I’ve been avoiding writing about #Gamergate because it’s stupid, overblown, and generally not worth thinking about…but this clip from The Colbert Report is too good. Watch Stephen Colbert chat with Feminist Frequency author and media critic Anita Sarkeesian about the Gamergate situation. Yes, Gamergate has cost me a couple of thousand dollars because some a-hole Breitbart readers click-botted my website, but I believe that you only have two choice in such situations — laugh or cry. Thanks to Stephen Colbert, I can chuckle at the whole stupidity of Gamergate and feel a little bit better about my day. Check out the clip when you get a chance and let me know what you think of it. You can earn bonus RPad points by identifying all the games you see in the clip. (Note: RPad points are worth as much as your Xbox Gamerscore…which is to say that they’re worthless.)
Edit: The video has been updated to two videos! The intro to Colbert’s Gamergate piece is above, while the chat with Ania Sarkeesian is below.
I can’t play the video because it says that “This video contains content from Viacom who thinks you suck and you should bow to them as your lord and master on copyright grounds.”
-M
I updated the video. Watch away, Sir!
Wait, I’m confused. According to what I heard from N8, I was led to believe this whole thing was about the integrity of gaming journalism (as silly as that sounds). Still, if the general public looks to game news outlets as a source of unbiased information and the gaming outlet presents itself as such, then I think it’s fair that the readers or audience can expect as much. If those expectations are tarnished by the fact that a publisher has paid off a news outlet or a developer has slept with a game reviewer for favorable reviews (as an example), then we start treading a grey area that is taboo, albeit not uncommon in every industry. Expectations of readers and the integrity of game reviews vs. entertainment journalism and the absurdity of escapism critique is certainly a topic worth discussing in more detail, but I just want to be sure that this is indeed what gamergate is all about.
By listening to Anita Skeetinson (I like my spelling better. It’s almost as good as Kocklick), I am led to believe this is about feminazi trolling. If it is, then it’s stupid because all you have to do to solve this problem is ignore the trolls. The more attention you give these nasty people, the more embolden they become. What I don’t understand is why all of this attention on someone’s opinion. There are more opinions on games than there are hydrogen atoms in the universe. Why do hers attract attention? She’s simply stating a glaringly obvious fact. Games are mostly made by men for men (or boys, whatever). Romance novels are made for women. Silly vampire drama is made for teenage girls. Milk-Bones are made for dogs. Why does this anger people? If men buy games en masse, then it’s safe to assume that there will be things in those games that men like and fantasize about. If someone tells me that hamburger meat is made from cows, I’m not going to get angry at them for saying that and threaten that person’s life for stating a fact.
So… which is it?
-M
That’s the ridiculous beauty of #gamergate. To quote the immortal Chazz Michael Michaels, “No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative.” For some people, it’s an integrity-in-journalism thing. For others, it’s a sexism-in-gaming thing. Ezra Klein wrote a great article on how #gamergate has become more about politics than gaming, while also spinning out of control and becoming multifaceted.
http://www.vox.com/2014/11/1/7136343/gamergate-and-the-politicization-of-absolutely-everything
That article was a great read. I honestly thought that video games were immune from being so incredibly politicized, but I guess I was wrong. In hindsight, that explains Jack Thompson a lot more logically than the evil, video game villain that gamers made him out to be.
Also, I did some homework and found the best (sane and intelligent) arguments against Skeetinson’s arguments of video game female tropes:
and part 2:
The video/audio quality isn’t that great, but the research is top notch.
-M
It genuinely started over the ethics in journalism thing and then got blown WAY out of proportion.
Then, it got spun into another issue that people feel strongly about based on the way some people reacted to the first situation.
This will probably happen a few more times until pretty much every issue anyone has with gaming culture is lumped into the “gamergate” category.
So… what you’re saying is that I can eventually hijack the “gamergate” tag to vent my grievances about modern consoles not being backwards compatible and the abuse of DLC?
Awesome.
-M