Game Journalism - Unfit for purpose?

[Aes Sídhe]

Twitter is indeed a toxic environment. You can't have any sort of decent debate there. But one can't deny how effective it is for spreading news like this controversy and all this gamergate stuff. But a better example of a double edged sword, I have not seen.

That does seem to be the case. It wasn't so long ago I was reading what seemed like a growing disillusionment with twitter as a source for anything_but_the_initial_report_of_an_event, a distrust born out of numerous events, overreactions, and related reflective hangovers, but I've just watched them all go for the easy shock headline again with this weekends blanket vitriol. I remember Charlie Brooker declared twitter the number one computer game, when I step back and observe some of these things I can't help but conclude he was correct, literally

Haven't people learnt how to manipulate it, how to work it for maximum effect by now ?

 

[Unkindled]

Twitter a computer game? I like it, lol. Sounds about right. Anita's a gamer after all, lol, because I'd say she's learned to manipulate it rather well.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

Twitter a computer game? I like it, lol. Sounds about right. Anita's a gamer after all, lol, because I'd say she's learned to manipulate it rather well.

It was worth tracking down the video to hear again why he felt twitter could top the poll of most important computer games ever. I agree with the people who comment that our online avatars are only a shallow facsimile of who we really are, no matter how much you try impersonal media are limited, and words perhaps the most, then you limit them to 140....

I have no problem believing the possibility that much of this whole thing is down to a handful of trolls, winding everybody up, it would be nothing new.

Skip to the end, about 1:33.

 

[Unkindled]

Eh I honestly think they're kind of stretching a bit. You could almost apply that logic to anything, like how people refer to dating and seducing "the game". Giving a sort of award system is common for lots of things. My bank even gives me discounts as awards for spending.

edit: Of course, you can't lie to the bank, but you can lie to those you date and be someone you're not similarly.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

Yeah, the proposal does rely on the whole Pavlovs dog rewards aspect a little too much, but let not forget the Mutually Assured Destruction of the Cold War was based on Game Theory, likewise the financial markets, and some even say it models society as a whole... if you believe that kind of thing

 

[Veleda.980]

Fact: All Professions close ranks to scandal that could cast mud on the integrity of the wider profession, this should be self evident.
Fact: People tend to sympathise easiest with those whom they share association.

If that were all there was to it, they would not have skewered Brad Wardell. The games media jumped on that story, which was just an accusation. Penny Arcade's graphic on their article branded it UGLY before he'd ever been proven of any wrongdoing.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/23/How-sloppy-biased-video-games-reporting-almost-destroyed-a-CEO

So what's the difference here? Answer- Brad Wardell was a white heterosexual man, a CEO. Chloe Sagal was a female indie developer, and transgendered.

This is exactly the setup we have for GamerGate, where Zoe Quinn's doxxing and DDOSing of others is glossed over if it's mentioned at all, and Anita's fraud likewise, but the white male gamer (in this case entirely fabricated out of an amalgam of angry voices) is excoriated.

The headline for the BBC article on this actually made me hopeful when I saw it: "Twitter and the poisoning of online debate", unfortunately the article swiftly puked up the usual, but i can't shake the idea twitter is core to all of this, and as a non-twitterererer it's really kind of surreal.

Twitter is no better or worse than any social media. It does force a limit of 140 characters which isn't conducive to discussion, but more is not always better.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

I can see why people like it of course, but it's not for me. I'm not looking to ban it or attack it even, just from outside it has inordinate strength, seemingly without justification

I just think it shouldn't be a driving force behind news.

 

[Unkindled]

@Veleda

But in this case more is indeed better. It's so restrictive that it's hard to even keep track of a conversation at times. That alone is frustrating, and frustrated people tend not to comment rationally. For that I'd say Twitter's one of the worst when it comes to social media, in relation to conversation and debate. I don't know that I'd say twitter is the core of all of this, but it certainly has shaped how all of this is going.

But I don't think it's for the worst. Yea Twitter is host to all sorts of ugly comments, but the benefit is it gets so much coverage on Twitter and so many links are easily shared. I can't stand Twitter for debate, but I think GG was so successful because Twitter is so easily manipulated by anyone. Even negative coverage is good because it makes people search the gamergate tags, and they'll inevitably run into the swarm of people supporting gamergate, giving links and pics. I realized my suspicion on the chatroom thing Zoe Q "infiltrated" being bullshit was correct, thanks to twitter showing the most popular GG tweet telling what exactly gamergate really was, back in early September. That's when I started getting into all this.

So I shit on Twitter as a whole, but in relation to all of this, Gamergate should really be thanking Twitter. It's one of the few places that they can combat the media and the SJW viewpoint. It's probably the only reason common people can. That's also why I agree with Brad's decision to share this scam on Twitter. You put it on Twitter, and there's nothing anyone can do to keep it from being known.

@Aes Sídhe, Twitter is the only news source out there that can probably claim to be unbiased, only because you can easily find news pieces of various points of view. As a news source, I'd say it's the best to be honest. It's the best thing about the site to me.

As for the rest, I don't really care what their reasoning is, scam's a scam. Whether the reason for hiding it was she was transgender and Brad was white or not, they were wrong. Period.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

Twitter is the only news source out there that can probably claim to be unbiased, only because you can easily find news pieces of various points of view. As a news source, I'd say it's the best to be honest. It's the best thing about the site to me.

Och all of us are biased, so Twitters full of all that accumulated bias, but it would be diverse bias, and as long as you recognise its there then the multitude of views can of course be useful.

Unbiased it is not though, "Democratic" perhaps.

 

[Garrison72]

Twitter has a magical ability to extract the worst out of people. Meanwhile, these vipers won't leave Brad Wardell the hell alone.

http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/458579/Biowares_Damion_Schubert_owes_me_an_apology

If I was a game developer I would try to keep as much distance between me and the press while still marketing the game. No wonder that Arkane dev called them 'press sneak fucks'.

 

[Unkindled]

Och all of us are biased, so Twitters full of all that accumulated bias, but it would be diverse bias, and as long as you recognise its there then the multitude of views can of course be useful.

Unbiased it is not though, "Democratic" perhaps.

That would probably be a better way to put it, I agree.

edit: I think I spoke too soon when I said I wouldn't miss twitter if it died, lol. I wasn't really thinking about GG when I said that, and also there's the Ferguson coverage. It may suck for everything else, but I think the spreading of news and giving people a voice in relation to it is more than enough reason to keep it around. Even if it does suck ass for conversation, and it's like facebook in that people comment when they fart every ten minutes.

 

[Veleda.980]

Twitter has a magical ability to extract the worst out of people. Meanwhile, these vipers won't leave Brad Wardell the hell alone.

http://www.littletinyfrogs.com/article/458579/Biowares_Damion_Schubert_owes_me_an_apology

If I was a game developer I would try to keep as much distance between me and the press while still marketing the game. No wonder that Arkane dev called them 'press sneak fucks'.

I have a theory that a lot of these game developers and commentators can't handle the fact that they're part of the entertainment industry. They came out of western academia, which teaches that western culture is decadent and depraved and bad, veryvery bad, and here they find themselves to be purveyors of its most frivolous commercial expressions. Loathing themselves, they try to find redemption by pretending that what they're really doing is social transformation. Gamers have a much healthier understanding of the medium- that it's a hobby, it's meant to be fun and to help people escape from the drudgery of everyday life for a few hours, and that's about it. When these two approaches collide, you get the self-loathing activists saying "but aren't you TRANSFORMED yet?" and gamers saying "back the fuck off, jack, I've got aliens to kill."

And the Japanese, whom I'm always ripping for their weird sexual fetishes and frothy escapist fantasies. Maybe they were right all along.

 

[Blothulfur]

"But aren't you TRANSFORMED yet?" and gamers saying:

Love to see South Park rip the SJF's apart, think as gamers they'd smell through the press's bullshit.

 

[Unkindled]

See, THIS is the kind of stuff that makes GG look bad:

https://twitter.com/AngryJoeShow/status/523585868607799296

*Heavy fucking sigh*

Doubt he'll respond to my tweets trying to explain things, but at least I tried. I really really really would hate to have Joe be anti GG.

edit: Make sure to let all the comments on top and bottom load.

Joe did make a pretty ignorant statement, but it was ignorant, not malevolent. This guy jumped the gun and accuses him of purposefully using his dead friend to make a point against gamergate when all he did was comment with his opinion on the matter with what he thought he knew. Still disappointed he said what he did, but they did him wrong.

 

[gab96]

Skip to the end, about 1:33.

I watched the whole documentary lol.

 

[Veleda.980]

It was obvious where Angry Joe was going to come out on this. He's mostly a cool guy but he's pushed some agenda driven stuff, too.

 

[Unkindled]

I never paid attention to his tweets, so I wasn't aware. Disappointed.

Still, that Brad guy was a huge giant dick regardless. Not everyone who disagrees with Gamergate is like Anita and the others. He's got so many people tweeting at him, lol. He's gonna have a hard time sorting through all of it with everyone trying to tell him about gamergate at once.

edit: I'm not the only one who didn't notice his agenda pushing apparently. There's a lot of people reacting like "huh?" With all his talk about corporations and other gaming sites giving games high undeserving ratings, to me, it seemed like he'd be a sure fired thing for Gamergate.

 

[Veleda.980]

He's made his politics clear, let me put it that way. Trying to avoid the hairy eyeball from the mods. That doesn't mean he'd come out against GamerGate, but I'm not surprised he's sympathetic with Anita Sarkeesian. His tweets to Adam Baldwin are pretty blatant.

 

[Unkindled]

Saw some today after everyone freaked out. Also saw him calling thunderf00t's vid idiotic. So that's that I guess.

As long as he doesn't start taking any dirty practices though, I'll still be watching his videos. GG is supposed to be about Journalistic corruption, so people need to start acting like it.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

Maybe this is the right place for this as it involves "journalism".

Heard about the game, "Hatred" today. Straightforward it's basically a humanity genocide simulator.

The media(overall) says it's sick, sadistic, twisted etc.. Grand Theft Auto lets you play a serial killer essentially.

"But a game like that has penalties" says a Forbes writer just to name one.

Penalties like cops, the military, and "bad guys" coming to kill you?

Cops are also trying to kill you in Hatred as well.