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IS GAMES JOURNALISM DEAD? - by Mr Biffo

19/4/2016

68 Comments

 
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Had you ever heard of Adrian Chmielarz? I hadn't until yesterday.

​He's a game developer, whose two most high-profile releases were probably The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Bulletstorm; both well regarded games.

Yesterday, Vice Gaming ran a profile on Chmielarz, and within minutes of it going up, a whole heap of nonsense started crashing down onto the site. From the response, you'd have thought it was the single worst piece of journalism in history.

It wasn't, but it was undeniably flattering towards somebody who has been blacklisted by the anti-Gamergate side, and embraced by the pros.

​That was its biggest error, and it's only an error in the context of the current climate. However, from the reaction it got, you'd think it was a puff piece about Charles Manson, which fawned over his contribution to popular music and lovely beard.

FFS
From what I can gather about the objections to Adrian Chmielarz, he has gone on the record to criticise Anita Sarkeesian's 
Feminist Frequency - particularly over her argument that The Witcher 3 was sexist, and that the series' impact is damaging to gaming. He has also suggested that not everything bad he heard about Gamergate was true.

I read a couple of 
interviews with Chmielarz, and certainly he seems to have major issue with FF... but nothing I read suggested he was overtly pro-GG, or particularly anti-feminism - though I accept that maybe I've missed the times he came out as such. I didn't agree with a lot of what he said - I think the debate about the representation of women in games is absolutely vital and valid - but he seemed pretty level headed on the whole.

At this point, you might be going "Hang on... didn't you say you weren't going to talk about Gamergate again? Why are you doing this, Mr Biffo? Why are you not doing a funny list of George Osborne's 10 Most Horrible Bodyparts?"

Yeah, I did say I was done. And then yesterday happened, and I got irritated all over again. And then I had an epiphany. Well, I say epiphany... it was a sort of dim realisation while I was having a bacon roll.
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KNOCK-KNOCK
The knock-on effect of the pressure on Vice is that the Chmielarz piece was taken down and re-edited, before being returned to the site this morning.

Editor Mike Diver clearly felt battered by the response to the piece, and has spoken this morning on Twitter about not sleeping well last night, and feeling bothered by 'being seen as a "bad" person, here. Cos I'm actually really nice, y'know!'. 

Thing is, and why I'm writing about it today, is that this is important. It demonstrates very, very clearly why Gamergate is so toxic and damaging to the games industry.

If people who work in the industry are paralysed by fear of misrepresentation, of being perceived as "bad" or "good" by the wrong side, of being labelled... and if we don't have the balls for open and objective discussion, if certain people are considered untouchable because they're a feminist, or because they're a Gamergater, or whatever... then we're screwed. Games journalism is over and done. We can't walk on eggshells, sticking only to safe subjects.

All that does is tip the games media towards a perceived bias, and fuel the conspiracy theories. 

THE ONLY WAY IS ETHICS
I don't much care about ethics in games journalism - I mean, Digi used to go on about it back in the day, but that was only because we wanted to be the ones getting freebies.

However, I do care about people not having to tie themselves in knots for fear of accidentally elbowing an amorphous mob in the face. Providing it isn't hate speech, harassment or abuse... freedom of expression, be it creative, journalistic, or artistic, is an absolute human right.

We have to be able to debate - but Gamergate (the conflict, not the side) has zero nuance, and ceased to be a debate. Its biggest achievement to date seems to be stopping people on the outside - those who might be more capable of objectivity - from debating or discussing or even mentioning anything about it. Or, it now seems, from even writing a profile on somebody who has been labelled a Gamergater.

Last week I started out trying to suggest that maybe some people aren't always helped by being helped, that some people might sometimes play the victim, and some might play the role of rescuer. And that this might not help the overall cause of your side. And that got me labelled a Gamergater, while Kotaku in Action labelled me a "neutral". Okay... Really? Okay.

I've no idea whether those labels have stuck now. Frankly, I don't care. It's hard to, when both sides are utterly incapable of seeing a bigger picture, because their focus has become so painfully myopic, like they're all walking around with a microscope strapped to their eyes.

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APPRECIATE
​I mean, after all the nonsense of last week, that 'rescuing' I spoke about even happened to me - I felt a bit like I'd spent a month cramming for an exam, but other than that nothing which happened really got under my skin.

​Yet it didn't stop lots of very lovely people offering me sympathy that I never particularly asked for.


Don't think I didn't appreciate it, if you were one of those people - I mean, it's always nice to feel cared about, and there's nothing so fragrant as the kindness of strangers - but I didn't "need" it, if you get my gist. I didn't need to be rescued. I felt a bit like KiA had tried to recruit me into Scientology, or something, and for a day or so, I wasn't sure what Gamergate was actually about. The kindness of those who reached out to me was - on those days - very much a guide through the fog.

Most importantly, though, now that I've come out the other side, I have a better understanding of what I believe.

I'm not "a neutral". I'm not a "gamergater". I'm not anything other than a dad, a son, a brother, a partner, a friend, and a bloke with a blog. I want nothing to do with your cause whether you're pro or anti. I think you all need to get a life, frankly. Get some perspective. I don't subscribe to some blind, off-the-peg, them-or-us, ideology. 

I'm all for empowering women, and hating harassment... and ethical journalism - but these are problems with all of society, not just gaming.


Unfortunately, even making that statement is apparently open to such levels of interpretation - through the jaundiced eyes of people who are capable only of putting others into one of two camps - that I appreciate it could be spun either way. That is what I take from the response to my Digi articles from last week: I'm not going to be "right" - ever - unless I come out in explicit support of one side or another. Which automatically makes me wrong to the other side. And which I am never going to do.

So why bother trying to appease people who are only ever going to see a distorted view of what I say anyway? Why bother trying to censor myself when individuals who've never met me are going to make massive assumptions about who I am, regardless of what I do or say? I don't need their approval. I'm surrounded by love in the real world.

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BREAKFAST AT EPIPHANIES
What I've realised from all this, and from what happened with Vice, is that the likes of myself have a role to play..

Digitiser2000 is completely, 100% independent. Beyond our PayPal and Patreon donors I'm accountable to nobody.

We don't have advertisers - not that I'm averse to them - and I have virtually no contact with PR people. Not that I'm averse to them either. Nobody will be scared off by me getting labelled as something considered toxic.

I'm in my mid-40s, and I've been around the block more times than I'd have liked. But it means I've got a crust of scar tissue a mile thick, and the people that matter to me know who I am. And I've come to know who I am too. 

Furthermore, I'm also not a freelance games journalist. I wrote a piece for - yes - Vice last year, and I write occasionally for Tech Radar, but that's as far as it goes for freelance games writing since Digi came back. Now that I've failed to pin my flag to the "right" side of the Gamergate debate, I've probably been blacklisted anyway. I've had my career in the games industry.

The point is... I still care about games, and the industry, and games journalism. But I've nothing to lose here. I have another job in an industry that cares as much about Gamergate as an amoeba does.  When I die, Gamergate won't even be the tiniest of footnotes in my life.

I'm not going to go on and on about it, but I was wrong to say I'm shutting up about Gamergate permanently. It's doing too much damage to be able to ignore it. If the rest of the games media is running scared, is paralysed by it, then the industry needs all the independent voices it can get. 

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
LET'S MAKE AN INDIE GAME!
REVIEW: DARK SOULS 3 (PS4/XBOX ONE/PC)

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS: A WHINGE ABOUT MODERN GAMING - BY MR BIFFO
68 Comments
Keith
19/4/2016 12:47:51 pm

The way I'm coming to see GamerGate (the conflict) is this; despite its perception, still, of being a niche interest, gaming is a very, very broad interest, and people can and do dip into gaming and take what they want from it, or spend every waking hour gaming, or somewhere in between.
Most of us are only interested in whether a game is playable, fun, value for money, and maybe if it looks good too. Being a bit more political about it is fine, whether that be being vocal about objectification of game characters/opportunities for females in game design, or whether you're adamant that there's no harm in the exposed flesh of video game females or whatever.

But somehow, the Gamergate thing has gained such attention that it's kind of impossible to talk about games at length without needing to have a stance for some reason. When it gets discussed, my inclination is to side with the antiGG side, but if I'm honest, despite identifying as a feminist, I just don't care enough about this issue. It feels like being forced to have an opinion about Wayne Rooney while being an Orient fan.
I guess that's why I've kind of responded a bit negatively to your posts on Gamergate over the last few weeks - I've not agreed with everything y9uve said on it, though you've deffo changed my mind on some of it, but overall I guess my point is that you don't have a responsibility to get involved - not to say you can't or shouldn't. Just that digitiser is of itself a bit of a haven of decency, a sense of proportion, a recognition of the place gaming has (I'm guessing most of us have grown up with digitiser, and personally speaking the way you write about finding time to play games, or whether a game is worth investing time in, is something lacking from reviews where the reviewer doesn't seem to truly understand the sacrifices to invest time in a game)
Unfortunately GG just seems to polarise, to the extent that whatever stance you have, won't be enough for some and will be seen as a betrayal for someone else.

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Darcy
19/4/2016 01:02:09 pm

Some of the music journo stories I've heard about what goes on behind the scenes makes all this Gamergate stuff look hilariously tame.

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MrPSB
19/4/2016 01:04:15 pm

I know last week I said it was my final fannies, but this story has forced my hand:

Fannies.

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David W
19/4/2016 01:14:53 pm

Final Fannies II.

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Euphemia
19/4/2016 01:20:51 pm

What's the Cable of Objectivity? Sounds painful.

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Mr Biffo
19/4/2016 01:22:13 pm

I think I laid one of those this morning.

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Mr Biffo
19/4/2016 01:24:00 pm

PS. Pfffft. Thanks a bunch for making me re-read the article to find the typo, guy!

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Euphemia
19/4/2016 01:36:45 pm

Anytime! And in no way did it ruin my enjoyment of another quality article. Fannies indeed.

Da5e
19/4/2016 01:27:45 pm

The phrase 'dance-off' makes me want to hurt people. Unless you're Jason Nevins, stop using it.

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Clive Peppard
19/4/2016 01:32:20 pm

I didnt say last week I'd stop calling both sides of the debate dicks.

They're all dicks.

"I'm not "a neutral". I'm not a "gamergater". I'm not anything other than a dad, a son, a brother, a partner, a friend, and a bloke with a blog. I want nothing to do with your cause whether you're pro or anti. I think you all need to get a life, frankly. Get some perspective. I don't subscribe to some blind, off-the-peg, them-or-us, ideology."

I dont have a blog but other than that this is the perfect summation of where i am with this issue.

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Col. Asdasd
19/4/2016 01:48:56 pm

Hm. I think I do get the point you're making here. But I wonder whether it isn't time to move on from recapitulating your position and put it into effect.

Forgive me if this sounds rude: if your arms-length independence is only as valuable as your ability to comment on the meta-conflict whenever these flash points occur, and steadfastly refuse to take sides, are you really contributing anything of value?

I'd rather you were discussing the Adrian Chmielarzeses of this world, exercising that independence you talk about to give us that third-way, uncompromised perspective, rather than taking another opportunity to roll your eyes at the culture war.

And in your defence, I've seen you do exactly that on many occasions in the past, on a whole range of topics, albeit at a time when you were perhaps more blissfully unaware of the larger conflict raging around you.

I subbed to your patreon for this exact reason: I could tell right away you were an independent voice in a games community that was increasingly coalescing around a single hymn sheet. And I say that as someone resolutely unconvinced by some (if not most) of the GG camps' arguments, and someone who has loved following the work of many prominent games media journos for actual decades.

So... keep up the good work! More think pieces please.

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william
19/4/2016 09:25:06 pm

What exactly are the GG camps arguments and where have they been published outside of message boards? Considering the barrels of ink printed against it, where have you gotten your information from?

Mr. Biffo you keep making the mistake of saying that there are two sides in this: "pro" and "anti". There are others:

-third party trolls
-the games press
-the mainstream press
-opportunistic activists

Of these, the mainstream press bears the majority of responsibility for the current climate. The entire issue is a complete mess simply because GG can not be discussed without knowing the facts. And the facts have yet to be publicly established. You have been lied to by some of the "most trusted" institutions of the media.

P.S. Chmielarz like many other developers (many anonymously) has been proGG for a long time. They are never interviewed and when they are...this still happens.

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Dan de la peche
19/4/2016 03:22:38 pm

In Titanfall, the best new game that is out, you can choose from three robots, each have different strengths and weaknesses.

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SeaLoin
19/4/2016 03:28:18 pm

I don't understand your issue with being labeled neutral. Perhaps you don't get what it means for the GG side.

It doesn't mean anybody 'on the GG side' thinks you are particularly wrong in what you say. There are many respected neutrals, some of the most 'loved' figures in GG are labeled neutrals, Adrian Chmielarz for one, Total Biscuit for another.

It speaks of your own belief of not being a gamergater and wishing to engage both sides. We try to respect people's own stance.

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Sealoin
19/4/2016 03:42:46 pm

cont'd (for clarity)

The reason why people were stating 'he is a neutral', was a signal of: "He is not smearing us or attacking us with hitpieces as usual, stand down".

It was not: "He is not supporting us, throw him in the pit".

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Mr Biffo
19/4/2016 03:59:47 pm

No, I get that, and appreciated it. I think I just came to see it as another label, when I saw myself lumped in with other "neutrals", as if we might all have a similar set of views.

Sealoin
19/4/2016 04:07:42 pm

It speaks nothing of your views, just means that you are not one of the people who joined the group of 'activist' people trying to harm us, or trying to help us. Your political positioning?

It is the sad state of affairs, when neutrality has nothing to do with your opinion and everything to do with if you are engaged in a campaign of some form.

Mr Biffo
19/4/2016 04:11:31 pm

Yep.

Bananadage
19/4/2016 07:07:06 pm

Yeah, neutral's just a shorthand way to say "Has explicitly said they don't want to identify as an active supporter, but also hasn't lied about or outright dismissed all the complaints that became labeled Gamergate". It's kind of a mouthful in the long form, so it makes sense that it gets shortened, especially given the number of people that fall inside those two broad brackets.

Which is also why it kinda grates to see a blanket accusation that both groups outside of that description have the same myopic view of only seeing two sides, after explicitly being recognized as part of a larger third party by the majority of KiA goers.

bob bobberts
19/4/2016 08:35:08 pm

The issue is that to one side "being neutral" is as bad as being on the other side. It's either you're against the "non-stop-harassment-movement of #GamerGate" or you're explicitly supporting it by doing nothing. You *must* be an activist for the *right* side or you're irredeemably on the wrong side of history and a target.

That's really what the phrase "thrown them in the pit w/ the rest of them" is about.

Sorry, but you missed your chance and have not 100% capitulated to their ideology or world view; you're not an ally so you're an enemy.

isolar
19/4/2016 04:17:00 pm

It would appear that all media is subject to political tribalism at some point.

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SupperFeast8pm
19/4/2016 04:19:37 pm

I don't have anything of value to say, I just saw the comments rolling in and I love to participate! Hi guys!

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Dr Kank
19/4/2016 04:32:42 pm

After reading this I'm half expecting a top 11 list of "neutrals" to appear, including Switzerland during the Second World War and the PH level of 7.

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Mr Biffo
19/4/2016 04:51:55 pm

Excellent suggestion.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
19/4/2016 09:12:02 pm

Don't forget the gearbox position. That's an important neutral.

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The Colour of Heartache
19/4/2016 04:35:43 pm

On the whole I liked the post, but I think you made a factual error in one section. Specifically:

"Thing is, and why I'm writing about it today, is that this is important. It demonstrates very, very clearly why Gamergate is so toxic and damaging to the games industry."

I think you were wrong to link this toxicity to Gamergate; it predates August 2014.

To illustrate the point, try and find any criticisms of Anita Sarkesian from games journalism. Reasonable criticisms from outside of the journalism-sphere exist. Such as KiteTale's wonderful "More Than a Damsel". But journalists didn't even acknowledge those criticisms let alone contribute their own.

The ideological blinders were broader than the work of one woman, but this makes a good way to illustrate the issue.

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Pikachu In The Shower
19/4/2016 04:42:49 pm

So much this. Large parts of the gaming media uncritically parrot Anita's claims and allegations and it seems that no-one wants to point out that there are many people who dispute her and have debunked the content of her videos.

This line, from the Vice article is very telling. If we're at the point where criticizing Anita can get one 'cold shouldered' by the gaming press, then something is very wrong indeed.

>> Chmielarz also has no qualms about flirting with controversy, using #gamergate on Twitter and criticising popular figures like Sarkeesian knowing full well how it could see him cold-shouldered by the media he needs to support his studio's work.

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gg number 9
19/4/2016 07:37:20 pm

This. In Canada feminists they went after a kid for having made a 'punch Anita in the Face' game (he had also made a hit Jack Thompson game), and got Gregori Elliot arrested just for disagreeing with them.

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Euphemia
19/4/2016 08:24:27 pm

Oh yeah, a kid getting some heat for his shtity actions is the worst part of that whole story. Canada IS the worst!

Cole Pram
19/4/2016 04:41:00 pm

"Yeah, I did say I was done. And then yesterday happened, and I got irritated all over again."

Welcome to every other day of the last year and a half of my life. Every time I think, "Yeah, I'm done. Crazy people are going to crazy. I just want to play some video games.", I make the mistake of looking at twitter and I get sucked right back in.

I'd just get rid of twitter... but I really love the drama. I think I'm addicted.

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Superbeast 37
19/4/2016 04:44:16 pm

You cant really be neutral, unless being neutral involves putting your head in the sand.

On the one hand you can support the freedom of artists to produce what they like (within the laws created by elected representatives) and the freedom of consumers to decide via their wallets which ideas are successful and become common place and which ideas aren't popular and become niche.

If you support that option you have to accept whatever outcome attracts the disposable income and if 50% of games aren't about people who identify as attack helicopters working in an animal sanctuary then you have to live with the fact that it wasn't the consumers first choice for their hard earned cash.

The other option is that you support attempting to manipulate the outcome to one of your choosing. An outcome determined by a minority (if it were a majority, the market would already have delivered it) and forced upon the mass market by pressurising artists to produce compliant material and controlling information/publicity about products via press activism or petitioning retailers to remove non-approved products from shelves.

That's up to you. Forget all the tags like "SJW" or "GG". It's either entirely free, unmolested and down to consumer choice/artistic freedom, or you have unelected someone(s) trying to shape it to their specific views/desires.

Note that there are multiple examples of people that identify with both of those tags attempting to manipulate outcomes. You either support such behaviour or not, extremists from both sides of the spectrum are attempting it.

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Picston Shottle
19/4/2016 04:51:09 pm

The only GG debate I have followed is woefully one sided, and that side is right here on Digi. And ya know, I could care less about it. It's a boring, non-topic. I love games, I really, really do, and I have been playing them for the past 35 years so, ya know, I'm a lifer. But fuck me, GG, from what I can ascertain from your overtly biased opinions, Biffo [wish you could do italics in the comments to stress irony here...] is that it impacts me this much: zero. I will still play and love a game irrespective of the ethics of it. Do I like Roman Polanski movies? Yeah, some are pretty good, but he's a paedo! Am I supposed to feel guilty for liking those movies? Same with games - do the ethics of it really matter? Really? It's a business. Business is unethical by its very nature. It exists to make money. It's not art. It's capitalism. It's a money making machine. And as such it is staffed and run by people who have mortgages and car payments and kids and different world views, just like the movie business. So ya, know, live and let live and move on and go drink a Starbucks whilst having a think about the ethics of the coffee growing, global supply chain and fast food industries, because they are sexist/racist/homphobic too, because some of the people working in those industries are.

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Superbeast 37
19/4/2016 06:17:59 pm

You "live and let live" until one day you want to buy a Roman Polanski movie on the new 4K Blu Ray format or whatever and find you can't because whilst not banned under any law, someone (with the full support and weight of the movie press) wrote to all the retailers and streaming distributors claiming that selling such a product was offensive, threatened to do PR damage to those retailers by running a Twitter harassment campaign saying "company X supports paedo's" and the companies PR depts panicked and pulled it from the shelves/catalogues.

Do you care then?

At what point do you care? What has to be taken away?

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Ganapan
20/4/2016 04:04:49 pm

the fault still lies on the retailer.

Minglefingler
19/4/2016 04:55:00 pm

I feel if this continues then all of the gaters and anti-gaters may unite against a common foe, namely that terrible bastard Mr Biffo. It'll be just like that time Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood overcame their insurmountable differences to shoot guns at Lee Van Cleef. I imagine decades from now a wizened old couple telling their grandchildren tales of forum battles long forgotten by most. Comrades lost, friendships forged in flame. "And then Biffo called us wankers on his site and we realised that we had to stand together or perish apart." They smile and hold hands, a former crusader for ethics in videogame journalism and his wife, her past betrayed only by the faded ink of a tattoo on her wrist that reads "SJW." Is this your plan Biffo? Save the world by accepting its burdens?

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Nick the Gent link
19/4/2016 06:02:43 pm

Excellent points, but if Mr. Biffo is Clint, then which of the other sides are "the bad" and "the ugly".

Probably best not to go down this route...

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Ninj
19/4/2016 08:49:41 pm

Or by accepting its sins - Biff as Christ analog.

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Mr Lion
19/4/2016 04:57:41 pm

You'd be surprised by how many people who identify as GG also started by identifying as neutral.

On KiA there's entire threads about people getting banned from forums such as NeoGAF for simply expressing a view as mild as yours here. When you get smeared and condemned (as Chmielarz has been) as all manner of evil simply for disagreeing with a certain view, it annoys you. And when you see media outlets like Vice capitulating to similar pressure, it angers you.

If you love anything in life, there's nothing wrong with standing against something you feel is harming it. It's simply passion - the same passion that motivates you to write Digi - and we're both as valid/pointless as the other.

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Ruben Plooster
19/4/2016 05:02:20 pm

There is no debate, there never was any debate, there never even was a chance at debate.
The complete shutdown of any discussion on most gaming forums was the greatest tactical mistake possible. It 'proved' collusion, created echo chambers and forced a "with us or against us" sentiment to take hold.
And with only one side having access to the media, a narrative was created which, in turn, entrenched people even deeper within their side.

In my opinion, the fault for this lies completely by the gaming press itself. Not "SJWs" or the "Anti-ggs", they are free to their opinion and to spread it as far and wide in whatever medium they wish, but the guys in charge who dropped a massive ball with their PR failure, lack of knowledge about the internet, lack of knowledge about their consumers and an eagerness to be political about everything.

I wish you luck in finding a trench of your liking, for the stress of being in the crossfire has burned out many a bright light.

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Damon
19/4/2016 05:15:40 pm

Are you planning to try and form a third 'shut the fuck up and listen for a goddamn minute or so help me' side to the argument?

If you decide you want help with that guy me up.

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Matty
19/4/2016 05:42:33 pm

Something I find hard to take about the whole "ethic in journalism" angle is why that suddenly, apparently matters so much now in the age of the internet where anyone can be a critic. That's an argument, an issue that should have been had twenty or even thirty years ago when journalists and the gaming press had much much larger sway over game-buyers decisions. These days, game journalists just don't matter as much because there's so much other noise out there. Anyone can give me their opinion on shooty bang-bang (tm) on Steam. In 1991, I'd have had my pick of a handful of paid journalists on an even smaller handful of magazines. That's an environment that was ripe for corruption, much more than today.

What are these journalism "ethics" GG'ers are so heat up about? Whenever I wander into a GG thread I just see a load of politics, very Americanised and *very* tribal politics. I read a lot about "feminism" a bit of clumsy half-baked stuff about "market forces", not much about journalistic ethics. Ice-cream head from the Tory Breitbart site seems to see GG as a recruitment ground. What has that to do with "ethics in journalism"?

See, I think this is about politics and about identity. With the "SJW" side, that's undoubtably the case too but they're straight-up about it.

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Twei Lim Lou
19/4/2016 06:52:40 pm

if you see no ethical concerns and that there havent been any updates to ethics then you have been ignorant (not an insult, we all cannot know everything) or misinformed and or the media didnt want to report on it



https://youtu.be/PgOnyIt9_ic

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william
19/4/2016 09:44:38 pm

GG is ridiculously complicated at this point so I completely understand your disinterest and confusion. (One remarkable thing is that you have left, right and the apolitical from around the world working together on something that was so initially mundane.) I would really recommend you read the Steven Wittens essay in the KIA sidebar if you want to be bothered.

https://acko.net/blog/occupy-www-street-en/

Precious little of what has been written about GG in the press reflects reality. This is why it continues to grow.

The reporting on GG has been an unprecedented disaster and trust me, you do not want to see behind the curtain. Your respect for the mainstream press would fall off a cliff. This is an almost universal sentiment of those wading through this muck.

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Shinku
19/4/2016 06:00:50 pm

>"I'm not "a neutral"
>. I want nothing to do with your cause whether you're pro or anti. I think you all need to get a life, frankly. Get some perspective. I don't subscribe to some blind, off-the-peg, them-or-us, ideology.

what would you call that, but a a neutral? you're literally neutral to the whole debacle.

that aside i agree and disagree with you, the world doesn't need independent journos, it needs good ones, ethical ones. both for gaming and out of it

and just for fun:
>if we don't have the balls for open and objective discussion
>have the balls
MISOGINY! MISOGINY I SAY!

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Mr Biffo
19/4/2016 06:10:16 pm

I think it's because "neutral" implies I have some sort of investment in the issue, even if it's a neutral stance. In all honesty, I wouldn't even be giving it the time of day if I didn't have a blog to write.

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Mr Lion
19/4/2016 06:58:01 pm

...which means you do have an investment in it, albeit a cynical one, of having to create content.

However, this isn't a very sound foundation on which to ride a high horse of being above it all. You're dismissing people who care about an issue, while admitting you're motivated by self-interest. That's not really a principled position.

If you're writing articles about something, you're taking part in a conversation surrounding it. To then say "I don't really care about the people or issues contained" is either disingenuous or nakedly cynical. Neither of which are good looks.

Greg
19/4/2016 06:22:01 pm

GG, from the broadest perspective, is about cultural gentrification, if you will. As a 90's kid who grew up playing Doom, Mortal Kombat etc, I remember clearly those who lost their minds over those games at that time. Here in my country, they were the Reagan "silent majority" types (i.e. Christian, Middle-America etc etc), and it was all in the pursuit of their own version of cultural gentrification.

Today, it's ironic to see the contemporary left take up the same gentrification project. For those who espouse any number of catch phrases about freedom of speech, artistic expression, gender roles/stereotypes, the ultimate goal seems to be a horribly boring hegemony.

One of the most telling things, at least to me, was the interview the Binding of Isaac/ SMB creator Edmumd McMillen gave, where he talked about his surprise that Isaac especially didn't raise any righteous ire from the religious right, but rather it was "people from my side of the fence" who have criticized his work in recent years, and attempted to tell him what forms his personal, artistic expression should take.

I'm probably more pro GG than anti, but to me, the important issue here is protecting the unique cultures of gaming and the internet. Games are likely the only major form of entertainment media in which the gatekeeper forces can be (relatively easily) overcome. The fact that DOTA 2 or CSGO are some of the most popular games in the world to this day, and that they were audience created, is something precious and beautiful that needs to be preserved.

If either the Christian Right of my childhood had succeeded, or the contemporary crowd of anti-GG succeed, this amazing culture of ours would likely be boring beyond compare (a look at the AAA corporate titles of recent years is probably a good preview of that outcome...)

I, for one, am thankful that Mr Biffo still likes to share his thoughts about the situation, because what both sides really probably need are third parties lobbing criticisms at both of them from the outside. Keep up the good work!

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Matty
19/4/2016 06:38:27 pm

"GG, from the broadest perspective, is about cultural gentrification, if you will. As a 90's kid who grew up playing Doom, Mortal Kombat etc, I remember clearly those who lost their minds over those games at that time. Here in my country, they were the Reagan "silent majority" types (i.e. Christian, Middle-America etc etc), and it was all in the pursuit of their own version of cultural gentrification. "

That reminds me of my own idle theory that political correctness was invented by the Victorians who basically tried (and failed) to impose a "taste" on their world (i.e. a conservative, protestant-Christian social and imperial ideology married to a laissez-faire economic ideology). The Victorians weren't really sexless prudes who banged on about everything being "improving", that's just the world their ruling class was trying to create.

The problem with GG, though, is it reacts angrily to anything it conceives as a political threat, as we saw with the response to *a single line of NPC dialogue and a single joke* in the recent Balders' Gate expansion. Ultimately, they want to impose their visions and their taste on the "enemy", the very thing they pretend to be fighting.

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Greg
19/4/2016 07:08:55 pm

Interesting idea on the Victorians, although I'd put that more on the drive towards universalism that seems to be a default function of Christianity (and Islam).

As far as the Baldurs Gate thing goes, it's a tough call on either side. I understand the sentiment of "why go out of your way to include such a character", esp in such a beloved a franchise. Or more simply put, if it aint broke, don't fix it.

Conversely, as you mentioned, it is literally one line of dialogue from an NPC in a franchise known for its sheer size and depth. Are GGer's attempting to impose their vision on others? Maybe. But, for as long as I've been around the situation (and I was aware of it very early on), I've always had the impression that most of GG feels that games just need to be left alone for the most part, and that their consumption of this form of entertainment media doesn't mean they're automatically misogynist, racist, bigots or any other term you'd like to use.

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Kendall9000
20/4/2016 02:46:56 am

As stupid and embarrassing as some of that behaviour was, it took a bit more than "a single line of NPC dialogue and a single joke" to stir up that overreaction.

To me the comments about the original Baldur's Gate being sexist were more than a bit daft, as were the significant changes to Safana's "problematic" character in the expansion. OK, so Safana didn't actually have much of a character in BG1, but then most of the NPCs in that game were shallow to the point of caricature.

Misogynistic anti-feminist GG asshole that I am, I couldn't really see why Safana using sex to manipulate people into helping her was more sexist against women than e.g. sleazy Eldoth's manipulative user sleaziness was sexist against men.

The idea that Jaheira's a sexist character because her behaviour's occasionally played for laughs struck me as particularly ridiculous. They might as well condemn Minsc as an ableist portrayal of the mentally ill.

It's one of the things that bugs me about the complaints from Anita Sarkeesian and palls - their idea of an acceptable female character is strangely narrow. Men can be jerks, womanisers, violent, etc. while a female character is a sexist trope if she's too masculine (men with boobs as Sarkeesian puts it), too feminine, too sexual, too dominant (e.g. Jaheira as a stereotypical "nagging wife"), or imperfectly feminist in one way or another.

To me that actually looks very restrictive - a restriction that writers of male characters don't have to worry about.

Of course the writers of the BG expansion have every right to create what they want, just like the rest of us have a right to bitch and moan about it on the internet.

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Gigapurin
19/4/2016 06:42:47 pm

So, you publish articles on GG, then waste perfectly good electrons trying to convince people you're not invested in the slightest. Can't make that stick even with Gaylord® White pH Neutral Adhesive (feel free to add that to the list). "Neutral" is far from the worst label you could end up with, just saying.

But hey, at least you don't have to deal with your industry peers flinging mud and shit at each other over some grade school level narrative. Oh, wait...

Anyway, it would be fabulous if we could just let this die, and get back to making games. Yet it puzzles me why this so called gaming "journalism" isn't dead yet, despite consistently sticking the finger to their audience.

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CHOCOLATE BUMDROPS
19/4/2016 07:01:51 pm

WHY IS THIS CARROT NOT A BUMDROP? I SELF-IDENTIFY AS A BUMDROP. WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GET THE MAINSTREAM CARROT PRESS WRITING WITH A TRUE CENTRIST BUMDROP BIAS?

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Gigapurin
19/4/2016 07:08:06 pm

Thank you for this :).

Twei Lim Lou
19/4/2016 06:49:51 pm

That is called neutral... and or indifferent and or no real interest


I am a gamer, lowly worker, atheist, feminist, liberal, secular, humanist, for equality, for green, for life, against scammers, against cults, against scientology, against pseudo science, against pseudo speak, against anti vaxxersm against extremists like eco terrorists and etc.

I am for gamergate I am mostly against what people are for on political extremes and right.

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Operative G
19/4/2016 06:53:04 pm

You're absolutely right about publications not wanting to be perceived as the bad guy. However, you've got to realize that before GamerGate, that was still happening, but there was only one "side" to it, with many (particularly clickbait) sites also claiming that side. With any luck the creation of two sides to the situation will mean that maybe people will stop worrying so much about being perceived as good and start worrying about being accurate or true. Or maybe some people will take advantage of the drama to try to milk views out of it. I don't know.

Regardless, you're entitled to your opinion. Cheers!

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Gumbo
19/4/2016 07:15:19 pm

The thing you're missing, Mr Biffo, is that the toxicity is coming from primarily one group of people, and that group is not GG.

GG aren't demanding entire profiles of game developers are changed to be more critical just because of who that dev likes or does not like.

GG don't apply ideological purity tests to people before they're allowed to publish articles.

Even the Baldur's Gate kerfuffle someone mentioned above had GGp primarily complaining about the insertion of someone else's politics into a game, regardless of the bullshit narrative spun after the fact.

One side is all about injecting their politics where it is not wanted, and the other is not. One side says "neutral" as though it were an epithet, and the other as if it were a blessed nirvana sadly denied them.

Saying "both sides are just as bad" is not just missing the point, it's actively insulting to the people on the side that have behaved far, far better - if only because every misstep they make and every lunatic that claims their name is trumpeted as "proof" of their evil.

I don't begrudge your neutrality, but I ask that you look at the problem as what it actually is. I pretty much entirely agree that GG misses the point a lot of the time - but does that actually matter when their opposition are the problem in a nutshell?

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Paulvw
19/4/2016 09:16:29 pm

Bananas or Pyjamas, only you can decide!

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Suspect
19/4/2016 09:22:30 pm

Out of interest, do you write these articles to get clicks or do you really, truthfully care about the subject?

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william
19/4/2016 10:48:38 pm

GG is a lie that has be spun out of control by the confirmation bias of the press. So out of control that journalists have to twist facts or defend the indefensible less their original reporting is revealed as shoddy.

The people supporting GG would just like the public to know the truth so no one else can be a victim of this vicious slander and trolls can no longer have easy targets. We ask for nothing else.

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Mrtankthreat
19/4/2016 11:09:47 pm

Biffo, the gaming press has been dead for years. The thing that amazes me the most about gamergate is, if it really is about ethics in games journalism, why so many people actually care. Games journalism is pretty much useless (the fact your site, is and digi on the teletext was,about games is incidental to my mind, I'm here for the humour) and it always has been. Any kind of press that tries to discuss subjective material such as music and movies is also useless. Why did people get so upset? If the gaming press or the movie press to the music press all closed tomorrow would people stop making games or music or movies? Would anyone think we were missing anything? So long as Biffo is still compiling insane lists and making terrible man's daddy jokes I'll be happy.

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Anymoose
20/4/2016 01:18:16 am

I've given you the benefit of the doubt in your previous articles about whether you were approaching this whole thing from an angle based on ideology and while your writing past that test, I see know that I was very mistaken.
I should have been wary not of your motives, but rather your intelligence. I see now that you, my friend, are fucking retarded. Gamergate(the conflict, not the side) is not the reason that Vice took a bunch of shit for their profile on Chmielarz. The profile was edited because hacks driven by identity politics gonna hack. The whole hashtag is a push against members of the gaming press inserting their ideology into their work, not the cause of it.

Did gamergate build a time machine and get these Identity Politicians to force that rocket scientist to cry on national tv because of his shirt? No. That'd be stupid, just like you. Did gamergate make the gaming press go nuts because that one Assassin's creed game didn't have a playable female character before gamergate started? No. That's what ideologically driven hacks do. Are you fucking high? Maybe you're having a stroke and should consult your doctor because there is no rational reason anyone would even think that this bullshit started with gamergate. I worry about you. Get yourself checked out.

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Lindsay
20/4/2016 02:37:17 am

"Did gamergate build a time machine and get these Identity Politicians to force that rocket scientist to cry on national tv because of his shirt? No."

Is this some kind of inwards-punching performance art? I presume we are talking about Dr Matt Taylor, whose mentions were inundated with misognyist abuse directed at a teacher who tweeted him that his shirt made for awkward viewing in a classroom context, a couple of months after a millionaire spawned the GG hashtag whilst signal-boosting videos about a woman's sex life?

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Kendall9000
20/4/2016 02:59:48 am

Matt Taylor's mentions were also inundated by people who didn't know anything about him, but attacked him as a misogynistic scumbag because of a shirt made by a female friend of his.

That includes people who refused to accept the apology he gave, made it clear that they enjoyed seeing him upset over it, and were calling for him to be punished, even lose his job.

Don't pretend that the "social justice" side doesn't have its own share of abusers, trolls, and general purpose arseholes...

Lindsay
20/4/2016 11:26:57 am

Considering that for several years the trolls and Nazis of /pol/ have been passing their days running "ops" in which they create "deep cover" accounts to pass as "SJWs" and make mischief, it doesn't surprise me at all. And for this harassment to occur whilst a sustained harassment campaign is on the rise, with major flashpoints in and on the periphery of this toxic 'troll provocateur' culture… hmm.

It'll be difficult to prove anything, of course, because so many of these burner accounts, with their clumsy attempts to chameleon the language of progressives, simply get closed down. Why, when I was asked to show GG's contact with myself, it was impossible, as pretty much my entire block list was of deleted accounts.

Kendall9000
20/4/2016 08:40:17 pm

And how do you know that those people on /pol/ aren't really deep cover SJWs pretending to be Nazi trolls pretending to be SJWs?

Anyway, there were plenty of people raging at Matt Taylor who weren't random anonymous burner accounts. Some pretty prominent and well known progressive/feminist academic/activist types lost their shit over that shirt. That includes people who knee-jerk declared him a misogynist, accused him of wearing the shirt as some kind of deliberate attack on women in STEM, and thought that he should receive official punishment for doing so.

It's similar to the overreaction and misrepresentation of Tim Hunt back when he supposedly made sexist comments in a speech. There may have been some shit-stirring trolls, but most of the people driving that kerfuffle were identifiably true believers. Of course there were also plenty of articles in the mainstream press condemning him without finding out the true story.

Sorry, but you can't blame all that craziness on trolling provocateurs from the opposing team.

combat_honey
20/4/2016 11:18:38 am

'I'm [...] a [...] Gamergater'.

'I'm all for [...] harassment'.

So there you have it, folks. Biffo explicitly pins his banners to the support of the Gamergate harrassers and doxxers. Truly a sad day.

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Off-Brim
20/4/2016 04:38:26 pm

I created this post to show that I don't care about Digitiser2000 and Mr Biffo. The best way to express my utter disinterest in this subject is not through not posting anything on the topic. The best way to show that I find this website and the opinions to be a waste of time is through taking time to post this comment. I will post another comment tomorrow to remind you how uninteresting this whole thing is to me. I will make another post after that reiterating my complete disinterest in this website.

Reply
Off-Brim
21/4/2016 08:39:45 pm

I still don't care about this subject or Mr Biffo.

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