LMN8R
2781
What’s in Mass Effect and Dragon Age today hardly qualifies as “romance”.
But if you think Bioware and everyone who works there is so stubborn and immature that they’d remove romance entirely instead of entertaining the idea of randomizing default gender instead of choosing male as default gender, you must not really think too highly of the maturity of the people who work at Bioware?
I wasn’t criticizing Bioware, I wasn’t even criticizing society. ME3 was literally the last game I finished so it came to mind as an example of something I cannot believe people tried to disagree with(the male/white/heterosexual default protagonist, not just in video games, but in all media). It appeared that some people didn’t really understand what was meant by white privilege. It’s now clear that those people weren’t sincerely confused, but at least we’re all on the same page.
No, it’s a simple business decision, not to enter the morass which #GG has created.
You’re using the box as a weapon, let alone game content…and once more, there’s a sharp difference between criticism and what you’re calling for.
I have no idea what you think I’m calling for, but what I’m actually calling for is for people, just the people in this thread, to exercise the tiniest quantum of introspection and empathy instead of endlessly searching for ways to be offended.
LOL “a weapon”? We don’t need to speculate about what would happen if people talked about ME games needed more gay romance options. That happened, and then ME3 happened.
Companies are absolutely not going to change their behavior to avoid getting scorn from GamerGaters. Look at this thread, #GG supporters are so ashamed of the hashtag they have to all preface their pro-GG posts with “I’m not a gamergater…”
If anything, Gamergate will embolden devs to be even more inclusive, because they’ve seen the way the public broke down on this issue. Losing the 8chan demographic is a drop in the bucket compared to the Colbert Report demo.
I don’t know, and don’t care. I’m interested purely in the practical consequences for games.
I’m aware of two projects which got canned, myself, so far - so your claim behaviours won’t change is not only false, it’s downright silly. Business is not served by being “bold” and plunging into a maelstrom, generally. Carmageddon was the exception, not the rule.
LMN8R
2786
I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
What “box” am I using as a weapon?
What am I calling for?
How is it “entering the morass which #GG created” to simply point out to Bioware that unconscious bias led to default male?
That’s rather my point. You’re quite unaware of the nature of the weapon you’re wielding, but you’re using it anyway.
One classic example of it being swung was the Comics Code Authority.
LMN8R
2790
You’re trying to be smugly intelligent and it’s just totally failing. I have literally no fucking idea what you’re talking about. Either be direct or just stop.
Pod
2791
To clarify:
Those two projects were both officially cancelled because of GamersGate-related things, somehow? e.g. they contained nothing but overly sexualised women?
Teiman
2792
USA is a very religious country*, but also very powerful. So anti-progressive and pro-censorship attitudes win there, it will have a negative effect worldwide.
*It may be a religious country full of atheist, but the religious have the control of the message and that matters.
People with unpopular opinions can’t talk in public, because they themselves will be judged negatively before the value of their opinions is weighted.
And thats why you will never have a USA president that say in public that he is atheist.
Aaaah, but the problem is that what’s being characterized by some people (the GG crowd) as pro-censorship (it’s not, since criticism and call for diversity does not equal censorship) is also progressive. So basically it could go any way, by that judgement…
As for religion… It is a very religous country, compared to some, and not to others. You have 17% of people that claim no formal religion in the US, while in Europe that number hovers on 45% (but it varies greatly by country, and does include “people who believe in a sort of Spirit or Life Force” but not in God). However, the extremism of the religious feeling is harder to measure (by my personal experience, most people in the US are pretty moderate in their religious viewpoints, while I know a lot of nutjobs here).
magnet
2794
People who are afraid of being judged negatively don’t drop incomprehensible hints in a public forum. And that’s why you you will never have a USA president say in public, “If you knew my religious beliefs it would totally blow your mind. But that’s all I’m willing to say about that.”
Oh well story checks out then, I’m sorry my Mass Effect box art post made those definitely for real companies do that.
Is #GamerGate over? Maybe if you’re not Zoe Quinn.
I keep saying the phrase “August Never Ends”. I’m still being threatened over a review that never existed, still being hunted by the crusaders for “ethics” who will spin on a dime to defend child pornography but attempt to burn you in effigy for a poor taste joke made over 10 years ago. That’s nothing new. But there’s a fun new way to be ground down by all this thrown in the mix that I haven’t said much about.
Think GG is hard to explain to a friend? Try a legal system that doesn’t really understand what the internet is yet - it’s like trying to push cooked pasta through the eye of a needle. Try explaining shit like 4chan to an officer who types with henpeck hands and getting handed a police report that makes you feel like praying the abuse away may be more effective. Law enforcement is prepared for familiar things like “here is a death threat, here is someone violating a restraining order, here’s where they openly discuss wanting to rape me”, but trying to convey how things work online is frustrating. Thankfully though, police reports are there to put you in contact with the detective, who you can then actually talk to and get to understand what’s actually going on, if you’re lucky. Police reports are there to essentially go “hey y’all some shit is up do you wanna look into this?”, that will then either be escalated or ignored based on the merit of your case (and a ton of other socioeconomic factors I will not be getting into) and actually figure out what’s happened and what to do about it if anything. And hey, at least the detective on my case plays Halo.
But then there’s court, if you’re lucky enough to get taken seriously. Then you have to stand up in front of a bunch of people and recount your abuse. Then you have to face the people who have abused you trying to justify everything they’ve done and go over how much you had it coming while simultaneously saying it never happened, likely using the fact that it’s the internet to make your case seem flippant and your concerns for your safety seem histrionic. Then there’s the likelihood that you’ll find yourself having to explain the internet to a judge who may or may not even want to know. Sometimes they understand, sometimes they tell you the internet is not a big deal and maybe if you don’t want to get harassed you shouldn’t be online. Sometimes, when they tell you that, you tell them that your entire career is online and you’d have to give it up to effectively do that, and they tell you you’re a smart young kid and should maybe just consider a new career. Sometimes you sit in the magistrate’s office listening to the defense attorney get basic facts wrong, while talking to a judge who also gets basic facts wrong, and you feel a crushing sense of despair at watching people with no stake or perspective on your world decide your fate.
Teiman
2797
The second piece is a good text. I suppose if Kafka where alive, he would sue this girl for copyright infringement with this obvious derivative work of his novel “The Trial”.
Aleck
2798
Does this mean that Quinn is actually taking people to court? Good on her if it does.
Was there every any follow up on whether Quinn was pursuing the folks who threatened her?
Alstein
2799
The folks who are harassing her to that extent- they should be brought to court. Zero tolerance for that sort of shit.
That said, I suspect the folks who are harassing ZQ are losers in life who aren’t really worth suing- you can’t get anything out of them.
And I say all this despite the fact ZQ is someone I don’t really think of in a postitive light.
Busbecq
2800
