walpurgis8199: Yes, a lot of people know about games reviews being influenced by the marketing budget of the company selling the game. That frustration has been growing for years. Then the some of the games press started in a new direction. They started promoting games of people they liked (usually indie) and they also started attacking their audience for largely being male and liking things that males like. That frustration started to grow.

Then the Zoe Quinn thing broke. Some of games press decided to respond to it by deleting threads discussing the drama, by encouraging other gaming press or sites to stop discussion on their message boards, and then they wrote the gamers are dead articles. They basically said that the only reason for the backlash is misogyny. It was the response by the games press that really caused this thing to grow as large as it has.

Darth: Some Games reviews were influenced by advertiser money, the most notable example being the Kane and lynch 2 review from Gamespot and Jeff Gertman's firing, and guess why reported on that being bullshit at the time? Other games sites. It's like they've known and been complaining about this for ages.

Game sites promoting indie games because they like them, proves what exactly?

Do you have any proof that they were attacking their audience for being largely male? I mean actually attacking their entire audience indiscriminately, because they're the wrong gender, not attacking the "boys club, eww girls have cooties" of some segments of the gaming population hold (the biggest example being the dude bro douche bags that plagued xbl back in the day)

The Zoe Quinn thing "broke" you mean Zoe's X posted a thing and the internet shitbags that already had an axe to grind with her (Which I still don't understand, I mean I don't expect everyone to like everyone but why the internet picks certain targets for concentrated harassment/trolling confuses me) started posting their hateful bullshit and certain sites weren't having it.

The Gamers are dead articles, have you actually read them? They don't claim misogyny as the cause.

but I'll agree with you on one point, the Games media did handle this poorly, you don't feed the trolls, and you check your sources, if they'd done that Gamergate could've dead back in August and we could be living in a better world.

RWarehall: The "Hooker Trick" doesn't make those statements more true and less deceptive, and as I pointed out before, most of the mentions of that "trick" talk about gaining health. Some actually discourage you from killing them, some say its only an option. So, this hooker trick you speak of, is paying money to have sex with them for health....it doesn't involve killing.

Shadowstalker16: stuides have proven games don't cause violence, sexism or any other of the buzzwords.

keyvin: This isn't true. The studies you are probably referencing have only found there is no correlation between violent crime rates and depiction of violence in large populations. Interestingly, they did not account for the soaring incarceration rate starting in the 1970s. There were several other problems with the study that was published in the journal of communications. Real causal studies of individuals can only measure short term aggression, which does demonstrably spike. What that means over a person's life? That is an unknown. So studies have shown nothing about how violence in media affects individuals over the long term. It's still an unknown we can only hypothesize about.

Anyone else spend more time talking about crap on the internet than actually playing video games?

keyvin: snip

RWarehall: Another thing about censorship that gets lost is that in many cases, it is accepted. Public television edits out content of movies all the time. Pornography is obviously limited. There is a lot of art considered unsuitable for children and this is generally accepted as a good thing.

But then you have censorship through "outrage". One of the links I posted above spoke of the Smithsonian and a LGBT art display which had a movie censored because it depicted a cross and Christian groups got "offended" by it. I mean seriously, how many of these Christians were going to this LGBT art exposition to even be "offended" by it?

But that's the whole problem with this video game censorship lately. GTA V needs to be removed from Targets and K-Marts in Australia because feminists might be "triggered" by it, as if now adults need to be protected for their sensibilities and as if these feminists were actually really going to buy GTA V anyway.

RWarehall: Another thing about censorship that gets lost is that in many cases, it is accepted. Public television edits out content of movies all the time. Pornography is obviously limited. There is a lot of art considered unsuitable for children and this is generally accepted as a good thing.

But then you have censorship through "outrage". One of the links I posted above spoke of the Smithsonian and a LGBT art display which had a movie censored because it depicted a cross and Christian groups got "offended" by it. I mean seriously, how many of these Christians were going to this LGBT art exposition to even be "offended" by it?

But that's the whole problem with this video game censorship lately. GTA V needs to be removed from Targets and K-Marts in Australia because feminists might be "triggered" by it, as if now adults need to be protected for their sensibilities and as if these feminists were actually really going to buy GTA V anyway. Or Pillars of Eternity needed to have that limerick removed because trans people might be "offended". Heck, it was the straight Casanova which was dumb enough to kill himself over it. Wasn't that saying more about him? Yet no, somehow we now need to protect the "sensibilities" of other adults. But I don't see many social activists caring about Christian sensibilities, nor Christians caring about LGBT sensibilities. Nope, they only care about their "own" sensibilities...

Tell me the real difference between Christians being "offended" by how that crucifix was treated vs. LGBTs being offended by comments in Christian media about what God thinks? Is the difference, your side is right whichever side you are on? When one interest group gets to censor the content of others for being "offended" where does it stop? Should Russians be able to censor every video game that has American soldiers implying they are the bad guys? Or visa versa? How many games would be left that don't offend anyone anywhere? And certainly don't tell me any of them would have any kind of narrative, because the more text, the more chance for offense...

Even all this said, it doesn't mean certain games might not cross the line. I don't hear many serious complaints about the censorship of Rapelay. I didn't hear a whole lot of outrage from anyone when the "Kill the Faggots" game was removed from Steam. Some games really cross the line.

But generally speaking, unless the concept is nearly universally deplorable, I support artistic choice. You might not like the concepts of prostitutes or strippers depicted in video games. Eye candy for males might be a turnoff such as "boob armour". Or you don't like that one can kill civilians in Hatred. Or you don't like torture scenes or the sight of a lot of blood. But are any of these things "so offensive" that "no one" should be allowed to buy that game or else the game "has to" be changed? Because be careful what you wish for, else something you like will be edited for "offending" someone else.

keyvin: You understand, again, this is one psychologist, cherry picking papers that support his opinion. Published in a non psychological journal. That part alone is pretty damning. Either the paper had been rejected by psychology and sociology journals, or the author didn't like his chances and went with a journal that would be more receptive.

The consensus view of psychology is that exposure to violence leads to more violent behavior in the short term. There is also a consensus view that exposing children to violent media is harmful. These views were formed on the bases of reproducible laboratory research.