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RolStoppable said:

Tachikoma said:

(...)

The next gaming collapse won't be a result of games
As we move forward and studios live or die on the ever stringent opinions and tastes of gaming media, the bar is being raised artificially high and the cost of reaching these heights as well as pandering to the media to stay in their good books is fast resulting in the degradation of the groundwork that this industry sits on, the more recent trend to use the games industry as a soapbox to push sexism issues is a red herring, we're told that their goal is to essentially improve games and make their dialog and inclusion more open, but whenever an attempt is made to actually bring the marching band of activists attention back to actual game development, it's taken as an insult because that isn't what they want to talk about, no, instead the topic is not games but the atrocity of a woman who poked an angry bear being shocked that she got clawed to the face.

(...)

This kinda sounds like you are blaming the media for the direction the industry is moving in. But both parties are in this together, and if anything, the publishers have led and are leading the way. Although... you were speaking from the perspective of a game developer all along, so I suppose you want there to be a clear distinction between developers and publishers. Basically, developers are at the mercy of publishers and the media, so currently the only way for freedom as a developer is to join or found an independent studio that works on small digital-ony games that cannot really shake up the industry. Therefore any sort of change to how things are right now is hard to realize.


This is clearly the core of the matter; look at developers such as Bioware and DICE since falling under the yoke of EA, vastly different approach and working ethic and not nearly the same drive to polish and perfect the end product. Corporate policy dictating and steering creative efforts of any kind doesn't work, it is a fundamental clash of philosophy that is destined to fail in the long run.

My biggest gripe is that even most larger independents follow the trends and motions decided by corporations, leading to a modern gaming industry that is a wasteland as far as pure, unbridled creativity goes and it is driven largely by fads, gimmicks, weak short-cuts and focus on superficial concerns.



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Tachikoma said:

- A ton of stuff

What an amazing piece... had to brew a coffee and commit the time to going through it but damn... it's stuff like this which should be published about gaming right now... but as you said it would just extinguish the stream of money earned from basically Fear mongering style news which is everywhere.

I just feel bad for people who are getting caught up in the crap that is going on behind closed doors because it is so common now it seems like it's just impossible to gather attention for your game without resorting to underhanded crap to get people to play it... tis actually sickening really.

Awesome post tho... just a real eye opener to remember that if someone has "news" that is profitting them by hits to their site it is most likely just fabricated clickbait.



Why not check me out on youtube and help me on the way to 2k subs over at www.youtube.com/stormcloudlive

I'd say this is the media industy in general. I find it almost impossible to get news these days without getting a metricfuckton of opinions with it, being relayed as fact. It's all sensationalism and it's getting out of hand, on all sides of the equation.

 

Every industry that interacts with the media is having these issues (politics, sports,  etc).  I don't blame the media either.



An interesting read for later. Tagged.



 

Mr Khan said:
 

Have to side with my boy Mummels on this one. Your argument would be stronger if you had not picked out such a name.

The name was kind of tongue in cheek and spur of the moment. Fortunately Mummelman took the time to go through my full posting history and would know I've since gone above and beyond my nick. Anyway, I feel I'm causing actual hijacks with these kinds of back-and-forths so if you're cool with it I'm going to leave it at that.

mornelithe: Fair enough, sounds good to me.



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Okay, I guess I have a few things to respond to, some being in rather dated posts so feel free to ignore me if you feel like you have already responded to any points I make:

@OP: Well written and a great read from a perspective I don't often think about. However, unfortunately it loses much of its potency by the fact that you cannot name names. I of course don't blame you, but its hard to really get behind what you say without any concrete examples. I always expect bad things to be happening, but without specifics I can't really for a specific opinion. So, for now, my opinion will remain general, that the media should be taken with a grain of salt and that certain sites should be avoided. 

Skidonti said:

I agree with this statement, but I don't think it applies to a lot of the controversial discussion happening around gaming in the last few months/years. I don't think your position is wrong, but I feel like this is an issue in discussion. Where is the right place to bring up criticism? There appear to be a fair number of internet users of the opinion that there is no correct venue to criticize gaming's social impact/what it reflects about us. Whereas I think gaming media is the appropriate place to do it.

People on the internet really like to seek out any criticism that exists and make it their problem. For example, on any set of metacritic reviews for a well liked movie and see where all the comments are (probably the few negative reviews).


Do you remember when Phil Fish made those comments about Japanese video games and got attacked by pretty much everyone? Do you remember when Inafune made similar comments about Japanese video games and got attacked by pretty much no one?

The difference is twofold: 
1. The perspective: Fish was on the outside looking in while Inafune was on the inside. This means that Inafune had perspective and he was trustworthy in that perspective. Fish's comments felt like mud being slung around while Inafune's felt like genuine concern for the industry.
2. The wording: Fish's comments were pretty darn harsh and shallow, saying things like Japanese games are "Fucking terrible" and saying to the man who asked him the question about the state of the Japanese video game industry "your games just suck". Inafune on the other hand said things in a much more nuanced way, and explained himself in a way that showed a way forward instead of just blanket condemnation.

Now, as for the issue at hand, I see many of the same problems. Many of the figureheads for these sexism debates are people outside the industry like Anita Sarkeesian who have a very shallow and "outside" view of the issue. Her perspectives aren't fresh or intersting, they just feel like general attacks out of principle, instead of anything important or weighty. Then we have all of the people inside the gaming media who rose up against GamerGate by posting a torrent of "Gaming are dead" articles which just felt like attacks and pissed off more people than it actually spoke to.

How do we get around this? Well, we talk. Without accusations and without a platform. We talk on forums and in comment sections, without either side feeling like they belong to some team in a war. Part of the reason GamerGate turned so harsh is because they were ignored or attacked by every media outlet, nobody was willing to have a conversation. If sites want to talk about these issues, they shouldn't do it from a soapbox and talk down to the readers or attack anyone, they should make it a discussion where both sides are involved...

However, this goes against what Tachi said in the OP. The media isn't looking for well rounded, open and honest coverage, they want sensationalism and rage and a war...

whiteknight101 said:

However. The right of any citizen to have an opinion and express that opinion is imperative in a democratic society. The right to disagree by means of threats and harassment, on the other hand, is non-existent. Let's be clear that this is the "angry bear" you're talking about here.

And let's take note that it is in fact not a bear or an animal at all. It's an anonymous internet mob, made up of a number of human beings. Each with absolute control of how they choose to go about things. The problem here is that these individuals who make up "the bear" got their idea of online morals from anonymous imageboard culture - where anonymous threats and harassment are embraced and a non-issue, due to:

1) On an anonymous imageboard you have no identity unless you choose to have one, and no one can do you harm beyond saying mean things. Mean things which anyone can shrug off with the next post, since every new post gives them a new identity.

2) This means that on anonymous imageboards, internet isn't serious business. Internet is a magical kingdom where you're free to threaten, harass and be a jerk in general.

So the problem we're having here is basically that people grew accustomed to these "rules" of anonymous internet posting, and now they have a sense of absolute entitlement to embrace mindless mob behaviour (including threats and harassment). Failing to realize that these "rules" don't apply to their interaction with public persons (e.g. Sarkeesian) who are exercising their democratic right to make their opinions known.

Threatening and harassing Sarkeesian - through twitter, phone calls or whatever - is serious business. 4chan rules are no longer in effect.

The rules that apply are the rules of democratic society. Everyone has a right to make their opinion known. Anyone has a right to disagree. This right to disagree does not include a right to threaten and harass. This holds true notwithstanding whether the person you disagree with is reasonable or not. Arguing, as you Tachikoma seem to be doing, that the right to make your opinion heard without being threatened and harassed is revoked if your opinion is stupid enough, is - yes! - ipso facto victim blaming. That's got nothing to do with gender politics, or left and right, or whatever. That's a core tenet of democratic society.

(general statement about harrassment)

Nobody advocates harrasment, however it is a fact of internet life. If you make any sort of controversial content on the internet, you will get harassed, regardless of which side of the debate you fall on. 

This isn't news, and this certainly doesn't further any agenda. Trying to say "I got harrassed, so this just proves my point that gamers are misogynists" isn't a valid argument and it isn't helping anyone. Harrasment sucks, but the only thing that it tells you is that there are some shitty people on the internet. Nothing more.

You are free to make whatever comments you want to, but if they are controversial, you will get harrassed and you shouldn't be surprised or try to make some kind of news story out of it or further your agenda.



A very interesting read. I knew that gaming media and publishers were corrupt, but it's nice to hear from a developer's perspective on that corruption. Thanks for the insight.



I'll read through the thread later, but I'll have to get 8chan /gg/ on the case here first.

Well, that's if you don't mind this getting out to the world in spectacular fashion.



 
I WON A BET AGAINST AZUREN! WOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

:3

thank you for this

this isn't just about games though

public perception is now a commodity



Had problems getting vgchartz to load but my other bing searches were working. I typed in a search for "vgchartz" and found a news article blog with a direct link to your post. Your article you've made is amazing and very informative.
(( I do searches by "bing news" and "recent/24 hour order" for up to date news.) ~ ( but even searches are big bussiness corrupt. Information is being hidden from us and it's misleading us. I'll prove this to you by asking you to anybody reading this and has windows to go ahead and do a seach on: "corrupt microsoft" . Surely someone has got something to say on the matter. It goes to show and proves the point of your time-line. Results are pretty old at 4 years old and very few. Same thing happens with searches for the xb1 when downplaying it. ))