#StopGamerGate2014

[The_Strict_Nein]

Gamers can be sexist. There will always be ***holes in communities.

Plumbers can be sexist

Teachers can be sexist

Charity Workers can be sexist

Nuclear Physists can be sexist

Polo players can be sexist

Hair dressers can be sexist

Golf players can be sexist

Street sweepers can be sexist

Electricians can be sexist

Wrestlers can be sexist

Bikers can be sexist

Shop assistants can be sexist

Body builders can be sexist

Ice cream van drivers can be sexist

Polititions can be sexist

Bus drivers can be sexist

Lolly-Pop Men/Women can be sexist

Cops can be sexist

The homeless can be sexist

You take ANY demographic and people in it could be sexist. Assuming someone is just because they play games is idiotic

I support gamergate because it all started with a person using the fact she was female to bully CHARITIES into shutting down so she could steal their ideas and claim all the credit, and slept with game reviewers to improve reviews on her games, thereby invalidating all journalistic integrity. This spiralled into showing the corruption in the games journalism industry. The core of gamergate has never changed, and is still about journalistic integrity in the gaming industry.

I also think it speaks volumes that gamergate draws up mass amounts of evidence showing shadowy and wrong business deals and unethical acts and the best opponents can do is resort to personal insults and calling us all sexist

I am not sexist. I've fought for womens rights. But generalising everyone who plays games as sexist is equivilent to calling all muslims terrorists.

Sorry for using your post to launch this point if you weren't super strong feeling about this topic, but the first line really irked me

[Majestic]

@Xhavalor , Honestly, the only ones who should've been responsible here were Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Kickstarter (and other social media) for letting her start/host this non-debate. They should've (and probably have) realised what shitstorm this would eventually unleash. They have the obligation now to urge her to stop this madness, or we have to make the decision for them by ignoring her as much as we can (there is nothing more you can do, ensuing in debate will just cause more attention).

 

As for the ignorance of the masses. You cannot convince the uninformed who have been biased/indoctrinated into a certain way of thinking. It will just create something which is called congnitive dissonance among the participants of the local/global debates, because their arguments and assumptions are based on misinformation created by people like Anita Sarkeesian.

 

The big picture here is that people no longer are interested in how social structeres work, schemes are set up or how societies function. The just skim over their wall and look for anything edgy and rant the same bigoted uninformed nonsense as the next guy says. It'll take allot more than a few "enlightened" to change this. I don't see it happening to be frank, it'd require everyone suddenly becoming intellectuals and discussing global politics and ethics instead of that funny youtube video. There is nothing you can do about people who are in the business of creating business models out of misinformation in a crowd which is poorly self-educated by nature. They will always be easily persuaded. It's sad, I know.

[Me1z]

Considering how the "gamergate crew" has already twisted a situation concerning journalism corruption to paint all gamers as misogynistic monsters, I am willing to bet $20 that the death threat at the college was STAGED. This is bullshit and it needs to stop. As as feminist myself, I can say that Anita is NOT a feminist, she is a twisted sociopath cowardly hiding under the feminist cause and dragging its name through the mud. The "gamergate crew" has managed to instigate a false war between gamers and feminists and every last one of us are falling right in to the palm of their hand.

 

Feminists want equality for all. Gamers want the end of corruption in videogame journalism. Logically speaking, there should be no conflict here. Decades of anti-gamer stigma has painted them all as misogynistic neckbeards, while at the same time, decades of anti-feminist stigma has painted feminists as insane manhaters, and NEITHER OF THESE ARE TRUE. These false descriptions have turned us against each other for no reason at all! Gamers, please stop adding fuel to the fire, stop needlessly attacking the feminist cause, you only make things worse. And I ask the same of feminists, please stop bending to Anita's will, Gamers are not your enemy! I don't even know what to do at this point because its like watching two small children beating each other because a third-party stole their lolipops.

 

TLDR: Both parties are being asses and the few of us who see the big picture lack the power to do anything. All that's left is to watch gamers and feminists slowly choke each other to death, because neither group will be taken seriously after this shit storm ends.

[Trik'Stari]

Considering the sources claiming #gamergate is linked to the "harrassment of women in gaming" there is a 99% chance those "threats" were generated by Sarkeesian herself. Not that hard to fake a threat against yourself in this day and age, letters or tweets, doesn't matter.

 

Would not be at all surprising coming from someone who is trying to make a living out of claiming to be a victim of something.

[LAwLz]

Two games with female protagonists. Bam! Equality for all. /s

I am not sure what logical fallacy that is, but it is one. You got to be fucking kidding me if you think those are the only two games with female protagonists. Here is a list of games I can think of right now by just looking at my game collection and from memory.

 

Tomb Raider series (already mentioned)

Portal (already mentioned)

The borderlands series

The Alice in Wonderland series.

Perfect Dark Zero

Alien Isolation

Baldur's Gate

Beyond Good & Evil

Giana Sisters series

Left 4 Dead

Lollipop Chansaw

Mirror's Edge

Remember Me

Wet

The Walking Dead series

The Resident Evil series

One or more of the Silent Hill games

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation

Slender: The Arrival

Some of the Star Wars games

Long Live the Queen

Hyperdimension Neptunia games

All the Touhou games

The Madoka Magica games

The Persona series

Fire Emblem series

Most if not all of the Final Fantasy games

Bayonetta 1 and 2

The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (although I think it's best for everyone if we forget that)

Some of the Castlevania games

Some of the Super Mario games (including Super Mario 2, 3D World, Super Mario Strikers, the smash bro games and many more)

Senran Kagura series

Catwoman in one (or maybe more?) of the Batman game(s)

A lot of the Donkey Kong games

Metroid series

Soulcalibur

Streets of Rage series

Dead or Alive series

The Mortal Kombat series

The Dungeon Siege games

Commander Shepard

Fable 2 and 3.

Killer Instinct series

Skullgirls

The Diablo series

Torchlight 1 and 2

Trine series

Chrono Trigger

All Pokémon games since Crystal (I think)

 

And that's before I start listening games like the Elder scroll series, World of Warcraft, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Night series or Fallout etc where you can customize your character to be female.

 

And remember, this is just a list of games I can think of right now. I am sure there are many more out there.

[Trik'Stari]

I am not sure what logical fallacy that is, but it is one. You got to be fucking kidding me if you think those are the only two games with female protagonists. Here is a list of games I can think of right now by just looking at my game collection and from memory.

 

-snip

 

And that's before I start listening games like the Elder scroll series, World of Warcraft, Dragon Age, Neverwinter Night series or Fallout etc where you can customize your character to be female.

 

And remember, this is just a list of games I can think of right now. I am sure there are many more out there.

He typed /s, just saying

[LAwLz]

He typed /s, just saying

Yes, she was sarcastic because her post was saying "oh there are 2 games with female protagonists? Well I guess that means there is equality!".

She also posted bullshit in another thread saying that gamergate was about harassing women.

And before someone asks, I am not being mean to Ashley because she is a woman or feminist or whatever. I am being mean to her because her posts are full of lies and logical fallacies.

[Swndlr]

personally i find it really cute if a girl i talk to likes to play games. but the one thing that annoyed me was how she mentioned that anyone who even plays smartphone games is a gamer and the fact that she called herself a gamer... bitch no just no.

[Guest]

I am disappointed in the entire internet at this point. 

 

Using stupid, arbitrary arguments to bash women, feminism and each other. 

 

Gamergate is filled with a bunch of obsessive gamers who will do anything to defend their games, even if it means verbally harassing people in the process. 

 

I don't agree entirely with Sarkeesian and her branch of feminism, but I disagree so much more with the actions of Gamergate supporters. 

 

If the start of this argument really was about ethics, then let's continue that discussion. Gamergate is unethical. Harassment is unethical. 

 

Everyone needs to shut their mouths and go back to playing their games unless they have any real, constructive criticisms to make. 

[OBEYSQUIRREL]

The entire situation is fucked on both sides. Standing together against biased and paid off reviews is good, but there are so many toxic people on both sides that I would never get involved. Not all gamers are sexist assholes who send death threats to women, and not all people fighting for equal rights are in it for the attention. Honestly, equal rights is something extremely important, but nothing about gender should have ever been involved. It's really easy for guys to say that sexism doesn't exist because they aren't open to seeing things from the other point of view, but it's a real thing. Either way, I don't understand why anyone would rather attack women and call them all liars and insult them which further proves their point, than to defend them while supporting the original cause of ending corrupt game reviews. I can't wait for this to die off. 

[Victorious Secret]

You know how you make something die? You stop giving it attention. 

 

If it has merit, it will continue on. If it doesn't, it will die away because it only had the hype to sustain it. 

What amused me about all this gamer gate stuff was that gamers were genuinely shocked that this was happening in the gaming industry. We see it on a daily basis in the tech industry, in politics, in the markets; but no, precious gamers couldn't fathom the idea that at the core, gaming is just as corrupt and greedy as everything else because like everything else, these people exist to make moolah first and foremost. 

 

personally i find it really cute if a girl i talk to likes to play games. but the one thing that annoyed me was how she mentioned that anyone who even plays smartphone games is a gamer and the fact that she called herself a gamer... bitch no just no.

 

But people who play games on smartphones are gamers...

 

I play KotOR on my phone. Am I not a gamer now? 

See how silly a restriction that is to have? 

[Guest]

-snip-

 

Chrono trigger's protagonist was a male. But it really doens't matter. For every one game that has a female lead, there is a hundred that star a male. 

 

I personally feel more games should be made about women that aren't overly sexualized. But that isn't the debate, mainly because most gamers are male and companies want to make a profit. 

 

The debate is that this whole gamergate movement is sexist. How this "movement", if you can even call it that, quickly transformed into verbal harassment against girls and feminism. 

[BigMic]

I am disappointed in the entire internet at this point. 

 

Using stupid, arbitrary arguments to bash women, feminism and each other. 

 

Gamergate is filled with a bunch of obsessive gamers who will do anything to defend their games, even if it means verbally harassing people in the process. 

 

I don't agree entirely with Sarkeesian and her branch of feminism, but I disagree so much more with the actions of Gamergate supporters. 

 

If the start of this argument really was about ethics, then let's continue that discussion. Gamergate is unethical. Harassment is unethical. 

 

Everyone needs to shut their mouths and go back to playing their games unless they have any real, constructive criticisms to make. 

 

Gamergate is the discussion of ethics in Videogames. Its the reason why this hashtag is used, for everyone to push for ethics under a name and give it popularity and create discussion and attention.

 

I disagree whole heartily with Sarkeesian and her followers. I am not sure what they are trying to achieve. They say they want more variety in game (which there already is). However their actions seem like they want to censor ideas and certain aspects to games by saying that its detrimental to society when there is no evidence to back it up.

 

Also the cult like behavior of "Listen and Believe"  scares me.

[BallGum]

ok so butthurt people, media, and retarded chick trying to make herself the centre of attention. nothing for me here hten...

I thought I knew what a tl;dr was. I have much to learn.

Although on a more serious note, the whole thing is massively frustrating to hear about. It's probably for the best if people just boycotted the sites involved and ignored the con women / separate the misogyny claim and deal with that separately.

[worldwin]

As if Kotaku was ever a reliable source. Stop posting these threads about her. All it does is bring her more publicity and annoy the readers.

[OBEYSQUIRREL]

You know how you make something die? You stop giving it attention. 

 

If it has merit, it will continue on. If it doesn't, it will die away because it only had the hype to sustain it. 

What amused me about all this gamer gate stuff was that gamers were genuinely shocked that this was happening in the gaming industry. We see it on a daily basis in the tech industry, in politics, in the markets; but no, precious gamers couldn't fathom the idea that at the core, gaming is just as corrupt and greedy as everything else because like everything else, these people exist to make moolah first and foremost. 

 

 

But people who play games on smartphones are gamers...

 

I play KotOR on my phone. Am I not a gamer now? 

See how silly a restriction that is to have? 

 

The problem is that it had merit at first, now it's just a gender war and the people are so invested in their egos that they can't take a step back and realize that name calling and blaming everyone but themselves isn't helping anything. People aren't treating others how they want to be treated, and they expect to never get flak for hurting others.

[Jerakl]

Chrono trigger's protagonist was a male. But it really doens't matter. For every one game that has a female lead, there is a hundred that star a male. 

 

I personally feel more games should be made about women that aren't overly sexualized. But that isn't the debate, mainly because most gamers are male and companies want to make a profit. 

 

The debate is that this whole gamergate movement is sexist. How this "movement", if you can even call it that, quickly transformed into verbal harassment against girls and feminism. 

Well BL The Pre Sequel has 2 female characters, I know one is not sexualized in any way, I can't remember with the other one.

[Jerakl]

As if Kotaku was ever a reliable source. Stop posting these threads about her. All it does is bring her more publicity and annoy the readers.

1. IDK why everyone hates Kotaku, plz explain

 

2. Some people are debating topic, and then there's a couple people telling me not to post anymore about her, seems fine to me. I'll stop from now on.

[Derangel]

Gamergate is the discussion of ethics in Videogames. Its the reason why this hashtag is used, for everyone to push for ethics under a name and give it popularity and create discussion and attention.

 

I disagree whole heartily with Sarkeesian and her followers. I am not sure what they are trying to achieve. They say they want more variety in game (which there already is). However their actions seem like they want to censor ideas and certain aspects to games by saying that its detrimental to society when there is no evidence to back it up.

 

Also the cult like behavior of "Listen and Believe"  scares me.

 

#Gamersgate is a fucking joke now. While it MIGHT have started with good intentions it's morphed into something entirely more and has became a stupid platform for everyone to jump on. Whether it's narcissistic attention whores like Anita or the jackasses that use the tag to make threats to anyone and everyone they feel has "wronged" them. The whole supposed goal of Gamersgate is great, but it's never going to be anything but a bad joke now. 

[LAwLz]

Chrono trigger's protagonist was a male. But it really doens't matter. For every one game that has a female lead, there is a hundred that star a male. 

 

I personally feel more games should be made about women that aren't overly sexualized. But that isn't the debate, mainly because most gamers are male and companies want to make a profit. 

 

The debate is that this whole gamergate movement is sexist. How this "movement", if you can even call it that, quickly transformed into verbal harassment against girls and feminism. 

Ehh.. What about Lucca in Chrono Trigger? I'd call her a protagonist because she is very important and in the game as a player character A LOT.

It's true that there are more male characters than female characters in gaming. I really don't see how that's relevant though. Do you want a perfect 1:1 ratio of male and female protagonists? For what purpose? Most of the time the gender is completely irrelevant to the game so I don't really see the point.

As for "don't make overly sexualized female characters!", why not? It's like saying they shouldn't make masculine men in games. The men and women in games do not reflect reality on purpose, because that would make them less appealing.

 

The whole gamergate movement is not sexist. It is not against women or feminism either. Do a quick search on twitter for "NotYourShield" if you don't believe me. Gamergate is gamers vs people who hate games, not angry white males vs women.

There are sexist people in the gamergate movement, but there are also feminists in it. There are sexist people in the anti-gamergate movement as well but you don't see anyone going around calling them sexist. Calling someone sexist is nothing more than an attempt at an ad hominem attack, and the people who are against gamergate uses it all the time (like you in this thread for example).

[Guest]

Ehh.. What about Lucca in Chrono Trigger? I'd call her a protagonist because she is very important and in the game as a player character A LOT.

It's true that there are more male characters than female characters in gaming. I really don't see how that's relevant though. Do you want a perfect 1:1 ratio of male and female protagonists? For what purpose? Most of the time the gender is completely irrelevant to the game so I don't really see the point.

As for "don't make overly sexualized female characters!", why not? It's like saying they shouldn't make masculine men in games. The men and women in games do not reflect reality on purpose, because that would make them less appealing.

 

The whole gamergate movement is not sexist. It is not against women or feminism either. Do a quick search on twitter for "NotYourShield" if you don't believe me. Gamergate is gamers vs people who hate games, not angry white males vs women.

There are sexist people in the gamergate movement, but there are also feminists in it. There are sexist people in the anti-gamergate movement as well but you don't see anyone going around calling them sexist. Calling someone sexist is nothing more than an attempt at an ad hominem attack, and the people who are against gamergate uses it all the time (like you in this thread for example).

 

The whole thing started with people bashing Zoe Quinn for using sex for good reviews. I do agree that that's unethical, but mostly with the game journalists themselves. 

 

I also think Zoe Quinn has done many wrong things, but calling her a slut and a whore is verbal and sexual harassment. Calling a group's actions sexist with examples is not an "ad hominem attack", it is criticising them for something that they evidently did. Hiding behind the claim that your opponents are using ad hominem attacks is cowardly. 

 

Also, as a side note, I think that with the growing amount of women playing video games it would be appropriate for their to be an increase in non-sexualized female protagonists in games. 

[Poohy14]

I'm tired of the #GamerGate bullshit. If this chick doesn't like the whole video game thing, then she doesn't have to play it or even look at it, that is her choice instead of calling video games the devil and harassment over this nonsense and should just live with it because video game makers are not going to change anything that they do just because of one person doesn't like it.  She should be looking into other things like that need to be changed like Texas and DC judges ruled that up-skirt shots are legal because "free speech!" Yeah, its crazy that they are allowing this.

[cae]

I also think Zoe Quinn has done many wrong things, but calling her a slut and a whore is verbal and sexual harassment. Calling a group's actions sexist with examples is not an "ad hominem attack", it is criticising them for something that they evidently did. Hiding behind the claim that your opponents are using ad hominem attacks is cowardly.

 

Her actions were sexually promiscuous and immoral, even by her own admittance. While not something I would personally choose to address her as, one could make the case that calling her a slut or a whore was accurate, albeit rude. This is not sexism. It is rude, no doubt. Trying to redirect the accusations made of journalists by stating #GamerGate is sexist is ad hominem. Calling them cowardly is just digging your hole deeper.

[worldwin]

1. IDK why everyone hates Kotaku, plz explain

 

2. Some people are debating topic, and then there's a couple people telling me not to post anymore about her, seems fine to me. I'll stop from now on.

Thanks for understanding. The thing about Kotaku surrounds the fact they are not reliable much like IGN. They are bias and corrupt. At the very start of "gamergate" surrounding the quinn incident. At this point when people started point out the problems Kotaku thought it was a great idea to say " hey lets attack our readers by calling the gaming dead and that gamers are mean etc." Also their chat is monitored. So you CAN NOT post statements without moderation which is pretty much a dictatorship and is censorship, since no comment that criticizes/against Kotaku is ever published. That is why people don't like Kotaku.

[LarsReviews]

I can't hit it any harder!!!