Video Game Journalism

You know what? I'm fine with that. Gaming "culture" and the "journalism" surrounding it's been too stagnant, too self-absorbed and too obsessed with imaginary conflict for so damn long as it is. Everyone's always whining that "gamers" need to be more open-minded and aware of the world's issues, and they really do, so guess what's going on? They're fixing house. Everyone's gotta own up to screwing up their own "culture", the speakers and the "hardcore" alike. "Gamers" are already one big giant joke to many people already, so why not actually hold themselves and the people who claim to stand for them to their self-proclaimed moral standards for once?

edited 31st Aug '14 7:47:03 PM by Raidouthe21st

maxwellelvis,

You left out the part where a bunch of current and former game journalists randomly started attacking "gamers" for being... gamers. The Zoe Quinn stuff is kind of stupid and its only relevance is as a catalyst for the bridge burning that all these media personalities are doing.

I'm all for that, what I'm voicing concern for is that this could cast a shadow over independent developers like Zoe Quinn; after this, it's possible that any other independent games that garner critical success in a short period of time, particularly ones helmed by women, could also have the same accusations/nasty jokes/rumors spread to them, regardless of whether they are warranted.

I'm not as hardcore as a lot of gamer/Tropers, but what views I have had of the gaming community over the past two weeks do not leave me inclined to side with them.

edited 31st Aug '14 7:54:25 PM by maxwellelvis

So you think its okay to attack someone for liking video games? Or to generalize gamers as "angry white guys"? Or to joke about gamers being worst than terrorists?

edited 31st Aug '14 7:59:07 PM by reconguista

There's no could about that. There's still a strongly vocal minority hell bent on women not making it big in games, and even if they're going to lose, they're going to go down swinging. This shit just gives them more ammunition.

You should read up on The Fine Young Capitalists then. They're a charity organization who wants to encourage women to join the video game industry and show people they were more than capable of coming up with great games if they just got good funding, so they held a Game Jam to raise money for it. But they got screwed over hard by people who abused their connections and other people's good faith and moral concerns, and their Game Jam burned and crashed. Yet nobody came to their aid because nearly all the evidence was hushed up instantly. And the people who were involved in screwing over the THYC were indie developers and the video game journalists who were their close friends.

That's what this whole hullabaloo is really about. That people can abuse this system that's been built up and not be held accountable, and that gamers let this kind of thing happen.

edited 31st Aug '14 8:01:59 PM by Raidouthe21st

The way I see it, if you don't see a need to read those publications except possibly for reviews, you're probably not who they're talking about.

I can tell it's coming either way, but I hope this ends in a way that lets more people see them for how ugly they truly are.

edited 31st Aug '14 8:00:55 PM by maxwellelvis

I doubt it will. U.S. culture in general, if not the First World everywhere, still maintains a double standard when it comes to affairs. Shame on men, but Slut Shame the women, period. You get the minority who fights against that, but most people either sit neutral or actively engage in it. Sooooo, considering the context and just what was levied against the journalists and Quinn, this isn't going to end on a progressive note. It's going to fuck the culture over or just fall to the wayside.

You haven't even read what these idiots have been saying.

edited 31st Aug '14 8:09:24 PM by reconguista

You want to know what I call the events that has happened over the past 2 weeks or so?

The Journo-Schism.

My only feelings towards of all this is sadness and disappointment.

edited 31st Aug '14 9:27:34 PM by Worlder

Maxwellelvis summed it up better than I ever could with this point:

Whether she did some bad things or not, I don't see what demonizing and harassing a young woman to the point of hysteria is going to do other than make the people doing that look like even bigger sexist dickheads. Especially considering how nobody at all knows the whole truth of the matter.

Most of this could've been prevented had Kotaku sooner issued a statement regarding the potential conflict of interests.

They could've nipped it in the bud, but instead they chose to do nothing until it was too late.

I don't know if you read it at all, but most of the people making a fuss about this have already been arguing against dragging any aspect of her personal life that isn't directly involved in the whole "journalism corruption" thing. Since whatever she does on her own time isn't their business or interest. Most of them are going after the journalists themselves, actually, considering that they're the ones doing their hardest to cover any discussion up and then slander their audience.

edited 31st Aug '14 10:29:32 PM by Raidouthe21st

Just because some people are saying not to do so, it doesn't mean other people are going to listen.

It started from a personal matter anyway. I don't see why people are so quick to defend a story that was merely started from a pissy ex-boyfriend maliciously venting online.

edited 31st Aug '14 10:30:19 PM by Odd1

At the end of the day, those screaming the loudest are always the pathetic dregs from mama's basement that see their sacred fortress of manchildishness crumble into oblivion. The crux lies in filtering their collective howling out of the equation.

Maybe.

I'm not sure what to believe now.

I think all everyone needs to understand is everything they know is wrong. Black is white, up is down, and short is long. Everything that they think is so important doesn't matter.

I'd say just keep reading what's out there and judge for yourself. That's all you really can do, considering how muddled people's understanding of what's going on is now, thanks to other people spreading misinformation and making exaggerations for both "sides".

edited 31st Aug '14 11:10:39 PM by Raidouthe21st

As far as I'm concerned I'm surrounded by sociopaths:

One group of sociopaths is convinced that playing the game is the route to fame and fortune.

The other group believes that keeping women and minorities out games, wwe can somehow preserve our "purity".

Personally, I hope they all kill each other.

@odd1: the ex boyfriend would disagree with you calling him pissy and malicious, considering (according to him), it was he who was emotionally abused by Zoe to the point of him leaving her, not the other way around.

did he ever give proof of that?

if not he's about as believable on that front as she is.

malicious or not though, if he's telling the truth then it doesnt matter. he's brought relevent information to light and all thats really important is if its true rather than if its a calculated attempt to ruin her career. thats a separate issue.

Well, if that's the case that he was being abused, he should've gone to the police and then sought therapy. Not sure what this accomplishes with regards to helping him overcome that.

thing is, it's still a stigma for men to confess being abused without being laughed at in modern society.

@Odd1: If you're going to quote one of his songs, you might as well come out and say it.

I think part of it is that gaming itself has its own generation gap that's developed. The early gamers (like me) who got started back in the 80s, are ones I'm sure would want gaming to be as inclusive as possible. We come from a time when gaming was really a niche hobby (which it isn't today, despite what some people here have claimed). And I believe most of us would love for gaming to be as inclusive as possible. The more, the merrier.

The majority of complaints, I would say, come from the people who discovered gaming in the late 90s and early 2000s. This was the time period when gaming was at a moderate level of popularity. Common enough that you could probably find someone who shared the hobby, but still not fully mainstream yet. (Why yes, there's an element of Hipster at work here.) These people were more content with the state of gaming then, and more resistant to change.

Secondly, this was the time period in which video games were under the greatest external attack, from figures like Jack Thompson and other people in the wake of Columbine. Compare that to the more recent Slenderman-related stabbing of a little girl, and the majority of media was like "meh, whatever". (There was still an outcry, but it was very much muted in comparison.) If you came into gaming at that time, you'd get the definite impression that there were outside forces trying to destroy your hobby...because at that time, there were.

To top this off, "gaming journalism" had a lot more clout back then (quite possibly the peak of that). Without the internet being quite as important or widespread as it was now, and the levels of popularity, game magazines and conventions were the only ways game developers could get word about new games out. That kind of codependency allowed people reporting on games to be a bit more honest about the subject, since it wasn't just their job on the line. Today, that relationship is much more one-sided. A game company can release a game, and advertise the heck out of it without even coming near a game magazine or website.

I'm not sure how to fix this problem, but at least I'm fairly certain I know what the problem is. That's a start, I guess.

Oh, and I suppose that makes ruining her life like this better, then?