Game Journalism - Unfit for purpose?

[Unkindled]

Saw @Costin post this in another thread and thought it should be here too:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vid...-of-Morodrs-Promotion-Deals-with-Plaid-Social

 

[dragonbird]

Erik Kain's follow-up article after the livestream.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...eo-game-journalists-to-engage-with-gamergate/
There are still some good people in games journalism.

 

[sidspyker]

He's only good because his name has weird spellings >_> that has been scientifically proven by Profession Sidster.

 

[CostinRaz]

So I was talking with someone today on twitter about sex in The Witcher and how it's not a big fucking deal that you can have sex with a lot of women.

She told me something that I agree with: You can have plenty of sex with anyone at any point in Sims as well. So fucking true.

 

[Unkindled]

So I was talking with someone today on twitter about sex in The Witcher and how it's not a big fucking deal that you can have sex with a lot of women.

She told me something that I agree with: You can have plenty of sex with anyone at any point in Sims as well. So fucking true.

Heh, Geralt can be a complete and utter dog if you so choose, but I like that. He's more "real" compared to other protagonists. He's not a pretty boy, he's rough as hell, and he does things that a lot of us probably would have done if given the option to. Namely, some really freaky piece of ass. If you so choose, which I'm sure all or most of us did on the first playthroughs just because. Especially in the first game. Luckily for the second, I'm a cheap ass, so breaking bread for prostitutes wasn't on my things to do list. And there was no card to collect, so.

 

[gregski]

So, who's gonna make it to the end? I know I didn't.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

Och look, i've often thought I'd like to take these peoples concerns regarding The Witcher head on, I reckon I could demolish their arguments easily with a nice video of cutscenes from the game.... the problem is, I can;t stand listening to their tripe.

So 0:11 is as far as I got, sorry

 

[Unkindled]

Ugh, you can spark a whole new thread on all that's wrong with this video.

First, I love how she calls Feminist Frequency an "organization". Now, I could be wrong, but doesn't an organization take more than one person? Like, an "organized" group, or institution? Hence the word organization?

Second, no one has blamed her for the changes in gaming, because nothing she's done has actually caused games to change. Even the accusation of people claiming she caused anything in actual gaming is pretentious as fuck. Depression Quest isn't even a game.

edit: Still watching.

edit 2: The irony of what she says about "information cascading", saying things about someone until people consider it true.... the irony is STRONG with this one.

edit 3: K, she mentions that people lie and say she's not a gamer, then claims she's been gaming since she was five right? We've all seen this video but I'll post it again just because:

[video]http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQuAIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFW-69xXD734&ei=mWU0VIfOF9WzyASX-4KYDw&usg=AFQjCNGi6DnpZtDFRh3HzrbTgQQvN25Nhw&sig2=WbwN5k4mA38er1gc5Orv_w&bvm=bv.76943099,d.aWw[/video]

Lol, this chick isn't even trying. It's not a video meant to serve any other purpose than letting people know she's still there, and catering to the audience that already likes her by going after the most extreme examples of her critics, and making fun of the rest with little or no substance or evidence to disprove what they said.

Saying "I think my arguments are pretty good" to a cheering endearing crowd, that does... what to support her arguments? Not a damn thing. It seems more like a way for her to get her feel goods and reaffirm that people still love her. Egotistical as fuck.

And... I made it to the end. Yay.

So, who's gonna make it to the end? I know I didn't.

Gregski, you owe me some new braincells.



PS, this mention system is uber glitchy.

 

[EliHarel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah8mhDW6Shs#t=120

Nice mention of Portal.

Her words weren't too annoying because she mainly tackled the the margins that no one really agrees with. Who will disagree that murder threats and constant hate-mails are bad? Such extreme people give her a very convenient "out" - a way to ignore the level-headed criticism raised against her accusations of gaming.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Interesting study which claims that there is roughly equal amount of male and female gamers (from ~ 2,200 users participated in the survey): http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/esa_ef_2014.pdf

Not like some said that gamers are predominantly males, however 2,200 isn't very comprehensive either.

Pure 50% / 50% division of purchasers looks weird to me though.

 

[Garrison72]

Fuck it, I'm going all the way. I can finish at least one of her awful videos. If this is the last you hear from me you'll know I've been admitted to the nearest psychiatric ward.

...Done! What I've learned today:

1. Anita is a victim
2. Gamers are terrible
3. Solution: talk to women.

Got it. Anywho, here's a good article on Twitter: http://www.slate.com/articles/techn...10/twitter_is_broken_gamergate_proves_it.html

 

[EliHarel]

Interesting study which claims that there is roughly equal amount of male and female gamers (from ~ 2,200 users participated in the survey): http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/esa_ef_2014.pdf

Not like some said that gamers are predominantly males, however 2,200 isn't very comprehensive either.

Pure 50% / 50% division of purchasers looks weird to me though.

I don't have time to read it right now, so this may have been covered in the file - do they define "gamer"? If someone playing candy crush on his or her phone is a gamer, according to this study, then it's misleading.

 

[Seboist]

Well, I just removed Joystiq from my bookmark toolbar for supporting that scamming huckster Anita RE: her appearance at xoxo(just when I thought those handful of SJW postings were a thing of the past). I have since replaced it with dualshockers.

Joystiq can go fuck itself just like Kotaku,Polygon,etc.

 

[Seboist]

So, who's gonna make it to the end? I know I didn't.

This video is worth watching but only for the image and term "weaponized pornography" that appears at roughly 3:27. That inane attempt to paint herself as a damsel in distress caused me to laugh to tears like a Hyena(and several associates of mines whom I pointed that out to as well!).

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I don't have time to read it right now, so this may have been covered in the file - do they define "gamer"? If someone playing candy crush on his or her phone is a gamer, according to this study, then it's misleading.

They give percentages of different platforms, but not in gender stats. So it's not so interesting.

 

[CostinRaz]

Problem with that study as Christina Sommers puts it is that it counts anyone who plays games no matter how occasionally as a gamer.

Also it doesn't say 50% of women are gamers, it says 50% of those that purchase games are women.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Problem with that study as Christina Sommers puts it is that it counts anyone who plays games no matter how occasionally as a gamer.

I'd say it's not a problem with it, but it makes it not detailed to analyze interests which different genders can have. I.e. for example, instead of taking it cumulatively it would be more useful to show each platform separately, such as the ratio for PC games or console games and so on. Another aspect which isn't explained are genres. I bet not all genres are equally distributed as gaming interests for male and female gamers.

Also it doesn't say 50% of women are gamers, it says 50% of those that purchase games are women.

Which means that out of gamers (however they define it), half are women. The whole subject isn't relevant for non gamers.

...Done! What I've learned today:

1. Anita is a victim
2. Gamers are terrible
3. Solution: talk to women.

And she didn't respond to any valid criticism of her own statements, since she can focus on threats. I'd say those who threatened her were not just crooked, they were stupid, since it only gave her room for diverting attention from her own false accusations.

 

[HellKnightX88]

Heh, non-profit organization...
Final stretch goal is $6000 on kickstarter.
Supposed to deliver the whole DVD set of "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games" by Dec 2012.
Oct 2014 and with $158,922 pledged she still hasn't delivered.
"I'm totally a gamer, guys!"
"Also, please donate!"

As for that study involving the 50-50 split in gamer gender it doesn't really take into account the fact that within the "gamer" community, depending on how you define it, there are a lot of sub-groups divided amongst each other depending on platform choice, game genre, time dedicated to games etc. Speaking as someone who usually plays games quite frequently and enjoys playing singleplayer and multiplayer with friends both in casual coop and more competitive team vs team environments (Dota 2, CS:GO etc... basically you could define it as "hardcore gaming" although not too fond of the term TBH) I see less females in these more competitive communities. On the other side in more "casual" communities (this one, TES communities) I see way more females compared to the previous one. If I go one step further and look at a community like the Sims community for example I can see an even bigger difference. So in conclusion the male to female ratio is quite different depending on where you look in the casual-hardcore scale.

To me at least it seems a lot of those "hardcore gamer" folk don't really care about gender/race, they just want good games. Having black/white bi/gay/straight female/male characters doesn't make a game better or worse. What does make a game worse is when you're shifting focus from making a good game to pushing some kind of political agenda. When one of your biggest catch phrases/hype phrases is "we got gay characters" then it kinds sends an alarm. Not because I'm homophobic (I don't have anything against gay/bi people or gay marriages) but because you're turning sexuality into some kind of banner with which you identify your characters/game and that's just wrong and a sign bad writing. Do you go around in real life and define people based on their gender/sexuality/race? That's a pretty shallow and disrespectful thing to do. 2 of my favorite characters in New Vegas are gay (Veronica and Arcade Ganon) and the defining trait isn't their sexuality but their personality. Who they actually are and what's their story... that's good writing

What sells a game to your more hardcore audience isn't diversity in sexual orientation, race or gender but delivering a good experience to the player.

 

[dragonbird]

I don't have time to read it right now, so this may have been covered in the file - do they define "gamer"? If someone playing candy crush on his or her phone is a gamer, according to this study, then it's misleading.

You're right. The first batch of survey results quoted some months ago didn't cover the type of games, so the 50-50, while being important, doesn't say much in terms of whether the types of games usually being discussed in these brouhahas need to change.

The new survey, which came out right in the middle of GamerGate, also shows a high number of women gaming, but it does differentiate by using a somewhat arbitrary definition of "hardcore". That demographic is still largely male.

The conclusions I got out of is that it shows there's a need for a wide diversity of types of games, to suit different gamers. So the activists should stop saying that our games need to change, or they should also campaign for Candy Crush to be modified to more-closely resemble CoD.

 

[227]

Go ahead, check out that site. Some of the games link to GOG (Planescape), while others that are available on GOG (Theme Hospital, SimCity 2000, and those are just the ones on the first page I immediately noticed) can still be downloaded there for free. She's literally advocating piracy.