Worth Reading: 10/28/2014

http://gamergate.me/

http://www.historyofgamergate.com/

http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/wiki/index

http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/343871/Corruption-consumer-hate-and-bad-journalism-in-games-journalism/

Wait, let me see if I get this GamerGate rhetoric: whenever I see someone, that says something I disagree with, I just yell out STRAWMAN and call them biased. Then I win, right? Those are the magic words?

@incapability: No, that's not quite it. If at any point you don't agree with the arguments put forth by a group comprised of tens of thousands of people, all you have to do is find a small minority within that group with outlandish views not supported by the rest, then pin those unpopular ideas to the entirety of the group and characterize them in that manner. Now, when doing this, you may find that some of the majority of the group will protest and try to counter that the ideas and methods of this fringe group do not represent their own - Ignore this completely. The best idea is to continue to bleat this narrow characterization from the rooftops until you and popular media have managed to reduce the entirety of this group to a single evil entity who's arguments can then be dismissed summarily. Trust me, this is much easier than having an actual discussion about complex issues which could be improved upon.

Over the last month I have already seen quite a few developers, writers and other people in the gaming industry throw out any integrity I might ever have considered them to have. Arrogance and the inability to rationally adress issues is a bigger problem in the games industry than corruption or whatever else people might come up with.

Do you get the feeling that a lot of these guys created accounts just to harass Patrick? Yeeeeah...

I personally really liked the Folding Ideas analysis. He actually balanced his thesis by mentioning toward the end that the disenfranchisement made by these WM's is real enough to them and therefore needs to be treated as valid, even though their actions are abhorrent.
And if that pissed the fanboys off they should stay away from him review of "Man of Steel", it will drive them white hot crazy.

The comments on that Cara Ellison article. Wow. I thought it was pretty funny myself.

The thing started off with harassment and continued to harass people. It wasn't something that a minority coopted and made into something awful. It started as an awful thing with normal people seeing it and trying to steer it in the right direction. Drop GG and do something different because giving them any semblance of a valid argument does more harm than good.

I don't think it really matters how the movement started at this point. I know those against GG like to point out that this is how it started, but it's also a little disingenuous.

This started when a jilted ex made accusations towards Zoe Quinn. That was disproven, but the handling of the matter spawned some people who genuinely question the ethics of the gaming press along with people who only care about harassing women. There will of course be intersection of the two, but there are many who would fall into the first and not the second group. People focus on the latter because only Zoe was doxxed and harassed. People ignore the former because the journalist wasn't doxxed, but the former wasn't doxxing Zoe either. Now people simply call the former misguided or duped, which pushes some away even further.

It doesn't matter how the movement started, it matters why people joined the movement and continue to support it, and how to get them to stop supporting it. Some joined after Leigh Alexander's piece. Arguing with them that the hashtag started the day before the piece went online doesn't invalidate the reason they joined.

I know Patrick is into "tweets that make you go hmmm" but what about tweets that make you go "HAAAAAAAA"?

GamerGate's crowning achievement, soak it in.

He's one of the people that was tricked if he is following it. Not everyone involved in GG is awful but those that aren't are giving the guys that are more validity than they deserve.

@sethphotopoulos: The same can be said for those that label themselves "anti-gg". Stick to the facts.

Talking about tweets, how about a series of tweets that certainly makes you go "Hmm..."

Tweets!

Can we please go back to talking about playing video games again?

So either people are terrible for being in GG or people were tricked into it. Both statements are equally ridiculous. I'm not sure if Totalbiscuit is in GG. I don't follow him, but initially it was more that he was sympathetic to some of what had been said and was attacked for it.

The problem I have with this as someone who is not in GG is that it says nothing about her actual work. We've elevated a person, who I agree is doing a job that should be done, albeit not a very good job, based on the threats she's received and not on the work she's actually produced - threats, that of course, she doesn't deserve. It's seen as a victory on her part, and the status quo of the gaming press will continue in not actually critiquing her work. I doubt we'll even see any more "I don't agree with everything she says" without elaboration cop outs we used to see.

TB has, to my knowledge, never been a part of GG and has condemned the harassment and viciousness ever since the day it started. He's just actually been using his popularity and influence to actually have a conversation with people about his issues with the broader games press. His talk with Totilo was actually really interesting and raised my opinion of Totilo a bit, even if I didn't agree with everything he said.

You know, it's funny; everyone always says we need to have a "conversation." Plenty of people are constantly talking about how we should be able to bring things to the table, discuss them civilly, fix the trust relationship between games press and audience, etc. But when people actually try to do this, they're dismissed because they're not complete saints who have never done anything wrong in their lives, ever. It's ridiculous that this dialogue is being hosted by YouTubers instead of people actually from games sites.

It's like when you hear a politician talk about how we need to have a "grown up conversation" about drugs. Except they never want to be the person starting it.

Regardless of what you think of TB, actually sitting down and having a direct conversation with the head of Kotaku for nearly two hours is far more productive than bitching at people on Twitter. A lot of animosity toward the press would be resolved if there was more of what TB has done. He's not perfect, but he's certainly right about what he said toward the end of his chat with Totilo: the best way forward isn't to go to war with people, it's to starve the trolls of oxygen. The way you do this is not through wholesale condemnation and bullying of large groups of people, because this marginalizes and radicalizes people who would've otherwise never given shitty movements like GG the time of day to begin with. If those "Gamers are over" articles had never happened in the first place (along with a lot of the incendiary things that were said in the wake of Mass Effect 3 or DmC), the last two months probably would've played out radically different.

Mind if I share?

I took some time off from GB (viewing content and even going to the site or watching youtube videos, did the same with many other places.) At the time my viewpoints were mixed, wrote some things, now that I look back it feels it was written by someone else. If I were to be honest at first I would have sided with GG.

Sorry, but well, I want transparency in my game blogs/write-ups/reviews. I want people to be honest when they are either hyping up a game or trying to give reasons to issues like Ubisoft and it's love for 30fps. It's why I like John Bain. After hearing about the Microsoft's PR disaster where they intended to pay people to point out the good things about XBox One without these people informing their audience. You can't blame me that I am a bit skeptical.

I said I would have. Didn't mean I did. I waited to see who was going to stand up for their side and I wanted to hear clear argument. I sat on the fence and waited. While there was decent discussion going on in the end it came to both groups acting like children. No one wanted to talk. No one wanted to sit down for a moment and just flap their gums with someone who had an opposing viewpoint. There was the declaration of gamer's death, there was harassment, death threats, multitude of people being petty little shits. People who were anti-GG didn't want to speak with pro-GG people because they were on the same level as those freaks who sent out death threats. That doesn't make sense. There are murderers who identify as Christian and kill in the name of god, doesn't mean that anyone who identifies as christian is on the same level. As for people who are pro-GG, this SJW name calling, this resentment for people who think of a different way is childish. I don't share every one of their viewpoints but they are still human, they still have a brain, they can think for themselves. I agree, some of them go overboard, but so have a lot of pro-GG people. Then their are folks who felt I should apologize for the actions of others. I am talking about basic discussion between two people, not something set up, just forum talk and suddenly I am at fault because some nutjob threatened to harm someone else or because I was ruining someone's hobby.

I listened to those that were willing to talk, I watched a bunch of videos and read the articles. I felt a bit off, eventually things just didn't seem right. To me it felt like both sides were being co-opted either by stubborn folks who would not share a room with the other side or those who wanted the chaos to resume.

Here is where TB comes in. Mr. Bain sat down and had a discussion with Totilo. It was pleasant, it might seem like it was heated at points, but both were given time to talk and discuss this issue. That's what I want. The articles are over, it's time to sit down and talk. I don't want a Rev3Games video like the one about Hatred, where they sit around for 12 minutes agreeing with each other and patting themselves on the back. If you can't find someone then play devil's advocate and try to see things in the opposing side's shoes. Of course it isn't just TB doing this but I would like to see more along this side of things.

You know, that Monica Lewinsky video is kind of amazing. When you think about it, in alot of ways she's right about being patient zero. The amount of crap laid out on her all these years, while Bill Clinton pretty much moonwalked his way back into America's hearts seems unfair. I mean, hey...I'm as much on the "let's move on from what he did" camp as anyone else, but I'd say the same for her too. She was what, 22 or 24 years old when it all went down? When you're in your twenties, that's pretty much the age range where people do make mistakes. To make one that haunts you for the rest of your life, when it wasn't like she murdered someone, just saddens me.

I mean, to have yourself, and your entire family threatened with jail time because you have entire political party tearing you down...man, having to deal with that at age 24, probably would have killed me somehow.

Man, the videos were kind of a let down this week. Nothing that was interesting or entertaining to me. I guess there's always next week...