If Electronic Arts executives have any stones whatsoever, Polygon opinion editor has fouled up epically.
In fact, it should wind up being one of the most epic foulings up in any genre of journalism in journalism history.
Just what did Kuchera do?
Well, EA's director of digital communications, Chris Mancil, wrote a blogpost praising Breitbart UK writer Milo Yiannopolous. In passing he mentioned that Kuchera had some worthy ideas on how Twitter could better handle harassment on its site.
For this, Kurchera freaked out. He tweeted EA demanding that someone at the company intervene with Mancil to remove a link to a column Kuchera published at Polygon.
From this we can glean the full extent of Kuchera's irrationality: apparently one may not praise Kuchera if they happen to be praising Yiannopolous at the same time. And if they do, Kuchera will complain about it to that person's employer. That's how authoritarian, how stunningly eager to abuse his power, Kuchera has become.
Since his meltdown many other social justice warriors have joined Kuchera's chorus, going even further than Kuchera and demanding that Mancil be fired.
This brings us to a very interesting question: just how much power does Kuchera have? How much power do games journalists have?
At first glance,it might seem that they have a great deal of power. They're considered by many to be the gatekeepers of the industry. They have the power to decide which games get coverage, and which games don't.
So surely games developers and publishers must be sensitive to their whims and demands, right?
Well, perhaps not so much.
The relationship between the games industry and games developer is far more symbiotic than many might give it credit for. While games journalists may have the power of gatekeeper at their end of the relationship, games developers and publishers have the same power at their end.
They have the power to refuse to grant interviews, or even release review copies of games, to journalists with whom they are unwilling to interact.
Therein just how badly Kuchera has fouled up.
It takes no more than a cursory look at Mancil's blogpost to recognize that Kuchera is being hilariously unreasonable and, in fact, unprofessional. To give in to Kuchera's demands would only reward that unreasonability and unprofessionalism from someone who writes for a publication that EA actually pays for advertising.
As an online website with no paywall Polygon literally has no source of revenue other than their advertisers. Kuchera is literally making demands of the hand that feeds him even as he embeds his incisors into it.
There's really only one way EA can respond: they must pull their ads from Polygon, and refuse to restore them until Kuchera is no longer employed by the publication. Other games developers and publishers should also recognize Kuchera's behaviour for what it is and do the same.
In other words, if Polygon will not fire Ben Kuchera, the games industry must fire Polygon.
No more ad revenue, no more review copies of games, no more access of any kind. The games industry must exercise its gatekeeping power and cast Ben Kuchera outside its gates. If Polygon insists on remaining attached to Kuchera, it should share his predicament.
If this seems unreasonable, games developers and publishers must remember: Kuchera would enthusiastically do the same to them.
Showing posts with label Video games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Video games. Show all posts
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Why I'm Disappointed in Revolution 60
Don't get me wrong: I was hardly super-excited for Revolution 60. I've never planned to play the game, and I certainly have no plans to buy it.
But all the same, I had high hopes for Revolution 60. Well, perhaps more for the idea of Revolution 60 than Revolution 60 itself.
Many women insist that video gaming, if not a hostile environment for women, is at least not inclusive enough of women. They claim that not enough games are made that attract women to gaming. They insist that more games should be made that would appeal to women.
In the latter point, they're not wrong.
In fact, many of the people we refer to as "social justice warriors" believe that more games should be made that would appeal to people of any number of different identity groups.
They're not wrong.
Where they veer into untenable territory is when they demand that AAA companies make such games, and that they only make such games. No one has any business attempting to dictate to any games developer what types of game they should or should not make. That is what the market is for, and it works well.
Games that are more inclusive of such various identity subgroups is what the independent market is for. As a subgroup of the video game industry, robust and healthy indie gaming is the key to ensuring that video gaming is, and remains, inclusive.
Breanna Wu says she doesn't believe video gaming is inclusive enough. She says she believes it's hostile to women. Or so she says. She's certainly willing to lie in order to make it seem that way.
And if she really believed that, Revolution 60 could have been part of the answer to demands for more inclusive games. That is, it could have been if she had actually delivered what she promised.
Wu essentially promised that Revolution 60 would be true to its name. She promised a game inclusive of women, mixing empowering female characters with inventive gameplay in a way that would transform how women are portrayed in gaming.
Instead, Revolution 60 is the mediocre product of a mediocre developer. By all accounts, vast gaps in its gameplay are filled in with banal QuickTime events. Her female character designs are the most hackneyed and typical -- yet unappealing -- imaginable. And Revolution 60's graphics are reminiscent of the worst eyesores of the PS1 generation of games.
In the midst of all of this, Wu's constant wailing to the press about "harassment" and her self-aggrandizing behaviour cannot be ignored. It forces upon me the impression that Wu, whose game is achingly substandard (if not antiquated), is fully aware that her work is substandard, and so insists on injecting herself into the #Gamergate discourse in hopes of using the controversy to coverup the terminal flaws in her work.
In doing so Wu actually becomes the embodiment of the journalistic ethics issue that remains at the root of the #Gamergate discourse. Wu isn't getting coverage from NBC, CBS or CBC because her work is newsworthy, or even because her stunts -- such as "pulling out of PAX East" -- are newsworthy. She's getting coverage because she's connected.
If Wu spent the amount of time that she spends pulling stunts such as suggesting that #Gamergate supporters threatened PAX East with Sarin gas -- it was in fact a #Gamergate opponent who mused about using Sarin gas against gamers -- working on her game, then perhaps Revolution 60 could have become the game she promised it would be.
But instead Wu would rather create threads on Steam message boards asking if she's a terrible person -- only to delete them when she realizes she did so using her own account -- than doing the work giving Revolution 60 the polish that would make it a passable product.
In other words, Brianna Wu is too busy actually being a person to produce a product that deserves people's money.
I can't help but conclude that Wu's plans to not show up to PAX East has more to do with avoiding having to answer any questions about just how awful a product Revolution 60 is, and why it's so awful, than it does any belief that there are any credible threats against her.
After all, the whole Jace Connors debacle did turn out to be a #Gamergate opponent attempting to give other #Gamergate opponents more ammunition to use against #Gamergate. A lot of #Gamergate opponents managed to fall for that, too. Sam "Bring Back Bullying" Biddle even declared Connors "all that's left" of #Gamergate.
How very droll.
Thus, the heartwrenching disappointment in the overwhelming lousiness of Revolution 60. When SJdubs are told to go make the games they want to see made, lousiness of this magnitude is unequivocally not what anyone means.
But all the same, I had high hopes for Revolution 60. Well, perhaps more for the idea of Revolution 60 than Revolution 60 itself.
Many women insist that video gaming, if not a hostile environment for women, is at least not inclusive enough of women. They claim that not enough games are made that attract women to gaming. They insist that more games should be made that would appeal to women.
In the latter point, they're not wrong.
In fact, many of the people we refer to as "social justice warriors" believe that more games should be made that would appeal to people of any number of different identity groups.
They're not wrong.
Where they veer into untenable territory is when they demand that AAA companies make such games, and that they only make such games. No one has any business attempting to dictate to any games developer what types of game they should or should not make. That is what the market is for, and it works well.
Games that are more inclusive of such various identity subgroups is what the independent market is for. As a subgroup of the video game industry, robust and healthy indie gaming is the key to ensuring that video gaming is, and remains, inclusive.
Breanna Wu says she doesn't believe video gaming is inclusive enough. She says she believes it's hostile to women. Or so she says. She's certainly willing to lie in order to make it seem that way.
And if she really believed that, Revolution 60 could have been part of the answer to demands for more inclusive games. That is, it could have been if she had actually delivered what she promised.
Wu essentially promised that Revolution 60 would be true to its name. She promised a game inclusive of women, mixing empowering female characters with inventive gameplay in a way that would transform how women are portrayed in gaming.
Instead, Revolution 60 is the mediocre product of a mediocre developer. By all accounts, vast gaps in its gameplay are filled in with banal QuickTime events. Her female character designs are the most hackneyed and typical -- yet unappealing -- imaginable. And Revolution 60's graphics are reminiscent of the worst eyesores of the PS1 generation of games.
In the midst of all of this, Wu's constant wailing to the press about "harassment" and her self-aggrandizing behaviour cannot be ignored. It forces upon me the impression that Wu, whose game is achingly substandard (if not antiquated), is fully aware that her work is substandard, and so insists on injecting herself into the #Gamergate discourse in hopes of using the controversy to coverup the terminal flaws in her work.
In doing so Wu actually becomes the embodiment of the journalistic ethics issue that remains at the root of the #Gamergate discourse. Wu isn't getting coverage from NBC, CBS or CBC because her work is newsworthy, or even because her stunts -- such as "pulling out of PAX East" -- are newsworthy. She's getting coverage because she's connected.
If Wu spent the amount of time that she spends pulling stunts such as suggesting that #Gamergate supporters threatened PAX East with Sarin gas -- it was in fact a #Gamergate opponent who mused about using Sarin gas against gamers -- working on her game, then perhaps Revolution 60 could have become the game she promised it would be.
But instead Wu would rather create threads on Steam message boards asking if she's a terrible person -- only to delete them when she realizes she did so using her own account -- than doing the work giving Revolution 60 the polish that would make it a passable product.
In other words, Brianna Wu is too busy actually being a person to produce a product that deserves people's money.
I can't help but conclude that Wu's plans to not show up to PAX East has more to do with avoiding having to answer any questions about just how awful a product Revolution 60 is, and why it's so awful, than it does any belief that there are any credible threats against her.
After all, the whole Jace Connors debacle did turn out to be a #Gamergate opponent attempting to give other #Gamergate opponents more ammunition to use against #Gamergate. A lot of #Gamergate opponents managed to fall for that, too. Sam "Bring Back Bullying" Biddle even declared Connors "all that's left" of #Gamergate.
How very droll.
Thus, the heartwrenching disappointment in the overwhelming lousiness of Revolution 60. When SJdubs are told to go make the games they want to see made, lousiness of this magnitude is unequivocally not what anyone means.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Monday, February 9, 2015
No, Promoting Anita Sarkeesian is NOT Education
The internets are alive with the sound of grumbling, as the Anti-Defamation League has released, for public consumption, a lesson plan entitled "Is Gaming a Boys Club? Women, Video Games, and Sexism."
It's a classical example of so-called "social justice education" in all of its ideology fervour, ruthlessness and factual paucity.
Intended for grade 11 and 12 students, the lesson plan is meant to deliver the message of Anita Sarkeesian into high school halls where it can warp the minds of impressionable youngsters and mold them into fatuous social justice warriors... that is, if it can actually be done within its 60 minute time limit. Which it actually can't. (More on this later.)
Putting it most simply, this lesson plan is an absolute mess.
The lesson plan provides 20 "vocabulary terms" students are to learn, and directs educators toward the ADL glossary in order to define them.
This matters because critical theorists routinely seek to redefine common words in order to suit their agenda. So the definition intended by the progenitors of this lesson plan very much matter. But unfortunately of the 20 vocabulary terms listed by the lesson plan only one -- sexism -- is defined by the ADL glossary.
Their definition reads as follows: "Prejudice and/or discrimination against people based on their real or perceived sex. Sexism is based on a belief (conscious or unconscious) that there is a natural order based on sex."
I have no objection whatsoever to the first portion of this definition. The latter, however, seems designed to implant notions of "patriarchy" into students, and accordingly skews the definition of sexism to apply only to sexism by men against women. It seems intended to preclude sexism by women against men. That's likely not coincidental, as radical feminists constantly declare that there's "no such thing as sexism against men."
It's also not coincidental that those who express these views are some of the most enthusiastic and self-satisfied sexists a person could ever hope to not meet.
Sexism isn't the only term that appears on ADL's vocabulary list that critical theorists have often set out to redefine. Also on the list are the following words:
-Abusive
-Cyberstalking
-Gamer
-Harassment
To leave these key words undefined is a serious issue for this lesson plan, particularly as each of them could be defined -- or re-defined, as is far more likely -- to deliberately create a power dynamic within the lesson plan that is solely to the benefit of the Cult of Sarkeesian.
A case in point is a now-infamous tweet in which Sarkeesian complains about abuse at the hands of "angry YouTubers." As it turns out, those individuals had merely exposed the factual shortcomings of Sarkeesian's work. Yet Sarkeesian chose to mischaracterize this as abusive, solely because it's to her benefit to do so.
So this is a serious problem with the ADL's lesson plan. But it's not by any means the biggest one.
No, the biggest problem with this lesson plan is that it's structured in such a way as to make the voicing of a dissenting view impossible.
The following is a screencap from this PDF:
Notice that there is no option for those who have not witnessed what they would consider sexism in video games, nor is there any option for those who do not think sexist things have been said or done to them through video game interaction.
The message is clear: this lesson plan will not permit you to disagree with the assertions being made at any point. Students are to "listen and believe" and for God's sake, do not allow them to think for themselves.
This lesson plan also proposes a common tactic in so-called "social justice education": dividing students up into smaller groups. As other "social justice education" resources make clear, dividing students into groups is a means by which targeted students -- frequently described as "privileged learners" -- can be isolated from one another, and reduced to a minority among students who are thereafter being agitated against them.
In the case of the ADL lesson plan, this is compounded by the application of peer pressure. As students watch their peers place sticky notes on the "I have witnessed sexism in video games" and "people have said or done sexist things to me through video game interactions" signs, they will feel pressured to do likewise.
The lesson plan eventually moves into force-feeding the students Sarkeesian. This is unsurprising, as Sarkeesian seems to exist as a public figure not on the merits of her work -- her work has been found to be entirely lacking merit by everyone who has actually examined it on a factual basis -- but on the will of high-profile and privileged individuals to stuff her down peoples' throats.
If forcing students to sit through brief unmediated readings of Sarkeesian's work isn't enough, teachers are actually instructed to force her ideas down students' throats.
Apparently the one thing instructors cannot permit is for Sarkeesian's insipid "tropes vs women" to be discarded by students as unimpressive or unconvincing.
And while the lesson plan does theoretically provide for some time for students to discuss these concepts -- and perhaps even how they openly contradict one another -- it's worth pointing out that by the time this portion of the lesson arrives, the instructor has used up no less than 49 minutes of a 60 minute lesson plan. (Yes, I tallied it up, but not by much.)
There's still two more segments of the lesson to go: reading a Pew Research paper about online harassment, then discussion of it afterward.
Interestingly, teachers are pressured to emphasize harassment of women as part of that post-reading discussion, when in fact the study indicates that men experience more online harassment than do women. Of all the modes of online harassment discussed as part of the Pew study, only two -- sexual harassment and stalking -- are experienced more by women. That's of six modes of online harassment mentioned in the study.
It's worth noting that of all the resources used to formulate this lesson plan, the Pew study is the only one that is meaningfully peer reviewed. So the one and only meaningfully peer-reviewed source in the entire plan is misrepresented within it.
That's the kind of "lesson" this is. It's not really meant to educate students at all. It seems to me that the sole purpose of this lesson plan is to promote Anita Sarkeesian and help her settle her grudges by forcing her ideas onto high school students, thus helping to further fill the ranks of her "army."
That's not what classrooms are for. This lesson plan has no place in any classroom anywhere. Any teacher who willingly attempts to teach it is eminently unqualified to be a teacher, and should consider seeking a career better suited to their talents and temperament.
It's a classical example of so-called "social justice education" in all of its ideology fervour, ruthlessness and factual paucity.
Intended for grade 11 and 12 students, the lesson plan is meant to deliver the message of Anita Sarkeesian into high school halls where it can warp the minds of impressionable youngsters and mold them into fatuous social justice warriors... that is, if it can actually be done within its 60 minute time limit. Which it actually can't. (More on this later.)
Putting it most simply, this lesson plan is an absolute mess.
The lesson plan provides 20 "vocabulary terms" students are to learn, and directs educators toward the ADL glossary in order to define them.
This matters because critical theorists routinely seek to redefine common words in order to suit their agenda. So the definition intended by the progenitors of this lesson plan very much matter. But unfortunately of the 20 vocabulary terms listed by the lesson plan only one -- sexism -- is defined by the ADL glossary.
Their definition reads as follows: "Prejudice and/or discrimination against people based on their real or perceived sex. Sexism is based on a belief (conscious or unconscious) that there is a natural order based on sex."
I have no objection whatsoever to the first portion of this definition. The latter, however, seems designed to implant notions of "patriarchy" into students, and accordingly skews the definition of sexism to apply only to sexism by men against women. It seems intended to preclude sexism by women against men. That's likely not coincidental, as radical feminists constantly declare that there's "no such thing as sexism against men."
It's also not coincidental that those who express these views are some of the most enthusiastic and self-satisfied sexists a person could ever hope to not meet.
Sexism isn't the only term that appears on ADL's vocabulary list that critical theorists have often set out to redefine. Also on the list are the following words:
-Abusive
-Cyberstalking
-Gamer
-Harassment
To leave these key words undefined is a serious issue for this lesson plan, particularly as each of them could be defined -- or re-defined, as is far more likely -- to deliberately create a power dynamic within the lesson plan that is solely to the benefit of the Cult of Sarkeesian.
A case in point is a now-infamous tweet in which Sarkeesian complains about abuse at the hands of "angry YouTubers." As it turns out, those individuals had merely exposed the factual shortcomings of Sarkeesian's work. Yet Sarkeesian chose to mischaracterize this as abusive, solely because it's to her benefit to do so.
So this is a serious problem with the ADL's lesson plan. But it's not by any means the biggest one.
No, the biggest problem with this lesson plan is that it's structured in such a way as to make the voicing of a dissenting view impossible.
The following is a screencap from this PDF:
The message is clear: this lesson plan will not permit you to disagree with the assertions being made at any point. Students are to "listen and believe" and for God's sake, do not allow them to think for themselves.
This lesson plan also proposes a common tactic in so-called "social justice education": dividing students up into smaller groups. As other "social justice education" resources make clear, dividing students into groups is a means by which targeted students -- frequently described as "privileged learners" -- can be isolated from one another, and reduced to a minority among students who are thereafter being agitated against them.
In the case of the ADL lesson plan, this is compounded by the application of peer pressure. As students watch their peers place sticky notes on the "I have witnessed sexism in video games" and "people have said or done sexist things to me through video game interactions" signs, they will feel pressured to do likewise.
The lesson plan eventually moves into force-feeding the students Sarkeesian. This is unsurprising, as Sarkeesian seems to exist as a public figure not on the merits of her work -- her work has been found to be entirely lacking merit by everyone who has actually examined it on a factual basis -- but on the will of high-profile and privileged individuals to stuff her down peoples' throats.
If forcing students to sit through brief unmediated readings of Sarkeesian's work isn't enough, teachers are actually instructed to force her ideas down students' throats.
And while the lesson plan does theoretically provide for some time for students to discuss these concepts -- and perhaps even how they openly contradict one another -- it's worth pointing out that by the time this portion of the lesson arrives, the instructor has used up no less than 49 minutes of a 60 minute lesson plan. (Yes, I tallied it up, but not by much.)
There's still two more segments of the lesson to go: reading a Pew Research paper about online harassment, then discussion of it afterward.
Interestingly, teachers are pressured to emphasize harassment of women as part of that post-reading discussion, when in fact the study indicates that men experience more online harassment than do women. Of all the modes of online harassment discussed as part of the Pew study, only two -- sexual harassment and stalking -- are experienced more by women. That's of six modes of online harassment mentioned in the study.
It's worth noting that of all the resources used to formulate this lesson plan, the Pew study is the only one that is meaningfully peer reviewed. So the one and only meaningfully peer-reviewed source in the entire plan is misrepresented within it.
That's the kind of "lesson" this is. It's not really meant to educate students at all. It seems to me that the sole purpose of this lesson plan is to promote Anita Sarkeesian and help her settle her grudges by forcing her ideas onto high school students, thus helping to further fill the ranks of her "army."
That's not what classrooms are for. This lesson plan has no place in any classroom anywhere. Any teacher who willingly attempts to teach it is eminently unqualified to be a teacher, and should consider seeking a career better suited to their talents and temperament.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
About Anita Sarkeesian's Harassment Tweets...
...I almost hate to be the one to spoil this, but reading all those tweets -- all of which are undeniably awful -- one detail stands out:
Of all 157 tweets, only two of them mention #Gamergate. As such, the total harassment of Ms Sarkeesian attributable to #Gamergate is 1.2%.
Until you consider that one of those two tweets is this one.
Turns out that tweet doesn't meet any real workable definition of "harassment." This individual may be expressing an opinion critical of Sarkeesian, but that's not harassment. So the total percentage of harassing tweets attributable to #Gamergate is more like %0.6.
Someone better get ABC on this, stat!
So to all of those people who are sending Anita Sarkeesian: stop doing that, you morons. And to Sarkeesian herself: your shoddy research doesn't justify this, but your passive-aggressive tactics invite it. Don't confuse this for victim-blaming because I hardly consider you to be a victim.
And to Patrick Kulp at Mashable... just because your readers evidently don't expect you to do even this level of research doesn't mean it's not a good idea.
Of all 157 tweets, only two of them mention #Gamergate. As such, the total harassment of Ms Sarkeesian attributable to #Gamergate is 1.2%.
Until you consider that one of those two tweets is this one.
Someone better get ABC on this, stat!
So to all of those people who are sending Anita Sarkeesian: stop doing that, you morons. And to Sarkeesian herself: your shoddy research doesn't justify this, but your passive-aggressive tactics invite it. Don't confuse this for victim-blaming because I hardly consider you to be a victim.
And to Patrick Kulp at Mashable... just because your readers evidently don't expect you to do even this level of research doesn't mean it's not a good idea.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
The Economic Impact of Unethical Games Journalism
Regular Bad Company readers may recall my inaugural Gamergate-themed post, wherein I took one Henry Smith to the woodshed for his portrayal of gamers strictly as "rich white men with expensive toys."
More than simply false -- gamers come from all races, genders and walks of life -- it was incredibly shortsighted.
It was shortsighted for more than just the misapplication of what he claims as his own ideas. It's also oblivious to the people to whom the ethical issues associated with Gamergate matter most.
Simply put, the "rich white men with expensive toys" argument has virtually no understanding of to whom these issues are most important. Simply put, the less money a gamer has to spend on their hobby, the more important these issues are.
Upon its release a AAA video game can cost approximately $70. For gamers who partake in the hobby on a low-income basis this can present a serious quandary, particularly if they don't want to wait for a second-hand copy of the game at their local EB Games or on Kijiji. If they're going to spend $70 on a new video game, it's especially important for these gamers that they choose wisely in a field that, like all others, offers no guarantees.
Perhaps more than anywhere else, low-income gamers rely on games journalism to give them an indication of which games they should spend their money on. So when games journalists give glowing reviews to AAA games that are simply not up to snuff on a technical basis -- Dragon Age Inquisiton being a prime example -- they have betrayed their audience to an unconscionable degree.
No one should expect perfect objectivity from video games reviewers. After all, many of the key elements of a game -- graphics, music, sound effects, play format -- are subjective measures. However, the mechanical aspects of a game: controls, artificial intelligence, processing coherence (whether or not the game is glitch-free or is glitchy as all hell) -- are not. If a game is lacking in these measures it is automatically a bad game, regardless of whether or not some games journalist prefers its subject matter or finds it sufficiently caters to their tastes or political opinions.
Economics teaches us about the concept of opportunity cost. Explained most simply, opportunity cost is the best option, in terms of marginal utility, foregone for the purpose of an option selected.
In the case of a video game purchase it's not unreasonable to suggest that the opportunity cost of a bad game purchased is a good game purchased in its stead.
For the individuals fomenting the cancer at the heart of games journalism -- journalistic standards sacrificed for the purpose of promoting the "social justice" agenda -- opportunity cost is also an applicable concept. For them, a game produced that does not serve their agenda represents a game not produced that does serve their agenda. This is obviously an issue with any game, but for AAA games, the production budgets for which can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, this becomes far more acute.
Social justice warriors among the so-called "elite" of games journalism have unquestionably tilted their ratings in favour of some games, including AAA games, that didn't deserve the ratings. If the result is that gamers purchase games that aren't worth the money, that will give developers an incentive to produce games that successfully pander to the "social justice" agenda even at the expense of game mechanics. If this happens, these particular games journalists have just succeeded in doing something tremendously pervasive: they've shifted their opportunity cost from themselves to the gamers who also happen to be their customers.
You're welcome, I presume.
The lower the income of a particular gamer the more negatively impacted they are not only by any journalistic trend that may mislead them into a poor game selection, but also that any journalistic trend that encourages a decline in average game quality.
My observation is that the so-called "elite" whose activities have given rise to #Gamergate are too drunk on power they don't deserve and don't know what to do with to have even considered the consequences of their actions. In the famous words of Mal Reynolds: I don't credit them with an overabundance of brains. And so I cannot put this past them.
This is the kind of thing that facilitates the decision to make everything else secondary to a political agenda -- just don't bother to think about what the unintended consequences could be. This is rooted in the conviction that no price is too high to pay for "social justice" ...even if the "justice" being pursued is just one narrow, almost narcissistically narrow, view of it.
Some of them simply aren't predisposed to think of the consequences. Others, like Ben Kuchera, seem to literally be having too much fun abusing the power they've been given -- sneering at dissenting voices all the while -- to care.
One way or the other, regardless of Henry Smith's caricature of gamers as rich white males, it's the poorest gamers who actually have the biggest stake in #Gamergate. The economic impact will invariably fall hardest on them.
More than simply false -- gamers come from all races, genders and walks of life -- it was incredibly shortsighted.
It was shortsighted for more than just the misapplication of what he claims as his own ideas. It's also oblivious to the people to whom the ethical issues associated with Gamergate matter most.
Simply put, the "rich white men with expensive toys" argument has virtually no understanding of to whom these issues are most important. Simply put, the less money a gamer has to spend on their hobby, the more important these issues are.
Upon its release a AAA video game can cost approximately $70. For gamers who partake in the hobby on a low-income basis this can present a serious quandary, particularly if they don't want to wait for a second-hand copy of the game at their local EB Games or on Kijiji. If they're going to spend $70 on a new video game, it's especially important for these gamers that they choose wisely in a field that, like all others, offers no guarantees.
Perhaps more than anywhere else, low-income gamers rely on games journalism to give them an indication of which games they should spend their money on. So when games journalists give glowing reviews to AAA games that are simply not up to snuff on a technical basis -- Dragon Age Inquisiton being a prime example -- they have betrayed their audience to an unconscionable degree.
No one should expect perfect objectivity from video games reviewers. After all, many of the key elements of a game -- graphics, music, sound effects, play format -- are subjective measures. However, the mechanical aspects of a game: controls, artificial intelligence, processing coherence (whether or not the game is glitch-free or is glitchy as all hell) -- are not. If a game is lacking in these measures it is automatically a bad game, regardless of whether or not some games journalist prefers its subject matter or finds it sufficiently caters to their tastes or political opinions.
Economics teaches us about the concept of opportunity cost. Explained most simply, opportunity cost is the best option, in terms of marginal utility, foregone for the purpose of an option selected.
In the case of a video game purchase it's not unreasonable to suggest that the opportunity cost of a bad game purchased is a good game purchased in its stead.
For the individuals fomenting the cancer at the heart of games journalism -- journalistic standards sacrificed for the purpose of promoting the "social justice" agenda -- opportunity cost is also an applicable concept. For them, a game produced that does not serve their agenda represents a game not produced that does serve their agenda. This is obviously an issue with any game, but for AAA games, the production budgets for which can be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, this becomes far more acute.
Social justice warriors among the so-called "elite" of games journalism have unquestionably tilted their ratings in favour of some games, including AAA games, that didn't deserve the ratings. If the result is that gamers purchase games that aren't worth the money, that will give developers an incentive to produce games that successfully pander to the "social justice" agenda even at the expense of game mechanics. If this happens, these particular games journalists have just succeeded in doing something tremendously pervasive: they've shifted their opportunity cost from themselves to the gamers who also happen to be their customers.
You're welcome, I presume.
The lower the income of a particular gamer the more negatively impacted they are not only by any journalistic trend that may mislead them into a poor game selection, but also that any journalistic trend that encourages a decline in average game quality.
My observation is that the so-called "elite" whose activities have given rise to #Gamergate are too drunk on power they don't deserve and don't know what to do with to have even considered the consequences of their actions. In the famous words of Mal Reynolds: I don't credit them with an overabundance of brains. And so I cannot put this past them.
This is the kind of thing that facilitates the decision to make everything else secondary to a political agenda -- just don't bother to think about what the unintended consequences could be. This is rooted in the conviction that no price is too high to pay for "social justice" ...even if the "justice" being pursued is just one narrow, almost narcissistically narrow, view of it.
Some of them simply aren't predisposed to think of the consequences. Others, like Ben Kuchera, seem to literally be having too much fun abusing the power they've been given -- sneering at dissenting voices all the while -- to care.
One way or the other, regardless of Henry Smith's caricature of gamers as rich white males, it's the poorest gamers who actually have the biggest stake in #Gamergate. The economic impact will invariably fall hardest on them.
Monday, January 5, 2015
On #Gamergate, CBC's Massive Ethical Fail
After months of waiting, viewers and readers concerned about the CBC's #Gamergate coverage have finally gotten a response. And that response is... underwhelming.
As One Angry Gamer reports, CBC Ombudsman Esther Enkin has responded to these concerns by saying that everything with the CBC's coverage of #Gamergate is a-OK, despite the clear evidence that it is not. In particular, Enkin replied: "The fact that you reject the negative narrative does not mean it should not be discussed.”
Well. Is that what's been going on at the CBC? The negative narrative being discussed?
Well, a meaningful discussion of a narrative requires that both sides of it participate. And as it turns out, the CBC's coverage has permitted no participation by those on the business end of the "Gamergate harasses women" narrative.
This is made crystal clear by examining the following points of the reporting, on The National by Deana Sumanac-Johnson, and on the CBC's Community Blog by John Bowman.
Point 1 - #Gamergate has become a catchphrase for the online harassment of female gamers.
Sumanac-Johnson has repeated a claim made not by neutral observers, but by by #Gamergate's opponents. As such, Sumanac-Johnson has violated the CBC ethical code's guidelines on impartiality. It reads: “We provide professional judgment based on facts and expertise. We do not promote any particular point of view on matters of public debate.”
The story relies overwhelmingly on anecdotal evidence to support this claim. The anecdotal evidence may be offered by individuals judged by Sumanac-Johnson to have sufficient expertise to make that judgement, but expertise alone is not enough. Any judgement offered by Sumanac-Johnson must be backed by a sound basis in fact. Anecdotal evidence does not provice that basis, and should not be considered to provide that basis.
Sumanac-Johnson has taken numerous women on their word that they were harassed by #Gamergate. While it may not be unreasonable for her to take their word that they were harassed, it's not reasonable to take their word that they were harassed by #Gamergate. The hashtag has attracted a great number of third-party trolls, and Sumanac-Johnson seems to have made no effort whatsoever to confirm whether or not such harassment came from an individual truly sympathetic to #Gamergate's goals. If she did, that is not evident in her reporting.
Which takes us directly to the next point:
Point 2 - The exclusion of Jennifer Dawe.
When preparing reports, reporters make decisions not only regarding which facts to report, but also which facts to ignore. This also applies to voices. They make decisions not only regarding which voices to include, and which voices to exclude.
It's now a matter of public record that Jennifer Dawe, a game developer supportive of #Gamergate, was interviewed for this story. Yet her pro-#Gamergate voice is excluded while anti-#Gamergate voices were included -- exclusviely.
Dawe was advised that her interview could be published as a "reaction" to stories on #Gamergate. That would be very good in principle.
There was only one problem with that: Dawe's interview never aired. Ever.
Her voice -- that of a female video game developer -- was excluded from a story about alleged attempts to exclude female voices from video gaming.
That's rather ironic.
Point 3 - Gamerella.
Again, what is every bit as interesting about Sumanac-Johnson's piece isn't just information she includes, but rather information that she chooses to omit.
Sumanac-Johnson spends a great deal of time on the Gamerella gamejam, in which women interested in video games get together to to develop video games. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself. Gamerella sounds like a great way to support women choosing to enter the video gaming field. However, the inclusion of Gamerella makes the omission of Zoe Quinn's past behaviour all the more interesting.
An early event in the #Gamergate saga was Quinn's attack on a gamejam with a similar goal. This one was organized by the Fine Young Capitalists, an Ontario-based second wave feminist organization.
Quinn accused them of "enslaving women," despite the detail that 8% of the proceeds from the sale of the gamejam's product would go to the woman on whose idea the game was based. Undeterred by this fact, Quinn then accused TFYC of being "transphobic" despite the fact that their policy on the inclusion of transexuals had been written by a human rights lawyer, and was later given a thumbs-up by an Ontario Human Rights Commissioner. (One of the few times that organization has been of any worth.)
As Quinn stepped up her attacks on TFYC, the tactics her supporters used included DDOS attacks -- which Quinn herself was clearly well aware of -- and hacking their IndieGogo page in order to shut it down. Quinn's Twitter output during these episodes seemed to indicate that she was well aware of what was going on and condoned it.
If the topic was harassment of game developers keeping women out of the video gaming field, why did the harassment -- often by third-party trolls -- warrant mention, but Quinn's harassment of video game developers did not? Particularly as Quinn's deliberate torpedoing of the TFYC gamejam reduced opportunities for women to get involved in the video game field?
Point 4 - Video games victimize women?
Anita Sarkeesian herself could have written Sumanac-Johnson's line about Gamerella participants demanding "games that don't victimize women."
Of all the clear signs that Sumanac-Johnson has subscribed to a particular point-of-view and is promoting it via her reporting, this line is it.
Even if Sumanac-Johnson were simply conveying the opinion of the participants of the Gamerella gamejam, why not simply have included footage of one of the participants uttering such a remark (provided that she had such footage)? Even the optics of Sumanac-Johnson appearing to editorialize in her report contributes to an appearance of bias.
Point 5 - The CBC's coverage of #Gamergate has exclusively been of an anti-#Gamergate angle.
Sumanac-Johnson's reporting hasn't been the only CBC reporting on #Gamergate. John Bowman, of the CBC's Community Blog, wrote an article going on at length about harassment experienced by female gamers in social media.
The article focuses intently on the harassment that Anita Sarkeesian -- allegedly at the hands of #Gamergate supporters, but with the number of third-party trolls active in the hashtag it's nigh-impossible to know -- and includes the following paragraph:
/
"It's difficult to understand why a series of videos on sexist portrayals of women in video games would bring about such an extreme reaction..."
No mention is made by Bowman of the number of Sarkeesian's critiques have been confirmed as factually inaccurate. In particular, her claims that Hitman: Absolution "invites" players to murder strippers during a mission that actually penalizes the player if they happen to do so. (YouTube playthroughs of that mission posted by players invariably feature the player sneaking around the characters rather than interact with them.)
To have someone insinuate that you're misogynistic for enjoying a game that is not in fact misogynistic, and is in fact demonstrably not misogynistic, would make anyone angry. That Sarkeesian and her followers insist upon giving the targets of her critique no opporunity to confront their accuser makes it that much worse.
(I have to take a time out here for some full disclosure: I've encountered and confronted misguided pro-#Gamergate individualswho believed it would be perfectly acceptable to produce revenge porn with a Sarkeesian look-alike character. This is a taste of the anger that Sarkeesian has inspired with her demagoguery. The number of pro-#Gamergate individuals active in that discussion who condemned and discouraged this outnumbered the misguided individuals in question. Take note: while this is anecdotal evidence, those accusing #Gamergate of harassing Sarkeesian -- particularly at the CBC -- carry a burden of proof they've never satisfied, and in fact never even tried to satisfy.)
From the way the CBC has reported on #Gamergate an otherwise-uninformed person would never guess that there's two sides of the story. That there's no debate. And that simply isn't so.
Deana Sumanac-Johnson knows this. She interviewed Jennifer Dawe. So while John Bowman can theoretically feign ignorance on this point -- though few would believe him based on the anti-Gamergate agitprop appearing in his Twitter timeline -- Sumanac-Johnson cannot.
At a certain point when there is enough evidence that the CBC has set aside the very notion of its own impartiality standards it simply cannot be accepted as coincidental. So for CBC ombudsman Esther Enkin to tell individuals lodging complaints that the narrative should be discussed is pure hogwash.
In saying that the narrative should be discussed she's not wrong. The narrative should be discussed. But perhaps the narrative should be discussed by those on both sides of it. Such as, say... Jennifer Dawe. And yet we happen to know full well that while the CBC discusses the "#Gamergate harasses women" narrative exclusively from an anti-#Gamergate perspective, they sit on an interview from a woman of a pro-#Gamergate perspective.
That's not discussing the narrative. That's dictating the narrative.
Discussing the #Gamergate narrative meaningfully requires both sides to discuss it together. If the CBC is serious about discussing the narrative, my biggest question is this:
When can we expect that Jennifer Dawe interview to finally see airtime? When can those of us supportive of #Gamergate expect any kind of opportunity to rebut the anti-#Gamergate narrative being pushed by the CBC? When will we see any kind of research put into any of the CBC's #Gamergate reporting?
These are questions Enkin cannot expect to sweep aside.
As One Angry Gamer reports, CBC Ombudsman Esther Enkin has responded to these concerns by saying that everything with the CBC's coverage of #Gamergate is a-OK, despite the clear evidence that it is not. In particular, Enkin replied: "The fact that you reject the negative narrative does not mean it should not be discussed.”
Well. Is that what's been going on at the CBC? The negative narrative being discussed?
Well, a meaningful discussion of a narrative requires that both sides of it participate. And as it turns out, the CBC's coverage has permitted no participation by those on the business end of the "Gamergate harasses women" narrative.
This is made crystal clear by examining the following points of the reporting, on The National by Deana Sumanac-Johnson, and on the CBC's Community Blog by John Bowman.
Point 1 - #Gamergate has become a catchphrase for the online harassment of female gamers.
Sumanac-Johnson has repeated a claim made not by neutral observers, but by by #Gamergate's opponents. As such, Sumanac-Johnson has violated the CBC ethical code's guidelines on impartiality. It reads: “We provide professional judgment based on facts and expertise. We do not promote any particular point of view on matters of public debate.”
The story relies overwhelmingly on anecdotal evidence to support this claim. The anecdotal evidence may be offered by individuals judged by Sumanac-Johnson to have sufficient expertise to make that judgement, but expertise alone is not enough. Any judgement offered by Sumanac-Johnson must be backed by a sound basis in fact. Anecdotal evidence does not provice that basis, and should not be considered to provide that basis.
Sumanac-Johnson has taken numerous women on their word that they were harassed by #Gamergate. While it may not be unreasonable for her to take their word that they were harassed, it's not reasonable to take their word that they were harassed by #Gamergate. The hashtag has attracted a great number of third-party trolls, and Sumanac-Johnson seems to have made no effort whatsoever to confirm whether or not such harassment came from an individual truly sympathetic to #Gamergate's goals. If she did, that is not evident in her reporting.
Which takes us directly to the next point:
Point 2 - The exclusion of Jennifer Dawe.
When preparing reports, reporters make decisions not only regarding which facts to report, but also which facts to ignore. This also applies to voices. They make decisions not only regarding which voices to include, and which voices to exclude.
It's now a matter of public record that Jennifer Dawe, a game developer supportive of #Gamergate, was interviewed for this story. Yet her pro-#Gamergate voice is excluded while anti-#Gamergate voices were included -- exclusviely.
Dawe was advised that her interview could be published as a "reaction" to stories on #Gamergate. That would be very good in principle.
There was only one problem with that: Dawe's interview never aired. Ever.
Her voice -- that of a female video game developer -- was excluded from a story about alleged attempts to exclude female voices from video gaming.
That's rather ironic.
Point 3 - Gamerella.
Again, what is every bit as interesting about Sumanac-Johnson's piece isn't just information she includes, but rather information that she chooses to omit.
Sumanac-Johnson spends a great deal of time on the Gamerella gamejam, in which women interested in video games get together to to develop video games. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself. Gamerella sounds like a great way to support women choosing to enter the video gaming field. However, the inclusion of Gamerella makes the omission of Zoe Quinn's past behaviour all the more interesting.
An early event in the #Gamergate saga was Quinn's attack on a gamejam with a similar goal. This one was organized by the Fine Young Capitalists, an Ontario-based second wave feminist organization.
Quinn accused them of "enslaving women," despite the detail that 8% of the proceeds from the sale of the gamejam's product would go to the woman on whose idea the game was based. Undeterred by this fact, Quinn then accused TFYC of being "transphobic" despite the fact that their policy on the inclusion of transexuals had been written by a human rights lawyer, and was later given a thumbs-up by an Ontario Human Rights Commissioner. (One of the few times that organization has been of any worth.)
As Quinn stepped up her attacks on TFYC, the tactics her supporters used included DDOS attacks -- which Quinn herself was clearly well aware of -- and hacking their IndieGogo page in order to shut it down. Quinn's Twitter output during these episodes seemed to indicate that she was well aware of what was going on and condoned it.
If the topic was harassment of game developers keeping women out of the video gaming field, why did the harassment -- often by third-party trolls -- warrant mention, but Quinn's harassment of video game developers did not? Particularly as Quinn's deliberate torpedoing of the TFYC gamejam reduced opportunities for women to get involved in the video game field?
Point 4 - Video games victimize women?
Anita Sarkeesian herself could have written Sumanac-Johnson's line about Gamerella participants demanding "games that don't victimize women."
Of all the clear signs that Sumanac-Johnson has subscribed to a particular point-of-view and is promoting it via her reporting, this line is it.
Even if Sumanac-Johnson were simply conveying the opinion of the participants of the Gamerella gamejam, why not simply have included footage of one of the participants uttering such a remark (provided that she had such footage)? Even the optics of Sumanac-Johnson appearing to editorialize in her report contributes to an appearance of bias.
Point 5 - The CBC's coverage of #Gamergate has exclusively been of an anti-#Gamergate angle.
Sumanac-Johnson's reporting hasn't been the only CBC reporting on #Gamergate. John Bowman, of the CBC's Community Blog, wrote an article going on at length about harassment experienced by female gamers in social media.
The article focuses intently on the harassment that Anita Sarkeesian -- allegedly at the hands of #Gamergate supporters, but with the number of third-party trolls active in the hashtag it's nigh-impossible to know -- and includes the following paragraph:
/
"It's difficult to understand why a series of videos on sexist portrayals of women in video games would bring about such an extreme reaction..."
No mention is made by Bowman of the number of Sarkeesian's critiques have been confirmed as factually inaccurate. In particular, her claims that Hitman: Absolution "invites" players to murder strippers during a mission that actually penalizes the player if they happen to do so. (YouTube playthroughs of that mission posted by players invariably feature the player sneaking around the characters rather than interact with them.)
To have someone insinuate that you're misogynistic for enjoying a game that is not in fact misogynistic, and is in fact demonstrably not misogynistic, would make anyone angry. That Sarkeesian and her followers insist upon giving the targets of her critique no opporunity to confront their accuser makes it that much worse.
(I have to take a time out here for some full disclosure: I've encountered and confronted misguided pro-#Gamergate individualswho believed it would be perfectly acceptable to produce revenge porn with a Sarkeesian look-alike character. This is a taste of the anger that Sarkeesian has inspired with her demagoguery. The number of pro-#Gamergate individuals active in that discussion who condemned and discouraged this outnumbered the misguided individuals in question. Take note: while this is anecdotal evidence, those accusing #Gamergate of harassing Sarkeesian -- particularly at the CBC -- carry a burden of proof they've never satisfied, and in fact never even tried to satisfy.)
From the way the CBC has reported on #Gamergate an otherwise-uninformed person would never guess that there's two sides of the story. That there's no debate. And that simply isn't so.
Deana Sumanac-Johnson knows this. She interviewed Jennifer Dawe. So while John Bowman can theoretically feign ignorance on this point -- though few would believe him based on the anti-Gamergate agitprop appearing in his Twitter timeline -- Sumanac-Johnson cannot.
At a certain point when there is enough evidence that the CBC has set aside the very notion of its own impartiality standards it simply cannot be accepted as coincidental. So for CBC ombudsman Esther Enkin to tell individuals lodging complaints that the narrative should be discussed is pure hogwash.
In saying that the narrative should be discussed she's not wrong. The narrative should be discussed. But perhaps the narrative should be discussed by those on both sides of it. Such as, say... Jennifer Dawe. And yet we happen to know full well that while the CBC discusses the "#Gamergate harasses women" narrative exclusively from an anti-#Gamergate perspective, they sit on an interview from a woman of a pro-#Gamergate perspective.
That's not discussing the narrative. That's dictating the narrative.
Discussing the #Gamergate narrative meaningfully requires both sides to discuss it together. If the CBC is serious about discussing the narrative, my biggest question is this:
When can we expect that Jennifer Dawe interview to finally see airtime? When can those of us supportive of #Gamergate expect any kind of opportunity to rebut the anti-#Gamergate narrative being pushed by the CBC? When will we see any kind of research put into any of the CBC's #Gamergate reporting?
These are questions Enkin cannot expect to sweep aside.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Here Lies Critical Theory, Slain by #Gamergate
Recently, I was alerted to the deeper issues of #Gamergate. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's been going on since August of this year.
From the tone of the hashtag by which it proliferates, one may think that #Gamergate is a scandal of some sort. When I first began to hear of it in August that was the conclusion that I drew. My understanding of it at the time was that the hashtag was for discussion of a scandal regarding collusion between video game developers and video game journalists. That was partially true.
More recently, Victor Vargas explained to me that the real importance of #Gamergate was in defending the artistic medium of video gaming from so-called "social justice warriors" who demanded that the medium be subjugated to their extreme agenda.
For the uninitiated, #Gamergate is less a cohesive social movement and more a group of individuals who are concerned about the state of video gaming in general. They don't want to see the quality of video games as an artistic medium degraded by journalists who will not report honestly or ethically about games. That includes not only game "reviewers," but also those who report on video games via an op/ed format. This is where the social justice warriors become an issue.
If there's any one thing that these social justice warriors -- or SJdubs as I call them -- seem to excel at it's misrepresenting the medium in order to magnify, exaggerate, or outright invent examples of sexism or misogyny in gaming.
A prime example is that of Anita Sarkeesian. No one has dismantled and revealed her misrepresentations nearly so well as Thunderf00t has.
It turns out that Sarkeesian is not the only one misrepresenting video games in order to try to advance her toxic ideology.
Recently, a game developer by the name of Henry Smith published a blogpost mocking the notion that gamers could feel oppressed as gamers. It's as confused, disjointed, and internally inconsistent as any other piece of SJdub pontificating. For example, he dismisses gamers commenting on their perception of oppression as "white men with expensive toys."
Strangely, this overlooks the number of women, people of colour or LGBT gamers who may feel oppressed specifically as gamers. Surely Smith believes that such people are oppressed as women, people of colour or LGBT, but seems to insist that they cannot feel oppressed specifically as gamers.
Well, with gamers intermittently targeted by the media, government and assorted busybody groups, who could blame them? It seems like every time there's a mass shooting in the United States video games are put under the microscope and gamers examined as ticking time bombs.
Perhaps what troubles Smith about this idea so deeply is that "gamer" is self-identification that crosses the boundaries of race, gender and sexuality. Given the idea, popular among SJdubs, of intersectionality -- an idea that holds that individual identities are multi-faceted, and so an oppressed person may experience oppression on any one or multiple bases -- Smith simply isn't adhering to the critical theory ideology very well.
I suspect that what alarms him most deeply is that, despite the idea of the intersectional identity, a white person can even possibly be oppressed, or even permitted to feel oppressed. And in order to deny any white person who feels so oppressed that sense of entitlement, Henry Smith -- by all accounts himself a white male -- instead sets out to dictate to PoCs, women and LGBT how they may or may not feel oppressed.
It seems like he's failed to check his privilege... if you believe in that kind of tripe.
It's very lazy thinking. But it turns out that lazy thinking is something he excels at. Here's an excerpt from his blogpost, another little bit of kvetching that he didn't bother to give even the most basic amount of thought to:
It's enough to make you wonder if Smith has actually seen that ad, or bothered to think about it any further than using it as a jab against the so-called "sexist" video game industry.
That's a notion disabused by doing something so simple as actually watching the advert:
Just as Anita Sarkeesian blatantly misrepresented Hitman as allegedly "inviting" the player to murder strippers, Smith misrepresents the Advanced Warfare advert by amputating the context.
In Sarkeesian's case, she claims that Hitman "invites" (her words") players to murder strippers. And while the player does, indeed, permit the player to murder some strippers, Sarkeesian ignores the detail that the game mission in question not only does not require the player to do so, but discourages the player from doing so by penalizing them for the act. In fact, the game encourages the player to avoid any interaction with the stripper NPCs (non playing characters) altogether.
Not to mention that should the player listen in to the stripper NPCs' conversation they learn that these women have been traumatized by their exploitation at the hands of a man named "Dom." Listen to that conversation and it becomes clear that the game developers intended for the player to be disgusted by these women's suffering.
Many feminists would applaud that commentary on the exploitation of strippers -- unless they're one of those "sex work is empowering" lunatic third-wave types.
That's how Sarkeesian misrepresents Hitman. Smith misrepresents Modern Warfare by simply pointing out that it -- le gasp! -- features a skantily-dressed and breathtakingly-hot woman in it. And doesn't bother to acknowledge the context in which she's presented.
In the ad, the player falls into a stall in a bazaar from a very tall height. Instead of being killed on impact, he is instead stunned. While stunned the player sees a gorgeous woman is approaching him, cooing with romantic interest.
Then the "expert player" character -- played by Taylor Kitsch -- commands his immediate attention by shouting at him "what are you doing!? We don't kiss goats."
When the player looks back to where the woman was he sees that she has been replaced by a goat -- or rather that she had been a goat the entire time.
She was never real. She was a hallucination. And that's very telling. A deeper analysis of the ad could suggest that this even offers comment on the standard of beauty this woman represents: she isn't real. Her beauty is fleeting, and perhaps even illusory. And even if she was ever real, the idea that she is available to the player, sexually, romantically or otherwise, is just as illusory.
Who should be offended by that ad? Perhaps people who kiss goats. Henry Smith seems to think the answer to that question is "women," or at least "feminists." Yet when we examine the advert more deeply than he does, we find that the cause for offfense is far more questionable than he implies.
This is just one example of why I feel video gaming, and #Gamergate in particular, will ultimately provide critical theory with the grave this toxic ideology so requires. They've picked their target poorly this time.
The modern video gamer is well-educated and not particularly fond of being told what to do or what to think; perhaps less about themselves and their hobbies than anything else. The intellectual battle being waged over #Gamergate has laid bear the bag of tricks preferred by the SJdub hordes, and gamers are proving not especially susceptible to it. They excel at identifying and outing dishonesty and deception, and that has not worked to the advantage of the SJdubs. Not in the least.
Very soon we can look forward to the following epitaph: "here lies critical theory, slain by #Gamergate."
The world will be very much better for it.
From the tone of the hashtag by which it proliferates, one may think that #Gamergate is a scandal of some sort. When I first began to hear of it in August that was the conclusion that I drew. My understanding of it at the time was that the hashtag was for discussion of a scandal regarding collusion between video game developers and video game journalists. That was partially true.
More recently, Victor Vargas explained to me that the real importance of #Gamergate was in defending the artistic medium of video gaming from so-called "social justice warriors" who demanded that the medium be subjugated to their extreme agenda.
For the uninitiated, #Gamergate is less a cohesive social movement and more a group of individuals who are concerned about the state of video gaming in general. They don't want to see the quality of video games as an artistic medium degraded by journalists who will not report honestly or ethically about games. That includes not only game "reviewers," but also those who report on video games via an op/ed format. This is where the social justice warriors become an issue.
If there's any one thing that these social justice warriors -- or SJdubs as I call them -- seem to excel at it's misrepresenting the medium in order to magnify, exaggerate, or outright invent examples of sexism or misogyny in gaming.
A prime example is that of Anita Sarkeesian. No one has dismantled and revealed her misrepresentations nearly so well as Thunderf00t has.
It turns out that Sarkeesian is not the only one misrepresenting video games in order to try to advance her toxic ideology.
Recently, a game developer by the name of Henry Smith published a blogpost mocking the notion that gamers could feel oppressed as gamers. It's as confused, disjointed, and internally inconsistent as any other piece of SJdub pontificating. For example, he dismisses gamers commenting on their perception of oppression as "white men with expensive toys."
Strangely, this overlooks the number of women, people of colour or LGBT gamers who may feel oppressed specifically as gamers. Surely Smith believes that such people are oppressed as women, people of colour or LGBT, but seems to insist that they cannot feel oppressed specifically as gamers.
Well, with gamers intermittently targeted by the media, government and assorted busybody groups, who could blame them? It seems like every time there's a mass shooting in the United States video games are put under the microscope and gamers examined as ticking time bombs.
Perhaps what troubles Smith about this idea so deeply is that "gamer" is self-identification that crosses the boundaries of race, gender and sexuality. Given the idea, popular among SJdubs, of intersectionality -- an idea that holds that individual identities are multi-faceted, and so an oppressed person may experience oppression on any one or multiple bases -- Smith simply isn't adhering to the critical theory ideology very well.
I suspect that what alarms him most deeply is that, despite the idea of the intersectional identity, a white person can even possibly be oppressed, or even permitted to feel oppressed. And in order to deny any white person who feels so oppressed that sense of entitlement, Henry Smith -- by all accounts himself a white male -- instead sets out to dictate to PoCs, women and LGBT how they may or may not feel oppressed.
It seems like he's failed to check his privilege... if you believe in that kind of tripe.
It's very lazy thinking. But it turns out that lazy thinking is something he excels at. Here's an excerpt from his blogpost, another little bit of kvetching that he didn't bother to give even the most basic amount of thought to:
That's a notion disabused by doing something so simple as actually watching the advert:
Just as Anita Sarkeesian blatantly misrepresented Hitman as allegedly "inviting" the player to murder strippers, Smith misrepresents the Advanced Warfare advert by amputating the context.
In Sarkeesian's case, she claims that Hitman "invites" (her words") players to murder strippers. And while the player does, indeed, permit the player to murder some strippers, Sarkeesian ignores the detail that the game mission in question not only does not require the player to do so, but discourages the player from doing so by penalizing them for the act. In fact, the game encourages the player to avoid any interaction with the stripper NPCs (non playing characters) altogether.
Not to mention that should the player listen in to the stripper NPCs' conversation they learn that these women have been traumatized by their exploitation at the hands of a man named "Dom." Listen to that conversation and it becomes clear that the game developers intended for the player to be disgusted by these women's suffering.
Many feminists would applaud that commentary on the exploitation of strippers -- unless they're one of those "sex work is empowering" lunatic third-wave types.
That's how Sarkeesian misrepresents Hitman. Smith misrepresents Modern Warfare by simply pointing out that it -- le gasp! -- features a skantily-dressed and breathtakingly-hot woman in it. And doesn't bother to acknowledge the context in which she's presented.
In the ad, the player falls into a stall in a bazaar from a very tall height. Instead of being killed on impact, he is instead stunned. While stunned the player sees a gorgeous woman is approaching him, cooing with romantic interest.
Then the "expert player" character -- played by Taylor Kitsch -- commands his immediate attention by shouting at him "what are you doing!? We don't kiss goats."
When the player looks back to where the woman was he sees that she has been replaced by a goat -- or rather that she had been a goat the entire time.
She was never real. She was a hallucination. And that's very telling. A deeper analysis of the ad could suggest that this even offers comment on the standard of beauty this woman represents: she isn't real. Her beauty is fleeting, and perhaps even illusory. And even if she was ever real, the idea that she is available to the player, sexually, romantically or otherwise, is just as illusory.
Who should be offended by that ad? Perhaps people who kiss goats. Henry Smith seems to think the answer to that question is "women," or at least "feminists." Yet when we examine the advert more deeply than he does, we find that the cause for offfense is far more questionable than he implies.
This is just one example of why I feel video gaming, and #Gamergate in particular, will ultimately provide critical theory with the grave this toxic ideology so requires. They've picked their target poorly this time.
The modern video gamer is well-educated and not particularly fond of being told what to do or what to think; perhaps less about themselves and their hobbies than anything else. The intellectual battle being waged over #Gamergate has laid bear the bag of tricks preferred by the SJdub hordes, and gamers are proving not especially susceptible to it. They excel at identifying and outing dishonesty and deception, and that has not worked to the advantage of the SJdubs. Not in the least.
Very soon we can look forward to the following epitaph: "here lies critical theory, slain by #Gamergate."
The world will be very much better for it.
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