Twitter is Garbage, and Rumors of the Death of Gamers Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.

Well, it's been a while since anything excited me enough to write a post.

As most of you know, two sets of extremists - militant far-left hardliners and worthless internet troglodytes - have been waging a war for the last month or so, with normal, run-of-the-mill gamers in the crossfire.

One of the most intense salvos in this war was every Giant Bomb member's favorite writer, Leigh Alexander, declaring that "gamers were dead," or that people with a passion for gaming are no longer relevant, because they're all sexist pigs and the industry is better off not focusing on them. The problem isn't the blatantly inflammatory language, but rather the flawed premise.

the ESA likes to trumpet around the stat that over half of people playing games are female, and that's true... If you include social and mobile gaming. Now, ignore the issues that plague mobile and social gaming for a moment, how most who play will never pay, and how saturated the F2P market is. By putting every part of the gaming market under a catchall umbrella, the ESA is hiding the ugly truth - that most people buying games and paying most companies' bills are men. This is a problem, because the ESA is effectively putting up a smokescreen for AAA developers to hide behind. "Nope, nothing to see here, plenty of women play games! We don't have to do more to get people in!"

Fact is, you're not going to find a lot of ladies who spend enough time (or, more importantly, money) on games to make a dent in traditional "Men first" thinking. Honestly, I don't think it ever will, especially now with industry folks essentially saying - and the ESA endorsing an attitude of - "women can stay in their mobile ghetto, we've done enough."

However, some people who may or may not have good intentions are seeking to purge sexuality from games as a means to bring women in. Spearheaded by female supremacists like Anita Sarkeesian and leftist clickbait rags Kotaku and Polygon, a large movement has emerged, equating sexuality with sexism. From Dragon's Crown to Bayonetta 2, games where women have low cut dresses, tight-fitting clothes and sexy struts have been branded with the scarlet letter of sexism, which only serves to anger people who maybe do want to see more women playing games, but don't approve of the witch hunt we've seen relatively recently. Yeah, there are games that are just stupidly pandering, games that truly do push a sexist worldview, but they're nowhere near as prevalent as female supremacists on the far left would have us believe.

On a side note, the Anita Sarkeesians of the world conveniently forget that many gamers joined the chorus of attacks on Metroid: Other M regarding the degrading way Samus was portrayed and her "battered wife" relationship with Adam.

What needs to be done isn't some purge of sexuality, but rather a broadening of what can be done in the media. The existence of Bayonetta doesn't exclude Alien: Isolation, the Super Mario Bros. series doesn't exclude The Last of Us. The issue isn't to make women into a perfect feminist mold, but to make games that feel authentic, like the stories come from the heart, that the people in them are people. If a woman is scantily clad, she shouldn't be a shy gal, or a general in a unit that's generally fully-armored, or other nonsense like that. This I think will happen eventually, as the medium continues to mature.

Lastly, I think both sides would do well to stop holding Twitter users and forumites as the representatives of the opposing view. I read a very interesting article on the BBC about the toxic nature of online interaction. Yes, the GamerGate war was mentioned at length, but the overriding point was that, for the most part, online debate is poisonous, to the point where people who aren't screaming little shits are leaving forums and social media because it's more trouble than it's worth. The fact is that, for a discussion this important, we have to push away the screamers, the intolerant, the agenda-pushers, and filter the noise out to the best of our ability until the only thing left is people willing to have a conversation. And for everyone's sake, stop using Twitter and social media! For any hope of serious discussion, we need forums to be moderated, and for those moderators to be as impartial as possible. Otherwise, only the status quo will survive.

Scrapped what I had and starting over. I want to try to change some of my posting behaviors on these topics. I think you have raised some interesting points, but one of the bigger discussions had on this was tied into the now locked letter from the editor topic. I believe mods are still determining to what extent that want that continued conversation to proceed in other threads. I did find your point of view interesting though.

I do agree that Twitter is just awful and nothing good arises from it. The fact that so many people use it as their primary means of communication is quite sad really. Your limited in what you can say so it's very easy to take anything anyone says out of context. This is especially troubling when right now there are too many extremists who can use this to their advantage on both sides of this stupid argument that has been going on for too long.

There is one truth..twitter is full of garbage

You are condescending without providing any value to this discussion at all.

Perhaps your post is the joke.

This, more than anything else, is the biggest issue. Seriously, if someone's trying to make a point about something, they'd be better off using Youtube, or Facebook, or Live Journal, or anywhere but Twitter! That's a site for putting your brain farts out to the world, not for anything resembling discussion.

Yeah, Twitter is a fucking terrible idea. Of course it's full of meaningless fucking platitudes. You're limited to 140 characters! The potential for meaningful debate is near-zero. The potential for ambiguous, inflammatory statements? Near-limitless.

I won't address anything else said here other than I agree that Twitter is more and more becoming the bane of discourse on the internet.

I've been around long enough to see that Twitter isn't the real issue. I mean, you're not on Twitter, but you're still using excessive hyperbole and misrepresenting women's views, muddling the reality of a situation.

I know you've been frustrated lately, @yukoasho, but a post like this doesn't help you or your cause. You've seemed to mean well in the past, duder, and I hope you'll rethink a lot of this.

Try to tackle each one of his points instead of just patronizing him.

His brings up good points, you bring up none.

@yukoasho: I agree with your general message while having problem with others but I agree 100% on the account of twitter being one of the worst thing to happen to modern social interactions, not to mention the irresponsible moderation(or lack there of) on the part of twitter and no accountability at all from that entity.

@promanari: I've liked @yukoasho in the past and enjoyed talking to them at times, and I'm going to be straight with them if I think they are being counterproductive.

I hope you will understand if I don't let a random day-old user who has only posted about GG tell me how I should or should not comment.

(I do appreciate your use of puppy images, but come on)

@shinjin977: Oh, if we just want to rail on how crappy Twitter's moderation is, I'm absolutely with yall. I can't even believe the hoops you have to go through to get even one abusive account deleted. By the time they actually do something, there are just five more.

That you can't even report other users for abuse, only spam, is absurd. When I'm seeing a user throwing slurs around at someone on Twitter, I can report their comments, but Twitter will just say the report is rejected because I wasn't directly involved. There is no way to help stand up for others being attacked when Twitter cuts you off at every turn.

I've already shared my opinion on all of this many times, including today(and to Yuko in the past). You badgering me is not going to achieve any further clarity on it.

@yukoasho does not need you to defend them, and I would prefer to continue to speak with them instead. This is me asking you to please leave me alone and move along.

Well now you're just trolling.

If a mod reads this, please feel free to delete this silly exchange between me and him. Now it's just derailing Yuko's thread. That was never my intention in expressing my concern here, and I shouldn't have responded to this fellow's replies.

Accusing me of being a troll is one way to deal with an opinion you can't handle I guess.

@promanari:

Courtesy of xkcd.

twitter is nothing more then shitposting on a massive scale.

And this, above all else, is the issue with the whole GamerGate debacle. We've allowed the very worst elements of society to dictate the tone of the entire conversation. That's an issue. It's impossible to have a discussion when both sides are using trolling asshats as ammunition to discredit the entirety of the opposition. How can common ground be achieved when each side only sees caricatures of the other?

Muddling? How so? I've never made any attempts to make light of the disparity of female developers, though that's a broad tech issue, not just gaming. However, so often the discussion is about the odd camera angle or low-cut top as opposed to the sorry state of representation in the industry. I'm all for more games that aren't ridiculous coming out - lord knows I roll my eyes damn near out of my head when a game comes out that goes for the absolute lowest common denominator. But is going after every game with a sexually provocative female character going to deter the Team Ninjas of the world from producing their brand of sexist drivel? The kind of rage being directed at Bayonetta 2 right now is the sort of thing we used to see for trash like BMX XXX and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude.

And that's the sad part - outside of really small Japanese studios, there's been a lot of improvement in the depiction of women in gaming compared to, say, the 6th generation and prior. Look at how Lara Croft has been depicted in the Crystal Dynamics games compared to the latter Core Design for example, or the amazingly badass women in Gears of War 3, or the depth of character shown in Last of Us's Ellie. Instead of moving the bar, we should be focusing on getting women more INTO the development community, and rooting out the jackasses who would threaten them. Seriously, the people making threats need to be hunted down, arrested, tried for terrorist threats, and locked the hell up, not made into the rallying cry for shaming gamers as a whole.

Make no mistake, the media has a long way to go when it comes to hiring women and minorities in the ranks of developers, and in improving depictions of them in the games themselves. However, returning to the days of stigmatizing gamers as a whole is not going to get us there.

Of course Twitter is terrible did you ever expect that 140 characters would be sufficient to avoid miss-communication? Also I find Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Voylleyball no more sexist than I find Gears of War. At least I feel the former to know how ridiculous it is and so does not take itself too seriously, on the other hand the way Gears of War takes itself very seriously so the fact that every guy is like 6.4 and of a monster build is at least as bad as Dead or Alive.

Twitter is great because it brings together the reflexive, disposable outbursts of text chat with the conversation-oriented structure of a forum. Leading to 'debates' between people who are just saying whatever pops into their heads.

No but seriously, to anyone engaged in an argument on Twitter (including @alex, @patrickklepek): delete your Twitter account and watch your life instantly become better. I guarantee you are not gaining anything that is worth what you're putting into it.

From the responses in this thread I guess I'm a monster because I more-or-less agree with most of what was written?

@yukoasho: Thanks for the reply, Yuko. I think an issue in this topic is the idea that there are two equal sides to this when there isn't. There are a few angry folks who have come together online in agreement that they are angry and just about everyone else. There isn't an equivalent counter monster to the GG beast. That's a myth. And the fact that some people have used a hashtag or thrown around a scary word like "GamerGate" doesn't mean you're either with GG or some enemies against it.

I appreciate that you agree that GamerGate isn't the answer and has primarily just made things harder to discuss, but I do have to disagree with any suggestion that it's some kind of war of polar-opposed extremists. There are some extremists and then everyone else. Leigh Alexander isn't some extremist like a random guy on 8chan suggesting there's some grand conspiracy she's a part of. She's just a woman with different opinions on games and the term "gamer". Anita Sarkeesian isn't some extremist like the folks endlessly harassing her and threatening her life. She's just a woman with different opinions on games and how we may be able to improve them. Kotaku and Polygon aren't extremist "rags" like many opponents of feminism in gaming have contended for a long time now. They're just gaming news and commentary blogs with different opinions on games and the culture around them.

There aren't two equivalent competing extremist sides in all of this that us reasonable people have to mediate. There is a subsection of gaming fans online who think they're waging some kind of war against an ominous existential threat and some fans misled by their rhetoric. There isn't a war on gamers. There are people critical of how the word "gamer" has been used. There isn't a war on games. There are people with potentially critical opinions on games you may like.

There isn't a huge threat worth such a virulent response as we've seen, and we shouldn't buy into the myth that this is some epic war of extremists. There's just some angry people on Twitter and elsewhere making a fuss over a lot of empty accusations that don't matter and actively hurting people that do matter. Any talk of actual issues of ethics or improvement in gaming comes as a separate conversation. That has hardly ever been a substantial part of the recent storm that has been going on in the online gaming community.

It's cool that you're calling for some sincere conversation, particularly away from a poor discussion medium like Twitter, but let's leave all this recent nonsense behind. It isn't necessary for us talking about what we really care about and having meaningful discussions here or anywhere else. :)

It's hard to tell. Only two of them get into what they disagree with. People seem to generally agree that Twitter is bad for discussions though. @biospank and @saturdaynightspecials put it nicely.

So you're probably most likely a monster somewhat possibly. *thumbs up*

Maybe probably? heh.

If you're mainly agreeing with the Twitter is garbage for real discussion and we need more considerate conversation on the difficult topics that concern us parts, then I think most of us are actually in agreement.

That still doesn't mean you aren't a monster though. ;)

(Edit: You and me, @theht. We're on the same page. ha)

People aren't going to change their minds. 140 characters isn't enough to make an argument.

Also, it you really want a misogynistic/sexist game I would link to Ride to Hell Retribution. That game...

And I wouldn't generalize the "far Left." From what I have seen of John Bain, he''s pro-gamergate and he's pretty far left. Someone's political ideology has nothing do with it.

I do like your point of: " What needs to be done isn't some purge of sexuality, but rather a broadening of what can be done in the media. The existence of Bayonetta doesn't exclude Alien: Isolation, the Super Mario Bros. series doesn't exclude The Last of Us. The issue isn't to make women into a perfect feminist mold, but to make games that feel authentic, like the stories come from the heart, that the people in them are people. If a woman is scantily clad, she shouldn't be a shy gal, or a general in a unit that's generally fully-armored, or other nonsense like that. This I think will happen eventually, as the medium continues to mature." Then again, I like people having the freedom to make what they want, even if I disagree with it. I don't need panty shots in my games, but if they do it's something I can deal with or not buy it.

I guess this is appropriate

@gloomytangent said:

@promanari:

Courtesy of xkcd.

Well, I mean the government is restricted from doing more than just arresting you by the right to the freedom of speech guaranteed in the 1st amendment but otherwise this is totally correct.

I think I can succinctly summarize the OPs thoughts, mostly, with my own and that's that I have no problem with feminist, structuralist, or critical theory based evaluations of games, they're media they should be analyzed, my problem is that the gaming press is really bad at it. The gaming press is seldom, if not always unqualified to pursue these critiques, they exercise zero rigor, they're ignorant of the history of these movements, and, well, they're lazy and trying to roll a bunch of competing interests into one review.

I wouldn't want it any other way. It's also a tad disappointing that whenever someone voices a dissenting viewpoint they're told the mens rights forum is right around the corner. A lot of the initially mocking replies tend to highlight the problem this topic has in the first place.

With some of the language used in the original post, I don't think it was surprising that it received some initial incredulity. It certainly doesn't appear to have done the points a service. Yuko's subsequent response was far more effective at showing the sincerity and seriousness behind this.

@truthtellah: I'll use an excuse for him that I've been extending to far too many on the site (on both sides of the issue of course) and blame frustration.

Again, I'd have to object to the weird "both sides" addendum numerous folks have been throwing around as they leave behind GamerGate, as it seems to allow people to not have to admit the mistake of ever supporting the GG storm, but sure, plenty of folks have been frustrated in all of this. I know I've been frustrated at how much time has been wasted on something that primarily just ended up hurting some people. None of this was ever necessary.

Leaving all that aside, I'm glad that many may be deescalating to the point of genuine conversation of topics that matter having a chance here and around the online gaming community. It's at least a hopeful sign.

@truthtellah: Sometimes a bit of crudeness helps to underline a point and doesn't necessarily detract from the message. Your writing can be above reproach with beautiful vocabulary and immaculate sentence structure but if the overall message is garbage then over all it's still garbage. This is my issue with Leigh Alexander. I think she is a really talented writer but I hardly ever agree with anything she actually writes about. Let's be clear in that I don't think her writing is "garbage" as much as it's extremely laser focused to represent a very specific, and dare I say narrow, point of view.

Let our shared disdain for how bad Twitter is for actual discussion bring us together.

Not all ____ are ____, but in the interest of safety and self preservation, and in the interest of saving time, sometimes you can presume most ____ are _____. If I have to dig around to find gamers that arent dirtbags lashing out at you but really getting revenge on the girl who rejected them in 11th grade, if the dirtbag so quickly comes to the surface and at such a large volume, who in their right mind would want to dig past that facade? When they could just as easily jump to a possibly unfair (but justified) point of view that the community as a whole fosters a very toxic mindset and save some time and grief. Not doing so isnt being "optimistic" or "open minded", its exposing oneself unnecessarily. In the same way its nice to hope nothing terrible will happen to a woman who walks down the street by herself, but not bringing some measure of protection isn't optimistic so much as dangerous in a world full of pieces of shit. What's the incentive to give a by-and-large toxic community the benefit of the doubt? Time and time again the community at large proves its not mature or emotionally stable enough to handle any serious discourse.

I think you might be misreading what I'm saying here. When I say "both sides" I am referring to the frustration felt by individuals on either side of this argument. Whatever you think of the pro-GG side I'm sure you can understand that there are people supporting it that are frustrated and have expressed themselves in a way they might not if they weren't. I'm not speaking to the GG movement as a whole but you must agree that there have been reasonable, normal individuals who have supported it. This has nothing to do with equivalence.

Edit: Yes Twitter is poison.

In this case, especially with just how much crudeness we've seen over the last few weeks, I'd say the additional crudeness didn't help. Obviously, as fans of Giant Bomb, we know how informality and even cursing can get fucking points home. ha. But that doesn't mean that is always the best way to address things, especially when you know what a powder keg a topic like this is.

As far as Leigh Alexander, I feel quite differently about her writing, but independent of that, I still don't think she has anything to do with actual reasonable grievances about anything in gaming today. If someone's point is just they don't enjoy her writing, that's fine. There are plenty of writers I don't enjoy, and I generally don't read them. But that simple personal preference has rarely ever been all there is to comments about her and other outspoken women in gaming.

I'm rather baffled at how you can form a narrative like this when the very victims identify themselves as either “pro” or “anti” gamergate, and attack each other because of it. Abuse and threats of violence and beyond, have fallen upon people on both “sides” of the fence. Refusing to acknowledge it does not mean it doesn't exist.

Gamergate is certainly not the answer to women’s issues in the industry. Neither is Anita Sarkeensian, she is misrepresenting videogames and it's culture and using such examples to condemn it. It is incredibly dishonest and a large group of people just cannot trust her.

So, both sides of GG, the core and those who were misled into supporting it? Sure. At this point, I can imagine significant frustration for anyone involved. I've made mistakes and been on the wrong side of things before. It doesn't feel great. It really sucks.

The only people at all happy with this mess are some of the people who said they just supported it to "shake things up". I'm guessing they're pleased as a peach and spending more time playing Destiny now than caring about how we have to pick up the pieces.

@truthtellah: Oh my comment about Leigh Alexander was just an aside. I think she has some strangely radical viewpoints but it's not like they "shape" the industry or anything. I specifically thought her piece on Bioshock Infinite was really well written but, in my personal opinion, so incredibly exaggerated that my eyes were constantly spinning circles whilst reading it.

I think the clearest sign something is wrong with the feminist movement is that the term MRA is used as a derogatory term. If feminism was all about equality, surely someone highlighting the issues faced by men would be more than welcome.

That is not the case, thus the feminist movement has strayed off course. We need a new movement. Equalism, or something. A movement that focuses on the real injustices of the world. Equal pay for equal work. No more ridiculous divorce settlements, etc.

And sexuality in games is not discrimination against women. That that is even the general consensus stems from some kind of ancient view of women as pristine flowers. It's bullshit.

Sure. I'd say I'm "anti-hurricanes", but that doesn't make me part of some equivalent destructive force threatening a city.

That someone might say they're anti-GamerGate doesn't mean they are or ever were part of some equivalent "side", and considering the amorphous nature of what GG has been, "pro-GamerGate" never meant much of anything. I couldn't find anyone who knew what it was really about; there was just a general online anger marked by some conflicting themes. That hardly counts as a "side".

I'm anti-stubbing my toe, and outside of a few folks on some specialty online forums, I imagine that's a pretty common feeling. That doesn't mean most people are a "side" just because they're against something. And they're definitely not anywhere near an equivalent side as some have suggested during all of this.

As far as Anita Sarkeesian, I can appreciate your objection to her videos, and no one has to like her. She's just a woman with her own opinions, and you don't have to agree with her. If you feel there are better ways you can speak up and help combat women's issues in gaming, I would encourage you to pursue them. It's a great cause, and we can all do better in it. Let's help make these problems a mere memory so no one has to stress over them again. :)

You speak much truth, I just don't foresee the conversation going away from twitter anytime soon.

heh. I've read plenty from folks over the years that has made my eyes spin like that. It's rough!

It's alright. I'm pretty sure even Leigh is aware her writing won't be for everyone. I prefer reading a lot of other writers, too. There's no shame in preferring different voices in gaming coverage.