On the contrary, I think it’s awesome when you eventually encounter a female gamer. Very rare, but in every encounter I’ve had, they are some of the coolest people to play with. Probably some of the most mature people I’ve gamed with.
In pen and paper gaming, I’ve only ever been in one group (my first, in college) that did not have females in it. Every group since has been better, with a significantly higher quality of discourse.
Back when we used to play Halo 2 on XBox Live together, it never failed that after a good deathmatch, I would get a friend request or two and Sunbeam would get seven or eight.
It seems that Kyle Orland at ARS is also addressing the issue: Addressing allegations of “collusion” among gaming journalists. This has something to do with a post he wrote on a private group of gaming journalists that he created.
I read the article on Breitbart. I can see this point from both directions. According to the people looking for fault, it’s a secret place for massaging the message, and according to the people who use it it’s a place to hang out with your hair down.
The claims of a diverse membership fall a bit short though. So it is an echo chamber, or at least appears to have been in this case, doesn’t help that so many articles have come out since this started hitting the same topics in very short time periods so it looked like there was collusion before this was even mentioned.
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I didn’t read the Breibart article but I can see your point from both directions.
It definitely doesn’t help that the Breitbart piece reads like parody. SEE THE GAMING ELITE AND THEIR SECRET CHAT ROOM WHERE THEY CONTROL THE INDUSTRY!
But on the other hand, the appearance of impropriety can often be as damning as actual impropriety. As Kyle noted in the piece, Ars mgmt was unaware of the google group (and no one ever invited me to be a member, either).
The idea that journalists that cover similar topics don’t watercooler-talk is a little nutty—they definitely do. I’m a I don’t self-identify as a “journalist” even though I guess I sort of am one, but I absolutely talk all the time with reviews editing folks from Wirecutter, Tested, and probably a dozen other publications. We don’t “collude,” but we do swap PR contact numbers and other stuff like that. We’re competitors, but it’s a small world, and the person you’re competing with one week might be the person you’re working for the next (especially for freelancers).
In any case, Breitbart paints a hysterical crazy picture of hysterical craziness—not surprising, considering that’s their mandate.
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At least Kyle realized he made a mistake with one of his posts and made an apology. As a gamer, I do enjoy reading his articles at Ars.
Kyle’s a good egg. I roomed with him at PAX East a few months ago and he didn’t molest me in my sleep. At least, I’m pretty sure he didn’t.
(Seriously, all of the Ars folks are awesome, but Kyle in particular is a just a genuinely great guy!)
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It’s always a good thing when the guy your sharing a room with doesn’t molest you, but that’s just my opinion. 
Except for the fact that it looks like just that. Whether it is or not is another question. But Breitbart is the same group that found the Journolist that got so many people in trouble in 2010 showing how the press massaged Obama’s campaign through agreements made on that mailing list. So I guess they have preconceived problems with private lists like this.
I’d be curious if the Forbes writer, or anyone from WSJ is on there. I can point to plenty of left leaning gaming publications, that appear to be really pissing off their readers, but I can’t really name any right leaning ones except individual blogs. Probably a market for a publication that doesn’t preach that most of its readers are troglodytes.
Don’t get me wrong, there doesn’t have to be any bad intent for this to be a bad thing. Imagine if all 9 members of the supreme court were traditional rural southern Democrats, echo chamber, with no understanding of multiple facets of American life. If everyone in a group loves hot food than the average food in that group is likely to be inedible to the average person because the “average” is skewed so hot.
Unless you wanted him too, then I bet it sucks.
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Breitbart as a publication doesn’t get to take the moral or ethical high ground when they’re also perpetrators in this kind of insanity. That and the fact that their copy on this reads like something from the 1800s yellow journalism era, complete with built-in fear mongering and its own agenda.
On the other hand, the fact that the messenger is a twisted and untrustworthy wreck of a publication doesn’t change the fact that they’ve exposed something that looks bad. We’re definitely in agreement there.
Still, it’s not something I’m losing any sleep over.
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Haven’t followed at all and don’t intend to start. The majority of my personal gamer friends are female (I met my fiancee through gaming), and I’ve never encountered any hint of an anti-female-gamer “movement”. The individuals who did display such sentiment were generally obnoxious to everyone who wasn’t an actual RL friend. From what I’ve read here, it seems nothing unique is going on in the gaming world…it’s the same sort of behavior found in nearly all large public internet forums. There may be a lower average age of participating parties than most, but rude ignorance isn’t limited to the young.
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Or any other sub-group of a sub-group, for that matter.
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And it just keeps going on. It is amazing how many of these people on the review side have connections to how many other people. And 4Chan has been given their ultimatum on this, which has nothing to do with XOXO and people’s connections there.
As the owner of an RPG publishing company, I admit that any gaming review I write may have bias.
Which is something you will never hear Wankers of the Cash admit, or their predecessors TSR.
Just received this from OneBookshelf, the company that runs the website my ebooks are sold on. This is only about the first third of the letter. Originally formatting has been preserved.
We elected to ban a title from our marketplaces. Of the tens of thousands of titles
that we carry, and after operating for 13 years, we have never before banned a title
(other than for legal reasons). I hope those numbers make it clear this is not an
action we have undertaken lightly, nor is it one we will undertake frequently, if
ever again. Nonetheless, as this is the first time we’ve decided to ban a
title, I thought a letter of explanation was in order.
The title in question is a card game whose theme is the Gamergate issue. The game
attempted to present the issue in a satirical manner.
Normally, satirical works would be welcome on our marketplaces. However, we feel
that there are situations where satire is inappropriate. For example, we do not
think that a game released today that satirizes police killings of minorities in the
USA would be appropriate. Regardless of how one feels about an issue like that, we
feel that it is too current, too emotionally charged on both sides, and too related
to real-world violence or death to make it an appropriate matter for satire.
Similarly, no matter how one feels about Gamergate, it is likewise too current, too
emotionally frought, and too related to violence to be an appropriate subject for
satire. Additionally, we considered that the violent element of the Gamergate issue
has a basis in misogyny. For these reasons, we felt that this card game title was
not welcome for sale on our site.
Frankly, anyone and everyone who is involved in #Gamergate is getting doxxed and threatened. I haven’t heard of anyone on the anti site being threatened with SWATing though.
If your heroes are like Anita Sakeesian, the woman who took in 160k to make 13 movies and is 2 years late and 4 movies into the project. Who stole let’s play footage instead of making her own, and demonstrably didn’t actually play some of the games she talks about. You shouldn’t be surprised that your fellow travellers are just as scummy as you are accusing the GG supporters of being.
I wish this had happened years ago, with mediums other than gaming. Like with art, or movies, or books, or TV. A small group of people running into a system and declaring everything that most people enjoy about it is sexist. Who knew it would be gamers refusing to give in.
Third wave feminism is insane. The people pushing this crap are the same ones that call for things like eliminating 90% of men, or considering all men criminals from birth. Bossy is not a sexist term, and being called bossy should tell you that maybe you aren’t as good of a leader as you think you are. Get a damn grip.
We are sitting in a world right now where a 20 year old genius’ life could be ruined because he made a pass, or a woman thought he made a pass, or because he engaged in drunken sex with a fellow student. And there are no support systems for “My college held a secret trial and kicked my ass out” victims. Sorry, enjoy your unpaid student loans and welcome to Wall-Mart. The pendulum has swung so far the other direction that liberals and feminists are causing victorian attitudes to come to the front again. Women apparently can’t handle foul language, innuendo, alcohol, peer pressure, boorish men, or improper glances. Men are being told on one hand that women are just like men, but on the other that they have no control over themselves with even a sniff of alcohol, and that certain langauges and behavior are so heinous that they can’t handle the thought.
Meanwhile, sick twisted men continue to rape women, none of this male shaming, political correctness, yes means yes laws, and language policing is going to change the dude who wants to rape someone, he already knows it’s wrong. Shaming people who aren’t guilty
So? Seriously, even if it does, so what? War has a basis in violence, does that stop them from publishing war games? Or drugs? Shit, and sports games or books? Sorry your publishers are wimps who don’t have the courage to stick to their convictions.
None of this is to say that people don’t do horrible things to each other. But making good people feel bad isn’t how you stop bad people.
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I’m not disagreeing with you, @Woodman. But gamergate itself is not the issue of the email. The issue of the email is that someone created a card game satirizing gamergate, and whether the content of the game is too offensive.
The fact that a lot of gamers objected to the content should say something here. I had to hunt around for a preview of the content.
Some people might find this funny. I don’t. It seems to presuppose that everybody on both sides are idiots. I really find the inclusion of a gay journalist card named Cicero Everybodypeeps distasteful.
Here is a podcast done by Hack and Slash regarding this situation, which was actually recorded before Onebookshelf made their final-ish decision.
And no, I am not anti-James Desborough. Actually, I find his appearance and accent quie sexy.
There are idiots on both sides. I thought some of it was clever, but I have no idea who Cicero is. Can’t listen to podcast on the work PC though.
The publisher has every right to not publish something because it offends them. I get that they didn’t like the topic of the game, but I wouldn’t have rejected it in a way that implied it was just the side the game was on that bothered me. Feeds into that “ok when they do it” thing.
Just decline to publish it and be done.