Sorry to have to lock the post and clean up some comments, but I think it’s safe to say that gamergater apologia is not cool on the gaming community here.
Please do not downplay death threats, especially when they come from a site absolutely known for sending them out. Think what you want about SBI, but to deny Gamergate and other harassment campaigns and the damage they have caused is dangerous and also absolutely does not contribute to making beehaw a safe place.
I was in basic training during gamergate, and to this day I’m confused what the actual event was and it’s evolution. All I know is ‘gamers’ felt more right wing after it
If you do want to learn more, Innuendo Studios did a 6 part series called Why Are You So Angry? that’s pretty short (most episodes are ~10 minutes) but goes into the details
Edit: part 4 (An Autopsy of Gamergate, 18min) is probably the best summary, but the entire series is worth a watch if you have the time
Gamergate was one of the first online instances that showed how easy it is to spread lies and misinformation through social media in order to manufacture outrage and weaponize it against specific targets.
The same exact tactics have been used by the far-right since. Gamergate felt like a testing chamber, before the full blown nazi propaganda plan that’s getting far-right politicians elected in many places. I live in one of such places, and the online tactics used by literal nazis against progressive politicians are 1-to-1 the same used in gamergate.
Those issues with social media have never been dealt with. If anything, social media has become more mainstream since, and now these tactics of lying and manufacturing outrage have become more powerful.
Traditional media seemed to have some semblance of accountability (although not really), but in social media, anyone makes up shit, people will take their word for it, if they like what they hear (or aligns with their beliefs), and it doesn’t matter if it’s debunked, because no one listens to that part.
The only solution is, and has always been, a zero tolerance policy against any kind of hateful or bigoted behaviour, by the people who control these online spaces. No one expects 4chan to moderate their content at this point, but when someone makes a new online space for conversations, those same people shouldn’t be welcomed, or they’ll shit all over the floor, turn it into another gross place, and you’ll have to start over.
These new complaints about “wokeness” in games, that happen with every game announcement, aren’t even dog-whistles at this point. They’ve been straight up howling for a while. The follow-up attacks, threats, lies, the dismissal that “none of this happens, it’s all made up”, and the support of fellow misogynists (like the companies with a history of sexism mentioned in the article), are all just part of the program.
And of course, you can see them in some of the comments in this very thread.
Game journalist are scum. They don’t play game they only attack people who play them. When game journalists are outraged about something it’s most likely because people are mad at a company and the journalists have to rush to the companies defense because they are paid.
Almost every statement in this article is a complete lie, from the targeted harrasments to the sexism allegations and racism. Even the Hades 2 statements are completely out of context to misrepresent the problem.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
Sweet baby Ink known to extort and threaten to push their agendas into videogames, (there is a video of the CEO Kim Belair explaining how she uses threats if game companies refuse to listen to her advice) was never targeted by harassment. A steam group was made that lists all games they’ve been involved with. (SBI already does the same on their own website). Never did anyone in this steam group go out of their way to harass anyone involved with the company. It is just a group of people who don’t like this company and want to avoid buying games that they are involved with.
Then suddenly one of SBI employees started a harassment campaing against the steam group owner, and tried to get him banned from steam altogether despite no wrongdoing. He never retaliated, and instead just defended his own points.
In comes the game journalist allyssa Merchante who has historically made bigoted statements such as “you can’t be racist against white people” and starts spreading lies of a harassment campaign against SBI. People call her out, and now suddenly she’s a victim of harassment despite she being the one contacting people’s workplaces to get them fired, or phonecalling their partners in an attempt to shame.
The controversy around Hades 2 is not around square jaws, but rather, linked to the smear campaign gaming journalists have had against stellar blade, citing sexism. People were upset that gaming journalists were being hypocritical with titles like “Hades 2 Gods somehow hotter than Hades gods” while they also criticized Stellar Blade for its sexy main character claiming it appeals to white males and that it is problematic.
Ubisoft being in bed with SBI is also not a lie, as SBI officially lists Ubisoft as their customers. The new assassins creed game is another example of these same journalists spreading misinformation.
Being a retainer does not automatically make you a samurai, and playing African-American hiphop music when playing as an African is incredibly stereotypical and innacurate since Africans and African-Americans aren’t the same thing. Game journalists claim white people are just upset about there being a black character in the game (with no evidence). The game is disrespectful towards japanese, but to game journalists that doesn’t matter because they’re “white adjacent”.
The controversy around Wukong is entirely fabricated. The developers of Wukong were being extorted by SBI for 7m USD for advice they didn’t ask for, and when they refused, suddenly gaming journalist started digging around, and found past statements they claim are sexists. However, as it turns out, these statements were in fact mistranslated statements, and the original Chinese statements weren’t even remotely sexist. Of course once people started pointing this out, once again “look at the harassment campaign against us journalists” started again.
These articles always are quick to spin the narrative and paint journalists as innocent, but every.single.controversy. was retaliation against misinformation and harassment campaigns by game journalists and DEI companies. Never was it “a bunch of sexist and racist white people being upset about diversity in videogames”.
But of course the author of this article wouldn’t tell you that she and many of her peers like, liked and retweeted all the false statements I’m bringing up here, or that she follows SBI.
7 million dollars? You could get multiple professional historians, mythologists or whatever expert your game’s theme is focused on to review and revise your entire game’s story for less than that.
Never did anyone in this steam group go out of their way to harass anyone involved with the company.
Never was it “a bunch of sexist and racist white people being upset about diversity in videogames”.
Very bold statements in favour of people that I know myself are extremely “anti diversity / anti woke”. Do you even know who the creator of the Steam group is? Guy is known for being the scum of the Brazilian WoW community.
One extreme doesn’t justify another, plus what matters here is the information. Couldn’t care less about who runs or frequents the group, but I’m glad it brought awareness to SBI and their influence.
Sweet Baby Inc found themselves at the center of attention at kiwi farms, a website known for harassment and driving people to suicide. I find it very far fetched to believe they received no harassment.
Ubisoft being in bed with SBI is also not a lie
Unless I totally missed it, I see nowhere in this article that said they didn’t work with SBI?
There are so many outlandish claims in this comment with basically nothing backing it up
This 100%
I deleted my reply because it was too much but the original ign article on wukong is very tame. I can’t see why they’re so worked up to harass the author off the internet.
Some days beehaw not having downvotes is a real issue.
Defensive much? I find myself being very suspicious of this opposing narrative. I’m not up to speed on this these days, but I remember Keza MacDonald being generally outstanding in her betrayal portrayal of events in video games culture.
It never went away in the first place. A huge chunk of gAmErS are still incredibly toxic, basically just reich-wing edgelords who hate women and minorities.
I saw someone complain about all the “woke” things in Starfield recently. He (and I’m 100% sure this was a “he”) listed things like “unattractive females” and “accents”, and goddamn if that wasn’t a perfect example of what’s wrong with so many gamers. Naturally “pronouns” were also a problem for this chud, because even the possibility of choosing “they” as a pronoun is literal gamer genocide apparently
Yes, last I checked, one of their prime hate forums r/KotakuInAction was still active, and still filled with the most pathetic little insects seething about the fact that women and minorities exist in media. Gamergate has never really ended. Most people just stopped paying attention to these fools.
Unfortunately, that’s easy for me to say, since I’m not on the receiving end of their doxxing and death threats.
I haven’t had the best life, but I just can’t fathom being such a total loser that I’d ever get that worked up over something like video games.
Even on Lemmy, which is generally full of exactly the sort of people gAmErS hate, gaming communities tend to be… well, gaming communities. At least this post hasn’t gotten downvoted into the negatives, but it’s got 50% as many downvotes as upvotes at the time I’m writing this. Sure, maybe some of those people have legitimate issues with the article, but I very much doubt it – it’s more likely they just saw “misogyny” in the title and downvoted without reading it.
Edit: are there any less, uh, gamery gaming communities around?
Oh I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. My instance actually disables downvotes, so I can’t see that, but there are a lot of reddit transplants here (I’m one of them), and reddit’s takes on things like feminism and women are overall not … good.
I’m being facetious. I don’t want to assume they all fit the stereotype of nerd that never leaves his room if he can help it.
They can probably either mask their hatred well enough, or they’re in a place just as bigoted, which may have fostered their convictions in the first place. They go through their interactions with the real world seething with anger and bitterness, then seek relief in video games.
At their heart, they’re no different from anyone else seeking to escape the unpleasant reality through some media - be that through building a peaceful farm, fighting powerful enemies, reading a gripping story or watching sports. They can’t actually fight the circumstances that cause their pain (or at least think so), so they flee instead.
It’s reallly just the source of their pain that’s so much more toxic, which in turn leads to a toxic result that ends up poisoning their joy in life even more. Most likely, they’ve been fed that poison by someone exploiting their vulnerability and unhappiness by giving their aimless frustration a target, reassuring them that someone else is to blame for their misery. It didn’t lessen their misery, but at least it gave the question “why am I suffering?” a satisfying and concrete answer. “It’s not you. It’s not some random and unpredictable circumstance that you have no control over. It’s these people that you can do something about.”
Except you can’t actually do anything about “these people”, but you can at least construct a fantasy of an ideal world without “these people”, where naturally you’re doing much better too. In the specific case of the toxic gamers, they’re looking to video games for manifestations of that world, for places they can immerse themselves in and be free from the troubles of the real world.
If these games fail to sate that fantasy, to provide an environment they seek where they’re powerful and “safe” from all the things that make them upset, that rage is taken to the forums and echo chambers where they share their suffering with each other to ease and validate it. It’s one thing if there’s some niche indie game made by “these people” - they’re on the outskirts of the gaming world, you can easily ridicule or ignore them. It’s another thing when there’s a game placed front and center, getting all the attention and hype for a moment, and that game is full of things that hurt you.
For a twisted comparison, imagine if a new game got all the hype and (positive) attention, despite being full of Nazis, presenting them as entirely normal or even good people. You’d (rightly) be upset too. The difference - aside from the subject - is that your upset lilely isn’t born from a stock of thoroughly curated hatred and anger. You’ll probably not muster the same rage as these people, because you don’t have it bottled up already.
I say this because I’ve been a hateful person too once. Not as bad as some of these specimens, but bad enough to know the spiral and to guess how much unhappier I could have been, how much unhappier they must be. They’re victims turned abusers, and while that doesn’t excuse their behaviour, it may help us understand where it comes from and give us an idea of what to fight:
Bigotry is born from misery seeking an outlet, fertilised by ignorance, nurtured by confirmation bias. The better our lives get, the less reason to look for someone to blame. The more we learn to think critically and question the lies we’re fed, the less that “someone” will be a convenient target keeping us in the spiral. The more we’re exposed to things that contradict our bias, the weaker it will get.
The last bit is what broke me out of the loop, the second is what saw me crawl back up the spiral and unravel my convictions.
Life’s still tough, but at least it has gotten a lot less hateful and miserable since I stopped feeding the hate and blaming others for my own deficiencies and started working on myself.
Tbf I have never looked at Assassin’s Creed as a historically accurate game. It can really be only called accurate in broad terms probably. (Only played Black Flag and Odyssey tho).
She seems to bring up pretty great points, like harrassing her, complaining about not hot enough greek god girl, but I’m interested about the other side.
Also she worked at Kotaku in the past, so listening to these gamergate people too could help to make a throught decision overall
Yes, because reviewing products poorly and then not buying said products is aggressive harrassment. Im not obligated to buy products, even if Im not being pandered to. You are not entitled to my money.
If your claim is that randos on the internet don’t send death threats at the drop of a hat, you must be new here. We all know gd well everyone involved recieved death threats.
And I’m sure you have at least one example. After all, there are a lot of rapists out there too, but we aren’t going to accuse anyone until we have some evidence.
Bruv you are severely misremembering the movement that allowed the alt right to coalesce. No one is saying it’s bad to not buy products you don’t want to buy. We’re saying it’s seriously concerning the racism and sexist that attached itself to that movement has congealed into something permanent in our political climate
Did you read the article? What are you trying to say?
Just after Summer Game Fest finished, the anti-woke gamers found a new target: a report at IGN, which credibly and comprehensively lays out a history of sexism at the developer of upcoming Planet-of-the-Apes-meets-Sekiro action game Black Myth: Wukong. The response – surprise! – was to go after the woman who wrote it, while also spinning up a ludicrous conspiracy theory that IGN was blackmailing the developer.
Targeted harassment of a journalist isn’t, “reviewing products poorly.” I went to go find an example of exactly what was being slung their way, but they took their whole profile private.
“which credibly and comprehensively lays out a history of sexism”. There was nothing credible about this.
The wukong sexism allegations were all made up or based on severly mistranslated Chinese statements, and they magically appeared after the company behind wukong had refused to pay SBI a 7m dollar extortion fee.
Shock of shocks, a company that refuses to work with a D&I consulting firm is soon found to have serious D&I problems.
Bro this is like saying there’s a conspiracy afoot because the cops “magically” showed up to arrest me just days after I shot someone in broad daylight, or that the tree “magically” only fell through your roof after you told the insurance salesman to fuck off, or that your house only flooded “magically” right after you told the plumbers you could handle the burst pipe yourself.
Did they also mistranslate the Chinese women commenting on trailers that the studio is gross and don’t want women playing their game?
It’s honestly tragic, if you read that article it’s primarily about the Chinese game industry culture with one game and studio used as an example because it’s a supposedly a AAA game to rival western studios.
We’re being asked to believe ign has slandered a large Chinese studio, entirely made up, and kept the article up regardless. It just doesn’t hold water. Harrassing some poor women off social media and writing long comments about everything being made up is easy, but ign are still standing by the article six months after it was published.
The entire article at this point is just “these women who want to be anonymous claim x and y”, with all other “evidence” gone now. I can make similar claims about IGN and my claims would hold as much water.
I’m not sure which game this comment is in context of, but steam reviews showcase the issues pretty clearly. For example, I went on the steam reviews for MTGA at one point for fun and saw a comment complaining about there not being enough white male masculine looking avatars. I’m not sure how Gideon Jura (literally the definition, even in cards, of a masculine white guy) and Garruk are not masculine enough for this person lol.
Most likely, from how the comment read, they were complaining about the female portraits and portraits with non-white characters. I’m assuming they missed the NB character portrait (Niko Aris) since they didn’t specifically call them out.
I also remember back when Horizon: Zero Dawn came out there were a lot of people complaining about a female MC. Personally, that was one of my favorite parts of the game since it gave a non-traditional perspective of the story in my opinion. Maybe some people disagree, and that’s fine, but giving a game a poor review just because the MC is female is honestly just a dishonest review of the game.
You are not entitled to my money.
I don’t think the article claimed anyone was, at least from my read of it. It’s your loss if you refuse to enjoy games over such a petty reason though.
It’s also honestly just childish to give a game you haven’t played a bad review for having a more diverse cast. The main character is literally on the box art - if it bothers you, then the game is clearly not for you. It’s like me reviewing an otome game poorly because I don’t like otome games.
Hi there, you seem to be equating death threats and harassment with voting with your wallet, which is wrong and stupid and you should fucking know better.
Also, if everybody else doesn’t need to feel pandered to in order to feel good buying a game with a protag that looks like you, you being so “principled” and “vote with your wallet” about games featuring characters that look like everyone else is pretty fucking sus.
You don’t live in a bubble of no context, where this energy at defending black consumers who aren’t interested in yet another generic brunette white male dudebrotagonist with the snarky quips even Spidey and Joss Whedon would be cringing at.
Mate, theres thousands of quality games that pander to me, more than Ill ever have time to play. Why would I bother with with a game thats not particularly good and doesnt even pretend to want my money?
Article mentions the death of flash was a nail in Neopets’ coffin, but they don’t mention the open source Ruffle project which resuscitated Neopets’ flash content.
theguardian.com
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