"What is my individual contribution" is a very interesting question that you should ask yourself. Trying to appear as the soft fair and "good" avatar of justice doesnt make you be right, more when you dont blame yourself for your shameless behavior.

Alison Rapp or her husband blaming directly, and just GG, for their harassment are just plain and absolutely wrong, if you are going also to blame a whole community for despicable acts, you are not better than the ones you are witch-hunting, many of the people of this forum could consider themselves GamerGaters, and they do not deserve your hate speech.

By the way the same people you accuse of criticizing DragonSpear, the fucking same gamers, they never said anything about Witcher3 or Inquisition transsexuals, yes, DragonSpear transsexual doesn't fit the Lore at all, in a world where people can just transform themselves into men and women through magic, and Forgotten Realms author is just playing the PC terrified role, what do you expect him to say? People like you would BURN HIM in hell just if he slightly disagree... I am sorry to tell you that at the end good stories will inspire generations and there are many ways to seduce ideologies through it, forced propaganda whatever if it have really good intentions, will always produce a rejection. Ripley will always be remembered as the greatest strongest scifi woman character, she deserve it and they did it much earlier than you "iPad warriors" even start to think that you should do something "big" with your "gamer lifes", meanwhile Rey in Star Wars will be forgotten as a Marie Sue if Disney doesn´t fit the mess Force Awakens is in the next two movies.

THIS, sadly something very common in this new "open minded" """""left""""""" (left here needs TONS of brackets)

I really think, but is my opinion, that Quinn is not a con-artist, I recommend you to play Depression Quest, is a complete garbage, but, she believe in what she was doing. And that has merit. Quinn likes games, likes the industry, could you say the same thing about Sarkeesian? Quinn could be criticized for making a bad game, but never for sleep with someone, if she did or not, if she get a "featured" article or not, is not her fault, and what deserve to be criticized again is the article itself, not the reason, or I should say the "imagined" reason of the article.

She is a gamer, I need to agree with this, she is part of a community that turns the back on her, because some few assholes, they dont deserve other adjective, didn't found any other better argument to criticize her bad work at Depression Quest than saying "oh women cannot make videogames"

They need to have a very small brain to make such an assumption.

TODAY IN SO TRUE

I have played that digital "choose your adventure" story, I prefer Milo's better. IMHO yes she can be criticized if she was in a relationship with one & slept with another (cheating) but that or dep quest is not why I'm against her. For me it looks like she's either a harasser or an enabler that hides behind a veil of anti-harassment. I do agree that Zoe & Anita aren't very comparable Zoe Quinn
is closer to Randi Harper in how she operates.

I've never heard Quinn was gamer, has she said what genres she liked?

I have never heard anyone say "oh women cannot make videogames" when women have a history in the industry. they can do it but how many want to?

How many fingers you have to point in all those directions at the same time. I think we can reasonably narrow "all of the internet" down considerably in the case of Alison Rapp. To an intersection of game aficinados, social outrage activists and "SJW hunters". Sure, you may find some of those people at KiwiFarms, certainly.

Humanization isn't "love", the role of humanization in conflict resolution is difficult to overstate, and –

– the war rhetorics can finally fuck off. Go to 8chan with that shit.

Concerning narrative media, I am defininitely seeing a pushback, spearheaded by anti-intellectual and decidedly fascist forces. I say 'spearheaded' because they often supply the argumentation and the enemy concept. This was particularly obvious in the 2015 Hugo Award fiasco, where actual fascists devised the pushback plan, democratic processes were violated to make this pushback appear much stronger than it actually is, and the pushback was directed against what the medium happens to stand for. I sure hope that's not "your side" in the "war you hope you win".

Maybe. It certainly kicked something off. It certainly was a revelation as to the dangers, multiplicity and prevalence of harassment methods that still loom large on the net today. It also gave us the opportunity to assess what’s broken and needs to be fixed and, hell, the opportunity of your much asked for self reflection. *gasp*

Before gamergate, maybe Candace Owens would have succeeded with her harassing website Kickstarter. Maybe people – your SJ subversionists, if you wish – would have donated the crap out of that Kickstarter in hopes of ending online harassment by recreating the snitch culture of the GDR. Maybe they would have cheered with Owens: "online anonymity is the problem, let's get rid of it". Maybe they would have thought that personal revenge must be the solution to the problem of journalist corrup.... I mean, internet abuse. Heck, without gamergate, maybe that Kickstarter would have even been ToS-compliant because the company had never been made aware of privacy issues (it's a US based enterprise after all).

The significance of gamergate, you may agree, lay in its symptomatic nature. You will probably not agree when I say that I found it to be a symptom of targeted, harassing and abusive outrage in geek culture as a whole, at home in practically all ideological camps. Which remains the problem.

As you may have come to understand in the last two years, I don’t see methods of societal analogy, a far greater diversity and an attempt at inclusion in fiction as negative. I see them in part as building pillars of narratives, and for some genres, like science-fiction, I consider them a raison d’être. Least of all, I see those methods as anything “new”.

Some methods applied by some enraged gamers against private people, journalists, developers and other creatives in the name of diverse brands of justice — like inclusion and feminism, but definitely also free speech, journalist ethics, and especially the fight against the SJW conspiracy — are indeed deeply problematic.

Where convictions are strongest, challenge is inevitable. I'm always honored being addressed as several people, though maybe not as honored when it's just 'guys'.

Thanks for already quoting that I don't.

So Ed Greenwood only wrote all that because he was anticipating criticism from the SJW press, and not because he was effectively defending the narrative integrity of his creation? Reality check: This was NOT the backlash we have encountered. These were not the threats we have encountered. If you're looking for stake burning threats to the creators for BG:SoD, look to Vox Day.

Concerning the term Mary Sue, I'm a traditionalist. So, no, Rey can't be a "Mary Sue" projection figure for the author(s) because the TFA Star Wars fan fiction was written by three dudes.

For once, you could have made that argument about Quinn without ostracizing Anita Sarkeesian off hand. I guess it's a reflex of sorts. Whatever, Depression Quest was what it was meant to be. The message is the game, the message is very strong, and communicated strongly via simple mechanics. I would under no circumstances suggest that an actually depressed person play Depression Quest, because it is just so intense once you get into it. And it was and still is, after all, a game you can play for free.

To criticise Depression quest as a "bad game" just because it didn't feature complex graphics and complex mechanics is, for my taste, a good bit too close to Davis Aurini's world of ideas, that of the SJW game developer with her degenerated art. :|

Is the message "I'm going to depress the crap out of you!"? I thought that was a normal response to video dreck. To me it was pathetic & I like "choose your adventure" & visual Novels.

Please research " Zoe Quinn wizardchan" & not just her side of it.

Have a good day

The game successfully communicates a deeper understanding of the problems people with depression face.

I've researched "Zoe Quinn wizardchan", but only found abusive and harassing conspiracy crap that ties into "SJW" and "professional victim" narratives and makes thegg.net authors look like people with brains.

Also – score! – Microsoft Paint conspiracy chart induced eye cancer.

lol the privilege game : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOMpxsiUg2Q

Read the Review, yeah the score seems low but the review reads Sound, although more like a 6.
On the forums they even admit that the reviews of the game are a bit all over the place.

Tell me this though; what is ''diversity''? You use it as a talking point yet never have you defined it. What is it?

You consider it important but not everyone does. Just as fans of many mediums have varying preferences on what they want. Like some people wanting shorter scripted games while others want long winded games. Or the no mechanics people and the mechanics only people. So what is it that makes this one preference of yours that some other people share so important to lie and get on a soapbox about? They're the same as the concerns of the other people.

There's a difference between finding a thing "less important" and considering it a new and alien element that ruins an entire narrative medium.

Textbook definitions of diversity suffice here. Sure, you could use more narrative or design specific definitions, which will inevitably add a good bit more pathos to the term. "The life blood of art" or somesuch.

Not sure in what direction the silly 'lie' presupposition side blow was supposed to head. As to the soapbox, why wouldn't you take that virtual shaky little pedestal when an issue is close to your heart. In this particular case, of course, 50 pages of outrage may follow because freeze peach this, social justice that, journalist ethics this, cultural marxism that, fire this guy, fire that gal.

And that's to be addressed.


Back to Wardell pulling a Wu/Vávra?

To me the regressives/SJWs/(whateveryouwanttocallthem) are against the most needed form of diversity (diversity of thought)

There's also a difference between finding something important and considering it so much more important than the what other people consider important enough to harass developers into changing stuff in their games and considering it can objectively correct point to push when writing factual articles. And ofc you still buy into the BS they publish. No one is against whatever ''diversity'' is other than if ''diversity'' means token characters. I don't see people whining about Sir Hammerlock or Sparks from Borderlands or indeed the misandric witches of BG from so many years ago. Or the trans character in Dark Souls, or the many non white characters of upcoming shooters like Overwatch. You're punching at shadows here if you think the instances of ''harassment'' when ''diverse'' characters are introduced are higher than when they're not. And ofc counting the times where journalists bent it into a way to suggest that included.

So if dictionary meanings suffice, ''diversity'' means ''variety''. So what does wanting more ''variety'' in games mean? Settings? Races? Playable characters? Genders? Romance options? Combat styles? Difficulty settings? Graphics settings? Diversity in character languages? Religions? And does it mean inclusion of all that within a game or a game with exclusively one of those traits? The diversity argument is nothing more a pet peeve than the others. Is there anything making it more than that? Because I see journalists saying its very important but skimping off on the definition or even saying something conclusive about what they're demanding.

Lets see; people say TW3 is not diverse. They don't say what ''diversity'' is. They're saying something is absent without telling us what it is. I'd call that lying about the game, or being dishonest in general. But more importantly, the above paragraph. What is ''diversity''?

Wardell harassed Wu right?

Personally, I'd rather call the people desperately calling for video games to remain the same or even to return them to a former state that has never existed in the first place to exhibit a strain of the "regressive". It's true that by the mid 1980s the US was more strongly heading into an inclusive and diverse direction, so some people may actually want to regress to that time.

The concept of "SJWs" is that of a homogenous group, by definition. It's not surprising that you can't see diversity of thought there. People won't see pluralism within what they consider a homogenous group, and even when they spot disagreement – a clear cut form of pluralistic thought – they'd rather consider it "infighting". The inability to see pluralism may also stem from moving in another circle entirely. For example, Leonardo may attest to you that among literature academics, pluralistic thought is all encompassing, and may in fact be just about the only thing worth talking about in that field. There's no progress without challenging the old ways.

The idea of the "token character" has sincerely and utterly less meaning than "diversity".

Why the need to use quotation marks? There's harassment, not "harassment".

Sure, why not.

Strawman party. Who says that? What exactly do they say? In what context? I remember that in the two reviews that get mentioned all the time, representational aspects focused on the depiction of female characters, but still gave the game an 8/10. That's hardly child with the bathwater level. It is is, needless to say, also not "lying". Is that really your prime example or do you have anything at all more?

I'm not familiar with the case exactly. I am however, very familiar with Wardell's troubling suggestions on gamergate victory conditions re. control of the press, so he really doesn't get to go boo-hoo here, particularly not ad hominem. If you think beamdog overstepped boundaries (to which I would agree) by asking their forum members for balancing out unfair reviews with positive ones: What Wardell tried was much, much more sneaky and vile. As a game developer, he has attempted to set fascist goals for a movement of consumers.

I am familiar with Wu going boo-hoo over unfair reviews of a game that has not even found a lot of friends among game journalists [she HAS suffered a lot of abuse, but that unfortunately doesn't make her game any better], and I distinctly remember Vávra going boo-hoo over the game press not doing his marketing for him, supposedly because he supported gamergate. So it's boo-hoo time for Wardell now. Big whoop.