Videochat January 2016 + Writer Auditions

[Heliocentrical]

One of the issues I have with Gamergate is that it seems like a fairly unimportant aspect of the games industry. I think in terms of other problems the games industry is having like killing games, games becoming abandoned and forgotten and nasty DRM games journalism ranks has the lowest priority in my mind. In the grand scheme of that is the games industry what does games journalism influence within it? It doesn't, the games industry holds a stranglehold over most games journalism sites in exchange for range, power and money that these game companies will provide. This agreement is incredibly circular and self-feeding.That is a massive obstacle to try and overcome if it's even possible. I don't think most of games journalism has any impact on games industry at all outside of consumers possibly. But then some savvy consumers already know not to trust most games journalism sites except for a few independent press outlets/individual personalities. These savvy consumers are few in number compared to the unchanging majority and unchanging majority will most likely not change/not care about what they read/view. I gonna go out on limb and say that the audience of the few independent press outlets/individual personalities are largely the same people reading/viewing their content over and over again. There are people who these few independent press outlets/individual personalities can convert into watching well-informed content and making well-informed decisions. But that means the audience changes/grows at a snail's pace and they can't convert all of them which where the main problem in games journalism lies. These few independent press outlets/individual personalities lack the range of their larger more powerful competitors. I'll be honest this task seems downright Sisyphean and I don't think a whole lot of value in accomplishing it. The only real value I can see is if you're a journalist who's trying to legitimize journalism itself. But you gotta realize that you're working on the entirety of journalism and not the games industry because journalistic corruption isn't unique to the games industry it encompasses all of journalism.

[Ross Scott]

One of the issues I have with Gamergate is that it seems like a fairly unimportant aspect of the games industry. I think in terms of other problems the games industry is having like killing games, games becoming abandoned and forgotten and nasty DRM games journalism ranks has the lowest priority in my mind. In the grand scheme of that is the games industry what does games journalism influence within it? It doesn't, the games industry holds a stranglehold over most games journalism sites in exchange for range, power and money that these game companies will provide. This agreement is incredibly circular and self-feeding.That is a massive obstacle to try and overcome if it's even possible. I don't think most of games journalism has any impact on games industry at all outside of consumers possibly. But then some savvy consumers already know not to trust most games journalism sites except for a few independent press outlets/individual personalities. These savvy consumers are few in number compared to the unchanging majority and unchanging majority will most likely not change/not care about what they read/view. I gonna go out on limb and say that the audience of the few independent press outlets/individual personalities are largely the same people reading/viewing their content over and over again. There are people who these few independent press outlets/individual personalities can convert into watching well-informed content and making well-informed decisions. But that means the audience changes/grows at a snail's pace and they can't convert all of them which where the main problem in games journalism lies. These few independent press outlets/individual personalities lack the range of their larger more powerful competitors. I'll be honest this task seems downright Sisyphean and I don't think a whole lot of value in accomplishing it. The only real value I can see is if you're a journalist who's trying to legitimize journalism itself. But you gotta realize that you're working on the entirety of journalism and not the games industry because journalistic corruption isn't unique to the games industry it encompasses all of journalism.

Well there's some spillover to this is the problem. When corruption or collusion is ignored, that creates problems elsewhere. Again, the Brandon Boyer incident had evidence where it showed a judge for the IGF had money invested in a game he was voting on. That means other indie games that could really use the exposure weren't necessarily getting a fair representation. So there could be (and probably are) some great indie games out there nobody knows about because of people with a conflict of interest in journalism. Or moreover, what I care about the most, killing games, doesn't get much coverage at all. If most journalists are on the same page and they don't care about it or even report on it, then that influences a lot of other people. Conversely, if a one journalistic outlet DID care about that and would ask questions to devs what their end of life plans were for new games that had online requirements, that's something that could more slowly take hold.

 

So yes, I agree directly it's a lower priority, but the more corruption that is exposed, the better things can potentially be. This mentality hardly ends at gaming journalism either, you'd be amazed how many problems corruption in general causes that wouldn't even exist in a more vigilant environment. I always love to bring up the example of HSBC. A bank laundered billions for criminal organizations like the drug cartel, Al-Qaeda, etc. for over a decade, there were mountains of evidence against them. So naturally, the department of justice only fines them 5 weeks' worth of profit, nobody goes to jail. They were indirectly funding terrorism. For all we know, people could still be alive if we had a government that did its job instead of playing ball with big money interests. There's just no end to amount of problems corruption causes, so I'm glad when people go after it, even if it's something comparatively harmless.

[Heliocentrical]

Well there's some spillover to this is the problem. When corruption or collusion is ignored, that creates problems elsewhere. Again, the Brandon Boyer incident had evidence where it showed a judge for the IGF had money invested in a game he was voting on. That means other indie games that could really use the exposure weren't necessarily getting a fair representation. So there could be (and probably are) some great indie games out there nobody knows about because of people with a conflict of interest in journalism. Or moreover, what I care about the most, killing games, doesn't get much coverage at all. If most journalists are on the same page and they don't care about it or even report on it, then that influences a lot of other people. Conversely, if a one journalistic outlet DID care about that and would ask questions to devs what their end of life plans were for new games that had online requirements, that's something that could more slowly take hold.

 

So yes, I agree directly it's a lower priority, but the more corruption that is exposed, the better things can potentially be. This mentality hardly ends at gaming journalism either, you'd be amazed how many problems corruption in general causes that wouldn't even exist in a more vigilant environment. I always love to bring up the example of HSBC. A bank laundered billions for criminal organizations like the drug cartel, Al-Qaeda, etc. for over a decade, there were mountains of evidence against them. So naturally, the department of justice only fines them 5 weeks' worth of profit, nobody goes to jail. They were indirectly funding terrorism. For all we know, people could still be alive if we had a government that did its job instead of playing ball with big money interests. There's just no end to amount of problems corruption causes, so I'm glad when people go after it, even if it's something comparatively harmless.

I agree with your point, vigilance has to start from somewhere even if that somewhere seems relatively harmless. Corruption will slip through anything and everything even if the person causing it thinks what they're doing is ultimately good. That's one of the worst aspects of humanity for me. People who have an investment in what they support and other people who oppose their ideas only reinforces their investment regardless of the actual quality of their ideas. When they should consider whether or not their ideas are any good and what their opposition has to say. Doesn't matter if in the end their ideas ultimately harms us all. What matters to them is that investment and quite frankly that is completely disgusting and I absolutely refuse to support that.

 

Also Ross I have two questions I would like to ask. First what's your opinion of Steam's Christmas caching error incident? There's a video made by a guy named Tom Scott who describes what happened fairly well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkSslseq9Y8. Does it make you even more paranoid about what doors DRM leaves you vulnerable to? Second what's your opinion on cracks? I know in the past you mentioned that you crack all of your games. I think outright piracy is wrong but cracking an exe of a game that you legitimately purchased should be entirely legal. I have a game that I purchased and due to the nature of it's DRM I can no longer play it. Sounds fair right? Gosh it's horrible how much games publishers screw over their customers. They force DRM into a game and sometimes completely destroy the game to save their bottom line. There's one article in particular that got under my skin. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/165784-No-More-Pirated-Games-in-2-Years-Says-Cracking-Forum. It is nothing but kissing the publisher's ass and justifying the DRM they put in to their games.

[Presence]

I'd try to do some writing, but I'm afraid I'd run out of commas,

 

For free video editing software I've been trying out Blender in spite of wanting to run screaming the first time I fired it up. I needed to watch some tutorials, but it seems pretty ok so far. I'm used to software that can be picked up just by running it and looking through menus for three minutes. Higher end content production stuff doesn't really work like that, plus there's a ton of terms and conventions to learn. It was all pretty intimidating, so that's why I was asking about any free ones, not because I don't know what google is. Now that I think about it, that's probably exactly why Ross wouldn't have an opinion about all the options out there. When you've got Premier there's no reason to invest five hours per program just to try them on for size.

[ThePest179]

Rationalwiki and for that matter mainstream media is overly biased to the Anti-GG side. And if you think GG has a terrible track record, then you should check out what prominent Anti-GGers do. Thankfully TotalBiscuit has already got in contact with Ross. He's more level-headed in this topic.

 

I regret to inform you that you are horribly misinformed about this.

 

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/05/gamergate-isnt-a-harassment-campaign-states-wam-report/

 

I don't blame you for being misinformed, though. The google results for Gamergate are full of slander. The Wikipedia article is incredibly biased, as with any Wikipedia article about anything controversial. There is always a slant, and which way that slant goes depends on the personal beliefs of the people who spend most of their time editing Wikipedia. Rationalwiki isn't nearly as rational as they would like you to believe, so you shouldn't use them as a source for anything.

 

Then you have the numerous articles written by the very gaming media that Gamergate protests (gee, I wonder why that may be?), followed by the articles written by news organizations that don't care about video games and just parrot whatever the games media says.

 

So without refuting any of the mountains of evidence which shows GamerGate's many incidents of harassment and sexism, all you do is call my sources biased and myself "misguided" (ignoring the fact that the only people who depict GamerGate in a positive light are pro-GamerGate sources, who simultaneously ignore or downplay any incidents of harassment by GamerGate). You have done literally less than nothing to refute the central argument.

 

As someone who has been following the situation since the 'Zoe Post', I can safely say that the vast majority of the 'anti-feminism' sentiment is directed toward those who would try to censor intellectual discussion, those who shout 'harassment' when receiving constructive criticism, those who shout 'harassment' when they are exposed to opinions they don't like, those who shout "I'm triggered!" involving anything that isn't PTSD, those who use feminism as an excuse to bully people and be 'morally correct' (which is fucking stupid), those who unironically say #killallmen, and those who blatantly lie about video games and gamers for profit. I'm sure there's a few things missing from this list, but hopefully you get the point. Gamergate isn't against feminism, they are against terrible people.

 

It's very clear to me that you're nothing but another pro-GamerGate misogynist from your coded language and shamelessly apologetic behavior.

[Binky The Rabbit]

Interesting to hear that you use Premiere for your videos. I have an Across The Universe series planned, and I figure I'm going to need something more powerful than iMovie. I've thought about buying Vegas, but ideally I'd want a Mac-compatible program (as I'll be using Logic for the audio), even though primary capture will be on my PC via Fraps.

[Heliocentrical]

@ThePest179 I think the best way to look at Gamergate is that it's two sides. One side is for exposing journalistic corruption which on it's own without anything else attached is fine. But the journalistic side is dragged down by the cancerous mass that is the anti-feminist side. The media used the Anti-Feminist side as a scapegoat to brush aside journalistic side and from that point it went nowhere. From that point onward the anti-feminist side completely dominated Gamergate as a whole like a cancer. This is probably due to most of the people who started Gamergate where already anti-feminist to begin with. So it was cancerous from the get go. That doesn't mean there isn't anything to be learned from Gamergate as a whole though. I completely agree with Ross that there could be a more sharp and focused journalistic group that emerges as a byproduct of the journalistic side of Gamergate and not something that is bound to an anti-feminist mob.

[DonRadkos]

Uh, Reading Pest's posts made my soul cringe.

But what do I know, I still haven't checked my privilage.

Anyways if Ross or anyone else is interested in reading some more about Corruption in games journalism a particularly handy website Deepfreeze contains a database on corrupt journos and some loud cases of ethics violations (like the Kane and Lynch debacle) without needless sensentionalising.

 

It's very clear to me that you're nothing but another pro-GamerGate misogynist from your coded language and shamelessly apologetic behavior.

I have taken to replacing every instance I or someone else I associate with getting called a "misgynyst" with "Satanist".

It's about as meaningless and factualy incorrect.

[Jcw87]

So without refuting any of the mountains of evidence which shows GamerGate's many incidents of harassment and sexism, all you do is call my sources biased and myself "misguided" (ignoring the fact that the only people who depict GamerGate in a positive light are pro-GamerGate sources, who simultaneously ignore or downplay any incidents of harassment by GamerGate). You have done literally less than nothing to refute the central argument.

 

Please, show me where this mountain of evidence is, because all I see in those wiki articles is sweeping accusations with little to back it up. It's like what Ross said in his video. Stating that "all bikers run meth across state lines" is factually inaccurate. Same goes for dismissing the entirety of Gamergate as misogynists. Like with any community on the internet, there are bad apples. Gamergate will at least call out anyone being a shithead on their side. Meanwhile, anti-GG blindly defends someone who has admitted to being a pedophile, simply because that person supports their narrative.

 

In the few places on the internet where discussing Gamergate at all doesn't get you censored and banned, you will find overwhelming evidence that Gamergate aren't the demons that the media is trying to portray them as. See: Facepunch.

 

It's very clear to me that you're nothing but another pro-GamerGate misogynist from your coded language and shamelessly apologetic behavior.

 

And this is the perfect example of the toxic anti-GG crowd that GG dislikes. Calling me a misogynist when I never said anything degrading to women. Just slap a demonizing label on me because you don't like what I have to say.

[Presence]

In the few places on the internet where discussing Gamergate at all doesn't get you censored and banned, you will find overwhelming evidence that Gamergate aren't the demons that the media is trying to portray them as. See: Facepunch.

 

FACEPUNCH IS ONE OF MY TRIGGER WORDS!!!!

 

I think that the whole GG crowd would be helped a lot if their best actively ripped the throats out of their worst. When you agree with something like a cause, it's foolish to expect those who oppose it to judge it purely on its merits. Conversely, they WILL judge it by its worst elements. How you respond to garbage that claims the same banner matters a lot. Hashtags don't count. Saying you "don't condone their behavior" doesn't count. You gotta really go for the gusto.

 

Here, let me try: "I don't like social justice warriors. But if you've sent death threats or tried to ruin the life of someone purely because you didn't like their fan-fiction or because they were a little too strident on some forum, I hope you die. I mean it. It would please me if you were found and beaten to death. Your only potential value on this earth is to become food for the grass."

 

If enough people publicly say that then the anti-GG types might actually lose some credibility. Um, has anyone influential said anything like that? If it's been happening all along I guess I'd feel pretty silly.

[Jcw87]

Here, let me try: "I don't like social justice warriors. But if you've sent death threats or tried to ruin the life of someone purely because you didn't like their fan-fiction or because they were a little too strident on some forum, I hope you die. I mean it. It would please me if you were found and beaten to death. Your only potential value on this earth is to become food for the grass."

 

If you respond to harassers like that, you aren't that far off from becoming one yourself. Just a simple "fuck off" should suffice.

 

If enough people publicly say that then the anti-GG types might actually lose some credibility. Um, has anyone influential said anything like that? If it's been happening all along I guess I'd feel pretty silly.

 

Well, TotalBiscuit is the biggest GG name I can think of, and he has already stated that he doesn't want harassers as fans. Which is, in essence, a "fuck off" message.

[Presence]

If you respond to harassers like that, you aren't that far off from becoming them. Just a simple "fuck off" should suffice.

 

I expect that many anti-GG people think that if you don't respond to harassers like that, you're being intolerably tolerant. My sentiment talked about those who've issued death threats and tried to ruin peoples lives. You can't cluck your tongue disapprovingly at death threats and claim you're a meaningful part of the solution.

[Heliocentrical]

Can we please agree to stop accusing who harassed who? Both sides have horrible people and both sides have fairly reasonable people. Arguing which side has worse people gets us nowhere.

[Jcw87]

I expect that many anti-GG people think that if you don't respond to harassers like that, you're being intolerably tolerant. My sentiment talked about those who've issued death threats and tried to ruin peoples lives. You can't cluck your tongue disapprovingly at death threats and claim you're a meaningful part of the solution.

 

You can't stoop to their level either. Harassment is bad, no matter who the target is.

 

But, there in lies one of the problems. The more vocal anti-GG don't think that way. They think 'there are no bad tactics, just bad targets', never realizing that they have become the thing they think they are fighting.

 

Many of these people just automatically assume that anyone even loosely associated with GG are sub-human, and that line of thinking results in this:

[Presence]

You can't stoop to their level either. Harassment is bad, no matter who the target is.

 

I think I see a point of misunderstanding. I said in my quote I wished people who issue death threats and try to ruin peoples lives would die. I intended this as a declared creed or sentiment about the very worst people on the internet. You seem to have somehow heard me cozying up to those who send of death threats and those who try to ruin individual peoples lives if I agree with the cause. The cause being hatred towards those who send death threats and try to ruin people's lives.

 

Maybe I'm misreading you and you're saying that I'm defining acceptable targets. Well...maybe you've somewhat right. But it's meant to be something you'd paste on your wall, not something you send to someone's inbox, for any reason, most especially not because the Internets said he was doing x,y, and z.

 

I do admit I find the whole "Become as bad as him" philosophy utterly confusing. I've heard it on TV, but it's not something I can grasp. I can't get my fingers around the edges of the idea. Being peaceful towards the violent is a peaceful act? The words seem to align but the logic won't cling in my brain. I can agree with you in the sense that acting on such impulses is incredibly unhealthy, like, I COULD buy and eat an entire chocolate cake every day for a month, but I know it'd be bad so I never would. I guess some people could justify anger towards someone who did. "What about the people who love you, what about the starving, why not give asparagus another chance, you're being unfair to asparagus." I think that's how that works. I'm hungry.

[Binky The Rabbit]

GamerGate was covered fairly heavily in this thread viewtopic.php?f=55&t=7766. Might be worth checking out.

[Jcw87]

I think I see a point of misunderstanding. I said in my quote I wished people who issue death threats and try to ruin peoples lives would die. I intended this as a declared creed or sentiment about the very worst people on the internet. You seem to have somehow heard me cozying up to those who send of death threats and those who try to ruin individual peoples lives if I agree with the cause. The cause being hatred towards those who send death threats and try to ruin people's lives.

 

Maybe I'm misreading you and you're saying that I'm defining acceptable targets. Well...maybe you've somewhat right. But it's meant to be something you'd paste on your wall, not something you send to someone's inbox, for any reason, most especially not because the Internets said he was doing x,y, and z.

 

I'm just saying that proclaiming that you wish they would die is a little extreme. Maybe them being court ordered to not use the internet for a few years would be a better thing to wish for.

 

I do admit I find the whole "Become as bad as him" philosophy utterly confusing. I've heard it on TV, but it's not something I can grasp. I can't get my fingers around the edges of the idea. Being peaceful towards the violent is a peaceful act? The words seem to align but the logic won't cling in my brain. I can agree with you in the sense that acting on such impulses is incredibly unhealthy, like, I COULD buy and eat an entire chocolate cake every day for a month, but I know it'd be bad so I never would. I guess some people could justify anger towards someone who did. "What about the people who love you, what about the starving, why not give asparagus another chance, you're being unfair to asparagus." I think that's how that works. I'm hungry.

 

Trying to be peaceful against threats may seem silly, but any sort of retaliation will be used as propaganda. Winning a war against extremists is about winning hearts and minds. Winning hearts and minds is about being the better person. And I mean actually being a better person. not just calling yourself feminist and using that label as a criticism shield or an excuse to bully people, like some of the anti-GG crowd do.

 

Obviously, for an actual war with violent extremists, you can't just let the extremists bomb whoever they want without consequence. It's all about how you go about dealing with them. Not killing civilians would be a #1 priority. For the extremists, their #1 priority is to trick your army into killing civilians so they can shout about how terrible your army is, and how people should join their cause.

 

Don't kill civilians, if you can at all avoid it.

[Heliocentrical]

GamerGate was covered fairly heavily in this thread viewtopic.php?f=55&t=7766. Might be worth checking out.

That thread doesn't really cover the journalist side of Gamergate and the thread itself is pretty toxic. A good portion of it is just mudslinging. I really don't want this thread devolving into mudslinging if it can be helped.

[Jcw87]

GamerGate was covered fairly heavily in this thread http://www.accursedfarms.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=7766. Might be worth checking out.

That thread doesn't really cover the journalist side of Gamergate and the thread itself is pretty toxic. A good portion of it is just mudslinging. I really don't want this thread devolving into mudslinging if it can be helped.

 

I say it was worth a read, for 2 reasons.

 

1. This post.

 

It does a pretty good job of explaining the situation, plus the deepfreeze.it link for all the corruption stuff.

 

2. It made it very clear that I shouldn't waste my time on ThePest179. He/She has had the opportunity to go through all of the information in the linked post, and is somehow still convinced that it's all just misogyny.

[Presence]

Trying to be peaceful against threats may seem silly, but any sort of retaliation will be used as propaganda. Winning a war against extremists is about winning hearts and minds. Winning hearts and minds is about being the better person.

 

I'm not sure I'm getting this, you think Ghandi's march to the sea represents a template for internet debate or something? If the modern "activist" on any side can't find something true to use, he'll just use something false, as will hundreds of his friends. As was talked about in the very soundcloud clip you posted. Their hearts are incapable of shame and their minds communicate only in image macros and pretentious memes. Search engines and social media actively block them from seeing things that would criticize them; kind of an ultimate realization of the first rule written in "How to win friends and influence people." They think enough upvotes mean they were factually correct and that the "ignore" button means "I got the last word in this argument. Forever."

 

Your heart sounds like it's in the right place, but your approach is so terribly.....easy. Risk free. A child with a squirt gun pointed at the painting of a lynch mob.