Shadowstalker16: STFU shitlord! Don't you know being rich is a burden?

Dessembrae_: The last part is because of GG pushing really hard for it. Pretty much everyone except for Grayson has started disclosing conflicts of interest now. Yay GG! Dessembrae_: I was actually more OK with that because the magazines never had a professional veneer to me. I saw them as almost pure PR with the odd exclusive every now and then. As games journalism started appearing more professional, my distrust lessened, though it should have been the other way around. Dessembrae_: My geek cred was never questioned, mostly because I looked like a serious, serious geek (and male), Other than that, I too had never ever heard of "diversity" in games. I had never thought about, never imagined that anyone could care about it. I never thought anything about playing a woman or black dude or alien or fish. I was the protagonist, regardless of who that creature was, and most of the time I would get into character (unless the immersion sucked).
Hell, I probably spent more time choosing outfits, hairstyle, clothing colour, and lipstick than three 14-year old girls at that age. Talk about breaking norms!

I will also say that I met quite a few other gamers in school, and us geeks would play almost every weekend (thinking about it, 5 sweaty geeks in a basement all picking out clothes and hairstyles and lipstick does seem kinda creepy now). In particular we loved playing RPGs together, Dessembrae_: I don't think gaming needs to be more welcoming. Does football? Does chess?

In the end, people that want to play will play. Not everyone likes it, and not everyone has to. We're different after all, and being different is okay. Isn't that what diversity means?

I also think that a big step in making gaming welcoming is to get rid of all these idiots that keep shouting about how gaming is a boy's club, or how gaming hates homosexuals, or how gaming is only for sweaty basement-dwelling geeks (this one in particular has resurged as a popular insult towards anyone pro-GG). I think if being a gamer could be prejudice-free, a lot more people would be willing to try it out and see for themselves if they like it or not.

(Also, I preferred my protagonists quiet, it's easier to put my own personality on him/her that way.) Dessembrae_: And that's also a strange point. Anyone is free to make any game, and make it as "diverse" as they want. But strangely, the journos don't want that. They want to force their "diversity" into other people's games instead.

You won't find a single pro-GG that's against creating new games, but the authoritarian drive to force game developers to include identity politics into their games must stop.
I think it can be summarised like this: "If you want it, make it! If you can't make it, launch a Kickstarter for the project! Don't just sit on your ass and complain that other's aren't catering to your ideology". I may have missed a few points, but I think that is the gist of the contention. Dessembrae_: GG is pretty big. When the sampling was done, it was estimated at around 170,000 active members. So, by distribution it should have the same percentage of unpleasant individuals as you would expect from any random sampling of 170,000 people. That is one of the drawbacks of being diverse, any and every kind of person has a place. Dessembrae_: Then you have come to the right place! Dessembrae_: I may have answered that already. Dessembrae_: I do too :(
I think it's because I'm old and I remember how good it used to be (BG, IWD, Fallout, Diablo2, Warcraft 2, UFO, Duke Nukem, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana .... and the list goes on). Nowadays, there's too much hype and not even close to enough originality. New games used to mean 'NEW' games, not 'rehashed version of' game. But sometimes there's a good one still! Dessembrae_: I think the easiest way to see the bogus is to

a) read the Eron Gjoni post and correlated what he actually says with what certain journos claim he has said.

b) Check how many sources on the GG wiki page link to an article that actually uses the very GG page on wiki as a source. That's a pretty good indicator that someone is outright lying.

c) If you want to see something funny about Brianna Wu, check out all the times she got caught trying to stir up an attack against herself (funniest is when she tried to start a hate thread against herself on Steam but forgot to log out of the official Spacekat account first).

227: Hey, no worries. Hopefully I didn't come across too offended-sounding. I just think that kind of thing bears repeating every so often since generalizations tend to pop up in here every now and then.

227: The level of discussion and debate I've seen seem to be of a lower quality than they were a year or so ago, but I don't know if I'd call it rot so much as exhaustion and bitterness. Having people claim that you're a woman-hating (even if you're yourself a woman) white supremacist who hates art games and wants to drive people out of the industry for no reason other than their scary gender gets really, really old. People get tired of it, people get bitter. I've certainly snapped at a few people over the course of this thread out of frustration/exhaustion.

Dissent is still perfectly allowed, though. I don't like Sargon. The 90s called and want Milo's hair color back. Mwahahahaha!

Gnostic: I wish GG or AGG stop telling people how they should enjoy games and let people vote with their wallet.

Gnostic: I suppose the AGG is mostly guilty of blackmailing the devs to have games cater to them without opening their wallet, GG are focusing their over-enthusiasm at the wrong place, attacking feminist, LGBT or SJW.

227: I can't recall anyone in GG telling anyone how to enjoy their games, though. In fact, I remember when pro-GG developers were being blackmailed/bribed into denouncing GG, people were careful to remind everyone not to sink to their level and start hating on games for their politics. Hell, I gave a positive review on my (admittedly tiny) site for a game Quinn was involved in without even mentioning it (and don't get me started on how much I liked Costume Quest 1 and 2 despite Schafer being a world-class douchebag), so I can't help but think that any claims that we're trying to tell people how or what to enjoy are completely bogus.

227: Some people do admittedly segue from GG into the great culture war of this decade mode from time to time. I suppose it's easy and inevitable given that what's happening in gaming has happened and is happening in other places (allegedly—I can only follow so much at one time), from books to metal music to some of the sheltered insanity happening on some college campuses. We've had feminist/LGBT members in GG, though. I can think of one example of each off the top of my head, probably because both got doxxed by the antis. I believe the latter also got outed to their parents in the process. Point being, let's not pretend that GG is opposing actual supporters of those causes so much as self-interested hypocrites.

And I like games with female-only protagonists. Remember Me was probably my favorite game of 2013. And Undertale has two gay relationships. No one has any problem with it. Not sure what "game girls not pleasing enough" means, but whoever told you what we're all about might have been feeding you propaganda.

Gnostic: I got the story here

http://superheroesinracecars.com/2015/08/17/almost-no-one-sided-with-gamergate/

That make me think maybe GG should change their methods?

shadowmirage: This and all the other polite replies (with links to various sources) I have received has given me a lot to think about.

I will take some time processing all of this and doing some personal research. I will get back to you (and others) with a reply after I have more verified information and can give an informative opinion. I will also check out that Reddit thread. Thanks for the links and polite reply!

Klumpen0815: The reason why the public opinion on this is so vastly different from reality is, that the average Jo/anne doesn't need proof to believe anything and although even most of the fabricated "proof" (see Wu's self-trolling) didn't work, it was obviously not needed anyway.
People tend to believe the most aggressive and loudest people that are putting a lot of effort into destroying credibility by slander and since GamerGate criticized journalists, which can be seen as a power in this information war, of course they didn't have a chance to get the masses on their side from the start, but in the end this doesn't matter when it's about ideals and the ideals I have seen are
- openness and honesty: conflict of interest is ok as long as it is disclosed and you are not lying about it
- proper research: you should have at least taken a careful look about what you are judging / analyzing and not just cherry pick for your pre-made agenda, any honest critisicm is a good thing no matter in which direction it may go
- no censoring of art while trigger warnings seem to be ok although are perceived as silly by many people

I'm very aware about the trolls feeding the fire on both sides, but if one side is led by trolls, I guess the more anarchistic side is less dangerous since it tends to self-regulate up to some point.

I've watched this whole fiasco for a long time and it just showed me, how easily grown up humans are misled and how few they seem to have learned in school - stuff like "you should always check for facts and provide sources and proof".
If some self-victimized group that is led by professional and well paid manipulators would shout at every occasion "the world is flat" long enough and destroy the credibility by their opposition by any means (unhindered by morals), people would probably start believing that the world is flat, because they are lazy and are always happy for scapegoats on which to project their negative energy without questioning anything even once all by themselves.

I'm not your average gamer by far as described by superficial media, although I guess there isn't anything like an average gamer since video games are a common medium by now and it would be like saying "the average reader" or "the average movie watcher". There is already a strong diversity but censor-happy people that are pushing agendas by creating personal and financial pressure on journalists and anyone else are actually reducing this.
I don't care about the best-selling games (mostly because they are tied to Steam and Windows anyway) but I do care about not letting 1984 / Brave New World / Brazil / THX 1138 happen.

I tend to more believe and support the guys that are pushing for peace and freedom rather then the aggressive ones that are pushing for control and war, even if it's unrelated to my personal interests regarding the point they are arguing about. Never follow anyone/anything blindly without properly understanding the matter at hand yourself first and if you really need a spiritual leader, rather choose Gandhi over Stalin!

Gnostic: http://superheroesinracecars.com/2015/08/17/almost-no-one-sided-with-gamergate/

That make me think maybe GG should change their methods?

227: The idea that how the media covers something and how people react to that something are similar is probably pretty accurate in terms of how the uninvolved view most things. You can see plenty of examples in this thread and elsewhere of people popping in, assuming that we're some great den of evil to be vanquished by right-thinking individuals like themselves because they heard so somewhere they trust. I've probably done the same at some point in my life. It's natural to trust journalists to do journalism until you personally see them throw that out the window in favor of clickbait and furthering a narrative. On the other hand, the hashtag StopGamergate2014 was a thing, and its popularity paled in comparison to GG's. #Neverkissagamer and other such hashtags they tried fared even worse. Also, the like/dislike ratio on a great deal of the anti-GG stuff speaks volumes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAyncf3DBUQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L_Wmeg7OTU

So things could definitely be worse. Maybe we should change our methods, but how else do you go up against people who are in a journalistic clique that spins events to portray you as a monster, or a general public that would believe that you strangle cats for fun if enough outlets claimed it were true? Could we really have kept the people we're opposing from accusing us of everything they did? Apart from rolling around in toxic sludge until we develop mind control and time travel superpowers, the only thing we can really control is how we react to all of that stuff. Maybe we won't change anyone's mind, but at least we can give them the most civil conversation they've ever had with a basement-dwelling neckbeard misogynist racist.

noncompliantgame: US Senate passes "cybersecurity" bill Cisa.

Shadowstalker16: Fucking hell harassment is the new Al-Qaeda now. Bush be like ''you can't expect 'Murrica not to take precautions against terrorists doing another attack right?'' And Anita be like ''Yah I agree''.

I mean really, does anyone actually think the government is interested in preventing their feelings from getting hurt online?