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As the March kickoff for the weeks-long 2016 South By Southwest (SXSW) festival approaches, its disparate sections—music, film, and interactive—have begun announcing confirmed panels, speakers, and showcases. SXSW Interactive appeared prepared to host a panel about the hot-button topic of online harassment and abuse, but that plan changed on Monday when a festival director officially announced that the panel, along with another tangentially related panel, had been canceled due to allegations of "numerous threats of on-site violence."
SXSW Interactive director Hugh Forrest posted the news at the festival's official blog, though Forrest didn't confirm whether the threats were linked to both panels that he confirmed received the axe: "SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community" and "Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games." After describing SXSW as a home for "diverse ideas," Forrest also described a desire to maintain "civil and respectful" dialogue.
"If people can not agree, disagree, and embrace new ways of thinking in a safe and secure place that is free of online and offline harassment, then this marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised," Forrest wrote. "Maintaining civil and respectful dialogue within the big tent is more important than any particular session."
And then, just a few days later, we have this report that the panels were restored:
South by Southwest's organizers reversed course Friday and scheduled a summit about gaming-related Internet harassment, after criticism for canceling similar sessions at next year's event due to threats of violence at the festival.
"Earlier this week we made a mistake," Hugh Forrest, director of the SXSW Interactive Festival, said in a statement on its website. "By canceling two sessions we sent an unintended message that SXSW not only tolerates online harassment but condones it, and for that we are truly sorry."
[...] "While we made the decision in the interest of safety for all of our attendees, canceling sessions was not an appropriate response," SXSW's Forrest said, adding the organizers had worked with authorities and security experts. "Online harassment is a serious matter and we stand firmly against hate speech and cyberbullying."
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Monday November 02 2015, @12:34PM
No, they didn't restore the panels.
There were two panels: one on each side of the GamerGate issue. I.e., one group wanting to talk about harassment (I believe that Zoe Quinn was one of the panelists), and a different group basically discussing the GamerGate side.
They have now scheduled an "all day summit on online harassment". From the title, this would seem to replace the first panel (but now, an all day event). This is rather different from just reinstating the original events. The title of the new "summit" likely indicates the direction that it is intended to take. Make of that what you will.
I am never sure how seriously to take claims of online harassment. I've done a fair bit of online gaming, often with female characters. I haven't noticed any significant difference in the way I was treated. In other types of games (example: League of Legends), the whole community acts like a bunch of deranged 12-year-olds; still, nothing gender specific, just generally awful behavior.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @01:10PM
Nothing to really do with your avatar or character. Many males play female characters. The trouble begins when they find out that you are actually a live female human being in meatspace. Then the shit hits the fan. That or they receive special treatment because erveryone wants to be the knight in shining armour. Some communities are better than others. Some are outright awful.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 02 2015, @01:12PM
If you're giving out personal information on the Internet, you're either an idiot regardless of your gender or utterly unafraid of the consequences.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Monday November 02 2015, @01:22PM
That argument falls flat on its face once a female plays a game that offer in-game voice chat. And many team based multiplayer games today work so much better with a mic. So they are faced with the choice of either risking it and using a mic or staying silent which can ruin their gaming experience along with others because they can't communicate.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Monday November 02 2015, @01:35PM
I'd agree with this. For better or for worse, once a female gets on a microphone the entire dynamic seems to change in most of the multiplayer games I've played.
It's not just something that happens in games either, although games have a way of amplifying any interactions, positive or negative.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 02 2015, @01:57PM
My experience indicates it depends strongly on game genre. Console FPS are one thing, modded minecraft is another. I think there's a strong maturity stereotype.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @02:28PM
I steered my wife away from online gaming. Her first few experiences with it were rather negative. She probably has more game time in her steam profile than I do (and that is saying something).
Though in retrospect it would be funny listening to her tear a 12 year old a new one. She described it as 'playing with the messageboard on youtube'. You get comments all over the map. But mostly the negative ones stand out. I got her out of the online stuff because all it did was cause arguments with strangers. Not a very positive experience. She is already borderline tetchy and does not take to being insulted very well.
I like this recent comic that describes the dynamic I usually end up with. As I do not buy games until the have been out awhile. So I too stick to single player.
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20151012 [cad-comic.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @06:26AM
I steered my wife
Wow, talk about a total loss of all credibility in the opening line of a post.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Tuesday November 03 2015, @01:59AM
you mean you've discovered that a gender will act one way if in a group of the same gender, but differently if the other gender(s) is/are present ? ? ?
this is amazing stuff...
next you'll be telling me that nekkid apes act differently if among friends than strangers !
*snort*
don't mean to pick on you directly so much, just tired of the presumption being that you would expect there to be NO DIFFERENCE between a group of nekkid apes of one gender or the other (or some other statistically insignificant gender-like substance), and a mixed gender group: THE WEIRD THING would be if there was 'NO' difference,, THAT is 'unnatural'...
(oh, and this is NOT to 'excuse' abysmal behavior of young'n'stupid (mostly) males, high on testosterone, who DO bully and worse... BUT, that does NOT mean there is NO difference in behaviors (nor SHOULD there be) when there are gatherings of mixed-genders... we are PROGRAMMED for social and sexual intercourse...)
deny your biology/sociology all you want; but you will remain permanently frustrated, befuddled, and disappointed...
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Tuesday November 03 2015, @09:36AM
you mean you've discovered that a gender will act one way if in a group of the same gender, but differently if the other gender(s) is/are present ? ? ?
I don't think it's some kind of revelation, but some people were claiming that there wasn't a difference in how women were treated online. This simply isn't true, but some people deny it.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 02 2015, @01:50PM
Fair nuff but it stands otherwise.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Monday November 02 2015, @04:17PM
Where are you hanging out? In all the years I've been on the internet, I've never hung out anywhere that had a problem like that. Women get less shit on the internet than men do. The only times I've seen women getting extra mocking were referencing that old saying "The internet, where men are men and women and children are FBI agents."
But, beyond that, I've never observed any actual additional harassment for being women. It's the internet, everybody gets trolled and the trolls don't seem to care what the topic they're using to troll is.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 02 2015, @01:10PM
I have. I had a friend back in the day who always made a female alt no matter what game he played so he could bat his eyelashes and say some variation on "Help me, I'm dumb" and get free shit. Does not work with a male avatar.
My personal experience has been people are far more polite and will bend over backwards for you if you have digital boobs and don't utterly suck at playing your character. Stalkers? No real difference between my male avatars and female ones except the content of the impotent bullshit spewed at you. The only real downside to playing a female avatar is you get less women flirting with you.
The tl;dr of it all is gaming is rude and crude but it's also very much a meritocracy at the end of the day.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @01:26PM
Does not work with a male avatar.
Why not?
Cindy
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 02 2015, @01:51PM
Thousands of years of societal conditioning I expect.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by meustrus on Tuesday November 03 2015, @11:30PM
Because the majority of players are men who want to impress women by being kind and helpful. If there were more women playing the game, they might be around to impress the men too.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday November 02 2015, @01:32PM
My friend used that in warez channels. He used this very obvious professional photo of a random hot girl and people would throw ftp accounts at him. Then he roped in this lesbian in irc who actually sent him scanned nudes of herself. She was pretty attractive so he turned it around and used her nudes as his own pictures. Under a new name he used the nudes along with the demonstration that he had a very fast connection to get a variety of zero-day unlimited ftp accounts. Those were the days.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 02 2015, @01:45PM
The only real downside to playing a female avatar is you get less women flirting with you.
They probably aren't women anyway, see below
always made a female alt no matter what game he played so he could bat his eyelashes
There's an uncanny valley effect where once avatars are too ridiculously oversexualized or too overboard in general, rather than playing a dude, I'll switch over to playing a partially clothed pr0n star because, lets be honest, I enjoy looking at attractive women. A classic example from a few years back on the "Wii" I had a male cartoon character "Mii" who looked creepily like me (perhaps I am at heart a cartoon character?) but I'd play this "Wii Fit" balance board game with a female on screen coach, because she was a solid 8/10 maybe 9/10 and I'd rather look at her for a couple hours than Mr Sausage aka the male wii fit coach. I'm tempted to fire that game up tonight. She was kinda cute for a digital artificial waifu
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 02 2015, @02:13PM
That's what the feminists simply do not get. Guys do not have a problem with female characters. If the character is as badass as the male characters in a given selection, she'll get used. If she's the only selection, our enjoyment is based on the quality of the game. Leisure Suit Larry type games aside, it's first, last, and all points in between about the game.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday November 02 2015, @02:29PM
This.
I've been playing for decades, women as playable characters has never been an issue. Even though the media would like people to believe it isn't the case, there are tons of awesome games that have always had multiple characters to select (male and female). Some of the largest franchises up until the recent FPS craze had female protagonist, and NO ONE CARED. Now it's either, "women aren't playable characters", which they often are, just likely not in this specific game. Or "Women aren't represented the way I want them to be, this is sexists"
You know why publishers are cautions about using women in their games? Because regardless of how they represent them SOMEONE will have a shitfit over it. Either she's a "fighting fuck toy", or she's a "Mrs. Male", or she's a "Damsel in Distress". You can't win.
NO ONE questions male characters getting shot, or brutally beaten to death, or sexually harassed in games. Most people friggin laugh at it, but throw a female character in there and a certain group of people (who don't even play the games they review) will lose their minds over it and the Game media will tank your reviews based on their input.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @04:31PM
In the decades you played video games, they were mostly designed to appeal to men. Games were a lower art form and would often use stereotypes of gender and race probably on a similar level as most mindless action movies.
It seems that some people are really loosing their shit over the portrayal of gender/race in video games more than other entertainment, such as movies, books, and TV. I don't know if "gamers" are a much easier target to pick on or if it is related to how the players actively control and participate.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Monday November 02 2015, @05:32PM
Gamers have always been the default target by the media. Before video games it was pen and paper. Then it was games make you violet satanic worshipers. Now it's games make you sexists women hating harassers.
The media will push whatever they think will get them the most readers. Bashing gamers, who are part of an $80+ billion dollar industry, means there's no shortage of people to hate on.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 02 2015, @07:45PM
They picked the wrong group this time. Unlike other media, the consumers of games are conditioned to win no matter how long it takes or how hard it is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @10:13PM
Whoever has the MMORPG players is bound to win eventually.
It is probably more related to the stereotypical low social status video game players have. It is easier to pick on nerds, geeks, 12-year-old boys, etc. because everyone else is already conditioned to dismiss them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @08:43PM
Wait, this whole stupid thing is now about oppression of fictional women and not real ones? Fuck me in the goat ass, this is stupid.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday November 03 2015, @02:18AM
No, it's still about ethics in the media, but the media is throwing all the spaghetti at the wall to find something that will stick. How fictional women are represented is just another lazy narrative to get people mad and attacking gamers to keep them from organizing any meaningful discussion about the media. Instead it's just one dumb neck beard after another coming to white knight on women's behalf because they have no agency of their own to stand up to the big bad boys only gamer club. What's really funny is when one of these idiots gets in a fight with a female Gamergate supporter who tells them to piss off back to their Kleenex box... and they're promptly called gender traitors, sock puppets, or told they've internalized the misogyny.
Never a dull day in Gamergate.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @03:39PM
> That's what the feminists simply do not get
Not all feminists! lol
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday November 03 2015, @06:33AM
That's what the feminists simply do not get.
Sorry, Mighty Buzzard, but I do not think you are even remotely qualified to know what feminists do not get. Sorry, again, and I hope this does not ruin your day. But really, you are being an ass with a statement like this. It is just like me saying, "This is what The Mighty Buzzard simply does not get", which actually is not what I am saying. I am just saying that maybe you should not be saying that, since you have to basis for saying it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 03 2015, @11:13AM
Well, the good news is your trolling reflexes still work. The bad news is third-gen feminists screech their views out like harpies every chance they get, so anyone who has ever heard them is qualified to say what they think.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @04:43PM
> he played so he could bat his eyelashes and say some variation on "Help me, I'm dumb" and get free shit. Does not work with a male avatar.
It is so profoundly odd that you can see that and say that and still think that such treatment is not sexist.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 02 2015, @07:40PM
Who said it wasn't sexist? I said it wasn't harassment. Sexism is not harassment.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @02:02PM
Quinn wasn't one of the panellists. You're thinking of the "anti-harassment activist" Randy Harper, who is herself a notorious harasser.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Vanderhoth on Monday November 02 2015, @02:15PM
It's a little more complicated than that. The "GamerGate" panel (SavePoint) wasn't actually a "GamerGate" panel. In fact a lot of the GamerGate community was a little upset because the organizer wanted to distance SavePoint from GamerGate, but he used GamerGate to get the panel in the first place. In any case that got worked out, but it was a discussion about the state of the industry and Gaming community and had nothing to do with harassment.
After the anti-GamerGate crowd got wind of it, things all went haywire and threats started. SXSW cancelled both panels, but didn't say where threats were coming from or who they were directed at. There was a massive media blitz about it saying it was GamerGate threatening them and they needed to reinstate the Levelup panel (the harassment discussion), which consisted of some of the Internets worst harassers (Randi Harper, Zoe Quinn, Kathryn Cross). Then the "SJW", (I hate the term, but it's the best way to describe this crowd), started going on a tirade about how that wasn't enough and SXSW needed a WHOLE DAY PANEL on harassment. So SXSW agreed, but (and I think this was done to troll this SJW crowd) also invited the SavePoint panel. Now the SJW crowd are losing their minds because this is like a "rape victim having to sit on a panel about preventing rape with the rapists who raped them". Randi Harper, Authur Chu, Chris Klew are threatening to boycott SXSW now because they're "giving GamerGate" a platform.
Personally it's bull, IMHO, but this was exactly what happened with GamerGate to begin with. A discussion about ethics was hijacked by people who wanted to talk about harassment. Who did so by harassing the people talking about ethics, then claimed they were the harassers which forced the ethics people to have a conversation that wasn't part of the issues they were talking about.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday November 02 2015, @02:20PM
Sorry, I had Zoe Quinn as one of the Levelup panelist, her and Brianna Wu have been invited to talk at the new all day summit with them, but they weren't on the original panel, which was Randi Harper, Caroline Sinders and Katherine Cross.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 1) by meustrus on Tuesday November 03 2015, @11:34PM
That may be how a GamerGater sees the situation, but to everyone in the outside world who isn't paying attention, all GamerGaters (that we know of) are actively doxxing the anti-GamerGaters. That's the message about your movement now, and frankly it's your own fault for not vocally denouncing those people early and often.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday November 04 2015, @11:57AM
You don't get to speak for everyone outside of, or not paying attention to, Gamergate.
The only reason you think Gamergate supporters spend all their time doxing, WHICH WE WERE VOCALLY AGAINST, is because THE MEDIA told you that's what we do. And like a good little sheeple, you just listened with no critical thinking.
Gamergate is a consumer revolt against THE MEDIA, and for some reason you expect THE MEDIA to report on their own corruption fairly? Stop being an idiot.
This is one of the earliest images from when Gamergate started http://www.historyofgamergate.com/uploads/3/9/4/1/39411291/5597243_orig.jpg [historyofgamergate.com]
Note the text:
The issue is THE MEDIA is the gatekeeper, you're only getting information from them and the few times Gamergate has had a platform to talk and try and clear the air, it's ignored, it was shut down by bomb threats, or sheeple (like you) go on a tirade to have the reasonable discussion shut down so THE MEDIA'S side continues to be the only side heard.
But yeah, Gamergate is totally not about taking a corrupt media to task and 100% about harassment, THE MEDIA told you so. Right?
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0, Troll) by meustrus on Saturday November 07 2015, @10:59PM
It doesn't matter where I got this impression. For the record, most of it comes from discussions like this on Slashdot, where, as I'm sure most here would agree applies to most discussions there, reasonable arguments from any side were very hard to find. It also took quite a long time for me to even figure out which side was Gamergate and which side was anti-Gamergate. So you know, good PR on your part.
What matters is that I have this impression, and unless you think I'm the only "sheeple" in the world I'm not alone. Your message is not coherent. The only things that have stood out are "THE MEDIA"'s focus on doxxing and your collective tendency to go off on rants about poorly-defined "social justice warriors".
Your complaint about "THE MEDIA" just sounds like sour grapes because you're losing the PR battle. What exactly are Gamergaters even up to these days besides complaining in their own increasingly isolated community? Do you expect to fix corruption in the media by peeping out every so often to vent your frustration?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday November 06 2015, @05:16AM
That's the message about your movement now, and frankly it's your own fault for not vocally denouncing those people early and often.
You're going to blame the group for the actions of others? Have you no concept of personal responsibility? There are feminists who are total nutjobs, but I wouldn't make the claim that other people who identify as feminists must therefore waste time arguing with said nutjobs. Why bother arguing with nutjobs when you have an actual goal you want to accomplish? Just because I identify as a member of group X doesn't mean I also want to police every member of group X if they do anything I don't like.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday November 02 2015, @02:51PM
The thing is, GamerGate was never about in-game harassment or in-game player interactions. It was about out-of-game harassment of (a) people who were making video games that GamerGaters didn't like but got good reviews - which the GamerGaters erroneously believed had gotten good reviews in exchange for sex, (b) people engaging in media criticism of video games with conclusions that the GamerGaters didn't like, and (c) people who publicly and non-anonymously defended the people in groups (a) and (b).
And by out-of-game harassment, I don't mean insults and strong language. I mean stuff like:
- Falsified reports to police to cause SWAT to respond to innocent (and sometimes uninvolved) people's homes
- Bomb and mass shooting threats of public events where the targets were known to be appearing
- Publishing names, addresses, and other personal details about targets and the targets' family members, along with threats to rape and kill the targets and/or their family members
As you might notice, all 3 of those activities are crimes.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Vanderhoth on Monday November 02 2015, @03:24PM
This is completely bull, and frankly I'm just too tired after over a year to argue.
The dev in question was covered at least three times by the journalist who was at the very least friends with her, without disclosure.
https://archive.today/0KhZv [archive.today]
https://archive.today/5IBg1 [archive.today]
http://archive.is/WtK25 [archive.is]
We know he was at least friends with her because he was thanked in the credits of game he highlighted for her. So he also didn't disclose he worked on the game he was highlighting. The whole "Sex for reviews" thing was thrown in to obfuscate the issue. He covered her positively and gave her undue weight.
Enough with the BS, everyone knows what's going on. Harassment, which everyone gets on the internet anyway, is just a convenient deflection from the collusion and corruption going on in the industry.
The media as a whole, not just the gaming media.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @04:48PM
> This is completely bull, and frankly I'm just too tired after over a year to argue.
I feel ya. Constantly proclaiming your rigid adherence to one of the thinest conspiracy theories ever has got to be tiresome as hell.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday November 02 2015, @05:29PM
What's more conspiratorial.
Tens of thousands of people got together to harass women out of the gaming industry in a coordinated year long effort, or lazy journalists won't admit they were wrong not to disclose friendships and now use the controversy to generate clickbait that draws angry people to their sites, which is how they get paid?
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday November 02 2015, @05:05PM
That somebody gets favorable reviews for bad games is nothing new. And there's a very obvious reason for that: The primary source of revenue for game reviews is advertising from the game production companies, and if those companies stop getting favorable reviews they will pull their ads, which means the review magazine / website will lose money, which means they instruct their reviewers to keep the reviews positive.
And sure, game reviewers can get just as chummy with their sources as, say, political reporters, and in both cases that chumminess causes the reporting to be slanted.
So far so good. The problem is that based on their behavior and their rhetoric, that problem isn't what GamerGate is protesting. As in, they haven't said a word about that kind of collusion. Instead, they've been targeting feminists, "SJW"s, and so forth.
How many times has somebody posted your home address along with threats to kill you and your immediate family (along with their home addresses)? How many times has somebody threatened to bomb your workplace if you showed up? When you give a presentation, are you regularly told that somebody will show up and start spraying the place with bullets? How often has SWAT showed up to your home thinking that there was a kidnapping in progress (something that could easily get somebody killed)?
If that's not happening to you (and it's certainly not happening to me), then no, "everyone" doesn't get that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday November 02 2015, @05:26PM
This is blatantly wrong http://deepfreeze.it/. [deepfreeze.it]
What you think for a year all we've done is sat around and fumed over some dev no one cared about in the first place? No, that would be people looking to put down any chance consumers had finally had enough of how corrupt the industry was and finally decided to call out the journalists that were enabling it.
Dude, I've had people threaten to burn down my house and rape me and my wife over the dumbest internet crap. There are crazy people out there, but on the internet all they have is threats. You give them power by letting them have power over you. The media also loves to play this up because it's not stop clickbait headlines for them so of course they have little interest in talking about the ethical issues, but all the incentives to keep pushing "cyber violence".
Trolls love this stuff because now they get to stir shit up and watch as these "SJW" go around screaming sexism and calling for censorship while fingers get pointed at everyone except them.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday November 02 2015, @08:47PM
GamerGate was quite against other forms of dishonest reviews and business practices than Social Justice ones. Does nobody remember Doritosgate? (fuck this gate-shit, but this is what it was called) And paid-reviews has been suspected if not proven for years.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @08:58PM
How many times has somebody posted your home address along with threats to kill you and your immediate family (along with their home addresses)?
This has happened to numerous GamerGate supporters. In fact, Chelsea van Valkenburg (aka "Zoe Quinn"), is guilty of it. [crimeandfederalism.com]
There is harassment and threats related to GamerGate, and it is almost all directed toward GamerGate supporters. Claims otherwise have been debunked, like when Brianna Wu (a transsexual gamedev born John Flynt. I mention this because her past behavior is telling and worth reading about) claimed to have been forced out of her home, only to deliver a television interview from the same location shortly afterward.
Almost all Internet "harassment" is bullshit, but it can be quite profitable--socially and monetarily--to pretend to take it seriously. This behavior is distinct to one side of the conflict, and it is not found among those who support GamerGate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @04:43AM
That somebody gets favorable reviews for bad games is nothing new. And there's a very obvious reason for that: The primary source of revenue for game reviews is advertising from the game production companies, and if those companies stop getting favorable reviews they will pull their ads, which means the review magazine / website will lose money, which means they instruct their reviewers to keep the reviews positive.
No, that's not the reason in this context because we are talking about under-performing indie games that didn't even register on the sales charts.
As in, they haven't said a word about that kind of collusion.
Wrong [deepfreeze.it]. They have said a great many things [startpage.com] about collusion.
How many times has somebody posted your home address along with threats to kill you and your immediate family (along with their home addresses)? How many times has somebody threatened to bomb your workplace if you showed up? When you give a presentation, are you regularly told that somebody will show up and start spraying the place with bullets? How often has SWAT showed up to your home thinking that there was a kidnapping in progress (something that could easily get somebody killed)?
What you are describing are genuine criminal acts. If these poor threatened women really face such terrible harassment then how come nobody has been arrested for it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @03:51AM
A common misconception/SJW revisionary history. GamerGate didn't explode because of Nathan Grayson's non-existent journalistic integrity, the thing that got gamers really riled up against the gaming press was the series of "gamers are dead" articles, originally based on a GamaSutra article by Leigh Alexander's horrible inflammatory attack on the gamer identity [archive.is] and later parroted all over games media, which appeared a few weeks after the scandal.
The Grayson incident is neither the first, nor the biggest GamerGate issue, and while the hashtag was coined around that period, the resentment among gamers was not.
It was about out-of-game harassment of (a) people who were making video games that GamerGaters didn't like but got good reviews - which the GamerGaters erroneously believed had gotten good reviews in exchange for sex
There is significant evidence [pastebin.com] which clearly demonstrates that Grayson and Quinn were at very least on friendly terms at the time, a matter that Grayson did not feel necessary to disclose in the article.