Letter from the Editor discussion.

Hey, I said this when this the post first went up, and as I mentioned about half an hour ago, we're going to lock this for a bit to let everyone catch their breath, including the moderators. We've had over 1500 comments in this thread so far and we could all probably use a bit of time to, I don't know, call for a bio break or something.

Thanks for the many interesting and considered positions today. It's been, for the most part, a reasonable discussion between people with varied opinions.

I talked to the moderation staff earlier and I believe some of them are open to unlocking this in half an hour or so to allow discussion to resume. I'm going to leave that up to their discretion. Just keep in mind that it is Friday night. Most of the staff will be offline for the night, either to put their kids to bed or to raise a toast to Alexis on his last day at CBSi. Regardless, we'll unlock it again tomorrow to resume the discussion.

Apologies for the locking and unlocking of comments this week. It's been a very long week for everyone who cares about this stuff, I suspect. I understand the frustration with thread locking/unlocking, but at the same time I'm going to do what I feel is right for the health and sanity of my moderators.

Well said Jeff

you keep it coming, and i'll keep on supporting GB

warren

Hi mods. Hope everyone is well rested, but you're gonna miss Doctor Who if you start posting now...

I haven't watched any of the Capaldi episodes yet anyway.

Thanks Jeff

Gracefully put. Thank you so much for this.

If GG was actually about ethics in journalism, maybe they should have gotten the support of an actual expert on ethics in journalism. Because based on their desire to see Polygon blacklisted by Nintendo in response to the Bayo 2 review, I doubt they know what ethics are.

You are missing out Capaldi is a pretty good doctor so far. I didn't like him at first but he has grown on me.

im not saying its been perfect here but its kinda crazy how much worse the comment sections of sites with similar posts have been.

Or Journalism, the review is a critique not news.

I knew Kate, and luckily very few people attempted to politicize her death. It was tough to read her suicide note, but it no room for politics, at least in relation to GamerGate. That said, some GG members did want to donate to charity in her name as a GamerGate group, but that was shot down because it had absolutely nothing to do with GamerGate.

Not gonna get into some of the other discussion going down in this thread, just here to say that this article has been one of the most reasoned and sensible I've read on the subject. But that might just be because it's pretty much my opinion written by someone far more capable of putting it in to words. Either way, good going.

Things like this and this sites stance on the industry and the world at large is why i have no problem supporting Giant Bomb in any and all endeavors. I love this site, i love the things you put out and i love the staff.

I cannot be happier with the things you do. I wear your shirt with pride whenever i go out.

Thanks for the laughs.

@spacekatgal Thank you for everything, specially for Revolution 60 and how you acted during this debacle.

As you said, we're mostly a bunch of dudes here talking about harassment of women. While it is important that we show our support, I feel the victims have more to say on the matter than anybody else. I'm already following you on social media like many women that were victims in this story. As long as you and others are talking publicly about it, I'll try to listen.

I hope you stay in this industry for as long as you want to, I'm sure your presence makes it already more welcoming for developpers that are in doubt. I hope this industry will one day recognize how valuable your contribution is. Thank you.

While I find merit in what Jeff says I don't completely agree with his sentiments especially on the narrative of dichotomy, of pro and anti, because the gamergate harassers are obviously far greater than the number of harassers fighting back.

It's also much more importantly clearly a gendered issue and claims that ignoring It are the way to go, speak to a lack of awareness of social context, becase for some people it's not possible to ignore and work, California and tech in general also has knid of an abysmal record in terms of this kind of harassment and discrimination.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170/

(I'd also add people not understanding the general taxonomy and history of their political beliefs is a dangerous and worrying trend and that amorphous movements shouldn't be exempt from regulations that exist because of vile shits like Oswold Mosely, laws that should be extended and or strengthened to hate speech vs women.)

Not specifically, but if they did, that would certainly stand out against the present company in the staff. I'm thinking more in terms of gender and race presentation. Giant Bomb's core staff is made up entirely of white men in their late 20s to late 30s. It's great to see Patrick write and talk about issues of gender in games, but at the same time, his surprise at the notion that there are women that see Bayonetta as an empowering figure is indicative of the fact that his knowledge and ability to relate is of a limited scope. If you want to talk about women's issues without risking falling into the absurdity of mansplaining, of a man telling women in the audience why they should see something as offensive or sexist (or not), then it's better to have a woman on staff be able to talk about these issues from her own perspective. You may not agree with that perspective, but that's still a different perspective that Patrick and the rest of the existing staff are incapable of providing themselves because of who they are.

Thank you Jeff for doing your part to help resolve this ugliness. I've always been proud to call myself a gamer because to me it meant being a part of a community of people who loved to play games as much as I do. I hate seeing the term move farther and farther away from that message towards something so vicious and hurtful. As is common with the internet, it feels like a minority, extremist group is trying to present their voices as part of some greater whole. I can only hope those game developers who have been affected by their harassment and threats can realize that the vast majority of our gaming community do not agree with all of this abuse and stand by those strong enough to weather this storm. Thank you to any game developers or others that have endured the gamergate nightmare, and to those that have had enough of all of it, thank you for at one point being apart of this great, and loving community, and I am so sorry for what you have had to deal with. Hopefully those that don't agree with the threats and harassment will continue to denounce it and show everyone, inside our gaming world and out of it, that gamergate is not the norm, not the majority, and not how our community acts as a whole.

It's not an exaggeration to say several hundred women in the industry have reached out to me to say thank you. A common strategy women take in this field is to say nothing publicly, lest they attract heat. It's a very understandable approach, but collectively it leads to the enablement of these systematic issues.

It's also hard to stress just how much hell I'm under. I have all of 8chan planning my personal destruction. I am in fear of my life. I am physically exhausted. My company and games are under attack. I think it's almost impossible to overstate how much I put on the line here.

To be honest, reading this thread is depressing. I've spent today talking to women in the industry that have read through it - and many couldn't read more than a few pages. So many of the problems with sexism in the industry would be solved if you guys listened more than you spoke about women's issues.

Funnily enough I'm watching Dr. Who whilst trying to keep an eye on this thread. That's probably a bad idea since I'm kinda half-assing both tasks (although so far these comments aren't even close to the volume of yesterday, so it's not been too bad)

Do you WANT to jinx us by talking about volume?

I feel that sometimes people are criticized for not speaking out, as Giant Bomb's staff was by many women in the industry, yet when there is an attempt to speak out in a very reasonable manner we end up seeing yet more critical remarks because our comments generally come from the male perspective.

So I guess my question is, what are we supposed to do? Do you want people to speak out? Do you want us to shut up? Do you want us to just sit back and listen and nod our heads? Are we allowed to have opinions on issues that differ from those you might have without us being labeled as misogynists? I really wish I knew sometimes.

I am completely supportive of all kinds of voices and perspectives in the industry. There is room for everyone who is creative and wants to treat people with respect and dignity. I just wish that it didn't seem some of the more vocal women were so quick to toss so many together into this caricature of the straight male neanderthal horde.

Great write up guys, this is exactly where I figured you stood and I fully support it. The only sad thing is though that there will never be a real "solution" to the issue people are getting riled up about. The solution is to simply remember that the other side of the message you're sending it going to a human being, not unlike yourself, but at this point the internet isn't viewed that way as we've seen in MANY other cases involving bullying, harassment, hatred, and the worst of the worst: terrorism.

My deep down hope is that this doesn't escalate to anything beyond twitter/email threats (where it's at now), as that would be the point where we go from being viewed as a group of people to everyone calling themselves a gamer being a suspected terrorist. I know people on both sides, and while I have faith they wouldn't even go to the point of threats, I wouldn't want either of them to tarnish the community fostered so far by creating that stigma.

That's my view, it's good to see that there are plenty of us who want to see harassment stop and allow both sides to have passionate debate over the topics they hold dear. I was afraid that everyone was beginning to leave me in the middle alone to shout "STOP BEING HORRIBLE TO EACH OTHER!"

I just wanted to thank you for this. I've been keeping my peace during this entire, err, poopstorm, but I'm getting tired of the prevalent attitude that "there just aren't many women in games, so who cares hurr durr." I am a student of animation and game design, through several industry conventions I have accrued a large network of industry professionals and students who are now making their way into said industry. At one of said conventions, a very interesting tidbit of information was shared with us regarding the ACTUAL demographics of the Halo series and The Sims. It's assumed that The Sims is for girls, and shooty space marine junk like Halo is for boys. What they've actually found is it's an even split, 50% of Halo players are female, and 50% of The Sims players are male.

This of course goes back to the old adage assuming makes an ass out of you, and this is exactly what is happening in this "debate." I don't think the majority of people in this conversation understand how the industry works, or who actually works in it. There are a lot of women, mostly in the art departments, but we are all over the damn place. We have grown up with games and followed our passions into the field. What I've seen during all of this is a lot of women professionals being afraid of speaking up, even considering removing themselves all together from social media. The trolls are scaring them because they are overwhelmingly attacking women, especially women in the industry. And this isn't a new phenomenon, this has been happening from the beginning of the internet.

Remember Jade Raymond? How about Jennifer Hepler? Brianna Wu has been harassed for a long time, Anita Sarkeesian has been receiving rape and death threats since she started her Kickstarter a couple years ago. It's ongoing constant abuse that they cannot escape from. How they manage to stay strong in the face of it is beyond me because I would have cut out long ago, changed my name and never touched social media. As it is, I'm seriously considering using a pseudonym when I enter the workforce, I don't want my family and friends to receive harassment because I dared to have an opinion on a hobby I've loved since before I could talk. And these disgusting comments come from our community, it is NOT a small vocal minority. It is the norm. It has been since I was a child.

I have been called every name under the sun, I have been stalked, harassed, and threatened because of video games. And this was long, long before #GamerGate. I learned as a young teen when Ultima Online came out that telling people what my gender was would lead to very bad things. Which is funny, because IRL growing up with a diverse group of friends (I lived in a very immigration-heavy city), all of us played games. Regardless of cultural background and genitalia, we played games together and we loved them. No one was picked on for being a gamer, and no one ever said a word about the girls playing with the boys. It was just normal. This didn't become a problem until the internet happened, suddenly I became an outcast in a community that I'd always been a part of, and why? Because I have a god damn vagina?

It's like the socially awkward found themselves an echo chamber and have just refused to hear any other perspectives. My husband tells me this GamerGate crap is just the internet being the internet, and I've been around long enough to agree that it's mostly what's caused this. But there's also the underlying woman-hating that has always been a part of the online gaming community. It's irrational and it is real. I don't know any women who haven't been a victim of it, and most of my girlfriends have dumped the moniker of "gamer" because why be a part of a community that actively tells you you're not welcome?

I remember my big sister and I asking why there weren't any girl characters to play in most of the games. I remember fighting over who got to play Peach in Mario Kart. Video games have come a long way since the late 80s and early 90s, but they have a long way yet to go. It's not that we were never playing them, it's that the developers never thought to target us as a demographic. I'm getting into game development because I don't want to see that anymore. I'm tired of background women in games used as props or for shock value. I want more strong, female characters. I want to see AAA games with minorities as lead characters, how many mid-30s bald white dudes do we need? I want the industry to tell little girls like me that they're not only welcome, but wanted.

So, yeah. There's one woman's perspective at least on the state of the industry.

GamerGate was never about ethics, and while that's an important conversation to have, you're not going to have it while associating yourself with the "no girls allowed" boys club. Women are a threat, women are outsiders, women who dare to take a stand and speak up are bullied into submission. This has to stop and you have to stop covering for these people. We are not outsiders, we're just like you, we just want to play good games and we'd like some of those games to not be targeted at the 18-25 straight white male demographic, a demographic that is no longer the majority and hasn't been in a long time.

^ agreed. Keep doing your thing duders.

Well said Jeff , well said indeed.Glad that Giantbomb made a statement about this stuff going on.

Couldn't have said it better myself Jeff. Great article. All of this infighting in the industry is straight up sickening to me. I try my best to understand both sides of this issue (well.. perceived issue. I don't personally think we have an ethics problem) but the noise level makes it damn near impossible. There are *terrible* things being said and done at outrageously high volume levels by some in the GG movement that drown out any chance for the discussion that the moderate GG-crowd is looking for, and vehement hatred that some folks on the anti-GG side have for anything/anyone who claims to support the movement, regardless of how moderate/involved they may be, isn't okay either. I'm not sure what it's going to take to end this #*&^show, but I hope it happens soon. There have already been too many casualties on both sides of this.

This topic has been an eye-opener for me an I'm really glad you decided to provide a stage to have a stable discussion on. I say this because until last week I had never even heard of GamerGate. It was up to me to decide what it really was from absorbing the surrounding conversation some of which I got from twitter others which I got from new articles like the Washington Post called "the only article you will need to read on the GamerGate". Taking that article at face value along with the other hype and spewed nonsense I didn't realize at first how complex it was. I didn't know what it even was after that. Was Gamer Gate a website like Kotaku? Was it a sub-reddit. Was it a term interchangeable with 8chan? Is it even a URL? Can I got to gamergate.com? Certainly not gamersgate.com cause that's a completely different thing!!! Was it just the name for the banner that a bunch of people were waving for a specific set of opinions or demands like "The Tea Party" had been used for some conservatives? I had no idea. This thing is a mess, it's madness, it's a web of lies, confusion and misdirection. 'It's hard to see 3 feet ahead of yourself in a shitstorm' to paraphrase totalbiscuit on the matter.

Which is why when I saw #StopGamerGate2014, I saw it for being this thing of clear good against clear evil and I opted in. Which I won't do again so easily. I wanted to target to the selfish, heartless bullies and maniacs threatening select people I cared about and never meant to target every single member of GamerGate. But at that time I saw them as no different because I could see what was going on. Hardly either side took any measures for clear and non-aggressive discord, which is why again I thank you @jeff and staff for doing this. This is also why I think so many people caught up in the debate have no idea what either side wants, stands for or even feels. It's important for everyone to get an educated, non-biased story of the matter to see what's going on and if what they think standing for is truly what they are they're standing for. And as it stands, doing that is next to impossible given how complicated and aggravated the truth has become. It's way easier to lose oneself to passion or resentment or give in to either the GG side or the anti-GG because that's where you stood before this all happened. It's unfair and unfortunate that innocent GG people got roped in with the horrible terror that went on because of all this. Now that I have some distance on the matter I can still say I'm not pleased with what Gamer Gate typically does even if they have good intentions sometimes do they ever produce good results? Is the verdict still out on that, I don't know? Anyway Gamer Gate seems to have been built on shitty foundations any way so it really doesn't matter if they have good intentions. If you take great politicians and put them in a government building made of straw you won't expect them to do good work and not get blown down or dissolve from within. It seems like people who actually care about discussing video game journalism/industry/ethics and matters related should grab a life boat and jump of the sinking ship that is Gamer Game. Even if it used to be good or had potential for good I don't see it making any come backs after this. It's proven to not be a very effective tool for open discussion, which is paramount in ANY community (no exceptions).

Thank you guys for listening and being such God damn bad-ass duders.

I would be delighted to answer this for you!

I'd like to start this conversation by stressing what's happened to me. I've been chased from my home, my life is in danger, my company is under attack, and there's an organized effort to destroy my reputation.

So, that is to say. I feel strongly that this conversation is more about what's happening to industry women than the hurt feelings of men. To state this more bluntly, this is not about you.

Yes, you are allowed to have opinions. But, I would also ask this. Imagine a group of white people sitting around discussing something like Ferguson. Understandably, they might not have the most informed life experience about how the police might systematically treat black people. So, what would be best, would be if you simply listened more than you talked to those people. There is no shame in admitting you don't know the realities of someone else's life!

I hope this answers your question. There is genuinely no snark intended here.

Sadly, probably not. Watching this whole mess from the outside and trying to ignore this idiocy the best I can, what I can definitely say is that there's no thinking involved on either side, just people violently lashing out at each other impulsively in defense of their own personal "club". Anyone involved who would actually need to read this likely has no interest in introspection or discussion to begin with.

"Silence isn't complicity. Silence might also be not letting a campaign of hate and chaos be taken seriously by not giving it a place at the table." this is basically what I've been saying since day one. Thanks for this Jeff.

@annora: I kind of don't like it when people say it's the internet being the internet though, because It's decidedly not okay and I have never been able to understand how people that are made aware they are causing others pain are so lacking in empathy, that rather than spouting utter bilge about freedom of speech or locker rooms, they don't just look in the mirror and stop.

Then again I don't understand the place people must be in to post the kind of threats and hate that get posted on the internet in the first place because words have always had the power to hurt people no matter how they are conveyed.

I won't pretend to know what you are going through. I have dealt with death threats in the past, though on a much smaller scale than what you are going through. During my time as a GM for an MMO my real life name and address was used in multiple threats, including one about fire bombing my home. It definitely puts things into a very different perspective.

My only issue remains that it seems as if many have really gone after this site for not covering the harassment you have been dealing with, yet when they actually did so what they got was more criticism. They may be the proverbial white people sitting in a circle talking about Ferguson, but they were specifically asked to do so. It seems like a lose lose situation. If you say nothing you are complicit and if you say something it means little or nothing because it comes from the male perspective.

Thank you for the answer though and I wish you the best. I'm sorry for what you are going through and wish it was within by power to stop it.

@fluttercry: I think based on some reading I have been doing that silence is absolutely the wrong way to go It doesn't ameliorate the problem and people just loose alone and unnoticed.

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/trolls-will-always-win/

@excast: Conversely, is everyone else meant to be silent on a speech, some big post, whatever, that's got some screwed up stuff, just because someone meant well?

It's pretty simple, I've found. When you do speak up, sometimes you screw up, even when you're meaning well. You learn from the screw ups, and from being criticized. It may keep happening. Learning is a continuous experience. It may be frustrating. Oh well.

I think a lot of dudes are so terrified - and/or angry - at the concept of someone, anyone calling them sexist, or even misogynist, while on the other side, a lot of people are terrified to even exist on the internet.

"I might get called sexist, misogynist even" or "I might get criticized" versus "Hundreds of people might come out to try and ruin my life, if not actively threaten me with death".

You speak, you screw up sometimes, and you learn. I think a lot of people get more miffed on the idea of being called out for screwing up, the idea of taking criticism - and especially miffed about taking repeated criticism - than they do about the onslaught of harassment and all that happening to everyone taking this stuff for speaking out... and notably, it's women being targeted.

A lot of concern over "someone might criticize me, someone might call me sexist, when i tried really hard this time, and that thought really bothers me" and not enough concern over "these people are actively receiving threats to their life".

The main concern seems to be was giving GG legitimacy, but it was clear that, given how long it was going on, and given how long Anita Sarkeesian has been getting harassment, that "ignore them and wait for stuff to cool down" wasn't gonna fly. I think it's right to crit Giant Bomb and other major sites on that for taking so long as things just got worse and worse instead of better, especially while these people were looking for both moral support from their peers and for sites to actually bite the bullet and condemn a group that has been harassing them and threatening them, and even stopping short of that in places.

Zoe Quinn had to do the actual journalism to dig into the groups harassing her - and game sites didn't report on that. I was stunned by that. Everyone had to basically fight it out on their own, waiting for major sites to say anything, and there's still problems when they do, not just because they took a very long time to do so.

Patrick says "we can always do better". That's important. You can mean well, you can have the absolute purest intention in your heart in your decisions and your statements, but you are going to still screw up and learn along the way.

Giant Bomb was worried about giving gamergate legitimacy. I can understand that angle, but it became pretty quickly clear that it was going to keep raging on harder and harder in silence, with only their targets and their groups there rebuking them. They can be critted on that.

A lot of posters seem to be deathly afraid of being called sexist. Of wanting to do good and then be shown it wasn't good enough, though you meant all the best.

Well, you might be. Is that going to be the worst thing that happens to you for speaking up online?

Count yourself lucky.

@excast: They could have gotten an outsider someone who had first hand experience and was brave to write a guest post that they endorsed in a forward.

@caketeleporter: I know, I feel you. But I don't think there's a way to stop internet trolls from trolling. I grew up with the first generation of them, it makes them feel good to hurt people. They get a rush out of causing people psychological harm, bonus points if you can move that into physical harm. Most of them grow out of it, but some don't. Some people just don't have the compassion and empathy the rest of us do, they can't put themselves in the shoes of another. Not until it happens to them personally.

@excast

Do not get offended on GB's behalf, even if the criticism seems misguided or unfair. If they need to defend themselves they have a fairly huge platform from which to do so. They have been content, in all of these cases, to say, "We respect those who are criticizing us and we will endeavor to be better."

It's a lesson everyone else here should learn.

Brianna is towards the middle of the circle of suffering. We are on the outside. She can dump out, but we cannot dump in.

You're absolutely right.

I'm not sure what the point would be considering there were calls for the site to speak out, not endorse someone else's words.

@spacetwinks: It's also arguably a systemic internet wide problem to the point that I doubt that phenomena like gamergate need the legs of news legitimation to continue because they have pre existing lines of publicity.

As a fan of a site and a community that has had a lot of stuff tossed it's way, I feel as if I have a right to ask reasonable questions and hopefully have a respectful dialogue. I'm not attacking Brianna in any way. I'm sorry for what she and others are having to deal with. It's disgusting.

Shockingly missing from this discussion is the complicity of Twitter itself in doing almost nothing to curb trolling, harassment, death threats, etc...

This is one of the most balanced posts around the web I've ever seen in regards to GamerGate, thank you Jeff for a perfect vision on it all. Especially how some of us are caught the in the middle of a war from both sides.
I personally do hope this means we won't be getting tons of reports on the vile things that are happening, I think it's great that GiantBomb has taken a stand in this entire debacle though.

I would also like to thank the rest of the staff, and the mods, for all their hard work in keeping GiantBomb clean from most of the garbage that the internet tends to drag in.
I've never felt out of place on GiantBomb, and that's feeling I'd wish anyone could have while browsing this website.

@Coldman: No, it in fact doesn't need to be covered. Even the condemnation of something that is so blatantly stupid is to acknowledge it as something worth listening to. This whole Gamergate debacle would have died down a lot sooner if people stopped treating it as some real force for good, when instead it had mostly been a thinly veiled platform to proliferate hate. Like Jeff said, silence is not complicity, it's not giving this garbage a place at the table.