Gamergate – your opinion?

Coz’ I’m curious about it (your opinion). I read about the Gamgergate “notion” a while back, during stummer still, I guess? I shrugged it off just like any new hype over the net. It’s still here, and gaining momentum:

By design, Gamergate is nearly impossible to define. It refers, variously, to a set of incomprehensible Benghazi-type conspiracy theories about game developers and journalists; to a fairly broad group of gamers concerned with corruption in gaming journalism; to a somewhat narrower group of gamers who believe women should be punished for having sex; and, finally, to a small group of gamers conducting organized campaigns of stalking and harassment against women.

This ambiguity is useful, because it turns any discussion of this subject into a debate over semantics. Really, though, Gamergate is exactly what it appears to be: a relatively small and very loud group of video game enthusiasts who claim that their goal is to audit ethics in the gaming-industrial complex and who are instead defined by the campaigns of criminal harassment that some of them have carried out against several women. (Whether the broader Gamergate movement is a willing or inadvertent semi-respectable front here is an interesting but ultimately irrelevant question.)

http://deadspin.com/the-future-of-the-culture-wars-is-here-and-its-gamerga-1646145844

This text is from there, but you’ll find loads of material on the subject – journalists trying to save their *sses, feminist pitches, self-righteous people thinking they side with an offended boyfriend where it all started (whom does not agree with the turn this…mostly angry and acidic movement took). It’s as if the videogamers – usually our youth (yes, I am aware Rupert’s 40+, so are others, but that does not make them the average, they just pull the average upwards: for every 40-50 year old involved in computer gaming, there are 2–3 12-year-olds. Trust the numbers. Yes, I am aware that our generation, who started playing first with these games are growing into their thirties – hence the avg age-range of 25-30) – did not find a place to vent its teen and adolescent energies, and instead of conducting idaknow high-ideal revolutions, taking up serious fights off the field in university debates, politics, whatnot, they found this cheap outlet for their excesses. Hah. If that is so, it’s going to last.

Chewing gum for the brain, nothing of stature, nothing of nutrition. This would be on a very similar par with the “reality show” debate: Everyone speaks derogatorily about these things (God knows, it really has stooped down to sex and private-scandals – a new, more easily accessable/digestable version of Blikk / sensationalist or yellow journalism. In contrast to this, the TV channels argue: this is what you watch. The only reason we have reality shows is because the ratings are good. “There’s nothing better to watch” go the viewers. (Not classifying the history channel as “better,” for example.) Devlish circle, done.

I remember reading an article in late August, which ended with a polite but very stern assessment, I wish I could quote it, but I fail to recall where I had seen it. It went something along the line of this: Gamergate – though trying to define its aim in saying the media assessing new games should be corruption free and the journalists (as well as {developer funded!} conferences / shows /unveilings) should not be tied to the game developers via business ties – fail to recognize that just like with all other industries, such shows and writings are a form of advertisement and there is business in there for both sides. Of course, with our free internet, anyone can “publish” an opinion. A well-opinionated, properly phrased, logically arguing blogger will most probably attract attention even if not in the subsidiarized media-circle… after a while, though, when their word actually “weighs” anything, they will be approached for commissioned work anyway… they can reject or go with the offer – but (what a surprise) it’s a general tendency that people “sell their soul” at such a point… especially because (and I will be using reverse approach in the argument) the money’s good. Why’s the money good? Coz the big companies can pay it. Why can they pay it? Coz’ their games are acceptably good. Some may like the sci-fi theme, some the fantasy, but you usually can’t (arguably) state the games are shitty – they work, because they have a big (and well selected & paid) developer team behind it. That’s alllll there is to it. (Now forward logic: ) A big and well selected & paid developer group can usually produce a working game (theme irrelevant, may be to one’s liking or not), which will make it rich, and therefore they can pay the advertising in media, such as game reviews. Yes, of course there are individuals who do not submit (we’re all SO special), but please accept that’s the exception. (not so special after all)

So what is this all about? To return to the article I cannot remember, the assessment ended: Basically, we are talking about a relatively closed gaming society, who are not happy that their views of the games are not what’s mirrored by the (paid-by-developers) media. That awards go to “sucky” games, rather than what they who are playing perceive to be good. Ie, that the some loud minority or “majority of gamers” feel sucky/good. I say it this way for the Internet allows for these more frequently online people, the gamers, to take part of online conversations much more, and this hazes the picture on the pro/contra numbers. I’m exaggerating but the whole contra team could be made up of 10 ultragamers, and the pro made out of 100 “average onliners,” ie, people who wake up, don’t check their email, but have coffee and talk to their family, go to work, check only work emails, go to the pub with friends for an hour after work, then go home, hear out the family on their day, solve their problems, put them to bed, and check their private mails and facebook for that thread they commented on yesterday…  only to find the 10 contra made 200 comments during the day, replying to the 100×1 comments of the pro group, and another one presenting/promoting their views. Non-“gamers” (and I’m saying I’m exaggerating on both the gamers and non gamers) do not have that much affinity to read back 200+100 posts, much less the time, and so, the topic drops from their hands. Fact of the matter is, some businesses (game-developers) catch better campaigns, make better deals (it’s always ups-and-downs like in any business) from time to time, and hence get better portrayed… which may not likely be factual, but the fact that they could pay for a better campaign is – in part (of course they could get sponsorship as well, but even those are provided on the basis of a business case, they had to argue with sommmething; everything costs money) – proof that they had sold more (previous or present) games – or had a factual business case that they could assert to the point that sponsors gave it money to be advertised. Mind you such sponsors are very careful in where they put their cash… the “inclining” (as opposed to objective) media may be bought to bend, but business is hard business, and only black and white facts stand. Sponsors don’t read the said media, they look at the hard numbers. (That’s all I’m saying that these are healthy business processes that some self-made onliners who have not been slapped around by the world enough yet, think that their exalted opinion (which they half-define to be a valuable opinion because of their _exclusive_ {ie: “da tru gamers” are a closed group of extra-involved individuals – by definition an exclusive group} may matter in the face of business. Well, guess what, it doesn’t. Like anywhere else in the world: Adidos is a shitty trademark, yet it almost outselled Adidas, the fine brand, because it was simply acceptable still in its quality yet had an ok price. Business is not about the opinion of an elite, it’s about the opinion of the masses.)

Why did this escalate so  much? …I’m going to use this expression, “professional” trollers (meaning they don’t just spit something out, then leave it not even reading the responses, but return and engage – however unprofessionally as regards debate skills), as noted above, could be just a new type of social venting channel… but it could also be an improportionately magnified version of the hundreds of thousands (that may not sound exclusive, but if you take that 3mill ppl use the net every day…).

So. From crusading “free journalism” geeks (and that incident with that poor girl, which eventually turned the topic towards—>), they went to anti-fem trollers. I know some loudmouths just give’em a bad name. Some causes seemed just (no, not the gimmeobjectivejournalismingaming – they misconcieve the political/biz journalism & news versus the somewhat intelligent advertising which happens to take the form of written articles, seeming to be journalism. As you can probably tell, I am not a fan of flaming… and those who do it. (And yes, I do see a relation: gamers spend their time online most often, and they are easy prey to this …faceless tpye of stress-release. I know from first hand experience that even over the phone people tend to be rude as f***, because they simply “forget” that there’s another person at the end of the line. They kind of perceive the other one as a “job” …as if the other one was an android of some sort. It’s easy to go overboard and flame at someone, then have nooooo consequences whatsoever – but have a laugh with the buddies about how xy made yz flee from their homes. Jus perchanse over the topic of feminism.

Mind you feminism is a hard topic everywhere, not just online, and not just in gaming. There are SO many ill-formed arguments, speeches, that it gets difficult to see what feminism really stands for. Equality? Some say so… in my eye, no. We are hell as fuck not equals. You have stronger builds, we have more attoned emotions. That’s coz your evolutionary, yes, primate goals were to protect us, and ours was to attune easily to a barely living thing that is unable to communicate, nurture it to a point where it can self-sustain, so we both can pass on our genes – I mean have a loving family. Anyhow, I know many of you will disagree, espevially on the evolutionary roles being definitive in biology and therefore being definitive on our social roles even today… but let’s not detour towards this, I have the right to my opinion (which you have the right to disagree with). I apologize if I hurt anyone’s feelings. BUT this example (of my opinion) was just put here to display exactly that: that this is a difficult topic and there are many places you, me, others may disagree. Aaaaaaaaaand enter the troll. So… it was a room filled with gasolene, and then someone threw a cigarett butt in it.

What’s your opinion? (No, not on feminism. :) On the gamergate phenomenon.)

~ by Saiph Sapphire on October 18, 2014.