How do you rectify these these thoughts together? On one hand you are blaming all of GG for the actions of a few wackos and then asking us not to do the same.

Yeah, yeah. Double standard much ? :)

OK, in small words:

Extreme = uncommon, out there, not representative

All evidence I have seen shows that the vast majority of self-proclaimed GGers and GG spokespeople are misogynist wackos. Abusive, vile views seem to be typical. There seem to be very few people who support GG and don't come out with gendered or ethnic insults, etc.

On the other hand, feminazis are a very small proportion of feminist and equality groups. They are the extreme edge of equality groups. There are many, many feminist groups who include all genders and races, or who are simply groups promoting equality regardless of gender.

Feminism is a broad movement that contains a few wackos. GG as a whole seems to be an extremist group comprised of and represented by wackos. The feminist equivalent of GG would be a specific violent feminist group.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/wikiality/images/6/6a/NotSureIfSerious.jpg
You trolling?

Nobody can be so blind to really believe this, especcially after reading only a fraction of this thread (which is actually full of links with proof).

I refuse to think this person is serious, especcially after the whole #notyourshield thing.

Anyone who took even basic political theory knows that movement != specific group. You can't possibly be objecting to that.

Why would #notyourshield change anyone's opinion? It's just tokenism and Nice Guytm methods. I don't tolerate it when people go 'Oh, I have a black friend so I can say the n-word'. #notyourshield was exactly the same thing afaik - trying to give people a cover for the same crappy stuff they always did.

And if you think I have the time or interest to read though a noticeable fraction of this thread...yeah, no. This thread is huge, full of digressions and links to badly done rant posts. If there's some statistical, scientific proof about who's in GG, links would be appreciated. Random blog posts, angry videos and forum threads are not proof. Well researched posts would be interesting.

All the evidence I've seen - and I paid attention to GG before it got beyond Zoe Quinn, so I've seen a lot - is that it's mostly comprised of angry, small-minded people who want to hurt those who are different and trolls doing it for the lulz. The ethics in journalism crowd - who existed before GG and will exist after - got pulled in as token normal people to give GG cover.

I'm all for ethics in journalism, but 99% of what GGers talk about is not related to that. And look at the GG targets - small indie developers and news outlets that published things GGers disagreed with. I didn't hear about anybody proposing journalistic standards at game conventions. I didn't see any serious proposals made talking about adapting AP ethics rules for games journalism. I haven't seen any exposes published about cozy developer-reporter relationships. Actions count for more than words, and the actions GG members have undertaken and supported are by and large bigoted.

That's why I keep saying 'Drop GG'. There's a whole world full of political slogans to rally around. People who really care about ethics need to act ethically and stop associating with people who are abusing others and committing crimes. If people leave GG and start a clearly ethics-focused group I'd be happy to see what they were doing.

That would also include a new threads without GG in the title. By keeping this thread going, people are keeping GG alive with all the ugly baggage. People who don't want to be associated with doxxers and trolls can easily separate and form their own group.

We do need a serious debate about games and morality. But GG is toxic.

Gilozard, Please tell me you're trolling because I'm not seeing almost *any* truth to what you typed

Hatemongering:The media has had a field day painting everything not lining with their narrative as wild misogynist wackos.

1) It was Briana Wu who had to grovel to be let back into the Anti-GG Clubhouse & as far I heard not peep needed to be said about Brad Wardell. & Sam "Let's bring back Bullying" Biddle is GG?

2) you mean her very flawed & cherrypicked critiques?

What Criminal activity are you talking about? GG brought in the FBI to investigate the harrassment claims

Abuse:Abuse is flat out horrible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRCS6GGhIRc

but what does that have to do with GG?

"I'm fine with no game encouraging the player to beat other characters to death."

But are you fine with games being made for people with different tastes?

Militant Feminazis: those do tend to be the loudest & most vocal so I can see where those could be mistaken for the Feminist leaders.

You're conflating mass media with feminist groups. Quick reminder: Reporters != political activists. The media sensationalizes everything, yes. That's very, very different from what Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, etc went through. What happened to them was stalking (a crime), harassment (a crime) and hatemongering (not a crime, but horrible). What happened to GG was a bunch of decent articles about how hateful they were being, and then a bunch of regurgitated articles.

Re: Crimes
See above. Stalking and harassment are crimes in all US jurisdictions, doxxing is a crime depending on what is being published and how it was obtained. The crimes were, and are, happening. That the police haven't caught anyone yet is sad, but hopefully won't be the case forever. I can't imagine that GG could have called in the FBI unless a member is an FBI agent - regular civilians don't have that power. They can report crimes to the FBI and the FBI can investigate things, but it's not at all as simple as you stated. For one thing, it would have to be the harassment victims who reported the crime to start the investigation.

Re: Abuse
That was related to the discussion about GTA, which ended. Better reading needed, I think.

Re: Critiques
Said it before, but I guess it has to be said again: Critiques can be from any perspective and about anything so long as they provide evidence and maintain a reasonable tone (non-reasonable tone and lack of evidence is what makes a rant).

If someone decides they hate the color blue, and give all games with blue in them 1 star, that's a valid critique. Anita Sarkeesian's critiques are often so basic and uncontroversial artists I've mentioned GG to have a hard time believing anyone could get upset over them. Anita is doing Art Critiquing 101. That many gamers can't stand even that level of critique reflects very badly on the hobby.


I'm fine with games being made for different tastes - but there are a lot of people who seem to want all games to be violent, have sex scenes, etc. I've gotten shouted down repeatedly or insulted when suggesting that lots of gore or nudity is unnecessary.

Re: Militants
It's a problem that the media tends to report only the loudest and craziest voices. :/ 90% of feminists are great, but the 10% who are just nuts get the most media time. My problem with GG is that I haven't seen that there's a silent majority of regular people - I've read blog posts, seen videos, looked at Twitter, and it seems like 90% of GG is bigoted nutjobs with specific talking points. Between that and the small number of GGers I think it's an extremist group.

I've been thinking a lot about what happened with Target and GTA in Australia - personally, personally *I* think some kid went up to his Mum and was all like
"Mom, Mom, look at this neat thing I can do in this game..."
Oh, wait, Australian
"Hey Mar, Look at this bonza thing I can do in this game - I can get jiggy with this prostitute to get me health back and then kill 'er and get me money back too! Isn't that cool?"
"No, no, son, that's not cool at all, where did you get this game? Who gave it to you?"
"What do you mean Mar? - it's the one you bought me from Target!
"Me?... Target?... My GOD"
I don't personally believe she's even HEARD of Ms Sarkesian or GG or any of that stuff, it's just 'Think of the Children' with a vaguely feminist slant

Now, the good people at Target might be more aware of the general political climate, as are some of the people who signed the petition, this could have happened at any time during GTA's long history maybe there IS some reason it's happened now that's not just a coincidence, yeah.

But I think there's an almost Kirk / AI fatal logic loop going on in the minds of people who buy clearly '18' (Or 'R', or however the rating system works in your country) marked games for their kids that goes like

Computer games are entertainment for male boys
This game box says it's for adults
This game is very popular and sells lots of copies
Computer Games are for adult boys
Does not compute, DOES NOT COMPUTE - Will ignore warning, must be erroneous

I hate this notion that computer games are for male boys - I get asked all the time
"Why do that PUT things like that in games for children?"

And you know what? Like it or not, a highly visible, intelligent, young adult woman, who labels herself a.. player of video games (whether you believe she's telling the truth about that or not - as long as the general public does) and is analysing them critically and serious from a feminist or ANY angle might just help to change that perception!

GTA IS a soft target because of that whole "Use a prostitute to get your health back, kill her to get your money back" exploit that's entertained school kids and given them something to talk about in their lunch break for over a decade now

And you know what? I don't have Target in my country, I don't know what their DVD selection is like, but if they wouldn't stock Godfather, Sopranos box sets or maybe even things like Texas Chainsaw maybe they SHOULDN'T stock GTA! But more than that, if a parent wouldn't buy a Sopranos DVD box set for their kid, they shouldn't buy GTA for their kid either - let there be games with adult themes and situations and leave them for us adults, please!

Of course, the rub is - if everyone listened to me and followed my advice, I wonder how disastrous for sales it would be...

Knew about most of that already. The facts are not necessarily what you think they are.

Donations
Trying to pay a charity to rehabilitate a hate group is a age old tactic, and people are wise to it. The idea that paying money to charity could expiate sins went out with the middle ages. Why UNICEF turning down the donation a surprise?

Charities are careful about the money they accept, unlike politicians. :) It's completely understandable for someone to point out to UNICEF information about a person/group donating, and completely understandable for UNICEF to not accept it. That's not an organized campaign of harassment like GG ran, and that you seem to equate the two is mindboggling.

Re: Doxxing
Doxxing is terrible, isn't it?

1 person doxxed vs a whole lot more. Doxxing is never OK, but this person being doxxed (with, apparently, little or no followup) does not retroactively justify the months-long campaigns to harm indie developers, game reviewers and anyone else who disagreed with GG.

On a side note, the person who got doxxed is, again, a woman. It's almost always the women who get doxxed. Interesting, no?

Re: GaymerX
There are people who rightly feel threatened by GG. They have seen GGers threaten them and people like them just for being people like them. That screenshot was full of reasonable back and forth about where a group should stand on an issue. I haven't often seen the like from GGers dealing with an opposing group. Those threads tend to be full of cursing and rants.

TL;DR
If you're so concerned about these things, you should be running screaming away from GG. These screenshots and articles show a tiny fraction of what GG has dished out. Which just bears out my assertion - I can point to many, many instances of GG going off the rails, and demonstrate that people supporting GG hold extreme views / are exremists. Whereas these instances of bad behavior are a tiny fraction of what feminists and supporters of equality do, and are not representative of the feminist movement.

I can't see how you can object to these incidents but claim it's ok that people on your side do the exact same things and even worse.

This part - yes, absolutely - I don't think people get quite how simple and basic Anita's arguments are, she's almost reading direct from TVTropes as viewed through a feminist filter lens a lot of the time - she's not some evil mastermind, she's just a media studies / female studies graduate (I'm guessing - I don't know Anita's real educational history, I'm not her stalker or anything!) pretty fresh out of school, regurgitating some of what she's learned, and the fact that she can't be tolerated reflects very badly on all of us, yes, IMO

Heh - she's sure showing all those people who were all "You're going to study WHAT? Well that's a useless degree, what the hell do you expect to get out of life studying THAT!" at least, anyway!

Oh wait, I forgot, apparently there's fanboys out there who have meltdowns when the latest titles in their favorite franchises 'only' get awarded 8 / 10 in some publications
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/4966-Hate-Out-Of-Ten
Of course Anita isn't tolerated in that climate, silly me!

It's bad enough that you spread so much bullshit about lots of people now you have to spread bullshit about me too, please stop it.
My side is my own, I'm not part of any group and I object to doxxing, harassment, pushing agendas onto artists/media/critics, reducing overall tolerance in society, making money out of creating hate and fear, reducing gender equality, justifying and defending media corruption etc... and that's why I am clearly against anti-gg, because it represents all of those things and more. You could see that if you would live independend from any circles and their agendas.

Exactly, that's why most gamers were just making fun of her until she backed Quinn's/Kotaku's/etc... corruption/favoritism and actually started the serious part of her hate-campaign and manipulations with which she made so much money while at the same timy destroying the image of countless gamers in the whole media and making it more unlikely for video games in general to be considered as art.

Anyway:
I agree, that this hashtag #gamergate should be a thing of the past after people realized, that it has never been about the stuff that certain sites claiming to be journalists say it is/was. Unfortunately the money making neo-feminist hate machine will not allow this to happen even a bit.

No matter what, I (as part of a minority myself) would like #notyourshield to stay around since using whole minorities as shields for your own goals without even asking any of them is a bad habit from some current movements, not that everybody from one specific gender / skin color / sexuality / neuro-type /etc... wouldn't be allowed and able to have his/her own mix of opinions about various topics anyway...

many feminists in this are extremists as well, clearly living in the belief all males are rapists that beat up women for fun during their weekends.

Its ok when the feminists do it.


I have seen FAR MORE hoorible things by the antis than the pros.

Many of the figureheads in GG have clearly spoken out against harassment and doxxing, with key antis praising it, but i feel like you blind yourself from all this. Your point of view is very obviously set and you are searching for all elements that fit in. Ignore all the gamergaters that have been doxxed. ignore the many many death threats to pro people. ignore the antis turning on brianna for talking to brad wardell.

It is clear that no amount of arguments would change your view. I'm sorry, but you have blinded yourself.

Do you realize antis tried to stop charities from accepting money, how can you even defend that? as if all money GG touches becomes cursed aztec gold. You think that doesn't sound even somewhat insane?

This has been rated low, lol.
How fitting.