Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops and the Wolf: 09/05/2014

What is even going on? Ethics?! What's that?! No let's make shit up and try to destroy other peoples reputation....because WHY NOT!?

Seriously. I read that whole LordKat thing. What a waste of time. If you have actual evidence then show i, don't make an announcement of an announcement! You don't like it when publishers do it so don't do it yourself! There is no point to all that other than fuck innocent people over. It's a really evil thing to do.

it's also convenient that this just happened to surface now of all times. Once again, convenient. Suddenly every damn Internet dweller is a master detective and journalist. This is just getting sad.

I also saw that Blow tweet. Yeah. Stuff don't really make sense.

To your Roger Ebert point, there was a guy, and Irish Radio DJ and music journalist who found a very little known band in Dublin. He went to a tiny gig and was amazed. He started playing their songs on his station. He promoted their gigs. They were U2. No one knew a thing about them.

Dave Fanning was his name, and while he is kind of a knob, he gave one of the worlds most popular bands their break. (I can take or leave U2).

His reputation was made on that. He went on to be a central figure in the Irish music scene, and made a comfortable living doing so. At no point was there any conflict of interest.

What people are not understanding is that sometimes for entertainment journalists, forging relationships with creators is their job.

Right, but what we're specifically talking about is enthusiast press. Can you give me any evidence the unfortunate but sometimes necessary coziness that comes from covering an entertainment industry like video games is any different than what happens in comics, movies, music? I'm not saying there aren't ethical lapses or publications/individuals can't improve, but part of what's happened in this movement is a desire to impose ethical standards as a straw man argument to deflect any understanding of how said ethics might actually work within a world of gray areas like games writing.

@patrickklepek: Not that you're claiming it, but I'd need to make it clear that I don't support GamerGate. The echo chamber that cannot critique Anita or anyone else's work has existed long before this fiasco. The game press has never bothered to critique any work that they feel should be supported, giving it a free pass. I consider myself an egalitarian and feminist; I don't always agree with other feminists (#notallfeminists?), and I can recognize a logical fallacy when it creeps into one's argument. I'm not a member of the game press and don't feel it should be my job to make a blog post that will more than likely either go unseen or labeled as misogynist because I dared to rock the boat. I feel it's the game press' job to objectively look at someone's work (this is different than a subjective game review) and point out its strong points as well as its faults.

Not to get too political, but I find the notion of "let's hold off on talking about these kinds of things when something bad is happening" too similar to when some people say "let's not talk about gun control right after this shooting incident." Nothing should ever not be discussed because it may distract from something else. If one is ready to lump one group in with another instead of addressing them, then the problem isn't with that group, but the person doing the lumping.

It's kind of the same as when I see people here and elsewhere say, let's not worry about person B being harassed because person A is being harassed more (ignoring the fact that we support person A but not person B). I wouldn't say child B being bullied by one person should be left to their own devices because child A is being bullied by five kids. A child bullied is a child bullied; a person harassed is a person harassed. It doesn't matter if you think one is worse than the other, it matters that both instances should be stopped.

If you want to some people seriously embarrassing themselves, I would check out Tim Schafer's mentions right now.

Hey Patrick, what do you think of The Fine Young Capitalists game jam? Any chance you might acknowledge their existence at some point?

Your very first sentence is what my point in that post is about. Game journalism is an enthusiast press. It does not adhere to the same standards as other forms of journalism. My response it to some people who claim that what happens in game journalism happens in all of journalism, which isn't the case. Now if game journalism does want to be similar to other press outlets in their coverage, then they should adopt some of those policies. It looks like in some cases, some web sites are making some changes how they disclose things.

I couldn't agree more. Posting a video that cryptically addresses this issue, ignoring any back story of how this whole situation arose and focusing solely on the final outcome (harassment) isn't providing any resolve. You avoid anything specific (no names, no facts) and just say that this harassment is awful. Of course it's awful but at least talk about how this came to be. My God, this was shoehorned into a video where you also talk about Diablo 3 and some other game and titled "Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops and the Wolf". It's taken me ages to even find this and it was only because I found a thread talking about this while it was still open. I think it was open for around 15 minutes before it was locked. Do you think that looks like you've given it the respect it deserves? We're at the point now where gamers legitimately think that gaming media think their time is over and they're misogynists. At least do something to change this message.

If you go back and read through Patrick's posts, he addresses this.

As I said, it's perfectly okay to champion a new artist, or developer and the like. A critic should be able to say, hey, there's this new great band or developer or author, you should check out their work. It sounds like both Roger Ebert and this DJ did that. I personally feel that is what happened with Zoe Quinn, and those that targeted her are full of crap. However, that's different than saying Roger Ebert was friends with this person and everything turned out okay.

I get that. That makes a lot of sense. What is a sexist element though? When does sexuality turn into sexism? There are some forms of sexuality that are unhealthy but natural. Are those things okay?

For instance: Do you think it's sexist that you can go to a hooker in GTA? I personally don't. Others do. The only thing sexist about it, to me, is that there aren't male hookers too. Which has a lot to do with the narrative since there hasn't been a female or gay protagonist in a GTA game.

My opinion is, the line for what is being considered sexist could be drawn back a bit. Especially since the line was nonexistent before and the change in mentality has been sudden.

Seems to me that the most immediately apparent difference between games coverage and any other types of entertainment coverage is that the entire gaming coverage industry is almost 100% reliant on the industry it covers which is definitely not true of film/music/tech/sport/whatever coverage. The worst thing in all that is that almost no one talks about that aspect. That coziness between the journalist and the developer/artist/musician/etc might be a problem elsewhere but less so if your entire business isn't entirely dependant on the industry it covers.

I never understood this assumption from advertisers that if you visit gaming sites it must mean that your entire life revolves around them and nothing else. I understand even less the lack in desires of the gaming press to change this and minimize as much as possible and safeguard themselves against potential conflicts of interests.

I would disagree that the type of coverage in games writing and other entertainment media is different? Movies have critics screenings and actor Q&As in which actors get bombarded by increasingly mundane questions about the movie, music writers have early access to albums and have to go through PR / A&R / agents for interviews, tech goes to press events (well, before the whole live streaming phenomena) and can get hardware in advance if they're a big enough publications... And sports, well I don't pay enough attention to sports to follow how people get their information, nor do I care.

And I understand completely why the enthusiast press is less than willing to change that: running sites and paying writers costs money. Unless you pull in advertisers and secure a loyal reader base that provides ad views, you will find yourself out of a job. That goes for movie, tech, music, game sites. And probably goes for sport sites.

Either that, or you piggyback on a well known and established publication that can pull in revenue through subscriptions or other, more profitable subjects, to cover your interest.

I hope you will understand why that doesn't exactly make me feel better. Oscar winners receive enormous benefits from an increase in the visibility and therefore profitability of their work, but they aren't directly being awarded tens of thousands of dollars for winning a competition that appears to have little to no guarantee that the (paying) entrees receive a fair examination.

@pr1mus: It's a bit of stretch given the size of their industries but if you look at the apparatus that reports on mixed martial arts, these sites all started out independent and than bought up by bigger media companies (VOX, USAToday, the people that own Sherdog) but even put into these larger apparatus' their ad teams still fail to really sell diverse-ish ads on their sites. Nate Wilcox, EiC of BloodyElbow is constantly lamenting this fact (and the fact that his url turns advertiseres off). Sherdog mostly gets a diverse ad with various lower tier movies (and some higher tier) but the ones on MMAJunkie (owned by USAToday are terrible. It could honestly be that the ad teams or whomever the sites use to get adbuys just sucks or they can't get a diverse market. I'm not sure though since I don't work in advertising and just go off of what I see.

@gaff: What i mean is the ratio of advertising for games to advertising for other products on gaming sites is leaning largely on the gaming advertising side of things when compared to other types of site. 70-80% plus of advertising on sports sites or sporting events on TV isn't going to be about sports gear for example.

As for "piggyback on a well known and established publication that can pull in revenue through subscriptions or other, more profitable subjects, to cover your interest.", absolutely. An overwhelming majority of the best gaming articles i read in the last couple years have been on all purpose, pop culture sites that don't have to worry about potentially alienating the industry they cover, because they aren't covering only that one industry. I don't think it's an accident that the best gaming articles aren't found on gaming sites.

Thanks splodge. I read his comments. I'm out.

If I called you a misogynist, I'm saying you've got some bad in you. You might have some good qualities that in your eyes are enough to justify calling yourself a "good person", but that misogynism, that's a categorically bad part of you. Just the same, if I called you a sexist or a racist, there's an implicit judgement there too. And there very well ought to be. Being sexist or racist or misogynistic is a bad thing! If you've done sexist things, you were doing bad things.

They're severe allegations and should be handled responsibly, not thrown out haphazardly. That is, if you're gonna say someone hates women, then you'd better have some concrete reasons for it.Calling something racist or sexist isn't on the same level as "it's not fun to play". It's not among those menial and obviously subjective criticisms. And there's an important distinction between playing a game with supposedly sexist elements and liking a game with supposedly sexist elements. The former says nothing about you as a person, while the later certainly could be construed to do so. If you're the one making a game with supposedly sexist elements, there can be even stronger negative implications made towards you as an individual.

You can't start with a claim about something and then find ways to support that claim. That sort of backwards analysis shouldn't be lauded and promoted by anybody.

At what point does playing a game turn into enjoying a game. That is a fine distinction there.

@theht: you can call a thing a person has done sexist with out meaning that is person sexist. patricks point is that people are getting the two mixed up, either calling a person sexist for something they did without realizing or having someone tell them that what they said/did was sexist being the same as calling them sexist. one of the major points in all this mess are the things we've just come to take for granted as men/gamers as just something that's been around for ever so it's ok (example being the damsel in distress). now i have some issues with how some of this stuff is presented in the Tropes videos but the point is to get people thinking about these things from a different perspective and maybe coming up with different ways to handle it. i would love nothing more then to have discussion about these topics but when compared to the shit storm these people have had to go through my opinions come off more as nit picks.

@littleemille: the distinction isn't enjoying the game or just playing it. The distinction is in defending the sexist/racist/etc elements of that game as if there is no problem. I'm not talking about putting something in context, I'm talking about like "That's not sexist and I don't know why you even care".

That's the line

@docporpoise: very true. And I think people taking offense to it is kinda where a lot of this anger is coming from. Like if you used the word "tranny" and I let you know it was transphobic I'm not saying you as a whole are transphobic but merely saying that action may cause someone else distress.That's basically what people are doing with some of the critiques of games.

I don't think it's that hard to impose real world expectations for games journalism. If you're job description in anyway includes consumer advocacy then it is incumbent upon you to not invest in personal relationships with the people you write about. If someone can't maintain that barrier strictly in a consumer advocacy role than they shouldn't be writing. I don't think that's an unrealistic expectation, and I think gaming press is way too lax about this as evidenced by active journalists working for/owning PR companies, some of the kotaku articles, and a lot of comments by developers that have been pointed out over the past few weeks. A gross internet mob being the impetus for having these conversations shouldn't impede self-improvement.

For what it's worth (which isn't much, I'm just a lurker) my opinion is that this whole shit-show was never about integrity. Admittedly, when I first saw "the zoe post" or whatever it was called, I wasn't in a great mental space. Trigger-warning, reminded me of my ex, used to like Zoe, now conflicted, etc. etc. Tl;dr, not exactly a great time. As someone that legitimately liked her whenever she showed up on Giantbomb, it made me pissed.

But, here's the thing: that had very little if anything to do with her. That was all on my end. Sure, you go through depression, social anxiety, etc. and then find out this person who overcame it that you looked up to might (and that's a bigass MIGHT) display tendencies similar to the person that MADE you depressed in the first place is a real mindfuck. But again, that has fuck-all to do with her. I don't know her.

Now, initially, my annoyance was at her as a person, but let's be honest. That's really stupid. Again, I don't know her. I'm not involved with her. I'm not friends with her ex. It's not personal. From that, my annoyance turned towards her past work, depression quest specifically. If she was a "bad person", what did that say about DQ? Not on any super deep level, but I did connect with it. It was an empathetic experience and one that I linked in a positive way with her name. In a way, I felt lied to. I actually had been depressed. If she hadn't, that did feel personal.

Now, is that rational? Oh, hell no. Not at all. A game (or movie, or book) can be incredible independent of the person behind it. Even if (again, emphasis on "IF") Quinn was a less-than-honest individual, she is still a damn compelling storyteller. That is still valuable.

But . . . that still didn't answer everything. There was still the issue of "SJW's" (which is a broad, ugly term) effectively telling me that I was a bad person. What I grew up on (game-wise) was apparently bad, I as a male was bad unless I minimized my own place in society, and videogames in general were something to be "fixed" . . . not by better gameplay, but by vaguely addressing supposed social ills that only seemed to have surfaced recently. They've never been argued against as vehemently in the past, but suddenly now there's a problem?

Those thought processes, more than anything, still annoyed me. I linked Quinn to that self-constructed end-of-days movement, honestly linked Patrick to it (which was extra dumb, but I did it regardless) and actually went along with the whole mentality of "burn the witch" just because it didn't seem like it wanted to hurt me. Yeah, it was ugly, but it didn't mind me. I didn't perceive it as wanting to hurt me, and the "opposition" did. Very negative in retrospect, but at the time it made sense.

Again, it had nothing to do with integrity. A lot of people jumped on that angle because it seemed to legitimize anger for other supposed ills, but it avoided the larger problem, and the negative mindsets behind it. Nothing got fixed. Everything got uglier.

>>fastforward>>

What changed my mind honestly was Patrick's most recent Q&A video (which I only saw because I finally, since lurking since arrow pointing down, decided to up for premium). I almost didn't click it because . . . well, Patrick was the enemy (in my mind at the time), but for some reason I did anyways.

In short, it changed my mind. Why, exactly? Because it was just all so level-headed. It wasn't anyone throwing rocks (though Patrick had EVERY fucking right to, after he personally got shit for it somehow) it was just . . . a discussion. No one was telling me I was a bad guy, no one was trying to hurt anyone else . . . it was just a discussion . . . and because of that, even though Patrick held a different viewpoint from me, my viewpoint changed. My viewpoint changed because there was a discussion. It wasn't just violence.

Ultimately, I think that's the only way any of this works out. If you actually give a fuck about your viewpoint (whatever it is), stop throwing rocks and just breathe. The best way to convince people to change their minds is to make it attractive, and for God's sake, be honest about it. Don't lie, don't hide in the sand and pretend it will go away, and for fucks sake don't be violent about it.

If you care about journalistic integrity, fight against this bullshit first so there's actually enough quiet that your voice can be heard. If you attack blindly, you're not going to convince anyone that can actually make a difference. If your concern is about the direction of gaming in general and the effects of "SJW" movements on something you like, do have the conversation, but don't lie about your motivations. Keep an open mind and don't just start screaming. It doesn't make your argument stronger. It just makes your opposition look more reasonable.

None of this was ever really about Quinn, or Patrick, or anything else, was it? It's largely about conflicting viewpoints. When that is kept in mind, the conversation can actually be had, but first everyone that actually cares really does have to fight this shit. I don't care if you do it begrudgingly, but you do have to do it. Siding with Quinn (and others) here isn't necessarily siding with all of their viewpoints, or even them as people, it is siding with calm reason. This isn't about sides in a war, this is about reasonability versus chaos. There is no "Quinn" side and there is no "other" side. Calm everything, stand by, and then once you've stopped trying to kill them the actual conversations can take place. Until then, it's just ugly, ugly war . . . and war never changes.

Yes, that was massively faux-poetic.

Yes, I'm marginally proud of it.

Beers, anyone?

(tl;dr Patrick is chill as fuck, I was a dumbass, calm down and be reasonable, everyone. Damn.)

Maybe everyone should put together a list of words and phrases they want game makers to exclude from their games? Why make them guess. Build the self-censor list for them. You guys could even come up with a cool logo they could add after going through a (voluntary) peer review board.

I mean, why make game developers wait for the press to jump down their throats about "problematic" content? Give the ones who want to a chance to conform before release.

@Jazz_Bcaz

Wow. Thats the proof. Rehashing the fez Igf conspiracy. Re-stating publicly available information. Connecting spurious dots. No evidence whatsoever. All insinuation and frankly slanderous statements.

Utterly pathetic. There is nothing here that proves racateering.

I hope the people attacked in the video sue the producers for slander. They have a clear cut case. What a load of horseshit. If that video is proof enough for you, you should be embarrassed.

Not a SINGLE piece of incontrovertible proof. Not a single one.

As I said earlier, the "integrity" argument is evaporating completely.

He even says "If this is true, and I think it is.."

Jesus christ.

I deleted the post with the video because in the very beginning it has some material that is inappropriate for the forums.

To everyone else, don't post it here. There isn't any "evidence" in it anyway, it's sensationalist nonsense and I'll just delete it and then send you a warning. Alright then, moving on.

This is a joke post yeah?

@MB yeah, sorry... just.. wow. Utterly dumbfounded by that. It actually took energy out of me. I'm going to sleep.

Good night folks and thanks for being the only place on the internet where this conversation can be had in a level headed fashion. Not that it counts for much, but I find it genuinely impressive.

It would be nice if you could find some of those legitimate criticisms. In your case, you go out of your way every week to find interesting articles, funny videos and long interviews that you'd like people to see. But how many of those are criticisms of the actual content about those Feminist Frequency videos? I know people don't agree with all of the points, because they tell me. I think I've seen at least four of the contributors at the Escapist say they don't(Shamus Young and the Miracle of Sound guy in a tweet, Moviebob in one of his blog posts, Jim Sterling stated in this latest video that he doesn't like them very much at all), but then they go on to say they aren't going to talk about it because of this harassment.

What that leaves me with is that the people I look to for that kind of insight for once has nothing to share other than "This harassment is terrible"(Or in the case of some of them, a lot of very angry, unfortunate tweets and articles addressed at all "gamers"). Everyone already knows, and it's only gotten worse. It's important to show solidarity, especially to your friends. But I've felt like this was the case from way before this current crisis began.

If you won't write about other colleagues' writing and argue their points, please use your platform to promote someone who does, and does it well. Even if they are on a side that's "mixed up with some gross elements", like disagreeing with someone and someone else who disagrees with them and call them names are equally bad. It doesn't have to be this week, or even this month. But please look into it. You can't argue that it's important but you're not gonna do it because it's too hard. If you ignore the viewpoint of some people not because they are wrong but because some people who share the same viewpoints act like terrible human beings, you're not treating them fairly. Dismiss their views if they're dumb, I don't for a second believe there's a conspiracy going on among video game journalists for instance, and any video that could convince me otherwise would have to be something out of this world. But don't dismiss someone's views because of other people. Promote the ones that argue like decent human beings. Don't just show things from "your side", like that side has never written anything incendiary on the internet.

I want to just point out how many times people yell corruption and bias because their favourite game received an 8.8 instead of a 9.2

Sort of hard to take that crowd seriously when they've cried wolf all these years.

Why are people arguing about this here? The ethical concerns are not a in question at Giantbomb, and every website's ecosystem and community is different, so likely the people you want to argue with (those of you who want to argue) are not here anyway.

I sort of feel like saying "get of my lawn".

@north6: don't know, something to do before Destiny comes out.

Relevant info on IGF judging process:

http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2frrxa/important_info_about_the_igf_process_that_the/

Actually, I'm questioning why Giant Bomb won't mention The Fine Young Capitalist Game Jam. These guys want to show people that women can do well in the gaming industry by making a game based on a woman's idea. They'll produce the game that wins the voting process, and the woman who had the idea for that game gets to be Producer.

This seems like the sort of thing that Patrick would be shouting about.

@littleemille: The point it changes is when you make a positive judgement about the game. If you play a game with supposedly sexist elements, without judgement, that doesn't necessarily make you sexist, as Patrick pointed out. If you enjoy a game with supposedly sexist elements, then someone (or yourself) could more easily suggest that you're actually sexist, or encouraging sexist culture, because of it.

At that point, it's very much personal. However, like I said, it being personal isn't necessarily a bad thing. Like Patrick touched on, it's just potential insight into ways to improve ourselves. Any improvement obviously being of a personal nature. For instance, the individual could agree that the element in question is sexist, and then back away from supporting that particular part, seeing something previously unseen. But when there's disagreement is when things can either go well for both parties, or horribly wrong for both parties. That's where you're liable to get the ridiculous judgments and callous defensiveness.

When people are gonna sling around concepts like "misogynistic" in passing that judgement, their minds already made up, it's very easy to see why a fruitful conversation might not come out of it. It's aggressive, makes the dialogue severe and polarizing. There's little room for nuance (everyone's favourite). These topics deserve more thought than that.

When people are gonna cover their ears and insist everything is awesome and nothing needs to be discussed and people need to just stop, it's also very easy to see why a fruitful coversation cannot come out of it. These are all conversations worth having.

Of course, both parties could instead actually try to engage in an honest dialogue at that point of disagreement, but that's not really how it tends to go, sadly. Some people must always be right, even before the conversation actually starts. Some people just aren't interested in a conversation.

@docporpoise: But when your criticism is something as heavy as being sexist or misogynistic or racist, it very easily becomes personal. I see how he's trying to remove the individual from the object being criticised, but I don't think they're that cleanly separable, especially in cases where serious stuff like the aforementioned are being flung around willy nilly.

Again, it's not necessarily a bad thing for it to be personal. Folks just really need to show some more tact, keep an open mind to reasonable criticism, and maybe seriously think twice before they throw around such severe accusations. There's no cause for immediately going nuclear.

But I guess this is all a coversation for, like, a year or two ago. Bombs already dropped and everyone's lost their goddamned minds. It really seems like the whole "sides" thing is just getting worse. Conspiracy theories left and right. Each side insisting on their narratives (misogynistic from the start/these folks are corrupt to the bone). Phil Fish is kinda crazy sometimes, but I wouldn't mind seeing this whole #GamerGate/#gameethics thing burn down to the ground (without everyone in it however). What a colossal bummer. It's nice to see some folks like Patrick keeping relatively level about it.

On the plus side, I think I can remember how to spell misogyny now. What a shitty word to spell over and over.

imma go play star wars now.

I vehemently disagree with your premise that enjoying something with problematic elements is all it takes. Defending or refusal to acknowledge those elements is where that judgement gets made. As Anita herself said in part 1 of Women as Background Decoration "As always, please keep in mind that it's entirely possible to be critical of some aspects of a piece of media while still finding other parts valuable or enjoyable."

@juggaloacidman:

Likely. Yes that's why nobody is denying it everyone has gone ghost one of the people that was married has deleted his twitter and people are crawling out of the wood works to confirm parts of his "untrue" story.

Because it was likely all false. People are shoving proof in your face. PHYSICAL PROOF. You're saying its false because its from a boyfriend and or 4chan.

That logic. It's a sad day when 4chan and random youtubers are more game journalists than video game journalists.

And let us not forget how all threads even talking about this scandal were being and probably are still being instantly deleted because The moderation team has decided to delete comments and topics concerning the recent Zoe Quinn blog at this time. We simply do not feel that the details of someone's private life needs to be discussed and dissected on these forums.

Even though its not about zoe quinn but about the accusations towards the journalists. Who are ofcourse not saying shit.

Inb4 my post gets edited/deleted because "I'm being a jerk"

That means everything to a woman who enjoys Bayonetta the game, but finds her offensive as character. But that means nothing to a woman who enjoys Bayonetta as a character, including the woman who designed her.

What?

Hi guys! I've basically stayed out of this whole conversation until just right now, because I also need this sentence explained to me or I won't be able to sleep tonight.

@evermoore: Hey this is a nice thing. You seem like a cool cat.

Some folks don't even wait for that. It's just straight to the condemnation.

I think most times the real trouble starts should you happen to have a disagreement though, like I said:

"But when there's disagreement is when things can either go well for both parties, or horribly wrong for both parties. That's where you're liable to get the ridiculous judgments and callous defensiveness."

It's also worth noting that those elements being sexist or racist or whatever shouldn't be presupposed. That's what the discussion is trying to get to the bottom of. When you get people entering the discussion just to preach their absolute truths, well then you're not really having a discussion. Just people talking at each other.

yeah lol plz explain someone?

That's true, the defense/refusal I'm getting it is what I often see on video game comment threads of "There's no problem, why are we talking about this? Video games. Just have fun". You can defend elements and have a conversation there, but the outright dismissal is reeeeeeal bad.

Sure thing. If you like Bayonetta as a game, and someone is ONLY criticizing the character herself, that doesn't mean they're criticizing the game itself or your enjoyment of the game. There are lots of things you can say are good or bad about the game, and the character is just one of them.

However now think of someone who likes Bayonetta as a character. Perhaps they think that she's has a cool design, or perhaps they are a woman who happens to find her empowering, and maybe they even have dressed as her for a convention or two. For those people, by saying that Bayonetta is an offensive character, you have criticized EVERYTHING about Bayonetta as a character.

And to be clear, Sarkeesian has said that the only positive thing about the character is that she's a single mother. Actually, she specifically said that was the only positive thing about the game itself, but even when ignoring this, you still have the issue that I'm referring to.

And because of that, the whole " it's entirely possible to be critical of some aspects of a piece of media while still finding other parts valuable or enjoyable." is kind of worthless at that point.