anyone still following this?

i lost track a couple of weeks ago, but it's been steadily bleeding over into mainstream twitter and even regular mass media

how in the hell is this tempest in a teapot reflective of the on-going "culture war"?

is it just a matter of the long-awaited, full-throated 4chan v. SJW showdown? i can see how that would be significant.

need more information

@theterk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy

I read about it a few weeks ago after stumbling into it on reddit. Seems to still largely be confined to a few small portions of the web. I certainly haven't noticed it bleeding into the mainstream, wouldn't have even known it was still going on if it wasn't for this post.


But yeah, it seems like two idiotic portions of society duking it out. 4chan vs SJWs. If they could succeed in wiping each other out, we'd probably have a net societal benefit.

I'll admit that I'm relatively uninformed about GamerGate. Generally speaking, I think feminist claims about intolerance and sexism in the industry are overblown (not to say it doesn't exist at all). However, the GamerGate people sending death threats have obviously crossed waaay past the line. Unfortunately they give more credibility to the argument that sexism is a problem in video games, which is something I resent them for.

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I certainly haven't noticed it bleeding into the mainstream

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NYT and ReCode have talked about it

not headline news, but it's more than a reddit thread

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However, the GamerGate people sending death threats have obviously crossed waaay past the line.

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well that's the thing about the internet

how do you separate the GamerGate people from the want to watch the world burn 4chan troll?

why are we supposed to assume they are the same? why are we supposed to believe anything hashed out on the internet?

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However, the GamerGate people sending death threats have obviously crossed waaay past the line.

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well that's the thing about the internet

how do you separate the GamerGate people from the want to watch the world burn 4chan troll?

why are we supposed to assume they are the same? why are we supposed to believe anything hashed out on the internet?

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Because clearly all trolls live on 4chan (and in their mother's basement), and false flag operations clearly could never happen on the internet, where anonymity is already the name of the game.

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false flag operations clearly could never happen on the internet

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you want the omelet?

better break some eggs.

If you told me as a kid you could get paid good money for reviewing games and women would throw themselves at you to get good ratings...well, hopefully I'd still make the same choices.

Idiotic tribalism. This one seems to be self-fueling so it may go on for a while.

kinda feel like the standard "shut-down-the-debate" SJW tactics aren't really going to work on the 4chan crowd

they'll accept being called racist/homophobic/whatever if it allows them to point out what they view as hypocrisy. they're anonymous. wtf do they care?

and they'll counter-troll better than anyone else.

This thing is self-propagating. It's devolved into two groups of *******s trying to out ******* each other and using the other side's *******ness as proof of their points. There is no real debate and never will be.

truth

but the mainstream media outlet reactions I've read has covered it from the war on women aspect

i.e. 4chan bad, tumblr good

which is both typical and frustrating

Sounds like a bunch of obscure pseudo-intellectual and faux-political bull**** to me. Just keep giving me good games with plenty of violence, sex, drugs, etc....that's all I and most gamers give a damn about. If any significant portion of women actually played video games, this "gate" might have legs. But women will NEVER be a target demographic of video games, and the industry is ALWAYS going to be male-dominated, so it really doesn't matter.

Well of course. This has been brewing for years. There have been claims that the games media coordinates and pushes certain topics/agendas. Then the little mailing list thing gets leaked showing that. Most of the media was never going to side with people that were accusing them of something.

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Sounds like a bunch of obscure pseudo-intellectual and faux-political bull**** to me.

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that's how you coerce people in the year 2014

this whole issue seems similar to how sexist the movie industry was back in the early 20th century. Same as marketing industry.

As long as the market supports it, people will keep buying video games with damsels in distress.

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But women will NEVER be a target demographic of video games, and the industry is ALWAYS going to be male-dominated, so it really doesn't matter.

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False. The video game demographic is shifting dramatically. Maybe not in the traditional AAA titles, but the medium as a whole is shifting towards being more inclusive to women and non-traditional "h4rdcorez gamerz."

Just think about how many women you see on facebook talking about candy crush or farmville. Think about how many non-traditional gaming people bought a Wii thinking it was nothing more than just a Wii Sports platform.

And here's the biggest indicator: how many young children, girls included, play minecraft or something similar on their ipad? While the bulk of the AAA industry is still primarily geared towards the hardcore elements, the future of the industry is shifting and women will play a bigger role.

IMO: It is only a matter of time.

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But women will NEVER be a target demographic of video games, and the industry is ALWAYS going to be male-dominated, so it really doesn't matter.

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False. The video game demographic is shifting dramatically. Maybe not in the traditional AAA titles, but the medium as a whole is shifting towards being more inclusive to women and non-traditional "h4rdcorez gamerz."

Just think about how many women you see on facebook talking about candy crush or farmville. Think about how many non-traditional gaming people bought a Wii thinking it was nothing more than just a Wii Sports platform.

And here's the biggest indicator: how many young children, girls included, play minecraft or something similar on their ipad? While the bulk of the AAA industry is still primarily geared towards the hardcore elements, the future of the industry is shifting and women will play a bigger role.

IMO: It is only a matter of time.

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What's a matter of time?

People can play minecraft/candy crush while others play call of duty. What's the problem?

Candy Crush isn't as "high profile" as Call of Duty.

There is no problem. Quite the opposite. I celebrate the shift and wish it would happen faster.

I was more commenting on the statement "But women will NEVER be a target demographic of video games, and the industry is ALWAYS going to be male-dominated" is already not true. Women are marketed to and the industry, while dominated by men, won't always be that way. I tend to believe that absolute statements in any direction will eventually prove to be incorrect.


I guess my bigger thought is that as demographics shift, gamer culture is going to have to take a long hard look in the mirror if it ever wants Games to accepted by the mainstream as a story telling art form the same as movies or TV.

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Candy Crush isn't as "high profile" as Call of Duty.

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Not sure if serious

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Candy Crush Saga had over ten million downloads in December 2012 alone.[9] In July 2013, it was estimated that Candy Crush Saga at the time had about 6.7 million active users and earned revenue of $633,000 per day in the US section of the iOS App Store alone.[10] In November 2013, the game had been installed 500 million times across Facebook and iOS and Android devices.[11]
Candy Crush received particular mention in Hong Kong media, with reports that one in seven Hong Kong citizens plays the game.[12] The game is also featured in Psy's music video "Gentleman".[13] In December 2013, King entered the Japanese market with a series of television commercials in Japan, and by December 4 it had become the 23rd most downloaded game in Japan on Android devices and number 1 most downloaded from the App Store.[14]

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Candy Crush isn't as "high profile" as Call of Duty.

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Candy Crush recently overtook Angry Birds as the worlds most played game.

How is it not the most high profile game?

note the usage of quotation marks. Candy Crush doesn't have movie spin-offs, sub series (granted, there are lots of similar games that are spun off from it), nor does it have a multi-million dollar development cost that needs marketing and other economic factors to be successful.

Once the "feminine market" for gaming explodes and you can find popular franchises that empower women (not Lara Croft, because she's a victim of a male focused industry), the gaming industry will continue to be viewed as misogynistic.

I have the same view as Predmid, women in gaming is HUGE and is important for the industry to gain even more footing. I have always longed for the day that both men and women can game for hours on end and not be judged by society as being a loser.

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I was more commenting on the statement "But women will NEVER be a target demographic of video games, and the industry is ALWAYS going to be male-dominated" is already not true. Women are marketed to and the industry, while dominated by men, won't always be that way. I tend to believe that absolute statements in any direction will eventually prove to be incorrect.

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I'm not so certain of a major demographic shift in the AAA field as you. I'm sure some of the characteristics of some AAA games may keep some women away, however I don't believe it's a coincidence that the areas where women tend to be represented proportionally or even over represented in terms of player demographics are in FTP games or cheaper mobile games. Even within those areas where women spend more time, some research shows that men still tend to spend more money.

Better narratives and character creation is going to benefit gaming as a whole (including not driving away some potentially interested individuals) but I haven't seen anything to suggest to me that women will be proportionally represented in the player bases of AAA gaming.

I dunno. I guess what I'm getting at is there are two distinct forks that video games are splitting into and it would be wrong to assume that women won't play a part in a AAA title in the future:

Video games as a medium for interactive narrative delivery, meaning a story centered game with heavy mechanics as metaphor (see games like oh, I don't know.... Brothers: a Tale of two sons), and video games as a pure medium for escapism or abnegation (see: Candy Crush on one end and COD, etc. on the other).

Much like we have movies or TV shows which can be mediums for narratives about humanity or just a means of pure entertainment (serious drama vs. romantic comedy) At their core, both are "movies" or "TV shows", but they have drastically different audiences depending on the content of the movie/show.

I think that as developers refine the techniques to deliver substantial character or narrative driven stories with mechanics as metaphor, I believe that the entire concept of a "AAA game" can shift and evolve. There will be more stories that appeal to people outside the normal AAA target demographics.

We already see pure entertainment games where the primary demographic is women, I don't think it is a stretch to believe that there won't be a AAA game that targets a largely female audience in the future.

I think a lot of AAA development, as it stands currently, is focused on men simply because gameplay of AAA games are "violent" in one way or another. Men tend to be drawn to this...In other words, its easier to develop gameplay that is violent. That said, the online MMO's tend to have more women playing them due to lots of things to do in the game world...not just "poppin' skulls."

I would love to see more women developers in AAA development because of the different perspective of gameplay and story they would bring to the table. This is management 101. Things are better when there are lots of different perspectives.

Take for instance, Amy Henning. Responsible for the Legacy of Kain series and the original Uncharted. Fantastic games. Jade Raymond responsible for a large part of Assassins Creed (1 and 2 at least). We need more smart and talented women developing games. We will get better games. Period.

Developers are the ones making the games. They need to take the lead on this.

As for "gaming" culture, not even knowing what that means really, gamers should proactively admonish any behavior that seeks to limit womens involvement in games from development to player.

In regards to #gamergate. I think the entire thing is a clustereff. Journalistic integrity is a thing for sure. However, the catalyst that started the "movement" (the whole Zoe Quinn thing) is just too riddled with misogynistic under and overtones to be taken seriously. It needs to end.

I don't really know where I fall. I don't care for the social justice warriors who complain about stuff like the spider woman's ass comic, and this is coming from an unapologetic Obama voter.

But I also don't buy the #gamergate movement. I agree with Deadspin that gaming journalism has never been an especially serious endeavor, and that taking the gaming media to task over being too liberal/SJWish in the name of "ethics" while staying mum on the way in which gaming review websites are basically paid advertisements is weak.

As has been said earlier in this thread, this looks like its 4chan man children vs feminist/white knight tumblr types. Watching this would be like watching t.u. play Tceh. I'll grab some popcorn, but I'm not rooting for anybody.

I think that it boils down to this: 4chan, et. al. are showing their true colors and are being forced to look at what they've become: a hivemind of scum and villainy.

Just because someone wants to make a game that shows a different point of view does not mean that all games are going to become this medium for social commentary. Don't rage against people pouring their heart and soul into something they've created. Don't use anonymity as an excuse to ruin someone's life because they did something you don't like.

There will be different markets for both traditional AAA hack and slash war game epic RPG escapism hero games and markets for story centered games that deliver on the games as art promise. The AAA industry is too profitable to abandon completely. The next Halo,etc. will always be in development*

Don't let the *******s be *the* loudest voice of a diverse and accepting gaming culture.



* except for HL3 or HL2:E3. Those are myths.

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I think that it boils down to this: 4chan, et. al. are showing their true colors and are being forced to look at what they've become: a hivemind of scum and villainy.

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and i'll say the exact same thing about tumblr

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Don't rage against people pouring their heart and soul into something they've created.

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rage is a pretty strong word, but isn't this Anita Sarkeesians's whole bit?

I <3 Predmid, his comments are spot on! Until the market demands and says that a AAA feminist game is necessary, we can expect the same from our AAA developers. (this sounds a lot like the article I wrote for the PointsMatter crowd)

On the topic of gaming journalism, journalists are going to do whatever they can to get a story that sells subs/adclicks/whatever. If it takes a female developer cheating on her boyfriend with a gaming journalist to sell, then he might have just gotten promoted! Nothing sells better than drama.

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I dunno. I guess what I'm getting at is there are two distinct forks that video games are splitting into and it would be wrong to assume that women won't play a part in a AAA title in the future:

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They play a part but I'm not sure I buy them being proportionally represented in AAA gaming demographics like they are in mobile and FTP gaming. Different areas of gaming are going to draw in different demographic segments just by their very nature.

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Video games as a medium for interactive narrative delivery, meaning a story centered game with heavy mechanics as metaphor (see games like oh, I don't know.... Brothers: a Tale of two sons), and video games as a pure medium for escapism or abnegation (see: Candy Crush on one end and COD, etc. on the other).

Much like we have movies or TV shows which can be mediums for narratives about humanity or just a means of pure entertainment (serious drama vs. romantic comedy) At their core, both are "movies" or "TV shows", but they have drastically different audiences depending on the content of the movie/show.

I think that as developers refine the techniques to deliver substantial character or narrative driven stories with mechanics as metaphor, I believe that the entire concept of a "AAA game" can shift and evolve. There will be more stories that appeal to people outside the normal AAA target demographics.

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I agree that better writing, character creation, etc are going to improve the draw to other demographics but young men are likely to continue to be the main draw to AAA gaming. AAA publishers have to recoup money invested into the projects and young men spend more money. They are the safer bet. You'll see better writing but it's likely that young men are going to be a primary target even if they aren't the only target any longer.

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We already see pure entertainment games where the primary demographic is women, I don't think it is a stretch to believe that there won't be a AAA game that targets a largely female audience in the future.

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I do think it's a stretch at least in the near future. AAA games are games by definition that have huge budgets. They are going to target demographics that spend more money and have proven to be a safer bet.

I mostly ignored it because I'm not much of a gamer, but I'd say coverage on the PBS evening newshour is mainstream attention, in addition to the NYT etc mentioned above.

The death threats are bad enough, but they talk about stuff that strikes me as even worse than some troll making threatening noises on the net

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The idea is to basically terrorize women in the game industry. So it doesn't just stop with rape threats or death threats, which, sadly, being a woman in this field, I have been dealing with for a while now. You know, it's literally escalated to the point that I have had to get the FBI involved. I have had to get local police involved to hunt these people down.

They have targeted my financial assets of my company. You know, they have set up fake accounts to impersonate me online, with me saying just horrible, horribly discriminating things against people in an effort to destroy my professional reputation.

You know, they have actually set up burner accounts with fake, you know, stories about my life and have sent them to prominent journalists, who, frankly, just slander me behind the scenes.

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Some of this stuff is just too easy to do, and in some cases the solutions may be problematic. It reminds me of the idiots who were swatting people.

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rage is a pretty strong word, but isn't this Anita Sarkeesians's whole bit?

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Highlighting the history of video games poorly portraying women and gender seems a bit tame compared to the avalanche of hatred and direct threats pointed at her and others in the industry for just initiating a dialogue.