The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

A Follow Up, and a Note About Anonymity

About a month ago, I wrote an article about harassment where I noted as almost a throwaway comment, that harassment has been aimed at people on both sides of the Hashtag That Shall Not Be Named. It included a link to a GamerGate girl who claimed that she had been framed by someone for sending threats to Anita Sarkeesian, resulting in a visit from the FBI.

Welp, it turns out that pretty much everything this particular person said is in question, due to this person turning out to be not who she says she is. After spending a year as one of GamerGate’s most fiercely loyal NotYourShield denizens, proclaiming frequently and loudly her lesbian bonafides and her love for the oversized bosoms found in games (even being cited by noted antifeminist hack Christina Sommers as such), she made the mistake of posting a picture of someone else’s cosplay as her own. This led to a full-on shitshow, which involved both her initial evasion, allegations of fraud, and an eventual apology.

I’m not going to dwell on the specifics of these issues because, well, they’re still emerging, and to be honest, it’s petty, vindictive drama as KiA debates whether to cannibalize one of their own.

I do want to say that this is yet another episode that proves why political movements driven by anonymity are doomed to failure. For all its talks of ethics, GamerGate is pretty much incapable of acting ethically themselves, because their anonymity and their craving for leaders or celebrities they can glom to keeps leading them unable to separate themselves from people disseminating utter bullshit and calling it reality. Remember how they claimed that Anita was lying about going to the authorities? Or how Zoe Quinn didn’t give money to the authorities? Or how secret anonymous sources claimed that notable feminists were sending threats to themselves? Remember Chihirodev? How about when King of Pol was blatantly caught trying to smear Stephen Totilo and Nick Denton fraudulently, only to be exposed by Hot Wheels?

This utter lack of ethics, honesty and basic fact-checking has been going on ever since things blew up last August, and at this point, one is left with one of two possible conclusions. Either the core adherents of GamerGate believe so ardently that the ends justify the means that they will stoop to any level of dishonesty to attempt to push forward their repugnant world view, or they have been so fully infiltrated by trolls incapable from being seperated from the ‘good’ Gators, due to the anonymity of the cause.

In either case, this episode reaffirms what game companies, the gaming media and the mainstream media have suspected for more than a year now. GamerGate devotees and their wild claims should be treated with as much credibility as they have so far earned: none at all.

18 Comments

  1. Vetarnias

    Worse, there isn’t one of them who’s going to say “you know, maybe there’s a problem with our image?”. No, instead, they’ll just going to blame everyone: the media for failing to report adequately on GG (thereby proving beyond a doubt that they’re “biased”), Zoe Quinn and Sarkeesian for talking to the UN (and now, Quinn’s story getting a film) even though it’s GG who’s responsible for the bulk of their notoriety, every line they take offense to in articles a year old, TV shows failing to portray gamers as angelic children from the fifties, the new Canadian PM for having negatively mentioned GG in a speech, presumably the Pope if he released an encyclical on the subject, then all the rest of us.

    No, the GamerGate shitshow is incapable of introspection, proudly calling itself leftist just as Breitbart – the same outlet which had gotten this ideological travesty started – makes the exact opposite point for all too read.

    I seem to have noticed though, that GG seems to have more than its share of the usual anarchists, who don’t give a shit about anything except what they can wreck. “Consumer revolts” come and go; hacktivists with a God complex are there to stay. But we can already point the finger at Twitter for having done NOTHING to prevent this, and if it can kick it into a financial death spiral from which it won’t be able to recover, I can’t say I’ll be among the mourners.

    • nash werner

      “But we can already point the finger at Twitter for having done NOTHING to prevent this…”

      *This* being D/H (drama/harassment)?” Wasn’t D/H Twitter’s entire Longevity Strategy from the onset?

      • Vetarnias

        In the light of this new article about Twitter at The Atlantic, I suspect that you’re right: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/conversation-smoosh-twitter-decay/412867/

        We could go on for a while discussing how Twitter was a godsend for a movement like GamerGate, which the article called ‘fascistic’. A lone Gater in the comments complained about it, in full sea-lion mode (gotta love someone who responds to accusations of fascism by citing not just Wikipedia, but the Simple Version of it): “we’re not fascist, we’re liberal”. At which point I just feel like citing the title of Jonah Goldberg’s (unfortunately sophomoric) “Liberal Fascism” (Goldberg, as a neocon, is a lot closer to fascism than anything from the liberals, even a liberal hawk like Hillary Clinton).

        GamerGate is libertarian. But it can parade as liberal (within an American context) because it rejects the main tenets of neoconservatism, from military adventurism to religiosity. It’s going to disclaim any allegation of fascism by pointing out (someone in the Atlantic comments links to an excellent summary of fascism by Umberto Eco: http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf) that while fascists praised irrationality, Gaters pride themselves on being hyper-rational (which they interpret as whatever furthers our own interests). Which explains their complete incapacity of seriously discussing “ethics in gaming journalism”, even if they wanted to: they speak the language of Rand rather than that of Kant, so their entire idea of press ethics is “well, it ought to serve us”. From this perspective, a “SJW” who gives the lowest score to a game because of misogyny is as guilty of “corruption” as an outright advertorial, while a publication — like The Escapist — which openly, blatantly panders to a “gamer demographic”.

        That’s how you got Escapist writer Liana Kerzner recently tweeting: “Was just reminded how much some devs and fans treat the games press like a useless nuisance. Going to go consider career change again. / The games press should be an industry partner in creating the best product for consumers. Not a group to be kept out bc we’re inconvenient.” But at least she gets an inkling of the idea that the gaming press has to be “inconvenient” in some way. But no, you’re not an “industry partner” out to create the “best product for consumers”. That’s the mistake Leigh Alexander made, when she went into the consultancy business, for which, naturally, nobody held her to account, and now, THANKS TO GAMERGATE, she’s bigger than she was.

        But anyway. GamerGate isn’t fascist. If you want to see where GamerGate thought leads, though, it’s to neoreaction. Which is worse even than fascism.

      • Vetarnias

        One of these days Damion will get around to approving my previous reply, which has links in them, but in the meantime: it seems Oliver Campbell just left GamerGate, citing — you’d never have guessed — harassment.

        • nash werner

          The slopes are slippery, are they not? I read both KIA and Ghazi, and honestly couldn’t tell you which produces more LULZ. Sometimes I cover one eye and I cannot tell which side the poster is on. “Moving goalposts; punching-down; sea-lioning!” The overlap is tremendous. Here’s the thing about language–note I speak 5 languages ((5 asian step-mothers) casual; 3rd grade level)–it may evolve organically (without agenda) or it may evolve strategically (double-speak), but it is always evolving. I think it’s important for everyone to slow down and determine what was meant… as opposed to what was said.

          • Vetarnias

            At least KiA has the virtue (not an endorsement) of staying mostly focused on what it claims to be doing. Ghazi, on the other hand, just branched out of video games and video games journalism to turn into exactly the same kind of “social-justice-warrior” nonsense KiA decries. You got a link to an NPR story about universities wanting more gender-neutral pronouns. There’s a Haaretz story – paywalled, no less – about Debra Messing complaining about how Jews have it tough in Hollywood, which I can’t say is something I’ve ever heard before. And a mention of how Google switched its logo to the effigy of Hedy Lamarr, because she would have turned 101 recently, never mind that Norman Lloyd, a quite famous Hollywood actor (and actually Jewish), turned 101 the day prior. Yes, turned — he’s still alive, still acting. Where’s his Google big time? Oh but that’s right: Lamarr was not only a woman, but also an inventor. It’s just Google self-servingly doing its women-in-tech inclusivity schtick, and Ghazi laps it up. Ghazi, with GamerGate now being too minor or too dead to be worthy of its attention anymore, now seems to exist only for the sake of existing, and fell back into exactly the kind of progressive politics the Gaters suspected was lurking behind opposition to GG.

            Perched on top of Ghazi’s feed is a new story by Leigh Alexander, which is just the kind of definitive turn-off I need, as she predictably talks about that worthiest of subjects: herself. Forget Quinn, Sarkeesian, Wu and the rest, who never wanted to be part of the GamerGate shitshow to begin with; GamerGate just enabled the likes of Leigh Alexander, who wasn’t even one of the movement’s targets, who just rode the GamerGate wave to prominence, undeserved, just because she’s flippant, knows exactly how to promote herself, and just happens to be a woman.

            I guess this shows why I’m not a very good fit for the self-proclaimed anti-GamerGate people: I object to GG, but on my own terms. GG itself compounds my irritation by constantly trying to lump everyone opposed to it under a unified Anti label. And no, GamerGate, you’re not going to get me on your side by playing the with-us-or-against-us card: You’re a hypocritical shitshow made of harassment and malodorous politics to such an extent that you’re forcing me to temporarily ally with many people I don’t really like, and *I resent that*.

            The gaming press is awful, lazy, and sycophantic; and GamerGate, contrary to all its claims, is just the enforcer of more of the same. See The Escapist, “mouthpiece of the gaming generation” (I swear, I’ll mention that self-description until they’re too ashamed to run with it), which has only ever existed to sell a lifestyle, and which is still the same kind of shit publication it has been these past 3 or 4 years at least, in spite of new ethics guidelines, which shows exactly where the problem isn’t (the individual conflicts of interests of writers) and where it most likely is: at the corporate level, in what it promotes, and how it promotes it. To focus on individual products is to miss the forest for the trees.

            I’ve often been asked (including by Gaters) how I would solve the problem of the gaming press, and I’ve always answered: I don’t think it can be solved. Games writing can be saved in two ways: either by mainstream coverage (yes, daily newspapers are stodgy, but at least they’re not entirely beholden to the companies whose products you’re reviewing), or by going off the beaten path, into blogs or individual writers. Note that I said “blogs” and “writers” – the primacy of the written word, contrary to the present mood of putting on a pedestal every successful monetizing YouTube vlogger.

            Part of the problem is that video games have done nothing to legitimize themselves: it’s as if film were only covered by glossy magazines, meaning only fan publications talk about video games, plus Variety and Hollywood Reporter equivalents for industry types. Mainstream perception of video games is still negative (and GamerGate sure did wonders about rectifying that!), so newspapers don’t talk about video games, while the New York Times maintained a bridge column until last May. As for independents, you have to look them up. I’ve discovered Tevis Thompson recently (he wrote at the now-defunct Grantland), and there might be others, on the whole too marginal or too cerebral (or both) to be bothered by GamerGate; I’m quite fond of what Kieron Gillen called the “New Games Journalism” (with the proviso that nothing must be fabricated), in other words, the exact opposite of the Objectivity-mandated reviewing espoused by GamerGate (cf. Oliver Campbell’s Medium article “The Purpose Of A Game Review and How To Write One With Minimal Subjectivity”).

            Speaking of Campbell, he not only announced he quit GamerGate, he also deleted his Twitter account. Always cover your tracks, right?

          • Biggie

            Veternias:

            Why is that a bad thing, though? The conversation, as I understood it, revolved around the idea that GG has mostly sputtered out, and a subreddit solely dedicated to opposing it had little reason to exist, or even worse actively fueled its existence because it gave them An Enemy.

            However, there was value in its continued existence as a general space to discuss issues of social justice, specifically in the tech/gaming/geek culture sector. Which is what they’re trying to make it.

            Everyone with a thinking brain who heard about GG was against it, not just social progressives, but there were certainly social progressive against it.

          • Vetarnias

            “Sputtered out”, after the SXSW cancellations? Not likely. That was my mistake, initially, after November of last year, of thinking GG was finished, after the bomb threat that had forced Sarkeesian to cancel a university talk attracted the attention of the mainstream media, to which GG predictably responded that if everyone disagreed with us, then they had to be part of this vast-ranging conspiracy GG was up against. At that point, though I had always objected to GG, I thought the game was finally up for Gaters, that those who wanted to discuss ethics in the gaming press would distance themselves from GG and start over, leaving GG to the redpill contingent that tried to co-opt the movement into something else.

            But it didn’t turn out that way. The only reason I returned to the subject of GG, months later, was because Koretzky got the SPJ’s name involved, meaning a fresh veneer of legitimacy for GG, meaning I had to get writing again to dispel the new bullshit GG would start spinning about itself. And frankly I’m pissed off. Pissed off at the gaming press for being so shitty that it did absolutely nothing about it. Pissed off at the likes of Jessica Valenti who have the gall to pull a “how dare you still exist? I’ve ignored you!” that just makes the Gaters’ point for them. Pissed off at all those people who’ve snarked, and snarked, and snarked at GG until they found something else to snark about, until —

            — until SXSW cancelled its panels because of threats, that is, and they all acted as offended as their snark would allow, until finally SXSW reversed its decision.

            And now that that’s past, they’ve gone back to snarking about something else. The job’s not done. And yet Ghazi is diluting its energy into a bunch of feel-good-do-nothing garbage that has nothing to do with video games, or video games journalism. Reinforcing, every day, the GamerGate narrative that only GG discusses of ethics in gaming journalism. When was the last time someone there wrote something like “game journalism is crap, it wouldn’t recognize ethics if it struck it in the face with a pickaxe, but GG is a smokescreen that will solve nothing”? Reinforcing, also, the other GG narrative about authoritarian leftists seeking to limit free speech.

          • bbz

            How can anyone know know “what was meant”? All we can document is what was said.

  2. Vetarnias

    Also, the SPJ has finally unveiled its new game journalism awards, the Kunkel Awards, which allows anyone to nominate (but which are voted by a panel of journalists from outside the discipline). Naturally, GamerGate is already planning to brigade the thing, so please nominate articles you like.

    I’d provide the link directly, but as this would condemn this post to moderation purgatory (right until Damion gets around to approving it, sometime during the Trump impeachment proceedings), I’ll just urge you to look up the Kunkel Awards on your own. The nomination form is on the SPJ site.

    • nash werner

      Vetarnias, it’s all a cash-grab really. No matter the opinion or the double-speak, GG has been good for web-traffic spikes. Hot-clicks 1995-2015; still working as intended. Even ZenOfDesign got caught up in the media blitz a year ago (re: WWII GG false moral equivalence). I’ll leave you with one of my favorite vloggers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA6ZhlrlyZs

      • Vetarnias

        And GG knows it all too well, what with its reliance on archived versions of offending pages just to not give clicks to publications it doesn’t like. But Breitbart, though, no: that one’s directly linked to, and they’d put the link in bold if they could.

        I’m well aware that there are publications that thrive on just that sort of controversy (Slate was/is notorious for it), but widespread usage of archived pages to not encourage them might wreck this as a business model now.

        I archive stuff all the time, but I reserve it for content like Twitter, where people delete away when things get to embarrassing and where the format itself encourages amnesia. While I do value the endeavour of the Internet Archive, I tend to object to the way people use something like archive.is (which I’ve relied upon not only for Twitter posts, but also my own stuff, just in case), which just allows people to circumvent copyright under the guise of archiving. Wouldn’t surprise me if it ended up at the center of a copyright lawsuit in a few years.

  3. nash werner

    bbz asked,
    “How can anyone know know ‘what was meant?’ All we can document is what was said.”

    Well, to know what was meant implies dialog is/was attempted. But we both know it’s far easier to just admit Intellectual Superiority without all that pesky, tiresome, and problematic dialog.

    I’m happy to see Western Exceptionalism is alive and kicking.

    • bbz

      Dialog falls into the category of “what was said”. You seemed to be suggesting that a speaker’s meaning might be quite different from the written words. Really interesting idea. We’re you thinking of Orwell, in that what can’t be expressed can’t be thought? Or thinking of misunderstandings between native and non-native language speakers? (Fascinating linguistics issue there given the constructed nature of speech in venues such as reddit. Can anyone really be described as a native speaker?) In the first case which evolutions of language have made it impossible to communicate honestly about gg? What vocabulary do we lack?

      • nash werner

        bbz, basically what you said. But I’ll add two crucial axis: Culture and Desire. The West is filled to the brim with Culture(s) that often conflict with each other on levels many simple aren’t aware of. (my oahu-surfer culture is different on micro-level than even maui-surfer culture, for starters.) Desire to embrace the ideas of others (even if Cultural conflicts occur) must retain some form of balance else you’ll lose the Desire to interact with anyone not kissing your ass or prayer to your g_d.

        I was born in Honolulu, I’ve knowingly eaten dog and cat. Doesn’t bother me at all. Doesn’t denigrate asians when I speak on it… unless, the listener has a Desire to see anything and everything as denigrating. Then there’s a type of listener that isn’t so much focused on the possible denigration of asians (many of which eat dog and cat), and simply thinks I’m a monster for eating dog/cat. Their can be no dialog now. Their Culture of pet-worship (lack of better word) and their Desire to brand me a monster is too strong. I’m defriended/blocked.

        But this above event isn’t completely devoid of social-data on repairing how I engage with Mainland Americans… I get a PM from the offended: “Dude, if you eat cat or dog, I wouldn’t TELL anyone about it. Lie if asked. Ok?”

        Oh, nevermind. No improvements can be made if dishonesty is the work-around. I have not eaten pets. And that dress does make you look fat.

      • nash werner

        …as for GG, Culture and Desire are everything. As a kama’aina from Oahu, I’ve been in a lot of fist-fights. Even with girls (the Samoan/Tongans bigger than me in highschool), once someone is punching me, I punch back. So yes, I’ve had schoolyard fights with girls. I would say 3, lifetime. There wasn’t some “oh, save the poor girl” cries from the crowd of on-lookers… it was a mix of my friends and hers–cheering for their tribe.

        I only won 1 fight against Samoan/Tongan girl(s) and it was a bloody mess. I lost the other 2! Yes, beat up by a girl. But here’s the thing… Nobody mocked for this. Nobody denigrated HER performance by insinuating that I should have won and she got lucky or something. Pure equality in Polynesian culture. My culture.

        Now, how does this apply to GG? Simple really. The two girls that beat up me in highshool (both Samoan/Tongan) don’t hate men. Far from it. And what about me? I won one of those fights, bloodying a girl’s face as she was trying to bloody mine. I don’t hate women. Far from it.

        A lot of aGG reminds me of how I must hate women for defending myself in highshool. How can I not hate something I made bloodied? The answer is Culture and Desire.

        • bbz

          Your response is largely incomprehensible to me, which illustrates something about the failure of language as meaning, though I’m not sure what.

          • nash werner

            Well, at least you’re trying this dialog thing.

            tl;dr

            Wholesale Hate doesn’t have to be the conclusion where “bad behavior/harassment” is the nut catalyst.

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