Stardock CEO Weighs In On #GamerGate

Yeah I think when the articles came out saying "Gamers are dead" is when the uproar started, and people were mad and probably surprised that a well coordinated attack on their hobby came from fairly popular review sites. Besides a small group of people, no one knew about the purple haired girl and the other two older ladies that seem to be in the middle of this mess.
 
I would agree the gaming sites could have handled this a lot better.

I remember when all the articles popped up, out of the blue, and confused the hell out of me. It seemed so out of character and strange.

"what the hell is gaming culture and why do you, or i care, and why is it dead?"

My thinking went something like that. I always considered the so called culture so fractured as to not really exist.

I never lumped people who play facebook games with people who play Call of duty. Or people who play call of duty with people who play MMOs. Or console with PC.

There is no set culture. It's people buying entertainment they enjoy. I doubt someone who buys a new movie at walmart, and stops by the game section to buy an xbox game thinks about it. More likely they think "sweet, i'll make some pizza and watch my movie, then close the night out by playing game X"

I dont ever remember being called a "gamer" until a few years ago. It's a relatively new term. It always sounded strange to me, like calling someone who watches movies a "movier".

Aside from playing an electronic game, i have very little in common with the 60 something woman or man who plays bubble witch saga. Or the 8 year old who plays minecraft exclusively.

But really, why should i care if things are insinuated about me by people who've never met me? I haven't lost any sleep over it.

It has affected my browsing habits though. I don't visit some sites i used to. And it's not because i disagree about how women are portrayed in games, it's because of how they just ignored this whole thing and banned or blocked any comments on the issue.
 
m heisty said:
I hadn't even looked at this until today. But regardless of the realities of the facts presented by both sides, everyone has to pretty much agree that shitting all over your customers is pretty much the worst possible thing you can do. That is generally bad business, but even worse when you are in an industry where your customers have a deep mistrust of you to begin with.
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There is your first misunderstanding, that the customers, of the Gamer Journalists, are gamers, they are not. Their customers are the marketing industry, they are a form of marketing and their customers are the marketers and developers, not the gamers. The only way this blows up in their faces is if it lands nasty in the marketer's and developer's laps.

Each new turn of #gamergate brings the same question to the marketer elite, "Will this hurt sales?" and as long as the answer comes back no, then they won't do a thing to stop it.
 
Chas said:
So, you're saying that you're "okay" with some asshole who never met you to characterize you, by association, as some violent, racist, misogynist parental-basement-dwelling fapper with no social skills and even fewer hygiene skills? That it's pretty much okay for them to publish this sort of crap to the world as "fact"?

Even ignoring the part about not consuming information about games because you're too busy playing them, which I feel is an exaggeration, if not wholly implausible.
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This is pretty much the crux of it.

There's a small subset of basement dwelling pasty gamers, and some of them are probably gross or mean. Others of them are probably shy people who want to escape from the world.

As for the rest of us, we're normal people who like playing games. We don't hate women. We have wives and daughters who we love and respect. We go out and see the sun every day, on our way to work or on the beach or while camping etc.

It's basically a giant slander against one of our pastimes, mixed up with far left politically-correct "social justice" rhetoric.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
It's less about the amount of time and more about the level of crazeh-emo-moose response the entire thing has gotten so far. Celeb stuff is generally like a tame gossip kinda thing among people. This is a "ur geh" and "no u" thing between people with not the slightest bit of self control.
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Regardless in terms of sheer numbers celebs draw millions upon millions across the globe. I wouldn't put Gamergate anywhere near such numbers.

Its a microcosm of this community because its largely ignored by the mass press unless its about violence and/or sex since both of those make more money than stories about gamers and feminists against each other.

It will stay that way as well because people don't play games to deal with controversy. They play games to relax or experience.

Honestly there are far more important issues in the world that deserve attention then the gaming press being very biased. Its a pretty small concern on the totem pole. Youtubers are putting the traditional press out of business anyway and they know this and are obviously threatened by it.

There is nothing these gaming press sites offer that can't be seen on across the Internet in different forms. Its like the Dinosaur chasing the carrot and hoping that carrot once caught is a big enough Dinosaur to fill its belly. Its just evolution in the end. The gaming press has been selected by it for extinction and understandably they are lashing out in a last ditch attempt to stave off what is already obvious.
 
Red Machine D said:
You do know that all of this stuff about ethics in journalism is a massive coverup to conceal the true goal of #GamerGate, which is to force women out of gaming through harassment and assault?
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lcpiper said:
Or that is the reaction to people in the gaming journalism community who are trying to force gaming to become something that doesn't tweak their feminist socialist feathers.
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The answer is both I think. And neither.

The argument has devolved into "sides," but there aren't sides - there's just people. And people have a wide variety of opinions and motivations.
 
This started with quinscepades and could have ended there if the involved parties had just said yeah, this was wrong, we are sorry. Instead, they attacked the people that dared question their apparent lack of integrity with, the "gamers are dead" stupidity in their blogs, and in their forums. They may have even gone so far as a Ddos attack gamersgate. Fair, just minded people in the right, usually use illegal means to get their point across. They usually try to shut down any discussion that runs contrary to their agenda through illegal means. :rolleyes:

Does gamersgate have some woman hating morons riding the coat tails? Yep, sure does. Does not change the fact, that for the most part, they are correct to question the integrity of the bloggers, (not calling them journalists), Quin, and the industry at large.
 
Red Machine D said:
You do know that all of this stuff about ethics in journalism is a massive coverup to conceal the true goal of #GamerGate, which is to force women out of gaming through harassment and assault?
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I feel compelled to tell you that this hilarious white-knighting is not going to get you laid. It isn't going to win you the admiration of desireable females. They smile at these self-righteous, outraged comments and secretely experience contempt, because they know your true motivation: a deep-seated, unsatisfied desire for greater esteem and sexual success with the female race.

Maybe if you thought of women as people, instead of angelic creatures cruelly oppressed by modern western society and who can do no wrong, you'd lose your attitude. The irony, of course, is that you'd have to think of women as equals to lose your white-knightery.
 
wabbitseason said:
Maybe if you thought of women as people, instead of angelic creatures cruelly oppressed by modern western society and who can do no wrong, you'd lose your attitude. The irony, of course, is that you'd have to think of women as equals to lose your white-knightery.
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See you and I think differently. Although I have no problem seeing women as people, the equals part doesn't add up. Perhaps it's because I have experienced first hand exactly what happens to women around age 50. Doctors have a medical term they use, menopause. This word does not in any way describe the reality of the experience and is deceitfully innocuous. My wife would have me completely convinced that she was done with me and leaving one minute and in less then five minutes she was wanting to hug and kiss me with a loving smile on her face. If you don't know this yet, women go insane at 50, absolutely bat shit nutz.

After this experience with my wife I understand why no woman has ever been elected as President, I agree, no woman should ever serve in that position. I also now understand why Lerner burned her IRS emails, why Hillory is a two-faced gas bag. In short, they are not equal nor can they be when they are prone to insanity.

Now if you'll forgive me, my wife called and needs me to stop at the grocery store on my way home. I still love her, but she's nutz.
 
Red Machine D said:
You do know that all of this stuff about ethics in journalism is a massive coverup to conceal the true goal of #GamerGate, which is to force women out of gaming through harassment and assault?
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So all those women calling bullshit on the gaming journalism industry and political correctness as well are just trying to force themselves out of gaming through harassment and assault.

People are so smart.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
I'd completely agree with you except that you cleverly hid an actual problem among the insignificant stuff.
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I don't know... The companies worth supporting with my money are, I think, worth some thought. Ultimately the demand for any given product is what it is, but with something like gaming, most gamers like a variety of games. And many of us cannot afford either to buy or the time to play every single game that interests us. Thus it makes sense for the ethics of a company (and its employees) to become one (of multiple) filters in the products we ultimately choose to buy. As I have said in many other threads, this is the basis of regulation in capitalism (real capitalism). Consumers exercising their right to vote with their wallet is the main basis of regulation in capitalism. Governments today interfere a lot with capitalism to try and protect the consumers who do not desire having to actually use their brains to try and keep them "safe."

With regards to GG in particular, I am not particularly supportive. As they say, a human is intelligent, but a group of humans is stupid. GG seems to have a mob mentality and people don't seem to be united on a single, specific cause. I've wanted to see backlash and boycotts among large companies that buy reviews (and those who sell them) as well as those who use technology to screw customers over with obtrusive DRM that only hurts legitimate consumers. I'm talking about companies like EA (with things like Origin), Ubisoft (had their own always-on DRM crap), ActiVision, etc. A lot of them seem to be singled out on the specific incident that started this backlash, which significantly hurts the overall legitimacy of the movement and is probably also the main factor in why I disregard it.
 
Red Machine D said:
You do know that all of this stuff about ethics in journalism is a massive coverup to conceal the true goal of #GamerGate, which is to force women out of gaming through harassment and assault?
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You're joking, right?

So all of this mess about ethics, which happens to be true... was made up?

Also, no one except maybe a small number of basement trolls want to "force women out of gaming". Except for a small number of random white knights and SJW's, most people don't care if women are involved in gaming. Which is a good thing, because there shouldn't be a reason to care.

If women want to play games, it means nothing to me as a gamer, other than that there are more people out there playing games. Whoopdeedoo. I don't care if they're men, women, eunichs, or whatever.

If women want to develop games, fine. As long as they make quality games that I'm willing to buy, I don't care if it's a man or woman that made the game. Hell, my gaming days on PC goes back to my 286 and playing games from Sierra, where Roberta Williams was a big deal in gaming(for good reason, but not simply because she is a woman). Women have been involved in game development for 30 years now(seriously, King's Quest goes back that far) as a designer, not simply a random artist or something on a project. If women make crappy games, I simply won't buy them, the same as I won't buy crappy games made by men.

The thing is, this whole "gamergate is just to get women out of gaming" only seems to come from the SJW's(like yourself) with NOTHING to show that it's gamers as a whole or even a large portion of gamers demanding women have nothing to do with gaming.

What gamers are sick of, is being shit on constantly by SJWs in media, being the target of constant attacks about how we're all misogynists simply because we like a game where a male character saves a princess held captive by an evil turtle, or women happen to be scantily clad in some games. That argument is as idiotic as the complaints about how Barbie is some evil tool created by men to force girls to believe an impossible to attain image... while completely forgetting He-Man(just one example of many), as if that unrealistic mass of muscle is some attainable image for boys to believe in.

So while I've been able to articulate some thought on the matter, can you tell us something other than "gamers just want chicks out of games and in the kitchen"?
 
When people in the other side concluded all gamers are misogynist and gamergate became gamersgate apparently.
 
I learned a long time ago that journalism is mostly propaganda. Reporters don't become reporters to report the news, but to influence their audience.
 
pothb said:
Also love how some people are basically dismissing corruption because it happens everywhere, btw. Just because it's everywhere, doesn't mean it should be ignored, when evidence comes out, and it has come out.
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People aren't dismissing it, they are just tired of being told that every single example is some various war on women and if men just stop it will all be over. It's just isn't realistic, similar to extreme libertarians who believe every problem can be solved by the free market.

Both assume that everyone wants to be a good responsible person with good intentions. No, telling telling a woman to protect herself when out alone isn't promoting rape culture, because it's something I would also tell a man. And no, some idiots blasting a woman on twitter isn't proof of misogyny because those idiots also tend to do it to men too.

These problems are problems we all got to face, but the moment you start trying to place all the blame on someone else, and always be the victim, don't be surprised if people start to call your issues nonsense.
 
Red Machine D said:
http://www.examiner.com/article/gamergate-revealed-as-misogynist-and-racist-movement-from-4chan

https://storify.com/strictmachine/gameovergate

You tell me.
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Those articles are exactly what he claimed.

-The Zoe tweets? She sent them herself, and isn't the first time this tactic has been used.

The claims that everyone on 4chan and part of GG is straight, white, males and that they are only pretending to be be women/black/brown/yellow/gay/lesbian? Disproven by many many people retweeting that "debunked" response with timestamped pictures, to which they responded with "oh nice photoshop" (they weren't photoshops). I mean shit, who's being the racist/sexist here? I'm leaning towards the group that is stereotyping what "gamers" are.
 
The irony here is that Zoe chick admitted to raping her boyfriend of the time and has had several people come out and say she sexually harassed them and well that is all brushed to the side because "well shes a woman, women don't do those things." The hypocrisy of those on the SJW and games media side pretty much makes the point of the gamergate crowd. However because the media has a bigger horn they can shout down anyone elses point of view. Logic of their type, I can shout louder than you therefore I win.
 
GaryJohnson said:
When did "#gamersgate" become "gamers" ?
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Well the journalists sure as hell don't appear to want women out of the game industry, yet they're the ones attacking their audience(gamers) and accusing them of wanting that(can't forget those white knight SJW gamers as well). Red Machine D made the BS claim that the whole mess is some attempt to force women out of the industry, well then who is making that attempt? The only "group" left would be the people trying to out a handful of individuals for their unethical practices, that is hardly "to force women out of gaming through harassment and assault". The funniest part about that accusation, is that most of the people involved in the mess from the journalism side are men, who weren't even involved in the initial problem that started it but instead tried to play white knight SJW when they saw 1 woman getting crapped on for her BS, and another her immediately jumped to her side like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian do NOT represent women as a whole, do not represent female gamers, do not represent female game developers, and are simply two people who made themselves into victims for publicity. Getting those two out of gaming journalism is not an attempt to "force women out of gaming" any more so than complaining about Cliffy B and John Romero is an attempt to force men out of gaming(and funnily enough, people have been griping about those two for years now, when Zoe, Anita, and their pals have managed to do far worse in a few months).

Like I said in my previous post, women in gaming is not some new thing. 30 years ago one of the biggest names in gaming along with Richard Garriot, Nolan Bushnell, etc. was Roberta Williams. This was years before anyone had even heard of someone like John Carmack. The idea that women are some rare and recent occurrence when it comes to the game industry is idiotic. Gender disparity exists in all walks of life, and always will. It's not always due to some evil conspiracy, and doesn't always need to be a "problem" like the SJWs want everyone to think it is.
 
Since I can't edit, I'll simply post what I forgot here.

Do the misogynist assholes exist in gaming? Oh yeah. No one can deny that. All you have to do is a quick search to find a video of that mouthbreather from that capcom cross assault(I think that was the name?) bit back in 2012. Aris Bakhtanian is his name if I googled that correctly. Yet that nimrod does NOT represent all, or even a majority of male gamers, period. He's part of an idiotic minority of gamers that will likely still be living in their parent's home into their 40's.

Yet somehow the "game journalism industry" has taken it upon themselves to crap on everyone who isn't a fellow SJW, as if they're all automatically on the level of the guy I mentioned above? Sorry, but that's just as bad(possibly worse since it's a concerted effort from supposed professionals), simply from the opposite direction.
 
Merc1138 said:
Do the misogynist assholes exist in gaming? Oh yeah. No one can deny that...

Yet somehow the "game journalism industry" has taken it upon themselves to crap on everyone who isn't a fellow SJW, as if they're all automatically on the level of the guy I mentioned above? Sorry, but that's just as bad(possibly worse since it's a concerted effort from supposed professionals), simply from the opposite direction.
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The problem is that trolls, men's right radicals and women's right radicals are all looking to dominate the narrative, and none of them are civil in any way. So we end up with smears all over the wall with insults hurled all over.

Sane devs and gamers alike are left with all the injuries from this.
 
The question is, why does anyone care. I will admit the only thing I care about is those who have gotten trashed for simply saying that all of this is nothing but bullshit and they couldn't give two fucks about how it turns out. To me those are the people who have gotten the most virulent responses from the SJW. What amazes me the most is that the gaming media allowed their agenda, as flawed as it was, to be coopted by a bunch of assholes whom don't give a crap about anyone who is actually involved. The SJW crowd feel their beliefs are more important than anyone they trample on along the way. The gamers side has been coopted by a bunch of assholes who get glee over causing chaos. In my opinion these people have caused damage to the message the gamers were trying to present. Who was responsible for all of the threats and other harassment no one will ever really know. In this day and age it is just as likely that the SJW did the harassment to themselves to appear as victims as opposed to groups in the gamers camp doing the harassment. Likely it was a combination of the two. Once the SJW crowd saw they were getting sympathy for their side due to the harassment they likely took it to another level.

Regardless the whole thing is idiotic, everyone already knew the media was corrupt as hell, everyone already knew the indy scene was corrupt as hell, everyone already knew that people trade sex for favors.

If you are a gamer and this bothers you, the best thing you can do is boycott their publications and websites. Stick to crowd sourced reviews and ratings. Money corrupts at every level.
 
Reimu said:
The problem is that trolls, men's right radicals and women's right radicals are all looking to dominate the narrative, and none of them are civil in any way. So we end up with smears all over the wall with insults hurled all over.

Sane devs and gamers alike are left with all the injuries from this.
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Heh, radicals. If you think you can't be "radical" when dealing with these radical SJW types, you are very naive. You're a radical to them for daring to disagree with them. Hence all the "end of gamers" hand wringing. If women want to be in gaming there is nothing stopping them, they just might want to make games that cater to women instead of shaming men's games they don't like. Sarkesian is on video stating she wasn't a gamer several years ago but those who have destroyed her theories/videos are all radical haters of women apparently.

To paraphrase Maddox, when was the last time the magazine Cosmo had a gun on its cover? What about the novel 50 Shades of Gray? Chick porn sold out in the open like other romance novels. Should we demand that Cosmo cater to men more (beyond their covers)?
 
Ranulfo said:
Heh, radicals. If you think you can't be "radical" when dealing with these radical SJW types, you are very naive. You're a radical to them for daring to disagree with them. Hence all the "end of gamers" hand wringing. If women want to be in gaming there is nothing stopping them, they just might want to make games that cater to women instead of shaming men's games they don't like. Sarkesian is on video stating she wasn't a gamer several years ago but those who have destroyed her theories/videos are all radical haters of women apparently.

To paraphrase Maddox, when was the last time the magazine Cosmo had a gun on its cover? What about the novel 50 Shades of Gray? Chick porn sold out in the open like other romance novels. Should we demand that Cosmo cater to men more (beyond their covers)?
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Heh back at you. If you think that people will want to get radical and deal with them, then you are hopelessly optimistic. We are mostly a bunch of indifferent beings that can't be arsed even if the next door neighbors are bloody on fire, so even with all that "hate on gamers" or "misogynistic" being mislabels, it really doesn't mean anything unless the fire starts to burn'em up as well.
 
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