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from the why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept.
A press event gets not one but six bomb threats and it's not covered by any major news outlet that day aside from a few paragraphs on Forbes.com? Is it just me or would not the mainstream media eat this much meta up with a spoon if any topic other than #GamerGate were being discussed?
The first threat was made at 1:15 pm ET, but attendees chose to stay. Later, a specific threat was phoned into The Miami Herald and the Miami PD, claiming that a bomb would go off at 2:45 pm ET. At this point, attendees and panelists exited the building and eventually finished their discussion outside.
You can watch both the morning panel and the interrupted afternoon panel on the SPJ AirPlay YouTube channel.
The most interesting bit to me though is the difference in how differently #GamerGate and its critics handle anonymous threats. Finishing the event in the parking lot then throwing a party just has more style.
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2015, @03:28AM
> is all the coordinated effort put by gaming journalists in pointless narratives like "gaming is dead".
Literalism fails you. It isn't "gaming is dead" narratives it is "gaming is dead, long live gaming" narratives where they were talking about how the previous narrowly defined conception of gaming has been overtaken by a much broader definition. Something that was well known long before gamergaters started shitting bricks about it. [gigaom.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2015, @10:25AM
I thought the narrative was "gamers are dead, fuck those fat pimply misogynist rapists. Long live the new feminist transgender sapiosexual oppressed minority gamers! And if you don't agree with me then you must be a misogynist womyn-hating bigot!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 17 2015, @10:42AM
I'm pretty sure that is exactly what the gamergaters think the narrative is. Persecution complexes make people feel persecuted.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday August 18 2015, @01:43AM
Literalism fails you. It isn't "gaming is dead" narratives it is "gaming is dead, long live gaming" narratives where they were talking about how the previous narrowly defined conception of gaming has been overtaken by a much broader definition.
Well, let's actually read some of these articles, eh?
'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over. [gamasutra.com]
Right, let’s say it’s a vocal minority that’s not representative of most people. Most people, from indies to industry leaders, are mortified, furious, disheartened at the direction industry conversation has taken in the past few weeks. It’s not like there are reputable outlets publishing rational articles in favor of the trolls’ ‘side’. Don’t give press to the harassers. Don’t blame an entire industry for a few bad apples.
Yet disclaiming liability is clearly no help. Game websites with huge community hubs whose fans are often associated with blunt Twitter hate mobs sort of shrug, they say things like ‘we delete the really bad stuff, what else can we do’ and ‘those people don’t represent our community’ -- but actually, those people do represent your community. That’s what your community is known for, whether you like it or not.
When you decline to create or to curate a culture in your spaces, you’re responsible for what spawns in the vacuum. That’s what’s been happening to games.
We Might Be Witnessing The 'Death of An Identity' [kotaku.com]
"These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers — they are not my audience. They don't have to be yours. There is no 'side' to be on, there is no 'debate' to be had."
Note they're not talking about everyone who plays games, or who self-identifies as a "gamer", as being the worst. It's being used in these cases as short-hand, a catch-all term for the type of reactionary holdouts that feel so threatened by gaming's widening horizons. If you call yourself a "gamer" and are a cool person, keep on being a cool person.
Once you're done here, I'll see you next week, where we can hang out as thoughtful, considerate human beings and enjoy video games as they are, not what some folks feel they can dictate from a dark corner of the internet.
An awful week to care about video games [polygon.com]
This week, it should be clear to this community that games are at a cultural turning point. No longer are games designed, marketed and sold to a niche group of young men. Games are now ubiquitous; their ability to provide a safe space for experimentation and empathic experiences serves a population that, in a time as economically and politically bleak as this one, needs them desperately. More games are being created by more people for more people than ever before.
[...]
Two groups are at opposite ends of this moment:
One side has folded its arms, slumped its shoulders while pouting like an obstinate child that has learned they are getting a little brother or sister but wants to remain the singular focus of their parents' affection.
The other side has opened its arms, unable to contain its love and compassion, because they understand they are no longer alone.
This week, the obstinate child threw a temper tantrum, and the industry was stuck in the metaphorical grocery store as everyone was forced to suffer through it together. But unlike a child, the people behind these temper tantrums are hurting others. It's time to grow up. Let's not wait until next week to start.
The End of Gamers [tumblr.com]
On the evidence of the last few weeks, what we are seeing is the end of gamers, and the viciousness that accompanies the death of an identity. Due to fundamental shifts in the videogame audience, and a move towards progressive attitudes within more traditional areas of videogame culture, the gamer identity has been broken. It has nowhere to call home, and so it reaches out inarticulately at invented problems, such as bias and corruption, which are partly just ways of expressing confusion as to why things the traditional gamer does not understand are successful (that such confusion results in abject heartlessness is an indictment on the character of the male-focussed gamer culture to begin with).
The gamer as an identity feels like it is under assault, and so it should. Though the ‘consumer king’ gamer will continue to be targeted and exploited while their profitability as a demographic outweighs their toxicity, the traditional gamer identity is now culturally irrelevant.
The battles (and I don’t use that word lightly; in some ways perhaps ‘war’ is more appropriate) to make safe spaces for videogame cultures are long and they are resisted tempestuously, but through the pain and suffering of people who have their friendships, their personal lives, and their professions on the line, things continue to improve. The result has been a palpable progressive shift.
This shift is precisely the root of such increasingly violent hostility. The hysterical fits of those inculcated at the heart of gamer culture might on the surface be claimed as crusades for journalistic integrity, or a defense against falsehoods, but—along with a mix of the hatred of women and an expansive bigotry thrown in for good measure—what is actually going on is an attempt to retain hegemony. Make no mistake: this is the exertion of power in the name of (male) gamer orthodoxy—an orthodoxy that has already begun to disappear.
There appears to be plenty more where that comes from with 16 articles [gamergate.me] written over the course of five days with a condescending, insulting message that outrage over perceived developer/gaming journalist collusion is actually a bunch of hate-filled neanderthals upset over the loss of their identity. These aren't just fluffy articles about gaming identity or the recent changes in demographics of gamers, but coordinated ad hominem attacks on anyone who questioned the credibility of fellow gaming journalists.