1770

I certainly don’t disagree with anything else you’re saying. But in the case of the Mozilla CEO, a founder of a company stepped down because money he spent six years ago made stakeholders uncomfortable? This isn’t even a response to someone expressing a view. This article sums it up pretty well. That reaction should be exactly the sort relatable to people fighting for the inclusion of feminist voices in game critique.

1771

I think he made a poor choice that I don’t agree with, but that is not why I find the situation completely different. For one, no one trying to have a civil conversation is really trying to get someone fired, dev, pub or journalist. While some gamers are very likely shareholders, it’s not shareholder pressure that pushing any sort of decision here. If Brendan Eich was threatened, it wasn’t wildly publicized, and there certainly wasn’t a mob after him because he was a man. Mostly though, I am not convinced how much pressure from the political front was the cause of his resignation. I think Mozzila had other issues, and he didn’t appear to be well liked by the board which is a real problem. I think to say he had to resign because of his donation and OKcupid is a gross oversimplification of what actually happened.

1772

That’s definitely a reasonable extrapolation of my argument and not an exaggerated straw man, certainly.

If you hold opinions which contradict the values of your customers, your customers are entitled to hold you accountable for those opinions. It’s not “oppression”, it’s simple business sense.

1773

There was a great example of this kind of “enforcement” a couple of years back, at a developer conference (PyCon). Adria Richards overheard somebody making a joke about “forking”, interpreted it as sexual, and decided that the right course of action was public shaming. She took a photo of the people behind her and posted it + a complaint about harassment on her Twitter account (with thousands of followers). And if that wasn’t enough, she then wrote a blog post lauding her own heroic actions.

This blew up virally, the employer of the guy who made a joke tried to do PR damage control, and fired him. All rather predictable, but also a completely disproportionate punishment given the infraction. It seems like many here would disagree with that.

1774

A formalist might answer that what a game is depends neither on its author nor its player, but only on its essence, which is a system of rules. One could replace the aesthetic and narrative layers with arbitrary themes while the game, considered in itself, remains the same. One could strip everything else away and the game remains playable (perhaps even in a purer, more beautiful form), but once one removes the rules, the game is gone.

I’m pretty sure this old conflict, which used to be styled as ludology vs. narratology, is one of the strong influences on the Gamergaters, and what they are attempting to articulate when they nebulously demand “objectivity” in game reviews. Anti-formalism is perhaps almost as dominant in contemporary gaming journalism as political leftism (they’re probably related, when one understands anti-formalism as a kind of nominalism), and apparently a lot of people instinctively feel that this cannot be the only way to talk about games.

Incidentally, ObjectiveGameReviews also released a statement. I still can’t tell how much of the whole site is ironical. The scores are, of course, but their purely formal description of a game as a set of mechanics, facetious by itself, sometimes seems like it could serve as a healthy injection of reality into many other writings.

1775

That really does depend on whether the joke was sexual or not.

Although I don’t think public shaming is the right response to this specific case as you tell it (it rarely is unless the offense is very public), a sexual joke in a workplace constitutes sexual harassment in many jurisdictions, and that has to have consequences to the infractor (firing being one of the common ones). The fact that this happened in a conference instead of in a single company definitely makes the right kind of response (talking to the company’s HR) impossible to follow (doesn’t justify public shaming, though).

What I’m trying to say is that, I don’t agree with the shaming here, and maybe the joke was not sexual and the worker was unfairly prosecuted. I don’t know the case so I can judge.

But, if it was a sexual joke aimed at somebody who wasn’t expecting it in a work environment, it wouldn’t be necessarily disproportionate punishment. So I agree in this specific case, but do disagree with the punishment being “completely” disproportionate in the more general case of sexual jokes in a workplace (it depends on the jokes and on the frequency of them).

It’s the same with Brad’s case. The specifics of it are hard to know from the outside, so he shouldn’t have been so judged publically (and in this case there was a pretty documented suit, so it was going to be resolved, one way or the other, by the court). The fact that the suit was dropped suggests all that criticism was at least exaggerated, and at most completely unfair. However, that does not change the more general case that workplace harassment should have consequences when it happens.

1776

This is, obviously, a fair stance (which I disagree with, but that’s unimportant). However, what I was replying to in the OP was that formalism in games was being defended while bringing films and books as mediums that are inherently narrative (as opposed to games). I was merely pointing out that contradiction, since formalist approaches to both literature and film do propose say that narrative is not the essence of those mediums either (more so with film).

That is, if you want to defend games as systems first, don’t do so by saying that books and films are narrative mediums. In this subject I’m a pragmatist. No medium in narrative per-se, but most significant cultural production in all media tends to be narrative (with visual arts modernism being one of the most important outliers in history, but that’s mostly over, depending on how you define narrative), because the public does engage with the narrative more than with the pure medium. That is, maybe Stan Brackage experimental films are purar films, but most worldwide film production are Bollywood and Nollywood narratives.

Thus, formalism belongs to the art gallery/experimental games, while narrative (and others, like sports and social experiences) are what’s is actually being mass consumed. Note that this doesn’t give any valuation to any of the approaches, just states the facts.

1777

Well, well, well. The Escapist has posted a looong statement on GamerGate, starting with some uncontroversial “state of the gaming public” observations. The interesting part is on page 4 where they expressly apologize (without naming names) for reporting Quinn’s harrassment allegations against Wizardchan as fact, and then failing to report on Wizardchan’s refutations. The last page is a new ethics guideline where they vow to do proper fact checking before reporting and also to disclose conflicts of interest.

Our editor-in-chief, Greg Tito, having reviewed the facts at hand, concluded we ourselves have been imperfect in maintaining journalistic standards. A particularly problematic article, the one which generated his review, was about the alleged harassment of an indie developer by a forum community which denied the allegations but was itself victimized as a result of them. The article failed to cite the harassment as alleged, failed to give the forum community an opportunity present its point of view, and did not verify the claims or secure other sources. Mr. Tito has personally updated the article and spoken to all our editors about the importance of adhering to standards that will prevent such bad incidents from happening again. We, as a team, apologize for this error, both to our readers and to the forum community that suffered as a result. I, personally, apologize for this error, as well.

1778

If all you’re talking about is boycotting and people voting with their purses, sure, but if people have to keep their opinions to themselves, no matter how batty others might think them, for fear of consequences, then society has become illiberal.

Tolerance means precisely tolerating things you don’t like. So long as no harm is being done, opinions should be freely expressable, and counter-opinions also freely expressable; but if it gets to the stage where “harm” is defined merely as “eeuw, I don’t like it”, then you’re fucked. You’ve merely replaced the intolerance (e.g. religious) of ages past with another set of taboos, with a fashionable sheen, but equally mindlessly held to.

1779

From my perspective the only culprits guilty of trying to silence speech or enforce restrictions on speech are the anti-Sarkeesian camp. They actively and publicly tried to shut down and ruin her fundraising campaign and have been subsequently using threats, doxxing, and intimidation tactics to try and scare her out of continuing her chosen platform for speech. They are not countering her speech with more speech or dissenting opinions. Worrying about some distant and mostly unrealistic possibility of progressives trying to control the “speech” of developers seems quaint next to the very real campaign to silence those exercising their right to criticize games occurring right now.

-Todd

1780

But isn’t that exactly what you’re asking of social justice types? That they keep their opinions to themselves? Or to put it another way, what specifically are social justice types doing that is not 1. boycotting/voting with wallets or 2. expressing an opinion on public?

1781

The intolerant harassers get awfully defensive and hypocritical when it happens to them:

1782

I love the last line of that article:

Johnsmcjohn, an active user of Reddit’s cocaine forum who the Post noted had difficulty paying bills, also had this to say: “I don’t like it, but so be it. The Nixon Administration couldn’t stop the WP, so I didn’t try to stop them. Also, I paid my gas bill in case anyone cares.”

1783

This is off-topic, but … those aren’t the facts. Narrative is far less important to a game’s commercial success than you think.

What are the top 3 best selling games of all time? Tetris, Wii Sports, and Minecraft. What are all these things lack? Narrative. The percentage of narrative-free Call of Duty multiplayer hours played absolutely dwarf the number of single-player, narrative-intensive single player hours played. What’s the fastest growing genre of recent years (other than Minecraft) - non-narrative MOBAs. Even in Skyrim, which does have a narrative, the amount of time the player spends on traditional narrative is dwarfed by the amount of time spent on other activities. The games that have the broadest audiences - the Candy Crushes and the Angry Birds - lack any kind of important narrative. (Well, the birds are angry and don’t like pigs, if you want to stretch it.) Etc. etc.

Narrative in a game is like jumping. Lots of games have it; lots of best selling games have it. It’s a nice feature to have, if you can squeeze it in. That doesn’t mean it’s an essential feature of gaming, not even when it comes to determining whether a game is a commercial success.

(What is true is that people who write about games seem to be inordinately obsessed with narrative. But I’d argue that that tells you more about people who write about games than games themselves.)

1784

True, but again, there’s a distinction between then narrative story-telling that linear, story based games tell, and the narrative-like theming that games wear in order to avoid being pure abstraction.

Even if a game is abstractly just various different types of hitbox detection, the flavor that is layered over the hitbox is omnipresent in the game and is subject to many of the same influences and criticisms that the structured narratives are. Players in Skyrim may not spend that much time engaged with the linear authored storyline, but the choices that are made about how to represent the world they inhabit are nonetheless both choices made by the developers and also are subject to consumption and analysis by the player.

1785

Tom Bramwell is leaving Eurogamer.

I feel a tremendous sense of pride to have worked here for pretty much Eurogamer’s entire life - the first eight years as deputy editor, the last seven as editor-in-chief - and to have helped create livelihoods for so many talented people. But now I feel as though the time is right for a change. So it’s with a heavy heart that I have to announce that I am leaving Eurogamer - and Gamer Network - at the end of November to see what else there is out there in the world for me to do with my time.

Oli Welsh will become the new EIC.

1786

Total Biscuits jumps to the fray

He is honest with the title: “I will now ramble about games media for just under 30 minutes”

Interesting, given he is also one of the games media people that has been heavily harassed and received death threats.

1787

I’m talking about polls on why people say they buy games. Not on what people actually do within a game. That is, story is important for people, or so they think. Yet again, those polls are about 5 years old, so take them with a grain of salt.

This is the reason CoD is marketed with the story in the forefront (and why they hire Kevin Spacey).

This is important, too.

1788

He pretty much echoes my thoughts on SJW dominated games journalism.

Look at football (soccer). If you think gaming is male dominated try football, homophobic to the extreme, no place for women other than in their own leagues and a male dominated audience that are unlikely to be interested in gender politics.

So are the football websites and magazines dominated by gender issues? Are interviews with clubs peppered with questions on how many women they employ?, “So Harry, your line up for Saturdays game, how many are out?” Are the football media united in their condemnation of football fans? Did the editor of Four Four Two magazine call his readers assholes? Are the half the football pundits calling the football fans “Racist, bigot, skinhead, violent, rapist, CP trafficking thugs” at every opportunity?

No.

The issue are not ignored, but the campaigns are practical and measured, we see articles stating the statistics on out footballers (1 or 2 out of a hundreds of thousands) and appalling treatment of homosexuals by clubs and fans. Campaigns (Rainbow Laces underway at the moment) involve the most popular of players stating their support, and have strong images in a level, non hysterical manner. Things move, but slowly, and I doubt it will be sorted in our lifetimes.

SJWs are not running that campaign, that much is for sure. The SJW community aren’t piling onto footballers on twitter. The SJW community barely represent activism.

Its these guys joining in the argument, most of them don’t even play games. Every cause they attach themselves to is tainted, rational voices drowned out by the hysteria. The picture painted of the #gamergate and #notyourshield crowd is the most popular argument the SJWs know. You are either with us, or you are neckbeard, virgin, nerd, death threat sending, misogynist pigs. No middle ground. I ran into the SJW subculture in another argument, the concept of cultural appropriation, where I my support for white people adopting things from other cultures meant I was a racist, bigot Stormfronter, until I show that I’m not white, then I was an Uncle Tom, an internalised racist, hence my hostility.

If you want to change attitudes to females in games and the games industry, you use a moderate, popular voice within the community. Elements of the industry backing Sarkeesian, a hostile third wave feminist who doesn’t like games and is making a career out of dissecting them, as the voice of the industry is bonkers. Especially as she brings with her a horde of non gaming SJWs. The MRA subculture infest gaming (and 4chan), and taking them on in an aggressive manner was never going to work. It might guarantee publicity and attention, but success was never on the cards.

Oh, my own views, because I do want to ensure that support for gamergate doesn’t mean you are a diehard conservative. MRAs are worse than SJWs. That’s an easy statement to make. I practice equality when it comes to important things, like selecting job candidates, and making professional decisions that take into consideration local cultures. My marriage is one of equals. I’m vocal against Tories, Royals, bedroom tax, the war on the poor and general UK political shittiness. However, whilst I want more serious roles for women in games, I don’t want to lose games with guns and strippers. Funnily enough I like guns and strippers in games, but not in real life. The market is big enough for both, anyway.

1789

In other news: Eurogamer’s EIC Tom Bramwell is stepping down; Oli Welsh will take his place. Hasn’t said where’s he’s heading off to. I liked his writing and op-ed pieces, so it would be a bit of a bummer if he doesn’t end up at some other magazine/blog or at least occasionally pens op-ed columns like Rob Fahey does.