Video Game Culture VII: it's really about Ethics in Game Journalism

[Inigima]

So basically she's just a critic.

Nothing wrong with that.

I still disagree with her.

Cool there's no problem here then

[eyenon15]

I disagree with most art and entertainment critics, this one just happens to be really in the public eye right now.

[DanteGabriel]

Is it really about ethics in game journalism? Newsweek reports:

So, is GamerGate really about ethics in journalism? Newsweek asked BrandWatch, a social media analytics company, to dig through the more than 2 million tweets about GamerGate since September 1 discover how often Twitter users tweeted at or about the major players in the debate, and whether those tweets were positive, negative or neutral. BrandWatch sampled 25 percent of tweets—what it considers a reflective amount of data—on the hashtag #GamerGate from Sept. 1 to Oct. 23.

In the following graphic, compare how often GamerGaters tweet at Zoe Quinn, a developer, and Nathan Grayson, a Kotaku games journalist. In August, GamerGaters accused Grayson of giving Quinn’s game Depression Quest favorable reviews because Grayson and Quinn had been in a relationship. The relationship was fact, those ‘favorable reviews’ were fiction. Grayson only wrote about Quinn once, for a story on a failed reality show, and that was before they were in a relationship, according to Stephen Totilo, the editor-in-chief of Kotaku and Grayson’s boss.

Twitter users have tweeted at Quinn using the #GamerGate hashtag 10,400 times since September 1. Grayson has received 732 tweets with the same hashtag during the same period. If GamerGate is about ethics among journalists, why is the female developer receiving 14 times as many outraged tweets as the male journalist?

Totilo has received 1,708 tweets since September 1—more than Grayson but fewer than Leigh Alexander. Alexander got 13,296 tweets, nearly eight times as many as Totilo. And Alexander’s only crime was writing an op-ed critical of so-called gaming culture—GamerGate hasn’t even accused her of any malfeasance.

The discrepancies there seem to suggest GamerGaters cares less about ethics and more about harassing women.

GamerGaters do tweet a lot at the official Kotaku account—more than any individual journalist or editor. That account has been pummeled with 23,500 tweets since September 1. But that number pales in comparison to the tweets received by Brianna Wu, another female game developer who has spoken out against GamerGate, and Anita Sarkeesian, who has been a vocal critic of sexism in gaming. Sarkeesian has been bombarded with 35,188 tweets since September 1, while Wu has gotten 38,952 in the same time period. Combined, these two women have gotten more tweets on the #GamerGate hashtag than all the games journalists Newsweek looked at combined. And, again, neither of them has committed any supposed “ethics” violations. They’re just women who disagree with #GamerGate.

DG, I'm not interested in addressing your insults.

More like not interested in admitting you haven't watched any of her videos and are relying on second-hand information for your critique of her critiques. Otherwise "her point, if she ever had one" wouldn't be such a goddamn mystery to you and we wouldn't have had to spend all these posts explaining to you that, for fuck's sake, yes, she's a critic making a critique of certain tropes in video games, and she's not advocating that people stop making CoD and DoA games or ban jiggle physics.

[Seli]

For one, when she says that a game having a female character presented in a sexualized way or a princess that needs rescuing reinforces in real life, the idea that women are sexual playthings and helpless,

this requires a leap from the listener without anything provided to back up the claim.

...

There isn't a giant leap for anyone who has an inkling of how women are treated in the real world. Anyone who ever noticed who gets automatically offered the bill, who gets talked to seriously by a mechanic or salesperson.

There isn't much need to back up the claim in any but the most basic discussions, since it is a readily accessible fact of life. And basic as the feminist frequency videos are, they do suppose some minimal knowledge of the viewer.

[eyenon15]

More like not interested in admitting you haven't watched any of her videos and are relying on second-hand information for your critique of her critiques.

By second hand information, do you mean the internet? Which provided me with interviews of her speaking? Including a Comedy Central show that was linked on the previous thread?

Maybe that isn't as good as reading your brilliant paraphrasing, but id hardly call her own words "second hand"

[DanteGabriel]

By second hand information, do you mean the internet? Which provided me with interviews of her speaking? Including a Comedy Central show that was linked on the previous thread?

Maybe that isn't as good as reading your brilliant paraphrasing, but id hardly call her own words "second hand"

So you haven't watched the videos?

But if you're that well informed about what she's been doing, why such difficulty locating her point, or the constant exaggerations of what she's been doing?

[TerraPrime]

There's plenty of room to disagree with any critical analysis of entertainment or literature or art. But not all such disagreement are as valid as the critique itself. Much depends on the strength of the original critique and also on the strength of the rebuttal. Simply saying "I disagree" is rather moot because it tells us nothing beyond personal aesthetics.

For instance, Sarkeesian listed over a dozen popular arcade and console games from the 80s and 90s where the Damsel-in-distress trope was used. A valid counter-argument might be to offer a similar number of roughly equally popular game titles where the women characters were NOT put in a posiiton where they need rescuing.

Alternatively, if the counter-argument is that yes, this trope is real and it exists in games, but the existence has no significant impact in real life, then the argument would need to address why that is the case when we have plenty of examples of art and entertainment influencing public perceptions on issues, e.g. WW2 propaganda against Germans and Japanese, or racist portrayals of black Americans circa 50s to 80s, or very clearly, the effect of Tina Fey's "I can see Russia from my house" skit often being mistaken as a real quote from Sarah Palin, etc. Entertainment and arts do affect public consciousness, either by directly creating a new narrative ("I can see Russia from my house!") or indirectly by reinforcing an extant stereotype (the surge of popularity of Arab and Middle-Eastern ethnic identity as villains in movies since 2001).

Honestly, I am expecting none of this type of actual engagement of Sarkeesian's work from the GamerGate crowd. People who will engage at this level will likely be abhorrent of the whole GamerGate toxic environment and not wish to be associated with them, and peple who actively identify with the GamerGate mob movement are likely not interested in this type of engagement.

[eyenon15]

So you haven't watched the videos?

But if you're that well informed about what she's been doing, why such difficulty locating her point, or the constant exaggerations of what she's been doing?

I tried to watch one, I couldn't get through it.

Regardless, when one speaks in public they don't have the luxury of saying, don't pay attention to what I'm saying right now. Go look at my internet videos/blog/whatever.

All people in the public eye are accountable for claims they make in interviews and increasingly, they are accountable for things they say even in their own home.

And I've not once seen her trying to promote or advertise any of these videos in any of the interviews ive seen or read from her.

[DanteGabriel]

There's plenty of room to disagree with any critical analysis of entertainment or literature or art. But not all such disagreement are as valid as the critique itself. Much depends on the strength of the original critique and also on the strength of the rebuttal. Simply saying "I disagree" is rather moot because it tells us nothing beyond personal aesthetics.

For instance, Sarkeesian listed over a dozen popular arcade and console games from the 80s and 90s where the Damsel-in-distress trope was used. A valid counter-argument might be to offer a similar number of roughly equally popular game titles where the women characters were NOT put in a posiiton where they need rescuing.

Alternatively, if the counter-argument is that yes, this trope is real and it exists in games, but the existence has no significant impact in real life, then the argument would need to address why that is the case when we have plenty of examples of art and entertainment influencing public perceptions on issues, e.g. WW2 propaganda against Germans and Japanese, or racist portrayals of black Americans circa 50s to 80s, or very clearly, the effect of Tina Fey's "I can see Russia from my house" skit often being mistaken as a real quote from Sarah Palin, etc. Entertainment and arts do affect public consciousness, either by directly creating a new narrative ("I can see Russia from my house!") or indirectly by reinforcing an extant stereotype (the surge of popularity of Arab and Middle-Eastern ethnic identity as villains in movies since 2001).

Honestly, I am expecting none of this type of actual engagement of Sarkeesian's work from the GamerGate crowd. People who will engage at this level will likely be abhorrent of the whole GamerGate toxic environment and not wish to be associated with them, and peple who actively identify with the GamerGate mob movement are likely not interested in this type of engagement.

So, uh, what's your point? You saying people can't disagree with Sarkeesian when she wants to ban all boobs from games?!?

[TerraPrime]

So, uh, what's your point? You saying people can't disagree with Sarkeesian when she wants to ban all boobs from games?!?

No, I'm saying that this is all about ethics in gaming journalism.

[DanteGabriel]

No, I'm saying that this is all about ethics in gaming journalism.

You know, when you get lost in the circus of douchebags, sometimes it's easy to forget this important point.

[TerraPrime]

You know, when you get lost in the circus of douchebags, sometimes it's easy to forget this important point.

Circus douchebags are #notyourshields.

[The Mance]

My read is that it's a call to be a little more thoughtful than we are now about our art form. No more, no less. It's art criticism, plain and simple.

I see it as more of a rallying call to like minded gamers that may or may not have noticed that these sexist tropes are such a pervasive thing. It also serves as a shout out to game developers that there exists a rather large demographic of cash having potential consumers that is not only not being catered to, but is actually being alienated to some degree,. And that maybe if any of those game devs would care to exploit this emerging market force they might want to give some thought to how to make games that are more inclusive.

[Galactus]

My favourite:

http://i.imgur.com/s6DrTnM.jpg

[Lord Flashheart]

http://m.imgur.com/y7aEOob

My favorite for now..it changes.

[eyenon15]

Actually, it's about ethics in the games themselves, big boobs in video games is harmful to society #circusdouchebags

[Lyanna Stark]

Yes, stereotypical portraits of women are harmful. That is a fact.

I also think your criticism of Anita Sarkeesian's videos lose all credibility if you can't even watch one of them. They're not long. They're not hard to understand. If you haven't seen them you can't criticise them either, that goes without saying.

[eyenon15]

You'll have to excuse people if they don't go along with you just because you say something is a fact.

I can say aliens sightings are real and call it a fact. That's not accomplishing anything.

I never criticized her videos, other than to say i couldn't get through watching one.

I disagree with her own words.(spoken outside of her videos)

Not second hand information.

[Lyanna Stark]

You'll have to excuse people if they don't go along with you just because you say something is a fact.

I can say aliens sightings are real and call it a fact. That's not accomplishing anything.

I never criticized her videos, other than to say i couldn't get through watching one.

I disagree with her own words.(spoken outside of her videos)

Not second hand information.

So you disagree with her words spoken out which are basically saying *the exact same thing* as her videos, only without the pictorial evidence. Which happens to be in her videos.

You don't think it would help actually *watching the videos* to have a view on what she is discussing?

Besides, why couldn't you get through one? Was it hard to understand? Difficult language? Why don't you give it another go and come back and explain why, exactly, you find them so challenging and difficult. I even helpfully supplied the link. No need to even google it.

[eyenon15]

So her words spoken outside her videos are basically "the exact same thing" as her videos?

Then I suppose my disagreement is de facto criticizing her videos as well.

Not intentional.

They are opinion pieces as far as I can tell.

You seem to be pitching them like a religion, equivalent to saying "oh, you don't believe Jesus and God are real???? Well your opinion has no credibility until you read the entire bible!"