Your thoughts on the #Gamergate controversy?

[Zarkes]

*If this topic in anyway is harmful to the integrity of this site moderators please delete at own discretion

I try not to ****post on this forum anymore but as this is relevant media I could not resist. There are three visible villains in this controversy. Feminists, game journalists, and gamers themselves. Long story short a drama queen accuses the gaming industry of being sexist.(Based off of 30 year old games made by Asians from another culture) Gamers become offended(that there is no platform for them to rebuttle) Game journalists do the right wrong thing by defending a damsel in distress, painting all gamers as misogynist, comparing them to ISIS, gamers are worse then Hitler. Gamers discover incestuous corruption in gaming industry. They demand answers(get none). All gamers are declared dead and are ordered to respawn as gamer+. This triples the growth of Gamergate. And we come to today where journalists realize how screwed they are when the very people they are trying to protect are now activley fanning the flames of the fire meant for gamers trying to get the NRA and mainstream media involved.

This all boggles my mind. Customer is King. Gamers could be the worst blight ever it doesn't matter they support your livelihood. Gaming websites will now go the way of gaming magazines of old, leaving Youtube celebrities to take up the mantle of reviewing content.

There is something so evil and perverse behind all of this but I just can't put my finger on it.
The link below is for the side of gamergate. I watched a video of the lead editor of Escapist explain himself(tearing up) but unfortunately it is buried in youtube and I can no longer find it. Funny how that works.

-Gamergate

So where do you side? I'm a gamer I side with my fellow gamers. Try to understand it, if you are a gaming enthusiast you are worse then a murdering terrorist group. I will not allow these people to represent my voice in mainstream media, and neither should you.

 

[Albion Knight]

Two things: One the game dev that had her life nearly ruined by her ex is what I see as #gamergate and Two the trope of using women as plot points to define the purpose of a protagonists journey been going on far longer than gaming because it works. Should we change it? yeah maybe. Do some games take it to far? yeah probably. Is it going to go away? Uh No.

 

[Gikoku]

Spot on with Todd, as long as freedom of expression is allowed it'll keep on happening. My advice? Just let it be and go against the grind, you can't make something like that just go away, but you can balance it out with respectful and quality material that opposes it.

As for Anita Sarkeesian, the problem I have with her is that she's less of a proper feminist and more of a misandrist. Her attention seeking shenanigans have done both harm to herself, the women she's "fighting" for, and the image of the video game community. Some people simply aren't worth listening to because they're tackling the issues in all the wrong ways.

It's a shame it took this long for a scandal to happen to show that sites like Kotaku, Polygon, and Rock Paper Shotgun are regularly involved in bribery and payola. So they rally together for GamersGate as a distraction from their nonsense, giving us something that didn't need to happen. Gaming journalism has barely any credibility compared to actual journalism out there as a lot of the figures in the industry were originally just bloggers that rose through the ranks thanks to connections and good relationships. Biased plugs and reviews are common among sites like Kotaku, a simple visit to staff members' twitter accounts show close friendships with many indie developers (like Zoe Quinn), some of whom have even shared flats together. So it's hard for me to take many of these things seriously with them.

So where do I stand? Where I've always stood, right here playing video games and being thoroughly fascinated by their development process. I'm too damn lazy and tame to go out and kill someone or be an evil villain to society thanks to my hobby, for with all that damn effort I'd rather earn a living doing something actually productive and helpful.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Havent really kept up to date with the whole gamergate thing and pretty much ignored the whole thing so hasnt really affected me at all. I play games for my own personal enjoyment and to interact with friends etc to have fun. Also have a lot of respect for developers and the whole development process.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

Game journalists will never get to have their opinions affect a developers creative process so any effort on their part should be considered null.
Same can be said for gamers. They won't sway a journalist because the nature of the job is writing regardless of public opinion.

I think the best course of action would be for gamers to stop bandwagoning. I'm a gamer but I know I'm not misogynistic. I don't need to wave a picket sign and go on a campaign to prove it so. It's a minority of people (journalists) spewing their bullshit and a few haughty gamers responding to what they say. Hell, trying to make a full blown movement out of it. Really they will only give the journalist's words more profile. The whole thing could wind up causing changes no gamer wants to see.

 

[Skotekal]

What the **** did I just watch...?

 

[Albion Knight]

Mostly I see it as people with a Troll like mindset, whether aware of it or not, finding a hot button and spamming it for all it's worth. Truth is most people are decent. The best course of action is to not let the actions of extremists dictate a response that mostly effects non extremists like with airport security >_<