OS-tan Collections

No, not GamersGate, the gaming platform. GamerGate, also known as the Gaming community v mainstream game journalists and media.
Recaps courtesy of /v/.
http://git.io/ok2W1w
http://git.io/uXJgYQ
http://git.io/F74X-A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-51PfwI3M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKmy5OKg6lo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km3DZQp0StE

This is one of the bigger shitstorms I've seen erupt ever, and sadly I'm not very surprised by the background. I am, however, delighted to watch the fire burn them all to ashes.

What are your thoughts, people?

This whole thing is an embarrassment.

Zoe Quinn is, by every (non-SJ) account I've read a terrible person. She makes me embarrassed to be a(n honorary) Bostonian. She would make me embarrassed to be a woman in the computer industry if not for the fact that her behavior is atypical for women in software development, the majority of whom I know are hard-working, intelligent and wish to be judged on their skills, not what anatomy they happen to have in their pants.  Her record of nepotism, arrogance and emotional manipulation of men is astonishing, and you better damn well believe if the genders were reversed — if it'd been a male dev who manipulated women and slept his way through the game industry — every social justice warrior and a fair amount of the mainstream media would be calling for his head on a silver platter. Yet somehow this is all okay because she's a woman and if we criticize her we might bruise her delicate lady-ego? That, the attitude that women can do no wrong and must be protected at all costs, in and of itself is misogynistic.

Sexism exists in gaming, in the game industry, in the software development community and wider computer industry. As a woman tangentially involved in the latter two, I would really like seeing honest, non-hyperbolic discussions about the troubles that women face. For instance the fact that many big companies (tech companies included) avoid hiring or promoting younger women for fear that they'll become pregnant and have their career side-tracked. THAT is a big fucking problem and it makes me jitter with rage just thinking about it. THAT is a problem deserving of every bit of (feminist, humanist, equal-rights enthusiast) criticism we can collectively muster. When so-called feminists instead choose to complain about god-damned dongle jokes (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/donglegate-adria-richards) or other ridiculous "microagressions" it makes me want to break a keyboard over somebody's thick skull.

I don't fucking care if men, women or anyone else for that matter want to engaging in bawdy wordplay among themselves. I'm annoyed that "big boobs, little armor" is still a common design element for female characters in games, but I'm more offended by the lack of imagination and regurgitation of cliches than I am the sight of scantly-clad female bodies. I would like more awesome female characters in games, but it's insulting to ignore all the ones that exist already, or suggest it's a massive patriarchal conspiracy instead of it mostly being laziness and stupidity on the part of devs/companies (the "Men don't like playing female characters!" concept, thoroughly smashed by any popular game that's had a female lead, ever).

There are so many productive conversations we could be having and the fact that SJWs are clinging to minutiae while they simultaneously tarnish the image of women in the industry and set back any attempts at real and positive change is astonishing and frustrating.

Vad i jävla helvete är det som händer

Jag vet egentligen inte vad som händer här.....

could someone please explain?

Basically the rabbit hole is infinitely deep
I recommend reading the links in the op, especially the FAQ

finally got through it (took a few hours). what the ever-loving fuck is even going on here....!?

@quinn: i'm tempted to say that, should i ever see her in person, i might light her hair on fire, but i'm not even sure she's worth any form of aggressive slandering/attack. the energy is better expended elsewhere.

@lack of coverage: i get the feeling this is a backroom problem....that the owners of the sites (all of them) know each other, know the gaming devs/bigwigs and are actively trying to keep ANYTHING that doesn't net them headlines or paint them in a good (or at least attention-grabbing) spotlight under wraps for fear of ruining a good thing they've got going. pretty sure this was actively said in one of the recaps/articles i browsed.

@TFYC: much as i hate the term, kudos to them for pushing on with their feminist charity, despite the rain of arrows upon them. i'm glad that they're slowly shaking off the assaults to show that they are, despite what the SJWs would have us believe, good people actively trying to help women and the industry. i hope that, when this all comes out, they get triple the support Quinn's stupid flash game does.
on the flipside, i hope the unnamed male co-creator of Quinn's game gets all the credit he deserves.

@industry: this was exhausting and frankly i think they're all fucktards for even propagating this madness *goes back to playing PS2 games*

........I'm just gonna leave this here.

*dunks head into toilet*
*attempts to drown self*

...and people wonder why I give 0 fucks about gaming journalism :\

Even long before this happened, it got tiresome on how it felt like anything that isn't uber-mainstream like Call of Duty or Dragon Age was trashed by the critics regardless of actual quality, with only a few that break through the cracks (Minecraft and Persona 4 come to mind). I remember the controversy some 10 years ago, over Game Informer giving a bad review to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Considered by fanboys to be the Final Fantasy VII of Mario RPGs), and their response to the criticism was "we felt none of our readers were interested in this game, so we gave it a bad review" (I still have the issue with the review and the response floating around somewhere).

As for how I feel about this, the reaction of the SJWs doesn't really surprise me when you spend enough time around the busier parts of GameFAQs or lurk the comments section on gaming news sites; seeing the sort of misogynistic homophobic douchebags that populate those areas :\

that's.....pretty douchy. like, i wouldn't expect any less from gaming journalists, but ignoring their readers' comments and writing "we felt it didn't appeal to our readers" sorta shows the bad side of the "wwhateva, wwhateva, i do what i want" mentality. i'm really surprised they didn't go under after stunts like that, since were i reading a magazine about games and read enough reviews like that, i'd stop buying it. >>;

as for the SJWs, they're pretty misogynistic homophobic douchebags themselves, sooo....

Quote from: Chocofreak13 on September 06, 2014, 10:01:44 AM
as for the SJWs, they're pretty misogynistic homophobic douchebags themselves, sooo....

Agreed. Many claim to want equality for women but they also seem to simultaneously assume that women are too fragile to handle criticism and should be totally immune from reproach. It's sexist in a Victorian Era "women are the weaker sex" sorta way.

the way i see it, feminists (no matter whether they're rads or not) should use Wonder Woman as a mascot
Diana can deal with your criticism
Diana gives no shits

Quote from: Bella on September 06, 2014, 10:58:21 AM
Agreed. Many claim to want equality for women but they also seem to simultaneously assume that women are too fragile to handle criticism and should be totally immune from reproach. It's sexist in a Victorian Era "women are the weaker sex" sorta way.

I think the most obviously hilarious part about the whole thing is their kneejerk reaction to #Notyourshield, which is minorities/women posting in support of #Gamergate in order to break the moral high ground of the SJW's
It's like, they're viciously defending their position as the only ones who speak up for the "oppressed", because gods forbid the "oppressed" say anything themselves, they clearly know nothing of what they speak of

the whole "OBVIOUSLY I HAVE TO SPEAK UP FOR THAT BLACK GIRL, BLACK PEOPLE DON'T HAVE MOUTHS" may be a catalyst to help break down the myth of SJWs as "helpers" or "soldiers in service of the greater good" or some shit like that. the flimsy, transparent arguments they have in "support" of "women in the industry" are sort of dwarfed when the actual women in the industry speak up. it's like, we don't need your help, you've done enough.

this mentioned gamergate in it, and considering how accurate the rant is on what an SJW IS, i figured someone might be interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpwyEq_m0zc&list=UUWB0dvorHvkQlgfGGJR2yxQ#t=603

it's baaaa-aaaack....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/11/game-developer-death-threats_n_5970966.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046&ir=Women

People should never be doxxed and anyone who makes an online death threat is an asshole (whether they're serious or not). I feel sorry for her and her husband but I also wonder how exactly this is different from all the men who have been doxxed / received death threats online over stupid shit.

On another note...

It's a little tangential but I'd like to say that I deal with nerds on an (almost) daily basis and if they're sexist they're doing a great job of hiding it.

I've never been told by a nerd (male or female) that I can't do something because of my gender, or told that I can't make it in a STEM field, or felt judged in general because of my gender. I've heard male classmates express disappointment that there aren't more women in STEM and desire that there was more gender equality in these fields. Whether this is because of sincere interest in gender equality or a wish that there were more women they could see eye-to-eye with on their interests, I'm not sure, but I appreciate the sentiment either way.

An older guy in my math class who's studying IT has openly expressed anger that men and women are treated unequally in society and has said he can't fathom what would make anyone decide that men and women aren't intellectual equals. We have almost as many men in our women in tech club as we do women.

Granted, I've had very few run-ins with misogynists in general. A guy who was studying web design (but expressed frustration with the field and later disappeared ... hmmm...) once said some fairly dickbag things about women. I once had a fire science student try to explain to me what a CPU is - I really don't know if it was because I was a woman or he was an idiot, so who really knows in that case. Things have happened that would probably be considered sexist by tumblr-feminist types - many of my classmates (men and women) enjoy ~*problematic*~ video games, there have been sexual-innuendo-y jokes/comments (again, both genders, again, and not aimed at individuals in particular), and, you know, random ponytail-bopping, which could certainly be considered TERRIBLE MICROAGRESSION, except I interact with the person regularly and am pretty damn sure it wasn't done out of intimidation or harassment (context and all that).

Online a lot of the nerdy types I interact with seem likewise gender-egalitarian. I don't know what many of their politics / social stances are but judging from a pure "are they sexist" standpoint, I would have to say no.

Golly, it's almost like, if you (general you here) go out and interact with nerds in the real world, you see they aren't all soulless woman-hating monsters. But it's a lot easier to form sensational opinions of nerds and gamers using 4chan shitposters, redpillers and MRAs as your sample group. (Note, the same can be said of actual feminists vs. radfems and tumblr feminists, LGBTQA+ people vs. tumblr spechul snowflakes and transtrenders, regular Christian / Muslim / atheist / whathaveyou people vs. the lunatics at the fringes, etc.)

Indeed. The type of nerd that person is talking about I've only seen in the shittier parts of the internet (4chan, YouTube comments section, the parts of GameFAQs revolving around current-gen games and consoles, etc.); even when I was working at Gamestop, I never encountered one of these types. In person, the nerdy people I've met have been very respectful.

sadly, this is prone to happen with any large group of people, and what's worse is that the public judges all of us based off those crazies. remember the Aurora, CO shootings? anyone ever heard of the Otaku Murderer? years after these things have happened we're still feeling the aftershocks of these people. and the added kick in the pants is that when a random, normal person does something like this (read: Elliot Rodger, any number or killers we see on TV), they're quickly forgotten and not thought of as the "norm". people never take into account that Tsutomu Miyazaki or James Eagen Holmes AREN'T the standard for nerdy groups. (much as i hate it, The Big Bang Theory is helping to shed the idea of nerds as creepy weirdos, even if it's reinforcing stereotypes....)

getting back to GamerGate, it's not cool to throw off death threats, no matter who the person is. but after the questionable behavour of Sarkeesian and her relation to Quinn i can't help but wonder if perhaps this too is staged. (likely isn't, i'm sounding like an ass here, but still.)

The media will latch onto seemingly anything for the sake of making a story more "edgy".

It's like an old news story, about a guy that tried to commit suicide back in the late '70s...but, he just so happened to play Dungeons & Dragons, which the media latched onto and made the game out to be the cause of death (Something about he killed himself because his character died?). It's because of this that we have this made-for-TV movie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazes_and_Monsters) (Which would be reviewed years later by Spoony (http://spoonyexperiment.com/movie-reviews/mazes-monsters-2/), whom is a D&D fan), and is also the reason my mom refused to let me watch the D&D cartoon when Fox Kids began to air reruns of it circa '99 (Obviously, one of the side effects of exposure to magical rollercoasters is death).

I'd just like to point out on the D&D front, my dad played it in college (hardcore LOTR/Tolkein fan from way back that was convinced easily by 'there's dwarves in it') and went on to become a minister soooooo.

D&D is played by all kinds. one of the most hardcore catholics i ever met played a bi-monthly D&D 1.0 game with his old college buddies. it was really cool, tbh (and i still have my character made for it, lol).

playing on that point more, you'll find fans of _____ of all kinds. i know an anime fan who is also the buffest guy i know. i think he could bench something like, 300, 350?

Exactly.  My point being never pigeonhole a particular activity as exclusive property of one group.... Though I wish more people'd be interested in trying out T2K or Automated Fear or one of my other tiny niche rulesets.

or my desire to shove WW on everyone because it's so fun but no one knows that. ;^;

[cut because I accidentally hit post before I actually wrote anything and OSC doesn't allow posts to be deleted anymore]

ETA:
I'm really annoyed by this mentality. There's almost-universal agreement that the STEM fields would do better with more diversity, yet there's also a loud segment of the Internet Activist™/SJW community who seem certain that STEM is a straight white boy's club and that women/PoC/LGBT people/etc. are justified in wanting to stay away from it.

In other words: "More diversity in STEM! Stay away from STEM because it's not diverse enough! More diversity in STEM!"

Paradox much?

I know that I want my career to be some kind of STEM career.

Honestly, the lack of diversity only encourages me. If I were to make a name for myself, then many others can make a name for themselves.

Even if I don't, I'll be doing what I enjoy for a living, and that's what matters.

I don't know anything about Gamergate. I stopped watching after Stargate Atlantis started airing because it was pretty obvious the quality of the series was going downhill rapidly. ;<

/me sips some whisky and stares at the monitor for a moment before clicking the "post" button

^have fun with that.

@bells, duko: it's a barrier to be broken again, a bit like the idea of women in trade jobs back in the 40's. we stepped the fuck up to the plate, made some bomber planes, and then when the guys came home we weren't satisfied going back to just washing clothes and cooking the roast. the change was slow, but the instant upheaval made it possible for women to have jobs, PERIOD.

in terms of this, even with it being a boys' club and all, we need to push push push this further so that we (women, PoC, LGBTQIA, etc) can carve ourselves a cozy little place in this frontier, that will then settle and grow and eventually become NYC. of gaming. a big fucking city. it may be slow, but pushing onward seems to be the only option, even with the threats, firebombing, etc.

@kraus: i agree and disagree with this guy, since while i agree that there are a lot of talentless people using their gender to get ahead in this field (*coughcoughzoequinncough*), there are also people with genuine talent being ignored BECAUSE of their gender. the idea of, "you can't have a good idea, you're a woman/PoC/LGBT! how the hell would YOU know what the people want!?"
i feel like this explains it well. (http://www.shaenon.com/ladygaming.jpg)

*chimes in*

tbh I didn't know this was still "a thing". I heard about it a while back, that whole Zoe Quinn thing, researched quite a bit thoroughly to figure out the truth of it all, and then realized that this scandal is really about a million little tiny things that are hard to process in one lump, and that generally don't have much to do with her (Quinn) "anymore".

Generally it seems to boil down to "equal treatment" in multiplayer gaming, gaming journalism, buying video games at stores, and sometimes just the "equal treatment" part without games even being involved, right? That's just my understanding, so stop me if I'm wrong. This shit is confusing...

My opinion is:

First and foremost, video game reviews are shit. No matter what website/company produced them, nor what author wrote about them. It's marketing, and has never been anything but marketing. And fuck marketing.

Since that has nothing to do with it anyway, idk. I've played plenty of games where people don't even seem to notice when women/girls/whatever play, and lots of them did play and enjoyed doing it. They'd definitely say so. It just depends on the community. It's like real life.

And since it boils down to real life situations AS WELL (e.g. in my understanding, even walking into a video game store is a complaint for some women), well, I don't want to be condescending trying to explain this but I'm having a hard time coming up with something pleasant. I'll just say it from my own perspective:  I've walked into shit before where I've instantly realized that I don't want to be there, it's a bad situation for me, shit seems hostile, whatever, whatever. I just walk the fuck out. That's life. BUT:

The good thing is that there are always communities, somewhere, that people fit into. There's always a welcoming group elsewhere. Maybe it's not the local video game store for some women. If I were one of those women, I'd probably be annoyed, but tbh I'd do what I always do and just walk the fuck away and find somewhere that actually suits me. That means depriving that shitty store of your/my business, finding a different one that's actually cool, yadda yadda. Or it means playing a game with a multiplayer community that's worth a fuck. In both cases, I'd be looking for a store clerk/admin that's willing to tell random people to gtfo if they harass me.

IMO I can't find anything in the Gamergate shit I've read (that's on topic, as opposed to being focused on some random "gaming journalist(s)") that applies exclusively to women or anything of the like. It's shit men deal with too. It's just human shit.

Basically I don't understand the deal. Just my opinion for the convo. :p

tbh i've lost sight of what it was initially about, as well. there will always be sexism, regardless of field, and the only way to combat it is to keep on keeping on. :\