1710

The term SJW (social justice warrior) is slightly derogatory by definition (invented I suppose by those who didn’t like them in first place). It implies someone who is a warrior, a soldier in a holy war, a fanatic in a cause. Not someone who simply agrees that sexism is bad and it should be reduced. In any case, if we follow that definition, there aren’t moderate SJWs, they can’t be, though there are people with moderate views on the issue, they just don’t enter in the subset of SJWs.

1711

While that might be true about the origin of the term, it is also no longer how it is applied. It is applied liberally to any person who discusses any aspect of criticism that is socially inclined. Writing an article discussing the social or political side to any game and you are labeled a SJW. In a context like that the term has been rendered meaningless. So as such we can’t pretend that the original intent of the term still applies. While it might have meant only extremists initially, a claim I’d say is of dubious veracity, it now applies to anyone looking at games in any context who talks about social or political aspect to the game. It is used to try and dismiss, and therefore prevent, that type of analysis from occurring. In turn it means that those who use the term liberally are trying to prevent the medium, and the discussion around it, from maturing.

1712

Ehh I know what you are saying, it’s true that is happening. But not everyone applies it that way. I would use it to indicate at least someone with a proven history of pushing a particular social agenda.

edit: though odds are low because usually I don’t participate in these discussions. Hell, I’m writing here because it’s the only thing we talk in the thread for the last 12 pages!

1713

I can assure you with total confidence it absolutely is run by a couple of people just getting a rise out of people.

1714

Last thing, because this is just degenerating in terribad territory.

The fact that BOTH sides are organized is proven by how the opposite side at large now claims “victory” on a totally illogical argument: since chat logs exposed the #GamerGate and #notyourshield hashtags were (supposedly) invented by those few guys in the chat, by extension EVERYONE who used them WAS WRONG.

As if a word, or an idea, is only valid depending on who had it first, and regardless of what it means on its own.

1715

I just can’t get over the big picture, that people supposedly concerned about ethics in journalism decide to focus on Patreon donations for indy games, Jenn Frank’s op-ed, and everyone else that was targetted. Sad days.

1716

And then I read, “This is a fairly male-dominated industry and it is quite exclusionary.”

When it’s a kind of nepotism I pointed at for years when I was ranting about MMORPGs. How game companies just constantly hired only friends of friends and one guy would move from a company to another only to then hire back the whole team. And so you’d see company names changing but THE EXACT SAME people who failed to fail again in the exact same way. Because nothing changes, and nothing changed because it was always the same people gathering in a new place. And it concretely hurt the industry because no new blood would be allowed in. The worst your result, the higher your next position (best example: Tom Chilton, the Lead Designer of Age of Shadows Ultima Online expansion, that was so utter, irredeemable shit that got him a Lead Design job at Blizzard).

Even guys like Lum justified it with: “it’s a small industry, you’d expect people to just lose their job?”

So, game industry, but also industry in general is plagued by various forms on nepotism. And it usually have little to do with sexism inside that nepotism. It’s just that friend helps friend (or, in the vein of Game of Thrones, it’s all about “family”). Game industry is one big family.

There’s only ONE thing that is important in life: establishing good relationships regardless of talent and competence. Because that’s how you can get a good job.

That’s why all social events like conventions and panels and meeting fellow developers is FAR more important than everything else. Not because you meet your audience (developers hate their audience), but because you establish relationships that will open you doors. Otherwise you already failed. Man or woman.

And THIS is the aspect about the Zoe Quinn thing that IS relevant. Not who she had sex with, but the fact that when you are no one, your goal is to be known and recognized as a developer, because it’s when doors start to open. And certainly all this mess has: 1- made Zoe Quinn one of the most well known names in the whole industry and now likely more popular and easily recognized than some Big Names, 2- move a huge amount of sympathy and support in her direction from a big chunk of public, as well other fellow developers.

I’d compare the amount of money Zoe Quinn made in the last 6 months, and the amount of money she’ll make in the next 6. I’ll not be surprised if there’s an exponential growth.

And nope, none of this justifies or excuses the harassment or everything else.

1717

So…you’re mad that people like her and are contributing to her Patreon at higher rates than you think she deserves?

The not-so-subtle implication you’re making that she’s making up threats or continuing to talk about this exclusively to get more monetary support is one of the most misogynist thing you can suggest in this whole story.

The entire impetus of discussion about misogyny in the world (not just games, but everywhere) is rooted in accusations of things exactly like that. Direct literal victim blaming. Blaming her for the harassment she still gets. Blaming her when she gets support from fans who contribute to her. Blaming her when she continues to talk about it so no one forgets that harassment against women is a real issue and of a magnitude that few men could ever understand, but nearly every single woman in the industry does.

It’s the exact same thing as when people blamed Anita Sarkeesian for having an immensely successful Kickstarter. Even though Sarkeesian has delivered on exactly what she promised, the fact that fans of her contributed a lot more money than she ever expected now means that people are blaming her for doing what she promised instead of enough to “justfy” the substantial amount of extra money she got. I cannot count the number of times I’ve seen her attacked because her videos are not “worth” the $159k she raised on Kickstarter - they’re literally blaming her for something completely out of her control, success because fans contributed at far higher numbers than she expected.

There is nothing “relevant” to discuss here about Zoe. She made a free game to help people cope with depression. She started a Patreon so fans could continue to support her in such endeavors. Oh, and separately, she had fun having sex with people like nearly every person on earth does. There is literally no evidence to support the claims that she got coverage because of sexual favors.

1718

Is this why every recent MMO in recent history has character that look like marvel action figures musclemens? because fuck that.

1719

People like Zoe and Anita deserve our respect. Anita raised a good point with his videos, but other people have proved her wrong in reply videos.

Heres a different interpretation to things

1720

I think that’s more because all recent MMOs, like all recent movies, are based on marvel comics.

1721

I’m not mad. I just pointed out that nepotism in the game industry is much widespread and has very little to do with Zoe Quinn or sexism, and it’s always been there.

And then I pointed out that receiving that kind of support from fellow developers is part of the same thing. This helps her career and she’s riding it because she’s not stupid.

The not-so-subtle implication you’re making that she’s making up threats or continuing to talk about this exclusively to get more monetary support is one of the most misogynist thing you can suggest in this whole story.

She’s not making up threats, she’s basking in them. Which is her right.

I’m baffled about how this can be seen as misogynist since it has nothing to do with her gender.

The entire impetus of discussion about misogyny in the world (not just games, but everywhere) is rooted in accusations of things exactly like that. Direct literal victim blaming. Blaming her for the harassment she still gets.

And you must have selective blindness since I wrote that none of that justifies the harassment. And if I’m talking about nepotism I’m certainly not talking about harassment.

That’s why I wrote “this is the aspect about Zoe Quinn that is relevant”. Meaning: the nepotism in the industry. It is a real thing, it’s not related to the part about Zoe Quinn that is not relevant: the harassment.

There is nothing “relevant” to discuss here about Zoe. She made a free game to help people cope with depression. She started a Patreon so fans could continue to support her in such endeavors.

This is another kind of stupid.

Are you really convinced that the fact a game is free makes its developer completely immune from self-interest and into a purely altruistic entity?

Because it’s fucking dumb. Especially now that so much of the business is driven by donations and public funding. It’s a totally viable strategy making free games if you can find a way to have alternatives revenues. They are still revenues. It’s still a viable business model. It’s still about money.

And if you are a no one, making free games to get the attention is a wonderful way to actually “break in”. Perfectly clever strategy.

1722

Those are not the hills to be fighting on.

The Patreons/kickstarters- as long as journos are using their own money and not getting any special treatment, I’m fine with it. It’s no different than anything I do.

The op-eds that point out the problems and wish to expand the audience- I support that. What I oppose is condescending clickbaity tripe that is more about taking away what is there than adding what is not.

There are ethics problems, but most of them are on the AAA end, not from the low-end indies.

1723

And Raph talks with someone else about something else, but confirms what I said above:


Early MMO was a TINY group of people. We worked @ all the companies. We hired each other

we were friends. Some went to college together.

Current indie has a lot of that quality to it

it’s bootstrapped up by some devs who know each other, some press who like them, IGF

a lot of really important stuff never happens without that sort of a scene

1724

Yeah, this is expected in any creative industry, really (or any industry in which there are no objective evaluations of performance. You can see this in teaching, too). After all, you want to work with people you can depend on, and knowing the person in question helps you evaluate this. I just can’t see how this is outrageous at all. It’s actually positive most of the time, more human than weighting a CV.

1725

It’s not outrageous but it is rather bad for the reasons I explained.

One one side it makes the industry extremely exclusionary. In the sense that new people have a very, very, very hard time getting in if they lack the good connections, since those in control want to keep that position. And this has the consequence of making the games all the same and making the industry itself extremely static. Without reaching for new people and better ideas, and favoring just a self-preserving group, the rest is a product that goes nowhere if not backwards. A closed system is one that collapses because it doesn’t want or try to get better. The sorry state of modern MMORPGs is a proof of this.

On the other side it’s just awful that exploiting social connections is what matters the most. If you know people doors open. If you have friends in good positions, then your path is cleared of all obstacles. This kind of nepotism is just sad. It happens everywhere, but this doesn’t make it less sad.

1726

It depends whether you use connections to get a junior position or a senior one. If every single person is hired through contacts, you are obviously right, but I think that’s uncommon.

The situation described in the tweets seemed to indicate hiring of experienced developers (they went from one MMO to another), not new ones. Obviously you need to keep the doors open for junior positions, but using personal contacts makes sense for senior positions (since a CV is not necessarily the best way to assess a creative person).

1727

Now there is a loaded word. I hear it all the time in TV and radio ads, telling folks that they can get what they deserve from X or Y company.

And all I think every time is “heaven help us all if we ever get what we deserve.”

1728

Someone doesn’t even understand what misogyny is, despite ranting and raving throughout this thread about misogyny in games. Oh the delicious irony.

There isn’t an ounce of misogyny in the implication that you claimed, it is completely irrelevant to gender - but because it is directed at a female it is suddenly misogyny.

(To be clear, obviously any action can be misogynistic, but LMN8R is claiming that all actions are misogynistic if negative and aimed at a female regardless of motive)

1729

Yeah, it’s this kind of gradual erasure of clear thinking that bugs me most about what’s going on these days with “PC gone mad” and “SJWs”.

That and the increasing conformity and groupthink. Also, the knee-jerk use of moral equivalence arguments, “tu quoque” and all the rest of it.

Looked at individually, all these kinds of incidents are fairly trivial, but the overall tendency is bad. Also, there is a direct link between all this nonsense and the horrors of Rotherham, recently unveiled, the unwillingness of many to call a spade a spade when it comes to terrorism, etc., etc. - it’s all of a piece.

When I were a young lad, I was a socialist, I was stridently anti-racist and anti-sexist, and I fought for political correctness, I am of the generation that invented it in the 80s. But it has overshot its mark now.

Now it’s become something learned by rote in school, and has therefore itself become something as stupid as anything else that’s learnt by rote in school - a kind of low level, smug evil, to be resisted. Why? Because it has no intention behind it any more. It’s become a tic-like social duty to proclaim one’s social “ok”-ness by dissing others as “racist” or “sexist” and the like at the drop of a hat, so much so that the terms themselves are getting devalued. (Rather like how habitual swearing devalues the power of swear words to express the limits of emotion - an analogous trend, btw, in the sense that once artists fought for the right of free expression to use, for example swear words in their work, whereas nowadays swear words and pissing on Christ are de rigeur in any proper work of art meant for public consumption, i.e. a form of conformity.)

We’ve returned to the social conformity of the 50s, in another, subtler guise, with PC taking the place of religion and “civic duty.”