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Vainamoinen: (2) The filthy Social Jewish Warriors/cultural marxists/feminists have infiltrated what is rightly OUR media and ours alone, and THEY INSULT US with diversity and inclusivity, a narrative of WHITE MALE INFERIORITY, by CATERING TO PEOPLE THAT ARE NOT US and most of all, taunt us with articles that tell us rape threats are a bit of a crossed red line. For THEM, EVERYTHING is racist and misogynist, Anita said so herself, look at this contextless seven second video I found linked to on 8chan, and all that even though Hitman clearly isn't misogynist because YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO USE THOSE GAME MECHANICS really, also THEY say video game violence is creating monsters (or was that a Donald Trump tweet? I don't care) so WE must FORCE GAMING TO BE FREE by telling everyone Tim Schafer is racist. Just go with it fellow dudes, it'll pay off! THEY SHOVE THEIR POLITICAL BULLSHIT into everything. We are not political! Also, vote for any party that promises to deprive non-binary people of their elementary rights of recognition, that will help.
So, does existence of such uncivil speech (let's call it that as a strategy of de-escalation) is an excuse to turn down any constructive criticism too?
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Vainamoinen: They certainly include the right not to respond to certain types of criticism and not to engage with clusters of harassers and/or sealions.
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LootHunter: That is not what I asked. Especially since Sarkeesian DID respond and DID engage with people whom she called her harassers. By mocking amd humiliating them.

UPD. And just for the record, not all of those whom Sarkeesian called harassers were harassing her. Some of them were just cultural critics.
Also Anita tends to harass people that did her no harm, like Boogie at Vidcon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-azOuTN3Ps
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LootHunter: That is not what I asked.
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Vainamoinen: Well, of course not. You never engage with the topic at hand, you can just point fingers elsewhere. It's called whataboutism. And it's called JAQing off.

As opposed to the youtube videos I mentioned, Sarkeesian seldom went directly ad hominem with accusing her harassers. In fact, she seldom even mentions developer names in her videos, which is a strategy of de-escalation and curbs targeted harassment. I'm aware of a single case where Sarkeesian did attack an alt-right ideologue who went so far as to place himself in the first row at one of her panels, and fuck, you should have heard the guy whining like they cut off his dick and served the slices fried to all the men he called cucks. Yet what was he engaging in right there but the mockery and humiliation that you clearly erroneously attribute to the guy's favorite target?

Quick comparison of the cultural criticism we're getting here:

(1) A detail of the work of art may be problematic in that it may perpetuate negative stereotypes, but you can still enjoy and love the game while being critical of some of its aspects.

(2) The filthy Social Jewish Warriors/cultural marxists/feminists have infiltrated what is rightly OUR media and ours alone, and THEY INSULT US with diversity and inclusivity, a narrative of WHITE MALE INFERIORITY, by CATERING TO PEOPLE THAT ARE NOT US and most of all, taunt us with articles that tell us rape threats are a bit of a crossed red line. For THEM, EVERYTHING is racist and misogynist, Anita said so herself, look at this contextless seven second video I found linked to on 8chan, and all that even though Hitman clearly isn't misogynist because YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO USE THOSE GAME MECHANICS really, also THEY say video game violence is creating monsters (or was that a Donald Trump tweet? I don't care) so WE must FORCE GAMING TO BE FREE by telling everyone Tim Schafer is racist. Just go with it fellow dudes, it'll pay off! THEY SHOVE THEIR POLITICAL BULLSHIT into everything. We are not political! Also, vote for any party that promises to deprive non-binary people of their elementary rights of recognition, that will help.

I'll repeat: If you find cultural criticism to be censorship, the gamergate movement (as perceived and described by yourselves) was a censorship movement.
I'll give that a very heartfelt +1
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babark: Something being harassment would be considered harassment.
But very often something that is not harassment is considered harassment, especially when some consider that every critics against individual makes you defacto an harasser, legitimizing harassment, an alt-right sympathizer (when not a literal Nazi) if not all of them at the same time.

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babark: So what are you saying? That people shouldn't criticise what they consider problematic aspects of games they play?
What I am saying is what I said a couple of posts ago when I answered a very similar question from you :

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Gersen: Not necessarily but If the conclusion of said criticisms/conversation is that some games or some aspect of gaming are highly toxic, contribute to increase violence toward women or minorities, or other similar loaded accusations, if said accusations are parroted over and over again in articles or tweets, if games containing those elements or their devs are singled out and finger pointed, calling peoples enjoying or making them immature (when not worse) and needing to grow up; then yes, it definitely contribute to creating a climate for banning and censoring or at least for self-banning and self-censoring.
And before you ask it, if peoples wants to pressure developers to remove things they consider problematic that's their rights, I might disagree with it and fight against it, but it's their rights to do so (And again disagreeing with them doesn't mean harassing or threatening them in any way).

What I have a lot of issue with is the hypocrisy or doing it and at the same time pretending not wanting to ban, censor or alter games (or other media) in any way. The whole "we call those things toxic, we call those enjoying those tings toxic, we call developer making games containing those things toxic and publicly shame them for including them.... but eh... if somehow they decide, on their own, to stop putting said thing in games it's not our fault, we never asked for any censorship...."

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Gersen: Oh, absolutely, sure. And again, the video series by Anita said as much. The problem is the prevalence, specific use and intention of those tropes.
How exactly does that work when peoples jump on the throats of any games using one of those tropes without caring about context and how said trope is used in the story; how do you make the difference between the good and the bad usages of said trope ?

Concerning intention and specific use, most of the time, for example in the case of the "save the princess" trope, the intention is just "we needed a two line story to justify the main character going from point A to point B", whenever it's to save the princess, save the hero favorite chihuahua or press one out of three colored button it doesn't really matter, Mario is a perfect example of that, the game never pretended to have any sort of deep or meaningful story telling or lore, it use a trope filled story simple because the story is in the back seat (if not in the trunk) what matter most is the gameplay. The biggest character growth that Mario ever had since his creation is that now he has nipples.
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Gersen: But very often something that is not harassment is considered harassment, especially when some consider that every critics against individual makes you defacto an harasser, legitimizing harassment, an alt-right sympathizer (when not a literal Nazi) if not all of them at the same time.
I don't know where to go with this line of discussion, honestly.
"Calling something that's not harassment harassment is bad!"
Ok. Yes. So? I don't think Anita (as an example) was complaining and calling people who said "I don't think your analysis is very nuanced, because you missed out X, Y and Z" as harassment. She was calling the thousands of (very often sexually charged and gendered) insults, death threats and rape threats, which made up the vast majority of it as harassment, and that too has overtaken and flooded out the legitimate (or at least non-inflammatory) criticisms to too large an extent.

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Gersen: ...contribute to increase violence toward women or minorities
Who said this? Where? I'm genuinely curious. Are you talking about serious game criticism from within the culture itself (I know people like to exclude Anita as "She's not a real gamer, but that's just BS), or some crackpot lawyer or religious extremist? Someone said a game contributed to increase violence towards women and minorities?
See, if not, this again comes back to the problem of exaggeration- people keep making such claims "These people say that games cause violence!" so that their audience actually believes that that is what this "other side" is claiming.

"They say games cause sexism!" "They say games cause violence!" etc...I don't think I've ever heard "them" say those things. It's important to be accurate.

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Gersen: if said accusations are parroted over and over again in articles or tweets, if games containing those elements or their devs are singled out and finger pointed
I also don't understand this complaint. If one person makes a criticism about a game, and another reads it and finds they agree with it and share it, and then someone else shares that, and shares and shares and shares, somehow that is bad?

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Gersen: calling peoples enjoying or making them immature (when not worse) and needing to grow up
I also don't understand this, not the least because I think you phrased it badly. You're saying calling people who say they enjoy those features immature?
I'm not sure how that situation would come up, honestly, it seems totally hypothetical. I mean, one person says "This game totally lacks diversity/features a boring save the princess plotline!", and then another person would say "But that's good! I enjoy games that lack diversity/feature boring save the princess plotlines!", and then the first person would call the second immature?

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Gersen: How exactly does that work when peoples jump on the throats of any games using one of those tropes without caring about context and how said trope is used in the story; how do you make the difference between the good and the bad usages of said trope ?

Concerning intention and specific use, most of the time, for example in the case of the "save the princess" trope, the intention is just "we needed a two line story to justify the main character going from point A to point B", whenever it's to save the princess, save the hero favorite chihuahua or press one out of three colored button it doesn't really matter
You answered the question yourself. Given the incredibly large number of games that already feature a "Save the princess" plotline, someone doing it again today just stinks of uninnovative thinking. Coupled on top of that, usage of THAT SPECIFIC trope among the thousands of games that use the same trope shows a trend (totally unconscious and unintentional, usually) of specific attitudes towards women (as things or objects of goals instead of people, and that's been even demonstrated in this very thread). Of course there are games that buck the trend or try doing something different, but those are kinda obvious- at one point in the Zelda series you had Sheikh appear, for example.
Post edited July 30, 2018 by babark
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Yeshu: Also Anita tends to harass people that did her no harm, like Boogie at Vidcon.
Yeah, whatever total shit you still have in gamergate's bag of cry wolf holding, dude. We could go into what VidCon is, but you probably know neither Hank nor John, nor have you read a single book of the latter, the whole event only interested you because of its infiltration by the alt-right in the first place. We could go into how Boogie himself excused Sarkeesian's behaviour, we could go into how Boogie blamed Sarkeesian for the death of Heather Heyer, that would be great, we could go into allegations of his domestic abuse, we could go into why Sarkeesian may not be the coolest person when identitarian neo-nazis fill the first row of her panel, but why the fuck should anyone even bother? As soon as it's getting too embarrassing for you, you just reach into that infinite bag of gamergate conspiracy crap again and demand to be proven wrong on yet another tangent that sends people on a wild goose chase for the truth while you just sit there reaching into that same old bag unearthing the same heaps of shit tomorrow, demanding to be proven wrong on dishonest smears that you've gotten your ass whupped with yesterday already.

With the level of harassment Sarkeesian received and still receives, and I've personally witnessed quite a lot of it, her level of restraint and ongoing civility is literally super human. I wish I had that incredible, laudable, admirable skill. I'm certainly done with civility. I'm calling a spade a spade, a heap of shit a heap of shit, and a fascist lie a fascist lie.
Post edited July 30, 2018 by Vainamoinen
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Yeshu: Also Anita tends to harass people that did her no harm, like Boogie at Vidcon.
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Vainamoinen: Yeah, whatever total shit you still have in gamergate's bag of cry wolf holding, dude. We could go into what VidCon is, but you probably know neither Hank nor John, nor have you read a single book of the latter. We could go into how Boogie himself excused Sarkeesian's behaviour, we could go into how Boogie blamed Sarkeesian for the death of Heather Heyer, that would be great, we could go into allegations of his domestic abuse, we could go into why Sarkeesian may not be the coolest person when identitarian neo-nazis fill the first row of her panel, but why the fuck should anyone even bother? As soon as it's getting too embarrassing for you, you just reach into that infinite bag of gamergate conspiracy crap again and demand to be proven wrong on yet another tangent that sends people on a wild goose chase for the truth while you just sit there reaching into that same old bag unearthing the same heaps of shit tomorrow, demanding to be proven wrong on dishonest smears that you've gotten your ass whupped with yesterday already.

With the level of harassment Sarkeesian received and still receives, and I've personally witnessed quite a lot of it, her level of restraint and ongoing civility is literally super human. I wish I had that incredible, laudable, admirable skill. I'm certainly done with civility. I'm calling a spade a spade, a heap of shit a heap of shit, and a fascist lie a fascist lie.
I provided you with evidence of the event and your just gonna ignore it? Cool bro. I see where your priorities are.

Also, where do you got proof that there where neo nazis siting at the panel? What's that? You don't have any? One might think you are just a raging screamer that defends his social views regardless if they are true or nor.
Post edited July 30, 2018 by Yeshu
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babark: I don't think Anita (as an example) was complaining and calling people who said "I don't think your analysis is very nuanced, because you missed out X, Y and Z" as harassment.
You think or you know it for sure? Because she WAS calling Carl Benjamin a harasser and I saw all his videos about Anita - all was civil criticism.

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babark: She was calling the thousands of (very often sexually charged and gendered) insults, death threats and rape threats, which made up the vast majority of it as harassment, and that too has overtaken and flooded out the legitimate (or at least non-inflammatory) criticisms to too large an extent.
Again. How exactly you estimate the number and severity of insults and threats? By the words of Anita only or you have some statistics? I actually asked that question already two times and you still haven't answered it.

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Gersen: ...contribute to increase violence toward women or minorities
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babark: Who said this? Where? I'm genuinely curious.
Anita in her "Tropes: Women vs Videogames" videos. Should I watch them again to point out exact time of her statements or you can do it yourself?

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Gersen: if said accusations are parroted over and over again in articles or tweets, if games containing those elements or their devs are singled out and finger pointed
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babark: I also don't understand this complaint. If one person makes a criticism about a game, and another reads it and finds they agree with it and share it, and then someone else shares that, and shares and shares and shares, somehow that is bad?
No. But when some other person who disagrees with criticism makes a comment about that disagreement this person immediately called alt-right ideologue, mysoginist, neo-Nazi and so forth. THIS is bad.

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Gersen: calling peoples enjoying or making them immature (when not worse) and needing to grow up
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babark: I also don't understand this, not the least because I think you phrased it badly. You're saying calling people who say they enjoy those features immature?
I'm not sure how that situation would come up, honestly, it seems totally hypothetical. I mean, one person says "This game totally lacks diversity/features a boring save the princess plotline!", and then another person would say "I enjoy games that lack diversity/feature boring save the princess plotlines!", and then the first person would call the second immature?
Yes. (I removed the phrase "It's good" because no one among reasonable gamers don't pretend to know what is good or bad for everyone)
Post edited July 30, 2018 by LootHunter
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LootHunter: You think or you know it for sure? Because she WAS calling Carl Benjamin a harasser and I saw all his videos about Anita - all was civil criticism.
Not sure anyone can even consume all those videos without having the brain liquified and dripping out of your ears, but yeah. People who send out "I wouldn't even rape you" tweets aren't usually considered "civil". And even if they were, identitarian neo-nazis are still identitarian neo-nazis, even if they're "nice". I mean, shit on a stick, Richard Spencer, super nice guy, no? Hear him out, he's got right of free speech! Okay, don't ask him about the jews and the gays and the immigrants and the Social Jewish Warriors and the ...
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LootHunter: You think or you know it for sure? Because she WAS calling Carl Benjamin a harasser and I saw all his videos about Anita - all was civil criticism.
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Vainamoinen: Not sure anyone can even consume all those videos without having the brain liquified and dripping out of your ears, but yeah. People who send out "I wouldn't even rape you" tweets aren't usually considered "civil". And even if they were, identitarian neo-nazis are still identitarian neo-nazis, even if they're "nice". I mean, shit on a stick, Richard Spencer, super nice guy, no? Hear him out, he's got right of free speech! Okay, don't ask him about the jews and the gays and the immigrants and the Social Jewish Warriors and the ...
I don't even know who Richard Spencer is, but if his ideas are so bad why not let him speak? The ideas will stand or fall on their own merit. If he's truly bigoted, that will be clear to everyone when you let him speak. As long as someone isn't breaking the law by inciting people to violence or something, there's no justifiable reason to restrict someone else, especially someone else with a different view than you, from expressing their opinion.

I do know who jordan peterson is, and seeing the mindless, semi violent protests on a university against him speaking, after hearing his perfectly rational, non-hate filled speech from other sources, is what has enlightened me up to this genuine problem. This is a legitimate risk to a free society. It prevents reasonable conversation and discussion of ideas, most of the people protesting probably didn't even know what he was there to talk about, they were just told 'he is bad' and they should hate him.

Let free speech be, and let individuals decide for themselves. At this point the cries of 'sexism', 'racism', 'nazis', etc have become overused and diluted of real meaning. The story of the boy who cried wolf is particularly apt here, if you call everyone who disagrees with you a nazi, it won't be long before everyone stops believing you.

The solution is the same for gaming, really; let games be, and let the market and individuals decide for themselves what they want to play. I suspect you'll find the games trying to push politics over good gameplay will be the ones that fail, no matter which side of politics are being pushed. In theory both sides can then be happy? No politics can only improve gaming.
Hey guys. I feel this topic has been covered pretty extensively now. The thread has gone off towards more political debates that don't even have much of a connection to the topic. I will thank the majority of users who kept on topic and civil. The thread will not be deleted but will be locked.