Why is casual racism/sexism more accepted in video games than other forms of media (these days)?

Why did no one care when like, Obama and Sleater-Kinney were doing AMAs on paedo/creepshot hub Reddit

― ebro the letter (Whiney G. Weingarten)

love when whiney starts up on his "all geeks are pedophiles" high horse

"actually we're ephebophiles"

in one of those crushing scenes

hey now this isn't 8chan

"actually we're ephebophiles"

― ebro the letter (Whiney G. Weingarten)

i'm turned on by absurd overgeneralizations

you're making me so hot right now

take the L whiney

hahaha oh shit i didnt realize you legitimately didnt get my bad metaphor

it was a pretty poorly laid out metaphor i guess. for posterity reddit is a city and 8chan is a tiny bad room where ghosts live

L is down on weekends

My fault will. I should have known you weren’t saying that the historically black and latino bronx was like 8chan and the majority asian flushing was like reddit, even if there are a few dungeons here and there, because tjat would have been super racist and out of character.

And not related to the general discussion

i know so little about nyc that i didn't even know flushing was historically asian/that the bronx was historically black/latino! i just picked "place that is big, i think" and "place that has a funny name like toilets"

also is it weird that i'm happy that you thought this was "out of character" for me because that means i, uh, have posted enough on these boards in 12 years to have a character now? i mean, i'm also happy that you don't think i'm racist. but that was the second thing i was glad about and that is definitely weird

As a bottom-tier ilxor I envy Will’s reputation.

to me you are a tier 1 ilx operator leee

Aww thanks, u r 2kind!

I owe Leee a great debt for taking over the rollout of my animation poll, I'm pro-Leee. Will M. also a hero for being the coint+plick steward.

Wow, that was 6 years ago! Just helping out with something you kicked off.

leee also did the star trek poll which makes them elite tier

I did the Trek poll just for the thread title tbh.

jfc: https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/axwjh9/days_gone_hands_on_preview_ign/

Anything I should be searching for in particular?

seems to be a lot of whining about the lack of gruff white male protagonists in video games

Yes, it's the "the reviewer is the real racist" talk.

xp I'm not seeing that? Or rather, I'm seeing a lot of that, but a lot more of people pointing out that it's a dumb generic cliche - it gives me a little hope tbh.

Leee yeah but that particular line gets shouted down over the rest of the thread.

Does it? I didn't read closely enough before my rising BP/eye twitch made me close the thread.

there's some turds in there but not above normal internet discourse levels

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-03-04-valve-under-fire-as-sexually-explicit-game-glorifying-rape-is-listed-on-steam

https://kotaku.com/valve-removes-rape-day-from-steam-with-vague-nonsensic-1833104632

the game was listed on steam but not yet available to buy, has now been taken down by steam

is it valve's lack of corporate structure that makes it so no one there can ever make the call on whether steam is a normal moderated storefront or a libertarian madhouse? this is like the 20th story on them waffling about allowing or removing problematic content in the past half year

seems like they just let whatever go on there and then when complaints come in they take action, which doesn't seem like a super robust system

its gone the other way too, they decided to crack down on anime porn games a couple times and then backpedaled when the usual suspects got mad

So, last week Zoe Quinn was one of a group of developers who had tweeted about allegations of abuse in the video game industry (new ones, for them).

https://www.comicsbeat.com/zoe-quinn-alec-holowka-sexual-abuse/

Yesterday, the person they accused apparently committed suicide.

https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/01/night-woods-developer-alec-holowka-dies-10665276/

Prepare for a second wave of Gamergate, probably.

Nah, guy was a self-declared feminist. I saw someone point out the irony that a lot of gamergaters all of a sudden were using Zoe and taking her at her word, after her being their biggest enemy for years.

Do you have any evidence at all of Gamergaters taking her at her world, Fred?

*word

uh yeah Fred you might want to search the Twitter hashtag

particularly #ZoeQuinnBodycount

If the last outbreak of gamergate was based on nothing whatsoever (it was) then I fear for what they might be able to inflict with this new ammunition, even if it means lying about everything (it always does)

The allegations covered a few people - the composer Jeremy Soule was also one of them - which is to say that they were unrelated but the release of some of them caused/inspired the release of others - games has never really had a #MeToo, but this might have (or still might) be the start of one.

On the other hand (gestures at the thread title, gestures at the thread)

this is all quite depressing, the alleged abuse, the suicide, the renewal of a horrible and pointless war and resumption of belittling the very concept of women who [play games|think about games|are nerds|are online|want to be thought of as basically human]

I hadn't heard of NitW until this summer when I randomly stumbled across it and it seemed v amazingly my thing and it was in the Steam sale so I bought it, but still haven't played it

I kind of... don't know if I want to now, or what to do with this new information as I play it?

Night in the Woods is a good game and its narrative content is almost entirely the contribution of its other developers.

Just an FYI (and I only discovered this recently) is that Zoe Quinn's preferred pronoun is they/their.

I played Night in the Woods but never finished it because of lack of interest. Don't know if I can, now.

I'm very sad for the new wave of abuse and shit that Zoe is almost certainly going through right now.

I'm also not really surprised. This is what abusers and their support network do to people who call them out on their abuse. It does seem like in some way that abusers get so stuck in that paradigm that it's all they fucking know how to do.

Are we supposed to believe that Gamergaters have been kind, respectful, considerate up to now, and it is only at this point where they are shocked to a point where they will really take off the gloves? I'm sure there's some gentleman with a fedora seriously making that claim right now. There's so much rejection of, I don't know, empathy, kindness, any sense that any abuser might in any way be responsible for their own actions. I can't understand at this point how their outrage is supposed to be even nominally effective to anybody who's not, uh, going their way.

To me at least it's pretty clear to me what the Gamergaters' campaign is directed at. They want people like Zoe to "go away" in a very permanent sense. Once one realizes the very clear end goal of their attempts at silencing any criticism of abusive behavior, well, the more abuse one encounters the harder it is to look at them and say "You know, they have a point, what they're asking for is reasonable", or even "Well maybe if I don't make so much trouble for myself things will be easier". Those are very old lies, but the ways in which the Gamergaters tell them is utterly unpersuasive.

Does it make me sad that Alec Holowka killed himself? Yes, it does, because he was a human being, with human struggles and failings, not some kind of fucking political football. Can I relate at all to the twisted ideology that holds that decision as somehow being Zoe Quinn's fault? Not in the fucking slightest.

Sorry for saying "fucking" so much in this post.

The allegations covered a few people - the composer Jeremy Soule was also one of them - which is to say that they were unrelated but the release of some of them caused/inspired the release of others - games has never really had a #MeToo, but this might have (or still might) be the start of one.

Considering that call-outs (even when well-intentioned and well executed) are troll bait, I'm sure the gaming community will have a wonderful time screaming "rapist!" at each other for the next two years.

I believe Zoë, I don't believe call-outs are the right approach but I respect what she did regardless, and it's a tragedy about Alec.

I don't at all believe the Jeremy Soule story, though. All that detail and endless screenshots to describe a shitty work situation, but zero evidence or detail surrounding the "rape"? My intuition states that Soule's accuser will be facing a lawsuit.

*they, that is

which one of Soule's accusers?

I thought it was clear I was referring to the woman who has alleged that Soule raped her, not the other woman who describes having received an unwanted explicit video from him

sorry! I googled in order to keep up with the thread and found an article with three (or 2.5) accusers and no screenshots of anything, was just trying to orient myself with what ppl are talking about

I don’t understand why anyone’s still defaulting to a position of “this person can’t produce any hard evidence so I don’t believe them”. Sexual assault is really fucking common, people lying about sexual assault is really fucking rare, and jesus, no, rapists don’t tend to send emails mentioning the fact they’re rapists. Believe the victim.

Engadget’s take on recent events was actually quite an optimistic one and I’d like to think they’re right.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/08/30/gamergate-sexual-abuse-twitter-developers-zoe-quinn/

I understand where fgti is coming from. I fully acknowledge that sometimes people make false accusations and that those false accusations hurt people who are falsely accused. I do still take the position of defaulting to believing accusers until or unless I have reason not to.

Speaking up about abuse, for me, is a powerful step towards breaking the cycle of abuse, even though frequently it leads one to be dismissed and not believed.

I do not let my mandate to "believe survivors" evaporate my critical facilities. And: it's not that I disbelieve Soule's accuser, it is simply that her account of Soule's rape of her does not read to me, in its current state, as being credible. Considering that civil cases (such as defamation) are decided by who appears to be more credible-- the plaintiff or the defendant-- I am concerned that Soule's accuser may lose, in the event of a defamation suit, which I intuit will be Soule's response. And regardless of the veracity of her allegation of rape, it is clear from the rest of her post that she is absolutely the victim of a toxic work environment, where she was belittled and left unpaid and not given credit for the work she did. I think she is a victim and deserves justice; I intuit that her allegation of rape, as it currently has been stated, may currently succeed in the court of public opinion, but will not succeed under legal scrutiny, and a woman who has been victimized (via a toxic work environment) will not receive justice because her complaint about her workplace has been coloured by a rape allegation that may be determined, in the future, to lack credibility. (I do not relish reading Twitter in the event that this turns out to be the case, and I will pray every night to be rendered illiterate.)

I read the article you posted, JimD, and I am frustrated with its inaccuracies and fallacies. In the first paragraph alone, the author states that "Soule has denied [both] allegations", but this is false; Soule did not deny the allegation that he'd sent explicit video to his second accuser, he simply stated that the context in which the video was sent differed, in his memory, from the context that his accuser described. As his second accuser is not apparently engaging in defamation-- she is not lying, i.e., she is credibly describing something that happened, and speaking about her feelings toward what happened, and Soule seems to tacitly confirm that the facts of her account are correct-- I do not intuit that Soule will press for legal action against his second accuser, as he has no grounds for it; it makes no sense to sue somebody who is telling the truth. Either way, the Engadget article is incorrect, and it is worth noting, journalistically, that Soule has tacitly confirmed the facts of the second accuser's account, as it demonstrates that he's willing to publicly acknowledge the facts of his behaviour. Omitting this detail misrepresents Soule, and portrays him as an individual who issues blanket denials, with no capacity toward self-examination.

I too believe it is important to speak up about abuse, but I personally believe that all possible avenues of resolution should be explored before making public call-outs. I say not as a criticism of individuals who choose to make public call-outs, but as an observation of the inefficacy and, well, danger of making them; Quinn's abuser killed himself, and I intuit that Soule's accuser will be facing legal action-- no justice will be served in either scenario.

When I read about allegations of these sort, I typically choose to not use my critical faculties. I don't believe that I am competent, in most cases, to judge what actually happened in these contested cases, because typically I don't have access to sufficient evidence to make an objective judgment. When I choose who to believe - this is pretty much always "the victim" but I also, I find, have certain latitude to decide who I feel "the victim" is - this is very much a subjective judgment. That's my compromise. I don't feel comfortable choosing to abstain from all varieties of judgment, because of the environment I live in, because silence favors the oppressor.

I agree with your assessment that "naming and shaming" possesses certain dangers, that it is fallible, that it can lead to grave miscarriages of justice. I support it despite these dangers because, right now, it seems like this process is the best form of justice victims of abuse and/or assault have access to.