It's this thing on the Internet.

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@Secret_Tunnel I dunno, I think the most important takeaway from this is that we have a group in our industry who tried to lie to a charity to be able to use it in their petty battle, got caught and the charity backed out, at which point they then attacked the charity with harassment, death threats and, it appears, DDOS attacks. And then many tried to blame it on their opposition as a "false flag".

There is just literally no reason at this point to keep thinking there is some way to salvage GamerGate or that anyone should even be trying. I honestly think the "let's sit down and discuss things rationally with them" view is damaging because it legitimizes something that should not be legitimized. You don't get a seat at the adult table until you can show that you deserve it. Gamergate needs to be called out as the terrible thing that it is, constantly. And by more powerful voices in the industry, not just the media and indie devs. Make it clear that the industry won't negotiate with this kind of nonsense.

At least Blizzard kind of sort of called them out.

@Zero

David Jaffe called them out at the PlayStation experience and then elaborated on Twitter that he doesn't even acknowledge Gamergate as a thing because of their lack of organization... I pretty much agree, at this point it's just a lot of people using it as an excuse to do terrible things. Anyone who still wants to make a change from it needs to quit deluding themselves and back out.

Also, this tweet made me happy:

Had a Gamergater walk up to me today and chatted for 20 minutes or so. Love that he did that, got to explain a lot with more nuance.

— Rami Ismail (@tha_rami) December 8, 2014

I'm not saying everyone should never speak to anyone who is a part of gamergate, just that as a movement or "consumer revolt" or whatever they want to call it, it comes from a disingenuous place, has done a ton of harm and should not be given any real weight in serious conversations about the industry other than why things like this need to be opposed.

With that said I have a lot of respect for anyone trying to seriously engage individuals instead of just insulting them. I've tried, over and over and over to have real discussions with individuals. It rarely leads to anything even remotely productive. And to be frank, I don't have much patience for them anymore.

I had one guy telling me yesterday that gamergate can't, by definition, be connected to harassment of AbleGamers because anyone who harasses people is automatically kicked out. Even if that did make sense, which it doesn't (in part because who has authority to kick someone out of a thing that has no leaders or ability to come to a consensus on anything?), it still misses the point and tries to escape responsibility on a weird technicality. I was then speaking with another guy for like 30 minutes or so, he seemed pretty level-headed and willing to discuss things on real terms... until the Ablegamers thing came up, where his response basically came down to "If you actually think any of the harassment is coming from gamergate, you're clearly not paying attention." So yeah, he was another "false flag" guy, but I wasted a half hour of my time thinking he was willing to discuss things seriously before finding that out.

Blah.

I think most ideological groups are that way... which is why I tend not to ascribe to them.

"Jesus wouldn't have hated gay people, anyone who opposes gay marriage isn't a real Christian."

"Those people on Tumblr who literally want to kill all men aren't real feminists, don't pay attention to them. Did you know you actually already are a feminist?"

You do realize that the "kill all men" thing is the opposite of literal, right? I mean, I'm not sure it was a wise idea, but it's definitely not meant to be a literal thing.

@Secret_Tunnel

I think there's a flaw in your example, though, because I think it IS safe to say real feminists don't want to kill all men. Anyone who wants to kill all men should rightly be classified under "Genocidal Maniac".

No no, I'm sure the fact that the tweet featured in the video used to demonstrate the new, streamlined reporting system on twitter happened to involve a picture of an alligator is pure coincidence.

So now after a few more suspensions and unsuspensions @roguestargamez has had his account permanently shut down.

He is now operating from his @fleet_comm account which, as I pointed out on twitter, is something he said he wouldn't do.

Fleet Comm for those who don't know is his game project which had a kickstarter 2 yesrs ago and hasn't been seen from since. I'm sure his backers are thrilled about him misusing the official account for the game they funded for #gamergate stuff.

So recently some of the extreme elements of #gamergate apparently got all snug with 8-chan's doxxing board. Now there has been a surge of anti-gamergate people getting swatted.

Of course #gamergate denies any connection.

I'm trying to avoid continuing to think or talk about this whole mess but man, this was hilarious. That same pandering journo who dissed gamers just days before becoming their best friends over Gamergate is now taking pandering to a whole new level... provided you are a PC gamer and hate consoles or something.


I feel like he is using language that some gamers might use, but has no idea what he is actually saying or whether it actually makes any sense or not.

He's joking though, right? "Console fags pay more tax"?

Depends what you mean by joking? Obviously he isn't literally trying to create a new state. But he has been pandering to what he perceives is the core of gamers that is being attacked by evil feminist outsiders and somewhere along the last few weeks he decided that this mostly means PC gamers.

The hilarious part to me though is just how obviously pandering the whole thing is. 5 months ago this guy knew nothing about gamers other than they were an easy target for his Neocon nonsense. But he saw his opportunity with Gamergate and dove in. And here we are 5 months later with someone still clueless about video games trying to talk about console wars he clearly doesn't understand just to appeal to his new following.

Ug. Pathetic.

Well, while this thread is on the front page, might as well post that there's a Law & Order SVU episode inspired by GG airing soon.

@Zero

It's funny... I have no idea who that guy is or what his history is with Gamergate, but when I saw the photo earlier and read his comments, I literally thought, "That guy looks he's just trying to seize an opportunity to get famous". I mean, just look at him. Even the bad grammar/punctuation looks like a style choice.

Interesting that that's your take after learning more of his history.

@kriswright Oh that was obvious from a few minutes of looking into his history on day one. He is a hardcore conservative journalist with a history of ridiculing games / gamers (including the article I just linked above that he posted just days before the Gamergate thing happened in which he claims video games played a part in the Elliot Rodger shooting and refers to gamers as "beta males" and "weirdos in yellowing underpants") who miraculously had a change of heart once he realized that a lot of gamers also hate feminists as much as he does.

I say it was obvious, but then again he has a massive following of angry gamers now so...

@Zero

It sorta puts post-paid to the notion that this whole Gamergate/5 Guys hullabaloo is basically just another front in the tiresome left/right political horseshit war. Ho-hum. Once again, shrill politics ruins everything.

Don't say that in front of Gamergaters. First they will insist it has nothing to do with politics, just ethics, and that they are all mostly liberals. (Just the kind of liberals who think feminist / SJWs are the worst people ever, racism and sexism are made up things, and super right-wing news sources are the only ones you can trust, apparently.) Then they will post this chart to "prove" it.


I took the same test, BTW. It was highly flawed. The way the questions are worded, you sort of have to be a huge asshole to not get left libertarian. Which is what I got, despite the fact that I'm the exact opposite of a libertarian (for instance I heavily support massive redistributions of wealth. I'm basically a socialist, is what I constantly get told by people.)

Actually though, absolutely no one is surprised that they are mostly Libertarians. Explains the whole not believing racism and sexism exist thing, among others.

@Zero

That's hilarious, just on the face of it. Western cultures are overwhelmingly left/liberal if the scale is broad enough to include outright Authoritarianism. That's not what people in America mean when they talk about left and right, though.

Anyway, the phrase Libertarian is becoming more and more meaningless to me. It's always been a magnet for people looking for a third way in politics and it doesn't surprise me that it has attracted this mob of angry intellectual conservatives who want to believe they aren't bought and paid for by the Republican Party. It used to be the word Independent that was fetishized this way.

I'm just going to leave this here: