User:FuzzyCatPotato/Rebuttals of Gamergate

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Information icon.svg Currently copy-pasta, goal is a detailed rebuttal of GG's views. This page does need sources for the statements of Gamergate, so as to not strawman. Feel free to edit. Main article: Gamergate


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Gamergate lives in an alternate universe with an alternate history, in which Gamergate has doxxed nobody, has significantly increased ethics in game journalism, is supported by a broad coalition of diverse people, and is generally pretty great.

Surprisingly, they're incorrect.

This page is a list of Gamergate's positions and associated rebuttals.

Contents

[edit] Anti-GG

[edit] Anti-Gamergate is a unified counter-movement

Claim: Anti-Gamergate is its own movement set on bullying, harassing, and attacking Gamergate just like Gamergate bullies everyone else

Reality: 'Anti-GG' as some nebulous thing is not a group because they do not have any kind of real organization or culture related to that identity. For example, when you criticize the Westboro Baptist Church, that doesn't make you part of the Anti-WBC movement, because there's no central organization or culture in attacking the WBC. To lump together absolutely every single entity that criticizes Gamergate from Gawker to Anita Sarkeesian to the New York Times is ludicrous.

There is some level of organization against Gamergate, in the GamerGhazi subreddit[1] and #StopGamerGate on Twitter.[2] That said, neither of these groups is large or centrally-organized, certainly not to the extend that Gamergate's raids, doxxes, and false flags are and have been. Nearly all of non-internet media has turned against Gamergate, and yet effectively none of them are part of an "anti-GG" group.

The practice of lumping every person outside of a movement as one unified group attacking the movement is a common practice amongst cults and conspiracy theorists seeking to isolate their members from outside influence that might dispel their bullshit.

[edit] Quinn doxxed The Fine Young Capitalists

Claim: Zoe Quinn DDoS'd[wp] TFYC's website and doxxed their members.[3]

Reality: In short: Quinn sent traffic to TFYC's website, which was too shitty to handle it; Quinn's friend merely posted a link to someone's public Facebook.[4]

In long: Quinn had earlier feuded with TFYC over the group's game design competition. Any "woman" could enter a video game idea to developed by the design studio.[5]

Quinn accused TFYC of exploiting inexperienced game designers by asking them to work for free and of "policing transwomens' transition points" by only allowing transgender contestants who were openly living as female.[6][7]

Debate took place on Twitter, and the attention it attracted sent significant traffic to TFYC's website, unintentionally crashing it.[6][8]

In August, a member of TFYC posted about this feud on Reddit, stating that Quinn "started a fucking Twitter storm, crashed our website, got my personal information doxxed, [and] got us banned from Twitter".[3]

However, Quinn was not involved in DDoS'ing or doxxing TFYC, as the group themselves later stated.[9]

TFYC ultimately changed their definition of transwomen from "publically identif[ing] as a woman" to "personally identif[ing]".[10]

Lastly, it should be noted that whether or not people against GamerGate are bad is of no consequence to the overall validity of GamerGate as a movement.

[edit] Leigh Alexander is racist

Claim: Leigh Alexander, author of one of the "Gamers are dead" articles, is racist.

Reality: Leigh Alexander wrote one of the "Gamers are dead" pieces, and was attacked by Gamergate because of it. They gained some traction when Intel responded and pulled ads from developer-oriented website Gamasutra where Leigh Alexander wrote.

Alexander was described by Gamergaters as a "final boss"; she was sent anonymous threats which included someone expressing the desire to "pay her a visit and jam a screwdriver in her eyesocket" and Gators scrounged her Twitter account to find old and out-of-context tweets that they claimed were "racist" to serve as "dirt" against her.[11]


In a month, however, Intel restored their advertising and ultimately sided against Gamergate.

[edit] Diversity of #Gamergate

[edit] But Vivian James!

The original Vivian James artwork, created by a 4chan user.

Claim: Gamergate has shown great support for Vivian James, who's female. How can Gamergate be misogynist?

Reality: In short: Vivian James is a fictional sockpuppet of Gamergate, created for the express purpose of shielding Gamergate from criticism about misogyny.

In long: Thus begins the tale of Vivian James:

4channers were active in championing Gamergate, primarily on the video games board /v/ and the "politically incorrect" board /pol/, a haven for neo-Nazis, neoreactionaries, and "red pill"-ers. On August 21, 2014, some enterprising anon on /pol/ suggested that 4chan should donate to The Fine Young Capitalists to spite Quinn and her supporters (due to the animosity between Quinn and TFYC) and to go against the stereoytypes of 4chan by "supporting" a "SJW" cause.[12]

The original poster said, "We will look really good if we donate to this," and, "There will be a lot of asshurt."[3] Another poster replied with, "4chan attacks the cancer and simultaneously sponsors the chemo", using the common 4chan term of "cancer" to refer to any "threat" to 4chan culture.

"Operation Chemo" or "Operation Fuck the Cancer, Fund the Chemo" spread to other boards and raised over $5,000.[3] TFYC, unaware of or indifferent to 4chan's reasons, gladly accepted the donations and allowed 4chan to create a character to appear in TFYC's finished game, since their funding drive had offered this reward for donations over $2,000.[5]

One poster suggested that this character should be "just an average female gamer" to deliberately go against the stereotype of 4chan as misogynistic. Thus was born Vivian James, a surly, casually-clothed, red-haired gamer girl, with the 4chan logo on her headband, whose name is intended to sound vaguely like "vidya games" (/v/ slang for video games).[3] Vivian just wants to game and doesn't want to think about social issues.[12][13]

As the largest donor to TFYC, 4chan was also permitted to choose the charity which would get the finished game's proceeds. Out of the charities suggested (which included JIDF and various men's rights causes), the one chosen by straw poll was the Colon Cancer Alliance, continuing the Operation Chemo meme of "chemo for butthurt".[14]

Per Rule 34, Gamergate started making porn images of the imaginary teenage girl that they had created to prove they aren't misogynistic. Some of these images were submitted to TFYC, who didn't care.[3]

As if to further underscore the stupidity of their movement, 4channers seemed to think Vivian is an example of a "real woman" that Gamergate supports,[15] while others used Vivian in a friend argument.[16]

Vivian James' green and purple color scheme references an old 4chan meme "Piccolo Dick", a.k.a. "Daily Dose": an animated GIF of the character Piccolo from the anime Dragon Ball Z[wp] raping another male character.[17][14][18] When the GIF was banned on 4chan, 4channers posted progressively more corrupted versions of the image until only the colors green and purple (the colors of Piccolo's skin and clothing, respectively) were identifiable, making any combination of green and purple a sly reference to the original. Gamergaters regularly deny the connection,[17] and TFYC did not consider the link a problem, stating: "there have been multiple pornographic images created [of Vivian James], many of which are more offensive than the three-year-old meme you referenced".[19] Lovely!

[edit] #NotYourShield

Claim: Gamergate is supported by a diverse set of people, as seen in the #NotYourShield hashtag!

Rebuttal: Yeah, #NotYourShield was basically an orchestrated set of sockpuppets used to make Gamergate look good.

[edit] Harassment, doxxing, etc.

[edit] Gamergate hasn't harassed anyone

Claim: Gamergate is a about ethics; ethics precludes harassment and doxxing!

Reality: Here's a list:

  1. Hey look, a 9000-word rant about Zoe Quinn designed to drive her off the internet, and, preferably, to suicide! Followed up on by assertions of using sex as a professional development tool! After which her social media was hacked and her nude photos were sent to her employers and family!
  2. Phil Fish left gaming because of Gamergate.
  3. Anita Sarkeesian, for the crime of posting a video, was forced to leave her home.
  4. Jenn Frank and Mattie Brice left gaming due to harassment, to the cheers of Gamergaters.
  5. Hell, even fucking 4chan thinks it's too much.
  6. Actress and geek culture icon Felicia Day weighed in on Gamergate in a long post on her blog on October 22, explaining that she opposed the movement but was afraid to speak out because of the possibility that she would be doxxed and harassed.[20] Within an hour, someone posted her address in the comments section.[21] Quinn, who was still homeless at this point due to the Gamergate mob,[22] begged people to stop: "When the fuck is it going to be enough? When the fuck will this end?"[23]
  7. Dan Olson reported on Gamergate's defense of child porn. In return, Gamergate reported on his personal details and reported him & his article to Canadian child pornography authorities.
  8. Leigh Alexander was targeted because she had written one of the "Gamers are dead" pieces. Gamergaters convinced Intel to remove ads from the site she wrote on (for a month, anyway) in retaliation. Gamergaters further repeatedly claimed that Alexander is racist, hoping to assassinate her character, and one poster threatened her with "a screwdriver in her eyesocket".

[edit] Zoe Quinn and Phil Fish faked their doxxes

Claim: When Zoe Quinn and Phil Fish were doxxed, they actually released their own data as a false flag operation.

Reality: The only evidence to support Gamergate's worldview was Gamergate's belief that Quinn's current boyfriend Alex Lifschitz was secretly Fish.[24] The claim is so weak, any rebuttal may as well end there.

If Quinn and Phil were going to perform a false flag operation, they certainly could have done it better. Why would Quinn want to release nude photos, when she could easily have gotten attention without any such release? Why would Fish want to destroy his own business and force his departure from gaming, just for publicity? Gamergate has yet to answer.

[edit] Ethics in journalism

Gamergate has had almost no impact on gaming journalism, despite being a movement centered around the same.

Despite this, they'll proudly tell of the myriad successes they've had in improving ethics.

[edit] Zoe Quinn sexed Nathon Grayson for good reviews

Claim: As shown by the "Zoe Post", Zoe Quinn slept with Nathan Grayson so that he would favorably review her game, Depression Quest.

Reality: Eron Gjoni's "Zoe Post" alleged that Zoe Quinn had slept with Nathan Grayson.

Many of the readers of "The Zoe Post" focused on the mention of Nathan Grayson, a writer for the video game news site Kotaku, as one of Quinn's sexual partners. They jumped to the conclusion that Quinn had slept with Grayson to get positive reviews for her indie text adventure Depression Quest and boost her career in game design.[25] Some proponents of this sex-for-reviews scandal (or "The Quinnspiracy" as it was frequently known) argued that it represented an example of the "lack of integrity" they saw in video game journalism.[25]

While Eron Gjoni repeatedly described Zoe Quinn as manipulative, he did not suggest that she had any ulterior motive in sleeping with Nathan Grayson, and when he became aware of this rumour, he re-edited his blog to clarify that "if there was any conflict of interest between Zoe and Nathan regarding coverage of Depression Quest prior to April, I have no evidence to imply that it was sexual in nature".[26] Gjoni's stated reason for posting the screed, despite acknowledging its bitter tone, was to "warn" people about Quinn's behaviour and how she might treat any future partners[26] — a shaming tactic common within the manosphere, as on the website Register-Her.com. Gjoni reiterated this warning theme in a comment on Reddit, stating, "I believe that to stay quiet about someone who will hurt others is to be complicit in perpetuating the harm they will cause".[27]

Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo debunked the claims: Grayson had written only one article about Quinn for the website, which dealt with her appearance on the show Game Jam, not her game, and that had been prior to the start of their relationship.[28]

Gamergaters, needing more evidence, turned to a piece Grayson wrote months earlier at Rock, Paper, Shotgun listing Depression Quest amongst 50 other games approved through Steam Greenlight[29] was further proof of collusion. The article, however, was merely a list, not a review.[30] Gjoni also edited his blog to clarify that, "if there was any conflict of interest between Zoe and Nathan regarding coverage of Depression Quest prior to April, I have no evidence to imply that it was sexual in nature".[26]

[edit] Intel sided with Gamergate

Claim: Intel sided with Gamergate and pulled adds off of Gamasutra!

Reality: Intel originally pulled advertising off of Gamasutra, but reinstated them 1 month later and then budgeted $300 million to counter the lack of gender and racial diversity in gaming.

[edit] Tyler Wilde and Anne Lewis

Claim: Tyler Wilde positively reviewed Ubisoft games because of his conflict of interest, without disclosing it. Because of Gamergate, PC Gamer has changed its policy and now prevents collusion!

Response: In short: Very little to no positive reviews happened. Very little to no conflict of interest existed. Very little to no policy change occurred.

In long: On January 13, 2015, Tyler Wilde, Executive Editor of PC Gamer, wrote an article arguing that PC gamers should stop calling themselves the "PC Master Race", since it's effectively reusing Nazi terminology.[31] Gamergaters, fighting for freedom of expression mad that they got called out on something terrible they do, searched every nook of Wilde's life something bad.

Gamergaters found that Wilde had posted about a few Ubisoft games, such as Watch_Dogs. At the same time, Anne Lewis, his girlfriend, was a Communications Associate at Ubisoft, for which her job was essentially writing for Ubisoft's public blog.[32] Obviously, Wilde had been writing about Ubisoft in return for sex from his girlfriend!

PC Gamer found out, and decided to minorly shift company policy. Before, PC Gamer had required that conflicts of interest be disclosed, such as when writing about a game made by an ex-employee. Furthermore, Wilde, who had been reviewing Ubisoft for years, stopped reviewing Ubisoft games after Lewis joined Ubisoft, even though she had never worked on any of its games, and had only written preview and news assignments about Ubisoft. Now, to avoid the impression of any impropriety, PC Gamer required that Tyler not personally write news about Ubisoft.[32]

Some "anti-GGers" criticized PC Gamer for giving in, saying that it legitimized Gamergate's actions.[33][34]

And... that's about it. Well, unless you buy into the conspiracy.

PR from ubisoft found out that one of their communications girls[note 1] [Anne Lewis] was fucking a writer at PC Gamer [Tyler Wilde]. Made her an offer she couldn't refuse, therefore made him an offer he couldn't refuse...and that is how the article got written.
Ubisoft was sick of the negative attention they were getting from here, therefore, via an employee that was fucking a writer, commissioned a hit-piece against /r/pcmasterrace.
Totally logical, right? I mean, getting a bad rap from a single subreddit is definitely worth getting a sex-comissioned hitpiece.

Gamergaters claimed that Wilde was attempting to hide the truth by updating his Facebook and removing a video of him discussing Watch Dogs. If he was going for censorship, he certainly could have, say, taken down all the other discussions of Ubisoft he'd written;[36][37][38] and if said video was produced as a conflict-of-interest-filled hit piece, surely it should be removed? Which is it, GG: should the content stay online, and be a conflict of interest, or be taken off, and be censorship?

Despite all this, Gamergate kept harping on the points that they believed they had picked up on, attempting to call him out for having deleted something regarding Ubisoft from his personal Facebook profile, while all of the articles he had written are in fact still up on PC Gamer, making it clear that Gamergate can't make up its mind when it comes to their targets of harassment definition of ethics.

[edit] See also

Icon fun.svg For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about Real Gamers.

[edit] Notes

  1. Because a professional writer is one of their communications girls

[edit] Footnotes

  1. http://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/
  2. https://twitter.com/hashtag/stopgamergate
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "The Birth of Vivian", collage of 4chan, Reddit and Twitter posts from August 21-22, 2014, at KnowYourMeme.com.
  4. https://storify.com/jbradfield/zoe-quinn-re-tfyc
  5. 5.0 5.1 "The Fine Young Capitalists: Women making Video Games For Charity", Indiegogo
  6. 6.0 6.1 "Zoe Quinn and The Fine Young Capitalists", Storify of Twitter posts from February 28, 2014, to 1 March 1, 2014.
  7. Nicole Seraphita, "Truth In Gaming: An Interview with The Fine Young Capitalists", APG Nation
  8. Matthew Rappard, "On Zoe Quinn - Our last statement (Archive), The Fine Young Capitalists
  9. Matthew Rappard, "On Zoe Quinn - Our last statement (Archive), The Fine Young Capitalists
  10. GamerGhazi, "(question) has TFYC's trans policy changed?", Reddit
  11. Katherine Cross, "We must dissent: Intel bows to GamerGate campaign to silence feminist video game critics", Feministing
  12. 12.0 12.1 Allegra Ringo, "Meet the Female Gamer Mascot Born of Anti-Feminist Internet Drama", Vice, August 28, 2014.
  13. Jeff Kunzler, "The Gamification of Terror: Manufacturing GamerGate's Sphere of Delusion", Design is Law, October 22, 2014.
  14. 14.0 14.1 "Vivian James", Know Your Meme (NSFW).
  15. David Futrelle, "The Top Five Most Ridiculously Ironic #GamerGate Memes", We Hunted the Mammoth, November 6, 2014.
  16. David Futrelle, "Today in #GamerGate: Entitled manchildren use manic pixel dream girl as their shield (again)", We Hunted the Mammoth, October 25, 2014.
  17. 17.0 17.1 Steven Melendez, "The Secret Meaning Behind GamerGate's Branding", Fast Company, November 3, 2014.
  18. "Her jacket is literally daily dose.", archived 4chan thread from August 25, 2014.
  19. The Fine Young Capitalists, "On conspiracies", September 19, 2014.
  20. Felicia Day, "Crossing the Street", FeliciaDay.com
  21. Alex Hern, "Felicia Day's public details put online after she described Gamergate fears", The Guardian
  22. Zoe Quinn, "Private investigator on the matter." Caps incoming later but Jesus Christ who hires a PI to stalk a homeless woman", Twitter
  23. Zoe Quinn, "When the fuck is it going to be enough? When the fuck will this end?", Twitter
  24. Matt Maguire, "Hackers post personal details of Fez and Depression Quest developers online", Gameplanet
  25. 25.0 25.1 Emma M. Woolley, "Don't believe the 'conspiracy,' gaming has bigger problems than 'corruption'", The Globe and Mail, August 27, 2014.
  26. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named zoepost
  27. Screenshot from Reddit, reposted by Gjoni in "The Zoe Post" blog.
  28. Stephen Totilo, "In recent days I've been asked several times ...", Kotaku, August 20, 2014.
  29. Nathan Grayson, "Admission Quest: Valve Greenlights 50 More Games", Rock, Paper, Shotgun, January 8, 2014.
  30. Josh Wirtanen, "How I Know Zoe Quinn Did Not Exchange Sex for a Game Review", GeekParty, August 20, 2014.
  31. Tyler Wilde, "Let’s stop calling ourselves the “PC Master Race”", PC Gamer
  32. 32.0 32.1 "A note on disclosure", PC Gamer
  33. Katherine Cross, "What unnecessary actions like @PCGamer's serve to do, in pracrise, is legitimise the mob tactics employed against the rest of us.", Twitter
  34. Brendan Keogh, "Holy shit, mainstream games journalism. You've had 6 months to learn how to not give into and not validate a shitty hate mob ffs.", Twitter
  35. "This just in: Ubisoft pressured girlfriend of PC Gamer writer to pressure said writer to publish a mild criticism of the name of /r/pcmasterrace to get back at the subreddit for being mean to Ubisoft (tinfoil hat warning)", GamerGhazi, Reddit
  36. Tyler Wilde, "Watch Dogs hands-on: playing it cool as an incognito hacker in cyber-Chicago", PC Gamer
  37. Tyler Wilde, "Watch Dogs' hero is a lovable loser, and I'm a low-rent super villain", PC Gamer
  38. Tyler Wilde, "Watch Dogs preview — No GTA 5 on PC? No problem", PC Gamer
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