So this Gamergate stuff...

The Core RPGC Main Forum
#121

Let me get this straight: you are perfectly willing to preach at me, but don’t even read counterarguments? And you’re willing to call all of it nonsense even though you don’t even know what you’re talking about?

Let me tell you why I care: people, real people, some of which I personally know, have been harassed, slandered as sexual harassers, have their livelihood threatened or straight up terminated or have been actually SWATted, and you have the gall to insult me because I actually care. The fact that you have absolutely no idea what the hell you’re actually talking about while doing it is not my problem.

You made claims about the irrelevance of this all as if you knew what it was. Want to know who is actually doing the closest real-life equivalent to the conspiracy bullshit you’re going on about? It’s those guys I mentioned. The ones helping along by defending EA’s blatant lies and pushing anti-consumer practices. Now it turns out you were talking about a “divide and conquer” strategy without even knowing who you claimed was doing it. I gave you an actual retort to your obsession with EA under the assumption that you actually cared about it, so sorry for taking your constant insistence of that as proof that you might actually care.

I’ve already explained why this makes no sense whatsoever. I don’t even fucking buy EA games, and you’re simply laughing at me when I name the exact guys openly doing the thing you’re complaining about.

As for the rest of you… honestly, this has been a pretty serious disappointment. I mean, shit, you don’t actually HAVE to care about these things, but I expected a little better response than “Hahaha, look at that nerd getting angry about videogames” from you. I’m not angry about video games, I’m angry about real people doing some seriously reprehensible bullshit to people I know and you laughing at anybody who actually happens to care about it. Yes, it’s an industry with people that I have personal investments in, so I care. Sorry I don’t find numerous acquaintances getting harassed out of employment or suicide attempts hilarious or appreciate being laughed at for doing so, I’m clearly not as cool as you. This has gone as far as the FTC drafting new rules and Gawker Media losing several million dollars in the scandal, so yes, I’m actually interested in it.

I didn’t expect cheering support, agreement or even attention. I was willing to hear counterarguments or even reasons for why this isn’t as big a deal as I make it out to be, which is why I even bothered to reply to Zepp. But I did expect something better than simple mockery from people who speak proudly about how much they didn’t even care to read what this was about.

I’ve been here for eleven years now and over time grew to respect a great deal of you while reading the discussions you got involved in. Though I suppose you’ll now laugh about it because I happened to care about that too.

#122

Is this actually a thing that’s happening?

Let me remind you of what the post that headlined this thread said:

Don’t get me wrong; you’re allowed to have a change of heart. But, you came into this discussion with a cavalier, “Look at what a ridiculous, sensational shitshow this whole Gamergate stuff is”, so don’t come back at people who still have the same attitude as you did about Gamergate with this “Serious Disappointment” crap. It wasn’t even that long ago that you lacked any empathy (or acted like you lacked any empathy) for anyone involved. How are you going to act shocked at people who carry the same stance that you did, hardly any time ago?

#123

Pardon the impending rambling, but I think a look at the recent Sony Pictures thing is in order.

Ignoring the fact that Sony caved or the validity of the bullshit threats made against them. The stated reason as to how North Korea got into Sony’s systems was through assorted spyware installed on a computer with system admin access. The reason why I bring this up is out of the question of how? How did they manage to install a backdoor into Sony’s systems?

There are a number of possibilities, but the easiest and simplest answer is that someone either loyal to N. Korea or had been paid off by someone from N. Korea installed the spyware for a tidy sum (or through pressure held over them).

Of course, I don’t believe this was done for the sake of the attack, but because it was done to allow an avenue for N. Koreans to access and partake in Sony’s movies and other products. And once they’re done with the movies themselves, they can then turn around and sell off their pirated copies to their fellow countrymen and others for a tidy profit. And all the while, not a single coin shows up in the coffers of the creators from this illicit activity, save for the one underling who sold out his own company for his own profit.

But now that these same crooks used this method to carry out an attack on the company so surely Sony will go through all its hardware and software, searching for any backdoors used to carry out this thread, nail them shut and fire anyone who could have even remotely been involved in this debacle. The only problem with this is that Sony will turn around and hire more cheap labor, one of which will be approached by some North Koreans holding either a sack full of money (or perhaps something over the head of said laborer), and the cycle continues unabated.

My point is this. There are people out there committing crimes and generally being parasites to society and will continue to do so regardless as to what we do, because they can. Up until the moment they are made to pay for their crimes to the extent that their actions cripples or kills them, they will continue to act in whatever means they feel will profit them regardless of the consequences. There’s nothing that can be done to stop this beyond denying them at every turn to the point where they can no longer profit from their underhanded activities. In other words, it is an impossible task as there are always fools who think they can get ahead by ignoring the warning signs and chasing after offers that are too good to be true.

My other belabored point is that Gamersgate is not the only injustice in this world, and its hard to fight against even one injustice in the face of so many others going on all around us.

Another recent anecdote I have is about law students participating in the ongoing protests about the courts’ rulings regarding what kind, if any, punishment police officers should receive for the deaths of African Americans caught committing petty crimes (if any crime at all) instead of studying for their exams.

In this, the protesting students demanded additional time to study since they’re so busy fighting the injustices in the world. One person then responded with the question “If you want to make a difference so much, why not complete your studies and become lawyers for the ACLU instead of throwing beer bottles at windows at these protests?”.

My point here is that right now, some of us are not in the position of making any real, meaningful or positive impact on this situation. The most that many outside of the game industry can do is not join in on the chorus that’s currently wrecking more havoc than they’re resolving.

e:f;b.

#124

I did very much have a change of hard as I kept reading and things kept coming to light; mostly as real, serious harassment occurred, which is why I made sure to bring that up. When I made that post, this was still just rumours and none of the stuff I brought up had happened yet or hadn’t been brought to light. Like I said, I had no idea if anything worthwhile would come out of it at the time. It most definitely did and I pointed that out. When the words “suicide attempt” came into play, you bet I stopped laughing right there, especially as I was one of the people scrambling to get the guy’s information so that someone could call the police. This has gone as far as the FTC drafting new rules that affect every single website under their jurisdiction.

In any case, there’s a difference between not caring and laughing at the fact that someone does, even as someone like Zepp sees fit to throw his own speeches at me as if he were actually making some point. God knows I wouldn’t demand that you care, but I do find it pretty damn childish to laugh at someone explaining why they do while also joking about how you haven’t even read those reasons. By all means ignore me, but I am going to reply to posts that make wrong claims at me and, as a rule, like to be thorough and cite real sources when I make claims of my own. That in itself being risible to people is surprising.

I sure as hell I’m not, nor would I expect any different from you. My beef was with straight up incorrect claims being made, primarily Zepp claiming nothing is going on and anyone who claims so is a schizo. Though I gotta point out, you’re riding the fallacy of Relative Privation mighty hard there. There’s always something worse than what you’re dealing with going on somewhere.

#125

Yep. Basically, yep. I mean…have I ever really done anything different? I don’t care about gamers or social justice warriors or webcomic artists. Don’t care at all. What I do find amusing is people who care way too much about them. Honestly, it seems like you think the gamergate thing is a bunch of bullshit, which doesn’t seem that fundamentally different from what I think of the whole situation. But like…you get so invested and angry and mouth-breathing about this shit that my inner troll can’t help but edge you on. So like…nothing personal dude, but this is literally what I’ve been doing around these forums for like more than a decade. If you can come back with a single paragraph or two that explains your views without resorting to seething, obscenity-filled rage and obscure examples nobody knows about except for you, then like…I’ll read what you have to say and think about it. But you can’t expect me to read through thousands of words of raging nerditry and expect me to care at all. Or like, you can keep doing that, and I’ll keep finding it amusing. And ClothHat will continue making clever one liners. I mean…either way it seems like we win.

#126

I think that people, whatever their stance or occupation, being openly harassed out of their jobs, projects blacklisted and censored based on moralistic whimpering and general slander of professionals with lies of the level of career-crushing severity attributed to sexual harassment to be a very serious issue, especially when it is actively encouraged or flat out perpetrated by the media itself right before they fill their mouths about their own self-righteousness.

But again, I don’t care about making you care. I was under the mistaken impression than your not-exactly-brief posts such as…

…and…

…actually contained some form of factual content and claims rather that being random successions of words you now say you don’t care about. If it is nothing but random trolling, then that’s that. Though I’d point out that you’ve written quite a bit yourself on a topic you care nothing for so… not exactly that good return for effort ratio as far as trolling goes.

#127

Seraph, if Zepp didn’t care about GamerGate and was mostly just rambling after skimming your posts, wouldn’t it make sense for his responses to be successions of random words?

#128

Let’s go to the nerd store.

#129

“D’ya have fun at the NERD STORE!?”

#130

NEEEEEEEEEEEEEERD

#131

What I wrote are my actual beliefs on the matter, as someone who is relatively uninformed of this specific issue but hold general, abstract beliefs about the matter based on various experiences and understandings of the world I’ve gained in the last 31 years. I never said I don’t care about the topic itself. I think it’s quite fascinating that some of the more mysogonistic, racist and generally otherwise unsavory characteristics of the gaming community are finally becoming more well-known, and I hope this is results in a change for the better.

This. Specifically, this is what I don’t care about. Maybe I’m a sociopathic monster or something…but I just don’t care. I only got so many cares to give. I care about what happens to my family and friends. I care about the greater community I live in, to a somewhat lesser extent. Beyond that, there’s a bunch of philosophical viewpoints of the world that I also kinda care about, from political to social and economic beliefs, but as I get older seem to care about less. I mean, then there’s all the shit like starving children in Africa or whatever. I mean…I guess I care about that, sort of. Sucks to be a starving African kid, no doubt. But what am I supposed to do about it on a daily basis? And then I’m a consumer of mass media, so like last week I had to care about Australian coffee shop patrons, and Sony executives, and some random celebrities doing stuff or whatever. And today I’m supposed to care about New York City police officers. And I think CNN still desperately wants me to care about Malaysia Airlines passengers in the Indian ocean. Then, after all of that, there’s some random white middle class webcomic artists that lost their jobs, maybe cause of gamergate, maybe cause they are mysogonistic psychopaths, or maybe they did absolutely nothing wrong and got screwed. I don’t really care which one it is.

So you get it? You’re trying to prove some general point to me that I should care about Gamer Gate, based on some random experiences I (and probably most people) don’t have any cares left to give for. If you want other people to care about this issue, then you have to find some better way to appeal to them. What’s the bigger picture here? And why should I care about it more than women getting harassed with death and rape threats just for playing games? Cause from a marketing standpoint, they’ve already got the better “story” here if you will, and their complaints seem much more legitimate from the point of view of someone not deeply embedded in the gamer community (most people).

In one sense, if you really think your issues are really more important than all those other things I mentioned, it makes me impulsively want to question your priorities. But hey, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here that maybe there’s some legitimate point to be made. And if we all cared about the exact same stuff, it’d all be pretty boring. But you have to understand that you are coming at this issue from a view point held by only a very small minority of people, who are going to have the natural reaction of being rather horrified you are taking the side of gamers making rape threats rather than supporting the victims. I’m sure that’s not how you actually feel, but it’s what most people are gonna assume. Crying loudly “but people on the other side were hurt too!!!” isn’t going to win the war of hearts and minds. If anything, it sounds defensive, like you’re avoiding the main issue, and it’s essentially saying “well I’m not racist, but…”

#132

How many times do I have to repeat that I do not care if you care? I was not aware that you did not care. Simply put, you’ve made patently wrong claims. You did that before and you did that again in this same post, but I see now that there’s no reason to bother making corrections. I assumed that someone willing to pontificate on this issue as you did would, at best, try to ensure they are correct about what they say and care about corrections. That was what the extensive citations of things you ignored were about. That was evidently wrong and I see now you’re just interested in denouncing something vague you just heard about and don’t really understand or care to understand, God knows for what reason. Maybe feeling good about yourself.

I have no idea what the hell the main issue is to you. When one side flat-out lies about fleeing their home after receiving a dozen mean twitter messages and is rained with support from the real media itself, whereas the people accused without proof through nothing but fallacy of association face actual legit tangible harassment and professional blackballing while nobody cares, I would assume this would be a pretty solid argument for why there is something massively wrong with the way this is being presented. Especially when several of the women getting those threats are the ones on the opposite side of the one you’d expect and have no such support given to them, not that you care about such corrections. If that does not make you doubt what little you claim to know about what you are discussing, then there is no reason to continue this discussion. If you do not care about the matter at all, even less so.

Though as a final word in regard to priorities: I could turn that right back at you and ask you why you even posted here expressing the things you did from the start when there are much worse things going on somewhere else at any given time than “misogynistic aspects” of videogame culture. What’s the threshold for expressing concern about things that aren’t the worst that is going on in the world? Is it okay to care enough to post once or twice, but not thrice? Two paragraphs but not three? You made claims I replied to.

#133

I’m kind of surprised how long this conversation has gone and more so, by the people who’ve kept it going. I feel we haven’t had something like this in years! Good work gentlemen.

#134

Just to make this clear, I really just made that point for the sake of making that point. They do exist, that’s all I’m saying. I personally don’t agree with Seraph; I don’t think Gamergate or SJWs or any of this, anyway, is going to be the downfall of the gaming industry or whatever. In fact, the gaming industry seems to be doing pretty well (tendency: rising!). And “gamers”, as you said, aren’t a homogeneous group that sits on an isolated island somewhere, it’s a diverse and huge group of people who share a hobby, and the developments we’re seeing there are - imo- developments or occurrences that we also see in many other parts of society (which only makes sense, since “gamers” are obviously a part of it; it would be weird if they remained unaffected).
I merely posted it to show that there is a small group of people who 1. another group of people would define as SJWs and 2. some of which even use that term as an identity thing (and 3. for entertainment value).

Nitpicky? Yes. Pedantic? Yes.

…

What? There’s no ‘but’. I just like being a pedant! :booster:

#135

I do care about misogyny in video game culture, I thought that was obvious. I think all people should have a fundamental right not to have rape and death threats made against them simply for the circumstances of who they were born as. I think getting rid of misogyny in video game culture would have benefits to our society as a whole well beyond just video gaming, since games are such a central part of our culture, and even our economy these days.

I feel less strongly that people have a fundamental right to a job. I think our society would be better off if we work towards things like universal employment and a living wage and all that. But I definitely do not believe anyone has a fundamental right to any specific job. If I have a job, and the activities I participate in in my free time somehow cause problems in my work life, then I should understand that may cause me to lose that job. If I’m a webcomic artist publishing comics on a website, and my authoring these comics is public knowledge, and somehow the content of the comics could be potentially seen as a liability at my work, for example clients of my company may disapprove of what I say and my company will lose business, I may lose my job over that. Maybe that is still not right, and if we think its wrong we could enact laws to make this expression a protected statement, but it’s still not a fundamental wrong. To take the example further, if I am a childcare worker and I draw lolita comics or some shit, then it’s probably a good thing for society that I not be allowed to be a childcare worker. I’m not arguing webcomic artists are pedophiles, I’m just saying there are certain circumstances where public shaming of people because of their choices can sometimes produce a positive outcome. Making rape and death threats at people because of their gender, skin color, sexual orientation etc. can never be a public good. Therefore, in this circumstance, my sympathies are still with the victims of misogyny in video games, and not with the collateral damage of some other people who may have been hurt because their choices to express differing opinions on the subject. And a lot of other people probably feels the same way.

You can not care that I don’t care, that’s cool dude. I could have just kept trolling, but in my last few posts I’ve been trying to actually engage you and read what you’re writing and respond to it, for whatever that’s worth. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think, but I’m just trying to tell you there’s a lot of other people out there who feel the same way too, and if you actually care about your gamer gate issue then I’m just trying to tell you (and any other games) that you need a different argument. A list of potential injustices does not a complete argument make. If a newspaper were just a list of bad things that happened yesterday, nobody would read that. People want context, people want to know how the stories are related to a bigger picture, people want to know how those stories connect to them personally.

#136

MAH FIRST AMENDMENT

#137

Also, nice use of “can not.” Not many people get the distinction between “can not” and “cannot.”

#138

That is not at all what happened though. What happened was that Abigail Nugent, the webcomic artist, had her private info dug up and distributed to a crowd that then proceeded to bomb her workplace with harassment until she was considered a liability. Not because the comic was in any way related to the job (nor did she ever connect it to it, she was publishing under a pseudonym), but because people were harassing her and her employer until it was deemed less troublesome to fire her than to keep dealing with trolls.

It’s just strange that you’d bring up the “women were getting threats” factor as leverage to care about one side and then dismiss that exact thing on the other one. Especially when in this case it was much worse than mean twitter messages. It just didn’t make sense to me to care about the transcendent horror of getting troll threats on the internet, and then laugh at that exact same thing PLUS real-life harassment that effectively disrupts ones’ entire livelihood.

This is, again, a general enough statement that anybody can agree with. I just have no idea what specific case you’re talking about here. Nugent wasn’t threatening anybody.

If I have to sum up this mess, it’d be like this:

In past months, I’ve seen a select and small number of people showered with attention and support after receiving the kind of “harassment” that I imagine every single person who’s ever browsed this board has been subject to. We’re talking 14-year-old kid on XBox live kinda shittalk here. And you can decry that as much as you want, and I’ll agree to an extent though then I’m the one who can’t really be arsed to care quite so fervently about it given that… well, it’s getting shittalked on the internet. Trolls exist and will keep existing. The smart move is usually to ignore them and not feed them, not go on national television to give them the exact kind of attention they want.

However, then I see this - in my, admittedly douchey-sounding opinion, overdramatized - media circus used to deflect all sorts of entirely unrelated criticism aimed at them and some of their associates in the media. Then, I see the people putting forth that criticism, and even just people who express some form of agreement with those critics, being accused of “making rape and death threats” based on absolutely nothing and then this witchhunt being eagerly ridden all the way to trying to destroy their careers and reputations, be them big or small personalities. This goes from struggling indie developers to CEOs of established companies. I see far worse harassment of both men and women being entirely ignored, and the only appreciable metric by which to decide who gets coverage and support is, not gender, orientation, skin colour or even place in the industry, but what side of the fence they stand on certain issues. Harassment, doxxing, threats and outright slander perpetrated not by tumblr trolls but by actual professional journalists, seem to be entirely OK provided you disagree, however politely, with a select number of people. Not only will it not be fought against, it will be ignored thoroughly or even justified. It’s straight up Scientology-style “suppressive persons are fair game” stuff.

That’s basically what I’ve kept seeing for three months straight now, with at least three different indie companies (well, two, Stardock Corporation is hardly “indie”), a feminist scholar with a PH.D, several journalists, a chairman for the Independent Game Developers’ Association and a slew of others being treated as “fair game”.

Neither do I. “The industry” is gonna be just fine. My concern goes to several individuals within that industry and in the periphery.

That said, there ARE some important points here. The recent kerfuffle with Destructive Creations getting their game pulled from Steam without explanation got a lot of big names talking because it could set a pretty important precedent. Steam has close to a monopoly on digital distribution, making it effectively a matter of life or death for smaller companies to get on it. The game’s removal seemed to be entirely tied to it getting bombed by the gaming press for being too violent, even though Steam will host just-as-nasty stuff like GTA or Postal. If Steam took the position of “we won’t host games that Polygon or Rock Paper Shotgun whine about a lot”, that could have gotten really nasty really quick for anybody those sites disagree with.

Gabe Newell is not swimming in pools of money because he’s a retard though, which is why he looked into the matter and reversed that decision as soon as the buzz started to get loud enough.

#139

So I’m back from holidays and ready to continue posting. Except I think this topic has probably run its course and we’re just talking past each other rather than at each other, but hey I appreciate your last post, it did give me some interesting stuff to think about it, so like…I’ll think about it and stuff.

Also I started playing Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition on a plane ride the other day (maybe your signature like subconsciously lured me into it or something). I remember why I also get frustrated though, because I always wanna play an evil character, but like literally every quest you do in the game increases your reputation. why even give you the option of being evil when there aren’t any meaningful quests or other incentives to actually do so?

#140

kicks down the door and shoots this thread in the head with deadly accuracy

DIE, MOTHERFUCKER.