The big Phil Fish, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian discussion thread

Retr0gamer

There's not really anything wrong or out of the ordinary for there to be a network of people in the same profession.

kunst nugget

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's not really anything wrong or out of the ordinary for there to be a network of people in the same profession.

The only problems with networks is when that network is not a network that you network in. Then there the devil… and feminists… network…network…network…

mewso

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's not really anything wrong or out of the ordinary for there to be a network of people in the same profession.

Should the New York times editor chat to the editor of the Wall Street Journal about how something should be reported on? I agree it's not some evil conspiracy but it's questionable at the very least.

Clockwork Owl

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

I still don't get the distinction. We aren't talking about just Cosmo, we are talking about womens magazines and womens day time chat shows, that's a whole lot bigger than just Cosmo and is exactly what the factual feminist referred to. This is a very large chunk of the TV/magazine industry as a whole.

Tiddlypeeps, can you please put forward some articles or video clips from these women's magazines and shows that you believe to be misandric? I can't speak for TV shows, not being a television person, but I read Cosmopolitan, Company, Marie Claire and Glamour for years and can't recall ever seeing routine misandry in any of them. If you're privy to something I've not seen that demonstrates similarly overt sexism and negative stereotyping of men, that is just as worthy of criticism... But does not make the sexualisation and objectification of women any more acceptable.

I'd be honest: I don't understand your point with this mobile gaming tangent. I've never claimed that mobile games are sexist. They tend to focus on puzzles, on word games, on gender-neutral creatures and on inanimate objects. As above - just because mobile games don't employ sexist tropes doesn't make sexism in mainstream PC and console titles somehow 'OK'.

At work at the moment, but the idea of gendered games put forward earlier wasn't missed - it's actually a really interesting topic and I'd love to answer it properly, as opposed to scribbling something out on my phone!

super_furry

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

Yes look at corruption in games journalism! They are talking to each other.

Bless Milo Yiannopoulos for being a champion of fair and just games reporting and bringing this corruption to us, perhaps some legal action might be possible now?


what do you mean the person writing the article is actually being investigated?

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/mar/01/the-kernel


So which one is the corrupt one again?

Not to mention that Milo thinks people who play video games are "dorky weirdos" and "frustrated beta males who can't kill or shag anything in real life, so get their kicks doing it on a computer screen."

He then goes on to blame videogames for Elliot Rodgers and rounds it off with "Personally, I don't understand grown men wasting their lives playing computer games. It seems a bit sad to me."

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/08/14/Players-as-young-as-12-and-13-are-being-raped-by-dorky-weirdos-on-Grand-Theft-Auto

gizmo

mewso wrote: »

Should the New York times editor chat to the editor of the Wall Street Journal about how something should be reported on? I agree it's not some evil conspiracy but it's questionable at the very least.

In a manner which could be considered collusion? No. But there's no evidence of that here and at worst Yiannopoulos his conflating discussion of the topic in general with collusion. It is this automatic assumption of guilt or wrongdoing which has been one of the defining and most lamentable characteristics of this entire campaign.

Remember, this is a Google Group which contains not only editors but writers too, there's no way there wouldn't have been a reported backlash if such blatant collusion had taken place.

Tiddlypeeps

Clockwork Owl wrote: »

Tiddlypeeps, can you please put forward some articles or video clips from these women's magazines and shows that you believe to be misandric? I can't speak for TV shows, not being a television person, but I read Cosmopolitan, Company, Marie Claire and Glamour for years and can't recall ever seeing routine misandry in any of them. If you're privy to something I've not seen that demonstrates similarly overt sexism and negative stereotyping of men, that is just as worthy of criticism... But does not make the sexualisation and objectification of women any more acceptable.

I'd be honest: I don't understand your point with this mobile gaming tangent. I've never claimed that mobile games are sexist. They tend to focus on puzzles, on word games, on gender-neutral creatures and on inanimate objects. As above - just because mobile games don't employ sexist tropes doesn't make sexism in mainstream PC and console titles somehow 'OK'.

At work at the moment, but the idea of gendered games put forward earlier wasn't missed - it's actually a really interesting topic and I'd love to answer it properly, as opposed to scribbling something out on my phone!

I used to work from home up until last year and only had a couple of TV stations. I'd have the TV on in the background while working away on my laptop, for some reason I work better with a bit of background noise. A standard day of TV would include stuff like the midday show, the view and whatever other trashy us daytime TV shows they'd run. It's pretty common place for those kind of female discussion panels to unanimously agree that all men are pigs when discussing things like fidelity and the like. I used to read some of those mags too when I was younger, I'm really surprised you haven't come across a tonne of articles describing how men are really base and need to be manipulated into relationships and that type of thing. The whole play hard to get because he's only after sex type of thing. Or just in general making sweeping generalizations about all men.

I'll point out some examples, but I'm just immediately going to be accused of "cherry picking", and they wouldn't be wrong because specifically targeting a google search for exactly what I want is exactly that.

This was a pretty shocking example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKgwczruOSQ

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/news/a25620/guy-texts-comic/?src=spr_FBPAGE&spr_id=1440_65289080

https://i.imgur.com/g3x1Xal.jpg

There is even a sub reddit dedicated to ridiculous stuff cosmo and other women's mags come out with. r/****cosmosays

But again those are obviously just cherry picked examples based on a very brief google search.

If you genuinely believe this doesn't happen in women's media then It's not worth contesting. I'm not the person to convince you otherwise because I don't consume enough of that media these days to be able to contest it from a fully informed position. I only have past personal experience to go on which I obviously don't expect you to accept as evidence so we'll have to agree to disagree.

You are accusing me of arguments I am not making. The point you seem to think I made on mobile gaming is not one I made, I have no idea where you picked that up. The only time I mentioned mobile gaming was to point out that the type of games being targeted by the likes of Anita are part of a much larger industry. This was in direct response to you dismissing the use of women's mags and day time TV shows as an example of sexism from the other side because it's just a part of a wider industry. You said:

If the Factual Feminist really wanted to turn the tables, she’d be speaking about a world in which television shows are primarily about women and stories about women.

But this is not true, because the specific type of games that come up in these discussions are just part of a wider games industry. Making your dismissal of the use of this example invalid.

I never claimed that just because there is sexism from both sides it's ok, neither is that the context which the factual feminist used it. She was making the point that it's absolutely fine to manufacture content for mostly one gender that focuses almost exclusively on that gender. She was merely pointing out an example from the other side where it's perfectly acceptable to do this and pretty much nobody contests.

mewso

gizmo wrote: »

In a manner which could be considered collusion? No. But there's no evidence of that here and at worst Yiannopoulos his conflating discussion of the topic in general with collusion. It is this automatic assumption of guilt or wrongdoing which has been one of the defining and most lamentable characteristics of this entire campaign.

Remember, this is a Google Group which contains not only editors but writers too, there's no way there wouldn't have been a reported backlash if such blatant collusion had taken place.

Combine this with several articles across several sites all talking about gamers being dead then colour me suspicious.

gizmo

mewso wrote: »

Combine this with several articles across several sites all talking about gamers being dead then colour me suspicious.

None of whose authors featured on the Google Group according to Scott Nichols though.

On that subject though, did anyone see the article "The Death of Adulthood in American Culture" from NY Times writer A. O. Scott? Or the article on The Verge entitled "Adulthood is dead in American culture — and maybe that's a good thing" which was posted online on the same day? Or perhaps "The Death of Adulthood and the Rise of Pleasure, or Why Seth Rogen Is More Serious Than Woody Allen" posted the next day on Vulture?

bobsimspons

gizmo wrote: »

On the contrary, I imagine they'll continue to happily ignore the hyperbolic nonsense spewed by Yiannopoulos.

They're not happy, and haven't been for a month

porsche959

Yiannopoulos just tweeted a photo of a syringe which he claims someone sent him in the mail.

Sand

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

This was a pretty shocking example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKgwczruOSQ

That's absolutely disgraceful. I simply cant imagine an all male cast laughing and joking about FGM still having jobs, especially after an "apology" they cant complete without giggling and laughing again. But "The Talk" is apparently going into its 5th season, still strong.

K.O.Kiki

Leaving this here.

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-its-not-over-until-someone-goes-to-prison-says-game-journalist/

gizmo

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Leaving this here.

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-its-not-over-until-someone-goes-to-prison-says-game-journalist/

Ingnoring for a second that Yannopoulos' article painted no such picture of "collusion and willful negligence to report on specific industry-related issues with proper facts, honesty and integrity", if the author of the above article did indeed have access to the private Google Groups for so long and has decided to sound off about its contents now that his access has been revoked, wouldn't the very first thing he'd talk about be specific instances where such abuses occurred within the forums rather than referencing a public article on Ars?

wes

An interesting article from Forbes, regarding the DDOS on the escapist, and the email list (they are lot more fair imho than the breitbart site was):

The Escapist #GamerGate Forums Brought Down In DDoS Attack

Genghiz Cohen

Everyones favourite Internet Aristocrat presents more nepotism claims.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXDSfUJBCj0

BlitzKrieg

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Everyones favourite Internet Aristocrat presents more nepotism claims.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXDSfUJBCj0

what a horrible video.

kunst nugget

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Everyones favourite Internet Aristocrat presents more nepotism claims.

I haven't got the time or energy to watch the video. What's it about.

BlitzKrieg

kunst nugget wrote: »

I haven't got the time or energy to watch the video. What's it about.

essentially a woman works at might no 9 so people trawled through her twitter and found she had opinions and wasnt as hardcore for mega man as they were so were outraged.

Add in she had worked with and knew from prior being hired a number of people on the team they are crying nepotism for her employment.


All tied up in the knot that it was kickstarter project so the backers are the victims here.


It's an old video from last christmas though now looking at the date.

Potatoeman

The worst thing about this whole thing is my recommended list on youtube is f*cked. Its now full of antifeminist and third/fourth wave feminist nutballs. :-(

Genghiz Cohen

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

essentially a woman works at might no 9 so people trawled through her twitter and found she had opinions and wasnt as hardcore for mega man as they were so were outraged.

Add in she had worked with and knew from prior being hired a number of people on the team they are crying nepotism for her employment.


All tied up in the knot that it was kickstarter project so the backers are the victims here.


It's an old video from last christmas though now looking at the date.

Well there's a bit more to it than that.

She pushed for a female lead character.
She says she never played a MM game.
She claims her friends/bf is working on MN9, so she supports MN9.
She gets appointed to Community Manager.
She is helping to design characters.
She says MegaMan X was the best MM.
She was asked about refunds and such. Then mod-edits were implemented without proper responses.
Backers continue asking for a proper response. Wondering about how MMX can be the best if she doesn't play MM games.
She locks her Twitter.
Unlocks her Twitter, all tweets asking her questions and some of her Social Justice-y tweets have been deleted.
Admits that her relationship to people working on MN9 got her foot in the door.
People still want to know why she was chosen over arguably better artists and people more capable of liaising between the Japanese and English speaking teams.

gizmo

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Well there's a bit more to it than that.

She pushed for a female lead character.
- Nothing wrong with offering a choice if it doesn't detract from gameplay or adversely affect the development process
She says she never played a MM game.
- She said she wasn't an MM player, that's not the same as saying she never played an MM game.
She claims her friends/bf is working on MN9, so she supports MN9.
- If that's what got her involved in the project initially then that's fine, she still backed the project financially and had enough interest to do some preliminary character sketches
She gets appointed to Community Manager.
- So one assumes she applied for an open position?
She is helping to design characters.
- She said she was designing them one day, it doesn't mean her designs will make it into the game nor does that make her a designer
She says MegaMan X was the best MM.
- Burn the witch! :pac:
She was asked about refunds and such. Then mod-edits were implemented without proper responses.
- Not familiar with that particular example but the one IA gave initially on the mod edit issue was far from what one would consider a reasonable first question to ask
Backers continue asking for a proper response. Wondering about how MMX can be the best if she doesn't play MM games.
- Do you feel that the entire dev team must be MM fans and actively play MM games to make the best MM possible?
She locks her Twitter.
- Probably wise under the circumstances.
Unlocks her Twitter, all tweets asking her questions and some of her Social Justice-y tweets have been deleted.
- Deleting the tweets wasn't a good idea, no complaints there.
Admits that her relationship to people working on MN9 got her foot in the door.
- And? Positive feedback from an acquaintance or former colleague is extremely valuable from an employers perspective. She would have still required the skillset for the role.
People still want to know why she was chosen over arguably better artists and people more capable of liaising between the Japanese and English speaking teams.
- Did other people apply for the job and not get it? Also, do you feel that because people have backed the project, they should be able to demand answers as to how the company is run?

Replies in-line.

On a broader note, do you really think Keiji Inafune would risk the success of this project on the hiring of this person?

BlitzKrieg

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Well there's a bit more to it than that.

She pushed for a female lead character.

she posted fan art

and she didnt push for a female lead. If you pause the video and actual read the post you'll see she is actually responding to a post someone else had already made on the issue of a playable female character and is supporting their statement.

She says she never played a MM game.

So?

I never read the 99 but I worked as the production assistant on it for 6 episodes I also filled in its IMDB page and answered any emails sent to the team from outside production.

She claims her friends/bf is working on MN9, so she supports MN9.

Welcome to the creative industry, you make friends they go to different jobs they post on facebook they need someone to do XYZ. You offer to do the job.

The last 3 jobs I've had have all been via facebook or people I worked with texting me.

She gets appointed to Community Manager.

so?

She is helping to design characters.

Have any of the character designs that have since been shown (the video is from 2013, might no 9 has had a few character trailers since then) have an issue with them?

Why is it such a problem she is designing characters?

She says MegaMan X was the best MM.

A lot of people say final fantasy VII is the best final fantasy. Guess how many of them never played final fantasy VI. Doesnt make them bad people, and hell maybe even after playing VI they'll still think VII is better because of nostalgia

why does this matter?

She was asked about refunds and such.
Then mod-edits were implemented without proper responses.
Backers continue asking for a proper response. Wondering about how MMX can be the best if she doesn't play MM games.

Issues of refund, especially with a kickstarter project is a complicated response, as I cant access those forums and only have this (awful) video to go by and the post that got modded. The person was demanding a full refund based on a hire. Kickstarter funders are warned when they sign up that they are funding a project but they have no power over hiring or creative decisions, that is left to the project owners, refunds are only possible if the project failed to meet it's set goals.

She locks her Twitter.

so?

its her twitter. she can do the hell she wants with it.

Unlocks her Twitter, all tweets asking her questions and some of her Social Justice-y tweets have been deleted.

again so? It's her twitter, it may seem a foolish response to what was something incredibly uncomfortable (that someone goes trawling through your twitter because of a post you made) but again what is the issue here?

Admits that her relationship to people working on MN9 got her foot in the door.

again, creative industry, the vast majority of which will hire people they know for jobs if they are available because they know them and can trust them.

People still want to know why she was chosen over arguably better artists and people more capable of liaising between the Japanese and English speaking teams.

Because the people she works with, trust her.

Really there are 2 points and they all come down to entitled whinging

First is with how open the internet has come you can pick any crew member of a major film and trawl through their twitter history to find something you might disagree with and throw a strop because you dont want that potentially polluting the end product.

That's firstly incredibly invasive why must that persons own personal opinions and relationships be dragged out when it has nothing to do with the product?

I know crew members who worked on some of the biggest hollywood action gun movies and they've posted numerous pro gun control comments on their facebook/twitter. Should I drag them out for shaming because they are working on a action movie but believe in gun control? No. it's none of your business what the 2nd AC or the spark thinks of gun control.

Second issue, she's not a fan enough. Here's something shocking. Not everyone who works on a project is going to be a fan of the source material, Unless you are a in key creative role, chances are you wont need to be a fan or even aware of the source material. Mighty No 9 has it where it counts with it's lead creative team. The community manager not actually a point where it is crucial to know the source material inside and out.

Actually some of the worse projects out there have had it where the community manager was a "hardcore fan" and the project leads were not

I remember when the Command & Conquer community manager was taken from the actual forums and there was no question he was a massive fan of the series, but the lead development team? Mostly new staff brought over from the Battle of Middle Earth series, and we got C&C 4 out of that.


Also remember Michael Bay went on record numerous times never being a fan of transformers and he was the director of 4 of those movies. Thankfully to a small part one of the producers was a big transformers fan and wouldnt budge on the casting of Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, possibly the only part of those movies the filmmakers got right.

TomCo

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

Add in she had worked with and knew from prior being hired a number of people on the team they are crying nepotism for her employment.

Sure that's the way most places get new hires, through referrals.
The place I work for is constantly hammering on about social referral targets, you even get a cash bonus if someone you refer gets hired!

What's the problem if someone has the qualifications, and why do the "community" think they can decide who is and isn't qualified?

It isn't like they've bought equity in the company.

e_e

http://midnightresistance.co.uk/articles/game-design-always-political-im-not-even-exaggerating-here

Very good piece here about why politics are inherent in games and not just something imagined by writers with agendas.

Retr0gamer

Isn't she a community manager though meaning she has no power over the direction of the game and only really needs digital marketing skills? Are people really that stupid to think there's something wrong about this?

Genghiz Cohen

gizmo wrote: »

Replies in-line.

On a broader note, do you really think Keiji Inafune would risk the success of this project on the hiring of this person?

I don't know, I don't really have a strong opinion about this.

K.O.Kiki

FYI, the MN9 thing happened MONTHS ago; it's interesting to see it brought up again because a $300 backer (Forte, @ForteSnC) got blocked from following MN9's Twitter account - he's not sure why, but it's likely because he's a GamerGate supporter.

http://www.nichegamer.net/2014/09/mighty-no-nein-gamergate-censorship/

*edit*
He's also been blocked from following @mightyno9jp
https://twitter.com/FortesSnC/status/513923667567181824

BlitzKrieg

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

FYI, the MN9 thing happened MONTHS ago; it's interesting to see it brought up again because a $300 backer (Forte, @ForteSnC) got blocked from following MN9's Twitter account - he's not sure why, but it's likely because he's a GamerGate supporter.

http://www.nichegamer.net/2014/09/mighty-no-nein-gamergate-censorship/

*edit*
He's also been blocked from following @mightyno9jp
https://twitter.com/FortesSnC/status/513923667567181824

he leaves out the bit where he has actually been harassing and acting the troll prior to being banned.

it's not a *just because I have a gamergate hashtag* it's he was actively on the forums posting threads related directly to gamergate and irrelevent crap in the video posted above (specifcally the sweeden pro-nouns things)
https://twitter.com/FortesSnC/status/512137348553781248
https://twitter.com/FortesSnC/status/506991707087331328

and then constantly tweeting to them demanding they let him continue spamming their twitter page with it.

COYVB

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Are people really that stupid to think there's something wrong about this?

There's a pretty massive problem with speaking to people publicly like that when you're representing a company. The thing is, and she knows it, is that she's essentially unfirable from the job. If she gets fired, there'll be such an incredible sh*t show of nonsense arising from it that nobody will bother.

She can talk however she likes when she's not referencing her employer's work or projects, but it would appear that she's veered into using her personal account to speak about work stuff, and given that she's an official mouthpiece for the company/project, she's wandered into mighty unsafe ground - or at least she would have in any other job in any other industry in the world