You're absolutely right. I seem to remember her being mentioned, but I either I was mistaken, or it was changed soon after. Really, though, Anita seems even less connected to Gamergate than Zoe, though, odd she is being mentioned at all. She's not a journalist.

I'm sorry, perhaps because I'm not Polish (although Islam has the concept of the antichrist as well), but I was more using it as an expression of exaggeration than something religious. Nobody would think I was being serious about people claiming that Anita was the anti-christ (I'd hope). Conversely, however, with calls of "They want to censor our games!" (what some people paint the likes of Anita as), is absolutely and objectively false, yet doesn't appear to be an obvious exaggeration.

Since you appear to be an ardent supporter of gamergate (at least in the threads I've seen it being discussed on in here), let me ask you a simple question, devoid of any other context or implications or surrounding trappings of Zoe or gamergate or Anita (or whether her videos are lying or truthing or exaggerating) or whatever.

Is there something wrong with educating gamers and game devs to the idea of having more inclusive (or less exclusive) narratives and stories in games?

When you are making a series of videos critiquing gaming content, you ARE arguably a journalist just as much as TotalBiscuit or PewDiePie. Reviews, critiques, articles, written or in video form, what's the difference?

What RWarehall said. Plus, she blamed her death threats on us without a shred of proof less than a week before that thread started and took the issue mainstream with her New York Times piece. Is it really so unexpected that someone continually labeling us sexists and misogynists and misrepresenting GG to the world would become a topic of discussion?

Hope you don't mind if I field this one real quick before I head off to bed despite it being directed to someone else.

The question revolves around the assumption that gaming has an inherent problem of inclusiveness. Doesn't that very idea clash with the oft-repeated refrain about the majority of gamers being women now? Beyond that, do you see how it could be viewed as offensive to treat women as though they need 1:1 representations that reflect them in order to feel welcome in gaming?

Us? Who is us? You? Me? Gog? Gamergate? Do you conflate GG with yourself, or yourself with GG? Are you part of Gamergate? I don't know in reference to what you are speaking, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. The week before the thread started there was the cancellation of some talk in Utah that she was going to give because of threats, is that what you're referring to? Did she blame Gamergate for that? She might have blamed it on gamergate (I wouldn't know, but I haven't seen so), although she has accused gamergate for simply being a sexist movement targeting women (in that regard it isn't hard to draw the connection).
The NY times article kinda merges the two (the university shooting threat targetting her, and gamergate attacks on women in general), which I don't know are the same, but it doesn't quote her as saying so. And how could NY times not merge the two? You have a feminist speaker famous for a series on video games cancelling a talk due to threats at the same time as there are threats targeted towards other feminist and/or female personalities in gaming.

I have to say I have no idea what you're talking about, but I get the sense that you're referring more to women playing games, when my question was actually more about "more inclusive (or less exclusive) narratives and stories in games" (i.e. relating it to the backlash against what people seem to think Anita is talking about vs what she IS talking about).

But that's the point. If women are 52% of the players of games right now, over half, why is it so necessary, why are games so problematic that they require a change in narration and story? Do we need games to become a 75%/25% female to male ratio before it is fair for women?

Or is this a sign that there are adequate numbers of games available for the enjoyment of both sexes? If so, then why all the complaints about characterization?

I'm really sorry for being dense. I still don't understand what either of you are on about...
You keep talking about the number of women playing games. I don't understand what that has to do with anything? How does that relate to narrative and story?
As an example, even if all races played (or if black people or asians maybe even played more) would that make it ok if there were lots and lots of racist games? Would the responding argument be "But look, they all play these games already, why should we have to make them not be racist"?

Because if the narrative and story of so many games is so "sexist" why are women playing games in numbers proportional to the population? If its so bad that they need to be changed, how can this be true?

But hey, clearly you want games to be changed. So if one person or a group of people don't like it, ban it or force it to be changed. Good luck with that...

I'm sorry, that doesn't follow at all. Are you saying that if the only books ever written were misogynistic and insulting towards women, they'd decide "Hey, we're going to be illiterate"? Or that back when the only portrayal of black people in movies was negative or inconsequential, black people didn't watch movies?
I really don't understand..you seem to be talking as if this is some zero-sum game, and YOU are going to lose out on something by games being less sexist.

Also ban or force it?
See, again this is the imaginary refrain of "They want to censor our games!". Nobody is calling for that.

Babark,

I'm not interpreting you literally. What I said higher was that your language shows you (in this particular) to not be objective. By which I mean, you are emotionally invested. I was not offended, and I don't think most religious folks would be. I'm not very religious in case you thought so.

I have no problem saying that accusations of censorship are somewhat hyperbolic, and they are based on implications rather than outright explicit calls. Fortunately censorship is still negatively seen, that there is very little overtly in favor of it.

As for Anita, she came up as example of feminist ideology in gaming. Not as example of journalism. She is however a good example of media, even if not news media. In case you haven't noticed, commercial, journalistic and entertainment media are becoming less and less separated. Sponsored articles, infotainment, sensationalism, reality TV, docudramas, product placement. Examples abound. Suffice to say, when discussing feminism around gaming, Anita Sarkeesian is, and I'd say by her own choice, THE reference. Singling her out is therefore obvious, because she stands out on merit.

I don't particularly care about Gamergate to be honest, and I've said so earlier. I usually jump in these topics when things get more overtly political. In regards to your question it all depends on what exactly you mean by education. A lot of what I assume you are considering education, could rather be said to constitute indoctrination. Behave, or else... Clockwork Orange style... which by the way, considering the rape scene in that, I would not be surprised if there are feminist critiques accusing Kubrick and/or Burgess of misogyny. I have said often and will say again: tolerance is the answer. Is that so hard to understand?

Now my turn, apart from diversity for diversity's sake, what other ideological positions do you think gamers and authors should be educated about?

The problem with Anita is that she is a sexist because she is nothing more than a men hater and she is trying to is make gaming a female only pass time by bringing her version of feminism into the mix. Her version of feminist is what I call toxic feminism because it is geared towards hating men and not the true meaning of the word. The problem with Zoe Quinn on the other hand is what she did to get good reviews of her games and top gaming news story.

I don't believe I am so. I mean, sure, I consider the idea that no gender or race should feel ostracised by the entertainment media they consume a fundamental truth. Does that make me not objective? I suppose it could, in the same way you thinking that people shouldn't be executed for paying in coins at the supermarket is a fundamental truth might make you not objective.

I always prefer to speak and direct myself to what people are explicitly saying, rather than what they could be interpreted or imagined to be meaning. Makes life a lot simpler and direct. Kinda troubles me when people start talking about and arguing against what they interpret I might be implying. How am I supposed to respond to that?

Considering the large amount of controversy the film (since you're talking about a 'scene', I assume you're referring to the film) garnered, it wasn't just feminist critiques that found the sexual violence objectionable. Tolerance is all very well to talk about in this context, but If the vast majority of movies were like the Clockwork Orange, or maybe if the vast majority of movies featuring the UK were like that, and there was this group of people who were complaining about that, would you tell them "Stop the attempts at indoctrination! Be tolerant!"?

I believe you've brought this up before, and I thought I responded to this before. Inclusivity with regards to portrayal of gender and race and such is in no way equivalent to inclusivity with regards to opinion. Being able to show an explicitly arab character as just another character, or a positive character isn't the comparable to "Hey, we should be able to show racism in a positive light". There are no wrong genders or races/ethnicities. There are wrong and immoral opinions.
Of course, not to say that a sympathetic racist character should never occur (The Chamber was quite interesting), but it was quite obvious, even there, that the racism was a negative characteristic.
I'd like to think that everyone would agree that racism (for example) is bad, and that people who think that racism is good and valid are idiots (in that particular regard), with no necessity to be "tolerated" (in that particular regard, and again, as I mentioned earlier, not talking about physical violence against them).

Educating or indoctrinating? Because much of Anita's claims are empty assertions that she never backs up with empirical data. She can opine on videogame content from matters of personal taste, but when she makes objective claims like "X has an effect on Y", without presenting anything to substantiate that, then no, I will not "listen and believe". Not without compelling evidence.

I've been more than open minded toward Anita's videos, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to hold her monologues and claims to the same skepticism and scrutiny that I hold everyone else who espouses ideas/politics/religion/etc.

Sorry if it bothers you that she doesn't get a free pass on this, but truth and empiricism is more important than feelings.

Hey solzariv! What specifically are you referring to here?

The problem that I have with Anita is that she claimed that she wasn't a gamer in a lecture she gave in 2010. We don't know if she misspoke or what. Then in her tropes videos about damsels in distress she shows a picture of her as a child playing SNES. With her videos I tried to keep an open mind but it was hard with her men hating comments through out. Both statements cannot be true unless she is an oxymoron which I believe she isn't.

So since we are here discussion this topic, perhaps one can answer me a question of something that strikes me as odd:

Why are those spearfigures of feminism in games and the gaming industry - Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian -, victims of harrassment and threats from people (none of which have been linked to an actual person, which is proven to be associated with GG) are active on those 4chan, 8chan boards and so on?

I was once only once on 4chan out of interest reading some threads, those forums are the verbal gutter of the WWW, where the normal code of communication comprises threats, name calling whatever you can think of, things like "You little shitheat, I cut your dick off." are normal there. Why would somebody who takes offense in that rough language and stupid stuff that is going on there, take part in it and be active there?

edit:
PS And even make a big deal out of it, when the normal verbal code of communication there is aimed at that person? It is like, when I would join a group of Hooligans and expect a nice discussion, when i punch one of them in the face.