What most of us would understand “ethics in gaming journalism” to mean is that game journalists shouldn’t accept bribes in exchange for favorable reviews. That’s clearly not what the Gamergaters have in mind, or they wouldn’t keep targetting Ben Kuchera. Consider these two articles he wrote for Ars Technica:
The first is a very harsh review of Duke Nukem Forever which, among other things, describes at length how the game objectifies women and veers into rank misogyny. The second details the threats of repercussions Ars Technica received, and goes on to explain that this was unusual only in that it was public, and how threats of such repercussions are used to control game reviews. This wasn’t the first time that Kuchera had made a point of explaining what goes on behind the scenes in game journalism.
So, Ben Kuchera has a history of critiquing sexism in games, and he has a history of criticising game PR firms for intimidation and bribery. If Gamergate was really about “ethics in game journalism”, Kuchera would be a hero to them. Instead, he’s one of their most hated foes.
And if your goal is to change the internet hate machine, you stuff it full of shit until it bursts open and we can finally get some wolves in to feast on its putrescent carcass.
Yeah, people would say the same thing about the BS-capacity of, I dunno, slavery apologists or racist dickweasels. The goal ain’t perfection, it’s just progress. A better world doesn’t happen when people shut up and bear their pain, it only happens when people talk about it and make it not OK to inflict that pain.
Now, how do you get enough people to talk to matter (without alienating the silent/unknowing/uncaring majority)? See my tempest-in-a-teacup post earlier. With one exception, nobody from my rl friends has any idea about the GG brouhaha.
Depends on your people, o’course. Presuming you sometimes chat about video games, starting with some of the poins Sarkeesian raises in her videos ain’t bad. Chatting about games, mention how weird it is how many of them have princesses in castles for boys to rescue and isn’t that kind of messed up? And isn’t is even more messed up how this lady that talked about that in an online video got rape threats for talking about it? And wouldn’t it be kind of interesting to see a game about a princess who saves her own skin?
What about procedural generations of the 3d models of the characters, so modding/changing is much easier? Lobbying for easier and possibly directly vendor-supported modkits? More accessible, easier-to-work-with dev tools (Unity, perhaps?) and supporting frameworks?
So people wouldn’t have to just talk about what they would want to see but could sit down and actually MAKE it (or take something existing and mod it)?
Plus there’s the potential for low-cost machinima movies. The game animation engines are getting better year by year.
Of course 90% of everything is crap so you’ll get a load of crap games/movies. But by making 100 times more you will get 100 times of the 10% of the good ones. And as this rule is recursive, you can end up with a few gems.
The phrasing of the last part bugs me - she’s entitled to sympathy, but to my mind the point’s that she is NOT thus entitled to immunity to simultaneous criticism for being part of a group, and likewise the group isn’t entitled to use her as a shield to cover their actions.
But maybe I’m simply a little too sympathetic sometimes.
That’s what baffles me - if they’d explicitly said “The gamers barking the Five Guys and Quinnspiracy shit are harassing shitheads”, I sincerely doubt that the situation would be of any substantial difference.
