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Broniki posted:Although I can attest first hand that indie success banks on either being part of the incredibly cliqueish western scene or a massive stroke of luck like 5NAF. Some Japanese indie game like Asteebreed or Crimzon Clover is never going to receive any attention no matter how solid they are because the language barrier prevents them from buddy-buddying with people who can write about them. And the few people who want to write professionally about smaller games have to make do with earning absolutely peanuts or doing it purely out of love. They also run a much bigger risk of being targeted by certain hate-mobs, because they have to get close to tiny developers (no PR departments to create boundaries) in order to actually get any kind of coverage. And woe be to them if they want to cover anything really niche like experimental Twine games or anything actively feminist. I know a lot of writers who have basically gone radio silent on any vaguely social issue because they're afraid for themselves or their families. Even just mentioning the name of one of GG's prime targets can ruin a comment system for weeks, as there is an organized mobilization to flood ANY site with official talking points. If they spot an article, you can be sure that KiA, 8chan, etc will have a call to arms up within an hour now. Staff writers for big sites have nothing to fear, but if you're an indie developer or writer, it's like walking on thin ice above a pit full of piranhas. I've gotten threatening emails saying that I'm being reported to the UK government for benefit fraud (amusing, as I've never claimed benefits in my life), among other things. I'm just glad I'm pretty low-profile, so they've not gotten round to menacing phone-calls to my family, but I know a bunch of people who are dealing with that now. And y'know what? This stuff happened before, but much more rarely until all the douchebags of the internet mobilized under a single banner. Almost every arsehole that's been harassing women online over the past decade (and I've recognized a good few of them) is now flying that green-and-purple flag. This abuse and general skeeziness always existed, yes, but now it's organized, and that's loving terrible for just about everyone. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 14:07
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Exmond posted:I agree. Remember the Shadow Of Mordor review thing? They gave it to youtubers but had a ton of restrictions on it (Can't show bad footage, can't say anything bad). The news broke out and even hit kotaku. The amount of backlash wasn't anything similar to what zoe quinn received. Hitting the nail right on the head. Actual scandal involving big sacks of money and high-profile publishers and youtubers? Barely a blip on the radar. A woman who made a freeware text-adventure about coping with depression may have had a relationship with someone in the industry at some point? Hound her incessantly for a year, call her dad in the middle of the night to scream how much of a whore she is, and when you start to look skeezy for doing this, assign her the codename 'Literally Who' so you can pretend that you've never cared about her and that this was all about Journalistic Ethics from the start. All the while continuing the exact same campaign. The writer that might have given her some positive press? He barely even got a mention. And of course, the positive press was a one-line mention in a list article of 50 games that got greenlit. Such is the power of Big Indie bribery. This has happened again and again. And it'll continue to happen, and people will shrug it off because it's 'just the internet'. The fact that there were as many as 8 Literally Whos (all women, last I checked) at one point really does sum up where Gamergate's energy has always been focused. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 16:08
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hakimashou posted:Anyhow, while I find it hard to believe that gamer gate is something that matters, I thoight I would share my own personal experience with it. It shouldn't matter. It's just a bunch of idiot cranks blaming feminism for the downfall of western civilization. Unfortunately, it does matter because they got organized, they have their own sites now and ties to all manner of lovely groups online, and if they pick you out as a target, expect any attempt to google your name to result in a dozen propaganda pieces about how you're a monster. Your employer will be bombarded with mails demanding you be fired for your crimes (whatever they've chosen them to be), your family will be phoned and threatened. If you have any site, it will be hacked. You will find strange and interesting things delivered to your door. If you plan on speaking anywhere in public, they'll have people there to watch and/or disrupt. And if you're really on their shitlist, there's even been swatting (one womans dog is confirmed dead because of this) and even a series of bomb threats for Sarkeesian. This has happened to a whole bunch of people I know. Because videogames sure do need protecting. I've been a gamer for nearly 30 years now, and been writing about them part time for about 6-7 now, and this is the worst, most depressing loving thing I've ever seen come out of the hobby. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 17:01
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Hadaka Apron posted:While I won't deny that most of the harassment blamed at Zoe was due to misogyny, another factor was the fact that she talked a lot on twitter about how horrible her situation was. Trolls love targets that they can get a reaction out of, and there's a very good reason why law enforcement tells victims of harassment and death threats not to make their situation public. Well, she didn't shut up and go away. She chose to make noise about it. And now many major sites including Twitter have new anti-harassment policies, organizations have been set up to help support people being targeted by online hate groups, she got to speak on this across TV and radio in several different countries, and she was invited to Washington DC to talk to the US government about potential changes in the law to protect under fire like this. Edit: And any attempt to google the above event is, of course, headed by GG propaganda pieces about how it was a 'fake' congressional briefing, and how the media is lying and the US government would NEVER cave to the will of such a duplicitous harpy. You think any of this would have happened if she just quietly disappeared like the trolls apparently wanted her to? I'm pretty sure that the 'don't feed the trolls' and 'don't talk about harassment online' stuff is the reason why things have gotten as bad as they have. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 17:21
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Nonsense posted:Did Zoe go speak to Congress about her ordeal? Not that this should be about her, but that is interesting that things took off that far. I just remember the early hell thread when it still had doobies dogs and then stopped following everything. Yep, she was there to speak at a congressional briefing, had TV appearances on BBC, CNN, NBC, etc, plenty more radio interviews, started her own anti-harassment organization and is assisting another. Apparently there's multiple FBI investigations in progress regarding the worst of Gamergate too. And the guy who started all this poo poo, Eron Gjoni, is currently under about eight different flavours of restraining order that he keeps breaking. Of course, he just has to ask on the GG hashtag for funds whenever he needs to lawyer up. The first time he was up for a court appearance, they funded his defense within an hour. (Judge still smacked him down) poo poo got kinda big and very scary. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 18:05
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BarbarianElephant posted:There are female game devs out there that I know personally who are being very careful, very quiet, not making too much noise on social media, because it is pretty clear that you can have your career ruined by this howling horde of trolls. Not everyone has the brass balls of Zoe Quinn or the iron skin of Anita Sarkeesian. Most female developers want to make games and go home at the end of the day. Yeah, I know a good few people who are keeping a very low profile simply because they're working on something or have said things in the past that would anger the swarm, and they don't have the time nor energy to deal with it. It's why I'm glad whenever a prominent white dude (I say this as a less prominent white dude) draws some fire. When Tim Schafer made fun of Gamergate at the Game Developers Conference closing show (fun aside: every official GDC twitter tag was rendered useless because of GG spam, porn , abuse and worse for the ENTIRE EVENT - press and developers alike had to move to IRC to get their info). He was their Public Enemy #1 for a good week or so, and everything they could talk about. The abuse of lower-profile folks let up for a while when that happened. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 19:00
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BarbarianElephant posted:The thing about prominent white dudes is that they are never under any real danger from GamerGate. Exactly my point. They can safely draw the attention of the angry mob. Better wealthy people who can afford safety nets get targeted, if only for a while, than someone that's barely making rent and affording food.
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Jul 8, 2015 19:30
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BarbarianElephant posted:I don't think you can really solve the problem by "drawing fire" - the trolls always go back to their favourite playthings. It's obviously not a solution to anything - a lot of work needs to be done, obviously - but it can sometimes help in the short term. Twitter has made some small steps to combating harassment, but it desperately needs some kind of public verification system so that bans can't be so easily avoided. Make it open to anyone to sign up, but perhaps add a filter so that you can only be followed by or seen by verified accounts? Gamergate spokesman/developer (well, his game is clearly barely out of alpha phase and is a mess, but that's beyond the point) Slade 'Roguestar' Villena actually counted his Twitter bans on his avatar pic. Last I checked, he was up to over 20 bans for harassment. The mission statement on his site, of course, claims that he would never do such a thing and that Twitter are just banning him time and time again because they've fallen in with the censorious SJW crowd. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jul 8, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 21:28
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Serf posted:Oh, someone asked about a gap in her resume, and she responded with "crippling Helldump addiction." The other time I've seen it was when she explained that it was in fact sarcasm. Edit: Someone mentioned the Pokemon thing. But yeah, she'd joked about Helldump before, but even the slightest glance at her SA history reveals that she isn't the doxxing criminal mastermind that 4chan makes her out to be. But it's a nice rumor for them to circulate to keep up the cloud of bullshit, along with the story that she stabbed a transgender person in a bar for being deceptive (even seen a couple of goons try to run with this), and the story where Quinn got away with murdering a guy. No evidence for any of the above, of course. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 00:37
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Ddraig posted:The most prolific one I remember is that Zoe Quinn's current boyfriend is the son of an arms dealer. The rumor was that he WAS an arms dealer, not just the son of one. And yeah, he's a low-level game developer. The Mobygames page isn't complete - he's done some bigger projects along the way - but yeah, not exactly 'notorious arms dealer'. If I recall he was a QA head on a couple games?
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Jul 9, 2015 00:55
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OMG JC a Bomb! posted:Yeah, they just found people's real name, photos, and social media profiles and documented their humiliation in a method that could and has been archived permanently. No big deal. Yeah, but she didn't post on Helldump, and most of us can agree that it was a hugely lovely forum, so your point is...? She was aware of it when she posted on SA? Is that a crime now?
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Jul 9, 2015 00:58
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Yeah, we're getting into creepy stalkersville here. Why should you even care what a guy and his wife (or ex-wife as the case may be) get up to? Does it have any bearing on game development? On the press? No? Well, then it's not relevant, and we should probably drop the entire subject. This is exactly the kind of creepy poo poo that gets Gamergate its reputation of being a movement of hateful muck-slingers operating under the thinnest of veils of protecting the industry from... open relationships now, or something? gently caress if I know. I know GG have made him a target for speaking out against abuse of women and harassment, that's for sure. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 01:02
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Dapper_Swindler posted:Because he turned an alright game series into stupid memefilled garbage who made every single character in the game series into either a soap box for his politics or a prop that regurgitates lovely jokes. And WHOOOSH away go the goalposts. Amazing how fast they moved. So, now you've issues with his writing? He has a job writing games - very popular ones, broadly praised for their writing in reviews, even - so... Yeah, deal with it? So why does his sex life matter again? Other than being a good way to put the boot in and make yourself look creepier and more obsessed?
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Jul 9, 2015 01:06
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Hulk Krogan posted:Now it makes sense. He wrote a couple of gay characters and that other one that made the joke about friend-zoning being MRA bullshit.. He is part of the SJW conspiracy to destroy games. Yep! Must just be a terrible coincidence that an overtly progressive writer who made fun of MRAs is targeted by Gamergate, using his apparently lack of virile masculinity as a weapon! Totally unrelated, I'm sure. Notice how the use of 'cuck' as an insult has gone through the roof in the past year? Almost perfectly coincides with when this shitstorm began. Again, must be a coincidence.
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Jul 9, 2015 01:13
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So, we've gotten to the point where a woman who made a freeware text-adventure about dealing with depression is SO powerful now due to her womanly wiles that she has slept her way into billonaire political power and is able to pull the strings of the US government, after she found that her ability to get a SINGLE LINE written in a blog post wasn't enough? This is why we have Occam's Razor, people. Perhaps it's just SLIGHTLY more likely that thousands of obsessive nerds laser-like focus on her pushed her into the spotlight (hence the interviews with major news agencies that contacted her), and got her noticed by people who read the news? Because that seems a bit more plausible than arms-dealer hoteliers or whatever inane conspiracy theorist bullshit is being pushed.
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Jul 9, 2015 02:23
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I'm still utterly baffled as to why Sarkeesian gets so much frothing hate. I'll start by saying I'm not a fan of her work. It's a little too reductive, and most of her points are boilerplate Feminism 101... But given that everything she says seems to be greeted by rape and death threats and even bomb threats called in at places she's speaking at, maybe even Feminism 101 is too much for some? It's weak milquetoast observations that anyone could make, so, yeah, I'm still confused as to why she's considered the High Bitch Queen Feminazi by so many. Like I said, not a fan of her work, but that's just due to thinking that she's uninteresting. I can't even begin to imagine how you could spin that into the kind of obsessive rage that leads you to stalk and threaten someone for years. bloodysabbath posted:I know you'll hand wave it away as GG lizard people conspiracy, but Quinn herself is part of a very old money family. Zoe Quinn is just her cool-kid hipster name, her real name is Chelsea Van Valkenberg. I don't know what to say to you if you think a rich kid dating another rich kid couldn't have a (ultimately token - this was a room of interns, not a joint session) favor done by rich kid 2's politically connected rich dad. I've known about her for some time, and she's had trouble paying rent and affording food. Her dad runs a grungy motorcycle repair shop. That doesn't exactly scream 'old money' to me. So yeah, lizard people paranoia at work. Also, creepy obsession with a woman who's grand sin is, I repeat, in bold: MAKING A FREEWARE TEXT ADVENTURE ABOUT DEALING WITH DEPRESSION So you should probably give it a rest or you'll seem even creepier than before. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 02:49
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This reminds me: One rumor I've seen bandied about by Gamergate's supporters is that most games writers are wealthy trust-fund kids. I've been accused of it myself, even claiming that I live in San Fran? I dunno. It's weird. I'm British. I'm living in a cheap flat in rural Wales (and am currently dealing with 6mbit internet, 0.3mbit upstream). I have a total of £40 in my bank account right now. Every games and tech writer I know of is barely scraping by, usually living one commission or paycheque at a time. It's a miserably-paying business, and only a handful of permanent staff writers get anywhere near a good wage. Getting £100 for a lengthy review of a game that took several days to play through is considered good money. For indie sites, you're looking at closer to £10-20 per piece. A lot of people have day jobs on top of writing, because otherwise they'd not be able to pay rent or afford food. Old money? Trust funds? gently caress that noise. I'd settle for a living wage, and so would just about every other writer in the field I know of. Most indie developers are even worse off. I know a few that make games on scrappy pawn-shop laptops with batteries that fizzle out after 30 minutes and no graphics hardware to speak of. Not unusual to see them mooch off library internet, even. The only people making decent money here are publishers, big AAA developers (not the grunt programmers, though) and editors/staff writers for massive network sites like IGN and Gamespot. And none of them seem to be targets. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 02:57
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Pandemonium posted:Do people forget that Zoe released her game (or made it free or something) in the wake of Robin Williams' suicide? Her game had been out for months at that time, available from a multitude of sites. The Steam release date - which Valve had set weeks prior - just happened to be not too long after Robin Williams' suicide. She could have cancelled the release, but it's a game about helping people deal with depression, so re-releasing it when a lot of people are talking about depression seems like a good idea? I dunno. Not seeing the 'terrible' here. It had always been free. You are really reaching for reasons to be mad about a woman who made a short, free text adventure about coping with depression. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 03:11
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Pandemonium posted:I've never had the mispleasure of playing the "game", but I hear it has the opposite effect. Whooosh! And off go the goalposts again. Really scrambling for something - ANYTHING - to use as ammo here, ain't ya? Sorry, heard it all before. You're balls deep in Gamergate squiggly-line propaganda and talking points. And crying about 'The Wizards' is only going to get you laughed at. Oh yeah, and before we get any deeper into this, The Fine Young Capitalists aren't a charity (the hint is in their name), and Quinn didn't doxx them. She linked to their site and their server couldn't handle the traffic. And no, that's not a DDOS either. That's not even slashdotting.
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Jul 9, 2015 03:20
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Serf posted:"She's a lovely person therefore she deserved death threats and harassment." But but but but she talked about depression! And edgy 4chan kids made jokes about it making them depressed (because it's a text adventure and not a real game, y'see), so she has to be Satan Von StalinHitler, right? I think we've hit the core essence of Gamergate here. Directionless anger mixed with paranoia, denial, and general internet edgelord bullshit. Nevvy Z posted:How is Gamergate relevant now a year later? I mean, it's clearly obviously a dumb load of poo poo but at this point who cares about them? People are still getting threatened, abused, driven out of jobs, etc. It's not quite as bad as it was at peak, but it's still pretty awful. And it sure as hell is worse now than it was before every creepy stalker dickhole on the internet had a banner to rally under. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 03:26
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Pandemonium posted:Can we get off Zoe now? Oh, you mean that your bullshit wasn't sticking there? That your bucketload of Gamergate chum turns out to be easily debunked nonsense? How about you put those goalposts down. I can't even see them anymore. I'm not even sure if there are goalposts. It's all gone a bit Calvinball, no? I think you're just shouting random womens names now and seeing if anyone will bite. Is that how this game works? Marie Curie was... I dunno... An illuminati pedophile! Am I doing it right? Dominic White fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 03:36
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I'm calling it a night, but I'm going to preemptively shoot down one more piece of bullshit, because Pandemonium mentioned it in passing: Gamergate claims: SJWs have declared Witcher 3 the most racist game ever, want it banned, etc. A guy wrote an article about how evil it was and is harassing the developers daily. Reality: One of GG's few male targets - a south-african university teacher of journalistic ethics, no less - wrote a piece about how the game had a completely white cast, and that this was a bit of a problem. I know the guy, and Witcher 3 is his favourite game of the past five years. He posts screenshots daily. He's been gushing all over the place. He loves 99.9% of it. The only thing he HAS complained about is that there's not a single non-white character in the game (oddly, there was one in the first game, but none in the third). Hasn't stopped him from loving it to bits. He has asked the developers to try better on the diversity front for their next game. So, yeah. People can like things AND criticise them at the same time. It's a strange concept for some. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 03:49
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Obdicut posted:I'm going to regret asking this, but who the hell are the Wizards? Why is this something anyone should know? Wizardchan, a 4chan spinoff site for 30+ year old virgins who have decided to sequester themselves away from outside internet contact and call themselves wizards, because they have failed where their virile 4chan cousins had done so well. Quinn suggested that it was a stupid site and that the whole concept behind it is socially harmful, and is only reinforcing their rather unsettling philosophy. Such is her villainy.
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Jul 9, 2015 04:02
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Obdicut posted:You realize that I'm not asking you, right? You don't have any credibility at all. You have negative credibility. Perhaps Gamergate is what happens when the conciousness of the internet glitches out? If they max out their negative credibility, it wraps round back to the highest possible integer and suddenly everyone believes them? It's like the Warlord Gandhi bug in Civilization. They're trying real hard to get that credibility as low as it'll go.
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Jul 9, 2015 04:09
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OMG JC a Bomb! posted:One of the admins from Wizardchan said that several threats against Zoe came from a single IP address belonging to her. This was during an interview though, And he didn't provide any documentation that I know of, so who knows if he was telling the truth. Hrm... Who here could be more credible? The woman that has been the target of an internationally infamous year-long campaign of abuse, harassment and slander who has systematically debunked every ridiculous claim thrown at her? Or a 4chan buddy-site that has an axe to grind with all women ever? Such a mystery. Obdicut posted:That's not how it died, though. It died from encephalitis, which is right there in the tweets. You don't get encephalitis from being out in the cold. That also sounds like a dog that could go in and out as it wanted--maybe through some sort of 'door' that was sized for a dog. I'd call it a 'canine portal'. Basic biology and house construction are also things that Gamergate does not understand, along with feminism, racism, criticism and... well, most 'Ism's, now that I think about it. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 04:12
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Popular Thug Drink posted:What does this have to do with Gamergate? Can you connect your intense dislike for these women to the idea that they somehow acted unethically in regards to video game journalism? I think you're just making this up too. Oh, and just to top it off: Brianna Wu isn't a games journalist either. She runs a small, all-female indie studio that makes story-driven mobile games aimed at women. I WONDER WHAT COULD HAVE MADE HER A TARGET!?
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Jul 9, 2015 04:17
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Dapper Dan posted:I don't remember honestly. She might have said they mocked her with it. I don't think she said they caused it. I didn't save the tweets from that far back. I only noticed the one in March because it was A few Gamergate folks were bragging about killing her dog, so she had the vet perform an autopsy just in case. It was death of natural causes, story over. Unless you're an obsessive stalker, in which case you can start building the twisted and incomprehensible tale of WU THE DOGMURDERER.
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Jul 9, 2015 04:19
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Obdicut posted:I might say creepily obsessing over someone else's dog's death sucks. Did she know it was sick before she left on her trip or whatever? I have no clue. It's none of my business and it's really, really weird to obsess over someone else's dog's death. And it's double weird and extra creepy to obsess over the death of a dog in order to somehow retroactively justify an organized campaign of harassment that had been aimed at her for weeks (possibly months) before that. But that's how this movement operates. It's incomprehensible to anyone with an ounce of sense, but apparently makes sense if you're from 4chan? OMG JC a Bomb! posted:I've personally seen the terrible abuse she was subjected to by the Steam community when her game was up for Greenlight approval.Like the abusive thread posted under her developer account after she forgot to log out of it. Ooh, more accusations of False Flag attacks! Apparently every woman that has been targetted by Gamergate just LOVES the hate and abuse so much that they have to manufacture more to inflate their egos! That's new and original and entirely trustworthy, because you've brought up so many pieces of irrefutable evidence of this before. I shall believe everything you've said here unconditionally.
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Jul 9, 2015 04:24
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Dapper Dan posted:Brianna Wu mocked them with a lovely meme, this didn't materialize out of the ether. Oh my, she made fun of the sexist hate-mob. Clearly she was just asking for it.
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Jul 9, 2015 04:27
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OMG JC a Bomb! posted:Okay, here you go I guess. ... That's not a false flag attack. She's making a thread for all the abuse to go into, you goofus. And then saying 'Hey, jerks, knock yourself out'. She's being sassy, not faking an attack on herself.
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Jul 9, 2015 04:31
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Wow, this filled up with a whole lot of crazy overnight, and almost all of it is boilerplate 8chan sludge - an oral history, as someone mentioned. I don't have the time nor energy to pick apart this, but I'll just laser this one from orbit:Fluo posted:The irony of mccarthyism blacklists. See, this is part of why I've sometimes described Gamergate as an attack on writers by the functionally illiterate. See, 'Blocklist' and 'Blacklist' are different words. Separated by one letter, admittedly, but what a difference a letter can make. A blacklist is an oft-secret list circulated among employers of people not to hire or work with. A twitter blocklist is a public, often machine-generated (and in the case of GG-autoblocker, very simple and open source - there's no mystery to it) list of people that are likely to spam you with pictures of dead animals, child porn, abuse, threats and general internet sewage - things that you would rather not have to wade through every day if you've a halfway professional individual. I'm quite happy to admit that I've been using that particular blocklist for a while now, because at one point I was having to block or filter out over 150 accounts worth of Gamergate garbage PER DAY. I do not want to hear it or deal with it in my news feeds. It speaks of a deep personal insecurity that so many of these people feel so entitled to their right to scream directly at me that they've made multiple twitter accounts in order to bypass the list. In fact, Gamergate's few coders have come up with a few tools in general for identifying and bypassing being blocked on twitter. Because nothing says 'We're totally a good and ethical movement' like developing tools specifically to bypass anti-harassment measures set up by people who just want to be left alone. And of course, as GGAutoblocker was made by a woman, she has received almost a full year of misogynistic abuse (if I remember right, the GG codename for her is 'Blue whale'), general hate, conspiracy theories and attempts to get her fired. She has now gone into business full time as an anti-harassment consultant for companies like Facebook & Twitter and seems to be making great strides in making things better for the rest of us. Well done. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 11:55
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Ogmius815 posted:One recurring theme with GGer posts is that I often read them and realize that I don't have the first idea what the gently caress they are talking about. It is a unique kind of fevered babbling, isn't it? Lots of codewords, chan lingo, internal memes, howling rage at people you've never heard of and likely never will care about and a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of many basic english words. After a year of wading through it via anywhere I have an online presence and can be contacted (hurrah for blocklists, again), I think I mostly understand it now, and feel vastly dumber for it. Even if every single allegation were true (so far, I don't think anything has stuck), and there was a massive Tumblr conspiracy to censor the media, it'd still be the most inane, pointless bullshit I've ever heard. It's like Loose Change truthers, only instead of thinking they're blowing the lid off an enormous conspiracy by the US government to embroil itself in eternal war, they feel the biggest threat to western civilization is an otherwise forgettable woman in a plaid shirt saying 'Videogames are kinda sexist sometimes' on Youtube, among others. And the thing is that they don't realize that it was their attempts to silence these women was exactly what launched them into the media spotlight in the first place, and that every time they try (and they do keep trying), they have the exact opposite effect to what they're hoping for. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 13:35
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murphyslaw posted:To refocus the conversation somewhat: Plenty. There's so much wrong with the industry right now. Leigh Alexander (unsurprisingly a Gamergate target - they've been 'infiltrating' anywhere she speaks in public to try and rant at her - a couple got caught on video and it's the most hilariously sad thing ever) put together a great (albeit partial) list of the key issues and how they could be addressed. I think we need a lot more truly independent games sites, speaking to a broader range of audiences rather than just hardcore old-school gamers (of which I consider myself one - I love me some gore, explosions and titties). Patreon seems like a good way to fund such endeavours. There needs to be more money for a wider range of writers. We need to get away from being funded by big publishers' advertising. Most good sites won't let it sway editorial content, but I'd rather see the money come directly from the audience. We need to drop review scores. They apparently break peoples brains - see the woman who got death threats for her 9/10 review score of GTA 5 on Gamespot, as opposed to the obvious 10/10 that it was meant to have. There's also the effect of Metacritic, where arbitrary scores from critics are used to determine bonuses and other developer incentives. It's all part of the same incestuous loop of money. We need more real investigative reporting that's willing to say 'gently caress the NDAs, this needs to be heard'. See this excellent piece by Jared Rosen (again, another early Gamergate target - it's almost like they hate ethical journalism) on a corporate-funded game jam that tried to turn creators on each other in a reality TV style mess, only for all the developers to walk out. We need fewer day-0 reviews out. Let games be released and reviewed as the product that exists on shelves. This should stop messes like Polygon's rolling Sim City review that failed to mention that the game was entirely broken at launch until it was amended. The hype machine in general needs to be broken - less regurgitation of press releases, more focusing on what's actually out now, especially stuff from smaller outfits that can't afford huge marketing budgets. I could go on for days, but the recurring theme is that almost every big ethical push from within the games industry, writing or development wise, has been fought against by the Gamergate swarm. They have a very strange definition of ethics. See them going after Tauriq Moosa, who literally teaches journalistic ethics at university.
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Jul 9, 2015 14:16
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Karpaw posted:This esteemed academic thinks that people in the developed world should stop having children altogether and adopt them en masse from the third world instead. Because this is a sensible opinion held by normal people and not something that marks you as a lolcow ("a further challenge to procreators", lol). 1: This has nothing to do with anything. 2: It's not even that radical an opinion, as covered above. 3: How is this supposedly unethical? 4: What does this have to do with videogames? 5: Does this somehow invalidate the fact that The Witcher 3 (again, it's Moosa's favourite game of all time - dude has been rushing about it for months now) has a 100% white cast? 6: Seriously, what? This is Gamergate 101. When the initial accusation doesn't hold water, just randomly shout things you don't like about a person whether they've any factual basis or not while shouting 'WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING A TERRIBLE PERSON!?' Over the past ~10 pages of this thread this has happened again and again and it's painfully transparent. Stop. Possibly go away. Maybe play some videogames? I hear that they're going to ban them soon.
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Jul 9, 2015 15:43
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Powercrazy posted:So those people are gamergate? Is brianna wu gamregate? Was she harrassing herself? You're just saying random words and names now, assuming that we'll somehow glean some deep meaning from them. Do you actually have any kind of point here? Because it takes only the very briefest of runs through google to find mountains and mountains of abuse from people proudly flying the Gamergate hashtag, green-and-purple gamepad banners and worse. As mentioned a while back, noted Gamergate developer (well, he hasn't released a game yet, but he says he will) Slade Villena has claimed to be proudly anti-harassment. He has literally been banned from Twitter 20+ times for harassment. He's a prominent figure who appears in a lot of GG-produced banners of their heroes and spokespeople, and a poster boy for how easy it is to evade bans on Twitter. Wanderer posted:It's generally going to be a good idea to mention personal ties up front, or use that as an excuse to take yourself off a given project. That said, it's very easy as even a low- to mid-tier games journalist to have those ties, because you spend a lot of time in small rooms with strong drinks talking to dudes about their creative goals and current work, and they turn around and read your work in return. If you've got any social skills, you'll know enough dudes quickly enough that it'll impact the reviews, if for no other reason than basic politeness. The mark of a truly professional reviewer is the ability to review something produced by a friend and give it an unbiased, possibly even harsh verdict. I can't find the quote right now, but Roger Ebert was notable for being just as willing to critique films by close friends as he was when dealing with the work of total strangers. If you don't believe that you can, then by all means step back and let someone else write the piece, but there's no hard and fast rule that being close to the source makes you unfit to analyse it. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 16:41
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Mutation posted:Neil Druckmann from Naughty Dog said that Anita Sarkeesian has influenced how he wrote women in The Last of Us. A lot of devs have said they pay special attention to her critique. Volition have said they keep it in mind when writing the Saints Row games, which would explain why the past two games have a pretty great balance of cool/stupid/funny stuff done by either gender.
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Jul 9, 2015 17:00
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Nonsense posted:There was also the forums moderator who happened to be a woman, and she was blamed for Mighty No. 9 being a SJW 'ruined' game and people demanding their money back from a kickstarter. Her terrible crime against gaming: She posted fan-art of a female alternate main character and said it would be nice to play as. And for no reason whatsoever (she had long since left Comcept), she started getting fresh abuse and threats when Gamergate kicked off. Clearly a coincidence, again. (The punchline: Apparently MN9 has a playable female character now, and this was always planned from the start)
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Jul 9, 2015 17:05
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Violet_Sky posted:The funniest attempt is "The Sarkeesian Effect" a documentary about Anita Sarkeesian starring a white nationalist $15,000 A MONTH. Just to start filming. They've not been getting that much, hence its delay, but they've still been making ~$10k a month for most of the past year, apparently just for making random grumpy noises at feminists. Here's all you need to know about the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsdIHK8O5yo With their recent breakup, Gamergate has lost faith, so their funding is down to a mere $7600 a month - a pittance, really. Not enough to even warm up the webcam for. So desperate are MRAs that they're willing to throw $120,000 on loving nothing, in the vain hope that Sarkeesian is taken down a notch. Someday. Maybe. If they continue as they have, by the end of the year they'll have taken as much as Sarkeesian did on Kickstarter, and will likely have still produced absolutely nothing of note. And yet the word 'scam' or 'fraud' never seems to be mentioned in Gamergate circles. I wonder why? Dominic White fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 18:15
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Slanderer posted:To normal people, this is proof that you are batshit crazy true believer. These do not substantiate your claims. Did you even read what you linked? Don't you understand? EVERYTHING is a smoking gun! You just aren't looking it at right. Like that guy earlier in the thread that had absolute irrefutable proof that Brianna Wu staged an elaborate false flag attack on herself. His evidence? A screenshot of her making a snarky passive-aggressive comment about Gamergate on Steam. It's consistently the worst internet detective work I've ever seen. They're really piecing together the puzzle here, even if it does mean cutting the wiggly bits off the jigsaw pieces and occasionally substituting navel lint to fill in the gaps.
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Jul 9, 2015 21:27
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Hulk Krogan posted:See this is actually a fairly reasonable concern. Again though, we've been given no evidence that any employers are actually checking prospective employees against this list in their hiring process. There are definitely false positives on the GG Autoblocker, but they're almost always corporate accounts that follow people automatically, like KFC. And if I've blocked someone on twitter and they're not a jerk? Well, they can email me or contact me on skype - my details are public. If anyone contacted me (nobody has) I'd look at their twitter history for ten seconds (usually enough to see if they're a raging tool) and just click Unblock.
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Jul 9, 2015 21:31
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