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[Alucrid]

Who in their right mind uses the ratio of 80:20?

Everyone wanting the name of the game is missing the point and throwing up a red herring; this is a generic example meant to stand for common and pervasive attitudes.

Also it's an English outlet and I'm no barrister but their libel law is more complicated than American.

So you're saying that it's a completely fabricated story?

 

[Ikuu]

Everyone wanting the name of the game is missing the point and throwing up a red herring; this is a generic example meant to stand for common and pervasive attitudes.

Also it's an English outlet and I'm no barrister but their libel law is more complicated than American.

People are going to want to know the game when she's claiming the CEO banned her and someone leaked her information.

 

[Chili]

Turns out TheIneffableSwede is a user at TheGuardian

Her bio at TheGuardian:



https://id.guardian.co.uk/profile/theineffableswede/public

Some of her other comments



at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/04/tsa-nsa-unreasonable-searches

Their wording in the article



She's commented on a lot of "similar" topics.





This is her full comment that was mentioned in the OP's article:





http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2013/jul/29/twitter-culture-gamer-rage

At the risk of getting too stalkerish and presumptious based off some online comments, I find it amusing that despite her very sound views against online harassment and the threatening of rape, that she still manages to defend Assange to high heaven against his alleged sexual crimes.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

You have to consider that this person is saying that she managed to get into contact with the CEO of this company. I very much doubt that some random player is going to be able to reach the CEO of Blizzard or Riot to discuss how they're being treated in game.

True....Maybe some weird MMO that like Tier B?

 

[Jac_Solar]

People are going to want to know the game when she's claiming the CEO banned her and someone leaked her information.

Not sure even TheGuardian knows. It seems like it's a direct lift from their own comment sections. This is her full comment, which was posted at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2013/jul/29/twitter-culture-gamer-rage

TheIneffableSwede commented on Gamer rage: can it be stopped, and should it be?

I've gotten abuse in online games because I'm a female gamer, but the men get it, too? Wow.

I used to be--emphasise used to be--an avid participant in a certain online game. I was a very good player of this game, but the majority of its players are guys. I'd say the ratio is about 80:20 male:female for this game. The game is MMORPG and has millions of active users from all over the planet.

Whenever I won against my opponents, which I did almost always, some male players would threaten to rape, mutilate, or even kill me (but rape was by far the most frequent threat). I reported these threats to the game operators, whose response was:

1. It's your fault for choosing a username that reflects your gender. You should change your name to something that is gender-neutral.
2. If you are concerned about this, report it to the police (how do you report someone you only know as "VikingKiller0912", especially when that player is in a different country from you???)

In other words, even though these personal threats were against the game rules, the game's staff assumed no responsibility for enforcing the rules, or else blamed me for "provoking" the male players. (One game operator did tell me that I "provoked" the threats by "playing too well" and suggested I deliberately lose more often so as not to bruise male egos. This game operator was, by the way, female.)

Eventually, I complained to the CEO himself of the gaming company and his response was to ban me from the game because he was "tired of hearing about this problem". The players who threatened me with rape, mutilation, and death are still active in the game and some of them have been given jobs as game operators (the referees of the game).

Before I was banned, one of the game operators, an employee of the company, released my real life details (full legal name, physical address, email, telephone number, link to my social media such as Facebook, etc.) to thousands of other players (I had given this information when I registered for the game) and encouraged people to harass me outside the game, which several of them did. I had to change my mobile number, cancel my Facebook, and even considered moving house at one point to escape the harassment.

All of this just to play a simple game online.

Well, could have been worse: I could have been a game designer.

I don't know if it's always been that way in the online gaming community. I don't have any perspective other than my two years of experience in my MMORPG.

Most online gamers don't behave this way. Most online gamers behave themselves. I'm not really interested in "understanding" the people who threaten death, rape, and other real life harm just because of a game that's supposed to be fun. I just want the gaming companies to make these people go away.

 

[John Dunbar]

Everyone wanting the name of the game is missing the point and throwing up a red herring; this is a generic example meant to stand for common and pervasive attitudes.

Also it's an English outlet and I'm no barrister but their libel law is more complicated than American.

when you're making claims of a CEO banning you for being threatened (even if it was clearly just shit talking) and that they then leaked your personal information to shame you, it goes way beyond anything "common and pervasive".

 

[The Blackrose]

Did they just copy-paste this comment from their own comment sections?

Judging from what you dug up, it definitely reads like they just trudged up a whole comments discussion and put it in article form. No further investigation what so ever.

 

[BocoDragon]

When I played a woman character in an MMO, people were always too nice to me and trying to give me gifts, etc

I insisted I was a male to anyone I talked with... I wasn't role playing the part. But people nonetheless treated me very, very differently than if I were a male character.

 

[mclem]

I've just realised the bit that has been niggling at me from the start:

Whenever I won against my opponents, which I did almost always, some male players would threaten to rape, mutilate, or even kill me (but rape was by far the most frequent threat). I reported these threats to the game operators, whose response was:

Why say that? It's irrelevant to the point at hand, frankly. Rampant self-aggrandisement? Fantasising? What traits would motivate someone to put that little side comment in to something that doesn't relate to it with any significance?

It doesn't quite add up.

 

[daffy]

Everyone wanting the name of the game is missing the point and throwing up a red herring; this is a generic example meant to stand for common and pervasive attitudes.

Also it's an English outlet and I'm no barrister but their libel law is more complicated than American.

Except its not generic because half this shit is unprecedented.

 

[Mory Dunz]

I've just realised the bit that has been niggling at me from the start:



Why say that? It's irrelevant to the point at hand, frankly. Rampant self-aggrandisement? Fantasising? What traits would motivate someone to put that little side comment in to something that doesn't relate to it with any significance?

It doesn't quite add up.

Hmm, maybe to provide motive for the guys getting "angry" enough to say all the threats. They got tired of losing.

 

[John Dunbar]

Hmm, maybe to provide motive for the guys getting "angry" enough to say all the threats. They got tired of losing.

to me it just makes the whole story seem fake. anyone that experienced with mmorpgs should know that people do not automatically assume that a female avatar equals a female player.

 

[akaoni]

https://id.guardian.co.uk/profile/theineffableswede/public

 

[Jac_Solar]

to me it just makes the whole story seem fake. anyone that experienced with mmorpgs should know that people do not automatically assume that a female avatar equals a female player.

Everything about it seems exaggerated. But it's just a comment by a user at TheGuardian -- and since they directly copied her comment, I'm not sure if they even interviewed her and fact checked.

 

[evil_ash_xero]

I think I'm going to have to shoot myself. I can't take it anymore.

 

[Zuhzuhzombie!!]

Wait.


So Guardian took a comment on another article and made an article out of it?

Click bait.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

"Whenever I won against my opponents, which I did almost always, some male players would threaten to rape, mutilate, or even kill me (but rape was by far the most frequent threat).

That's about 1/1 my online gaming experience in the past 15 years and I am a working class white male in the age group of 18-35

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

Wait.


So Guardian took a comment on another article and made an article out of it?

Click bait.

But why ignore the facts. Regardless of click bait or not, it's a real issue amongst woman gamers. It's easy for men to go and on to each other and have fun being immature about it, but women don't get the same treatment. I myself has had very good and very bad experiences but to ignore it as a non issue is ignorant. It's like people get annoyed when it gets talked about and that's exactly what she's trying to say.

 

[FryHole]

I've just realised the bit that has been niggling at me from the start:



Why say that? It's irrelevant to the point at hand, frankly. Rampant self-aggrandisement? Fantasising? What traits would motivate someone to put that little side comment in to something that doesn't relate to it with any significance?

It doesn't quite add up.

Well, the whole thing checks a lot of fantasising boxes, including the kind of harassment that goes way beyond the usual crap women have to put up with (honestly, I'd say if all that actually did happen, half of it was probably about her as an individual from the sounds of it - and I'm not saying she deserved it, but that she was probably such a bloody irritant people did deeply unprofessional things to spite her). But if it is fantasy, then if you're going to cast yourself as a gamer, might as well be an awesome one.

 

[Delusibeta]

*profile link*

Having looked at her profile, I don't see any evidence of troll. Sure, she's a feminist, but then again she put it in her bio, what were you expecting? I did get a good laugh at her opinion of Facebook:

Amazingly enough, Facebook's traffic is based on 1.1 billion users, more than twice the number of registered Twitter users, and yet they don't seem to have the problems that Twitter does with a handful of people hurling vile and illegal threats at their users.

Aye, riiiiiiight.

Having said all that, we now get onto the question of if the story is genuine, and if so which company would do such a thing. Considering that the company allegedly leaked her details, encouraged people to stalk her and then their CEO banned her for reporting too much, excuse me while I raise my eyebrow, because the former would be enough for a lawsuit in any jurisdiction, and the latter would be unheard of. Death and/or rape threats by salty losers is about par for the course, but that other shit's pretty damn shit.

 

[Castle Doctrine]

When I played a woman character in an MMO, people were always too nice to me and trying to give me gifts, etc

I insisted I was a male to anyone I talked with... I wasn't role playing the part. But people nonetheless treated me very, very differently than if I were a male character.

The bolded is an interesting point to bring up. It is true that females are often treated differently online because they're females, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's really bad like in this story if true, and often just neutrally. I'm guessing that many of them just want to play a game and for nobody to make an issue or act differently because they're female. Personally it would probably make me feel self-conscious.

I do note that only the times they're treated badly are highlighted.

It's also true that males can be absolutely ruthless to each other online, just as bad as this. Why is it more important when females are treated badly? The argument is that it's because they're female, hence sexism, and males treating each other badly is just.... boys being boys or something, and not sexism.

My point is I don't understand this notion of equality if it's more important when females are treated badly.

 

[EsotericManiac]

I really don't see how this is a sex issue as opposed to just an issue of rage mail/messages in any game.

I've been threatened numerous times while playing games online. can't say I've been threatened to be raped, but I don't really see how that's worth than death threats.

It's not a problem that only affects women, or this woman in particular. I don't condone the behavior but it's basically a known entity when playing competitive games online.

 

[MemoryHumanity]

I really don't see how this is a sex issue.

can't say I've been threatened to be raped

I see...

 

[jimi_dini]

Turns out TheIneffableSwede is a user at TheGuardian

Her bio at TheGuardian:

About me
I am part of the vast international feminazi conspiracy to round up men into tastefully decorated internment campsand force them to listen to us talk about our feelings.

What the hell?
Is this supposed to be funny?

 

[Zuhzuhzombie!!]

But why ignore the facts. Regardless of click bait or not, it's a real issue amongst woman gamers. It's easy for men to go and on to each other and have fun being immature about it, but women don't get the same treatment. I myself has had very good and very bad experiences but to ignore it as a non issue is ignorant. It's like people get annoyed when it gets talked about and that's exactly what she's trying to say.

I agree with you, and you can talk about it all you want and you'll never hear a complaint from me. However, this looks less like merely "talking" about it, and more blatant click bait. The story is outlandish and, if I'm correct, is from a comments section from another story.

It's a hot button topic but The Guardian shouldn't be posting a largely anonymous comments that have some issues with probability as a news story.

I can't take the comment seriously, I can't take The Guardian seriously, and I can't take their concern sincerely if that's the best they can do about it.

 

[geomon]

Nice duck lips avatar.

 

[Kule]

I really don't see how this is a sex issue as opposed to just an issue of rage mail/messages in any game.

I've been threatened numerous times while playing games online. can't say I've been threatened to be raped, but I don't really see how that's worth than death threats.

It's not a problem that only affects women, or this woman in particular. I don't condone the behavior but it's basically a known entity when playing competitive games online.

People just need to start using the blacklist feature of mmo's and move on.

 

[RMI]

But why ignore the facts. Regardless of click bait or not, it's a real issue amongst woman gamers.

agreed, but using a very suspicious story that has not been fact checked at all seems like a piss poor way of addressing this very real issue.

 

[Jac_Solar]

More of her comments regarding the MMORPG and the way she was treated:

When one of the company's staff released my real life information on a message board and also distributed it in-game to thousands of players, yes, they did violate a German privacy law.

However, things get complicated in these matters, because the employee was based in the United States, etc.

A lot of women gamers just quit because, as you point out, we realise "I'm paying money so people can threaten to shove a red hot knife into my vagina?" I spent over £300 on that game and lost all of it when the CEO banned me for complaining. There was no allegation that I had violated any game rules, he was just tired of hearing about the issue, so he punished the victim and not the perpetrators.

You will find that this is the usual course of events in online gaming. Women are not wanted as customers and abusers are rewarded for their behaviour, and don't they know it.

http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/25516143

The gaming company is based in Germany. I wrote both an email and a registered letter in German (I'm fluent in that particular language) to the CEO after being shut down at all other levels of complaint.

The CEO responded by banning me, as I already wrote.

The nature of online gaming, as with Twitter, is that users are anonymous except to the company that hosts the service (and maybe even then), and is international.

You don't understand how the police work if you think they are going to devote resources to a transatlantic manhunt over online rape threats.

http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/25516061

Example: I was gaming from a computer in Sweden. Threatened with rape by men living in:

The Netherlands
The United States
The United Kingdom
Turkey

If I go to my local police, what are they going to do? Swear out international arrest warrants, etc? That's a lot of police resources and if you multiply that many thousands of times over, the cops would have to devote their entire staff just to this issue.

Reporting to the police is a beautiful theory that won't work in the real world. The companies must police their users and help stamp out online abuse.

Women are 50% of the customer base for social media (in fact, we use social media more frequently and avidly than males, so we are, in fact, two-thirds of their total usage). Alienate us and they won't last long.

http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/25516013

Seems her *original* "MMORPG" comment was to the article "Twitter under fire after bank note campaigner is target of rape threats." here: http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/25522644 -- I assume she reposted it at the other article because of the similar subject matter.

 

[akaoni]

If it's going to be a typical MMORPG or something, for Germany all I can think of is GameForge. Aion/TERA.

 

[daffy]

Any men in here ever get legit shook by an insult during an online game

 

[Patryn]

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/discussion/avatars/2013/07/26/10821498/f8aec69c-1b54-42e2-961a-b3a2a6e86d5d/60x60.png[IMG][/QUOTE]

At the risk of being accused of white-knighting, what relevance does this picture have to the topic in hand?

 

[QisTopTier]

Any men in here ever get legit shook by an insult during an online game

I take insults as compliments

 

[GooeyHeat]

While sexism online, especially in games, is a real issue, this random comment that The Guardian suddenly ran with as a story seems too much like a "perfect storm". I mean, if this game was so big, then there's no way she'd even get a message to the CEO, and I doubt the CEO would even work on the game itself or be able to ban anyone.

I don't want to dismiss real problems, but this reeks of bullshit. Especially the part about a game operator releasing her personal details and encouraging harassment.

 

[akaoni]

At the risk of being accused of white-knighting, what relevance does this picture have to the topic in hand?

She's the source of the story.

 

[Giran]

But why ignore the facts.

There are no facts.

People whose names I'd rather not mention were very mean to me in a game whose name I'd rather not mention and other people, whose names I'd rather not mention either but they totally run this mysterious game, were awfully mean to me too!

Yeah, ok, lady.

 

[daffy]

I take insults as compliments

I ate a bag of skittles that tasted like insults once

 

[Jobbs]

to be fair, as a male gamer I'm pretty sure I've also been threatened with rape and stuff like that by other gamers. I'm not trying to minimize anyone's bad experience in a video game, but -- wow, I've encountered all sorts of horrible behavior in various online games in my years playing them. I typically dismiss it as par for the course. Often when you have a competitive environment and an anonymous environment all in one, what you get is a swamp. It's not unique to any particular game and it doesn't just happen to women. They'll grab whatever they have. If you're a woman, they'll say something sexist. If for some reason they think you're black, they'll call you the N word. If they don't know anything about you they'll probably say all this stuff anyway. Welcome to video games.

 

[faceless007]

She's the source of the story.

That doesn't answer the question.

 

[GetemMa]

If she doesn't take the suggestion of calling the police seriously because of the guys anonymity and the fact he lives in another country, then she must not take the threat of being raped by him very seriously in the first place.

The rest is just the growing pains of a women fitting into what was is typically a male dominated world. Sure, she shouldn't have to put up with it. I agree. The world is a terrible terrible place.

None of this is my responsibility though. Even in the limited capacity that I do participate in voice chat in games, I will gladly tell someone to stop being an asshole but beyond that I can't do anything about what other people do and say.

 

[Kid Ska]

Yeah I'm not completely positive this article is true.

 

[Carcetti]

I have no trouble believing this based on what I've seen in my years of WoW.

 

[dose]

There are no facts.

People whose names I'd rather not mention were very mean to me in a game whose name I'd rather not mention and other people, whose names I'd rather not mention either but they totally run this mysterious game, were awfully mean to me too!

Yeah, ok, lady.

If you'd had all your personal details posted online and had rape and death threats would you be wary of giving too much information incase it happened again?
Yeh, ok, Giran, try again.

 

[Dec]

Any men in here ever get legit shook by an insult during an online game

I make liberal use of the ignore feature.

"Wow you guys suck" *ignore*. No good will come from talking to them so why even see what they say.

Inevitably someone will argue with them and it will result in insults. But I don't want to see any of it.

The worst thing to ever happen to my wife in a game was someone asking her a question and saying "Should have figured a woman wouldn't know the answer" when she said she didn't know. He ran away, she laughed about it.

Obviously, some people do have shitty stuff happen to them, I'm not implying it doesn't happen, just that I think there aren't that many assholes compared to nice people, the assholes just have a big impact.

 

[Sentenza]

Everyone wanting the name of the game is missing the point and throwing up a red herring; this is a generic example meant to stand for common and pervasive attitudes.

Also it's an English outlet and I'm no barrister but their libel law is more complicated than American.

Well, actually, when the whole point of the story is supposed to be "This shit happens for real all the time!" and what follows are some pretty unusual claims about some unbelievably bad behavior from GMs, Admins and CEOs, the story being true or fabricated makes a lot of difference.

 

[Brinbe]

Name names.

 

[akaoni]

That doesn't answer the question.

It does.

 

[jimi_dini]

If you'd had all your personal details posted online and had rape and death threats would you be wary of giving too much information incase it happened again?
Yeh, ok, Giran, try again.

too much information == any actual name at all?

 

[SirIgbyCeaser]

I was like aha, world of warcraft... until the ceo banned her. Than i'm like what studio would do this.

 

[Deleted member 13876]

Tera, Elins & Melons.

And you dont belong to the internet if some letters from a random can depress you. Quite saddening indeed, but is its an useless news anyway

Awful post.