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richardsondavis · 3 years ago

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This post will NOT cover everything that took place in GamerGate. That simply isn't possible here. GamerGate wasn't one drama, it was many small and large events that unfolded and built upon each other over a period of years, and took place in every part of the internet at once. My aim here is to lay out the key figures, and give a general understanding of what happened and why. There are resources linked throughout the post which can expand on events I mentioned, but there are many more that I left out.

Come with me as we explore the dark corridors of the internet that gave birth to the modern alt-right. I'm going to try and keep this gaming related, because this isn't a political discussion board, but references to greater political movements are unavoidable.

Be warned, this post contains basically every ism and phobia that you could possible imagine. Tread with care.

Also, when I refer to 'gamers' with a lowercase G, I just mean normal gamers as a whole. When I say 'Gamers', I mean Gamergate supporters.

Anita Sarkeesian - Sexism in Gaming

This shitstorm began in 2013, though its roots trace back far earlier, and while it would come to suck in thousands of pundits, politicians and thinkers from around the world, it began with one woman: Anita Sarkeesian.

Anita is a Canadian-American media critic. She started her Youtube Channel Feminist Frequency in 2009, analysing portrayals of women in pop culture. In 2011 she worked with feminist magazine Bitch to create a series of videos titled 'Tropes vs Women', which examined the damaging cliches and stereotypes against women in film and tv. It did pretty well, but she was still a small voice in a small circle. The natural next step was to talk about games, and that's what she did in 2012. 'Tropes vs Women in Video Games' criticised the sexualisation of women in games, the way they are treated as helpless damsels in distress, or given to the player as a reward. As Sarkeesian herself points out in her first episode:

"It's both possible and necessary to simultaneously enjoy media, while also being critical of its problematic or pernicious aspects'.

The videos were pretty even handed, and never really took the 'rabid angry feminist' tone that people have come to portray. I recommend taking a look. Anita was clearly not much of a 'gamer' herself, but she saw the positives that could be drawn from them.

In order to fund the project, Anita created a Kickstarter - which was all the rage back then. The kickstarter drew attention from every corner. Some of it was positive - she asked for $6000, but ended up with almost 7000 backers and $160,000 pledged. However a lot of it was bad.

Keep in mind that this all took place at a very critical moment in the feminist movement. Tumblr and Twitter were at their height, and a lot of positive momentum was being made. The video game industry was gradually becoming more inclusive too. Games at the time were - to much controversy - including more POC, women, and LGBT characters. But at the same time, a push began against this. A lot of men were feeling alienated by the rapid change, and this negative stance on feminism tended to look past the majority (who were pretty reasonable) and focus only on the minority of feminists who were explicitly anti-male. And in time, the progressive community would make the same mistake with gamers. But for now, it was these anti-feminists who saw the premise of Sarkeesian's videos as a threat toward 'their territory' - the male oriented video game industry. Anita became the poster child for everything these men hated. There was a coordinated effort on 4chan to destroy her Kickstarter, to DDOS the site, to report her twitter accounts, and otherwise eliminate her. It got pretty nasty. At the time it was a bit of a shocker just how nasty it got, but little did we know it was just the start.

A number of articles started to surface on various sites documenting the bizarre outrage, and that only lent it more momentum. Kotaku, Polygon, and other more left-leaning gaming news sites headed the exposure.

Anita received enormous harassment on social media, including vast numbers of rape and death threats, and she was doxxed multiple times (a practice in which a person's home address is posted online). Her wikipedia articles were vandalised with racial and sexual slurs, and she was sent drawings of herself being raped. A video game was created, 'Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian', in which players cover a photo of her in blood by clicking on it. Critics who disparaged the 'game' received death threats themselves. The creator of the game, Gregory Alan Elliot, was taken to court. The case had significant implications for online freedom of speech in Canada. She was accused of being Jewish, and received enormous amounts of antisemitism dubbing her Jewkeesian, until it came to light that her heritage was actually Armenian - and the harassment switched to an Armenian theme without skipping a beat.

Anita capitalised on her infamy, and used it to speak out on sexual harassment at TEDxWomen, as well as several universities. She was scheduled to speak at the 2014 Game Developer's Choice Awards, and would receive an accolade herself, but an anonymous bomb threat was called in to try and get the event cancelled. It really is hard to overstate the sheer level of vitriol this woman had thrown at her. But she would not be the only one.

"I don't get to publicly express sadness or rage or exhaustion or anxiety or depression, I can't say that sometimes the harassment really gets to me, or conversely that the harassment has become so normal that sometimes I don't feel anything at all. I don't get to express feelings of fear or how tiring it is to be constantly vigilant of my physical or digital surroundings. How I don't go to certain events because I don't feel safe. Or how I sit in the more secluded areas of coffee shops and restaurants so the least amount of people can recognise me."

Zoe Quinn - Ethics in Journalism

Zoe Quinn is an American video game developer and writer. In 2013, she released the game 'Depression Quest', a text-based game in which the player roleplays as themselves and is taken through a number of scenarios relating to depression. The game was based on her own experiences, and was received positively by critics. It's a raw and heartfelt project, and I really recommend it. However, there was a contingent who insisted that Depression Quest couldn't really be called a game, and it's true that it blurred the lines between a book, a visual novel, and a game.

This began a broad - and still ongoing - conversation within the gaming community. What is a game? People tried to come up with a clear cut definition, but there was always something that fell outside it. Does it need a failure state? That rules out Animal Crossing, which is definitely a game. Does it need an end point? That rules out Tetris. Does it need violence? Does it need characters? Does it need interactivity? Does it need choice? Does it need goals? Does it need visuals or sound? It's easy to look at most games and say 'yes, that's a game'. It's easy to look at a book or film and say it isn't. But when projects approach the line, things get a bit confusing. There are those who looked at Depression Quest and saw a book with extra steps, and there are those who insisted it was a game, but with all the extraneous stuff taken away. This is a massive philosophical debate, but we're here for drama, so let's move on. All you need to know is - it got great reviews, and some players were unhappy.

Zoe was added to the list of persona non grata. She received her own wave of death and rape threats, but rather than backing away, she documented them and spoke out about them to the media. This earned her even more hatred, which steadily grew more and more intense, to the point where she fled her home out of fear for her own safety.

But it wasn't until August 2014 that 'GamerGate' as we know it would officially begin. And it started at the hands of a relative unknown name, even now. Zoe's former boyfriend Eron Gjoni published a long and sprawling blog post about their relationship in which he levelled a number of accusations against her, the most inflammatory of which was that she had been given positive coverage (of Depression Quest, among other things) by a Kotaku journalist with whom she was sexually involved. This was a false accusation. It later came out that this journalist, Nathan Grayson, had barely ever mentioned Quinn or her work, and when he did, they hadn't been together. But never let the truth get in the way of a good story. The letter included copies of chat logs, text messages, and emails, and for all the world appeared to be legit.

The Gamers in question accused Zoe of exchanging sexual favours for positive press and professional advancement in what they called the 'Quinnspiracy'. Of course, Zoe Quinn stood to gain nothing from the praise Depression Quest received. Contrary to the claims that she was using her status as a woman to gain money... the game was free. And always had been. But this spawned one 'debate' which would go on to define GamerGate - that of ethics in game journalism. Video game press came under enormous scrutiny, especially the left-leaning Kotaku. The idea was that if a pundit/reviewer/critic was left leaning, their views could not be relied upon, because according to GamerGate, they were biased. Large lists were created to map out the various 'SJW Journalists', which boiled down to a blacklist of public figures who spoke out against GamerGate.

But for Zoe, it just meant abuse.

A lot of this began on 4chan - because of course it did - and users leapt at the chance to renew their attacks on Zoe Quinn and Depression Quest. Adam Baldwin (yes that one) coined the term GamerGate on Twitter, and his followers sent it trending. GamerGate gradually developed into a movement which would viciously attack anyone it saw as a target, and had its base in 4chan and Reddit.

Within four months of the blog post, Quinn's record of threats had exceeded a thousand. Around that time she is quoted as saying:

"I used to go to game events and feel like I was going home [...] Now it's just like... are any of the people I'm currently in the room with ones that said they wanted to beat me to death?".

I would go into detail on the exact content of these threats but frankly, I don't want to. All you need to know is that they contain the worst possible things that some very creative people could come up with. Quinn's Tumblr, Dropbox and Skype accounts were hacked, and she once again fled to live with friends. Everyone even tangentially connected to her got showered with hatred. It was a full on witch hunt.

In a BBC interview, Zoe summed up her experience.

"To me, GamerGate will always be glorified revenge porn by my angry ex. Before it had a name, it was nothing but trying to get me to kill myself, trying to hurt me, going after my family. GamerGate will always be that to me. There was no mention of ethics in journalism at all, besides making the same accusation everybody makes toward any successful women, that clearly she got to where she is because she had sex with someone".

EDIT: There was a section here in which I covered the Alec Holowka scandal in 2019, but commenters pointed out that it isn't really relevant to GamerGate, and I agree with them, so I removed it.

Brianna Wu - Taking Action

Wu is an American video game developer and the founder of Giant Spacekat, a small game studio. In October 2014, she began monitoring 8chan (think 4chan's even worse cousin), and began tweeting about GamerGate, ridiculing them for:

"...fighting an apocalyptic future where women are 8 percent of programmers and not 3 percent".

In the process, she placed herself in the sights of the mob. Anonymous details about her, including her address, were leaked on 8chan, and of course she got the standard death and rape threats, and had to flee her home. If this seems like it's becoming a pattern, that's because it is. The pattern would repeat itself over and over going forward. A minor figure speaks out about something, right wingers try to shut them up with abuse, they use that abuse to increase their platform (thereby becoming a minor left wing celebrity), they become an even bigger target, and they soon end up plastered across the internet.

But to the fury of many Gamers everywhere, none of these women were backing down. In February 2015, Wu declared:

"By attacking me so viciously, they're helping give me the visibility to usher in the very game industry they're terrified about".

Wu created a legal defence fund for women targeted by GamerGate, offered cash for information leading to the prosecution of its worst members, and became heavily involved with the FBI. She exclusively attended events with a security detail. As of today, she and her husband continue to live under aliases.

In 2017, the FBI closed their investigation and declined to prosecute any of the men who sent threats (even though two had confessed). Wu went to the media, campaigning for dedicated FBI agents who understand and monitor the dark corners of the internet like 8chan.

While Wu, Sarkeesian and Quinn would become the three horsewomen of the GamerGate apocalypse, they were not alone. Other women who became major targets include Jenni Goodchild, Liana Kerzner, Devi Ever, Leigh Alexander, Felicia Day, and more. It simply isn't possible to cover every single victim of this movement.

At the time, most people who played video games had no idea this was even going on. And often it was getting swept up in generalisations that turned regular gamers into Gamers. There were those who felt like they were being unfairly portrayed as sexist/racist/whatever else, and responded indignantly. This became heavily involved with the #notallmen and #yesallmen movements (and then #notallgamers). But sometimes those generalisations were right. There was a lot of anger going around in general.

Vivian James - Politics in Gaming

Of course, to the 4channer, the ideal woman doesn't exist. She has to be created. And so Vivian was born. Vivian James (chosen because it sounds like Video Games) was created as a mascot for GamerGaters on 4chan, and her portrayal tells us a lot about what Gamers wanted women to be. She was an anthropomorphized avatar of the /v/ (Vidya) community on 4chan, created in response to a totally separate Zoe Quinn controversy surrounding game jams (events in which developers race to make weird and wacky games). She was used in propaganda as a champion of ‘free speech’.

You see, one of the many debates (and we must use this term loosely) that GamerGate created was that of 'politics' in gaming. Representation was increasing of LGBT people, POC and women in games, and some players insisted that these inclusions were politically motivated. They claimed that games as a medium were not meant to be 'political', and forcing 'politics' into the games was a negative thing. They wanted a return to the 'non-political' status quo - and it just so happened that the status quo was white straight American men (usually with guns). Because they themselves were mostly white straight American men, it never struck them as political for a game to feature a white straight American man, it was simply normal. The default. And any deviation from this was labelled as 'political'.

Of course, any intelligent person can see through this to its deeper meaning - these players didn't want gays, women, and non white characters in their games because they were prejudiced. All media is political in some way. Even games which try not to be political.

This is what GamerGate boils down to - a war over the status quo. One side pushing for change, the other pushing to stop that change.

Vivian never mentioned her gender, her ideas or her politics when she played a game - you could play against her and mistake her for a guy. Rather than disrupt the status quo by existing, she allowed it to absorb her. And that's what Gamers wanted from all minorities - they were welcome as long as they didn't disrupt games as a haven where everything is catered to the default player, a white straight American man. Vivian was a 'real gamer' because she embraced the default. Anyone who rejected that default was a fake gamer, whose love of games was a lie, and whose real purpose was sabotage.

This links in pretty heavily to the #NotYourShield movement, basically a platform for women, POC and LGBT Gamers who supported GamerGate and saw its opponents as exploiting them as a shield to deflect criticism. Ironically, GamerGate used these people as evidence that they were not prejudiced at all, in a very 'I'm not racist, my best friend is black' kind of way.

Penning the Playbook

GamerGate had found an effective way of tearing down its targets, and its playbook would come to include strategies like gaslighting, dogpiling, sea lioning, gish galloping, and dogwhistling - and would inform the strategies of the alt right. By creating a state of fear, where people are too scared to even speak against GamerGate, they were able to silence opposition. And unlike its opposition, who were very real and public figures, GamerGate was decentralised and anonymous, akin to a swarm with no individual leader or face, and which therefore was incredibly hard to defeat. This was never a two way street. Of course, GamerGate had its open and public supporters. Let's go through a few of these colourful characters now!

Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad)

Sargon is your standard basement dweller youtuber, the kind of guy who DESTROYS libs with FACTS and REASON. He gained a lot of traction from GamerGate, and he explains why here. You can kind of imagine him as a more extreme Ben Shapiro.

Richard Spencer

Another Nazi. Richard Spencer was a big supporter of GamerGate. You can look into himself if you like but frankly I don't want to do the research into him because that means I have to watch and read shit he has said. His main claim to fame is being the man who coined the term 'Alt Right'

John Bain (Totalbiscuit)

Totalbiscuit was a popular game critic who died of bowel cancer in 2018. He is widely credited with being the man who legitimised GamerGate. It should be pointed out that Bain was never a white supremacist or abuser or anything like that - and he is often wrongly characterised as being more extreme than he really is. He was conservative, aggressive and thin skinned, but he wasn't evil. To him, GamerGate was always about ethics in journalism, what defines a game, and politics in gaming. He had been an ethical crusader long before GamerGate, and so none of this is truly surprising. He was either incredibly naive or just wilfully ignored the fact that these online movements were just fronts. It is somewhat ironic how much he had in common with James Stephanie Sterling (once known as Jim Sterling before transitioning), another British pro-consumer activist and long-time collaborator, who was always on the total opposite end of the GamerGate spectrum. Indeed, most of John's closest associates were anti-GamerGate.

I met TB once at a convention and he seemed nice enough.

Milo Yiannopoulos

During his time working at Breitbart, Milo was an outspoken supporter of GamerGate. His big thing was that he was a gay right-winger, and he used his homosexuality to deflect criticism for his views. He has since been banned from basically every site possible. Like many others, he seemed somewhat right leaning at first, but gradually unveiled himself as a full on nazi.

Steven Jay Williams (Boogue2988)

Boogie is a youtuber who came to fame through the persona of 'Francis', in which he would put on a funny voice and rage about minor things. But gradually he became more popular just for being himself, and his own views. When GamerGate first emerged, Boogie tried to stay moderate, but his views got more and more extreme as time went on. In 2017, Boogie had a gastric bypass surgery, which made him lose weight. But after that, he revealed himself to be quite a nasty person.

Christina Hoff Sommers

Sommers is an author and philosopher of ethics, and a resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute. She is probably the most 'legit' of GamerGate's supporters, and has carved out a niche in making right wing talking points palatable to the average person, before they move on to the more extreme online figures.

EDIT: Steve Bannon

As a commenter pointed out to me, I've left out someone important. While Steve Bannon himself was not very strongly linked to GamerGate, he was the founder of the heavily right wing site Breitbart, which gave a platform to Milo Yiannopoulos and many others. Bannon would go on to play a pivotal role in the Trump presidency.

Sexism in Gaming Studios

While this is far removed from GamerGate, it's a case of 'the birds coming home to roost'. The movements that GamerGate helped to start have returned and taken many large game developers by storm in recent years. I thought I would go over some of them.

Part 1: The Fellowship of the Rats

The first big publisher to go under the magnifying glass was Ubisoft. In mid 2020 they came under fire for sexual harassment allegations.

Last month the company, one of the world’s largest video game publishers with a portfolio including Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, launched a probe after allegations of sexual misconduct were shared online. Serge Hascoet, chief creative officer and the company’s second-in-command, has resigned, as has the human resources director, Cecile Cornet, and the managing director of the Canadian branch, Yannis Mallat, Ubisoft said on Sunday.

MANY of Ubisoft's executives were forced to stand down.

This video goes into a lot of detail on exactly how much of this abuse was covered up at Ubisoft.

Unfortunately a year later, Ubisoft had made minimal changes. Luckily for them, the spotlight would soon be stolen away.

Part 2: The Two Lawsuits

This particular controversy concerns Activision Blizzard. After a two year investigation, the company was found to have extreme harassment against women and minorities, and has discrimination baked into its terms and conditions of employment. Everything from compensation, assignment, promotion and termination is affected by gender. The entire company is governed by a 'Frat Boy Culture'. California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against them..

At first, Blizzard's president Allen Brack claimed no knowledge of this. But then numerous former and current Blizzard employees spoke up to support the accusations. They insisted that almost nothing was being done within the company to fix it. On 26 June, more than 800 employees (eventually as many as 2000) signed an open letter too their leadership demanding that Blizzard recognise the seriousness and show compassion for victims. When that didn't work, employees held a meeting and on 28 July, organised the Activision Blizzard Walk Out For Equality. Turnout exceeded two hundred.

Renowned scumbag Bobby Kotick released a statement describing Blizzard's earlier statement as 'tone deaf' and promised 'swift action'.

An article by Kotaku went into more detail on the infamous 'Cosby Suite', and revealed that Ghostcrawler (one a high-up on World of Warcraft) was on the list of guests.

Numerous developers left the company, either in protest or due to allegations against them. More and more horrible stories began to emerge, far worse than the original lawsuit had uncovered. Sponsors pulled out, investors filed a class action lawsuit toward the company, and Brack stepped down.

You can read more about it here

Hilariously, Blizzard also completely neutered any remotely sexual or flirtatious lines, emotes and jokes out of WoW.

Part 3: The Return of the Gamers

Since then, numerous other companies have been accused of similar problems. Paradox Interactive, SCUF, Insomniac Games, Bethesda. In fact, it might be easier to list the gaming companies that haven't had any allegations.

It turns out that the people who worked in these companies were often just as nasty as the fans.

Luckily, the reaction has been a far cry from GamerGate. On that, at least, we seem to have made some progress. And I suppose that's something to be optimistic about.

A Troubled Legacy

So what is the legacy of GamerGate? It never really 'concluded' or 'finished'. But if we zoom out on our scope a little, we see that it was just a tributary which flowed into the greater river of the alt-right. And from that river would spill forth Donald Trump, Pizzagate, Qanon, the Manosphere, and Incels. GamerGate was arguably just a microcosm of a much greater societal movement, not its cause, but it was the moment that young online conservatives began to push back against progressivism, and collectively organise. It was the moment where their techniques for censorship, propaganda and recruitment would be rewritten for the internet era. And it was the moment when thousands of online fascists looked around and realised their views weren't that rare after all.

The positive effects have been there too, however. The push back against Gamergate has definitely helped us recognise the dark corners of the internet, and also led to widespread changes in the industry. But the consequences of GamerGate have not yet fully shown themselves.

It's hard to say where it will all lead.

#gamergate #anita #sarkeesian #brianna #wu #reddit #from rumbleskim of rddit in r/hobbydrama #I meant reddit

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just-antithings · 4 years ago

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Anti really got Anita Sarkeesian s quote wrong. Instead of "It's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.", they went "it's wrong to enjoy things I think are problematic and I believe no one is critical of bc I live in a bubble"

#mod hades #posted without comment #Anonymous

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mariaiscrafting · 4 years ago

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i love reading your takes and opinions on things, i agree that people need to talk about problematic things people do (whether it’s on purpose or not) because YOU CAN ENJOY MEDIA WHILST ALSO CRTICISING IT and i think a lot of people in fandoms tend to forget that and instantly assume that anytime some *is* critical of something they have to immediately cancel it. which just isn’t true at all

i hope you enjoy the rest of your night/day :D !!

You see, this is a thing that I used to do. I used to be fully into cancel culture. I think what changed me was the cheating thing, when I realized that I couldn’t pretend wasn’t real anymore when faced with the cold, hard numbers and statistics, that Dream probably cheated. But I had already spent so many hours watching his content and starting to care about him and his friends and the Dream SMP. So I basically was forced to realize that yes, I can criticize entertainers and creators I like, and yes, I can think some of them are assholes or have some kinda flaw that I dislike, while still enjoying them and caring about them and engaging in their communities and with their content. Cancelling is just so... stupid, regressive, futile, and useless.

Anyways, I fricking love this quote from Anita Sarkeesian (one of the feminists behind Gamer Gate, who I have some beef with but still respect), and I will repeat it to anyone who will listen: “It's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.”

That’s basically my motto with the SMP and MCYT

#asks #discourse #mcyt #dreamwastaken #dream smp #Anonymous

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virtuamaes · 4 years ago

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Playing the Audience: Dealing with the Reality of Video Game Representation

If I asked you who comes to mind when you picture your friends or relatives that enjoy playing games, it’s likely that you draw a broad spectrum people of all races, age groups and genders who you know that spend hours on end enjoying video games whether on their phone, computer or consoles. Now for a follow-up question: think of as many lead characters from the most popular video game franchises as you can. The odds are that there is a wide disparity between the variety in the people you’ve known to play games, and the types of characters who take major roles in all the games that we play. As reported by the ESA in 2018, 41% of game-players in the US are women, and 31% of the entire game playing population are women over the age of 18, making a larger portion of the total than boys under the age of 18. So why is it that games aren’t representative of such a more diverse audience?

Well, the answer is rather simple when you break it down: the games industry is plagued with inequalities on several levels that prevent the prevalence of stories and games including or starring people from minorities or marginalized groups from being told. In a study done by 20-first for Forbes in 2020, they found that a mere 16% of the executive teams of the top 14 gaming companies across the globe were women. The battle against systemic inequalities in the entertainment industries and tech fields have been fought for decades at this point, with gaming as one of the newest fields when compared to businesses like the movie industry, which is currently going through its own reinvention as the deeply embedded tendrils of patriarchal dominance were made clear before the public in the recent #Metoo movements.

This could paint a rather bleak picture for the direction that games are headed, but the truth is that the gaming audience has certain advantages in helping influence where games can go from here. While insiders with industry access can do great things like create networks and organizations to help women and people of color land positions at studios to help their voices be heard, the gaming audience is well on its way to taking full advantage of social media and other resources to develop platforms to promote diversity in the industry and share exceptional examples of positive change in the industry.

Criticism is a Kindness

In her popular online web series Anita Sarkeesian argues that, “It's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.” Anita is saying here that audiences gain nothing if they passively accept the flaws of the media they consume, whether they are fans or not. A conscientious audience must strive foremost to develop on those complex feelings they have with games such that they can continue to build and improve upon media no matter how foundational the problematic works are considered.

This isn’t to say that all criticisms come from a place of good faith, however. Anybody connected to the gaming space throughout 2020 will easily recall the wildfire that spread across social media when leaked footage and documents revealed controversial plot details in the much anticipated PS4 title, The Last of Us: Part II. This type of outrage does little to advance audience relationships with developers or promote an environment of critical thinking in the gaming audience, especially considering the game in this example hadn’t even been released yet.

An Informed Opinion

Given the rise of social media, it’s easier now than ever to develop a platform for you to share your opinions. Examples like this springboard post by Aaron Anthony Williams give us a great example of how modern audiences utilize their voices to contribute to the discourse and discuss issues our friends and those who we share interests with may not be fully aware of. Thoughtful critique of games has exploded within recent years as the cost of video editing and production software has decreased to an accessible level. Often times, developers pay special attention to these voices, especially when those concerns are shared over platforms that developers personally frequent themselves or where studios have accounts they make to interface with fans, good examples are Twitter and Reddit.

A queue building outside of my local Best Buy on Cyberpunk 2077's launch day, in December, during the pandemic.

Your Wallet’s Voice

Controversy surround games these days get as much or more publicity when things go south. Take Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most anticipated games of last year: controversy seemed to follow the game for several months preceding its release when CD Projekt Red, the games polish developers were entailed in a handful of scandals surrounding the game’s representation of trans people and ethnic minorities in trailers and demos. When we’ve got the advantage of reliable news sources reporting on the questionable content of upcoming games, we’re able to hold those companies accountable to their decisions by not investing in those companies when their games release.

This concept also extends to pre-orders, which are often incentivized by additional content or pre-release access by developers. Cyberpunk had earned much of its cash haul in the years between its announcement in 2012, and especially after its “gameplay trailer” in 2018, well before controversies surround its questionable depictions of minorities had become public knowledge. The lesson here being that the sooner a developer has its audience in their pocket, the less mindful they need to be to their audience’s sensibilities.

In conclusion, the relationship between developers and their audiences is a fresh new ground for change given the new tools available for the gaming audience. The majority of game development studios including those at the height of the industry have a long way to go in accurately representing the audiences that play their games, but the voices of marginalized groups have developed new ways to broadcast a more critical and responsible means of analyzing and sharing thoughts on games. This new wave of discourse surrounding popular games has a potential to affect change one even the largest game titles from a consumer level, which was an as yet unheard-of degree of cooperation between developers and their audiences, which casts a bright portend for the future of inclusivity in games.

Works Cited

· Sarkeesian, Anita. “Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”. YouTube, uploaded by Feminist Frequency, 7 March 20 21https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q

· Wittenberg-Cox, Aviviah. “Gaming Industry: Please Wait… Gender Balance Loading”. forbes.com. Forbes, 28 August 2020. Web. 26 February 2021.

· ESA. ‘Essential Facts: Diversity in the Video Game Industry’ 2020, ESA: Entertainment Software Association.

· Williams, Aaron A. "What Does Gender Have To Do With It: The Biases Of The Video Game Industry". The Future of Video Games. Springboard. 20 May 2016. Web. 26. February. 2021.

· Henley, Stacey. “It sucks that Cyberpunk 2077’s edgelord marketing worked so well.”. polygon.com. Polygon, 4 December 2020. Web. 26 March 2021.

· @zehugex. “Cyberpunk 2077 pre-sold 8 million copies prior to launch. That’s over $500m in revenue prior to release. For reference, GTAV did $800m on its first day including pre orders + day one sales.” Twitter,20 Dec. 2020, https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1336974249144315904

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sirfrogsworth · 6 years ago

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I was watching a video about the new Mortal Kombat game and came across this comment...

“Highly doubt SJWs would be playing one of the most controversial video game series ever created. That's like the exact opposite of an SJW.“

These dudes have completely fabricated this joyless boogeyman that is wholly detached from reality.

I don’t believe the term SJW has any meaning anymore. It’s whatever they need it to mean when making bad faith arguments. But I do consider myself a Person Who Gives a Shit™. So I’m sure this fella would consider me an evil “SJW.”

And while I haven’t had the opportunity to play many of the new versions, I always loved Mortal Kombat. MKII was probably the game we played the most on my SNES. My group of friends would murder each other until 4am on many a weekend. And I still like watching YouTube videos displaying the latest goretastic finishing moves.

But apparently I am now the ULTIMATE BUZZKILL here to ruin ALL THE THINGS PEOPLE LOVE.

Sure, there are lines that have been crossed and media I refuse to consume. But that’s usually stuff like Louis CK and Bill Cosby stand-up routines. And it’s not even entirely about me taking a moral stance. A big part of it is that I just can’t laugh at them anymore. It’s no longer funny.

But my “SJW ways” didn’t taint them. They did that to themselves.

Being more inclusive and considerate when creating media does not mean wanting suck all the fun out of it. I still want to set people on fire and uppercut them into spikes. I like crude and dark humor. Even sexy characters are fine if they are sexy in the right context. I just don’t think they should be going into battle with their entire chest exposed.

There are plenty of ways to still have all of the “controversial” aspects without shitting on the marginalized or excluding them altogether.

I just wish we could move past this fiction of the SJW boogeyman and figure out how to have our dick jokes and eat them too.

Even Anita Sarkeesian, the GamerGate Antichrist, would say in every one of her videos...

“It's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.“

That’s probably the most ignored sentence in all of the criticism lobbied against her and People Who Give a Shit™ in general.

I have no interest in taking away anyone’s joy. I just want to work towards expanding who can experience the joy.

#I thought about it but I am not rephrasing that

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becuzmdsaidineededpersonality · 7 months ago

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I don't know. I think it's a little disingenuous to portray conversations and frustrations from lesbians and sapphic women as just "petty infighting" and that these arguments are meant to breed "frustration and resentment".

Amazon Prime has removed several queer women from their adaptations while the queer men are still included.

21/30 of the canceled queer shows between 2020-2022 were about lesbians, sapphic women and/or WLW. (And this isn't even all of them...)

It's also been pretty well known that outside of a few exceptions of adaptational shows and films, shows and movies that focus on lesbians, sapphic women and/or WLW tend to get far less advertising and less diversity in the types of advertising that are given. I think a really good example of this is how much and how many different advertising methods were used for the adaptation of Red, White, & Royal Blue (a one-time summer film that is now getting a sequel that has nothing to do with the original source material) and A League of Their Own (a show with multiple episodes that was originally slated to have more than one season before the creators were ultimately screwed over by Amazon and it was cancelled after one season)

Don't even have to do a deep analysis. Just count the number of videos on Amazon's youtube channels RWRB has in comparison to ALOTO.

We're not mad and bringing this up because we think there is "too much gay man rep" because this is a pointless argument and a stupid one because what does that even mean and why would these standards of "too much" not apply to all the straight male characters out there? Also, I am pretty sure Asian gay men and Black gay men and Arab gay man and trans gay men and so forth and so on do not feel there is "tons of gay rep for them!"

We're also not mad and bringing this up because "certain content with your identity blowing up but it doesn't feel representative of you, isn't a genre you like, or is made by straight people / those not of your identity."

Now, are there people on places like twitter who will never be happy with any kind of lesbian, sapphic, and/or WLW representation in any storyline and literally are unable to accept the concept that "no, not every single storyline with a lesbian and/or sapphic character is going to align with your experiences" and will say things like "there has literally never been lesbians in (insert genre here) and when someone provides them with examples, they get defensive and shift the goal post because "well that genre is stupid and so and so ain't even a real lesbian so it doesn't count"? Sure, but should they really get to be discussed with any sort of validity when there are genuine points to be made about systemic discrimination and underfunding and undervaluing of lesbian, sapphic, and/or WLW representation in comparison to gay, achillean, and/or MLM representation...and when these arguments and evidence and discussions come up, it just gets brushed away and not taken seriously and literally nothing is done about it?

In fact, a lot of the canceled shows I am defending and talking about I don't even like because they are...well...not my thing.

And one of the problem shows mentioned, the Invincible adaptation, I actually enjoy for the most part. But as another fellow gender media studies researcher who is way smarter and better than me said, it's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects, and blatantly straight washing a lesbian character and a lesbian couple is a huge problem and I can and should speak out about this. And I will!

Now, I do agree with the overall message of this post. Consume media outside of your own genres to see more rep you want to see. The real issue is there not being enough representation in general. Yes, yes, yes. All good and correct things.

But it is beyond frustrating when every time this conversation comes up and lesbians like me point out the lesbaphobia and sexism against storylines revolving around lesbians, sapphic women, & WLW in many different facets that ultimately cause real world effects...I can't stand this framing because it ignores the larger picture and allows this stuff to be considered normal and expected.

Also, in what world is there more WLW representation than MLM representation in animated shows?

In kids shows, sure. But adding in adult animation?

Harley Quinn, Hazbin Hotel, Tuca and Birdie, and Arcane are four shows out of hundreds that tend to be male dominated and focus primarily on male storylines. Also, they suffer from the "later season sapphic trope" (with the exception of Hazbin) which while not an issue in and of itself, should be included in this conversation. No, not every person is going to like every single one and not every single one is going to be the "gold standard" when it comes to gay male rep...but if we are talking a pure numbers game...it's probably not even going to be close.

And speaking of adult animation, I often use Q-Force as an example of subtle lesbophobia presented in lesbian representation. The main gay male couples get tons of sex scenes, get to tell sex jokes...while the two main lesbian couples can't go past holding hands and a quick kiss (maybe, I don't even think they kissed but just to be sure) If you ever want to see some of the stuff I am talking about, watch that show and you will see. (now it is still a legit fun show too and I like it but again...the whole "it's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects")

I think a way better example to point to would be AAA studio video games because while m-spec and bisexual characters outnumber all LGBT representation in AAA studio video games, removing them from the equation and not including NPCs and putting the lesbian and gay male representation of protagonists side by side, this may be one of the few media categories where lesbian rep outnumbers gay male rep, and that is an issue and should be discussed.

But maybe I am wrong and there is a whole list of lesbian and/or sapphic characters in adult animated shows I am missing...this is more of the anecdotal part of the rant rather than the "here's proof this is happening" so take this with a grain of salt."

I see a lot of fighting online when it comes to gay rep. With extreme people on either sides but at the end of the day the real issue is we just don’t have enough lgbt rep. Plain and simple.

Some mediums / age demographics tend to lean a little more in one direction then the other, so if you only consume one you can feel like you are missing out (ie : there being more wlw content in animated shows and there being more mlm content in YA books)

And it leads to a lot of yelling online. People saying gay men get too much rep, people saying lesbians get too much rep. People wanting to see themselves in a medium they often consume and either getting straight content or content about lgbt not like them.

Or certain content with your identity blowing up but it doesn’t feel representative of you, isn’t a genre you like, or is made by straight people / those not of your identity.

It can lead to feelings of frustration, anger, resentment and being left behind. And I see it also leads to soooooo much infighting. When at the end of the day there just isn’t enough gay content.

It’s something that has to be sought out, even if it’s easier now then ever and we have access to stuff old and new. It’s still not enough.

#as stated before more of a rant of frustration #but something to think about #not trying to pick on OP #their heart is in the right place #and I do have a lot of respect for them #as they have done a lot of work for bringing lesbian history #to a more mainstream audience #more than I could ever do #but damn if this kind of framing just doesn't piss me the fuck off #every time I see it #i just had to say something

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