EJ902

I came over here from GameSpot after reading their editor Ben's statement on it. I was pretty pleased with what he had written, it didn't even refer to gamergate by name, nor did it support or even define any sides. All it did was re-iterate the website's commitment to fairness and tolerance amid discussion of harassment in the games community. By all accounts it was a professional piece and I don't see how anyone could take issue with it.

In contrast, Jeff, I am very disappointed with your post, and using your platform to attack a movement you seem to be wilfully misrepresenting. You call gamergate a campaign of harassment with a minimal cover of being concerned about ethics and imply your position in the media business puts you in a better position than me to understand this, yet you use no clear examples to justify any of what you say and ignore the good things that followers of gamergate have accomplished.

I don't consider myself a follower of this movement, rather someone who has been observing this whole thing unfold and how it has done so at all levels. I have seen the discussions on twitter involving people who have suffered and seen discussions on the far away forums where many of this originated. I can say that I have seen some nasty, nasty stuff and that no single side in this has clean hands. But by and large, what I have seen is that the movement calling itself gamergate pretty much is just a bunch of people who are angry at journalism. I've seen threads with tens of thousands of posts involving many different people (with a far more diverse population than the websites criticising them) talking about little other than game journalism. Everything I have seen with my own eyes contradicts what you are telling me to think.

That there have been shocking harassment campaigns cannot be denied. I have seen it myself - some of it coming from gamergate folks, some coming from those opposed to them. But a lot of it coming from unidentified individuals with their own agenda. People who do not associate or identify with the gamergate movement in any way but enjoy causing mayhem and misery, or have their own bone to pick with feminists, who are leaping on and enjoying as the finger of blame is pointed elsewhere. You're giving them everything they want.

I don't want to spend my time involved in this, in gamergate or any movement. I have my own life to live and there are things I'd rather spend my effort on. In light of that I wouldn't normally stick up for the gamergate movement. But at this point I have gotten so angry and frustrated with people like you and many other journalists telling me what to think and insisting that I believe a view point that is contradicted by all of the evidence I have seen myself. You are saying things that can be disproven with a minimal amount of independent, open-minded research. You are telling me to condemn a movement that has sought to drive women away from gaming by donating over $40,000 to a campaign group set up with the very goal of getting more women into gaming. How the hell does that make any sense?

My main intention here is not to defend gamergate, I don't think it's free from criticism (no movement is) - rather I'm standing up for myself because I'm tired of you and your colleagues treating me like an idiot. Your message has its merits and deserves to be heard but so much of what you have written I know very well to be false. I'm not calling you a liar because that requires deliberately trying to mislead others, and I don't doubt that you do believe in what you are saying. However, not knowing the full story because you have chosen not to do a thorough, independent investigation, of your own is not professional. I am really not happy with people in your position telling me what to believe on a matter I apparently know more than you about.

I have never been an active user of this website so this post hasn't driven me away and nothing has changed. Nor has this post encouraged me to support it. However, I am very glad that gamespot, the site I have been a member of for nearly ten years, has earned my continued support with its very professional editorial post that took no sides and only spoke about the website itself. That is exactly what someone in Ben's position should be doing, and that is all I want from websites like GB and GS - the information, not people abusing their position to push opinions that are no more well informed than mine. That's all I want, why are you all making it so hard to find that?

I'm EJ902, signed up yeeeearrrs ago, forgot my password not long after, and the support staff just helped me get my account back. Hi there.

I'm from South Wales, United Kingdom

I did a good deal of work on the page for ET for the Atari 2600 at http://www.giantbomb.com/et-the-extra-terrestrial/61-21595/

Before I changed it, it was basically someone saying the game was terrible and it caused the gaming crash (I really fail to see how it's terrible). It now says a bit more about the game and explains it.

Jeff is a true champion. YOU'RE WINNER !

There used to be one release listed for brotrr, a PC release. And now it's gone. And with it, all of the WINNER reviews!

Who is responsible for this blasphemy? I demand to know.

One problem I have is things like checkpoints or other methods of saving where I'm limited. Doom had an example of a good save system, I could save wherever I want and how often I wanted. Popular FPS games nowadays have taken to using checkpoints where I can't manually save, but rather my progress is automatically saved at a specific point. I can't choose where to save meaning that I end up re-playing easy sections over and over if I encounter a hard part of the game. IE, getting through a checkpoint, going through a large part of the map with little enemies then suddenly encountering a horde that destroys me, I should be able to save before the horde and not have to do the easy stuff before over and over. Halo at least lets you load from the checkpoints always, some games only let you load from them if they were saved in the current playthrough. IE, play halfway through the map, decide to give up and come back later, only to find that the saves were temporary and I have to start the whole mission again. I know it adds to the challenge but it's really unnecessary.

Also, limiting the amount of times I can save is sometimes annoying. In Hitman, you are limited in your number of saves under some difficulties and this is understandable, since it is part of the challenge but is not too frustrating. In games like Tomb Raider 1 or 3, I had to have a save crystal (and, I believe, I could only carry a limited number, unless that was a different game) which is pointless.

Speaking of Hitman, I don't see why they changed the save system in Hitman Blood Money. In BM, if you save your game then quit or restart the mission, the saves are eradicated. In Hitman Contracts and the games before it, saves were permanent and I could leave a mission and come back to it at any point. They removed this in Blood Money and I can't imagine why.

I'm using it now. Sometimes it's fast, but sometimes it appears to be rather slow. Could be due to problems on my end, my connection is tempermental. No interesting features in terms of usability, but understandable since it's a beta. I do like how each open page is an individual thread, this could do wonders for speed and stability. Overall, not bad, not bad at all.

It seems a bit strange for them to come up with a browser when they've supported Firefox so much over the years. Nothing new in terms of features, but they seem to be taking a new approach to it by focusing on the performance instead, which is interesting. Most new browsers don't do so well because they just pile on more features (though usually the new browsers are just shells of an existing browser engine), so perhaps their new approach might let them get their foot in the door.

I'm from Wales, which is not England. But it is still part of the UK, so close enough!