It's this thing on the Internet.

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@Zero
This is textbook behaviour for groups within any given establishment trying to protect their privileges. I know I bring this up an awful lot, and I don't want people to think I equate the two movements with each other, but the behaviour is pretty much identical to what the European fascists are doing these days.

This is a third example of the same type of phenomenon, as illustrated by Jon Stewart.

Jon Stewart said:

I have to say, as someone who is not a Christian, it’s hard for me to believe Christians are a persecuted people in America. God willing, maybe one of you one day will even rise up and get to be president of this country — or maybe forty-four in a row. But that’s my point, is they’ve taken this idea of no establishment as persecution, because they feel entitled, not to equal status, but to greater status.

Last sentence is right on the money, I'd say.

@Jargon Yeah your brother seems to have some nuance. But he also seems to (rightly) call gamergate out for its issues with women, which will make most of these people throw him onto the BIASED MEDIAZ side. Even though, as at least one accurately pointed out, he isn't actually part of the media. But then I think that same person just suggested that your brother was fed this version by the media.

That seems to be the one underlying theme there, that anyone who disagrees with them must have been fed with false information. I got that growing up from a certain family member when I started rejecting Catholicism too. Some people just can't understand that someone else might look at the same "facts" and come to a different conclusion than they did.

Or in the case of gamergate, maybe give different things different priorities? Because it seems like many who relate to gamergate will begrudgingly admit there is harassment coming from it, they just sort of minimize it and act like it isn't the point. I think a lot of them honestly don't understand why WOMEN CONSTANTLY DRIVEN FROM THEIR HOMES IN FEAR OVER VIDEO GAMES is the biggest news story to come out of this.

@r_hjort Oh yeah, I know about that. Grew up in a Catholic home with a mom who has decided (or maybe more accurate is has been told by all of her newsletters) that Catholics are the most oppressed group in America. It's just so obviously not true, but that is how some feel.

I actually saw, no joke, a gamergate guy seriously post that gamers are the most discriminated against group in America. What planet are these people on?!

Andddddddddd due to all of this Gamergate stuff Anita Sarkeesian is on Colbert tonight.


The greatest irony of the Anita haters, and I don't mean everyone who disagrees with her but the mass of truly vile ones who instantly started harassing her from day one, participated in the threats and attacks, etc. is they have basically turned her into a national figure now.

@Zero

Interesting. I'll be sure to catch that episode.

Also, there's this Polygon article that Image & Form retweeted...

Swedish devs speak out against GamerGate and harassment: It 'has to go away'

@Zero

I told this to my roommate and he asked me what GamerGate was. Ignorance is bliss...

@Zero

Sort of like a twisted Striesand effect. That's kind of funny.

Oh man this made me laugh so hard.


"They're going to take all of the boobies and butts out of our video games. Gamers are now officially the most oppressed group of people on the planet."

@Zero

Oh man, a Downfall parody. I'm suprised it took this long to appear.

I'll have to check it out when I get home.

@Zero

Have they started the boycott calls yet?

@Jargon Probably? They are really inconsistent with boycotts though. Like, some wanted to boycott Joss Whedon for all of his anti-gamergate comments but then Avengers 2 you know... can't miss that... so a bunch decided that it wouldn't be fair to harm the OTHER people who worked on Avengers 2. But somehow that doesn't apply to the many places they have boycotted already because of one person.

I know a TON of them were spamming Colbert to tell him that Anita supported CancelColbert. Which, as far as I can tell, was based on a single Tweet she made including the hashtag that wasn't really speaking for or against him, just pointing out how much backlash women get for speaking up online (creator of the CancelCobert tag was a woman who received a ton of hate for making it.)

SO SHE TOTALLY HATES COLBERT WHY DID HE LET HER ON THE SHOW?!!?!?!

BTW if you watch that Colbert segment try to guess what the gamergaters are making a huge ass deal out of, in fact even started a Twitter tag over.

Give up?

OMG SHE CAN'T NAME THREE GAMES NOT A TRUE GAMERRRRRRRRR.

I mean, it totally ignores the context and why she answered as she did, but hey, who needs context?

The laugh over the whole "gamer lifestyle" thing is my favorite part of that video... if I've come to any conclusion over all of this, it's that I don't ever want to be labeled as a "gamer," and I think that finding a need to cling onto the term and claim it as a "lifestyle" or some part of who you are as an individual is pretty damn juvenile and, quite frankly, pathetic into adulthood. I love and play videogames just as I love and watch films, but people who partake in the latter activity don't seem to feel the necessity of defining their existence around it. Filmmakers of all walks of life make the films that they want to make, at the budgets that they are able to make them at, for the demographic that is willing to pay for and watch the film. Objectification of the genders exists in the medium just as heavily as it does in many popular videogames, and people can decide with their wallets whether or not they are okay with that or avoid the flicks for something they find to be more tasteful. Videogames should be the same.

Just watched the Anita segment on Colbert. I feel that she didn't do a very good job about saying anything very useful. I still don't have a better understanding of #gamergate, her stance on it, or what can be done to better the world.

Then for Colbert to cover the Canada shooting, makes #gamergate seem even more insignificant.

I'm all about proper ethics in gaming journalism and of course way more about the proper treatment and representation of women. I'd much rather listen to the women in Andrew's article than Anita at this point.

Still, I appreciate Colbert for covering it.

I don't think Colbert is really the best place to try to explain anything in depth. She has some other appearances where she says more substantial stuff.

But really no short news clip is the place to learn about this giant quagmire.

@Zero

Fair point but I've seen many Colbert episodes where people were able to at least make a clear point even if they didn't go in-depth. She sounded like a broken record to me.

CPA Wei said:

#Gamergate's supposed message isn't a bad one, and some of the changes to transparency policies from websites is not bad at all. However, it's becoming harder to argue that that is what Gamergate it about.

For example when Polygon.com posted their Bayonetta 2 review, #Gamergate pretty much went on a riot asking Nintendo to boycott Polygon and pull any and all ad support from them. I'm sorry, isn't using monetary pressure so that websites provide favoritism what #Gamergate is should be against? Now we have people using that banner to promote a company to actively hurt a company unless they give a favorable review?

Then we have the whole Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor issue. I mean this just seems rife for the people under #Gamergate to hold up the banners right? Fight the good fight because now we have a publisher purposely giving out early review codes for the game only if no negativity is said about the game and the videos are submitted for approval first. I mean this is what #Gamergate is supposed to be fighting against. This is about ethics in video game journalism? Nope... barely a blip on #Gamergate's radar. I understand that this was primarily for twitch people and youtubers, and not traditional media outlets. But to say they aren't traditional journalists is just dodging it since they also hold influence themselves. Remember at one point blogs like Kotaku were not traditional journalism either. Sorry, too busy rallying against Anita because she's a true threat to journalism ethics.

Been distracted, but came across the following, where the Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor issue is addressed by the guy who apparently exposed it:

http://blueplz.blogspot.nl/2014/10/saloncom-knows-nothing-about-gaming-and.html?m=1

[url=http://blueplz.blogspot.nl/2014/10/saloncom-knows-nothing-about-gaming-and.html?m=1][/url]

I really wish I was smart enough to figure out how to link here. . .

@EagleC83 I dunno. His big point seems to be that Mordor doesn't count because technically Youtubers are not journalists... but my retort would be why are we excluding Youtubers from ethics in games journalism when they essentially fill the role of game journalists nowadays (and in many cases have equal or larger reach?) I'd also ask why we have drawn a box around "ethics in games journalism" instead of just talking about ethics in the game industry, period. Some of these questions answer themselves when you start to get into the true motivations of the core of gamergate.

Which, really, has been one of my big issues with this gamergate mess from the start, that almost no one on either "side" really talks about, which is that gamergate wants an understanding of ethics that lets them talk about "ethics in games journalism" without any kind of broader ethical conversation surrounding it. So from their perspective they can openly support bigots who are using gamergate to push their bigotry like Milo or Aurini, but then they can say "Yeah they say and do all of these horrible things, but when it comes to ethics in games journalism, they are nailing it!" (They aren't, but that's a whole other issue.) Somehow it isn't an ethical issue to give a platform to straight up bigots because uh... it's not technically ethics in games journalism? Sorry, ethics doesn't work that way.

Actually, they used this logic a lot when Milo's articles on game stuff were called out for being sloppy, incomplete, biased hack pieces, because yeah, he is a journalist writing about games but he isn't technically a "game journalist" so why are we even talking about him?! Except now that the rest of the mainstream media has jumped on this story, that argument has kind of faded, because otherwise they would need to give Salon, etc. the same free pass for not being game journalists, and we know that won't happen.

Gamergate is pretty much constantly shifting, not very well defined goalposts.

Then he also seems to insist that gamergate made an issue out of Mordor anyway. Well... except no, I've been following gamergate channels from the start, and they really didn't. Yes, there were some threads about it on KIA, some posts on the Twitter, but they didn't really pay even a fraction of attention to this as they do every little psuedo-controversy that gets pushed or comment Anita or Zoe or Brianna or Mattie etc. make, despite repeatedly claiming it isn't about those women. And I've mostly seen people get called "trolls" trying to "deflect from what matters" when they bring stuff like the Morder deal up anyway. Gamergate really doesn't want to lose their very narrow focus here.

Which I could maybe still get behind if their focus wasn't just clearly a blind for attacking prominent "SJWs" in the industry. Literally the only thing holding together all of their wild and varied campaigns (many of which have nothing to do with game journalism, like going after academic writers or Comcept's community manager) is that they all single out "SJWs" to be attacked.

I will agree on one thing though, Salon knows nothing about gaming. Anyone going to Salon for a nuanced look at something happening in the game industry is going to the wrong, wrong place.

From my read, his biggest point is that it isn't something that gamergate should have made into a bigger issue because Youtubers, such as himself did their "jobs like we were supposed to, abided by ethical standards, called out a shady deal that frankly was hurting traditional games press far more than it was Youtubers and got the contract terms changed to make sure it doesn't happen again." In other words, while it wasn't ignored, it wasn't made a bigger issue because it was resolved properly. He also makes the point that "Youtubers are bound by FTC regulations to disclose sponsored content and they do." And when they don't, he explains that they get called out and/or lose their audiences if they are seen as being paid shills.

I don't know who Aurini is, but I've read a few things by Milo (certainly nothing exhaustive). From the little I've read, I've seen that his rhetoric can come off as inflammatory, but what has he said that makes him a "straight up bigot?" I'm not saying there's nothing out there, I'm just not aware of it and that's a strong charge to level (if his bigotry has already been detailed earlier in the thread and I missed it, I apologize for retreading).

But obviously only some Youtubers did that, while others bought into it fully. And no, it hasn't been resolved, it's really just the most blatant recent offender in a trend that has been going on for awhile now. Also pointing out that regulations exist doesn't really mean much in the context of gamergate, where actual journo sites have way more regulations than Youtubers do.

If you want some examples of Milo's bigotry, check out his other articles on Breitbart. Just within the first few pages (recent first) I found an article suggesting that blacks probably commit crime more due to a crime gene, that women are "just not as good as men" at tech to justify not hiring more women in tech, an article about how the West should ban the burka, another article about how Milo is apparently worried his freaking cleaning staff are going to plant bombs in his apartment solely due to them being Middle Eastern, an article where he calls transsexuality a um... forget the term he used, but basically implying it was a mental disease, etc. Oh, and not exactly bigotry but a few articles bashing gamers in pretty severe terms, one written literally days before the Zoe thing hit where he trashes gamers and suggests violent games played a part in Elliot Rodger's killings.

And you probably don't want to know who Aurini is, but he is one half of the duo making the anti-Anita video and also, not surprisingly, a huge racist / sexist / etc. And I don't mean anything vague like "he supports the status quo in gaming", I mean he is a "race realist" and "gender realist" who has made several videos that bash blacks and women. The one I can remember offhand was "Modern women are the most decadent sluts..." and no, it doesn't get better after that.

So basically my broader point here is that I can't take seriously any "ethics movement" that supports people like these guys. It doesn't matter what weird "we only support their views on video game ethics" logic that they try applying, they are giving a large platform to huge bigots. I read somewhere that Milo gained over 10,000 new Twitter followers from gamergate, so now he has over 10,000 more people to push his bigotry on.

Ethics!