This has been something that's been on my mind for a loooong while, ever since the whole Gamergate thing broke. Sure, I didn't like Yahtzee's critiques on video games, and I thought a lot of his fans were unbelievably obnoxious, but let's face it... He's not a gaming journalist. He's not THAT bad, compared to a lot of people who actually consider themselves game journalists... up to and including his former colleague, Jim Sterling.
Yep! Jim Sterling has left The Escapist, and to to be perfectly honest with you, it's pretty obvious to anyone who knows anything about him that he was in the wrong, here. Not that his fanboys are listening to reason, but I'd say at the rate Gamergate is going... well, the indie scene isn't the industry's golden boy anymore. I imagine Sterling will continue to exist, but he's going to become less and less relevant as the material he wants to cover becomes less and less popular.
Again, you can't make a living promoting games your friends make if your friends don't make games in the first place.
Jim Sterling will loss relevancy in time: It's not something we can force. All we can do is wait, and keep pushing Gamergate forward.
Again, I think Shirtstorm proved one, incontrovertible fact about this kind of social justice... they are only allowed to get away with their shit because PEOPLE WANT TO GIVE THEM A CHANCE. When they are blatantly in the wrong, and the masses become aware of it... well, things don't look good for them. I mean, just look at Yahtzee... his newest Let's Drown Out video is filled with people bitching about Gamergate because he pretty much said he hated social justice extremists.
These people can not stand negative publicity. It goes against their core beliefs, and it compromises the way a lot of them make friends and money. I mean, think about it... a lot of these people against Gamergate live in the same city, talk to each other regularly, go to parties together, work together... It's actually kind of sad, in a way. Look at Phil Fish... he actually looked like he was having fun at that party Double Fine threw.
What I'm getting at, in a nutshell, that I think we have bigger enemies to fight than some guy who has objectively wrong opinions about game design on the internet. We have social outcasts abusing the system to push their ridiculous ideology and shame anyone who doesn't agree with their narrow worldview.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Hyrule Warriors
I really do have to confess that Gamergate has really killed my desire to continue with this blog. It's proven to be a very time consuming and exhausting experience. I did start my own blog about what I feel about the whole mess, but there's honestly so much material to cover I don't even know where to turn. I mean, just today we had Boogie finally getting banned from NEOgaf, Brianna Wu throwing Milo under the bus, and Jim Sterling being overall a hypocritical piece of shit.
Oddly enough, Yahtzee has steered clear of all this, and going by what fans of his have said about this... it seems like it's going to stay that way. Apparently, although Yahtzee isn't quite on our side (He hates game journalists and, apparently, has spoken out against this brand of feminism before) He's not on theirs, either.
So yeah. I'd like to officially announce that I consider Yahtzee to be better than Jim Sterling. Yeah, I went there.
Still, I have issues with his opinions, so let's just dive into his look at the best game released last month... Hyrule Warriors.
Of course, he starts off with a 'Wii U has no games' joke, which is so blatantly untrue at this point that it's not even funny in a ironic way. I also like how he implies Nintendo first party IPs are 'uncreative' by showing a bunch of Mario sprites, when they have up and away the widest range of franchises in the entire industry, encompassing virtually every genre, many of which can only be found on Nintendo consoles.
He then lists off a list of Mario games in an attempt to prove that Nintendo abuses their mascot. It doesn't exactly work, as everything he shows are wildly different games that aren't even in the same genre. He then says that Zelda has never done this. Of course it hasn't. Zelda is no where near as flexible as a brand as Mario. And fuck you, Link's Crossbow training was awesome.
He then goes on to explain what Dynasty Warriors is, and like a lot of other idiots (I'm looking at you, Video Games Awesome!) He makes the mistake that Warriors games are inherently supposed to be about the combat, and bitches about how the AI seems simplistic.
Now, the thing about this is that Warriors games are very difficult to classify into traditional genres. They're more like strategy games with action RPG elements. The real skill in this game is choosing where you want to go on the battlefield and adapting to new situations.
He then slams Twilight Princess because he prefers Wind Waker. Twilight Princess is plenty charming, thank you.
And then he starts talking about the plot. Whooooooooooooooooooo boy. There's a lot you can say about this... the plot is genuinely awful.
The thing that bothers me about the way Yahtzee goes about it, though, is the way that he implies that all Zelda games are like this. Uh, no. I'm pretty sure I'm very invested in regular Zelda titles.
Yahtzee does say that he enjoyed the story in an 'ironic' way, but... I don't really understand why, either. That story just had no appeal at all to me.
He then says the gameplay is dull. Oooooooooh boy.
Yeah, I can understand having issues with the story, but the general gameplay? Absolutely stellar. I was honestly surprised, playing it for the first time. The campaign mode always kept you on your toes with new things you needed to do, new people to fight, and new mechanics you needed to utilize to progress through the level. And don't even get me STARTED on the Adventure mode... I'm not joking when I say that's probably one of the harder things on the Wii U right now, if you exclude the W101's 101% achievement. (Which, by the way, I'm still no where close to getting...)
The item switching is fine, despite his claims. He's just not used to it.
Uggggggh. Then he says that OOT, TP, and SS are 'interchangable at times.' I'm not even sure where to begin with this. Yahtzee is a notorious supporter of the idea that all Zelda games (Except for Wind Waker... for some reason) are always the same. Uh huh. This isn't the case at all! They don't even have similar art styles, for the most part.
I do concede he makes a good point about the split timeline thing not being used to it's full potential. That was very disappointing.
He then closes by claiming that I'm simple minded because I like this game. Sure. Whatever you say, Ben.
So to recap, he didn't even mention the Adventure mode, which brings an absolutely insane amount of length, difficulty, and unlockables to the table, and the way he presented his little comics gave me the impression that he played exclusively as Link throughout the entire thing. The only characters you see are the main three, Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf. Nothing about Lana, and how her very existence came straight out of a fanfic, or anyone else for that matter. He does see fit to mention Cia's tits, though. Stay classy, Yahtzee.
Overall, as a fan of the game who knows that it has some very glaring problems, I'm surprised how off base Yahtzee is. I feel this way every time I see a video from him, actually, which is one of the reasons I started this blog. The game is legitimately fun to play: the main problem is the absolutely abysmal writing and the ridiculous DLC. The campaign mode was way too short, but overall I had no real problem with it. If anything, I was impressed with how varied the game was, at least in it's design.
And over time, now that the campaign is over and done with, my initial young passion for the game has blossomed into deep affection, because that adventure mode never lets up.
The game has a lot of problems, but besides the story, I don't feel as if Yahtzee addressed any of them.
Oddly enough, Yahtzee has steered clear of all this, and going by what fans of his have said about this... it seems like it's going to stay that way. Apparently, although Yahtzee isn't quite on our side (He hates game journalists and, apparently, has spoken out against this brand of feminism before) He's not on theirs, either.
So yeah. I'd like to officially announce that I consider Yahtzee to be better than Jim Sterling. Yeah, I went there.
Still, I have issues with his opinions, so let's just dive into his look at the best game released last month... Hyrule Warriors.
Of course, he starts off with a 'Wii U has no games' joke, which is so blatantly untrue at this point that it's not even funny in a ironic way. I also like how he implies Nintendo first party IPs are 'uncreative' by showing a bunch of Mario sprites, when they have up and away the widest range of franchises in the entire industry, encompassing virtually every genre, many of which can only be found on Nintendo consoles.
He then lists off a list of Mario games in an attempt to prove that Nintendo abuses their mascot. It doesn't exactly work, as everything he shows are wildly different games that aren't even in the same genre. He then says that Zelda has never done this. Of course it hasn't. Zelda is no where near as flexible as a brand as Mario. And fuck you, Link's Crossbow training was awesome.
He then goes on to explain what Dynasty Warriors is, and like a lot of other idiots (I'm looking at you, Video Games Awesome!) He makes the mistake that Warriors games are inherently supposed to be about the combat, and bitches about how the AI seems simplistic.
Now, the thing about this is that Warriors games are very difficult to classify into traditional genres. They're more like strategy games with action RPG elements. The real skill in this game is choosing where you want to go on the battlefield and adapting to new situations.
He then slams Twilight Princess because he prefers Wind Waker. Twilight Princess is plenty charming, thank you.
And then he starts talking about the plot. Whooooooooooooooooooo boy. There's a lot you can say about this... the plot is genuinely awful.
The thing that bothers me about the way Yahtzee goes about it, though, is the way that he implies that all Zelda games are like this. Uh, no. I'm pretty sure I'm very invested in regular Zelda titles.
Yahtzee does say that he enjoyed the story in an 'ironic' way, but... I don't really understand why, either. That story just had no appeal at all to me.
He then says the gameplay is dull. Oooooooooh boy.
Yeah, I can understand having issues with the story, but the general gameplay? Absolutely stellar. I was honestly surprised, playing it for the first time. The campaign mode always kept you on your toes with new things you needed to do, new people to fight, and new mechanics you needed to utilize to progress through the level. And don't even get me STARTED on the Adventure mode... I'm not joking when I say that's probably one of the harder things on the Wii U right now, if you exclude the W101's 101% achievement. (Which, by the way, I'm still no where close to getting...)
The item switching is fine, despite his claims. He's just not used to it.
Uggggggh. Then he says that OOT, TP, and SS are 'interchangable at times.' I'm not even sure where to begin with this. Yahtzee is a notorious supporter of the idea that all Zelda games (Except for Wind Waker... for some reason) are always the same. Uh huh. This isn't the case at all! They don't even have similar art styles, for the most part.
I do concede he makes a good point about the split timeline thing not being used to it's full potential. That was very disappointing.
He then closes by claiming that I'm simple minded because I like this game. Sure. Whatever you say, Ben.
So to recap, he didn't even mention the Adventure mode, which brings an absolutely insane amount of length, difficulty, and unlockables to the table, and the way he presented his little comics gave me the impression that he played exclusively as Link throughout the entire thing. The only characters you see are the main three, Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf. Nothing about Lana, and how her very existence came straight out of a fanfic, or anyone else for that matter. He does see fit to mention Cia's tits, though. Stay classy, Yahtzee.
Overall, as a fan of the game who knows that it has some very glaring problems, I'm surprised how off base Yahtzee is. I feel this way every time I see a video from him, actually, which is one of the reasons I started this blog. The game is legitimately fun to play: the main problem is the absolutely abysmal writing and the ridiculous DLC. The campaign mode was way too short, but overall I had no real problem with it. If anything, I was impressed with how varied the game was, at least in it's design.
And over time, now that the campaign is over and done with, my initial young passion for the game has blossomed into deep affection, because that adventure mode never lets up.
The game has a lot of problems, but besides the story, I don't feel as if Yahtzee addressed any of them.
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
NEOgaf's disgusting behavior
I'm happy to report that due to actions from certain individuals, namely, C.H. Sommers, Milo... whatever his last name is (Sorry, bro... but you know who you are!) and Adam Baldwin, the controversy seems likely to start swinging in our favor.
It helps that these individuals have their own, very different followings and idealogies, while Quinn's supporters don't. C.H. Sommers, from what I understand, has torn down Quinn's version of what the gaming industry is like for women, Milo went ahead and did some real journalistic work to obtain the knowledge that, gaming media outlets are told what to print, and Adam Baldwin outright told these people off to their faces, gaining the attention of the other two in the first place.
All in all, in the grand scheme of things, it looks like Zoey Quinn and Pals aren't going to be able to get off scot free for much longer.
Try telling that to NeoGAF, though.
Two pro Quinn threads have popped up in the past few hours. One, of course, covering the Cracked article. I've already gone over that. It's a pile of shit, but if you tried to say that on NeoGaf, you would be banned immediately. (This behavior has been well documented, by the way. Evilore is a fucking dictator)
But it's the OTHER thread that got my attention, mostly because of it's absurdity.
'Bomb threat targeted Anita Sarkeesian.'
Got your attention yet? Just wait until you see what they try to tell you about this.
Someone called in a bomb threat at this year's GDC Awards and threatened to set off a bomb unless the Ambassador Award being given to Anita Sarkeesian was revoked.
I was present at the awards so that's a bit unsettling.
This absolutely eclipses anything else I have ever seen from these people. Kotaku is outright fabricating evidence, and NEOgaf is trying to spread it by putting it in an environment where dissent simply isn't allowed.
This is propaganda, plain and simple. Sites like Kotaku are fabricating this narrative in order to keep making money through cheap and illicit methods.
It's also worth noting the location of where this was supposed to have happened. GDC, going by the name alone, is an indie development contest. And since we know the indie scene needs sites like Kotaku to keep functioning the way they are... these people are going to back them up, if pressed.
This is some serious stuff, and it's honestly a little mind blowing. I know people like Internet Aristocrat have traced all of this to a single multimedia conglomerate, but it's had to pick out the details through tweets.
These people are trying to call us TERRORISTS. Let that sink in for a minute. They need to discredit us, and to think that they stooped so low is just... wow.
It helps that these individuals have their own, very different followings and idealogies, while Quinn's supporters don't. C.H. Sommers, from what I understand, has torn down Quinn's version of what the gaming industry is like for women, Milo went ahead and did some real journalistic work to obtain the knowledge that, gaming media outlets are told what to print, and Adam Baldwin outright told these people off to their faces, gaining the attention of the other two in the first place.
All in all, in the grand scheme of things, it looks like Zoey Quinn and Pals aren't going to be able to get off scot free for much longer.
Try telling that to NeoGAF, though.
Two pro Quinn threads have popped up in the past few hours. One, of course, covering the Cracked article. I've already gone over that. It's a pile of shit, but if you tried to say that on NeoGaf, you would be banned immediately. (This behavior has been well documented, by the way. Evilore is a fucking dictator)
But it's the OTHER thread that got my attention, mostly because of it's absurdity.
'Bomb threat targeted Anita Sarkeesian.'
Got your attention yet? Just wait until you see what they try to tell you about this.
Someone called in a bomb threat at this year's GDC Awards and threatened to set off a bomb unless the Ambassador Award being given to Anita Sarkeesian was revoked.
An anonymous e-mailer threatened to blow up a bomb at the Game Developers Choice Awards this past March unless the hosts rescinded an award recognizing feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, the organizers of the event have confirmed to Kotaku.http://kotaku.com/bomb-threat-target...-la-1636032301
"We can confirm that approximately 25 of GDC's organizers received an anonymous email early in the morning of Wednesday, March 19th, 2014 during GDC 2014," the organizers said in a statement.
"The email stated the following: 'A bomb will be detonated at the Game Developer's Choice award ceremony tonight unless Anita Sarkeesian's Ambassador Award is revoked. We estimate the bomb will kill at least a dozen people and injure dozens more. It would be in your best interest to accept our simple request. This is not a joke. You have been warned.'"
The threat merited the attention of the San Francisco Police Department's Explosive Ordinance Disposal Division, which sent officers and bomb-sniffing dogs to the Moscone Center, where GDC is held.
...
I was present at the awards so that's a bit unsettling.
This absolutely eclipses anything else I have ever seen from these people. Kotaku is outright fabricating evidence, and NEOgaf is trying to spread it by putting it in an environment where dissent simply isn't allowed.
This is propaganda, plain and simple. Sites like Kotaku are fabricating this narrative in order to keep making money through cheap and illicit methods.
It's also worth noting the location of where this was supposed to have happened. GDC, going by the name alone, is an indie development contest. And since we know the indie scene needs sites like Kotaku to keep functioning the way they are... these people are going to back them up, if pressed.
This is some serious stuff, and it's honestly a little mind blowing. I know people like Internet Aristocrat have traced all of this to a single multimedia conglomerate, but it's had to pick out the details through tweets.
These people are trying to call us TERRORISTS. Let that sink in for a minute. They need to discredit us, and to think that they stooped so low is just... wow.
Zoey Quinn on Cracked: Let's look at her article
This is meant to be a blow by blow analysis looking over everything wrong with Zoey Quinn's Cracked article. Let's just say that I am super grateful to the guys at adblock, because this one is a doozy.
Editor's Note: A few weeks ago our message board and general inbox were bombarded with demands we address something called the "GamerGate Scandal", posts written with the urgency and rage one would associate with, say, discovering that Chipotle burritos are made entirely from the meat of human babies. It's apparently a big deal in some circles, so we followed the links and read the piles of data presented, and had to stop and take a deep breath just to grasp it all. "Gentlemen," we said amid the stunned silence, "do you realize that if what they're saying is true, then this is still the most pointless fucking bullshit anyone has ever forced us to read?"
The "scandal" turned out to be an excuse for an Internet harassment campaign against a random indie game developer who, like many such targets, was a female and a feminist.
Wow. Even the editor's note is a giant pile of bullshit. There's quite a lot to talk about in this short paragraph, but I think the most important bit is this claim that Zoey Quinn is at the center of GamerGate. She is not. She was merely a catalyst to a much bigger issue. It's also worth mentioning how it's already trying to force us to accept the fact that Quinn is innocent, before she even has the chance to say anything.
Also, it implies that everyone supporting GamerGate is a dude. I normally wouldn't think much of things like that, but with the media trying their hardest to pretend #NotYourShield never happened... Well, I find it questionable, is all.
This is the first image of the article. I think we can all agree that these tweets are, at the very least, cherry picked from a vast sea of reasonable arguments, I would like to bring your attention to the one thing they have in common: Jane Rustler, the person retweeting all of these horrible things. Well, who exactly is she?
A quick search on twitter will reveal that... ta da! Jane Rustler doesn't actually exist. Now, this could mean a whole lot of things. It could have been a troll account that has promptly been deleted, or it could have been Zoey herself, using another account that she immediately deleted personally in order to protect herself.
It's also worth nothing that Jane Rustler is the ONLY person to retweet this shit. If you were in the center of a vast conspiracy of hopeless virgins sending you threatening tweets all day... wouldn't they take the time to retweet and favorite other hateful tweets?
Again, we've known for a long while now that Quinn has been using tweets like this to garner sympathy from people who don't know any better, like Cracked's audience. This is nothing new for her, but its' rather telling how desperate she is when she can't even put together a convincing set of tweets.
It was all sparked by a single forum post from a jilted ex-boyfriend, but the ensuing outrage was so fierce and relentless that the story made it all the way to The New Yorker. This kind of spontaneous shitstorm is depressingly common these days, so we reached out to Zoe Quinn to see what it's like to be the Internet's Most Hated Person (well, for a couple of weeks, anyway). Here's what she told us
Again, this sort of damage control is nothing new. This sort of dismissive referral to Eron as the only reason we care about Zoey, a flippant claim that GamerGate is dead, and a referral to another article supporting these claims.
Again, this sort of damage control is nothing new. This sort of dismissive referral to Eron as the only reason we care about Zoey, a flippant claim that GamerGate is dead, and a referral to another article supporting these claims.
The New Yorker article isn't particularly interesting. It just spouts a whole bunch of nonsense about how Quinn was 'doxxed' (She wasn't) How she was harassed (Um. I doubt that, thanks.) and it even makes out Depression Quest to be some kind of masterpiece. Um. Yeah... this guy's name is Simon Parkin. His name hasn't come up in any of this, but the way he writes about Zoey bothers me. He really goes out of his way to defend her and the game. I could probably write another article just on this. He accuses Steam players for not liking the game because it's 'gloomy' for instance. Yeah... I don't think that's the problem, dude. At it's core, the article is pretty blatantly biased towards Quinn. It particularly tries to play up her game design talents, but, at the very end, it mentions GamerGate, and how Quinn valiantly managed to thwart it by posting a 4Chan chat log.
No, really.
Hi. My name is Zoe, and I make weird video games with some degree of success (and make them playable for free, if you're so inclined). My life is generally pretty uncomplicated, I guess, aside from the fact that a month ago the Internet decided to make me the center of a supposed global conspiracy. I made the mistake of dating a guy who would later go on to write a several-act manifesto about my alleged sex life and post it to every forum he could create a handle for. Normally, this would blow over with little more than a "whoa, check out THAT guy," but since I work in an industry that has very strong feelings about women, it quickly mutated from a jilted ex's revenge-porn to one of the most intense scandals in recent gaming history.
Long story short, the Internet spent the last month spreading my personal information around, sending me threats, hacking anyone suspected of being friends with me, calling my dad and telling him I'm a whore, sending nude photos of me to colleagues, and basically giving me the "burn the witch" treatment. During all of this, I found that ...
I like how she uses 'alleged' like she hasn't already admitted to it. Anyway, there's not much worth talking about in the first paragraph, except for perhaps the last sentence, specifically, the claim that the industry has strong feelings about women .
No, Zoey. People don't hate you for being a woman. People hate you because you a pathological liar who has shut down charities.
There's this weird mindset in Zoey Quinn's circle of game developers that if a female dev is criticized, it's always... ALWAYS due to her gender. In their eyes, women can't make mistakes or screw something up or commit crimes: If a woman is portrayed somewhat negatively in ANY context, that is inherently sexist and must be eliminated.
#5. This Can Happen to Anybody (but It Helps if You're Female)
IPGGutenbergUKLtd/iStock/Getty Images
This sort of thing is hardly new -- forums like 4chan organize campaigns every month or so to try to stick it to feminists or just women in general. Just a few months ago, they organized a fake campaign to end Father's Day and harass black feminists. In January, a hoax was created to make women feel crappy about their bodies, and in February they went on the warpath against feminists bycreating a hoax about tampons. Or, the target may be a specific woman -- like the time they found a feminist on YouTube criticizing video games and unleashed a tsunami of death threats.
Each time they'll do it under the guise of fighting for some kind of justice (or rather, correcting the injustice feminists have perpetrated against males and/or video games). For instance, they figure the aforementioned game critic deserved the death threats because she incorrectly described a level from one of the Hitman games. Of course.
What? You mean we expect a critic talking about video games to actually play the video games she's looking at? How ridiculous!
All kidding aside, I sadly don't know enough about 4chan to make a call on how much Zoey is exaggerating the situation. It speaks volumes for what I think of her when I immediately don't believe anything she's telling us. Especially with that last sentence, there. The one referring to Sarkeesian.
This is a really blatant example of how Quinn twists facts in order to suit her agenda. She 'establishes' absolute nonsense claims about being harassed, and then links this back into one of Sarkeesian's more notable mistakes.
Like I said before, these people refuse to fess up to any mistakes on their part. They can do whatever they want, because they're women working in an industry that harasses women. Forget about all those beloved game devs around the world that just happen to be women: They don't matter!
Another cherry picked tweet. Amusingly, I don't even think this one is even that threatening, especially since Sarkeesian does deserve it. Like I said before: these people think criticizing women for poor work should be a crime.
In my case, I was at a bar with friends when I first caught a whiff of the impending shitstorm. We were having birthday drinks when someone reached out to tell me that my ex had written a screed about our relationship that had been posted to a forum I belong to. Slowly, horrifically, we discovered that he had posted it to several other popular forums (that had immediately nuked it) and created a Wordpress blog that was literally nothing but his 10,000-word rant about our failed relationship. Shortly after that, we found Wikipedia edits on my page that had altered my date of death to coincide with planned public appearances (or, in one case, simply "soon").
Wikipedia
We soon found threads about it on 4chan (apparently the only site willing to host a revenge-porn diatribe) and watched in horror as they dug into my past, desperate to scrape up any humiliating information that might potentially exist:
I just realized Zoey Quinn was born on the same day as me... awkward.
Anyway, reading this, I'm under the strong impression that she's referring to the incident when she and Adam Sessler went to 4chan to watch the hacking 'in real time.' You know, the time when we caught her faking all those threats against herself? And this, apparently, is no different.
This is all really funny, considering how someone on 4chan, to date, is still nuking entire threads dedicated to Gamergate. Even the people Zoey are trying to blame are defending her, to a certain extent anyway.
She says a bit more about this, but it's just describing how the situation made her feel. I don't doubt that this controversy has made her feel exceedingly anxious, but she obviously wants the reader to be sympathetic towards her. I am anything but.
#4. Internet Personalities Start Jumping on the Bandwagon
Bethany Clarke/Getty Images News/Getty Images
There is a whole network out there of anti-feminists -- bloggers, YouTube personalities, subreddits, etc. -- who live for this shit. Once they got wind of the post from my ex, they rushed to milk the story for all of the traffic they could, knowing that any "evil feminist caught in the wrong" story is instant traffic from their already frothing fanbases. It quickly went viral -- the most popular YouTube video about the "scandal" has over 850,000 views, as of the writing of this article. The "Quinnspiracy" has its own KnowYourMeme page, and there's even an entire subreddit about me, which is full of exactly the kind of misogynist bullshit you'd expect.
reddit... wait, what?
Just to reiterate -- I was not terribly famous before all this. This post from my ex wasn't like the world finding out the president participated in a Hollywood orgy and wound up giving the nuclear launch codes to Gary Busey due to an accidental pants switch. These people had never heard of me before. But they became obsessed with the tale, and in order to get more people involved they embellished the story into a bizarre wide-ranging conspiracy in which I use sex to control the entire gaming industry behind the scenes.
Quinn is exaggerating here. I also like how she doesn't actually link to The Internet Aristocrat's video. I haven't checked out that subreddit, but I think I will at a later date.
Now, the most important part of this segment is how she keeps insisting that this is nothing more than a sex scandal. Which, as you all know, is not the case at all. She isn't the one controlling the industry: The entire business is corrupt. She simply gave us the key to realize exactly how.
Our rampant attacking of Quinn is nothing more than us trying to beat it into the thick skills of her defenders that there is an issue here.
There's not much more to this part of the article. She says some more questionable things, but nothing really that incriminating. Then, she posted THIS.
I... what?
This guy is doing nothing but advocating being respectful towards you! Why do you think this is disgusting?
Oh, that's right. It's because he knows you did it. I forgot that you don't want anyone to think badly of you. Because women can't do anything wrong!
She then goes on to sarcastically say that she's controlling the entire industry, which says a lot about how delusional she is. No, Zoey. No one thinks that about you.
3. Then It Spills Over Into Real Life
nandyphotos/iStock/Getty Images
Recently, I had to have a very awkward phone conversation with my dad (who is recovering from a heart attack) about what 4chan is. My dad's an old-school biker dude who types with two fingers and has me fix the settings on his cellphone every time I see him -- I still don't think he quite understands what all this has been about. He just knows now to hang up when someone calls and screams "YOUR DAUGHTER'S A WHORE" into the receiver.
See, the angry mob engaged in a hacking spree, compromising a clutch of my friends' Skype accounts and, following that, the accounts of people they had in their contacts list, sending baiting and horrific messages to everyone they knew. The friend who supported me the loudest fell the hardest: they posted everything down to his social security numbers and bank statements on his then-compromised site. Any tactic was justified, in their minds -- after all, if somebody doesn't take down these female indie developers who make games about depression and give them away for free, who knows what will happen? There could be other women out there making games and having sex, right now, dammit!
Yeah, and we're supposed to take your word on this... why, exactly?
She's clearly referring to Phil Fish when she's talking about her very vocal friend. But why wouldn't she refer to him by name? Not only is he a 'respected' indie dev, he's also a fairly successful one.
Well, there's quite a few reasons why this is the case. For one thing, Phil Fish is exceedingly controversial. People just do not like his attitude, and by extension, everything he gets involved with has a tendency to sour. Two: There is very, very, very likely possibility that Phil Fish faked the doxxings himself. That would look bad on Quinn if that ever came out, wouldn't it?
Keep in mind has seen no problem with putting links to other people who on her side, while ignoring those who she feels could be a liability to her. Phil Fish, if convicted, could quickly cast a huge shadow on the image she wants to present to the public.
And they are making progress -- multiple talented women in the industry have decided it's just not worth it, knowing that they're one pissed-off ex away from being in my situation. Another friend who watched all of this unfold declared he was "fucking out of this" and deleted all of his game projects. And that's not even getting into whatever young girls are out there watching -- if they were hoping to break into this overwhelmingly male industry, the message is loud and clear: "This is what happens to women who cross us. And also, literally anything counts as 'crossing us.'"
And, yes, it was about to get even weirder ...
She mentions female developers quitting, and then refers to Phil Fish again, this time much more blatantly. Um. Sure.
I find it very odd how we don't know a damn thing about these supposedly abused and downtrodden women, especially in today's world.
Indeed, this entire segment of the article was supposed to be about how this has effected her in the real world, but, if you compare this to the online centric ones, there's a lot less 'evidence' to support her case. We have her WORD that her father is being harassed, when no one I know of has even been discussing her family, hometown, her past. She SAYS female developers are leaving the industry, but no one seems to have any idea on who they are or who they worked for. She SAYS her closest friends have been doxxed and harassed, but then she lists Phil Fish as an example twice, and those were both under somewhat suspicious circumstances.
#2. ... And Suddenly, It's National News
Somewhere along the line, for reasons that are utterly beyond me, TV's Adam Baldwin got involved. Do you know how weird it is to see an actor from a show you love repost conspiracy videos about how your sex life is somehow ruining video games? Pretty goddamned weird, it turns out. A friend suggested that ever since his stint as Jayne on Firefly, Baldwin is afraid of women named Zoe. That at least took the sting out of no longer being able to watch one of my favorite shows without scowling so hard I sprain my face.
Yeah, I don't know anything about what Adam Baldwin believes about all this. I'm kind of reluctant to sing his praises without understanding why he feels the way he does, but I do know that Quinn's supporters HATE him, as he's not someone they can silence or ignore. Unlike Boogie2988, Baldwin can't be threatened or blacklisted by these people, because he's not part of their field.
Once it finally hit the "real" news, the "movement" was such a confusing mess that some people assumed it had to be about a real issue -- otherwise, how could it have gotten so big? This can't all be about just petty slut-shaming and vague accusations of conflicts of interest that were immediately debunked, can it? But it's not that strange if you're familiar with certain corners of gaming culture -- for example, when the developer of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 tweaked the weapons in multiplayer, some gamers bombarded an employee with death threats against him and his family. Let's just say that some people have trouble keeping things in perspective.
She has the gall to link to a Kotaku article here, when referring to how the 'conspiracy' against her was immediately debunked. Yeah. Do I really have to explain what's wrong with this? It's the one where Stephen Totilo goes on about how Nathan Grayson is innocent in all of this.
And of course, people have already debunked this article anyway.
But strangest of all, their rage is always targeted at the most inconsequential bullshit (like, say, some relationship drama between relative nobodies) instead of the stuff that matters. There is a lot wrong with gaming and game journalism -- from industry workers' rights issues to the fact that outlets are being paid to review and feature games. The industry is undergoing huge changes that will affect the hobby we all love so much, but all of that stuff is boring and this story involves people having sex! Besides, that other stuff doesn't give you a chance to sit around and trade rape fantasies and long for the target of your hatred to commit suicide.
Again, she says nothing interesting here. She tells some more lies, posts some more cherry picked chat logs, and is generally all around infuriating me. People are believing her? I can't even wrap my head around that, at this stage.
1. Then, Finally, It Passes (Until Next Time)
kimberrywood/iStock/Getty Images
The saving grace of online harassment campaigns is that soon the trolls get bored and move on. The bad news is that often they move on to harass someone else (note that a few years ago, the target of their real-life harassment was an 11-year-old girl who said something mean about them). And if you don't go away, maybe they'll come back around -- this isn't the first time I've been the target of a harassment campaign. It won't be the last. I'm not going anywhere.
Twitter
When you're at the center of something like this, it's easy to get overwhelmed by fear that your friends won't ever look at you the same way again. But then someone you love finds out and tells you, "Hey, jackass, I know you, and I'm not stupid enough to believe a meme-spouting Internet mob over my own personal experience." And then you think, "Oh." And you feel quite silly about ever worrying about that part in the first place.
Again, this is really nothing more than her trying to tell her audience that she's a person too, and that she deserves sympathy.
Except... no she doesn't.
In fact, I've come to realize that most sane people can see through a smear campaign -- groups who actually have a righteous cause are usually able to express it without using the word c**t hundreds of times. It's hard to dress up petty harassment as a crusade, and the people who refuse to see it for what it is would find a reason to hate me regardless. Let's face it -- if they found any part of the campaign convincing, they clearly didn't need much convincing in the first place. Keep all of that in mind if you ever find yourself at the wrong end of something like this.
Considering how I didn't even know who she was until saw InternetAristocrat's video on her... I'm pretty sure I had to be convinced that something was off about her.
Again, you see this time and time again with all of these articles. "I did nothing wrong. The gamers are to blame." Bullshit.
Of course, that won't undo the damage to your personal life or make the crude Photoshops of you vanish. It won't stop the nightmares or the paranoia or the fear that someone will make good on those threats. But it (hopefully) won't be the end of the world for you. Eventually things will move forward, and you'll still have your friends to help you pick up the pieces. Hell, sometimes you even make new ones you wouldn't have expected.
TwitterBoom.
We know for a fact that Tim Schafer needs people like Quinn to keep making his games. I'm starting to seriously doubt that Quinn has any real friends... everyone she seems to talk to are all involved in the industry in some way, and people like Schafer have a vested interest to defend her.
By the way, fuck you Tim. You're a hypocrite, and you know it.
One last patronising editor's note later, and I absolutely do not regret doing my best to tear this article to pieces.
While we're on the subject, here's 10 Creepy Comments That Only Women Get on the Internet, a guide to How to Talk to Women (According to the Internet), and 4 Things Learned from the Worst Online Dating Profile Ever.
Editor's Note: If you found this article from another message board and are about to leave a comment that boils down to, "I don't condone the harassment, but let me explain why she deserved it!" please just take a deep breath, step away from your computer, and call your mother. Tell her you love her. Call a friend and ask if they need anything. Go outside, gaze up into the sky, take a deep breath, and really appreciate the fact that you're alive and that you should make the most of it. Thank you.
One last patronising editor's note later, and I absolutely do not regret doing my best to tear this article to pieces.
Quinn has shown, time and time again, that she has no real ground to stand on, and it shows in the article rather rather clearly. She only cites sources that are blatantly on her side, refuses to comment on any of the very real issues surrounding her, and expects us to believe everything she says about being harassed, when everything I have seen, from my side of things, has said simply the opposite.
Once more, I have to voice my absolute disgust with Cracked for allowing this woman to post an article for you. Not only is everything she gave you an outright lie, you outright support her for her doing this sort of thing. Disgusting.
Despite Quinn's claims, The Internet Aristocrat's words ring true here. "We hold all the power." I am no longer going to Cracked, and I expect all of you to do the same. They cannot simply get away with attacking an entire group of people with no ground to stand on. They've pulled exactly this kind of shit before, from the John Cheese incident to Wong's rampant misandry to J.F. Sargant thinking that Shadow was Sonic the Hedgehog, from Bell's ridiculous internet clauses article, to censoring any criticism towards Quinn on their forums... the entire site is a cesspool of shit.
Anyway, I think that's all I have to say about this particular instance. It's all in your hands now. Good luck!
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Zoey Quinn on Cracked
Cracked... I used to like you a lot. It's absolutely shameful on how far you have fallen.
They're deleting my comments. They deleted my comments. THEY'RE DELETING MY COMMENTS.
You can not have a fair argument about a controversy by deleting comments supporting the other side. You can NOT have Zoey Quinn come in and write an article to defend herself by using the same tired, refuted, and outright buried arguments we've debunked weeks ago. She cited a Kotaku article, for instance. Um. The SAME Kotaku who has a vested interested in keeping your brand of 'feminism' alive?
This is the first time in weeks I've been legitimately angry about this. Maybe it's due to my fond memories of reading Cracked years ago. I've known they've been going downhill for a long while now, but this is absolutely ridiculous. Even the John Cheese incident or David Wong's rampant misandry haven't really touched that same spot.
And they have the GALL to delete my comments for having an objection to what Quinn is force feeding us? Everything she said in that article was a lie. People don't hate her because she's a feminist. People hate her because she's a fraud, a con artist, and perhaps above all, a liar.
But here comes Cracked, defending this woman for their own gain despite the ever increasing amount of evidence against is already absolutely staggering. The Bell article was bad, sure, but that article almost felt like the users were protesting Cracked's nonsense. I even commented on it.
Apparently, people are only interested in defending Quinn mindlessly if her name is attached to the article. Go figure.
People are still making this out to be all about her. People are still insisting that the only evidence against her is the Zoey Wordpress, despite how a lot of other people have come forward since then about Zoey's professional behavior. People are still insisting that this is about her being a woman, despite the large amount of men being attacked for supporting her.
Cracked is profiting off a controversy in a way that absolutely disgusts me. Zoey Quinn is trying to garner sympathy from a new audience. That also disgusts me.
The only thing I can do, from here on out, is stop going to Cracked entirely. It won't be a hard thing for me to do, to be honest, but it has to be done. There's simply no pleasing these people. The only thing we can do is keep up the good work. We have her on the ropes, I'm sure. We just have to keep pushing, gathering more evidence, and discussing the topic with communities that aren't close minded bigots.
In the name of Harman...
They're deleting my comments. They deleted my comments. THEY'RE DELETING MY COMMENTS.
You can not have a fair argument about a controversy by deleting comments supporting the other side. You can NOT have Zoey Quinn come in and write an article to defend herself by using the same tired, refuted, and outright buried arguments we've debunked weeks ago. She cited a Kotaku article, for instance. Um. The SAME Kotaku who has a vested interested in keeping your brand of 'feminism' alive?
This is the first time in weeks I've been legitimately angry about this. Maybe it's due to my fond memories of reading Cracked years ago. I've known they've been going downhill for a long while now, but this is absolutely ridiculous. Even the John Cheese incident or David Wong's rampant misandry haven't really touched that same spot.
And they have the GALL to delete my comments for having an objection to what Quinn is force feeding us? Everything she said in that article was a lie. People don't hate her because she's a feminist. People hate her because she's a fraud, a con artist, and perhaps above all, a liar.
But here comes Cracked, defending this woman for their own gain despite the ever increasing amount of evidence against is already absolutely staggering. The Bell article was bad, sure, but that article almost felt like the users were protesting Cracked's nonsense. I even commented on it.
Apparently, people are only interested in defending Quinn mindlessly if her name is attached to the article. Go figure.
People are still making this out to be all about her. People are still insisting that the only evidence against her is the Zoey Wordpress, despite how a lot of other people have come forward since then about Zoey's professional behavior. People are still insisting that this is about her being a woman, despite the large amount of men being attacked for supporting her.
Cracked is profiting off a controversy in a way that absolutely disgusts me. Zoey Quinn is trying to garner sympathy from a new audience. That also disgusts me.
The only thing I can do, from here on out, is stop going to Cracked entirely. It won't be a hard thing for me to do, to be honest, but it has to be done. There's simply no pleasing these people. The only thing we can do is keep up the good work. We have her on the ropes, I'm sure. We just have to keep pushing, gathering more evidence, and discussing the topic with communities that aren't close minded bigots.
In the name of Harman...
Sunday, September 14, 2014
So is 'GamerGate' dead?
There's been a lot of talk in the community about what to do next. It's an open secret that the movement has been splintering since the story broke. People simply cannot decide what to do with the information. We have the (thankfully very few) people who have spent their time harassing Zoey, we have the people who want the gaming industry to reform, and then you have people like me, who sees this entire fiasco as a fantastic example of everything that is wrong with the modern gaming industry.
With public figures like Boogie2988 and Mundane Matt and JonTron officially making up with Tim Schafer (Who, by the way, still found the time to be a dick when accepting the apology) It seems likes GamerGate is finally coming to a close.
OR IS IT?
The simple fact of the matter is that this whole affair opened up a huge can of worms that just happened to be picked up by the general public. Namely, now that we know what we are looking for, we can better combat it when it rears it's ugly head in the future.
Personally, I would call this a victory for the public. We uncovered a whole host of information that they did not want us to know about, and have linked that information to everything wrong in the industry.
As much as I really don't like the gaming media, this is probably the best we could have hoped for... at the moment. It's only a matter of time until something else comes to light that shows these people for what they really are. Corruption is a huuuuuuge part of their business. They won't give it up so easily!
Now, I'm going to have some ice cream and have some fun playing my Wii U. See you guys later.
With public figures like Boogie2988 and Mundane Matt and JonTron officially making up with Tim Schafer (Who, by the way, still found the time to be a dick when accepting the apology) It seems likes GamerGate is finally coming to a close.
OR IS IT?
The simple fact of the matter is that this whole affair opened up a huge can of worms that just happened to be picked up by the general public. Namely, now that we know what we are looking for, we can better combat it when it rears it's ugly head in the future.
Personally, I would call this a victory for the public. We uncovered a whole host of information that they did not want us to know about, and have linked that information to everything wrong in the industry.
As much as I really don't like the gaming media, this is probably the best we could have hoped for... at the moment. It's only a matter of time until something else comes to light that shows these people for what they really are. Corruption is a huuuuuuge part of their business. They won't give it up so easily!
Now, I'm going to have some ice cream and have some fun playing my Wii U. See you guys later.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Jim Sterling is at it again...! Also, the Escapist is making change!
I really have to disagree with Mundane Matt, here: Jim Sterling didn't really say a whole lot in his new video that I agree with. Actually, I would even go so far as to say that he's trying to control the situation in his own way. That, coupled with the way The Escapist's new 'policies' makes me think that The Escapist is actually trying to come out of this mess smelling like a rose... by trying their hardest to please both sides of the argument.
Now, I'm sure you've all heard of the Streisand effect, after recent events. As you know, a big part of the reason this became such a controversy was due to the way sites such as Reddit, Neogaf, and even YouTube attempted to prevent certain information from becoming known to the public. Now, The Escapist has always been a bit of an oddball. Rather like NEOgaf, they had put up a facade of discussion. If you thought Zoey was a saint, you had a billion other people agreeing with you. If you cited anything that didn't paint her in the best possible light, your post was deleted, your account banned, and the discussion went on without you.
I really don't think it's a coincidence that The Escapist, as a whole, has actually been rather tame during this whole fiasco. Sure, they had a few articles decrying the whole situation, including that ridiculous Sarkeesian article, but they're nowhere near Kotaku's level of ridiculousness. They've certainly kept a lot of the heat off themselves... I don't think I've heard The Escapist mentioned at all during this whole fiasco...
Anyway, videos like Jim's, I think, show what The Escapist's plan for dealing with the controversy are: by putting up a facade of listening to the 'gamers' all the while continuing with what they had been doing to please the SJW's. So basically, The Escapist's new policy changes won't really amount to anything, but they'll tell us they're listening just to keep us happy.
Jim's stance on the issue makes me uncomfortable for one reason, and one reason only... he still gives absolutely no indication that he understands the issue. Watching the video just felt like him slamming people for daring to stick up for issues they believe in.... Especially since he kept implying that gamers were the problem, without giving us a shred of evidence to back this up.
It wasn't gamers who drove Boogie2988 back into depression. It wasn't gamers who started #IstandwithGanondorf to deride JonTron for having an opinion. It's not gamers who are censoring information related to the industry for highly suspicious reasons. It's not GAMERS who have absolutely no evidence to back any of their claims up.
The Escapist isn't interested in changing the way they do business. They're interested in changing the way people THINK they do business. By putting on a false face of neutrality, they are trying their hardest to appear attractive to both sides of the argument. It's a PR move that's riding off a controversy. They'll be going back to openly condemning gamers again.... that is, if they even stop.
Now, I'm sure you've all heard of the Streisand effect, after recent events. As you know, a big part of the reason this became such a controversy was due to the way sites such as Reddit, Neogaf, and even YouTube attempted to prevent certain information from becoming known to the public. Now, The Escapist has always been a bit of an oddball. Rather like NEOgaf, they had put up a facade of discussion. If you thought Zoey was a saint, you had a billion other people agreeing with you. If you cited anything that didn't paint her in the best possible light, your post was deleted, your account banned, and the discussion went on without you.
I really don't think it's a coincidence that The Escapist, as a whole, has actually been rather tame during this whole fiasco. Sure, they had a few articles decrying the whole situation, including that ridiculous Sarkeesian article, but they're nowhere near Kotaku's level of ridiculousness. They've certainly kept a lot of the heat off themselves... I don't think I've heard The Escapist mentioned at all during this whole fiasco...
Anyway, videos like Jim's, I think, show what The Escapist's plan for dealing with the controversy are: by putting up a facade of listening to the 'gamers' all the while continuing with what they had been doing to please the SJW's. So basically, The Escapist's new policy changes won't really amount to anything, but they'll tell us they're listening just to keep us happy.
Jim's stance on the issue makes me uncomfortable for one reason, and one reason only... he still gives absolutely no indication that he understands the issue. Watching the video just felt like him slamming people for daring to stick up for issues they believe in.... Especially since he kept implying that gamers were the problem, without giving us a shred of evidence to back this up.
It wasn't gamers who drove Boogie2988 back into depression. It wasn't gamers who started #IstandwithGanondorf to deride JonTron for having an opinion. It's not gamers who are censoring information related to the industry for highly suspicious reasons. It's not GAMERS who have absolutely no evidence to back any of their claims up.
The Escapist isn't interested in changing the way they do business. They're interested in changing the way people THINK they do business. By putting on a false face of neutrality, they are trying their hardest to appear attractive to both sides of the argument. It's a PR move that's riding off a controversy. They'll be going back to openly condemning gamers again.... that is, if they even stop.
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