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#GAMERGATE: The Threadening [Read the OP] -- #StopGamerGate2014

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Noaloha

Member
I believe this is what you are referring to: https://twitter.com/reverendanthony/status/507381413721939968\

He was trying to show that the whole thing had nothing to do with 'journalistic integrity' but with a game creator (Zoe Quinn) being a woman.

Aah, yes, thanks. Not quite how I recalled it, so thank you for the clarification.

How did they found out it is #gg that did the threats anyway? Otherwise I can understand the anger from being falsely accuse.

Taken from the recent Kotaku piece,

Wu, who has written about the harassment against women in gaming, has long been critical of the recently-formed Gamergate movement and what she and others have seen as the targeting of women in the industry. Earlier this week she caught the attention of users of the pro-Gamergate message board 8chan after Tweeting snark about the movement, only to then see users of that board mock her, post details about her husband and ultimately publish her personal information (a screencap of a post with redacted info remained on the thread on Saturday).

"I was literally watching 8chan go after me in their specific chatroom for Gamergate," she told Kotaku today. "They posted my address, and within moments I got that death threat."
 

JackDT

Member
She was doxed in 8chan on their gg board and her harassment came as a result of a fan-made meme ridiculing gg.

Also, watch out that you are doubting a victim's claims.

It takes one person to post a doxx. I can accept that one person doesn't represent something.

But the heavily retweeted MundaneMatt video that quickly followed? The one that said, "GG is not about harassment. I'm not saying she definitely doxxed herself... I'm just saying it would not be out of character for her to do so, so I personally think she did. GG is not about harrassment." is smack dab in the middle gamergate.
 
I appreciate Brianna Wu's eagerness to sit down with some of slime balls in this whole thing, if only to give them more reason to prove how shitty they are. The Milo thing was already talked about, but then there was this when she talked/reached out to Balwdin:

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It's really weird how involved in this Adam Fucking Baldwin is. Doesn't a c-list celebrity have better things to do? Does he try to explain this to the rest of his family? Is Alec in on it?
 
Whomever said this was a movement of moving goalposts put it best

Like, to most people, if you were doxxed at a board that has become a home to many people in GG, literally in its specific GG forum, and then suddenly you're getting threats and harassment related to that doxxing, you'd say "GG caused my harassment" but instead, all these people are going on and crowing about "well you see, they didn't actually use the hashtag so that's so awful to say this is because of GG!" and then the shit like "where's the proof, huh?" which is fucking sickening
 
It's honestly astonishing to me that he is that much of an asshole, I need to try harder to remember that just because someone played one of my favourite characters says nothing about who they are.

Honestly, his behavior over the years has made it so I'll never watch Firefly again, not that I was ever planning to. He's just fucking gross.
 

JackDT

Member
Once again Damion Schubert seems to echo my feelings almost exactly:

http://www.zenofdesign.com/gamergate-6-weeks-later/

2. I’m all in favor of better games journalism, but I see little or no actual tangible progress or appetite for change in directions that actually matter.

Look, our press isn’t great. It’s got a lot of problems, but still we have the widest, most diverse, less bought-and-paid press that video games have ever had. To be sure, there have always been problems and questions of corruption. But the corruption centers around money, mainly how publishers can buy access via the games press and streamers, and there seems to be shockingly little interest by anyone in covering that stuff.

Instead, I see a mindnumbing focus on bullshit I can’t get behind. People are still butthurt by an editorial in Gamasutra that happened 6 weeks ago. This — has nothing to do with ethics. People are upset to find that Game Journalists have a mailing list – so far the list has shown… erm, some journalists disagreeing with each other and being a little catty towards some devs. Big whoop. Most industries have a mailing list. On dev lists, we complain about reporters!

People want to study my games? That’s fine. People want to tell me I’m doing it wrong? Dear god, that’s a normal day of work for a game designer. As long as no one is advocating for legal or political censorship of games – let them talk. It’s not going to hurt your games, and I’d rather live in an industry where free speech is encouraged, rather than slam down on one viewpoint via some sort of neoMcCarthyism.
 
How did they found out it is #gg that did the threats anyway? Otherwise I can understand the anger from being falsely accuse.
She was doxed in 8chan on their gg board and her harassment came as a result of a fan-made meme ridiculing gg.

Also, watch out that you are doubting a victim's claims.

It's pretty open and shut that someone acting to further GG doxxed Wu, you don't go to a place and proclaim you did something unless you know you will receive support there.

I grow tired of a line of thinking is that demands proof that GG as a singular entity did something and yet decry others for condemning GG as an singular entity. It is clear that there are prominent elements of GG that have at the very least tolerated if not actively encouraged doxxing, these people are irredeemable the majority (hopefully) don't condone this shit but provide tacit support by endorsing GG. I just wish they'd leave en masse and start a new tag this one is just poison.
 

SmZA

Member
Part of the reason 'gamers' have such a fucked up perspective on reviews is that the industry itself has a fucked up perspective on Metacritic. Tying bonuses and the like to a game's score. If this weren't the case Tom Chick would provoke less frothing of the mouth.

On some level the consumers know this, explicitly or implicitly. Whether an individual score effects an individual publisher is not known but it is theoretically possible Polygon's 7.5's will effect the chances of ever getting a Bayonetta 3.

There is also the more general awareness in all entertainment media that regardless of how successful a brand is commercially, if there's significant backlash to its objectionable content there's always a chance the people making the decisions will opt for less cash if it means less negative reaction to your brand. Which would also mean no Bayonetta 3.

Given Bayonetta 2's release was dicey it's not surprising - even though it's fucked up - that a single review mentioning objectionable content provokes such ire.

I know all this from listening to GFW Radio circa 2007. From fucking games journalists. Meanwhile the #GGs are stuck with Adam 'ebola' Baldwin and boycotting journalists. If they had half a brain cell between them they'd be using their consumer advocacy power to pressure the game companies to focus less on Metacritic and more on actual sales. It's pathetic.
 
talking about this on another forum and I thought this was a good take on it all:

I'm sure a lot of people involved in just providing volume for harassment are younger but a lot of this as a thing seems driven by people who are out of school with not much to look forward to who feel like their one sphere is being invaded. I think if I were to stick an overly simple psych read on this situation I'd go with "status anxiety" over "adolescent sexual frustration" basically.
The ones that stand out from the egg accounts are mostly the ones who have some kind of youtube channel or online radio show. A lot of them are anonymous but through years of shit-slinging and stepping on toes with the likes of 4chan readers, their personal information is inevitably leaked and they conform to basically ever stereotype of the angry white neckbeard you would expect. White, late 20-something dudes from shit towns in Britain and the U.S., obsessed with video games, but living somewhere with no opportunities to get into the tech sector, either didn't go to school or went to a shitty one, etc.

The same is true of the guys who have latched onto the movement as "game devs," trying to lend some kind of industry-associated heft to the mob despite being aspirational outsiders who think their bland pixel-nostalgia game will make them the next phil fish. Since they're using real names to kickstart their projects, you can see all the same trends; white guy, shit town, no connections, freelances or works at the bottom of the bottom rung in tech. It's easy to see why these guys dig their claws into anyone who seems remotely ascendant in games or tech, and even more so someone who might have gotten exposure due to Undeserved Privilege of being not a late-20's angry white guy; this is their dream, and the bright interconnected future of the internet has not made it one iota more accessible for them. But it has made the people who do get the golden ticket much more vulnerable.
 

riotous

Banned
I didn't know Adam was such an ass before this.

Please tell me he never says dumb things about race at least?

I try not to care too much about what actors (or developers) do outside of their "art," but I could see even just knowing he's a staunch conservative making Full Metal Jacket hard to watch.
 
I didn't know Adam was such an ass before this.

Please tell me he never says dumb things about race at least?

I try not to care too much about what actors (or developers) do outside of their "art," but I could see even just knowing he's a staunch conservative making Full Metal Jacket hard to watch.
He likened gay marriage to incest once.

And you're trolling me with the FMJ comment, right?

EDIT: goddamnit he was in FMJ. I trolled myself.
 
I didn't know Adam was such an ass before this.

Please tell me he never says dumb things about race at least?

I try not to care too much about what actors (or developers) do outside of their "art," but I could see even just knowing he's a staunch conservative making Full Metal Jacket hard to watch.

He was/is pretty vocal about Ferguson. I don't feel like dredging through the compost pile that is his twitter but I'm sure one could find many ignorant comments about race associate with that.
 

Mesoian

Member
This might be old, but looks like the escapist isn't exactly guilt free in this entire ongoing clusterfuck.

http://norondor.tumblr.com/post/100001867209/the-escapists-alexander-marcis-has-been-crowdfunding

Alexander Marcis is general manager for The Escapist, a reactionary right-skewing video game website. The Escapist recently ran a raft of nakedly pro-#GamerGate interviews with a motley crew of developers, many of whom have been accused of sexist behaviour in the past. Developer James Desborough was the subject of one such interview.
A prominent member of #GamerGate, Desborough tweets under the username @GRIMACHU. He recently ran an Indiego campaign to print RPG Chronicles Of Gor, based on an insane fictional universe where women are willing sex slaves. Alexander Marcis was eager to contribute:

I always wondered who was running those crazy "come hither" online games and how they ever got funded with the microscope that people use when it comes to game development now a days. I guess now I know.
 
I didn't know Adam was such an ass before this.

Please tell me he never says dumb things about race at least?

I try not to care too much about what actors (or developers) do outside of their "art," but I could see even just knowing he's a staunch conservative making Full Metal Jacket hard to watch.

How ironic, that you're making such statements while condemning someone for their beliefs.
 

jschreier

Member
Best GG piece I've read to date: http://deadspin.com/the-future-of-the-culture-wars-is-here-and-its-gamerga-1646145844/

When Blizzard revealed the trailer for Warlords of Draenor, its newest World of Warcraft expansion, at a showcase in Los Angeles last month, it opened with the sort of ritual auto-fellatio familiar to anyone who's ever attended any corporate event. What was odd about it—or at least what would be for anyone unfamiliar with the peculiar folkways of the gaming industry—was Blizzard's choice of a master of ceremonies. There was Chris Watters of Gamespot, one of the largest gaming sites on the internet, standing on a conference stage sponsored heavily by Gamespot, hyping a trailer for a game that he had never played.

If the goal of Gamergate is to wipe out corruption in games journalism—if the movement isn't merely a bunch of loosely shaped sublimated qualms about feminism and minorities—it's doing a shit job of identifying the actual, honest-to-god problems in games writing. It's not as if those problems are hard to see. As a rule, games journalism is inherently compromised. From the top down, publishers ranging from AAA behemoths like Electronic Arts to the IndieCade crowd do in fact enjoy symbiotic relationships with gaming media outlets, and if it came down to nothing more than sex and petty corruption, that would be nice, because the problem would certainly be a lot more easily solved.

At one end of the spectrum, you have press outlets that barely even feign autonomy from marketing departments. IGN's "IGN First" features on upcoming games and Game Informer's monthly cover story rely on deep access to upcoming games—access granted to no one else in the industry. Invariably, the stories produced from that access are positive. It's a win-win for game studios and press outlets, and a loss for anyone who'd like to read something other than thinly veiled advertorials about big upcoming games. These kinds of relationships are what makes programs like Kotaku's embedded gamers—wherein writers play four or five series extensively post-release, dive deep into the community, and report back—important for players looking to read coverage outside the marketing cycle.

There are conflicts of this kind all over the place, right out in the open. (Do you know if your favorite columnist paid for his consoles, or accepted them from Microsoft and Sony?) For the usual reasons of professional courtesy or decorum, a lot of this goes unreported or commented upon, but it matters. These conflicts may be common in many fields, but they are especially bad in gaming journalism, partly due to its nature.

I spent close to three years covering and reviewing technology for Gizmodo. The very first thing I learned about reviews was that you can't fuck up. Day to day, writing about products and entertainment—games, gadgets, movies, whatever—is a low-stakes occupation that a lot of people would kill for. The only serious responsibility you have is to make sure that you do not compel readers who trust you to spend their money and time on something they won't enjoy. To do so accidentally is incompetence; to do it knowingly, or to put yourself in the position where you can be influenced into doing it, is just about the only way to fuck up in the job, and an awful lot of gaming writers are doing it, in shops where the walls between ad sales and editorial grow thinner than they should.
 

JackDT

Member
I didn't know Adam was such an ass before this.

Please tell me he never says dumb things about race at least?

I try not to care too much about what actors (or developers) do outside of their "art," but I could see even just knowing he's a staunch conservative making Full Metal Jacket hard to watch.

It's really a shame that Milo and Adam became the face of gamergate. There are staunch conservatives who aren't also total assholes that would be genuinely open to dialog.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I honestly don't understand "review culture", and by that I mean people who's feelings about the Polygon review go any further then "oh huh, its clear he doesn't agree with my perspective, I guess its safe to ignore that review when making my purchasing decision"

I've been disconnected from the hype machine for a couple years now but even when I was in the throes of it my feelings about reviews never went further then being happy about positive ones because it meant I was probably going to play something good. I just really don't get why some people think that there is something "wrong" with the Polygon Bayonetta 2 review
 

Oidisco

Member
Honestly, his behavior over the years has made it so I'll never watch Firefly again, not that I was ever planning to. He's just fucking gross.

He's kinda ruined my favourite episode of Stargate SG1 aswell, though atleast his role in the episode isn't super important.
 

Oersted

Member
Wow, now I have to buy Borderlands even though I loathe the series with the burning fury of a thousand stars.



Wait, isn't Unrelated Baldwin a different guy?

Adam Baldwin is not related to the Baldwin brothers.

I didn't know Adam was such an ass before this.

Please tell me he never says dumb things about race at least?

I try not to care too much about what actors (or developers) do outside of their "art," but I could see even just knowing he's a staunch conservative making Full Metal Jacket hard to watch.

Make a wild guess.
 

SmZA

Member
I try not to care too much about what actors (or developers) do outside of their "art," but I could see even just knowing he's a staunch conservative making Full Metal Jacket hard to watch.

Erm, his character in FMJ isn't exactly a bastion of liberal decency. It's a perfect fit really.
 
I don't see the irony, be more specific?

Well, I would say this line is a little much:

but I could see even just knowing he's a staunch conservative making Full Metal Jacket hard to watch.

I live in a state with staunch conservatives (and would consider myself very conservative when it comes to financial politics, while being more moderate in social issues), and there aren't many who are bigoted losers like Baldwin is. There's quite a difference between most conservatives and the far right nut jobs like him.
 

But...one of the biggest sore points with gamergate supporters is journalists being in bed (no pun intended) with the industry.

"to be truly tolerant, please be tolerant of the intolerant!"

lmao

Tolerance is a 2 way street, friend.

You should really just start adding the hashtag to all of your posts, it would only be marginally more obvious than it already is.



Nice.
If you're implying I'm a gamergate supporter, I feel they lost their way, if not when they gave $40000 to feminists, than when it was adopted by people who thought it was some sort of culture war.
 

Mesoian

Member
I honestly don't understand "review culture", and by that I mean people who's feelings about the Polygon review go any further then "oh huh, its clear he doesn't agree with my perspective, I guess its safe to ignore that review when making my purchasing decision"

I've been disconnected from the hype machine for a couple years now but even when I was in the throes of it my feelings about reviews never went further then being happy about positive ones because it meant I was probably going to play something good. I just really don't get why some people think that there is something "wrong" with the Polygon Bayonetta 2 review

If I had to make an argument about what's "wrong" with the review, it would be the fact that it's an unpopular review that is unfairly being lumped together with other ACTUALLY PROBLEMATIC reviews that have come from Polygon, like the Wolfenstein one or the Sim City one. People see the 7.5 amungst perfect scores and kneejerkingly assume that they're doing it for clicks or hits because, after all, that's how these sites stay alive. It's collatoral damage, which is a shame because Arthur Geis' opinions IN THIS ONE REVIEW are valid and his choice to dock points for Bayonetta's liberal use of sexual content is his choice to make.

Polygon does so many questionable things, both good and bad, that when something like this happens, it can be hard to tell the forest from the trees.

Now all that being said, I think the review is fair and if you actually read it, you'll probably still come away from it thinking that Bayonetta is something you should definitely play.
 

riotous

Banned
It's really a shame that Milo and Adam became the face of gamergate. There are staunch conservatives who aren't also total assholes that would be genuinely open to dialog.

Yeah I've met some interesting conservatives whose opinions I value.

But the combination of staunch conservative and his douchebaggy way of presenting it sets of alarms for me and makes me assume other things; hearing he said some.. off color things about Furgoson for instance is not surprising.

How ironic, that you're making such statements while condemning someone for their beliefs.

I'm comfortable calling him an ass based on what I've read him say about "GamerGate." I'm also comfortable admitting my own biases, which I did in my post while also expressing that I try not to let those biases get in my way of enjoyment of art that is totally unrelated.

There's nothing inherently wrong with condemning people for their beliefs so I don't really see what is ironic; if all Adam Baldwin had done was condemn someone for their beliefs I'd likely not be talking about him. And I'm not really condemning him merely for "his beliefs"... you combine political ideologies I disagree with and extremely immature behavior and I'm not going to think very highly of you, and I'm probably going to assume you have other shitty beliefs.. because more often than not I've found that to be true.

Make a wild guess.

Certainly not a difficult guess.. lol..

Thanks to those who confirmed there may be remarks I'd find offensive if I searched him and Ferguson for instance.. I'll just say his political stances aren't my cup of tea and the fact the characters he portrays are often authoritarian d-bags might no longer seem funny to me lol.
 
How ironic, that you're making such statements while condemning someone for their beliefs.

Have you actually followed at all the kinds of things Adam Baldwin is known to say/tweet? Adam Baldwin isn't an asshole in the "Progressive bullies think ill of anyone that doesn't tow the company line" sense, he's an asshole in the "actively behaves like a legitimate asshole" sense. And it still feels surreal that I'm saying this in relation to a thread about a stupid video game controversy in regards to a person who -- prior to a year ago -- I only knew from FireFly/Angel. And I was a fan of his! I still can't believe that he's involved in a stupid campaign called #GamerGate and behaving this ridiculously on the internet. It's so bizarre to me.
 
Came in here curious to see what was happening, was not expecting to see Adam Baldwin's face. Also, did not know that dude was Adam Baldwin, and also not a Baldwin.
 

SmZA

Member
I honestly don't understand "review culture", and by that I mean people who's feelings about the Polygon review go any further then "oh huh, its clear he doesn't agree with my perspective, I guess its safe to ignore that review when making my purchasing decision".

I had some thoughts on this on the previous page.

Sucks when you always manage to get the last or second to last post on a page. Someday I'll learn.
 
But...one of the biggest sore points with gamergate supporters is journalists being in bed (no pun intended) with the industry.

So where is the outrage from Gamergate about actual examples like the one brought up in the opening to that article?

If you're implying I'm a gamergate supporter, I feel they lost their way, if not when they gave $40000 to feminists, than when it was adopted by people who thought it was some sort of culture war.

Why do you care about giving feminists money if it's not a culture war?
 
Gamergate was conceived on 4chan's /pol/ board to make radical feminists look like fools, which it passed with flying colours. After that...I'm not sure what's going on anymore.

Oh. Well that does say a lot then. Glad it's in the open that you supported what was an aggressively misogynistic campaign. At least we know where you're coming from now.
 
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