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

"white, male men who identify themselves with a commodified product, are hurt and scared that they will lose control of a culture that has almost always catered only to them"

Perfectly summed-up.

I don't care about social issues. I just want to read about video games.

I read that too... I just... I had no words for what psychopaths these people are...

What Zoe Quinn did was have normal relationships with other human beings. It was proven on day one that no glowing review was written about her game by someone she dated. Zoe didn't sleep her way to the top; she got there by making interesting games that resonated with people.

That these people continue to harass her despite any "ethical concerns" being squashed right away is a sign that, yes, they do have a problem with a woman making games. These people already disliked Zoe and found a flimsy excuse to act on it.

Harassment is a bad thing and people shouldn't have to go through any of it. But rather than acknowledging a lot of the problems within games journalism, people are using harassment to shout down their detractors. It's a tough position to be in when you have to acknowledge the harassment and still have to deal with the rest of the stuff, but I don't feel like anyone is acknowledging the other problems that are in the air.

Thanks, just read it and it truely was a fantastic article

@monkfishesq: That's all anyone wants to do. Social issues are, however, part of video games, just as they're a part of everything else in society. Anita Sarkeesian has done nothing but offer reasoned critiques of games (that major developers agree with, by the way), but from the beginning, people have been trying to silence her through harassment and intimidation.

@everettescott: I have never played any game developed by Zoe Quinn, dude. What I said was objectively true. Many, many people love her work.

I agree. I think sites should stop having writers personal twitters attached to article bylines and promotions (like tweets/email blasts). It is hard to write a measured response to a long form article in 140 characters, and by including it in the byline you are basically encouraging the discussion to happen on twitter! I'd much rather email and have a real discussion. That's a big ask from your writers. One, for them to be interested enough to respond, and then for sites to trust their writers to be open, honest, and understanding with their readers.

Holy shit.

Because the shit storm has tainted all of it. It's a circus. 99% is total crap, 1% is interested in an actual conversation. You can be upset the 99% exists, but it doesn't change the fact that it does. You cannot simply handwave harassment away as though it's just like any other crappy comment on the Internet. It dehumanizes what is a real psychological threat being directed at real people.

And then you go on to wonder why people don't take your point of view seriously. It's not difficult to understand.

The only thing I find frustrating about the whole thing is how futile the argument is on both sides. At the end of the day nothing will really change after all this. Large companies will continue to make games with guns explosions and scantly clad women. The people who don't like that sort of thing will continue to try to make whatever artsy stuff they want. Developers and media people will continue to be friends with each other and the internet will continue to complain about whatever random shit comes out. There will be no change, no government intervention or mainstream outcry. It's all pointless shit tossing on both sides that by the end of the year we'll all be back to square one. Because it's the internet.

@giovanni: Opinions on an individual's conduct yeah but what is there to be gained by discussing private matters like relationships on a gaming website? I mean I just cannot see the relevancy here, the one possible corruption angle was found to be utterly without foundation quickly so what is left except a gross invasion of privacy? I don't buy celebrity gossip magazines on actual famous people so it really doesn't interest me in that context either. If GB was a TMZ light then perhaps it would be appropriate for discussion here but it's not so it's no more appropriate than a discussion of Cliff Blesinski's love life.

I highly recommend the Vox article. The only thing I found to be wrong with it is that it doesn't give a good definition of how and why "Social Justice Warrior" is used as a pejorative, whether or not one agrees with using that term. There was another article I read that did a better job, but honestly, I've been catching up on this and it's pretty much a haze now.

...government intervention?

GamerGate reminds me a bit of the "Occupy _____" movement a few years ago. It started off with a relatively small group with a narrow focus on specific concerns, but drew in all sorts of people with for more radical and destructive goals. You had some just wanting to push for better working conditions, more government support, etc., while others used the Occupy movement to advocate for radical causes like destroying the "big banks", smashing capitalism, etc. The radical minority, sometimes with more forceful, if not violent, methods, got a lot of negative attention from the press and public, and hastened the movement burning itself out.

And there's a similar complexity with the Tea Party movement, to use an example from the right. The general principles are about smaller government and various forms of libertarianism. But there are also those who also advocate for racist, sexist and homophobic policies under that umbrella. But like Occupy, there's no central authority to decide who is or isn't "officially" part of their movement. But it's often too simple to take the worst examples, and paint every Tea Party member (or even anyone who dares to support some Tea Party policies) as being scum.

So, bringing it back, while I'm generally on the "side" of games journalists over this, I do feel uncomfortable with the broad statements some of them have made. In particular, comments/tweets like mocking anyone supporting GamerGate as just a "virgin manbaby living in their parents basement", or condescending ones like "I feel pity for those manipulated by 4chan into endorsing death threats". Any argument that's basically "don't feel bad; you're just too stupid to realize how wrong you are" isn't the best approach, even if it's generally correct. It draws in people like myself, who are trying to walk down the middle on this, and forces them to be "with us, or against us". Does it help if you told a Republican friend: "There are so many racists and homophobes in your party. I'm sorry that you have to support those awful people"? That actually makes it more likely for them to support the "bad eggs", out of self-defense. I get the same thing with religion vs. atheism: I'm an incredibly lazy, one-a-year Roman Catholic, but when I see anti-religious people make snarky remarks about Christians in general, or making random "every Catholic priest molests children!" jokes, I can't help but become more passionate to defend my relatively small amount of faith. We're seeing this from both "sides" of GamerGate (such as they are): There are those who want to protect the freedom to make passionate (and valid) viewpoints about social issues in gaming, while others who see themselves as protecting the freedom to criticize games journalists. But when one side does or says something provocative, it makes the other harden their position, and lose sympathy for the other. Everyone loses.

Meanwhile, trying to stay in the middle (which, I'll admit, is a subjective term in and of itself) has become difficult. I haven't unfollowed a single journalist or game "celeb" over this, nor have I subscribed to the idea of boycotting sites and games because you happen to have a difference of opinion on a controversial topic. All that does is lead to an echo chamber, where you only hear what you want to hear; I want to hear different opinions, even if I will disagree with them. On the other hand, I haven't abandoned sites like Reddit and 4chan over this, because GamerGate is really a drop in the ocean compared to everything else that goes on there. Nor will I retweet smug "Here's a screenshot of some tweets that show how misogynist all of GamerGate is!" type posts.

Finally, I'll note that there's an ironic similarity between the ideas that "All games journalists are part of a secret SJW cabal!" and "There's a secret IRC channel where a few dozen 4chan members have orchestrated everything!". Both are exaggerated conspiracy theories (akin to "The CIA did 9/11!"), but too easily taken by some to be statements of fact.

That all said, keep up the good work, Patrick. Everyone at Giantbomb is the best.

I do think that one possible outcome of this is that games media will experience a schism along political lines. Games are going through a tumultuous adolescence, and it's now impossible for them to go back to the way things were where everyone pretends games are completely a-political.

However, I do think that the fact that most of the games media was more or less on the side of social justice (which is a good thing, in my opinion!) created a bottled up anger in everyone who didn't feel represented by most of the media outlets. I think this has been building up for some time, and this was the spark that ignited things.

So, going forward, I think we'll see the growth of "Fox News / Rush Limbaugh" game journalists to capture the audience that doesn't feel they're being served by the "MSNBC / Jon Stewart" game journalists.

As a progressive person myself, that will be weird to see, but I think it's inevitable. Best case scenario is that the people who gravitate to one side will not feel so under-represented, and less underground ugliness will happen.

@patrickklepek I think for me the most troubling aspect of this entire ordeal is how the long-term psychological abuse has kind of been swept under the rug. Gjoni may be many things, but a big part of what started all this was him coming out about some pretty bad abuse he had to go through and was basically him calling out his abuser.

As someone who has both been through similar experiences and who has worked first-hand with other survivors to help them try to regain a sense of control over their lives, the lack of any kind of response or condemnation (I'm not counting the obviously misogynistic shit-show that followed) from the greater press or developer community has been really disheartening.

Plenty of survivors already feel unsafe enough in the games community as it is, but many try to find bastions of positivity or support. I know from the conversations I've had that I'm not alone in saying that the unwavering support for an abuser made many of us feel unsafe in the only areas of games where we had previously felt some modicum of security. If this incident has done anything, it has reduced the likelihood that other survivors will come out in the future, because if it is someone generally liked by the press or dev community, we now know that it doesn't matter what they do.

I'm not claiming to speak for all survivors, only relaying both my own and the experiences of those I have spoken with about this ordeal.

The simple fact is that people should be just as critical of anyone who's harassing anyone regardless of their opinion on anything. It's not more criminal for someone to tell Zoe Quinn that she should die then telling XXSepheroth420XX that they should die. It shouldn't be accepted for anyone to do stuff like this no matter who they are. No matter how much you agree or disagree with someone else you should never support someone harassing anyone. Two wrongs don't and should never make a right. The excuse that other people are doing it worse doesn't make it ok for other people to do the same thing that started all of this.

I'm glad to hear this. I've been somewhat vocal on twitter about the silence on the site about this, but it's only because if the more popular voices in the industry stay silent things will only get worse. I almost stood up and cheered when I saw Tim Schafer take a strong stand, and every tweet from you and Alex that were coming from an honest place made me smile.

But Giant Bomb has a voice that's much louder and more respected than most. Not only that, but the entire site is built around a cult of personality, and the silence on this by the SF office... to me... shows a hesitance to show that these personalities are strongly against these actions.

It's great that Giant Bomb is good for news and comedy, but all of you share so much of yourselves with us, that it's odd that this is the one area of games that is off limits for real discussion. Not saying I don't appreciate the bits and pieces we've been getting, but it just doesn't feel like enough to me.

1- What is Zoe Quinn at the top of exactly? The tiny artsy indy game dev echo chamber? How does that impact anyone who doesn't care about tiny indy games?

2-It's true she got there bymaking interesting games that resonated with people but the other half of the reason is because she's good at networking within the industry. That's the weird thing about any industry. To gain a voice and a platform you need to make contacts and that's how your game or your article is going to get in front of an audiance. The apearence of conflics of interests are inevitable.

@guncannond: The difference between Gamergate and Occupy and The Teaparty is that Gamergate started with the most vile and drew in /maybe/ legitimate ethical criticism. Not the other way around. Gamergate has never been pure.

Although it's fair to say that some of the boards present on 4Chan can be pretty shitty, it's not fair to characterize everyone who uses the site as a bad person. If you want mischaracterize a a site's user base, reddit is a great target for that. You could say with ease that reddit is a site that houses misogynists (/r/beatingwomen2), racists (/r/watch[n-words]die), and people who have no respect for privacy (/r/celebritynudearchive). Just because there is anonymity involved with 4Chan doesn't make it any worse than anywhere else on the Internet.

Something to also understand about 4Chan is that it's full of anonymous users. It could be anyone posting that stuff, including those who want to post something that can be referenced later to disparage the user base. It wouldn't be hard to believe that someone in opposition to gamergate would go on the board and make quotable post for someone to be able to pick out. Also, if you look at post like the one @patbaer was referencing, you'll find ten to fifteen users (unique or not, who knows) shouting that person down, because the people who frequent any of the boards on 4Chan know that mentioning a raid, doxxing, or group harassment will lead to an IP ban from the site. Especially considering the new moderation that a ton of the boards have been dealing with.

Those words make me cringe. We need to be careful what we wish for.

I just mean more when these sorts of things happen there is a much larger conversation about rethinking how the internet works seems to come up. How there needs to be more ownership on people's actions, arguments that anonymity across the internet should be taken away or lessened. Stuff like that. I don't see how that sort of thing is possible without some higher up dealings because every time it's tried otherwise it seems like it's failed pretty hard.

I agree completely.

Maybe I'll add some of my two cents here.

Arguing that the trolls are justified in hacking and harassing people because they find out very personal information about someone that potentially links them to some sort of lack of journalistic integrity is the silliest thing ever. Did Kotaku run an investigation on the case? Yes. They found now issues with what had happened. So if you still have an issue after the fact, your issue isn't with journalistic integrity. It's that you yourself do not trust journalists. If that is the case, don't listen to them.

Honestly to me this debate is either fueled by people who already had a negative opinion about the victims in these stories, and feel like they deserved to be harassed. Or alternatively by people who don't want to "choose a side" so they try to find the "logic" in all of it. Logic is fine in situations that demand it. Human compassion is not logical. If you try to find the logic in why someone is getting abused, then your actively missing the compassion part of that.

What actively bugs me about this nonsense is a consistent trend that I see on and on with not just games media, but the internet at large. Everybody on social media is the judge, jury and executioner. Someone made a mistake? DEAR GOD HARASS THEM! TROLL THEM, POST NUDES OF THEM! Do what you have to do? People are ignoring us? Censorship!

It needs to stop. We are ALL HUMAN BEINGS. We all fucking make mistakes. Every single one of us. Do you enjoy harassing people? Good for you. But equality has nothing to do with the recognition of opinions and ideals in a social media space. The whole basis of the feminist argument is about equality in the actual video games medium. Something that is controlled and produced world wide. It has nothing to do with changing what you may or may not think as a human being. Nobody is telling you can't belief in harassing people. But just as you can harass people WE the people who do not like that harassment can tune you out and ostracize you from the communities we are apart of. Simple as that.

Unfortunately for you, brah, videogames are a big deal. They're one of the biggest industries and as such people want to give them the merit they deserve. Part of being a large industry and an art form is people talking about issues with it. If you just want to read press releases and reviews, that's still like 90% of video game coverage.

I feel like this whole shitstorm could have been avoided if everyone just followed two simple words: Be civil

@patrickkepek Do you see this getting better anytime soon? Whats awful is that this is mostly affecting small indie developpers/journalists. I feel like if thits gets worse and worse, the indie scene "bubble" will implode and we will have less interesting games/articles.

One thing I don't understand at all with the whole disclosure/conflict of interest argument: it's a relationship built with the writers and audience.

I trust the opinion of all of Gb's staff and if I felt a breach of that trust, I would just leave. I don't need to every single minor point of possible controversy to be outlined, really.

Plus, I think that Keith Calder put it best about this topic on his twitter, which I will abbreviate to these two tweets:

I remember when video games were about having fun.

Those were great times.

Dude, what the fuck. These people make me ashamed to be a part of the games community even though I don't condone any of their actions whatsoever. This is fucking disgusting, god damnit people.

To the people on this site who are not on the side of, or at least aggresive towards, gamergate, the people who started defending the journalists had this to say, AND I FUCKING QUOTE:

"I have more respect for ISIS than the anti-Quinn people"

"I think chemical weapons dealers have a more tolerable consumer base than videogames"

"Gamer? Shit person who cares way too much about videogames"

"Isn't Adam Baldwin just like a washed up crackead? Which one is he again"

"-Oh, so it's serious when someone threatens to rape Anita, but it'snot serious when you threaten to kill a child?

- That's correct. What I'm demonstrating is a functioning conscience, but I understand why that would confuse you. Flippant Explanation: Sarkeesian's feelings matter. That kid's don't."

"-There are no reasonable voices against Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian. Sorry.

- None you're willing to listen to, in any case.

- I'm also not willing to listen to Holocaust deniers. Should I be willing to hear them out?"

Fallacies in argumentation go both ways, you know.

It's really, really tough to sympathize with Gjoni when he has readily admitted he put out that blog post as a hit piece. It wasn't about him being a victim, he admits he did it to hurt her and knew it would spiral out of control. He's further spent time with the worst of the worst encouraging the continued ill will.

On the other hand, from the evidence as he presented it(In the worst possible light), it seems like he has cause to be angry. I do not think he handled this correctly, that same post without the names involved would have served his since stated purpose of warning others in the industry about her without causing this massive shitstorm.

Are you not entertained .

That doesn't mean that some can't acknowledge it. I'm not asking for a person to speak out of both sides of the their mouth at the same time. Some outlets have enough resources to be able to acknowledge the problem regarding harassment and the other issues at the same time. I'm not saying to completely dismiss harassment, but I also know it's not going to ever go away. I know that somewhere in the world there is someone that is ALWAYS going to say harass Anita or Zoe WHENEVERtheir names come up in the future. That doesn't mean everything is null and void from that point moving forward.

@neon25: Sorry wait... you think any of that is as bad as what that fucker said?Really? This is the best you can come up with? Go look at Zoe Quinn's mentions a few more times buddy.

Is that where you stopped reading, or are you purposely taking what I'm saying out of context?

I guess one thing that bothers me a bit is when journalists feel a need to label much of their audience as some monstrous horde out to personally destroy them. Most of us are very decent, reasonable folks. I wish it was in my power to stop the vile harassment taking place. It has reached a level that can only be described as evil. But it's not in my power. I can't do anything about it. And the sort of broad brushing we have seen lately only inflames and already horrible situation.

1. Why are you minimizing her success?

2. So? Conflict of Interest implies the reporter gets something out of the situation. Hearing about a game someone is making/has made because you're friends with them and then playing the game and wanting to talk about it isn't a terrible act.

@neon25: How is any of that comparable to the garbage Anita and Zoe have gotten? How many gamergate people have been forced to evacuate their homes and contact authorities?

I wonder if the world would be a better place if everyone subscribed to Dan Ryckert's be ignorant and happy about everything lifestyle.