ESA stands up to GamerGate / New York Times front page

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/e3-organisers- ... ty-1470282

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has spoken out against online campaign movement #GamerGate, which has been deeply involved with the harassment of game developers.

Best known for hosting annual LA video game trade show E3, the US trade group issued a statement saying: "Threats of violence and harassment are wrong. They have to stop. There is no place in the video game community - or our society - for personal attacks and threats."

The ESA is a body comprising of most of the industry's biggest publishers, including Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, Capcom, Konami and Square Enix.

GamerGate's sustained threats against women have also made the front page of the New York Times.

What the strawberry float is GamerGate?

t:gamergate-rumbles-on?f=2&start=160

Imagine trying to explain all of this to someone not aware on internet culture lol

[iup=3591169]Dual[/iup] wrote:Imagine trying to explain all of this to someone not aware on internet culture lol

I am fairly clued up and I am struggling to see the point of #gamergate's existence and the quite spiteful harassment of female game developers

The instigators of the campaign are allied with a broader movement that has rallied around the Twitter hashtag #GamerGate, a term adopted by those who see ethical problems among game journalists and political correctness in their coverage. The more extreme threats, though, seem to be the work of a much smaller faction and aimed at women.

Oh, hey. Actual journalism.

Just going to leave this here

2) The second biggest target of #GamerGate is an exemplar of clean journalism. If what you dont like about gaming journalism is that its too cozy with the industry and therefore the writers are afraid to be critical, then your strawberry floating hero should be Anita Sarkeesian. She funded herself with Kickstarter and not industry money. She is harshly critical of video games, even as she is a fan. She is the ideal of what a critical gaming journalist should be: Knowledgeable, critical, fair, thorough and utterly non-corrupt.

But instead of honoring her as the exemplar of the kind of clean journalism she is, #GamerGaters are attacking her and even forcing her to cancel appearances for fear of her life. Indeed, the reason she threatens #GamerGaters is because she is an ethical journalist, and #GamerGate is an attack on ethical journalism.

3) The biggest victory to date of #GamerGate has been an attack on ethical journalism. One of the most important ideas when it comes to ethical journalism is that theres a wall between advertising and editorial. Publications are not supposed to let the demands of advertisers dictate content. #GamerGaters hate this rule of ethics, because, as opponents of ethical journalism, they wish to control what journalists say and censor any ideas or opinions that they dont want to hear, no matter how well-evidenced or well-argued they are. And so they have been targeting advertisers, trying to get them to pull ads from gaming websites that publish ideas they wish to censor.

So far, theyve had one major success, convincing Intel to pull advertising from Gamasutra because Gamasutra published a piece by a young woman (are you beginning to detect a theme in who gets targeted by #GamerGate?) that argued that games can and should have a broader appeal than angry young woman-hating dudes. Gamasutra is standing by their writer and by the principle of ethical journalism, but its clear that what #GamerGate is trying to do is end ethical journalism by scaring websites and making them afraid they will lose all funding if they participate in clean, unbiased reporting and writing.

Games journalism is just embarrassing. The way that loads of them go on, especially on Twitter, is so cringeworthy. Hoggins, Schilling, Raze and Dave are the only 4 I know of that aren't completely embarrassing, although I admittedly don't follow many.
In-between gamergate and 'bantaaa!', I can't look.

[iup=3591235]Dig Dug[/iup] wrote:Just going to leave this here

2) The second biggest target of #GamerGate is an exemplar of clean journalism. If what you dont like about gaming journalism is that its too cozy with the industry and therefore the writers are afraid to be critical, then your strawberry floating hero should be Anita Sarkeesian. She funded herself with Kickstarter and not industry money. She is harshly critical of video games, even as she is a fan. She is the ideal of what a critical gaming journalist should be: Knowledgeable, critical, fair, thorough and utterly non-corrupt.

Anita isn't a journalist. Her work is academic in nature, and has an exceptionally narrow view of one specific "issue".

I won't say that she doesn't have the right to do what she does, but I will say that I do bemoan what that money was spent on.

try this:
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sd1611

So, due to turnover and industry networking, the entire games journo sphere is basically one extended network of friends. Not saying this is necessarily bad, just how it is. One day, Tom sees Jim in his twitter feed, yelling at some guy about something Tom hasn't heard of. Tom, obviously, jumps in to help Jim because, you know, he worked with Jim two years ago and they live in the same city, meet up for beers a few times a month. He just wants to help his friend. And then Tom's friends see HIM yelling at some rando on twitter and... well, you get the idea. Just through acquaintances of those originators pulling in their friends, who pull in THEIR friends, 90% of the games journo scene gets in on this issue and circles the wagons around their social network.

Yes the gigantic industry body is "standing up" against a bunch of idiot trolls

Gamergate in a nutshell - http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2014/10/1 ... ect-crime/

[iup=3591279]1>3>4>2[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3591251]Buffalo[/iup] wrote:Games journalism is just embarrassing. The way that loads of them go on, especially on Twitter, is so cringeworthy. Hoggins, Schilling, Raze and Dave are the only 4 I know of that aren't completely embarrassing, although I admittedly don't follow many.
In-between gamergate and 'bantaaa!', I can't look.

The fact that some of them are dismissing peoples concerns about ethics while attending (and winning) awards at the GMA's is even more heinous.

There's some great photos from the GMAs though...

[iup=3591251]Buffalo[/iup] wrote:Games journalism is just embarrassing. The way that loads of them go on, especially on Twitter, is so cringeworthy. Hoggins, Schilling, Raze and Dave are the only 4 I know of that aren't completely embarrassing, although I admittedly don't follow many.
In-between gamergate and 'bantaaa!', I can't look.

How many of those would identify themselves as journalists instead of critics?


This whole gamergate nonsense is just stifling any chance of there being a decent discussion about the way games media operates.

[iup=3591412]bear[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3591251]Buffalo[/iup] wrote:Games journalism is just embarrassing. The way that loads of them go on, especially on Twitter, is so cringeworthy. Hoggins, Schilling, Raze and Dave are the only 4 I know of that aren't completely embarrassing, although I admittedly don't follow many.
In-between gamergate and 'bantaaa!', I can't look.

How many of those would identify themselves as journalists instead of critics?


This whole gamergate nonsense is just stifling any chance of there being a decent discussion about the way games media operates.

There already wasn't any discussion, because it was buried under claims of "gamers being dead" to try and prevent the whole zoe thing from blowing up.

[iup=3591416]TheTurnipKing[/iup] wrote:There already wasn't any discussion, because it was buried under claims of "gamers being dead" to try and prevent the whole zoe thing from blowing up.

'The whole Zoe thing' has been repeatedly proven to be utter bollocks anyway. It's not even a 'thing', certainly not in terms of 'trading sex for positive game coverage'.

Nathan has been accused of in some way trading positive coverage of a developer for the opportunity to sleep with her, of failing to disclose that he was in a romantic relationship with a developer he had written about, and that he'd given said developer's game a favorable review. [...] On March 31, Nathan published the only Kotaku article he's written involving Zoe Quinn. It was about Game Jam, a failed reality show that Zoe and other developers were upset about being on. At the time, Nathan and Zoe were professional acquaintances. He quoted blog posts written by Zoe and others involved in the show. Shortly after that, in early April, Nathan and Zoe began a romantic relationship. He has not written about her since. Nathan never reviewed Zoe Quinn's game Depression Quest, let alone gave it a favorable review.

http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346

Even Eron Gjori, the man whose airing of private dirty laundry started this whole 'ethics' charade, has basically copped to the fact that it's bullshit:

There was a typo up for a while that made it seem like Zoe and I were on break between March and June. This has apparently led some people to infer that her infidelity with Nathan Grayson began in early March. I want to clarify that I have no reason to believe or evidence to imply she was sleeping with him prior to late March or early April (though I believe they’d been friends for a while before that). This typo has since been corrected to make it clear we were on break between May and June. To be clear, if there was any conflict of interest between Zoe and Nathan regarding coverage of Depression Quest prior to April, I have no reason to believe that it was sexual in nature.

http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/

If you honestly believe that corruption is rife enough throughout the games journalism industry (or at least more rife than any other area of journalism) that it's worth campaining about then that's admirable, you might even be right. But '#GamerGate' is not the campaign you want to align yourself with.

Was chatting to some of the rps guys about this. So tiring. General consensus was who gives a gooseberry fool? Harassment is not the answer.

They seem to accept that in reality the insecure freelance network of games journalists is small and so people know each other, people sleep with each other, really who cares?

[iup=3591430]It'sNotLupus[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3591416]TheTurnipKing[/iup] wrote:There already wasn't any discussion, because it was buried under claims of "gamers being dead" to try and prevent the whole zoe thing from blowing up.

'The whole Zoe thing' has been repeatedly proven to be utter bollocks anyway. It's not even a 'thing', certainly not in terms of 'trading sex for positive game coverage'.

Nathan has been accused of in some way trading positive coverage of a developer for the opportunity to sleep with her, of failing to disclose that he was in a romantic relationship with a developer he had written about, and that he'd given said developer's game a favorable review. [...] On March 31, Nathan published the only Kotaku article he's written involving Zoe Quinn. It was about Game Jam, a failed reality show that Zoe and other developers were upset about being on. At the time, Nathan and Zoe were professional acquaintances. He quoted blog posts written by Zoe and others involved in the show. Shortly after that, in early April, Nathan and Zoe began a romantic relationship. He has not written about her since. Nathan never reviewed Zoe Quinn's game Depression Quest, let alone gave it a favorable review.

http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346

Even Eron Gjori, the man whose airing of private dirty laundry started this whole 'ethics' charade, has basically copped to the fact that it's bullshit:

There was a typo up for a while that made it seem like Zoe and I were on break between March and June. This has apparently led some people to infer that her infidelity with Nathan Grayson began in early March. I want to clarify that I have no reason to believe or evidence to imply she was sleeping with him prior to late March or early April (though I believe they’d been friends for a while before that). This typo has since been corrected to make it clear we were on break between May and June. To be clear, if there was any conflict of interest between Zoe and Nathan regarding coverage of Depression Quest prior to April, I have no reason to believe that it was sexual in nature.

http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/

If you honestly believe that corruption is rife enough throughout the games journalism industry (or at least more rife than any other area of journalism) that it's worth campaining about then that's admirable, you might even be right. But '#GamerGate' is not the campaign you want to align yourself with.

Zoe was never the important part for anyone but people throwing around #chickenshitdeaththreats.

But the way gaming media closed ranks as soon as they thought there was even the possibility of a percieved conflict of interest... that was a problem. The lack of any kind of statement of ethics on the part of most of the gaming sites or their parent companies? That was a problem. The flouting of what few ethical guidelines there were? That's a problem.

The inability of videogame media to take a look at it's gooseberry fool and say "well, gooseberry fool, that looks bad. Maybe we should do something about that" instead of saying "You're all strawberry floating horrible people, you're aligned with horrible people and anything you say should be ignored." THAT is grade A strawberry floating bullshit, and that is why videogame media is currently in this up to it's neck. It has reached the New York Times because the channels that were supposed to host discussion of this shut down all discussion of it.

Yup. No mainstream sites are talking about the story.

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/anita-sarkeesian-forced-to-cancel-talk-over-shooti/1100-5045/

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-10-15-anita-sarkeesian-cancels-university-speech-following-school-shooting-threat

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/10/15/sarkeesian-utah/

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/10/15/anita-sarkeesian-cancels-speech-following-terror-threats-update (Several related stories too)

The mission of GamerGate has never been about discussion. The tactics employed have literally been about shutting down discussion. "Operation Vox Populi" for instance aimed to convince advertisers to pull support for sites that ran articles with a perceived "SJW agenda", obviously because ethics demand that games sites only cover stories in a way that their advertisers approve of. Then of course there's their wonderfully ironic list of boycotted websites and podcasts, prefaced with instructions never to read the articles within. This runs the risk of readers developing their own opinions outside of the GamerGate narrative, which would be disastrous.

The thing is, some GamerGaters often claim that the harassment campaigns don't represent the group, and try to distance themselves from people that just happen to target the same people they highlight, by saying those people don't represent them. However they also claim that GamerGate as a movement has no organised structure (despite all the organised campaigns), rather a group of concerned gamers backing their hashtag. Basically, everyone using the hashtag is part of the movement, but definitely not not the ones who harass women.

This cartoon makes the point better than I could:

[iup=3591464]TheTurnipKing[/iup] wrote:Zoe was never the important part for anyone but people throwing around #chickenshitdeaththreats.

But the way gaming media closed ranks as soon as they thought there was even the possibility of a percieved conflict of interest... that was a problem. The lack of any kind of statement of ethics on the part of most of the gaming sites or their parent companies? That was a problem. The flouting of what few ethical guidelines there were? That's a problem.

The inability of videogame media to take a look at it's gooseberry fool and say "well, gooseberry fool, that looks bad. Maybe we should do something about that" instead of saying "You're all strawberry floating horrible people, you're aligned with horrible people and anything you say should be ignored." THAT is grade A strawberry floating bullshit, and that is why videogame media is currently in this up to it's neck. It has reached the New York Times because the channels that were supposed to host discussion of this shut down all discussion of it.

Firstly, that is not why it's reached the New York Times, it's because of the continual death threats aimed at feminist video game commentators. Hence the headline "Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats", and not "Games Media Outlets Shut Down Discussion of Corruption".

Secondly, I think it speaks volumes that as someone who's taken a passing interest in this whole situation I'm still not even sure what it is that '#GamerGate' as a movement wants. You mention a lack of a code of ethics, and while I could find any such thing on a few game sites I searched, I couldn't find anything of that sort on any site that's function is predominantly review-based.

I know for a while there was a cry for 'Objective Reviews' of games but that's a totally nonsensical argument. All reviews are by their nature totally subjective, and the examples of corrupt reviews (e.g. the famous Kane & Lynch debacle) are notable by their infamy and the fact they seem like relatively isolated incidents. Unless you think all reviews are subject to a level of corruption (in terms of influencing the scores or the content of the review)? But if that's the case why aren't all reviews 10/10 for every game? I assume the cries of corruption are suggesting that companies will pay to get preferential treatment of their games in order to sell more copies but I'm not sure if there's any solid evidence that supports that? Is there any?

I'm asking you now, can you not see why someone might say "you're aligned with horrible people and anything you say should be ignored" when you fly the same flag as genuinely reprehensible human beings like Davis Aurini, Milo Yiannopolous, James Delingpole etc (not to mention the individuals who send death threats to victims, the majority of whom are overwhelmingly female)? The post earlier in this thread saying that Anita Sarkeesian is the kind of person whose principles should be lauded by '#GamerGate' is absolutely right. '#GamerGate' as a 'movement' is not about ethics in videogame journalism.

I'm not saying there aren't problems with videogame journalism, just that '#GamerGate' (I strawberry floating hate typing that every time but I can't bring myself to have it outside of apostrophes because it's such a bullshit 'buzzword'-style term) isn't the answer, and it's been hijacked (or perhaps initiated by) people whose motives are very different from what they claim.

I should point out that as well that I don't mean to come across preachy or condescending in any of the above, I'm genuinely interested to hear your response and have a reasoned debate. I have no bias or any vested interest in any side of the argument other than what I think is right based on what I've read about the whole thing.

If media-reporting was doing it's job correctly, you'd know a lot more about the Gamergate side of things.

But all the press wants to report is how everyone in Gamergate is a horrible monster, because anything else rather undermines their core message: Which is that everyone in Gamergate is a horrible monster.

This is the problem of Gamergate in a nutshell.


https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/17127-gamergate