I think what he's trying to say is that most games have no effect because they're just repeating the same messages that are everywhere else in the culture so they don't provide anything new to think about. However, when games do have a deeper meaning then that can potentially change people's minds by causing them to analyze it and perhaps look at things from a different perspective. It's like a summer action movie versus a serious movie with deeper themes. I think he's saying too many games are of the mindless summer action movie variety which doesn't provide much to think about story-wise.

Anyhow, personally I think if games reach the point of literature (which I think a few already do) then it's probably possible for them to convince people of good as well as bad things (oh, the philosophical arguments I had with people after playing Planescape: Torment :P). People don't exist in a vacuum and literature can definitely help shape someone's views. But either way I don't think censorship is a good idea (not that anyone here advocated it). I'd rather see developers get more creative freedom so that there's a bigger variety of games and then I'll buy the ones that I'm interested in and ignore the rest.

That's a very minimal claim. It would be saying that they merely "aren't doing the good they otherwise could".
A few things spring to mind:
* even simple games can give smart people enough to reflect upon
* we need the "Tetrises". There's nothing wrong with, as Blizzard puts it, "Rule #1: gameplay first"
* getting people to think is nice. Trying to bash them over the head with a message is another. Thankfully - this hasn't happened yet with games. Let's keep it that way.
* finally - sure, games can be one hell of an intellectual and emotional ride, in many different ways :). That's probably why most of us are here...

Exactly. It's such a moderate stance, yet I believe the #gamergate movement would agree to it in a heartbeat. "They want MORE games? That's absolutely fine." Then again - it's not like we're not letting them do so right now.

The funny thing is, those simple games were made by some of the most intelligent people. Tetris was made by a Soviet computer researcher in his lab. It takes a genius to make a game about rotating little blocks this much fun. Today we have so many hipser wannabe-Miyamotos with their puzzle-platformer, but the real Shigeru Miyamoto who made Super Mario Bros. was an industrial designer. Asteroids was a realistic space physics simulation with a real star map.

Anyone can throw around pretentious stories and use camera angles, but only few people can make the pure distilled goodness of a real game.

I'm gonna be blunt and cruel, because I don't think there's a way to sugar coat this. Thankfully it's not aimed at anyone in particular. I think the current definition of harassment is made by people that honestly don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Especially on the internet where they let their conversations take place on the most public forums and then don't know what to do when people disagree. They especially don't know what to do when some moron, some asshole gets cocky about being behind an anonymous name and decides to tweak people.

People have lost their ability to let shit slide off their backs, and if I knew how I'd write on that. Or maybe we simply never had it, and the internet has shown that in large degrees.

I'm going to repeat what I've said, and I've seen it in gaming at every point. The guy calling someone shitty names, and making horrible comments isn't because that person hates you, or hates your gender, or your race. Odds are EXTREMELY damn good that said person is talking shit to get you unnerved. It's an attempt to intimidate a person in a way that can only be done due to lack of eye contact, of physical or mental intimidation. Does it suck? Yeah, it does, but most people do not know any other way. Is it harassment? Honestly? I think Trajhenkhetlive is very right. Harassment is something that follows you, it's that one asshole who thinks he's part bulldog and doesn't want to let go of his 'prey'. It's continued attacks that can persist even when blocked, and threats made.

Hell, Twitter is great for that, 140 characters, it's easier to be a total jackass then a decent human being. Hell it's hard to write a decently complex sentence in twitter. In fact, twitter is almost a way of digital stalking, it's hilarious in that regard. Hell there's even a bot that follows certain people on a block list and puts all of their tweets on a Storify page, I mean that has to be a huge definition of digital stalking. I mean that's just out there.

But you know what? I don't like twitter, I wouldn't be sad to see it fade, but I won't protest that we should shut it down. I won't protest to destroy internet anonymity either. There's a purpose for both of those things, and there's a purpose for a lot of things out there, no matter if we like them or not. We're free to say (Almost) whatever we want, and go (almost) whatever we please. And while I may not like what people do with their lives, I may not like what people say, I'll sit here and argue for anything within reason to exist.

But I will say this, conversation, debate, disagreements, that's how we grow as people. We don't grow in echo chambers, we don't mature surrounded by yes people. And this goes to everyone. Throwing slurs, blocking people that don't agree with you isn't a sign you're in the right, it's a sign that you know what you're doing is fucked up. We need to save words like harassment, misogyny, sexism for things that are rooted in that, for things that are more then just what we don't like. Maybe we need other words, or maybe we need to learn to identify what's happening, to take a deep breath and look at what people are doing and saying, in what context that they're acting.

Or I don't know, maybe I'm becoming an old man and realizing that there's a lot more to life then being angry about things all the damn time, and finding things to be angry about and looking for them.

OR maybe the problem is, too many stupid people don't take the time to look at the English dictionary before using a word. Someone says something nasty to a person and then that person screams out harassment because he or she just assumed harassment is the right word to describe what just happened.

Harassment, like you said, according to the English dictionary is

1.
the act or an instance of harassing, or disturbing, pestering, or troubling repeatedly; persecution:
She sued her boss for sexual harassment.

The key word is repeatedly. So like you said, it is when someone thinks he or she is a bulldog and is nasty to you for days, weeks, months, years. These kind of people do this to break their target down to a point that their target feels like killing himself or herself or running away to Siberia. But it seems so many people today are so sheltered and pampered, they get insanely butt hurt after one stranger from the internet says something nasty to them once. And then they will remember it for years like a traumatic event.

I agree. That's something where I would say, "It would be nice if..." but I wouldn't demand it.

Yeah, exactly :)

I would tend to agree with that. In my mind, harassment is when people make threats of violence, especially if they have the person's real contact information (like private e-mail, phone, or address). I don't consider it harassment to disagree with someone, or even to insult someone if there isn't any threat implied in it.

I think "abuse" is a nice term for aggressive behavior, verbal or otherwise. Harassment, to me, suggests actively seeking out someone particular. It's like abuse + stalking. It's not harassment to me if someone shouts obscenities at another person in and because of a particular context - that's verbal abuse. If you, say, get flak in a given MOBA match, there will always be another match. If someone decides to follow you to other matches or find you on social media just to continue his abusive behavior - THAT'S harassment.
Keep in mind - I'm not a native speaker, so these are merely my intuitions.

I agree. But I'm thinking of cases like that female professor who got rape threats at her work e-mail. I would consider that harassment because the person threatened violence and knew who she was, so she would have reasonable concern that the person might carry it out (and I hope she went to the police about it).

If someone knows the real identity of a person and threatens violence, then I consider that serious (regardless of whatever word you want to call it). Those are the situations that I think should not be encouraged or condoned, and I think most gamers would agree that it's uncalled for to threaten violence or find out someone's real-life identity to make them scared.

I absolutely do not support any threats against Anita or Zoe (though I disagree with them) but I am frustrated that threats against "the other side" are ignored in the general media covering this situation. I think harassment should be defined by whether someone receives scary threats of violence, not based on what "side" someone is on.

Never mind.

I just want to take a moment and say thank you to the GOG staff for not shutting this thread down like so many other sites have.

Thank you,

You are awesome!

I can recall one thread being shut down since I joined. It'd be very uncharacteristic of them to do so, and technically this forum has no moderators, just them checking in once in a while. But yeah, I like this forum for those reasons.

Maintain level of hunger high? What does that mean? It doesn't even seem to make semantic sense...

I agree, Tetris is a cool game, everyone wants their Tetrises. But considering how abstract it is, it really isn't a good example to use in this context. Blizzard's "Gameplay first" would be a bit hollow if they used it as an excuse to justify sexual objectification in their games (for a random example, through the incredibly tired "bikini armour" trope). Because then that implies that sexual objectification is the normal way of doing things, what we do when we want to relax and "not think too much about things".

Thank you. That was my point: your comparison using bread and hunger is nonsense, my logic is still valid.

I'll stop here for now, if you want to argue further I'll be happy to reply.

:D :D :D
Is this a schoolyard now? "I've had the last word, and now I win, but if you go on, I'll go on".
My comparison would not lead to semantic nonsense, that was you trying to fit in stuff that I didn't even say (again, "maintain levels of hunger high"? That is the most "wot" english I've read in a while).

I'm sorry if you feel this has descended to the level of an argument for you. I have no interest in arguing with anyone on this topic. I simply felt the need to post my views a while back, and then respond to those who questioned it. I agree that going further down this path is pointless, so I'll shut up on this now, if you wish to add more along the same line just to have the last word, I'll be happy to concede that to you. If you have something new you wish to discuss with me, then I'll be happy to do that too.

Apologies for any animosity created- that was not my intention.

Well, I think arguing politely is a very mature and democratic thing :) and for sure you don't need to apologize for any kind of misunderstanding, or for not wanting to debate further. I assumed you weren't interested in this conversation anymore - I really did not see the point of the bread comparison you made, and then just replaced the terms as you suggested. It was kinda clear you didn't want or couldn't answer my point directly.

Now let me repeat my point. I'll further tell you which of the options I believe in:
You say media perpetuates X, I say this is equivalent to saying media causes X to remain as is.
My way of putting it makes the hidden assumption of causation more visible, yet it does not create it. It was always there, which was the point you disagreed with earlier - you said you did not argue about causation. Well, sure, you didn't explicitly, but you did implicitly, as per the semantics of what perpetuating means.

Now, one can disagree about the premises and say media does not perpetuate anything. This was the position of the individual that replied to you originally. It's not my position. I agree with you partially, at least if I am interpreting your position correctly (you seem to be unwilling to actually say explicitly what your position is). I agree that media MAY help cause X. It may also help cause NOT X. I would say what media causes, or reinforces, or perpetuates (there's a bunch of synonyms to choose), is much more dependent on the individual consuming/receiving the media, than on the media itself.

So my fundamental point, which I haven't implied earlier, but I always end up pointing: these collective style arguments, which attempt to blame impersonal forces (in this case media) for what are fundamentally human choices are implicitly totalitarian politically and therefore dehumanizing.