who" isn't her name. Plus, I mean as we saw on the 11th when the two stories broke (I believe both are now discredited) about ZQ stiffing a charity and Sarkeesian lying about calling the police, they all lost their damn minds over it. To call them "irrelevant to the cause" is one thing, but they're clearly foremost on the minds of the people within it. It didn't become "Oh? hm, well they're hardly consequential in the grander scheme" until well after, when the stories lost credibility. When that stuff broke? It was full on Angry Mob fixating on attacking them.

And that's not me just saying so either. The guy who organized that anti-suicide charity thing on the same day? He was in the forums a couple days ago answering questions, [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.860484-Suicide-Prevention-Charity-Spawns-from-GamerGate?page=2#21388592] and that's exactly how he described it:

News had spilled about issues that no longer had anything to do with the movement. People in the tag were going nuts, frothing at the mouth and crying out for blood. I tried appealing to everyone in the tag and repeatedly was telling them to pump their brakes and not go after people and issues that have no relevance to the cause. It was a way for me to, in a sense, temper and divert their anger. Got them to (for a short time, at least) focus on something positive and constructive as a group instead of being an angry mob.

And Yes, it was in response to a question I asked, and no I don't think it was particularly loaded, but irrespective, those are his words as a supporter of the movement, describing the rest of it's membership. As a passing observation, when this is how the movement sees itself? That might be when you know you have a problem.

Why not stop there. If you're going to negatively associate, why not go full Godwin's Law and associate it a Nazi flag or something?

You know who else pre-emptively accused people of invoking Godwin's Law? Hitler.

Was Verlander not arbitrarily associating their group with a negatively perceived group? How is that not similar to breaching Godwin's Law? I we going to pretend like Nazi's were the only negatively perceived group in human history or current existence? If I started to make analogies about your comments and the Inquisition or ISIS then it would follow the exact same logic as Godwin's law that people in debate will inevitably begin to use a group perceived as negative or evil as analogies to debate a point. Just because they used "rednecks" or something seen as a racist/bigot banner doesn't mean they didn't breach Godwin's Law. It just means they replaced Hitler with something else they deemed less overt but similar for function in debate.

Are you going to claim they weren't using an inappropriate hyperbolic comparison here? Is "redneck" or the "confederate flag" particularly relevant here? Just as Godwin's intention was to make people consider the Holocaust when trying to actually compare things, so too should you and Verlander consider lynchings and social brutality and injustice when making this comparison. They've at best fallen into association fallacy territory. At worst, they've just replaced naziism with another negatively perceived group to try and avoid getting called out on Godwin's Law and the sort of principle it stands for. That people shouldn't stoop to such as this in debate. It serves no one any purpose and should discredit anyone to use hyperbole in that manner.

Jesus man, I was just trying to make a joke. A joke about the very kind of guilt-by-implicit-association-overreaching you were accusing him of doing, and to my perspective were unintentionally engaging in yourself in your own criticism. "They argue like Tea Partiers!" "You argue like a Godwin-er!" "How appropriate, you all fight like a cow!"

Is it correct to do? No, not really. So nobody do that if they can avoid it, okay?

 

[Silvanus]

I don't follow gamers gate and I think the whole thing is just extending a stupid phase that will end soon enough anyway.
From the top of my head though, Anita at least presents insults to her as insults to every female ever. No matter the context. And Zoe Quinn was trying to shield herself, or at least her thousands of SJW minions were trying to shield her by saying in the opinion of everyone who isn't a white-male-gamer-etc she done nothing wrong and that taking issue with what she done was sexism.

I've watched a few of Anita's videos, and can't recall her claiming insults to her are insults to all females. It's a very common claim, but seems to have been accepted by virtue of its repetition.

Spoiler

A little google search came up with this gem too. A single tweet, which was indeed uncalled for and insulting, apparently "Exemplifies the male privilege and male entitlement endemic in the gaming community" and how you can't be a female critic because of such things. I didn't find one where she explicitly states 'We female gamers are appalled' or anything, but I'd count blatantly untrue claims about what being a female video game critic is like for everyone as speaking for a demographic. I'm guessing someone like Hex (Female host of Good Game) would disagree with her.

Again, this is all just research I done then. I don't know much about gamers gate and the statement in my first post was my interpretation of their ideas, not my own. If what I think about said people is true though, I do agree with them. From what I can tell, people like Anita are around to cause controversy we could do without.

Admittedly, her response to that tweet seems to be a bit of an extrapolation. That said, I'm willing to bet it's one of many tweets; I've seen similar myself.

There's no inherent reason Anita Sarkeesian's videos should elicit the response they've got. The aggression is not coming from her.

I thought the whole narrative most major game publications have been trying to push (and Anita/Zoe Quinn themselves), that anyone who is pro-Gamergate is just a neckbeard white cis male angry about "teh womyns" being involved with gaming.

That's the claim. From what I can tell, though, a claim is all it is.

 

[funnydude6556]

We are not your shield. #NotYourShield.

Imagine if you knew nothing about Gamergate other than that sentence. What does that sentence convey? To me it conveys passive aggressiveness. A lack of inclusion of other people. The sentence is saying to the reader "We are not on your side." And it's saying that regardless of who is reading it.

That's... not a good way to promote diversity, and it's certainly not a good way to get people on your side.

The irony here is that it was meant to mean diversity. It was meant to be a way of saying "We gamers are diverse, we're not all straight-white-men, we're certainly not all straight-white-fat-misogynistic-men who live in basements, and stop treating gamers as if that's all we are." It was meant to be a message to the journalists who attacked gamers that, well, not all gamers fit the stereotyped image that they were attacking, and that the journalists should stop hiding behind those stereotypes. That they should stop using those stereotypes as a shield.

(Do correct me if I'm wrong; I'm getting my information from KnowYourMeme at the moment. I came across the sentence before I knew what people meant by it, and that's what spurred me to create this thread.)

Do you agree? Or am I completely in the wrong?

And if you do agree - what would you propose as a better motto?

Maybe we should come up with a new motto for the GamerGaters. Like "Ours if the fury" something that sums up what their doing "Vague. Passionate. Volatile" for instance. To be honest I just can't wait for this to just end. It's just two groups of people throwing insults at people and it's really not getting anywhere, I mean when you get down to it really all anyone wants is

1) The end of the online abuse thrown at women in gaming
2) For gaming journalists to be more open and honest with their connections be it personal or professional. That being said I don't think it's our business who someone is sleeping with so long as they admit to being in a sort of relationship.

Let's be honest though it's gotten to a point where some people seem to think online abuse just happens, that it's ok and you can't stop it so why bother? Which is wrong, we've created this online community (I mean the entire World wide web) by ignoring people who hurl abuse at others.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I've watched a few of Anita's videos, and can't recall her claiming insults to her are insults to all females. It's a very common claim, but seems to have been accepted by virtue of its repetition.

It's a claim derived from the way she comports herself and presents her arguments, namely the refusal to acknowledge women critics, engage in real debate, and thereby indirectly silencing them by negating and trivializing their voices while at the same time arguing women's voices should be uplifted.

 

[Silvanus]

It's a claim derived from the way she comports herself and presents her arguments, namely the refusal to acknowledge women critics, engage in real debate, and thereby indirectly silencing them by negating and trivializing their voices while at the same time arguing women's voices should be uplifted.

Can I request some sources for this? I'm willing to be convinced if there is evidence enough.

Note, though, that I don't consider disallowing Youtube comments to be silencing debate (as Youtube commentators would almost certainly have contributed almost nothing of value).

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Can I request some sources for this? I'm willing to be convinced.

http://thelearnedfangirl.com/2013/02/24/im-a-feminist-gamerand-im-over-anita-sarkeesian/

Took me all of ten seconds on Google to find that series of articles, and that's one. This is the most-common (valid, i.e. not of a personal or fallacious nature) criticism of Sarkeesian among women critics, and that's common knowledge on the subject. If people are going to discuss Sarkeesian, they should be up to snuff regarding criticism levied against her.

Note, though, that I don't consider disallowing Youtube comments to be silencing debate (as Youtube commentators would almost certainly have contributed almost nothing of value).

How is disabling Youtube comments relevant to whether or not she acknowledges valid criticism and/or issue written or audiovisual rebuttals, or engage in debates with outspoken yet critical personalities? That's a red herring argument.

 

[Lightknight]

Speaking from the outside of it, whatever it's "intent," it seems to be used just as a way to keep on about ZQ.

An attempt to de-emphasize or de-centralize those individuals as core to the issue does not mean radio silence to talk about them.

Look, ZQ was able to use media in the way she did because of the corruption. Bringing out more ways that she abused her media connections to harm real and innocent people is relevant to the discussion but is not her personally being a corrupt journalist. Just her being able to use her corrupt journalist friends. Now, I say corrupt, but nepotism is often done uncounsciously. So don't think I mean that they're all sitting around rubbing their palms together and laughing maniacally. Just that they show preferential treatment and cronyism that leads to a partial reporting of news and actual agendas which is unethical journalism that gets innocents hurt and pools ignorance.

So they continue to be discussed because they are relevant but their name is avoided to distinguish their relevance.

I don't care for it, but I do get it. This whole shitstorm was kicked off by misinformation about the benefits she was getting from her love life but caused people to look deeper and find real problems. So I get why they'd want to steer the conversation away from slut shaming. If anything, it should be a positively viewed effort.

Jesus man, I was just trying to make a joke. A joke about the very kind of guilt-by-implicit-association-overreaching you were accusing him of doing, and to my perspective were unintentionally engaging in yourself in your own criticism. "They argue like Tea Partiers!" "You argue like a Godwin-er!" "How appropriate, you all fight like a cow!"

Is it correct to do? No, not really. So nobody do that if they can avoid it, okay?

So... in an attempt to joke respond to a comment on Godwin's Law you fell victim to Poe's? that's somewhat funny.

Look, Godwin's Law is evolving. It is evolving to extend to other hate groups and particularly disliked groups. Just like Poe's law has branched away from pure fundamentalism to any even where you try to joke and it's taken seriously. To limit it to just Nazi's is to fall flat of the actual intention. I'm not saying that the individual is talking LIKE a godwiner, I'm saying they actually crossed the Godwin's Law line in doing the same thing even with a less "evil" group. I mean, racism, segregation and lynching isn't as bad as wholesale genocide but a society going that way isn't too far from the genocide mantel.

You've got to think, if someone compared say, #gamergate people to say... ISIS, would that still hit Godwin's law even though they're not Nazi's? Yes, it meets all the intention of the law that someone will try to use a truly evil person or group to give their side credence.

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

Dang, I don't even have time for a "dis gun be gud" post.

All I can say is I hope the people doing stuff they shouldn't have been doing are forced to stop, or maybe fired.

 

[Robert B. Marks]

Sleekit: No real objections to anything you said, and I look forward to having time to watch the rest of that video you linked to.

However, this is something that I have pointed out before, and that I will point out now - I read a LOT of those articles that were supposedly calling out the gaming community as a whole. I don't think I read a single one that actually did. In fact, just about every single one of them made a distinction between the hardcore "gamers" who were perpetrating threats and attacking their critics in the name of journalistic integrity and the ones who are just playing games and have nothing to do with it.

I read plenty of comments about those articles - plenty of claims about how they were "attacking" gamers as a whole. Having actually taken the time to read as many of them as possible, instead of what was just said about them, I don't see it. I do see a call to arms against the harassment and abuse that has become endemic in part of our community, and the faster that call is answered, the better it will be for everybody.

Many of them said that the hardcore gamer of old is on the way out, and that's true. The definition has already moved on from most of us who were playing back in the 1990s. The number of "core gamers" remains static, while the number of casual and other gamers - who are probably best called "players" - is seeing sustained growth. Pointing that out is not an insult, it's an observation of a long-term trend.

 

[irishda]

The irony here is that it was meant to mean diversity. It was meant to be a way of saying "We gamers are diverse, we're not all straight-white-men, we're certainly not all straight-white-fat-misogynistic-men who live in basements, and stop treating gamers as if that's all we are."

My experiences on Imgur, Reddit, and the Escapist have proven that if there are non-white, non-misogynistic men (I think we can agree not all of them are fat and, based on a lot of fanfics, not all of them are straight), they're not on the internet. Probably because they get harassed so much by the white, misogynistic crowd that still perverts everything.

Don't believe me? Think I'm cherry picking? Go look up anything about feminism on any of those sites and see what the comments tell you.

 

[Silvanus]

http://thelearnedfangirl.com/2013/02/24/im-a-feminist-gamerand-im-over-anita-sarkeesian/

Took me all of ten seconds on Google to find that series of articles, and that's one. This is the most-common (valid, i.e. not of a personal or fallacious nature) criticism of Sarkeesian among women critics, and that's common knowledge on the subject. If people are going to discuss Sarkeesian, they should be up to snuff regarding criticism levied against her.

I'm very well aware of the criticism, thank you. It's the basis that eludes me, and not because I haven't looked for it.

That link contains an article criticising Anita Sarkeesian. It raises some valid points. It doesn't provide what I asked for, however: evidence of Anita portraying insults against her as insults against "every female ever"; evidence of her "trivialising" female critics.

If the only evidence is that she did not directly respond to this article, then that proves very little, and still doesn't relate to the accusation that she claimed insulting her constituted insulting all women.

How is disabling Youtube comments relevant to whether or not she acknowledges valid criticism and/or issue written or audiovisual rebuttals, or engage in debates with outspoken yet critical personalities? That's a red herring argument.

It's frequently brought up precisely as evidence that she is against debate, or that she suppresses criticism. I did not accuse you of using that line of reasoning; I was merely preliminarily defending against it in case it turned up again.

 

[Catrixa]

Whelp, I haven't been keeping that much track of the whole GamerGate thing, other than to get specifically angry about specific topics, so I feel I'm in a good position to comment.

-GamerGate, "[We're ]not your shield."
Other slogans (may not be current)
-Nike, "Just do it."
-Tide, "Tide knows laundry best."
-Fred Meyer, "What's on your list today?"
-McDonald's, "I'm lovin' it."

Hmm. Not Your Shield (or insinuating that members of this group are not some other person's shield). From reading the comments this comes from some history of some stuff that I don't need to repeat. It makes plenty of sense in context, whether or not I agree. But the slogan by itself? As a way to spark interest in Gamergate (since that's what mottos/slogans exist for)? Hmm. We're not here to defend you. We're badass/we're too good for you. Seems... ok. Some people really dig slogans like that (the response might be, "Well, Gamergate, I'll show you how good I am, then you will have to accept me as one of your elite."), but it can be off-putting, too (another response: "Ok Gamergate, you don't have to include me. Likewise, I don't have to care about you. Have fun being elitist jerks."). I'd argue that those motivated by exclusionary language are fewer in number than those turned off by it, but I'm not a market analyst, and Gamergate is really only trying to communicate with a select few (I'm betting they don't care what conservative mothers over 57 think of their movement).

As a way to communicate an idea to other members of Gamergate (which is what I assume those hashy-tags people who twit on the tweeter use), it could be #FlaggedRoyalPotatoes, as long as everyone knew where it meant and where it came from. Which, from the responses I see on here, is what it's for. So unless Gamergate is really trying to get people from outside the controversy (and have no idea what anyone is talking about) to join them, I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter what their hashtag is. Unless it winds up on Fox News and was accused of being sexual somehow, but that seems pretty unlikely (I mean, you have to do some pretty epic mental gymnastics to wind up there, but I'd argue the same for the sex scene in Mass Effect, so there's that).

 

[CaptainChip]

snip

Just to clarify, #notyourshield is NOT the gamergate slogan. It's just a side hashtag for women and racial minorities who disagree with SJW's claiming to speak for them.

 

[Catrixa]

snip

Just to clarify, #notyourshield is NOT the gamergate slogan. It's just a side hashtag for women and racial minorities who disagree with SJW's claiming to speak for them.

So it falls in the category of statements meant to communicate ideas within a group, as I tried to explain in my second paragraph? 'Cause then it doesn't really need to change what it's saying to appeal to outside groups (as the original post suggested), since it's really not talking to them anyway.

I mean, lets be clear here. If Gamergate wishes to tell all SJW's (not just the ones who are keeping up with the lingo) not to speak for them, #YouDontSpeakForMe seems like a much more direct and clear hashtag. If members of Gamergate are telling other members of Gamergate they are a minority/female member of the movement who agrees that SJW's shouldn't speak for them (so, not actually directly addressing a person/group with the use of "your"), then #NotYourShield does not need to be a phrase that appeals to outsiders, which is what the OP was suggesting it should be.

I guess the real question would be: does Gamergate really need to appeal to people unaware of the controversy? I mean, this whole issue isn't even on the radar of people who don't keep up with gaming news, so I doubt any hashtag is going to even phase them. If they're trying to get SJW's to see their point of view, I'm guessing it's the words that go along with #NotYourShield that would be important anyway.

 

[Zacharious-khan]

how about #weregoingtoignorethiscrapsoitgoesawaynextweek
Here's the thing guys, there are exactly two ways every social change happens in society wherein guns are not involved directly. Either it just goes away on its own because there was a tipping point of outrage but there isn't enough outrage to keep the spigot going or Things actually do change and the opposition is forever remembered in the annals of history as dicks, and the dicks on the other side get remembered fondly. Both sides will flare out eventually and i know i won't stop anyone already in the trenches but for anyone else try to keep a level head.

 

[carnex]

I mean, lets be clear here. If Gamergate wishes to tell all SJW's (not just the ones who are keeping up with the lingo) not to speak for them, #YouDontSpeakForMe seems like a much more direct and clear hashtag. If members of Gamergate are telling other members of Gamergate they are a minority/female member of the movement who agrees that SJW's shouldn't speak for them (so, not actually directly addressing a person/group with the use of "your"), then #NotYourShield does not need to be a phrase that appeals to outsiders, which is what the OP was suggesting it should be.

#NotYourShiled is quite on the point because people of minorities are in very specific spot

They are used as a weapon to attack group/gruops that are targeted by certain group that sees itself as morally superior
They are used as a deflection when that group is criticized
They aren't given any attention in the actual "euqlities" that group tries to enforce even if they are used and abused in the proces.

From those facts I would say #NotYourShield is quite a powerful and concentrated statement

 

[Verlander]

Just because a person appears on Fox doesn't make them one thing or another. All we can discuss is the veracity of what they said.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a couple months away from being released from a non-disclosure on work I did (unknowingly) for a tea party-funded group. All I can say is that I collected a lot of information on two political party practices that would have been embarrassing for both sides and Fox news only reported half of those results. So I'm not really going to sit here and defend them. But I'm also not going to say that the "black expert" doesn't believe what they're saying or doesn't have information to back it up. Honestly, when you're dealing with a minority-related issue it is journalism 101 to get a minority source involved. Fox may blatantly make shit up but they aren't doing anything wrong by having a black source on a topic involving black people. That's standard. Every organization does it. The problem is that Fox more blatantly cherry picks their sources unless they just want O'Reilly to yell at them for the entirety of his show. Then they'll pick whomever and O'Reilly will ignorantly mumble through a discussion and his viewers will take his side regardless of the sanity and reason expressed by the other side.

I see what you're saying, and I agree, but my point was that they pick a minority among a minority - say, for instance, a black person who believes that the police harrassment of black boys is justified, and use him as a representative for the black community. Similarly, I believe that while many of the "notmyshield" types are legitimate, they are a minority in the minority, and are used by non-"minorities" as a way of saying "well this girl doesn't agree, therefore feminism is wrong". It's a handy tactic.

As discussed, being anti-SJW isn't being anti-feminist. I want equality. I want equal representation. I want a dollar spent by a female gamer to count for exactly as much as a dollar spent by me (a male gamer). That's fair. I don't want my money to count for less because SJWs believe my group has had its turn.

I also don't think it's equal to make someone else's money count for more. For example, if 10 people are the consumer of a game and 8 of those people male, I don't think it's fair to say that they have to cater to the female demographic in that particular game at the same rate they cater to the male demographic. But where possible, an 80%/20% split in attention would be fair because it is proportionately equal with everyone counting as one.

See, now I would be totally on board with you, except that view is what I'd call "screenshot reality". If, today, you look at the audience and see that 80% is male, then it makes sense that 80% of money and focus is spend on that audience. The problem with the screenshot is that it tells you nothing about who this situation came to be, and the potential in the future. Other industries don't look at the present and plan that way, they look at the future in context of the past, and make strategic decisions based on that.

The games industry has a unique past, in that the business of computer games was largely created by games developers. In the first instance, the business acumen was questionable, and the audience was targeted at the perceived audiences (their peers, 1970's computer nerds, and young kids who were still crazy over the moon landing and suchlike). This is where the original "gamer" stereotype grew. Those guys grew up to be games devs and continued this trend, something that doesn't happen in other industries. Nowadays the industry is so big (although not massively profitable) that actual non-gaming CEOs and similar are set to be appointed, and they're waking up to the fact that this is an industry that has been for decades (intentionally or not) exclusive to more than 50% of their potential customers.

Given the situation, it's not unfair for focus to shift, especially given that the games industry needs to build upon it's customer base in order to continue growth. You can argue equality from a focus perspective, as you have done, but it's reasonable to argue from a product perspective - nearly all games are male oriented, or can be made "girl friendly" in a cosmetic sense only. This is what Sarkeesian is arguing about, regardless of whether you agree with her delivery or not (personally I don't). A games producer isn't going to listen to her videos and march out and do what she says, but the fact that her voice exists (as do many others) will make them rethink their strategy. It's worth noting that the film industry went through a similar (although not as extreme) change, but it's never stopped us from getting amazing films that suit our needs too.

 

[Lightknight]

Similarly, I believe that while many of the "notmyshield" types are legitimate, they are a minority in the minority, and are used by non-"minorities" as a way of saying "well this girl doesn't agree, therefore feminism is wrong". It's a handy tactic.

Two things:

1. On what basis are you making this claim? Have you performed a survey amongst minority gamers who are aware of gamergate and painstakingly extrapolated the average opinion via detailed statistical analysis? Or are we making wild assumptions here based on nothing other than personal opinion? I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, I can't say that because I haven't donned my lab coat and goggles to run any numbers on the matter myself.

2. Do you think someone is cherry picking them? They seem to be coming forward themselves. I'm not sure how you can relate them to a closed environment like Fox in which someone is pulling strings and wants to find a specific token for their cause. Do you believe that these individuals and their opinions do not matter? Don't you think it's a little bit wrong to marginalize them just because they disagree with you?

The fact is, many of us aren't upset over anything regarding SJW issues specifically. It just so happens that the particular form of corruption has unfairly benefited individuals that are disproportionally seen as the SJW crowd. Hence people existing who are upset that social justice shields are being used to support a corrupt environment.

Frankly, this environment has harmed all causes, including legitimate feminist causes. Zoe was only able to harm those innocent groups because of the corrupt system that favored the select groups of friends over all outsiders. That's not appropriate regardless of where you stand in the SJW crowd. It is unfortunate that the in-crowd appears to be SJW proponents specifically such that it seems like an attack on SJW. And sure, some people ARE using this to attack SJW stuff specifically. But it isn't only that and I think these notyourshield people have recognized that truth and are asking people to stop avoiding the issue of journalistic integrity by using social justice topics as a shield.

Having ethics in journalism shouldn't be something that anyone is against. Should I like Fox News just because I'm white? No, f*%k them. They're not real news and they serve no value to me because they're not real news. If I want biased opinions served to me as fact I'll go into a bar and listen to an old drunk white guy ramble about how times used to be better.

See, now I would be totally on board with you, except that view is what I'd call "screenshot reality".

You mean "current consumer market reality"? Sure. I'm not certain how you basically used a term "screenshot reality" which is basically a term meaning current factual demographic as a negative? That's how companies do business and make decisions. They don't do it on "screenshot dreaming", they do it on reality. If they expand the bounds of their product then it's typically due to a perceived demand that isn't being met which I think you and I generally agree exists. My wife was particularly happy when they had female avatars in COD for example. And why shouldn't that exist? Wasn't hard to do and it doesn't hurt me any that other people get to play with body armor that has two lumps up top.

If, today, you look at the audience and see that 80% is male, then it makes sense that 80% of money and focus is spend on that audience. The problem with the screenshot is that it tells you nothing about who this situation came to be, and the potential in the future. Other industries don't look at the present and plan that way, they look at the future in context of the past, and make strategic decisions based on that.

What does "how this situation came to be" impact business decisions? That's what's known as a sunk cost in business. Something that has already happened and is irrelevant to your next decision because it cannot be undone.

As for the potential in the future. That is something to consider, but wanting it to be the future really bad doesn't mean you invest in it now when it's not the future. Your audience forecast should include demand. If demand for something catering directly to females is high enough, then you cater to them. Please make no mistake, these idiots at the top of game publishing powerhouses aren't dismissing female money. They're going to take money wherever they can get it. What they've done is enough research to tell them whether or not it's a target market going after.

Does a stocking company sit around and wonder why they don't make more ball friendly stockings to attract male stocking wearers? Used to be a time where all genders wore stockings regularly and now it's overwhelmingly female. Styles change. They aren't going to produce a line of ball-friendly stockings if their customers are overwhelmingly female.

However, there are men who wear stockings, it's true. So if that number proves to be significant enough or if enough demand is expressed then maybe they'll start to make a separate line of stockings for them specifically while keeping their main line consistent with the largest demographic.

If you want to know why companies cater to one group or another, just follow the money. If a company thought they could make the most money by catering to cannibals and rapists then they'd cater to them. Maybe I have a jaded view of businesses but that's really what I think they'd do if they thought they could make a buck and wouldn't alienate their mainstream market. Or, if they thought they could make more money on a niche market then they'd do that even at the cost of the less profitable mainstream (like Dead Space 3 which moved away from niche to mainstream and ended up alienating everyone by not doing horror or action very good).

So believe me, if they felt the demand was strong enough to turn an excellent profit on female-centric AAA titles other than Just Dance or what have you, they'd be all on it. Like they are on those games.

The games industry has a unique past, in that the business of computer games was largely created by games developers. In the first instance, the business acumen was questionable, and the audience was targeted at the perceived audiences (their peers, 1970's computer nerds, and young kids who were still crazy over the moon landing and suchlike). This is where the original "gamer" stereotype grew. Those guys grew up to be games devs and continued this trend, something that doesn't happen in other industries. Nowadays the industry is so big (although not massively profitable) that actual non-gaming CEOs and similar are set to be appointed, and they're waking up to the fact that this is an industry that has been for decades (intentionally or not) exclusive to more than 50% of their potential customers.

Given the situation, it's not unfair for focus to shift, especially given that the games industry needs to build upon it's customer base in order to continue growth. You can argue equality from a focus perspective, as you have done, but it's reasonable to argue from a product perspective - nearly all games are male oriented, or can be made "girl friendly" in a cosmetic sense only.

Have you considered that females and males express differences in preferences in game genres the same way that males and females have different preferences in all other forms of media from movies to literature to everything else?

Assuming that we would ever be equal consumers of all games is to assume that we're going to have equal interests when this just hasn't been the case. Don't get me wrong, my wife loves FPS and was one of the 9% of girls that owned a PS3 as their primary console in 2010 compared to the 80% that owned a Wii. So I'm absolutely sympathetic to women who enjoy AAA action games like my wife but I also understand that this isn't necessarily the norm.

For example, women are in the vast majority of casual video game players. They outnumber males by a significant margin there. However, casual gaming as defined by the NDP Group is the amount of time spent gaming.

https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/37-percent-of-us-population-age-9-and-older-currently-plays-pc-games/

The core gamers are significantly more male and the heavy core gamers are not only the most male by far but spend twice the money the rest spend. In this study, to qualify as a casual gamer they had to play only non-core games.

So keep in mind, if you're a AAA developer you're not even looking at the casual gamer market. They aren't going to buy you're game. However, you might make a side project and develop a casual game to cater to that market. Which is actually what these companies are doing.

http://blog.apptopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Demo-Graph-1.png

Note that women seem to express the same sort of genre preferences in games that they do in literature/movies. This should have been expected by everyone who is aware of these gender differences.

Note also that these are current gamers and their preferences. Given a sufficient sample size these percentages and gender differences should remain similar and this particular study had hundreds of millions of users being studied.

Some day we're going to live in a world where the real differences amongst genders may be recognized and even celebrated. Pretending like we as a sexually dimorphic species aren't different isn't being forward thinking or good. It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Men and women each have their own strengths and weaknesses and that sort of specialization only benefits us. We've avoided this truth for fear of people using those differences to claim superiority. But if something is true, it shouldn't be avoided. Those who stand up and misuse the truth are the ones that should be dealt with. Not avoidance of truth. Women like RTS games more than me. OK, let's work with that.

What we should be advocating for here are entire games catering to women rather than emasculating games. I think that there are entire genres in video games that haven't been tapped that can now be tapped thanks to a larger presence in gaming by women. Romance, Drama, and all other forms of games that the run of the mill action games aren't hitting properly and that our industry hasn't quite figured out yet.

This is what Sarkeesian is arguing about, regardless of whether you agree with her delivery or not (personally I don't). A games producer isn't going to listen to her videos and march out and do what she says, but the fact that her voice exists (as do many others) will make them rethink their strategy. It's worth noting that the film industry went through a similar (although not as extreme) change, but it's never stopped us from getting amazing films that suit our needs too.

Sarkeesian only bothers me in that she uses dishonest tactics to convey a point that is not necessarily valid due to her need to use falsehoods to make it stand. For example, she confuses the grammatical object of a sentence with Objectification.

She says that damselling a female makes her the object being acting on and says that's objectification. Which is false. The object of a sentence is not objectified. "I am talking with you." Is a sentence about what is going on here where you are grammatically the object of the sentence. I am not objectifying you anymore than a doctor saving your life would be. Objectification is treating a person with disregard for their dignity. Not the same thing. It is an extreme absurdity to try to make the object of a sentence the same thing. To be true, any action that is ever taken for any person or group is objectification. Such as "Anita defends feminists" would make her an objectifyer of all feminists.

As for video games, the villain objectifies the damsel and the point of the game is to rectify that fact. The entire damsel trope is basically a hero giving the agency back to the victim after a villain takes it away. In a world where women are the most common victims of kidnapping and sexual assault is it not a noble lesson to tell young gamers that they need to be the ones to stand up against that? Anita treats the developers as if they're the villains of the story and it simply doesn't follow.

Next, my problem is that she is not advocating against these things, she is only saying it is wrong because it's aimed at women. She has stated in one of her videos that it is not wrong to damsel a male because doing so does not perpetuate a stereotype even though she spent previous videos trying to claim that damselling is objectification. So we have a scenario where she's not advocating for equality. She's advocating for females to be treated better than males. A fair approach would be to ask for more males to be damselled rather than demanding females not be unless she really does believe that there is something wrong the damsel trope in general.

She also states opinions as fact. For example, women who serve as attractive decoration isn't an objective negative. You'd have to believe that all forms of sexualization is bad from porn to the cover of most romance novels with their Fabio-esque bare chested paragon of men right there. Since most people are generally OK with it in at least some forms of media then it is difficult to objectively claim why a ban on it should be enforced in gaming or why it is more evil in gaming than in movies or TV.

So it's easily possible to have criticisms of Anita without it having anything to do with equality aside from one criticisms pointing out Anita's sexist tendencies that find performing the same actions against men that she decries against women. It is entirely possible for a person who thinks equality is a fantastic thing, like myself, to think she's full of crap. I get that you likely agree with her but please don't put all dissenters in the same box. These notyourshield people aren't against social justice. They just have other reasons for why they dislike media corruption and don't think that you or anyone else should use social justice as a mask to hide behind.

 

[Dragonbums]

Bah, minorities are only useful to gamergate so long as they can use us to bash journalists they deem as journalisticly corrupt.

I cannot wait for 3 months from now when minorities start pondering lack of diversity in gaming and it will be met with jokes like "maybe we should have a latino, bisexual, androgynous appearing dinosuar women and everyone will be happy", and "maybe if you guys were a larger demographic or didn't buy GTA and NBA all the time we would ponder even acknowledging your existence in videogames. Oh here's the best one "It doesn't matter what the race is!" which only ever crops up in threads asking for different races of protags because if they truly didn't care they wouldn't feel the need to say anything of the sort at all in that thread.


So please. Imnotyourshield? More like Imnotyourweapon. I'll believe it when y'all actually geniunely care about us in videogmes outside of bashing game journos.