Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Videogames Are For Everybody.

We're seeing more parity, as they play the exact same card as K...and then disable posts on their article.

Videogames are absolutely for everybody but RPS isn't for me anymore. Sorry John but too much non-gaming silliness.

Verno wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 09:56:
Videogames are absolutely for everybody but RPS isn't for me anymore. Sorry John but too much non-gaming silliness.

Exactly what I was going to say. Nothing but self-promoting drama queens at RPS.

Someday I'd love a clean concise 3 paragraph cliff notes of all this generated drama. In general I don't need any of them, I use gamers feedback for my purchases. Whatever I say I say, if it's bannable so be it. I don't need any particular developer either, another can take your spot. Yep pretty damn self reliant overall of whatever this is.

Who gives a shit? Really?

Do these game sites even have time to review games with all the crusades they're undertaking right now?

NegaDeath wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 11:23:
Do these game sites even have time to review games with all the crusades they're undertaking right now?

RPS is a game site? You could have fooled me!

I never get tired of looking at the graph of RPS' page views going off a cliff in the wake of the Quinnspiracy.

Yes people, please whine even more. Your tears are delicious.

And before anyone says anything: Instead of writing something constructive I decided to continue on the level set by the lovely people who posted before me.

Elf Shot The Food wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 11:47:
I never get tired of looking at the graph of RPS' page views going off a cliff in the wake of the Quinnspiracy.

Where do you get to see that?

Also, that Total Bisquit video is pretty old, but seems pretty darn relevant in a time like this, don't you think?

yuastnav wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 11:58:
Yes people, please whine even more. Your tears are delicious.

I don't know how you get whining from the posts here, most people are just getting indifferent to this ongoing silliness and rightfully so.

I don't think RPS wanted to post this, they've felt they need to because of the attacks they've been getting. Of course, tthey're only digging their own hole deeper.

Prez wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 10:16:

Verno wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 09:56:
Videogames are absolutely for everybody but RPS isn't for me anymore. Sorry John but too much non-gaming silliness.

Exactly what I was going to say. Nothing but self-promoting drama queens at RPS.

Same here. When they started their SJW agenda they turned me off slowly until I no longer visited the site. As Verno said, too much non-gaming silliness.

It's such a shame because for years RPS was my go to place for PC games I otherwise never would have heard about. Nowadays they are as bad as the mainstream news media. Actual reporting is pushed aside for extremely biased opinion pieces dressed as facts. All I can think about is what I'm missing out on because a handful of lonely people with a victim mentality use gaming as a platform to stroke their own egos.

Verno wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 12:15:
I don't know how you get whining from the posts here, most people are just getting indifferent to this ongoing silliness and rightfully so.

It just seems so weird to me to see all this shit. Gaming used to be pretty simple. You'd play games, talk about what's fun or what isn't, and that was that. Now everything has to be life or death serious all the time with all this political and social crap mixed in.

What We Used to Have: Shit talking on the internet that we used to dismiss out of hand.

What We Have Now: We write entire articles about how so-and-so got told to go kill themselves, fanning the flames even further. If I threw a fit every time someone on the Internet told me to go kill myself, I'd be locked in a rubber room. Anonymity on the Internet leads to people turning the amp up to 11 on every insult. No one actually wants you to kill yourself, and no one is actually planning to come to your house and kill your family. They are just being as offensive as possible because they can. It's tasteless, but it's not newsworthy.

What We Used To Have: Game content we don't like or find offensive we would just avoid, and not recommend to others.

What We Have Now: Better rally the troops and bully the developer until they never want to create another game again. Turning "I don't want to buy this." into "I don't think they should sell this and I'm going to stir up shit until they stop making things I don't like."

As someone who lives in a small, rainy town, I got into PCs and gaming early on, a long time ago. It was the simplicity of the hobby that attracted me, and the idea that it wasn't dependent on weather, or large groups of people being available. But now gaming is so noisy. If you want to stay up to date on what's going on, you can't really avoid being inundated with all this drama. You can play your games, and try and minimize your involvement, but this drama has escalated to the point where I think it's really going to start affecting the games themselves.

Will we reach a point soon where the already risk-averse publishers just don't greenlight anything that isn't E-For-Everyone for fear of defacto censorship via manufactured outrage?

One more thing...

Does it seem odd to anyone else that a developer is seemingly better off shoveling out incomplete, watered down, or straight up broken games than shipping one title that generates social controversy on Twitter?

Remember when developers and the gaming press were beholden to us, the gamers, their customers, instead of social media queens who wouldn't buy their stuff anyway?

Will we reach a point soon where the already risk-averse publishers just don't greenlight anything that isn't E-For-Everyone for fear of defacto censorship via manufactured outrage?

Has that happened in music, movies or books?

Beamer wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 13:07:
Will we reach a point soon where the already risk-averse publishers just don't greenlight anything that isn't E-For-Everyone for fear of defacto censorship via manufactured outrage?

Has that happened in music, movies or books?

Not really. Very different dynamics in those industries make them far more resistant to that kind of controversy. Due to the fact that their profit margins are (typically) much much larger than games, they can afford to take a few risks and take a few hits due to controversy.

Music and books especially. It doesn't take 25 million dollars to write a book, or produce the average album.

Game publishers? Hugely risk averse because the margins are so thin and budgets so high. It makes them incredibly skittish. This makes them very vulnerable in a way. The gaming audience also seems more plugged in to social media, where this controversy stirs up.

I just don't see the same outrage flying around about movies, books, and music in social media. Nobody cares about sexism or violence in rap anymore. But games? You're doomed!

That's why I worry. Gaming is relatively new, and has shown itself to be very vulnerable to social media outrage. Game developers and publishers are almost addicted to somehow trying to defend themselves instead of just taking the approach where you just make what you want to make because you think other people might like it too.

I find it fascinating that some of these sites are now turning tail; trying to fix the narrative that they broke.

The one thing they don't understand is that they drew first blood.

Gamers would have been willing to let the mass internet-censorship go had there just been an apology (if that) and the ability to openly discuss the events surrounding #GamerGate.

Like all things, the discussion would have passed and -- at worst -- Kotaku's reputation would have been sullied just a bit more than it already was. I doubt people would have started investigating the matter further (sort of like what happened with Doritogate).

Instead, the game journo (I like to say "game journo scum" but I'll be civil here) decided to fan the flames and extrapolate their agendas to a wide audience with a calculated attack on games culture. WHY? It was a death knell for them.

Gamers don't die, we respawn. Gamers don't quit, we restart. Gamers don't stop, we press continue.

They attacked a culture who has been conditioned not to quit once they've been drawn into battle, and media -- strangely -- thought that individuals who spend all day trying to beat bosses and conquer levels would just go away and die. WHY?

At this point, gamers have already collected in a few places that still allow for open discussion and have already made it known that they are willing to play the long game; the game of attrition.

There is a site blacklist being passed around (Don't worry Blues, you aren't on it ;)) and active browser add-ons that will absolutely cripple the larger sites in the long run (it auto-retrieves pages from the nearest archive instead of allowing click-throughs to the site).

Needless pandering from RPS at this point won't save them. They already put their stake on the wrong side of the war and gamers are adopting the "Never Forgive. Never Forget" mantra.

I'm just curious what will happen if/when #GamerGate actually gets out into the wild so the larger community out there will know what's going on? Once this breaks through to mainstream it's going to be game over for the larger websites.

William Usher wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 13:38:
I find it fascinating that some of these sites are now turning tail; trying to fix the narrative that they broke.

The one thing they don't understand is that they drew first blood.

Gamers would have been willing to let the mass internet-censorship go had there just been an apology (if that) and the ability to openly discuss the events surrounding #GamerGate.

Like all things, the discussion would have passed and -- at worst -- Kotaku's reputation would have been sullied just a bit more than it already was. I doubt people would have started investigating the matter further (sort of like what happened with Doritogate).

Instead, the game journo (I like to say "game journo scum" but I'll be civil here) decided to fan the flames and extrapolate their agendas to a wide audience with a calculated attack on games culture. WHY? It was a death knell for them.

Gamers don't die, we respawn. Gamers don't quit, we restart. Gamers don't stop, we press continue.

They attacked a culture who has been conditioned not to quit once they've been drawn into battle, and media -- strangely -- thought that individuals who spend all day trying to beat bosses and conquer levels would just go away and die. WHY?

At this point, gamers have already collected in a few places that still allow for open discussion and have already made it known that they are willing to play the long game; the game of attrition.

There is a site blacklist being passed around (Don't worry Blues, you aren't on it ;)) and active browser add-ons that will absolutely cripple the larger sites in the long run (it auto-retrieves pages from the nearest archive instead of allowing click-throughs to the site).

Needless pandering from RPS at this point won't save them. They already put their stake on the wrong side of the war and gamers are adopting the "Never Forgive. Never Forget" mantra.

I'm just curious what will happen if/when #GamerGate actually gets out into the wild so the larger community out there will know what's going on? Once this breaks through to mainstream it's going to be game over for the larger websites.

Aren't you the games media for CinemaBlend?
Are you really advocating a DoS against your peers?

Are you really advocating a DoS?


And you really think anyone was trying to censor?

NKD wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 13:27:

Beamer wrote on Sep 8, 2014, 13:07:
Will we reach a point soon where the already risk-averse publishers just don't greenlight anything that isn't E-For-Everyone for fear of defacto censorship via manufactured outrage?

Has that happened in music, movies or books?

Not really. Very different dynamics in those industries make them far more resistant to that kind of controversy. Due to the fact that their profit margins are (typically) much much larger than games, they can afford to take a few risks and take a few hits due to controversy.

Music and books especially. It doesn't take 25 million dollars to write a book, or produce the average album.

Game publishers? Hugely risk averse because the margins are so thin and budgets so high. It makes them incredibly skittish. This makes them very vulnerable in a way. The gaming audience also seems more plugged in to social media, where this controversy stirs up.

I just don't see the same outrage flying around about movies, books, and music in social media. Nobody cares about sexism or violence in rap anymore. But games? You're doomed!

That's why I worry. Gaming is relatively new, and has shown itself to be very vulnerable to social media outrage. Game developers and publishers are almost addicted to somehow trying to defend themselves instead of just taking the approach where you just make what you want to make because you think other people might like it too.

The thing is, despite what people think about Tropes, she's never said a game is bad. She's never said people shouldn't play a game. She's said the tropes are lazy and should be relied upon less.

I haven't seen anyone sensible call for censoring or boycotting anything. I mean, sure, some guy I just quoted is calling for boycotting and DoSing sites, but no one is saying to do that in games. No one meaningful. Maybe random morons on Twitter, but this is why you don't pay attention to random morons on Twitter and why Zoe's recent "leak" wasn't even slightly meaningful.