5 ms·

Does anyone remember "gamergate"? Hear me out, but I don't thing we have really come to terms with the fallout yet. The industry was legitimately overrun with

Does anyone remember "gamergate"? Hear me out, but I don't thing we have really come to terms with the fallout yet. The industry was legitimately overrun with nepotism and disclosure problems. They benefited from a toxic and obsessive audience for years. Then their audience turned on them (for a mix of legitimate and illegitimate reasons), but the industry players were the ones who held the microphone. They got to define the story as they saw it - and absolved themselves of any wrongdoing. And now that toxic ball of highly-technical male youths have grown into a political entity that has too much time on their hands and distrusts media and victim narratives as a rule.

beyond_based 4y ago
Better yet, most of us don’t even need to read the Early Life section to figure out who is behind things.
LightHugger 4y ago
[flagged]
- acdha 4y ago
  No, just no. It was about the world’s worst ex-boyfriend riling up a hate mob. The “ethics in journalism” pretext was adopted to deflect criticism but it was always a shameful disservice to anyone who legitimately cared about the issue. Among other things, note how the hate was focused on a few women who were not journalists and how frequently the attackers denied that harassment was even happening: if their concern was journalistic ethics, they’d have focused on actual journalists and been quick to condemn the attackers who were making their cause look bad. If you wanted to tackle the issues of reviewers being too friendly with the producers, you’d be looking at the major studios who produce most of the games - not an indie developer and someone who never reviewed her game.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    All I know is, if the pitchforks and torches mob went after the gaming press for some indie title instead of decades of bending backwards for EA and the the rest of the AAA’s, it sounds like a pretty crummy misprioritized mob.
    - acdha 4y ago
      Exactly - it’s like finding some guy on the street corner ranting about executive compensation versus worker pay and then learn that he’s talking about the local coffee shop whose owner takes home $80k rather than, say, the Walmart down the road.
      - antifa 4y ago
        To make things worse, it wasn't even "80k". Depression Quest was a free game.
        acdha 4y ago
        Definitely - I was just trying to capture the staggering difference in scale where it affects one person in a tiny corner of the industry.
  - plaguepilled 4y ago
    Agreed that the hate campaign against indie devs was harassment and uncalled for, and agreed that the movement was largely trash, but you're skimming over a few details that I think are relevant. A minority of the voices there were criticisms being levelled against Kotaku and IGN across the whole affair, as well as the whole on-site review fiasco. However I tend to refer to that as "pre-gamergate" since this was out there before the Brianna Wu stuff iirc. Also the responsibility to do good journalism lies with the journalist and their publication, not the game company (the game company cannot objectively cover their own game anyhow). That was a mistake the gamergaters made a lot, and further damaged their credibility.
    - acdha 4y ago
      > Also the responsibility to do good journalism lies with the journalist and their publication, not the game company (the game company cannot objectively cover their own game anyhow). That was a mistake the gamergaters made a lot, and further damaged their credibility. There’s definitely room to blame both - just as it’s wrong to offer a bribe even if it’s not accepted - but I think it was quite telling how the mob just wasn’t interested in that. There’s probably an interesting story about power gradients and how large companies can manipulate reviews to their advantage by withholding access - similar to how the car review industry works - but it just wasn’t what people were there for.
    - LightHugger 4y ago
      Objectively the overwhelming majority was not "trash". However, the public at large involved in inventing that label, including you, are trash for categorizing a huge group of people that way without checking if it was true. Luckily, i checked.
      - plaguepilled 4y ago
        >However, the public at large involved in inventing that label, including you, are trash for categorizing a huge group of people that way without checking if it was true I watched the whole thing happen, on social media - what do you mean "without checking"? I didn't come into this late like you say you did. If you're implying the ethics violations was the centre focus, then that's not true at all once the focus shifted. Everything related to Brianna Wu and related parties was completely out of pocket from the gamergaters. >Luckily, i checked. How? You're asserting I'm stating a falsehood and that you confirmed its a falsehood, but you provide no citations or links. That's shoddy journalism. ;)
  - LightHugger 4y ago
    That is incorrect and it is obvious you never actually bothered to look at the places you're making things up about. You and/or the articles the read those things from are straight up lies, and it's impossible for you to convince me otherwise because i was there, saw what was being discussed and written day in and day out constantly being completely contradicted by journalists straight up lying to cover their jobs. You read the articles, didn't check, and got taken for a ride.
    - acdha 4y ago
      I also saw it unfold and used that as the basis for my post. I’m not surely what meaning you hope to derive from continuing to pretend that story is true but I hope you find some greater meaning in life than defending an old lie.
      - LightHugger 4y ago
        I can say the exact same to you since you're just outright lying.
bena 4y ago
"Gamergate" was the finest example of the worst people you know actually having a point. Or maybe the worst people glommed onto it because it was a way to shit on the people they like shitting on. But their targets were also just ultimately, not worth it. They were mediocre people putting out mediocre product that would have gotten consigned to the dustbin of humanity had they been left alone. It was just a bunch of mediocre shitheads not able to accept the reality that they were mediocre shitheads. Not to mention, after a while, after finding out more about everything in general, the real irony is that just about every industry is overrun with nepotism and disclosure problems. Like what went on with regards to kickoff Gamergate was relatively tame compared to just the past month vis a vis FTX/Alameda.
- legitster 4y ago
  I think another thing to keep in mind was that, at the time, the only people making money to play video games were basically industry reporters and reviewers. So these were glamorous and desirably positions, and they played gatekeeper. We take for granted that "professional streamer" is now a thing. The content creator industry is a little less centralized, and that took pressure away.

beyond_based 4y ago

Better yet, most of us don’t even need to read the Early Life section to figure out who is behind things.

LightHugger 4y ago

[flagged]

acdha 4y ago
No, just no. It was about the world’s worst ex-boyfriend riling up a hate mob. The “ethics in journalism” pretext was adopted to deflect criticism but it was always a shameful disservice to anyone who legitimately cared about the issue. Among other things, note how the hate was focused on a few women who were not journalists and how frequently the attackers denied that harassment was even happening: if their concern was journalistic ethics, they’d have focused on actual journalists and been quick to condemn the attackers who were making their cause look bad. If you wanted to tackle the issues of reviewers being too friendly with the producers, you’d be looking at the major studios who produce most of the games - not an indie developer and someone who never reviewed her game.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  All I know is, if the pitchforks and torches mob went after the gaming press for some indie title instead of decades of bending backwards for EA and the the rest of the AAA’s, it sounds like a pretty crummy misprioritized mob.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Exactly - it’s like finding some guy on the street corner ranting about executive compensation versus worker pay and then learn that he’s talking about the local coffee shop whose owner takes home $80k rather than, say, the Walmart down the road.
    - antifa 4y ago
      To make things worse, it wasn't even "80k". Depression Quest was a free game.
      - acdha 4y ago
        Definitely - I was just trying to capture the staggering difference in scale where it affects one person in a tiny corner of the industry.
- plaguepilled 4y ago
  Agreed that the hate campaign against indie devs was harassment and uncalled for, and agreed that the movement was largely trash, but you're skimming over a few details that I think are relevant. A minority of the voices there were criticisms being levelled against Kotaku and IGN across the whole affair, as well as the whole on-site review fiasco. However I tend to refer to that as "pre-gamergate" since this was out there before the Brianna Wu stuff iirc. Also the responsibility to do good journalism lies with the journalist and their publication, not the game company (the game company cannot objectively cover their own game anyhow). That was a mistake the gamergaters made a lot, and further damaged their credibility.
  - acdha 4y ago
    > Also the responsibility to do good journalism lies with the journalist and their publication, not the game company (the game company cannot objectively cover their own game anyhow). That was a mistake the gamergaters made a lot, and further damaged their credibility. There’s definitely room to blame both - just as it’s wrong to offer a bribe even if it’s not accepted - but I think it was quite telling how the mob just wasn’t interested in that. There’s probably an interesting story about power gradients and how large companies can manipulate reviews to their advantage by withholding access - similar to how the car review industry works - but it just wasn’t what people were there for.
  - LightHugger 4y ago
    Objectively the overwhelming majority was not "trash". However, the public at large involved in inventing that label, including you, are trash for categorizing a huge group of people that way without checking if it was true. Luckily, i checked.
    - plaguepilled 4y ago
      >However, the public at large involved in inventing that label, including you, are trash for categorizing a huge group of people that way without checking if it was true I watched the whole thing happen, on social media - what do you mean "without checking"? I didn't come into this late like you say you did. If you're implying the ethics violations was the centre focus, then that's not true at all once the focus shifted. Everything related to Brianna Wu and related parties was completely out of pocket from the gamergaters. >Luckily, i checked. How? You're asserting I'm stating a falsehood and that you confirmed its a falsehood, but you provide no citations or links. That's shoddy journalism. ;)
- LightHugger 4y ago
  That is incorrect and it is obvious you never actually bothered to look at the places you're making things up about. You and/or the articles the read those things from are straight up lies, and it's impossible for you to convince me otherwise because i was there, saw what was being discussed and written day in and day out constantly being completely contradicted by journalists straight up lying to cover their jobs. You read the articles, didn't check, and got taken for a ride.
  - acdha 4y ago
    I also saw it unfold and used that as the basis for my post. I’m not surely what meaning you hope to derive from continuing to pretend that story is true but I hope you find some greater meaning in life than defending an old lie.
    - LightHugger 4y ago
      I can say the exact same to you since you're just outright lying.

bena 4y ago

"Gamergate" was the finest example of the worst people you know actually having a point. Or maybe the worst people glommed onto it because it was a way to shit on the people they like shitting on. But their targets were also just ultimately, not worth it. They were mediocre people putting out mediocre product that would have gotten consigned to the dustbin of humanity had they been left alone. It was just a bunch of mediocre shitheads not able to accept the reality that they were mediocre shitheads. Not to mention, after a while, after finding out more about everything in general, the real irony is that just about every industry is overrun with nepotism and disclosure problems. Like what went on with regards to kickoff Gamergate was relatively tame compared to just the past month vis a vis FTX/Alameda.

legitster 4y ago
I think another thing to keep in mind was that, at the time, the only people making money to play video games were basically industry reporters and reviewers. So these were glamorous and desirably positions, and they played gatekeeper. We take for granted that "professional streamer" is now a thing. The content creator industry is a little less centralized, and that took pressure away.