So, we have a bunch of 2nd rate journalists all covering the same story on the same day. What was this story about? Lets be neutral here; it was possible to interpret this story as one of journalistic integrity or misogyny. Every one of these articles took the misogyny angle. All of them using the same talking points and the same narrative. Well, call me skeptical that this was coincidence.
You shall have to give me more details on the claim that these allegations are false. I have already dealt with the allegation of journalist collusion. An allegation which I was given assurances were false. Yet, it turns out no such assurances could be backed up. All I recieved was a shrug of an internet shoulder by a journalist who asked me to trust his fellow journalists.
Clearly you haven’t dealt with it satisfactorily. How do you divine between articles borne out of collusion and articles that are on the same topic because that topic is on the public’s mind at the time?
But women are treated like shit regularly by the gaming community. Any online player knows that. The situation is better at conventions like PAX (which I have found nothing but inviting to the female friends I go with), but the game store shouldn’t be a freaky place full of guys ready to ask women to “prove” their gaming bonafides.
Uh, because the story was a female developer being harassed by an internet gang ginned up by her ex-boyfriend? If the concern was journalistic ethics why were the attacks directed at Quinn and not the journalist?
As for why all these stories at once? Twitter. There’s a constant conversation about the industry happening behind the scenes 24/7. Things bubble up into the press out of this conversation, and if a lot of people are talking about the same thing, it’s likely a lot of articles will get written about it.
That’s one of the things that most bemuses me about this whole issue. I remember when there were legitimate concerns about the quality of game journalism and the relationship between reviewers and publishers. But this was back in the '90s, when, if you wanted to read a game review, you had to go to the newsstand and buy a magazine. Mags like PCGamer and Computer Gaming World relied pretty much 100% on advertising revenue for their business model, and they were advertising exactly the products they were reviewing. This sort of conflict of interest made all of their reviews somewhat suspect, and there were some legitimate scandals that came out of that.
I don’t really think this is too much of an issue any more, what with the huge proliferation of review sites, and the removal of virtually all the traditional barriers to publishing thanks to the rise of blogs and personal websites and the like. Arguably, it’s still a problem with the bigger review sites (Hence IGN’s 7-10 point rating system), but there are so many alternatives out there, it’s hard to get upset about it.
The other reason I don’t get too upset about this stuff any more is that news media in general has become so bad in recent years, getting upset about game journalism is kind of silly. The absolute worst thing that could happen because of poor game journalism is I spend fifty bucks or so on a shit game. Meanwhile, “legitimate” news outlets are deliberately lying about health care, climate change, international politics, and a host of other shit that could actually kill me if we don’t handle it correctly.
If we can fix FOX and CNN, then we can worry about IGN.
There were nine hundred and fifty posts to this thread before you showed up. Did you read any of them?
Okay, let’s say you’re right. The fact that all those articles were published on the same day was a direct result of those six game journalists getting together somewhere (presumably wearing black robes under a full moon) and agreeing that they were all going to write stories about “gamer culture” being dead.
So what? Why should I care? Who is harmed in this scenario? Who is profiting unjustly? I mean, if this is the worst excess of journalistic impropriety you can come up with, gaming journalism would seem to be in pretty fucking good shape. Particularly, as I mentioned above, when compared to mainstream journalism in general.
There is no rational, objective basis to character this as a story about journalistic integrity. Zero. That “angle” is nothing more than window dressing for a harassment campaign.
Yes, because that’s the factual angle.
This is nothing more than CT nonsense.
The only conceivable reason for you not to know by now is that you don’t want to know. The information is easily obtained. Go look for it.
You have not established any basis for “collusion,” whatever you mean by that. All you have found is a series of articles that have accurately described a situation and reached the same general conclusion. The facts on which these articles are based are there for all the public to see. There’s no need to “trust” these writers because all the facts are evident.
This is a slightly different topic. We are talking about a male dominated environment. One dominated particularly by young-ish males. It’s natural you will get a creep quota wherever these younger males congregate.
THis is a different issue to gamergate imo. That issue seems to be more about journalism and the game development industry. It is here that the feminist/mysoginist debate cannot be entirely seperated from gamergate. There is a legitimate complaint by gamers that an ideological movement is trying to take away the type of games they enjoy. When this happens, rightly or wrongly an entire clusterf*ck of passions and concerns will emerge. Some of them legitimate concerns, some of them not. Some gamergate arguments will be valid, some will descend into downright abuse against it’s percieved ideologue opponents. In my opinion the former is predominant over the latter in the gamergate movement.
Who said anything about all 6 or 7 journalists getting together? All it takes is for one central character(or PR firm who’s job it is to garner sympathetic stories) to collude with each journalist or editor. This is the way PR firms work. You have heard of these new fangled organizations called PR firms? Organizations that give information to journalists, that try to set the media agenda. You should read up on them, they are fascinating.
Fair enough if you dont care about the issue. Just dont attempt to say that its been proven no collusion has taken place(just as I havent proven collusion). You lean towards the narrative you wish to believe; I shall lean towards mine. Everyone’s happy.
There’s nothing “natural” about that. It’s an issue of socialization and exactly one of the reasons why this subculture is drawing scrutiny from the larger world.
It no more “seems” that than the assertion that the Civil War was about states rights, not slavery. It’s disinformation and it’s deliberate.
No, this is not a legitimate complaint. Video games are simply being made subject to the same social criticisms that every other form of creative culture has long been subject to.
Feminist criticism has not “taken away” misogynistic depictions in novels or films and it won’t in video games. What the critics are hoping for is diversity and options, including lowering the barriers to entry and hostility inherent in the industry against new perspectives.
Even if they don’t get that, no cultural sector should expect to be protected from criticism.
What this is about is a group of people who have been use to having a monopoly on the public discourse and reacting violently in fear of losing that monopoly.
When the Civil Rights Movement threatened to affect the monopoly of political power held by white Southerners, there was a violent reaction. How do we view that in retrospect?
This is just silly. PR costs money. What’s the business model behind pushing a “Death of the gamer” narrative? It’s hard enough to scrape together money to advertise indie games, let alone to find money to engineer some sort of weird crypto PR campaign to insult gamers.
This is only collusion if they are all agreeing to commit fraud or a crime. In this case all you have are a series of articles that generally agree with each other.
Journalists always talk about things going on in their fields of concentration, and they often talk with the same sources. Even if all these journalists were in a room together and discussed this issue together, this is not collusion or a problem with journalistic integrity.
So you admit that you don’t have proof there was any collusion … you’re just going to assume that it happened and act like did, regardless. And you’ll just go ahead and assume that everyone else is doing the same.
Honestly, this says more about you than it does ethics or journalism.
AND THEN …
The New Yorker published an article pointing out that those who are trying to silence game criticism are stunting the growth of the medium.
Gamergate: A Scandal Erupts in the Video-Game Community
Eurogamer editorializes:
** We cannot let this become gaming culture**
*Organised abuse and threats of mass murder: this is the legacy of GamerGate. *
The Guardian has an excellent article about the human toll of Gamergate and emphasizes that moderates need to take a closer look at what’s going on under the Gamergate flag.
I think the movie industry has been affected enough by ideological correctness for gamers to have legitimate concerns. To claim otherwise suggests you haven’t even bothered to read the headlines of the articles I posted. I’ll repost them for your convenience
“‘Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over.” by Leigh Alexander (8/28, approx 10:28 AM):
“The End of Gamers” by Dan Golding (8/28, no time, this possibly was posted before Alexander’s piece)
“Gaming is Leaving ‘Gamers’ Behind’” by Joseph Bernstein (8/28, 3:29 PM)
“The death of the ‘gamers’ and the women who ‘killed’ them” by Casey Johnson (8/28, 7:00 PM)
“A Guide to Ending ‘Gamers’” by Devin Wilson (8/28, 7:57 PM)
“We Might Be Witnessing The ‘Death of An Identity’” by Luke Plunkett (8/28, 8:00 PM)
“This Guy’s Embarassing Relationship Drama Is Killing the ‘Gamer Identity’” by Mike Peark (8/29, no time)
Again, read the common words in the headlines - “gamers”, “death”, “ending”, and more “death”. Do you still wish to claim these people do not wish to see an entire section of gaming community disappear? That gamers have no legitimate concerns?
“When the Civil Rights Movement threatened to affect the monopoly of political power held by white Southerners, there was a violent reaction. How do we view that in retrospect?”