3401

I remember browsing what became the 20k+ ZQ reddit comment thread before it was nuked. That was a place I considered to be the most mainstream of gaming communities, a place I associated with gaming culture and thus to some extent myself. When it exploded with so much nastiness and cruelty, at such an incredible volume… it really put me off gaming culture as a whole. Never in my life have I felt like gaming wasn’t great community to consider to be a part of until that crap. Worse, so many people in the thread claimed to be defending the honor of gaming while doing it. Ugh.

3402

So you think the dirty laundry should have gotten MORE media attention? That is a bizarre stance.

Rather than letting the whole matter die, some barely employed bay area bloggers decided to cover it in a way to paint gamers, IN GENERAL, as being a bunch of misogynistic man children.

I am curious to read these blogs that tell me I am a misogynistic manchild. Can you name the bloggers and link their work please?

Shitting on your customers rarely ends well.

I really agree with this, Brad.

3403

I’d say it’s more a matter of the toxicity of Internet culture. Of course, at least ZQ’s thread was deleted, the ones about me are still there and the comments there were as nasty as they get as well (the ensuing death threats and “real life” harassment as well). No one, including me, ever considered the motivation of jerks to be anything other than them being jerks.

Internet culture can be very very toxic. :(

@Soapy, I don’t think the media should have covered the lurid thing at all. But then again, I don’t think they should have been covering some former employee’s lurid, fabricated allegations about me either. If you’re not familiar with the nasty articles on gamers written back in August I’m not sure why you’re participating in this thread since it’s the most pertinent part of the controversy.

3404

The most pertinent thing to me is the harassment that’s been occuring all around (it’s not just one-sided). The “gamers are dead”-type articles were just yellow journalism. The harassment has gotten some people hurt.

3405

I pretty much agree with you until you reference the ‘Gamers are Dead’ articles. What you call ‘shitting on your customers’ I call you, and others, massively misreading cultural criticism. I’ll not fully rehash the arguments here, but suffice it to say ‘X is Dead’ is a well worn trope within cultural criticism, and has been applied to things as divers as rock music, books, metal, etc. etc. etc.

Sorry but I am really friggin tired of that being rehashed as some type of massive attack on consumers. It is nothing more than some particularly insular types within ‘video game culture’ being completely ignorant of how cultural criticism works. Yeah, it’s an intentionally provocative title, but it’s nothing new or novel.

3406

Fair enough. Then we’ll agree to disagree. You interpret the articles one way, others (including me) interpreted them differently.

Edit: Found the blog I wrote on this previously: http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/457616/Gamergate_and_the_RPS_response

3407

If you dont think that the media should have covered it then it’s hard to see how it should be relevant to the gamergate discussion. And I should point out that much of the swirling controversy around ZQ is conjecture in the same way your own case was surrounded by conjecture; why do you give weight to conjecture about ZQ when you know how damaging that can be from personal experience? Is it out of a sense of revenge? Or a desire to see others suffer as you had to suffer?

If you’re not familiar with the nasty articles on gamers written back in August I’m not sure why you’re participating in this thread since it’s the most pertinent part of the controversy.

I forgive you for not following this thread it’s entire miserable length, otherwise you would know I am indeed familiar with what you call “nasty articles”, but you’d have to show me where they describe all gamers as misogynist man children since that was really not the thrust of them. Here’s the infamous the end of gamers blog post which set the spark to gunpowder so to speak, along with this gamasutra article. Nowhere do I see this blanket accusation. Also neither of these articles is really “shitting on their customers” since they are purely opinion pieces.

Extra points if you can guess which of the two authors received harassment from Gamergaters.

3408

@Soapy I’m not sure we’re even remotely understanding each other.

  1. I don’t think ZQ deserved any harassment.
  2. I don’t think ZQ’s dirty laundry should have been covered.
  3. I don’t think ZQ got any notable coverage because of her relationships

These are 3 things I’ve stated from the start, in interviews, in various threads, etc.

Here is where we might part ways:

  1. I know the “indie scene” of the game industry is rife with nepotism.
  2. the people angry with ZQ were angry with her mostly because she’s been a toxic presence in that segment for awhile and has used false allegations previously.
  3. The bulk of people who use the tag #gamergate do not ascribe to misogyny.
  4. The August series of articles on gamers was pretty obviously coordinated.
  5. Here’s a more detailed analysis of the abuse hurled at gaming culture: http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/artic...e_RPS_response
  6. The people genuinely believe that the indie gaming scene and the journalists who cover it are “corrupt” are not driven by an anti-woman vibe.
  7. SJWs have a long long history of trying to paint their critics as sexists, racists, homophobes and people are fed up with it.
3409

Here we do part ways. It was pretty obviously NOT coordinated… the two initial articles had little to do with each other, and everything that followed was a response or reaction to those two articles and the response that they triggered. But more to the point… a couple of opinion pieces is meaningless in terms of impact. You think it’s a conspiracy but a conspiracy to do what exactly?

  1. Here’s a more detailed analysis of the abuse hurled at gaming culture: http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/artic...e_RPS_response

Sorry but I’m a gamer. Big time. I’m posting this between Highmaul boss fights. I don’t see my culture being insulted, and I’ve never been and am not now afraid or ashamed to call myself a gamer and I was doing it before it was cool man.

To me the whole “insult” angle is just not credible. I don’t want to tell me people how to feel, but you can’t go through life seeking out insults to be offended by, it’s just not good for the blood pressure.

  1. The people genuinely believe that the indie gaming scene and the journalists who cover it are “corrupt” are not driven by an anti-woman vibe.

It’s hard to ignore that most of the targets of harassment are women. I don’t doubt there are non-misogynists who believe there is a problem with corruption in games journalism, I could even call myself one of them. Unfortunately, Gamergate was very rapidly co-opted by the same misogynists who had an ongoing beef with their favourite bogeyman third wave feminists. Why do you think Anita Sarkeesian got pulled into the crosshairs so quickly. WTF does she have to do with corruption in indie game journalism???

  1. SJWs have a long long history of trying to paint their critics as sexists, racists, homophobes and people are fed up with it.

I’m pretty fed up with all the SJW talk. It’s just more conspiracy argle bargle.

3410

There’s no such thing as a SWJ “conspiracy”. What instead you’re seeing is a bunch of people who believe, more or less, in the same principles acting, more or less, in the same direction. It’s dangerous to use anecdotes like VH above as representative of everyone involved.

If there is a GG “pushback” against “SWJ”-ism it is I believe more about language than substance, though neither side would see it like that (and i’m for this argument assuming their are some honest GG’ers whomever they are acting in good faith, and not the broad mass of shitheads that seem the majority, whom I personally suspect to be inordinately young). It’s more about the language they learned in Uni than in real life. Progressivism defines things in such a way as to make it nearly impossible to argue against it. When you say want you want is equal rights, and/or to not be discriminated against, how do you argue against that without being a jerk? When a “SJW” walks into a room and says “this is shit, we need to fix this”, you have no recourse but to agree or engage in a multi paragraph battle of definitions and agreed upon terms, which won’t happen. The “GG’ers” see this as being aggressive, and so respond aggressively back. The “SWJ” perceive the aggression against them, which proves their initial premises. Etc. ad nausium. Which of course blurs the real arguments a progressive person could legitimately make against gaming culture, and sidesteps the critique of some of those arguments in a broader context that could be made.

3411

Yah the harassment is the most important thing right now… as in it is still going strong, still being excused, and for some reason we’re supposed to have a conversation about gaming journalism as if those things aren’t going on.

3412

I didn’t realize you were tracking this thread, and my comment was directed at the issue and not you personally.

But since you made it personal, no you can’t hand wave off anything as victim blaming because you are white, male, and well above average in wealth. You aren’t a victim.

You can’t equate the harassment you get with the harassment ZQ has received. Apples and Oranges. Or have you had to relocate suddenly out of concern for the safety of yourself or your family?

3413

Yes, completely. I’ve not seen evidence that any of the accusations against her were in any way credible. But hey, it was about ethics in games journalism right?

3414

Very well said.

3415

Well, see, this is a friction point. You can’t very well assume everyone has the same world view and thus doesn’t mind taking one on the nose because of who they are. And certainly you wouldn’t be eager to disregard a ‘protected’ class of person on the basis of their experiences they way you do here. You’re basically saying that it doesn’t matter what happened to him, because of who he is. When someone who is progressive meets someone who is conservative/self-declared libertarian, because of your mutually incompatible worldviews, the results is reverse tears.

3416

Pretty much the perfect encapsulation of the SJW/Cultural Marxist mentality. In the SJW mind, Brad doesn’t even exist as an individual, he has no story and no experiences. He exists solely as a dehumanized racial and sexual identity.

3417

Yeah, it’s kind of messed up to think it’s OK to judge Brad based on your perception of certain aspects of his existence, rather than his qualities as an actual, individual, person.

That’s kind of the definition of bigotry. It’s exactly that kind of thinking that results in all sexism, racism, xenophobia, etc.

When you try to invalidate someone’s experiences based on their race, sex, etc. then you are starting down a bad road.

3418

But it’s racism to destroy racism. Also, we are going to limit what people can say: it’s TOTALLY not censorship. We will just try to run them out of business and destroy them personally for having ideas different than what we think are acceptable. I won’t ever end up as the thing I hate!

3419

Fuck you. Kids are getting shot in the head in Syria and you’re trying to one up someone in a debate about video games? Video games are for the most spoiled, degenerate slobs in human history. We all passed the morality event horizon when we spent thousands of dollars and hours in plato’s cave instead of helping alleviate the suffering of other sentient beings. If you want to one up someone never log in to the site again, never spend a cent on virtual stupidity again, and give your income to charity. Then you have a license to come back here in 50 years and tell us that we’re all worthless. Until then there’s absolutely no positionality in any conversation about video games.

3420

I gotta agree with much of this. This fits the profile of my friends who are angry at the SJWs (though I have just as many friends who are SJWs). That said, I have seen several batshit crazy gators. Many FGC folks that I dreaded being around back in the day, they’re radical gators now. One of them was the guy Ben Kuchera tried to get fired.

The SJWs respond in a very vile manner as well, I’ve seen misogyny and transmisogyny coming from them towards my friends (some of whom are in the industry as well). It’s one of the reasons I can’t take their calls against harassment seriously- I feel they only care about harassment towards the folks they agree with. One thing I’ll say is that both sides are guilty of news they agree with- which is why one of my long-term predictions is that a pro-GG game journo site is going to be viable.

That said, of those friends, I’ve seen their real beliefs to be a lot like Brad’s, in that they acknowledge misogyny is a problem, but they have very different ideas on how to solve it. I agree more with Brad’s approach, though I think there are exceptions, because I’ve seen situations where the SJW’s are right- such as competitive communities. In those cases you need more proactive steps.

Also, I wonder if the typical SJW tactics are failing because of income inequality. I think most people feel oppressed these days due to income inequality, and when an oppressed person is told they are an oppressor, it doesn’t go over well. Maybe I’m reading too much into that.

I think he exists as Emmanuel Goldstein.