Superman 64 Discussion Thread

[Gazz]

There's not an industry or area of life that doesn't suffer from nepotism, cronyism or inherent bias (look at politics for example), pretty much all of human civilisation is based on 'if I scratch your back, you'll scratch mine', why does anyone expect video game reviews to be any different?

[SeanDMan]

Right but you can't say that just because something is not news doesn't mean it's not an issue.

There's not an industry or area of life that doesn't suffer from nepotism, cronyism or inherent bias (look at politics for example), pretty much all of human civilisation is based on 'if I scratch your back, you'll scratch mine', why does anyone expect video game reviews to be any different?

Again, let me reword this:

There's not an industry or area of life that doesn't suffer from sexism, misogyny or transphobia (look at politics for example), pretty much all of human civilisation is based on 'if you're like me, I like you, if you're not, then I do not', why does anyone expect video game culture to be any different?

[Rich]

Correct me if I am wrong though, but GG are the ones who are being sexist, etc.. not the other way round, so they are trying to get around the inherent bias in the system by being inherently biased?

[Toe]

I don't get why people would be bothered by the "death of gamers". It's true in a way. Playing video games is no longer some taboo "nerd" thing or just for male children. Video games are almost as ubiquitous as TV and movies, and games are played by almost every demographic.

Also, who uses video game review sites anymore? If you want to know if a game is any good, you go to Twitter or a variety of other sources. If people are so concerned with the ethics of video game journalism, then create an alternative.

Most video game sites are owned by large corporations. Their goals are to generate profit. It's obvious and has been obvious for YEARS. That's why I don't understand why this Gamer Gate thing suddenly becoming a thing last year.

My last comment - how come everyone attacked Zoe Quinn for "sleeping with a reviewer", but no one criticized the reviewer for the same thing? If a New York Times writer was found to be taking bribes for good coverage, the writer would be the one feeling the heat. Not the people bribing him/her.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Toe

[SeanDMan]

Correct me if I am wrong though, but GG are the ones who are being sexist, etc.. not the other way round, so they aretring to get around the inherent bias in the systme by being inherently biased?

I'm just saying, if you excuse the issues in games media as being "it's just video games", then you can excuse the sexism and misogyny by also saying "it's just video games".

Sure, it's just video games, but why settle for shittiness in video games when we can not? That works for both ethics in journalism, and issues of sexism and exclusion.

I don't get why people would be bothered by the "death of gamers". It's true in a way. Playing video games is no longer some taboo "nerd" thing or just for male children.

Right but it was disingenuity to suggest that was what the articles were really about. It was a pretty transparent attack "back" at gamers for going after Zoe Quinn, done in the guise of journalism.

My last comment - how come everyone attacked Zoe Quinn for "sleeping with a reviewer", but no one criticized the reviewer for the same thing?

A lot of people went after the journalist, his publisher, and their parent company. One of places where GG is most commonly discussed is a forum/subreddit called "KotakuInAction", with Kotaku being the place where Nathan Greyson, said journalist, worked.

It's, again, disingenuous to suggest that everyone went after Zoe Quinn and only Zoe Quinn. People have been taking a pitchfork to Kotaku and Grayson for just as long.

[Nick Adams]

So what this basically boils down to is:

- One guy got pissed off at his girlfriend, who happens to be a game programmer.

- He hurled some accusations at her, and things escalated in a horrible fashion following this.

- Some people started to wonder, "Wait, why were we so readily willing to believe this guy?" while things were going completely to the dogs.

- By the time that the people who asked that question got around to doing anything, a bunch of trolls had decided that it was a great excuse to go around messing with any and every female publicly aligned with gaming.

- The crowd who was still back in the, "So what made this guy's claims about a woman who, as it turns out, is his ex-girlfriend, believable?" didn't step in to stop this crap.

- By the time that the horrible crowd took the prominent place in the discussion, they had made the discussion become about misogyny and death threats on both sides.

- People tried to backpedal and say, "Hey, guys, we actually do want to see whether there is some sort of payola system going on in video game journalism."

- Any time people do this, the people who are aware of the death threats, revealing of personal information, and basically slut shaming of women who play video games think it's a defense of misogyny.

- Death threats and public sharing of supposedly private information came from both sides.

- PIDDLE, TWIDDLE, AND RESOLVE

Did I miss anything? I really am trying to wrap my head around the issue.

[Toe]

I've not followed it that closely to know everything, so I appreciate this thread.

To be honest, I think the only real thing GamerGate has really achieved is making it easy for people to attack gamers. It's reinforced the stereotype, and that's the part of the story that's been covered by the major news outlets. Even if the ones doing the bad stuff are the vocal minority, that minority has done damage.

[SeanDMan]

About Zoe Quinn: I think if she's relevant to GG it's as a victim of circumstance more than anything. Whether she did or didn't sleep with a reviewer to get a good review or not, it's unfortunate that the culture of cronyism and favours for favours in games reviews (whether that be paid previews, native advertising, sending swag for reviews, industry parties, or trading sex for publicity) exists at all and that she was caught up in it.

And it sucks that she's been attacked and made a centerpiece of something that, tangentially, she is only a minor part of it.

I don't like her personally (she seems to "fight fire with fire" and organized her own IRC rooms for counterattacks and doxxing and the like, which to me is counterproductive) but she certainly deserves better than she has been treated.

It is crazy to me, though, that people attack her ex for being a scumbag. If this was a woman, writing about how a man had lied to her and manipulated her while sleeping around with multiple different women, the reaction would be different.

[apsham]

Yeah, they'd be calling her a slut and publicly shaming her for it.

[SeanDMan]

Well they're doing that anyway so how would that be different?

[Gazz]

Right but you can't say that just because something is not news doesn't mean it's not an issue.

There's not an industry or area of life that doesn't suffer from nepotism, cronyism or inherent bias (look at politics for example), pretty much all of human civilisation is based on 'if I scratch your back, you'll scratch mine', why does anyone expect video game reviews to be any different?

Again, let me reword this:

There's not an industry or area of life that doesn't suffer from sexism, misogyny or transphobia (look at politics for example), pretty much all of human civilisation is based on 'if you're like me, I like you, if you're not, then I do not', why does anyone expect video game culture to be any different?

Correct me if I am wrong though, but GG are the ones who are being sexist, etc.. not the other way round, so they aretring to get around the inherent bias in the systme by being inherently biased?

I'm just saying, if you excuse the issues in games media as being "it's just video games", then you can excuse the sexism and misogyny by also saying "it's just video games".

Sure, it's just video games, but why settle for shittiness in video games when we can not? That works for both ethics in journalism, and issues of sexism and exclusion.

I think you're missing my point, Gamergate suggests that it is fighting to eradicate nepotism and cronyism from video game journalism, but these are inherent human social constructs, we inherently favour people we like, it's part of our social make up. To attempt to eradicate it is as nebulous an idea as fighting a war on 'terror' or thinking that one day humankind will eradicate racism. It won't happen, these things, however socially unacceptable they are, will always exist in some form.

I really don't think you can equate sexism, misogny and transphobia, ideologies that ruin people's lives and actively oppress minorities with someone giving a favourable review for someone they like's game, in a sea of video game review websites, magazines, Steam, Twitch, Youtube and all the other platforms that you yourself can review a game before you purchase it. Dead Island went platinum on preorders alone off of a trailer and that game was shit.

Everyone is guilty of so called 'unethical' bias, if I were a game reviewer I might give a Crusader Kings III a better review that in deserves because of how much I played CK2. Conversely I might give the latest COD a shitty review because I hate that genre of game or I might give a bad review to WWE 2K16 becase CM Punk was once a dick to me at Comic-con. Absolutely impartial subjectivity is impossible. Gamergate is wasting it's time.

[SeanDMan]

That is why disclosure is so important, because you're right, there is no way to entirely eradicate bias, but if potential conflicts of interest are disclosed, it makes for a better, more informed consumer.

[Your Mom]

"A table of Doritos"

Carry on

[SeanDMan]

So you weren't around for Doritogate?

[Your Mom]

Wow I just checked and that was a real thing. It sounded like someone was mad that he got some doritos for free or something

[Troy Maskell]

https://medium.com/@meanmrpugface/the-3-events-that-made-gamergate-into-the-nearly-6-month-movement-it-is-today-8ad33f01c5fe

I'm not here to argue or anything, like I said I'm done on that aspect. I simply mention this article which does a pretty good job of explaining in a neutral tone what caused Gamergate and why it's still going

[lanky316]

That is why disclosure is so important, because you're right, there is no way to entirely eradicate bias, but if potential conflicts of interest are disclosed, it makes for a better, more informed consumer.

This is one of those things that should be more open. To use gaming as an example, and I'm sure a lot of us here work in a similar way. I never go as far as using "professional" reviews, I see what people are talking about and have an idea of what they like. To use Crusader Kings above, I know people on here who enjoy similar games to me and as I've had positive experiences with Paradox games in the past I'm more likely to take their word on it sensibly. As vanilla Civ 5 was viewed negatively here I didn't buy it - later picking it up for free for "voting" (well, clicking a random option in every category) in some online gaming awards then getting the expansions on the cheap. It's an informed bias, we may disagree with points (I actually quite enjoyed Dead Island even if it wasn't as good as people expected) but I at least know where your stance lies.

We're not going to necessarily get that from a print/online source. I decided to look into Nathan Grayson (as a nobody to me who's named in all this stuff) to gauge what he thinks - briefly and half arsedly admittedly - and I found nothing on his Kotaku page, there's a whole horde of articles about all sorts of different games and tech subjects and not even an introduction. I'm not sure if he's actually done many reviews but I'm not reading every article by an author to try and figure out what he likes. I'm sure people have review sites of choice, but I'm sure a lot of people just type "random game review" and see what pops up. Even the pages themselves won't give you much to go on.

I've used gaming as an example but for the most part it's all forms of media, always used to make me laugh reading "review of the year" awards and seeing music magazines giving albums/gigs great responses when the reviewer had only given them a 1 or 2 star rating. Although that bigs up the question of why send a reviewer to see something you know he/she doesn't like the subject. Vice Versa always works. I remember reading a live music review praising a support band, whilst mentioning songs they didn't even play. He'd missed their set due to delays on the tube but as a mate gave it a glowing review.

[Kaney]

About Zoe Quinn: I think if she's relevant to GG it's as a victim of circumstance more than anything. Whether she did or didn't sleep with a reviewer to get a good review or not, it's unfortunate that the culture of cronyism and favours for favours in games reviews (whether that be paid previews, native advertising, sending swag for reviews, industry parties, or trading sex for publicity) exists at all and that she was caught up in it.

Without getting into the actual debate cos it's not something I want to keep dredging on, but I've only marginally been aware of this so maybe it's a dumb question but how was she caught up in it? As far as I've gathered from this thread the review she was meant to have croneyed for doesn't exist, does it? I mean I don't know if I've missed more and I agree fighting back with fire is a dumb idea, but what did she actually do to get involved? If that review never happened I mean.

[SeanDMan]

She (if you trust the posted logs) admitted to sleeping with grayson and grayson admitted to a potential conflict of interest after the fact to his boss. grayson did talk about her game, but didn't review it iirc, and regardless, wrote about it before the alleged affair began.

So she was basically jumped on by an internet lynch mob before all the facts came out.

[peteypirahna]

I think there's a few elements missing from the timeline though, everyone is focusing on the middle of 2014 and forgetting beforehand about Anita Sarkeesian and some of her videos that caused unrest in the gaming community. She raised some valid points about the need for larger representation of women in gaming, but used some fairly flawed ways of expressing them, namely that there were barely any female protagonists in video games which was fairly easy to dispute. She also made some good points about the total lack of women in development of games, and even now all it's has resulted in is more female community managers (people who run the forums) so that developers can pretend they care about equality.

Reviews giving unanimous praise for Depression Quest was the straw that broke the camels back because it's just a flat out awful game that seemed to get positive reviews entirely because it was created by a girl, and the strange thing about it all was that it wasn't just one review site giving it plenty of praise but a collection of gaming review sites, which made it feel like there was an underlying narritive revolving around it. Then it becomes an ethical debate of should you give a game like this a positive review because it's showing that women are coming out of the woodwork to make their own games, or should we slate it because it's a bad game and make it harder for women to get a foothold in the gaming industry.