Gamer Gater View
Gamer Gators view
Finally, we get to talk about what really matters, Gamer Gators. These semi aquatic egg laying reptiles of Florida swamps are tired of people not playing Mario Kart with them.
This is of course nothing to Gator Gamers, or Florida State Gamers. Oh you mean GamerGaters? Well fine.
Within gaming we have the accusation that the journalists involved with games have slowly become corrupt. The basic argument is that too many companies are doing things for the companies they reviewand talk about. Then, that the journalists collude over what the big message will be, and how it will be promoted. Finally that the push for those ideas is getting in the way of gaming. There is also a push called Not Your Shield, and I think it deserves a separate article.
If you want a timeline of how things went down, please check out Know Your Meme’s article on the matter. It has been a great source to find out who said what.
The basic argument began way before the Quinspiracy, or the GamerGate idea. In fact, it has been made for years. I doubt I could make a proper timeline for all of the events, but I can include a few.
Dan Hsu, who was head editor for Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, and then the website for years began talking about it publicly. He spoke about companies hiring hookers for journalists. There was a story of a leader of a console company that told him to send an entire article back to be checked for errors. It was an amazing article, and sadly it is sort of missing. Luckily the Wayback Machine saved an entire interview with him.
Dan: Now, the trick is, what do you do after you go through PR? We're lucky in some ways, because we're so established. Game companies generally know they can't boss us around or try to influence our scores, but that doesn't stop some of them from trying.
But, because of our size, we have some weight. Heh. So, once PR sets up an interview with Xbox VP Peter Moore and me for example, I can talk to him directly and ask him some tough questions he may not answer with a smaller outlet. That's where we, as the game writers, have to ignore PR and do our jobs.
But check this out. Some companies actually feel they have the right to look over your story before it goes to print! Do you know why? Because other magazines have given them that leeway. I remember when we were working on our Xbox 360 reveal story; I was fact-checking some things with them (like what certain features or buttons are called). They told me I could just send them the article to read, and they'll fact check it for me. I laughed and said, "Uh, no." Then this person told me some other magazine let them read their entire cover story before it [went] to print.
So that's the danger of working with PR, when editors and journalists start feeling beholden to them because they're the ones setting all the interviews and access up. I feel bad for the smaller outlets who need PR for help, because I know PR will try to control things. But now I have companies periodically asking me if they can read the article, and our rule is they don't get the review scores, text, or anything until we have gone to print -- after the issue if officially finished.
Not only that, Wayback also has the original post that started the bag of flames. Within the comments of the post someone states:
- Amen to that.
- What Shoe has brought-up, it is nothing new. I recall a mag [super doo-doo, type of periodical - name escapes me], back-in-the-day ['95], give a horrible and in-complete review of the gem [SNES] game: Super Mario World: Yoshi's Island. Blasphemy, hideous, preposterous. This prick bestow a 70-something review [out-of 100], and admittedly stated that he hadn't finish the entire game. Yet within the same magazine, giving Spawn [SNES] a 92. I wonder if Acclaim had anything to do with that score?
In other words, the industry was now facing some angry gamers. They were noticing the patterns, and starting to ask questions. Hsu began asking questions to people like Microsoft’s Peter Moore at the time. Some of the questions were very blunt, and needed to be asked.
This brings us to GerstmannGate. Jeff Gerstmann was the editorial director of Gamespot.com. Because of his harsh reviews, game companies began dropping their ads from the company. The final straw was Kane and Lynch, which got a low score even though the game was being majorly reported by the website. So, Gerstmann was fired.
The level of apprehension over the matter has been strong ever since. The trust of how game companies were fixing their own scores became a known thing. Speaking of which, the company Hsu was over is now gone. In fact, several companies have gone to the other side. Man of the companies today are struggling to get enough in ads, and yet keep their own opinions even today. 1up, Gamespy, and others have simply stopped being websites.
A major firestorm over opinions has become part of the gaming culture as well. Roger Ebert became a big name because the venerable movie reviewer said that games were not art. Ebert actually got a lot of emails. He responded several times to the statement, and gave some great reasons why in his opinion, games would never be art.
These days, she says, "grown-up gamers" hope for games that reach higher levels of "joy, or of ecstasy....catharsis." These games (which she believes are already being made) "are being rewarded by audiences by high sales figures." The only way I could experience joy or ecstasy from her games would be through profit participation.
The three games she chooses as examples do not raise my hopes for a video game that will deserve my attention long enough to play it. They are, I regret to say, pathetic. I repeat: "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets."
The attempts to explain himself created a giant backlash. Ebert didn’t really want to play games, while Gamers thought of it as part of life. It was harsh responses, and a lot of back and forth between Ebert and Gamers. Reason magazine wrote about it like this:
Ebert could be excused for his ignorance of what has come since then in much the same way as a young millennial could be oblivious to the role of Motown on the development of the popular music we still listen to today. The expansion of video games from a hobby to a subculture to simply part of our culture — like every other form of entertainment — happened through Generation X and is now being passed along to subsequent generations. Baby Boomers just weren’t culturally connected to it. Ebert couldn’t include video games as art because video games didn’t include him and thus it inspires no connection. It’s nobody’s fault. Definitions of art are not timeless and rigid. Ebert himself acknowledged it and struggled to come up with a definition that would explain why video games should be omitted, but not other artistic endeavors, like music.
For the book, you should expect a longer article on Ebert and Gamers. For now though, the response was that of shock by the gamers, and the gaming press.
Right before GamerGate or the Quinnspiracy problems, we had the Tomodachi Life problem. A bug in the game let Japanese players let homosexual marriage happen. The bug was fixed for the US version. The problem was that the Americans did not real get that many of the videos they saw of marriages were jokes. No one was willing to explain this, even when the videogame press itself had people who knew Japanese culture. I commented on it because of how shocked I was. My friends in Asia thought I was joking when I posted about it on my blog. As said before, expect a larger article later in the book on this subject.
As you can see, there is a history of journalism in videogames having problems. There have been less than reputable moves to get money by various websites or magazines. Also, big names in journalism like Roger Ebert have not appreciated games. Far more interesting, websites will negate certain information to fit their own narrative of events.
So, when several websites on the same day declared that the term Gamer was over, something was obviously wrong. From the GamerGater point of view, what happened is from a long list of events that culminated into this. It wasn’t about whether or not Quinn slept around, or her personal political views, it was about journalism ethics. The questions and evidence continued to grow until it became obvious that there was a problem.
The term GamerGate came from this realization, and knowledge. Somehow game journalism had created its own tribe, and those who agreed with it were the only ones allowed in. It was sounding like things happening outside of gaming, and looking very scary. A former CBS reporter has written a book claiming that the company worked to better their investors wrather than report on things.
Working on a piece that raised questions about the American Red Cross disaster response, she says a boss told her, “We must do nothing to upset our corporate partners . . . until the stock splits.” (Parent company Viacom and CBS split in 2006).
….
Often they dream up stories beforehand and turn the reporters into “casting agents,” told “we need to find someone who will say . . .” that a given policy is good or bad. “We’re asked to create a reality that fits their New York image of what they believe,” she writes.
The basic idea being brought forward is that videogame journalism is the really bad sign of things happening around the country. That ideas are being pulled down by cronyism, and corruption. These are big statements, and not always easy to take.
Rebuttal
The rebuttal to the accusations of journalistic corruption have come in separate ways. Perhaps the most respectable has been the attempt to disprove the idea. The next is to call the people doing it racist. There is even a meme about it. The third has been to make a bigger push in the larger media onto gamers. Finally, there has been the desire to simply play some games, and ignore the whole thing.
Journalists themselves have been on edge from the entire attack. Many of them are long time gamers, who get to talk about their favorite hobby for a living. It becomes really difficult to face a subject like this as a journalist. Many of the major news sites have been hit hard from this.
The majority response from journalists has been to not talk about the subject. The decision to write an article about Gamer Gate, showing a side, or not showing a side has had dire results. The fear of having to deal with the subject has created a backlash on anyone who has written about it. Because of this, most journalists I know, do not write about it, and prefer to talk about something else.
With this in mind, some journalists have been forced to talk about it. Stephen Totilo of Kotaku has come out defending his journalist. Totilo has a long history of game journalism, and worked hard to talk about games openly. When a member of his staff - a person he hired, and thus trusted- was accused of misusing his power, Totilo investigated and then defended that crewmember.
Given the information available to us both from Nathan and all sources presented online, I have no reason to believe any further action need be taken. The situation is fraught for all involved, including our readers, whose trust is paramount; inquiry is always welcome.
We appreciate healthy skepticism from critics and have looked into—and discussed internally—concerns. We agree on the need to ensure that, on the occasion where there is a personal connection between a writer and a developer, it's mentioned. We've also agreed that funding any developers through services such as Patreon introduce needless potential conflicts of interest and are therefore nixing any such contributions by our writers. Some may disagree that Patreons are a conflict. That's a debate for journalism critics.
And then in the same article said although there was truth in the matter, the harassing of his crewmember should stop:
Update: I initially wanted to keep this statement focused on questions about Kotaku's reporting. In doing so I didn't mention the fact that that criticism has been part of a larger week-long saga that has involved inexcusable harassment of developers and writers, including some Kotaku staff. This statement should not be read as a tacit endorsement of hounding anyone online, of making personal attacks or otherwise being rude, destructive or awful. Genuine, reasonable criticism is always welcome. Harassment is not welcome and is in no way ok with me or anyone else on the team.
His defense should be seen in two parts. The first is that journalists get blamed for things all the time. The second is that the person writing was going to be defended by Totilo.
The first is that people blame journalism for a lot of things. Some of it is true, and others are not. As someone who did Sports journalism for a while, people would blame me for not showing how great their team was. Even if the score was 102 to 7, they wanted to see those seven points. Also, I had to film in a spot that didn’t get in anyone’s way, but still get the shot from center court. The very worst was finding out the score of the game when the team lost. The coach was supposed to call it in, but if the team lost, he would not call it in. I would ask folks to just read the scoreboard at the end of the game, and call me. Some would say that only the coach could call it in. Then I would be blamed for not having the score. Yes, it is that messed up in just sports.
Having gone through a month of that, I was getting screamed at by my boss. I honestly didn’t know what to do, and was very frustrated. A more experience journalist asked me about the problems, and began to help me out. Far more importantly, he said he would defend me. This helped me figure out who to call, and get some time to do it all. Because I proved to that journalist that I knew what I was doing, I kept my job.
Stephen Totilo was being the more experienced journalist. He was putting his standing on the line to defend the crewmember. This would give enough time to figure out what to do, and also to figure things out. It also meant people couldn’t complain at the virtual unknown, but a well known and respected journalist. To be honest, knowing this gives me a lot more respect for Totilo than beforehand.
A much more popular response has been to call the Gamer Gate people as racists, homophobes, and equal to Hitler. The basic premise is that the entire thing is happening because the pro Gamer Gate people are disagreeing, and harassing a feminist. People like Anita Sarkeesian have had their personal information revealed online. A famous Gamer Felicia Day had her information released as she was announcing her own fears over the matter.
To understand why a such a random response would happen, you would need to know some other contexts. The first is that the person who set the thing off is a supposed women’s rights advocate. The second is that 4Chan users have been pulling pranks on feminists groups before Gamer Gate even became a thing.
Zoe Quinn has claimed that she is being harassed by 4Chan users. You can find out more about it through various websites, and checking on them. The basic argument is that she is being pressured to being silent by a small minority of gaming, and this needs to stop. Those who know her, or side with her argument view the attacks on her as strange, and thus must be evil. How could anyone hurt a perfectly harmless person?
A deeper view is something that Quinn references, but has not been shown as much. Many 4Chan users have been mocking feminism in multiple ways. This includes making up new forms of feminism protest, writing false articles from the point of view of a feminist, and even more. Quinn says she was attacked by a group that sounds like 4Chan, and thus, it must be 4Chan pulling another prank.
The rebuttal from these groups has been that it is another prank or trick. They use all of the bad history of 4Chan, and how it works to show that this needs to stop. The entire threat to gaming is a side thing to the evils of the /b/tards. Quinn claims she is being attacked by such groups. Showing that she was doxxed, or that she is receiving hatemail from these groups.
Likewise, Sarkeesian and other feminists in gaming have tried to show that this aggression at them is from an evil cesspool of gamers. If they can harass Sarkeesian, Quinn, and others, then they will attack any woman in the industry, or who wants to game.
Within this context, a new Meme from the anti Gamer Gate group has been displayed. It will have various characters saying, “Actually its about ethics in Journalism.”
GamerGate is misogynist harassment hiding behind a thinly-veiled cry for “ethics!”, and anyone wanting a real discussion about ethical problems in games journalism should have removed themselves from the hashtag weeks ago. Or, you know, started questioning huge companies instead of female indie devs. As we mentioned on Friday in our last roundup, the TumblrActually, It’s About Ethics In Games Journalism recognizes the preposterousness of the GamerGate mantra, and made it into a wonderful meme. Come, Social Justice Warriors, let’s take a look at some of the highlights, shall we?
During this same time, people like Sarkeesian have been meeting with major media outlets like Stephen Colbert, and MSNBC. They have pushed their message that it has nothing to do with journalism, and everything to do with harassing women in gaming culture.
With the media support, many major people in show business like Joss Whedon have called GamerGate equal to Hitler.
A completely different group has rebutted the idea of Gamer Gate by declaring the entire matter dumb, and unimportant.
Response to Rebuttal
The response to these actions has been to document everything. Not in a kind of sort of way either. Remember how I said this was all time travel? Trying to read all of the documentation by the GamerGaters has taken hours of research every day.
The response to the rebuttals has been in parts. The first is to respond to the comparison to various racist groups. Then we have Feminists who have said that this is not their form of feminism. Finally, we have people who research the matter and post as much as possible about it.
To give you an idea about how big all of this is, just today while researching it, I found an entire website dedicated to GamerGate. There are hundreds of articles about just this subject. Then we have the KotakuInAction on reddit. There is article after article about the subject being posted. Then we have the Gamer Gate Wiki, yes a Wiki, which should not be confused with the Know Your Meme. Each one has hundreds of pictures posted every day, and articles talked about. To keep up is to remember that last month of my college thesis paper.
The amount of info being recorded, parsed, and posted is incredible. It also means trying to get it all is very difficult. I have tried to take them apart as best I can.
The first response has been to show that the comparisons between GamerGaters and Hitler are incredibly false. The biggest responders have been gamer military folks.
There has also been a #NotYourShield response, but that needs a larger sense of context. There have been several people posting pictures of themselves with the comment that they were told they were a white male.
Then we have the people who are aggregating the information, and talking about it openly. This goes into all sorts of amazing turns, and ideas.
One I really enjoyed was the taking apart of the feminist push using Derrida’s philosophic ideals on how thinking works.
Conclusion
The amount of information coming from this article made me study late at night for over a week. It covers a lot of what will be discussed in later chapters, but even getting this small amount down took time.
The GamerGater point of view is that Game Journalism and many of the leaders of gaming culture are becoming corrupt. The proof is the long history of catching journalistitc websites doing favors for companies, or firing people for bad scores. The response to it is more from feminists responding to how 4Chan has been treating them than gamers in general. To properly deal with all of this, the Gaters have recorded and talked about the subject to the point that I barely have time to think.
What we now need to ask is why are gamers responding so strongly to this? Why are minorities jumping into the #NotYourShield idea? Why is the push becoming so strong? To answer that, we need to see things like how we view political battles, and how globalization is changing the way we view things. In the mean time, go play some games.
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