GamerGate - Autistic MRA manchildren and the twitter feminists who love them

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Someone will pick them up, gut them down to the core essentials and start anew. The journalists/editors who get fired will all go on to other outlets or start YouTube channels with Patreons.

IIRC they're very picky about whom they even let bid. No Peter Thiels or Brietbarts need apply, sadly. But wouldn't that be a hoot?

 

[Done]

As someone who identified as pro-GG, I think its greatest victory was training a decent-sized group of people to be wary of the media. By exposing corroboration, dirty dealing, and straight-out lies in the games media, it's my hope that at least some people were able to connect the dots and see that that sort of thing is very likely to be occurring in other specialist or general media outlets as well, and we just can't recognize it as easily because instead of reporting on a hobby we spend hundreds or thousands of hours a year engaging with, they're reporting on war or economics or something else we're not nearly as familiar with.

You're now discussing the state of Journalism as a whole, which is a discussion that IMO, is far larger than Gamergate or even gaming itself.

@KillThemCrackasBabies already covered part of it, and I would have wrote some more thoughts of my own, but that would've taken the discussion way off-topic. I am thinking of making a Deep Thoughts thread for it instead, but that would take time and attention that I don't have at present.

Did GamerGate fix corruption in video games journalism or censorious interference in games? Sadly, no, and I'd still like to see a world without these things. But if they must exist, it's best for people to be aware and on the lookout for them, and to do so in other aspects of life as well. Thus, I disagree with those who say that GG was a complete failure.

Man, You're literally saying that it failed to fix what it set out to fix. That's pretty much a failure in my eyes.

Discussing the why of it is another matter obviously, as well as whether it can succeed in doing so in the future. (I personally think the latter is ).

But yes, you're right in that it's strange that so many of the pro-GG tentpoles would turn out to be such flame-outs. Throw Shoe in there too. Of those you listed, my least favorite is Ian Miles Cheonny-come-lately. Really do not like that guy and how he just attaches himself to things

I honestly think that all of them were pretty much nailed-on to be flame-outs, those aren't people like us, who maybe kept to watching the flames consume all before it, or threw in a few tweets/FB posts here and there. Those were the people who thought of this shit as a bonafide movement that they wanted to lead to glorious victory. And no one would think of it that way except for failures.

It's a similar logic to the aGG cows who went full-retard in pursuing their interests as part of CON for example.

Hadn't really thought of that. Jeremy Hambly raises $100,000, starts a site, starts a YouTube channel ... and brings in Cheong as basically his second in command, or at any rate that's kind of what it looks like.

The whole thing is probably just an exercise in autism rolled out a decade too late, but in the unlikely event the thing takes off, Cheong is set to reap where others sowed, ain't he? And if it flops, Hambly will be the dude who's gonna take shit for it.

I mentioned that elsewhere, but I cannot wait until that site premieres so we can start making a community watch thread on it, because IMO, it's already nailed-on to be a retarded community with a lot of lulz.

For one, it is founded by a lolcow, Jeremy Hambly, who proceeded to hire another lolcow, Ian Miles Cheong as Editor-in-Chief despite having zero experience in editorial roles. They then proceeded to recruit Sophia Narwitz, who wrote for Niche Gamer and One Angry Gamer (thread) and is someone I consider to be a lolcalf.

Add to that the crowdfunded element of the site, and the fact that both Hambly and IMC will definitely try and keep up their dumbass internet presences, and you get a pretty great potential thread.

IIRC they're very picky about whom they even let bid. No Peter Thiels or Brietbarts need apply, sadly. But wouldn't that be a hoot?

1) We don't know if the Breitbart people or Thiel are even bidding on this in the 1st place.
2) Being selective about who you sell your property to isn't an inherently bad thing. You have the right to protect the value of your investment, and selling those sites to either of your two examples would alienate the core audiences those sites shoot for.

 

[robobobo]

Some of you have got to still be GamerGate sympathizers, can you explain to me how "revolting" against a game so publicly is supposed to make you look anything besides exceptional? Like the motivation for doing it aside (someone in apparently EA dared the triggered gamers to do it? I guess?), was this supposed to make you look good and rally the troops, or was it more "weaponized autism" where it was supposed to just overwhelm the game and anything they said about it not to targeted gamers and make them rise up again? Even during the height of Good Gamergate, I'd never seen people just absolutely sperg the fuck out the way I see trying to just find the slightest bit of information about this videogame.

Honestly, I think the whole impetus was to bring a large, uncaring company low. EA's been on the forefront of treating paying customers like shit for years, taking well-liked brands, releasing a shit version of the games, then closing down the studio and firing everyone afterwards when the games amazingly don't sell well. But this time in particular their producer guy really seemed to be rubbing peoples' faces in it with his 'hoh hoh, you don't like our vision of one-armed cockney women with cricket bats in World War 2 game? Well then don't buy it nerrrrrrds.' statement. That was one poke too many, and provided a single easy rallying point for people to gather around.

But really, it was no more than a consumer backlash to egregious behavior. We've seen it for Battlefront 2, Shadow of War, and now Fallout 76. There's a certain amount of accepted greed and laziness that most consumers sort of expect to find in your average big release game nowadays, but when a publisher goes well past those limits, they're getting burned for it. In the case of Battlefield, they took a game focused on World War 2, and proceeded to make it distinctly bizarro and not like World War 2. If instead of basing it on WWII they said it was the grand steampunk war, nobody would've given a shit about Scottish dudes running around with katanas and cyborg women in their made-up scenario.

 

[Least Concern]

We've seen it for Star Wars Battlefront 2, Shadow of War, and now Fallout 76. There's a certain amount of accepted greed and laziness that most consumers sort of expect to find in your average big release game nowadays, but when a publisher goes well past those limits, they're getting burned for it.

They're sometimes getting burned for it. Battlefront 2 and Shadow of War, for all the storm and fury around their anti-consumer nonsense, still made tons of money from what I understand. I'm guessing Fallout '76 and Battlefront V aren't doing as well due to the rapid discounts, but who knows if that's part of a wider pattern yet; we can only hope.

I can't help but think that some of the egregious stuff they're doing is just to move the Overton window of what gamers will accept and test the market to see just how much crap they can get away with. Once they hit the limit of 100% egregiousness, they'll scale back to only 70% and reap the profits - but that 70% will still be 2000% or so of what we'd let these companies get away with 15-20 years ago.

If instead of basing it on WWII they said it was the grand steampunk war, nobody would've given a shit about Scottish dudes running around with katanas and cyborg women in their made-up scenario.

I've made the same argument. Not only would it mean they could cram in whatever ahistorical wokeness they could ever want, it would actually be an interesting and original take on the genre, IMO (though I guess Bioshock kinda gets close).

 

[ChevroletBlackboard]

What really came out of Gamergate, beside some increased focus on Gawker during the Hogan/Thief trial, was largely just what was previously just thought to be true- game jouranlists hating their audience and actively colluding behind the scenes- being brought into the forefront, alongside the conclusion of the years of mistrust they'd sown with events like ME3's ending and the Devil May Cry reboot fiasco. It was never really a fight either side could win for sure, so while some of the Antis made bank and became E-Famous for a few years, coming into 2019 most of them have gone back to their previous level of relevancy, which is to say not much. GG will forever be called a sexism movement and it'll come up any time a feminism-related controversy flares up, but between the CON leaks and the FBI's formal investigation that topic has been all but dead for a while now.

I will say that if only because of how many anti-GGers have been outed as sex predators, I think it's safe to say Gamergate had the moral victory, albeit at the cost of having Sargon and MundaneMatt as its repps.

 

[The Gagh Whisperer]

I still can't believe people were able to say "Ethics in video game journalism" with a straight face.

 

[Medicated]

I still can't believe people were able to say "Ethics in video game journalism" with a straight face.

Gamergate taught me that I was being naive, and that you can't even say "Ethics in Journalism" with a straight face.

Conservatives have been saying that shit for years. Whether or not GG helped a younger crowd realize it soon could be argued, but it's weird watching all of these people who thought they were really changing the social landscape *cough cough Sargon Matt cough* act like they were huge players in this huge social shift. All they did was actually pay attention to what Conservatives had been saying for years.

I feel like this waning power, is just this tech bubble collapsing, as the companies that thought tech would be this never ending fountain of money (and they always seem to think that). Now that they are finding out the market has a limit to saturation and bullshit, the money is drying up, and with it, the cushy do-nothing jobs for mentally ill individuals.

Either the companies adapt and try to cater to its consumers again, or they go the way of the dodo.

 

[AnOminous]

Gamergate taught me that I was being naive, and that you can't even say "Ethics in Journalism" with a straight face.

Honest investigative journalists are an absolute treasure, but the problem is they're fucking crazy because you'd have to be crazy to put your entire life at risk for some bullshit like "the truth" when you could be handed free piles of money for just being a lazy lying sack of shit like every other journalist.

As a result, they're usually drunk, depressed, and end up committing suicide even when they don't "commit suicide."

 

[pwincess fwuffypants]

I think the knockon effects of gamergate are/were/will be mostly nonobvious. I think a lot of channers that got pissed off from the SJWs pissing all over their hobby were significant in memeing Trump into office, for instance. I find it amusing if they had left the gamers alone, they would've probably had Bush or Clinton in office right now.

All those young men, with nothing better to do now that their games are all shit. What will they do? I doubt it's "man up and submit to the feminists". If anything these men who once didn't care about identity politics now have a smoldering hatred towards anything that even remotely reeks of feminism. The final chapters of this saga are yet to be written. Welcome to the 21st century.

 

[Keep Yourself Safe]

The year of our Lord two thousand and nineteen, people are still arguing about Gamergate...

It had a lasting effect on twitter certainly, they've been on full purge mode ever since and it's become ever more Orwellian over there. Indie gaming and their chums over at "games journalism" are circling the drain and everyone hates them, you could attribute that to market forces fucking them, but you're not going to get any cache of cool or hip by calling yourself an indie dev or games journalist in current year.

@KillThemCrackasBabies Come now, be honest, Battlefield V is trash dude and sticking a load of strang wamen in it was fucking retarded. Calling the game good is a massive stretch, there have been some very good WWII historical shooters made especially back in the days when companies actually gave a shit about the product they put out and they weren't all run by the bean counters, compare it to them and it is garbage. I know your arch nemesis Hambly is all up in arms about Battlefield V, but pretending to like that piece of crap just to dunk on him? Come on now...

 

[KillThemCrackasBabies]

@KillThemCrackasBabies Come now, be honest, Battlefield V is trash dude and sticking a load of strang wamen in it was fucking exceptional. Calling the game good is a massive stretch, there have been some very good WWII historical shooters made especially back in the days when companies actually gave a shit about the product they put out and they weren't all run by the bean counters, compare it to them and it is garbage. I know your arch nemesis Hambly is all up in arms about Battlefield V, but pretending to like that piece of crap just to dunk on him? Come on now...

Motherfucker I wasn't looking for a vidyagame equivalent of They Shall Not Grow Old, I just want to shoot some shit.

 

[robobobo]

There's considerably better and cheaper than Battlefield 5 for shooting shit. Battlefield 1942 was a treasure; the graphics aren't anything good by modern standards, but it's balanced vastly better than most more recent shooters in that you can take a couple bullets before keeling over, so some dude you never saw doesn't just drop you in half a second. It's also free now, even if you didn't own it back in the day.

 

[Daughter of Cernunnos]

Riley J Dennis liked a comment referencing Gamer Gate on one of his recent videos on how his girlfriend went viral for some silly tweets about waiting for grocery store potato wedges to be discounted.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

They're sometimes getting burned for it. Battlefront 2 and Shadow of War, for all the storm and fury around their anti-consumer nonsense, still made tons of money from what I understand. I'm guessing Fallout '76 and Battlefront V aren't doing as well due to the rapid discounts, but who knows if that's part of a wider pattern yet; we can only hope.

I can't help but think that some of the egregious stuff they're doing is just to move the Overton window of what gamers will accept and test the market to see just how much crap they can get away with. Once they hit the limit of 100% egregiousness, they'll scale back to only 70% and reap the profits - but that 70% will still be 2000% or so of what we'd let these companies get away with 15-20 years ago.



I've made the same argument. Not only would it mean they could cram in whatever ahistorical wokeness they could ever want, it would actually be an interesting and original take on the genre, IMO (though I guess Bioshock kinda gets close).

They made a lot of money, but they undersold by a lot more than what was projected/hoped. Battlefront II sold 50% less than anticipated. With Battlefield V they expected it to sell much more even though they told fans to not but the game if they don’t like it. A big game will still sell lots of copies even if it’s dog shit, like Fallout 76, but what’s important is if it sells as expected or better than. If it had, it’d be a definite W for big developers.

*Edit: Merged comment didn’t realize I double posted.*

Motherfucker I wasn't looking for a vidyagame equivalent of They Shall Not Grow Old, I just want to shoot some shit.

I’m waiting for them to release more content. Then I’ll buy the game at 70% off.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Riley J Dennis liked a comment referencing Gamer Gate on one of his recent videos on how his girlfriend went viral for some silly tweets about waiting for grocery store potato wedges to be discounted.
View attachment 626739
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xwa8WY1AQgw

Why does Riley J. Dennis sound like a muppet? Failed voicebox surgery or just trying to cover up the ol' basso profundo?

 

[AnOminous]

Why does Riley J. Dennis sound like a muppet?

Because he's a complete muppet.

 

[Water-T]

Why does Riley J. Dennis sound like a muppet?

Because he's always got a hand up his ass.

 

[Least Concern]

I know we're supposed to hate SFO here because he's on good terms with Sargon, but that's a stupid reason to hate someone, and at any rate this video does a good job of covering a recent GG-tangental controversy:

tl;dw: A new high-level Overwatch player going by the handle "Ellie" started climbing up the ranks incredibly quickly. People following the game were trying to look into her and figure out who she was and where she came from, and got suspicious that they couldn't find anything; she basically came out of nowhere. Her Twitch profile got subscribers and donations, and she was even offered a spot on a pro team. Some gamers started speculating that "Ellie" only worked the headset while some other known high-level player was actually playing. Cue Nathan Grayson and fwiends typing furiously from their fainting couches about the misogynists who just can't stand that there's a high-level female player in their favorite game and how nobody would ever suspect anything if she had a male nickname and voice. The whole thing comes to a head when a female pro player called Aspen revealed on her stream that "Ellie" was in fact a "social experiment," and a male pro player called Punisher was actually the one playing the whole time - the skeptics were 100% correct and Kotaku and the Mary Sue got bamboozled because they couldn't allow themselves to be at least a little bit skeptical of a female for any reason.

 

[Water-T]

I know we're supposed to hate SFO here because he's on good terms with Sargon, but that's a stupid reason to hate someone, and at any rate this video does a good job of covering a recent GG-tangental controversy:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=t7gxjZ65lJo
tl;dw: A new high-level Overwatch player going by the handle "Ellie" started climbing up the ranks incredibly quickly. People following the game were trying to look into her and figure out who she was and where she came from, and got suspicious that they couldn't find anything; she basically came out of nowhere. Her Twitch profile got subscribers and donations, and she was even offered a spot on a pro team. Some gamers started speculating that "Ellie" only worked the headset while some other known high-level player was actually playing. Cue Nathan Grayson and fwends typing furiously from their fainting couches about the misogynists who just can't stand that there's a high-level female player in their favorite game and how nobody would ever suspect anything if she had a male nickname and voice. The whole thing comes to a head when a female pro player called Aspen revealed on her stream that "Ellie" was in fact a "social experiment," and a male pro player called Punisher was actually the one playing the whole time - the skeptics were 100% correct and Kotaku and the Mary Sue got bamboozled because they couldn't allow themselves to be at least a little bit skeptical of a female for any reason.

*Player comes out of nowhere, background is hazy, and they climb the ranks super quick*

*Gamers think this is suspicious and investigate*

The MaREEEEEEE Sue: "OMG MALE GAMERS JUST CAN'T HANDLE THE FACT THAT GIRLS PLAY VIDEO GAMES TOOOOOO!11111"

*Turns out "Ellie" is literally a Fake Gamer Girl*

The MaREEEEEEEE Sue: "OMG THIS IS WHY GIRLS ARE AFRAID TO GAME IT'S ALL THE FAULT OF MEEEENNNNNNNNNN1!111!"

 

[Least Concern]

An "esports reporter" (good God) is alleging that Activision/Blizzard knew Ellie was a fake for weeks, but didn't do anything about it because they wanted the controversy to increase attention, even if negative, on the property.