Tiny Little Frogs - Gamergate and the RPS response with Brad Wardell. Thanks Mashiki.
I think that’s all fine. But it seems like the gaming media can talk about things other than games without attacking their readers. The objection isn’t about whether there’s a discussion on whether murdering prostitutes should give you HP is a good for society or not. The objection is saying that people who play that game are bad people.
If we game a game that is offensive, then tell us. We can take it. To emphasize: Game developers have a tremendous level of respect for gaming sites like RPS. We trust you. Your candid article is great thing. I wish it had come out 3 weeks ago before the well was poisoned by a dozen+ “gamers are losers” articles.Salon.com - “I want a straight white male gaming convention”: How a culture war exploded in the video gaming world.
The sad thing is that even if you don’t believe that there is serious sexism in the gaming community, gamers do actually have serious reasons to be skeptical of their gaming press and developers. Game companies are nickel-and-diming consumers like never before, cutting out large sections of their games and selling them for full price while selling those add-ons for exorbitant fees. Meanwhile, Zoe Quinn may not be a real scandal, but game publishers and journalists who review games have gotten far too cozy – witness how Ubisoft gave an entire audience of journalists free tablets as they prepared to review its (in my opinion) fairly average game “Watch Dogs.”
Bodolza wrote on Sep 9, 2014, 17:02:Julio wrote on Sep 9, 2014, 16:37:
It's made it clear that 'game journalists' are for sale (either through sex or cash/goods)
Pardon me for barely paying attention to this issue, but is this actually news to anyone? Games journalism has been the pit of integrity for as long as I can remember. With rare exception, game reviews have always had a bad rep. For Christ's sake -- console companies had their own magazines in which they reviewed their own games.