I'm pretty sure they're going with what they think will sell, and at the least, I haven't seen any evidence that suggests otherwise, although it's not anything I'm interested in so I'm gonna pass anyway.

Definitely one of the best articles I've read on the issue. Thanks for posting this!

Usual argumentative hickup. That should read: "Showing how games have misogynist elements". "The Sarkeesian Effect" is a planned and advertised personal insult. "Tropes vs. women" is a detail critique of games.

Something is "factually wrong" because it "has not been proven"?

That's not how science works. In an infinitely complex system, 'proof' is hard to attain and in most cases unattainable. Hence science focuses on disproving theories, not proving them. That's e.g. why the study Mrs. Sommers brings forward against the correlation between violence and games is essentially just a few guys pointing out how other people's actual research is faulty. It does not prove the opposite. And I guess there will be back and forth for another hundred years at least.

The influence media has over us is a vast field of debate that won't just be settled by that one final study that says "yes" or "no". We've already dealt with the question for hundreds of years, at the very least since suicidal men turned up on Goethe's doorstep wearing his character Werther's signature blue coat.

What I really don't understand is how people can find the idea so incredibly insulting that they're somehow influenced by the media they like and spend a whole lot of time with. It's not like Sarkeesian gives much of an indication as to an extent. The idea seems to be forbidden fruit territory somehow.

Reddit and 4chan let their forumites organize harrassment, and it was getting too scary for the moderators, who perceived these threads as violating their guidelines - i.e. the rules by which internet users attained the privilege, not the right, to post in those forums. If someone tried to organize harrassment in my house, my hospitality would end rather quickly as well. And when I kick that someone out of my house, he or she can scream censorship as much as they like.

If that's your position, 4chan is about the worst example you could have brought up. Because not SJW have 'made' that forum delete threads. It was the most lenient, if not lazy, forum moderators in the entirety of the internet, some of which are probably gamergate supporters as well.

I don't defend censorship. I defend the idea that people can decide on the content that is placed on their own site – particularly, of course, if that content is potentially litigable and legal responsibility might be attached to the owner of the site.

I really don't understand these screams of censorship. Who censors whom? "The SJW" can't censor anyone, whoever that is supposed to be. Not even Auernheimer is censored.

As gamergate supporters supposedly are his audience, I think he does not risk anything at all. He's being scared into flinging shit for a living. It could even be perceived as a bland new marketing strategy, see: Daniel Vávra's latest endeavours:

Whatever bullshit Vávra spews in hopes of raising the sales of his game, the Schafers and Tørnquists do not agree. To me, he sounds like an extremely naive newbie to the industry, one who had somehow hoped the video game press would do the marketing for his company free of charge. Yeah, that's yesterday's press, that's 1990, the uncritical press that hails everything and everyone in the industry. So he's just jumping around for attention, because he still doesn't have marketing, insulting the industry and the press, always tearfully proclaiming how much he would damage his own industry standing and how his PR guy would hate him and how sales of his game would be bad because of his shit flinging. I'm not sure there are more self-righteous people in the debate.

Sorry, but I can not share that opinion, not the least bit. And I'm sorry, this kind of assessment, for me, absolutely points into the direction of the mindless consumerism that Alexander describes. The way supporters of gamergate describe their movement, Curator should be perceived as THE daring, extremist and absolutely insulting conflation of industry and press. The monopolist publisher exerts control over the press by mechanically suggesting select reviewers to his customers, and expects the press to desperately try and grab their clients from their platform. That's... incredible, absolutely incredible. Like, supragamergate. Far more insulting to gamers than anything "the press" could have ever written about "gamers". Valve should stay infinitely far away from anything like that. You want a dividing line between industry and press, I understand that well. How is Curator not the definite erasor of that dividing line?

Is Valve attacked? Nope, because Valve's the dealer. You do not attack the big dealers, because you fear for the drugs. You attack the people who are supposed to have an eye on the dealer.

Socks have her new update up and running. It's always great to get her recaps after a long workday. :D

I do feel bad for GaymerX. I saw on Twitter how the usual band of totalitarians bullied GaymerX's new manager into submission (which is what they are against), because she chose to be neutral (which is her/their right) towards GG, and just wanted to be left alone...

"It wasn't real gamers" / "They're not representative" / "It's just a few" / "This is not gamergate" or even "Those threats are fake" etc.

http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/10/game-developer-brianna-wu-leaves-home-after-receiving-death-threats-for-speaking-out-in-support-of-women/
https://twitter.com/SeeBeeWhitman/status/520747855364231168/photo/1

And you do realize that pro-GG people helped report that guy to Twitter, right?
Oh yeah, you left that part out conveniently...

Seriously, you can't just pick out one idiot on Twitter and claim it proves your point that all Gamergate is about is hatred and misogyny. Because both sides can find any number of jerks on both sides.

If that reflects on everyone on my side, then KingofPol getting doxxed and Polar Roller getting fired because people called his place of work reflects on your side.

Seems kind of unreasonable when it's turned around, doesn't it?

I just posted gamergate news and have no idea what "side" I am supposed to be on.

Stop taking everything as a personal insult, that's how this whole bumblefuck started in the first place.

Right...you don't have a side, anyone who looks at your distorted posts can see it. Get a life.

Quote from your "news" article. Want to talk about crappy journalism...
"GamerGate, a loosely affiliated group of people who have attacked women in gaming before"

No use of the word alleged, claiming the whole group have attacked women before. A little bias maybe?

So by your account, people need to accept responsibility for this as well https://archive.today/Ju3EJ This is a man who is simply calling everyone who is being an asshole out, but look what he's getting.

And let's not forget my personal, send Bard into a blind rage, pure form of bullying: http://i.imgur.com/7z5PRVl.jpg I mean, who takes responsibility for this?

There are assholes on both sides, no one would deny that. Hell most of Gamergate supporters I see acknowledge it and also try to get information so they can talk to the assholes claiming to be on our side. But there's also a degree of troll that looks at situations like this like a buffet, it's so easy to jump in and rile up feathers, that it's hard to police, and no one can without a degree of power that I would be very VERY uncomfortable with any entity having.

Please tell this to Anita Sarkeesian.

Doxxing and harrasment is constantly being condemed (as it always should be!) by Gamergaters. It is public for everyone to see on the #gamergate Twitter hashtag.

Is this a GamerGater gone off the reservation, anti-GG out to smear, a 3'rd party psycho or a hoax? I have no idéa! But I hope that we will get the truth in the near future, and the police have done some good in this matter...

@Vainamoinen. A bunch of us in here is fully aware, that behind your civil and academia words, there is pure anger that GamerGate exists. Get used to it, because this thing is not going anywhere just yet...

No, I'm rather telling it to a whole lot of people - gamergaters or not - who are running around through the net like crazy people because supposedly a huge press and feminist conspiracy is trying to take away their games, because the press and feminists and Social Justice Warriors and feminazis and whofuckingever are trying to insert their uniform "ideology" into these formerly so wonderfully ideology-less games, and mostly because these mentioned people have openly "personally insulted" or "declared war" on "gamers".

Yes, I'm telling it specifically to the people who are not interested in discussing actual journalist and industry ethics instead.

This, Garrison, THIS is what an actual personal insult looks like. See how it's addressed at me directly, personally? How it's directed only at me? Not towards a random group of people that I may or may not belong to?

No, by my account, people need to calm the fuck down because the present completely poisoned atmosphere and incessant shit flinging will result in more harrassment, whether you'd consider the harrassers part of gamergate or not. Gamergate will change nothing, absolutely nothing for the better. Far too many rather unrelated people are painted as evil to the core, and the sociopaths will OF COURSE act on that kind of vilification. Who in this superb movement even gives a shit about the actual culprits? Electronic Arts, IGN, Warner Brothers, Valve, Apple, GameStop?

The problem is, the movement is about Games Journalism and the Ethics there. No matter how you slice it, Valve is a developer and store owner, Gamestop is a retail company, Apple is a hardware company primarily, EA and Warner Bros are publishers. IGN is the only one of those that's in the Games Journalism industry, and Ethics will do a lot to fix problems, and if not it's a damn good staging area to find out what is broken.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/gamergate-interviews/12391-Glaive-GamerGate-Interview One of the interviews that was done about Gamergate, I want to focus on this in particular. Now, I'll be honest, I don't like seeing people unemployed, I'm a human, I'm not heartless (Wish I was some days but that has nothing to do with Gamergate and more about my personal issues). I'd rather see people make a conscious effort to turn and change their ways.

I do have to admit I was wrong to get so angry, watching people dogpile on someone who is calling out the assholes on both sides does not sit right with me. It gets me angry and it's a degree of anger that's hard for me to step down from right away (Nor is it good for my health but that's another story).

I think the worst of it is, 99.999999999999999999% of the Gamergate people I have been in contact with find the threats and harassment deplorable, and willing to call out the assholes doing it. But that leaves us asking for proof because we can't simply call someone out when we don't know who this person is or what they said.

Do I think Gamergate can still do some good? Yes, I am in the belief of that, but the problem becomes that people aren't willing to sit down and talk, they want to scream. People want to make this a political left vs. right thing, but most Gamergate people are liberals who lean more towards libertarian (I gotta find that proof again, there was a topic in one place that had a huge questionnaire about it).

I think the big issue, is that it exposes a problem in people, we're unwilling to actually check what's going on, and instead just trust a news source, and this whole thing has stripped a lot of trust I had in Journalists in general. It's GOOD to question things, it's good to question information, it's good to sometimes look into the issues on your own instead of what someone has decided is what you need to see. We need to see both issues, we need to have people covering all of the angles, and asking a simple question: Why are both sides yelling about different things? Why is no one noting that no one condones harassment and no one wants gaming to be exclusive? That what we want is for people to make the games THEY want, and for Games Journalists to be Ethical in their profession?