TotalBiscuit, in his own words. Part Two.
(And here's the continuation from part 1.)
"Which is a little bit weird, considering the fixation supposedly on Kerrigan, one of the most powerful characters in the Starcraft universe, ridiculously powerful, in fact, who will no doubt be key to the conclusion of the Starcraft II trilogy story."
And who, TB neglects to mention, has been given enormous breasts and stripper boot-like bone spurs in her (otherwise really fucking creepy) Zerg Queen form. No, Kerrigan totally hasn't been hyper-sexualized, TB, you're absolutely right. Except that Blizzard guy explicitly said himself that Kerrigan was hyper-sexualized, right there in the very same goddamn interview that TotalBiscuit is quoting from. What the hell is going on here, seriously? Just because she's a powerful character means she somehow can't be visually hyper-sexualized by her designers? Is that really the point he's trying to make here? Power Girl is extremely powerful, too, almost as strong as Superman himself. I wonder if TB would try to seriously claim that Power Girl isn't hyper-sexualized as well. Seriously, I'm tempted once again to just stop right here because this is just getting stupid.
"DOTA style games in particular are a very bad example, I feel, of objectifying women. Nathan states that it should be a genre about empowerment, and yet that's exactly what it is. Female characters, male characters, genderless characters in those games generally are balanced. They're all powerful in their own way, and they make up a strong team composition. Female characters in these games inherently have as much agency as any other character and are as powerful as any other character, though often in different ways because, hey, that's how asymmetrical balance actually works."
And... all of this is relevant to how the female characters have been visually designed... how again? Oh, right, it's not, at all.
"I think it is fallacious to claim that female characters in DOTA style games are objectified as opposed to empowered but that is another debate for another time."
Really? Then why did TB just spend literally around 5 minutes, or almost 20% of his 28 minute spiel, trying to debate it then? Go figure.
"This is just an example of where games media has a tendency to blur the line between op-ed, editorial, interview, and journalistic content."
Oh, right, he was actually talking about that at one point earlier, wasn't he... huh.
"But the question is is that actually a bad thing in the first place?"
Well, when it's "agenda-driven" and the agenda in question doesn't fit the agenda of a typical GamerGate-supporting, misogynistic asshole, then yeah, they'd likely say it is a bad thing.
"If I go into an interview, for instance, I'm most likely going to be fairly fixated on the PC aspect. I'm going to be fixated on the performance. I don't really want to talk about the ability to share videos over the Internet with the share button on the Playstation 4. I don't care. That is not something that I am bothered about."
But but but what if his listeners are bothered about that sort of thing? If they are, and he doesn't address it, then that obviously "shows a disconnect between what the general audience of that interview actually wanted, and what the interviewer was attempting to derive from it," to use TB's own words. Wouldn't that be the fault of the interviewer if the audience wants to hear about the Playstation 4 share button and the interviewer doesn't ask about it and instead fixates on the PC aspect of it? Of course, by now, given that TB is himself one of those "individual personalities" that many people have come to trust, they'd already know that he's PC centric, just as most of RPS's core audience already know that certain writers on RPS are rather feminism-centric, anyway. Different strokes for different folks and all that. But what if a bunch of people who were already predisposed to dislike TotalBiscuit in the first place showed up to comment on his interview and give him shit because he didn't ask about the Playstation 4 share button? Yeah, that's the equivalent to all the GamerGate-supporting, misogynistic assholes showing up en masse in the comments under Grayson's RPS interview to give him shit for asking, shock of shocks, a feminism-centered question.
"But I go into it saying, 'Well, what about the PC port?' And if I get a bad answer, I will try and badger them on that."
Oh, so it's okay if TotalBiscuit badgers an interviewee, but not if Nathan Grayson does it (at least by TotalBiscuit's definition of badgering, which apparently doesn't match my own, since I don't think Nathan Grayson badgered anyone in that Blizzard interview). All right. Gotcha.
"I'll say, 'Look, I want to know what are you going to be doing for PC users. What are the certain minimum features that you can guarantee? Do you even understand what it is that PC gamers tend to prioritize and why the PC as a platform is different?' You see, I'm agenda-driven as well. In reality, almost everybody is, and that makes the discussion quite interesting. The term 'agenda' being labelled as a negative is really quite inaccurate."
Just so long as the agenda in question fits TB's own, of course. But since Nathan Grayson's didn't, he was obviously acting "incorrectly" and whatnot. Um hmm, let's continue on.
"Everybody has an agenda of some description, whether it be the desire to change the world from their position, or whether it be something simple and innocuous like 'I would like this game to have a colorblind option. What is my agenda? Well I'm colorblind or I have a friend that's colorblind that has difficulty enjoying these games so I would like to see a colorblind option so it's my agenda that I wish to push you in order to get that.' That seems harmless, right? And for the most part, having an agenda is. Having opinions is harmless. Indeed, it's our right as human beings."
Unless said opinion is the opinion that Nathan Grayson espoused, of course, in which case it's "incorrect," and TB will spend five minutes trying to refute it before declaring it "another debate for another time."
"Back to the question. What do you want out of games media? Some people simply want to know whether a game is worth buying."
And some people consider a game that portrays women as sex objects as a game not worth buying. But, no, it's "wrong" to ask about that and wrong to "badger" a company spokesman about that.
"And honestly, for the longest time, that's what games media's role has actually been. It's not been about journalism, it has been about review. It's about taking a product and saying 'This is good,' and 'This isn't good.' Games media has been a giant buyer's guide for a very long time. And I have a feeling that a lot of games media are getting a little bit sick of just being that. And as a result, they have tried to branch out into other areas. And I do the same thing. I'm okay with being a buyer's guide. I mean, it's one of my most successful series, and I continue to do that, and I think I'm pretty good at it, and my videos are helpful to a lot of people."
Caveat emptor. I say that to both consumers of TotalBiscuit's own product as well as to the buyers of games for which TotalBiscuit is acting as a buyer's guide. You get what you pay for.
"But I also like to talk about issues like this. Now if we look at some of the ridiculous stuff that's been going on over the past couple of weeks, including the barrage of articles declaring gamers dead and attempting to put millions of people into this box that has the word 'misogyny' written on the side of it and shove them away in the attic somewhere."
No. Those people put themselves into that goddamn box when they decided, perhaps hastily and foolishly, to rush in and associate themselves with GamerGate, even if they don't consider themselves to be misogynistic assholes. TotalBiscuit is, himself, in that box as far as I am concerned, as long as he continues to champion GamerGate. Guilt by association. He, himself, may not agree with the rape/death threats and the doxxing and whatnot, but he is claiming association with a group that does, by and large. It has been proven to my own satisfaction that GamerGate got its start on 4chan, even though it wasn't called that at the start. That, for me, puts the whole thing into an "enough said" state of being, and if you don't agree with that, then tough fucking shit.
"What we see is what can happen when editorial is taken to these extreme degrees, where it begins to condemn large portions of its own demographic."
When said large portions of its own demographic deserve such condemnation, as all those misogynistic assholes most certainly do, then for me it would be a failure of the games media if they didn't do so. Honestly, that actually refutes, to an extent, one of my previously held tenets (though I still believe that to be mostly true on the whole, mind you).
"And games journalism, when it does that, is essentially eating itself. Who reads this kind of stuff? The sort of person that reads games journalism and games media is generally an enthusiast. They want to hear some interesting opinions."
I've been a video game "enthusiast" for a very long time now. Over two decades. And, until relatively recently, I wanted to hear interesting opinions. But then said opinions started to get really dumb, as far as I am concerned. So I stopped listening to and reading them. Hell, if anything, their condemnation of GamerGate was one of the few redeeming qualities remaining to games media, generally speaking, as far as I care about the whole thing anymore. So, basically, what I'm saying here is that TotalBiscuit does not speak for all "enthusiasts" when he makes these "in fact, this is indeed how it actually is" sort of definitive statements that he's making in this video, as if the apparently monolithic entity that is "GAMERS" agree with him by default. It's just not the case. I don't claim to speak for them either. I speak just for myself.
"The more casual observer might jump over to Metacritic, look at a score, and then decide based on that whether or not they're going to purchase a title, and that is the only interaction they will ever have with games media, outside of maybe the occasional announcement."
To go off on a bit of a tangent here: as far as I am concerned, Metacritic and similar score aggregator sites are one of the worst things to happen to game reviews in a very long time. Hell, arbitrary scores on reviews in general are a terrible thing, I believe, because in far too many cases, the scores don't in any way reflect the actual content of a given review as to whether a game is actually good or not. I have read reviews that made a game sound great, only to then see a very low score at the end of it, and I've read reviews that have utterly trashed a game, only to then see a 8 or 9 out of 10 at the end of it.
"And then you've got your enthusiasts who are into the hobby to the degree where they wish to hear about industry issues, they wish to read interviews on a particular topic, they wish to read op-eds on a specific topic, and so on and so forth."
Well, if that's his definition of an "enthusiast," then I suppose I am no longer a video game "enthusiast." I don't care about any of that shit anymore, aside from a few very rare exceptions from time to time. However, what I do still care about are the fucking games themselves. That is what I consider to be an "enthusiast," someone who plays a shit-ton of video games and wishes to continue to do so. Their interest, or lack thereof, in video game journalism (or the true lack thereof, as the case may be) only factors into that a small bit. I am a video game enthusiast. I am not a video games journalism enthusiast.
"Now this is where I would toss out a call for understanding. We, as games enthusiasts, wish to read this kind of stuff. We wish to read editorial and opinion pieces. Here's the thing. We don't get to say we wish to read opinion pieces and we wish to read op-eds and engage in this kind of discussion, and then say well you really can't write about this specific aspect of it."
This, I actually agree with.
"We can condemn it if we believe that it is factually incorrect, if it is stereotyping the audience."
Just as I am and others are free to condemn all the bullshit that spews out of GamerGate-supporting misogynistic assholes. Tit for tat.
"There's nothing wrong with condemning the articles that are saying gamers are dead, but I would like you to actually read them, because you'd be surprised, there might be some value in it."
And that, likewise, is why I'm am currently in the process of listening to this TotalBiscuit video and writing this post about it, even though I said "fuck TotalBiscuit forever" and all that in the previous post. I agree with his sentiment here. Doing so has not been a complete waste of time and energy for me (though it has felt like a slog at points, to be sure). With that said, though, I can listen to "well, actually, it's about ethics in game journalism" only so many times, while it's being simultaneously accompanied by all the news about all the shitty, horrible, subhuman things that GamerGate-supporting misogynistic assholes keep on doing before I just have to say enough is enough, and I'm simply not going to listen to or read about that horseshit anymore. But then things like this keep happening that keep dragging me back into it.
"And I would say the same thing about people like Anita Sarkeesian."
Absolutely, I agree with this as well. Good on TotalBiscuit, for once. Don't just dismiss out of hand what she's saying just because she happens to be saying something about your favorite video game that might hurt your poor, widdle feelings, or because she just happens to have a pair of ovaries, or maybe you don't like flannel shirts and hoop earrings or whatever. I actually used to be a fairly strong critic of Anita Sarkeesian, though I wasn't remotely as vocal as some of the others. Hell, if anything, it was fucking goddamn GamerGate, of all things, and its asinine, horrendously overblown reaction to Anita Sarkeesian that actually made me switch sides and become more supportive of her (and Zoe Quinn and the others).
"I don't want to drive critics out of the industry. What I do want is accurate critique. 'I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it,' is the axiom of those that actually believe in free speech. The cool thing about free speech is that when we see something we disagree with, we're able to provide a rebuttal. Now, we don't even have to do it on the site in which this particular piece of speech has been hosted. We can do it elsewhere, that's the wonderful thing about it. If someone turns off comments, like me for instance, everyone is more than free to critique my work, either on Youtube and I will certainly not use DMCA claims to bring that down. That would be illegal. Or to write a blog about it, or to go on Tumblr about it, or go on Reddit about it, have a conversation in IRC chat about it. There is nothing I can do or would even want to do to stop that from occurring. And that's the important thing, isn't it?"
Indeed it is. Because it's funny. That's exactly what I'm doing here. Using my blog to refute a bunch of his stupid bullshit. And there is quite a bit of bullshit to be found here, in this very video. And yet, at the same time, that previous little section right up there has come dangerously close to making me almost reduce my ire against TotalBiscuit back down to the simple levels of apathy and tolerance and even grudging respect that I had for him before I wrote the previous LJ post. I'm not quite sure I'm actually there yet, but it's a dangerously close thing. He's still got 10 more minutes to piss me off all over again, though, so let's not get too ahead of ourselves here.
"The conversation is wider than simply that one piece of media's comments section. And indeed the comments section is a terrible place to have that discussion. As I've said, it is a poisoned well. An eternal poisoned well that just keeps on bringing up bucket after bucket of poisonous water. Children die by the thousands as a result of Youtube comments. It's as simple as that."
And here's another funny thing. Even if TotalBiscuit didn't turn off his Youtube comments, I still would never see them. So yeah, there's another thing he's said that I agree with.
"I don't condemn websites that decide to moderate their comments, although I do feel that many of them have gone completely overboard in deleting things that they disagree with and simply leaving up the things that they tend to agree with. What you're doing there is creating an echo chamber. And that's not helpful to anybody. There is no discussion that happens in an echo chamber. It's simply the same line bouncing off the walls over and over and over again, and that is the antithesis of good discussion and debate."
Yet again, I agree. Simply put, I dislike sites that cherry pick comments like that more than I do sites that just disallow comments altogether. If anything, I have more respect for the sites that finally just say, "Fuck it, that's it, pool's closed, everybody out!" and then just gets rid of the comments section altogether (like Spoony, for example). Although it mostly doesn't matter to me anymore either way since I try to avoid comments on any site, aside from my own LJ here, as though they are truly the Black Death.
"Games media should be able to create videos and critiques about whatever it is that they want. Now, if they are factually incorrect, you can take them to task for it, and more to the point, as a consumer, the power that you do hold is the ability to not visit those sites..."
And boy have I been exercising that very power to the max lately. And except for right now, and unless I change my mind by the end of this, I'll be exercising it all over TotalBiscuit's own ass as well.
"...because, here's the reality of it, right? These are not a bunch of rich games journalists that are lording their power over everybody, no. They do have power, there is no doubt. They have a disproportionately large amount of power as individuals or small organizations compared to other people. Because they have a voice. They have a podium. They have a pulpit from which to preach that has an audience. And this is the sort of thing that most regular people do not have. As a result, you see people forming into groups, or as some people would describe them, mobs, in order to get their voice out there, because that's the power of the democratic process. That's the power of voices en masse."
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it." I'm not saying that big, amorphous groups of people can't get their voices heard, I'm just saying that those big, amorphous groups of people often say asinine, misogynistic things that not every part of that big, amorphous group may want to have associated with them, that's all.
"The problem with voices en masse, of course, is that their cause can be co-opted by the louder voices who are, in fact, extremists and don't really have that much interest in the matter at all. They simply wish to push another agenda."
And this, right here, sadly and frustratingly, is where TotalBiscuit loses me. This is where TotalBiscuit is, himself, misinformed and misguided. GamerGate was not co-opted by the extremists. No. GamerGate was started by extremist, misogynistic assholes on 4chan. If anything, it was co-opted by the right wing blowhards, Adam Baldwin and Breitbart and the like. And then, lastly, the more well-meaning people, like perhaps TotalBiscuit himself, showed up and have been, themselves, making a horribly failed and doomed attempt to kind of "co-opt" this thing which had such dark, evil origins. And this is why I just don't get it. As I've said so many times in the past, GamerGate is just an irredeemably toxic shithole of a buzzword now, and it always has been. I don't get why the more well-meaning people continue to cling to this useless buzzword so desperately and defiantly. Why is it so very important to them that they continue to call themselves "GamerGate"? Here's the thing. I would, for the most part, be fucking agreeing with most of these people, if only they'd stop calling themselves "GamerGate." "GamerGate" is the bullshit that started on 4chan that later got called "hashtag GamerGate" by that asshole on Twitter. Drop GamerGate. Form your own new group and give it a new name (but don't call it anything "-gate" because the "-gate" thing as a whole is just fucking stupid anyway), and do your absolute damndest to differentiate yourselves from the misogynistic assholes in GamerGate, who were there and have always been there from the very start, even before you were, and who were, in fact, the very progenitors of your so-called good cause, a cause that I would indeed not mind being a part of, if only you weren't associating yourselves with those very same misogynistic assholes by clutching at the "GamerGate" name so tightly.
"There's been a lot of hijacking going on, on many sides of this particular debate. Some websites have tried to paint it as a misogynist crusade..."
Because it is. GamerGate is a misogynist crusade, and has been so from the very goddamn beginning. The sooner you johnnies-come-lately realize this, abandon GamerGate back to the depths of 8chan where it belongs, and move on to your own unsullied thing, the better off you will be, and the more people you will attract to your cause. As long as you continue to call yourselves "GamerGate," though, you will never be the true "voice of the masses" that you strive to be. It's such a simple thing, to just shed yourselves of that layer of dried up horseshit that is the "GamerGate" label that you covered yourselves with the instant you leapt with both feet without looking right into that cesspit. It's frustrating to watch, honestly.
"...some people have tried to paint it as simply an issue on games ethics..."
And that's the joke. "Actually, it's about ethics in games journalism." That is exactly why that phrase is so tragically comedic. You're trying to paint red the turd that is "GamerGate" and call it a rose, and that's simply an impossible task. It's not even Herculean, it's Sisyphean.
"...but some others have painted it as the unholy influence of so-called 'social justice warriors' ruining our hobby and their agenda is to drive those people out of the industry."
It is the so-called "social justice warriors" that the misogynistic assholes who make up GamerGate are indeed warring against. That's who the shitbags on 4chan and now 8chan and wherever else have been fighting against since time immemorial. Before God ever decided to call for light in the beginning, misogynists and so-called "SJW"s have been at war. Long after the heat death of the universe, misogynists and so-called "SJW"s will be at war. The "social justice warrior" is, in my opinion, one of the most heinous of strawmen, and as I've said before and I'll probably say again, anyone and everyone who uses the phrase "social justice warrior" in a true, earnest attempt to be taken seriously has already irrevocably lost whatever argument or debate or shitstorm or whatever that they were trying to start, as far as I am concerned. To the progenitors of GamerGate, the likes of Anita Sarkeesian and her supporters and, indeed, anyone who claims to have even the remotest interest and support for anything they deem the "feminist agenda" are all "social justice warriors" to be stamped out of existence. (To be fair, I'm sure many would probably call my interpretation of people in GamerGate in particular and people on 4chan in general a strawman as well, and... yeah, it probably is. Like I said, Not All GamerGaters and Not All 4channers... ¬_¬)
"And I don't believe we should be driving those people out of the industry."
I totally agree, and that's why I find it so disheartening that these seemingly otherwise well-meaning (for the most part) guys like TotalBiscuit here and the rest (not including the misogynistic 4/8chan assholes who started the whole goddamn thing) are so thick/bull/hardheaded in their stubborn determination to continue to so strongly attach themselves to the sunken S.S. GamerGate. I mean, it's not even sinking in the present tense. GamerGate is already down there with the fucking Titanic, as far as I'm concerned.
"I believe that we should be informing people. Informed people make sensible decisions."
And this is what GamerGate (and from now on, when I say GamerGate, I mean the 4chan/8chan/whatever misogynistic asshole douchebag fuckwits who started the whole thing, and not [necessarily] guys like TotalBiscuit who merely jumped on what they mistakenly thought was a good cause after the fact, although guys like TotalBiscuit will simply get tarred with the same feathers as long as they continue to support GamerGate) absolutely does not want. GamerGate doesn't want people to be informed. If that were the case, GamerGate wouldn't be trying to silence people like Anita Sarkeesian with threats of rape and death and doxxing and whatnot. GamerGate doesn't want people to have the option to listen to Anita Sarkeesian and then come to their own decision as to whether or not she's full of shit or not. No, GamerGate wants Anita Sarkeesian to fucking shut her mouth. GamerGate wants her silenced. The individual members of GamerGate may not literally want her to die, but you certainly can't say for sure if that's the case or not based on how GamerGate as a whole decides to conduct itself.
"This is the rest of the quote, by the way, from the American Press Institute: 'History reveals that the more democratic a society, the more news and information it tends to have.' End quote."
*nods in agreement*
"Ignorance is the enemy."
And, as such, that makes GamerGate the enemy.
"In all walks of life, ignorance is where hatred springs from. Understanding and tolerance is bred from information and knowledge, and that is the sort of culture that we should be promoting. An informed consumer can make an informed decision and will not be negatively misled by a piece of misleading critique, because they will already have the information that says no, you are wrong on a number of issues and here's why. And more to the point, because they have well-rounded knowledge of the area, they can still see some value in something that they disagree with."
Yes, exactly. And so, I have to ask... why, exactly, is TotalBiscuit still supporting GamerGate, then? He is aware that GamerGate has a rather extensive boycott list, isn't he? (EDIT) Or, at least, had one (which can still be found here via archive.org), before gamergate.me apparently disappeared off the face of the Internet altogether, at least as of the time of this edit (and absolutely nothing of value was lost, and if that site ever does come back up, the Internet will be all the poorer for it). (/EDIT) If GamerGate is boycotting all of those news sites, then it's certainly not abiding by TotalBiscuit's own aforementioned principles of understanding and tolerance and trying to see some value in something that they disagree with, now is it? Sound pretty fucking ignorant of GamerGate, wouldn't you say? Yeah. Yeah, it does.
"Most of these games media sites are fighting for survival and they have been for years. Why? Because they have become progressively less relevant. There are other means to acquire the information that they previously were the sole purveyors of. Traditional games magazines used to hold a monopoly on getting early copies of games. And then games websites came along and slowly but surely built up the contacts and the reputation to also gain access to that. And now Youtubers have come along, and they're also slowly building up the reputation. And what happened to games magazines? Well outside of Game Informer, that is owned by GameStop themselves, they, for the most part, died off. And what's happening to websites now? Well, outside of the large ones, they're suffering and they're shrinking. In some ways, that's a good thing. Because there is plenty of corruption going on in this particular industry."
Yes, I completely 100% agree. There is indeed corruption in games media. Without a doubt, there is. However, unlike TotalBiscuit, I personally don't think that the issue of the misogyny that runs rampant in GamerGate is a distraction from this issue. I think it is a separate issue entirely, one that is equally deserving to be discussed and debated. I would love to see both of these issues tackled and dealt with accordingly. I don't think the misogyny that exists (and it most certainly does exist) within GamerGate should just be swept under the rug in favor of talking only about the corruption in games media, as though this were some sort of Bad Things Special Olympics with corruption in games media winning the gold medal. Why can't this be one of those "we're all winners here" events where everyone gets a gold medal?
"There are people that seem so comfortable in their position that they find the idea of disclosure to be abhorrent. They find it to be uncomfortable and unacceptable. Now I entered this industry with the idea that disclosure was key and that transparency was not only essential to maintaining your authority when it came to your critique, but was, surprisingly enough, a marketing tool. The ability to put yourself out there as a transparent individual was actually a bonus. It was something that you could market to the demographic, and that's ludicrous. It shouldn't be a marketing tool. It should be the default position."
On the first hand, I like that this is his position. On the second hand, I am appalled that he is so cynical about using it as a marketing tool. And on the weird, mutant third hand, I am heartened that he, at least, recognizes that the ability to use it as a marketing tool is a weird aberration, and not something to be lauded.
"And imagine just how well informed the consumer would be if it were the default position. Imagine how many misunderstandings could be avoided. The issue of the embargo, there's a great example. When I bring up the term 'embargo,' people immediately cry 'censorship.' But that's not actually what the original intention of the embargo was all about. The point of a press embargo on a release, and if I'm talking about games journalism and review and critique, I'm discussing the idea of a review copy, about reviewing a game prior to it coming out, is to make sure that all outlets have an equal opportunity to release their critique at around the same time, and have a good amount of time to do it. Otherwise what would happen? It would be a race to the finish. It would be a race to see who got their article out first, because they get the lion's share of the traffic. If you want to look at corruption, then you can look at the practice of giving that review copy to somebody else prior to the rest of their competition. The idea of the 'world exclusive review.' Just ridiculous. That's something that needs to be stamped out of this industry entirely."
Oh yeah, I absolutely agree with this, as well. And I'm not sure if he's edging toward this point or not, but I'm going to perhaps jump the gun on him anyway by saying that this touches on the idea of the early review copy itself, and how I think it's kind of fucked up that many in games media seem to think that they are actually entitled to receive such an early copy of a game for reviewing purposes, and if they don't, then they get incredibly buttwroth about it, and sometimes use it as an excuse to slag on the game, regardless of whether the game actually deserves it or not. They make the issue about themselves, about them not getting their precious review copy for whatever reason, and not about the game, no matter if the game is good or the game is shit.
"And if we talked more about the embargo process, then I think we'd get a lot more understanding. Because sometimes it is used to try and suppress negative criticism. Sometimes. Not always. In fact, I'd say not even a majority of the time. But it is a practice that PR agencies and games publishers do use to attempt to suppress it and push pre-order culture."
Oh fuck, don't even get me started on "pre-order culture." That's something that I feel is just ridiculous and needs to be stamped out entirely.
"There are many other aspects of the games industry that I feel that games journalists could be doing a good job informing people of. But there is very little investigation going on in games journalism. There is very little effort to inform the consumer outside of 'This game is good,' 'This game is not good,' 'Hey, this game is coming out,' 'This game has announced a season pass,' and so on and so forth."
And, to be honest, I don't know that I would trust the current crop of games "journalists" to tell it to me straight, even if that sort of investigative stuff actually was going on.
"If I were to sum up this conflict in a short sentence, if I were to boil it down to its barest possible essentials, I would say this: the reason there is currently a large conflict is that games media organizations seem to have forgotten that they were supposed to be pro-consumer."
That's a fair assessment of the situation. It, obviously, ignores completely the rampant misogyny in GamerGate, which TotalBiscuit still, to this day, misguidedly supports (and, to be absolutely fair, this video was posted in September 2014, before most of the more heinous shit that GamerGate has done came to light, but that still doesn't explain why TotalBiscuit is still supporting GamerGate even now [unless he actually is, after all, a misogynistic asshole, but I'm leaning toward the conclusion that he actually is not, and is actually a fairly decent guy who just got roped up into this shit without fully examining things and maybe now doesn't know how exactly to extricate himself from it, at least not without losing a ton of followers, but by the same token, any followers he'd lose by denouncing GamerGate are followers he should honestly be glad to see the back of, assuming again that he really isn't indeed one of the very misogynistic assholes I've been ranting against]). But still, as far ignoring all of that and swallowing, for just a moment, the lie that "actually, it's about ethics in games journalism," then, yes, that's a fair assessment of the situation.
"The articles that have come out of the last couple of weeks have been anything but. They have been condemning their own audience, their own consumer base. They have been doing it either directly or indirectly, expressly or implicitly."
Well, to turn it around and be fair to those games media companies, I have, myself, been saying for years now that I think the whole gaming "community" is one big fucking joke, and I really want nothing whatsoever to do with it, and I was saying this well before GamerGate was ever a twinkle in 4chan's eye. I've been saying it, if perhaps not publicly, at least since before Robert Summa left Destructoid, and that happened back in 2007. (Though... ... ...I... pardon me a moment, I feel like I just swallowed a whole lemon... I just had the supreme displeasure of learning that that goddamn motherfucker Summa is apparently back at Destructoid again now, and apparently has been since January 2015. What in the fucking fuck? ಠ_ಠ Okay, well... okay. I haven't followed Destructoid at all for literally years now, which is why I didn't know about Summa coming back until just now, and I certainly won't ever be following them again in the future, especially if that cuntbag Summa is there again, so... yeah. That's a tangent for you. Back to TotalBiscuit.)
"If you wish to lose your audience, that is a surefire way of doing it. And frankly, I would say that at that point, you deserve it, because you lost sight of your true goal, you lost sight of what you were supposed to be doing and the people you are supposed to be protecting. And some of these sites are simply misled. They feel that they are doing the right thing, that they have the moral authority and that they are protecting innocent people. And to some degree they are, but they are doing it by shelling everyone else around them, and that is not okay."
And yet, given TotalBiscuit's continued support of GamerGate, I would turn those exact same words right there around and apply them directly to TotalBiscuit himself. He's misled. He feels he's doing the right thing and that he has the moral authority and is protecting innocent people. But if he still considers himself a part of GamerGate, and still feels the need to defend GamerGate, then he is doing both himself and his audience a huge disservice. He is shelling everyone else around him, and that is not okay.
"Critique is inherently pro-consumer even if you disagree with it."
So again, I ask, why is he still supporting GamerGate then?
"It's important that we have these discussions."
GamerGate disagrees with him on that point, and yet he still defends it. Why?
"But it's also important that the critique remain accurate, that it remain factually accurate, and that those that put out incorrect critique, or even a critique that is for the most part right that has some errors, take responsibility for those errors."
I agree. Hell, I've had to post a mea culpa or two of my own over the years.
"Because we all make mistakes. I constantly make mistakes."
And, in fact, he is, to this day, making a mistake by continuing to support GamerGate. It's sad that he just doesn't seem to be able to realize it. (Or, otherwise, he does realize is but just really is a misogynistic asshole and simply doesn't give a fuck. Could go either way, I guess. I can't really tell, but I'm leaning toward him not being a misogynistic fuckass.)
"Some people say that I like to call my videos 'First Impressions' to avoid that very criticism, but in reality, I do post retractions quite frequently. I'll even take videos down and redo them if I feel that the mistake is that egregious, and I lose quite a lot of money whenever I do that. But it just feels like the right thing to do. I enjoy a position of authority and I enjoy a position of power."
And it is exactly for that reason that it is so disheartening and frustrating to hear him say these things, and yet know that he still supports GamerGate despite saying them.
"As do all of these websites. They gain access to things that your regular joe schmo cannot get into. They are trusted as voices of reasons. They are trusted as critics. And people spend money based on what they say. And it's quite a lot of money, too. It's not an insignificant amount. We're not talking about a sandwich here. These are $60 titles with $30 season passes and $60 a year premium subscriptions and all sorts of things like that."
I can feel my eye twitching as he says that and as I transcribe it here. Just... ...goddamn, man.
"To games media in any form I would say, remember who it is that you are trying to protect. Remember the fact that you are supposed to be pro-consumer, and remember who it is that your readers are."
TotalBiscuit should take his own advice here.
"And of course to the readers themselves, the viewers, the fans, I would say this. Attempting to silence critique is not pro-consumer. It does not help you as a consumer. If ultimately you care about video games, if you are an enthusiast of video games, then the thing you want to be doing is educating and informing. Inform yourself to the greatest possible degree to minimize the number of mistakes that you make in purchase and to make sure that you have a full understanding of the situation going forward that you can share with others. Ignorance is the enemy. And ignorance is what breeds hatred. People who disagree with you are often more valuable than those that agree. They can give you a different perspective. Or if you're able to deconstruct their argument, they can inadvertently reinforce your own. And that is something that we should be embracing. I'd like to end with a final quote that I think we all need to keep in mind from time to time, even though it's very tempting to indulge in this kind of mindset. 'Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.' - Ralph Waldo Emerson. I'll see you next time."
Those sound like wise words. And they are. Which is why it is so absolutely baffling to me, mind-boggling, that someone who has this mindset is still able to support the misogynistic assholes of GamerGate, even if only by mere association and appropriation of the name GamerGate. It would be like me saying, "Hey, I think the words 'Ku Klux Klan' sound cool, and those guys seem to be champions of free speech and freedom from censorship, because they tried to keep the Confederate flag from being removed, so I'm going to claim to be part of the Ku Klux Klan when I go out and fight for free speech!" See how absolutely batshit insane that sounds? That's how I perceive TotalBiscuit and the other otherwise potentially well-meaning people when they claim to be a part of GamerGate. As for that quote, I have to say, TB sure seemed like he felt he was being persecuted when people contradicted him in that GOG thread I posted about yesterday. Seriously, TotalBiscuit, come to your senses. Please, dude. For yourself alone, if for nobody else. Drop GamerGate like the bad habit it is.
So, in the end, I have once again revised my opinion of TotalBiscuit. I don't actively and intensely despise him as I did after writing the previous post. But I still don't have the level of respect for him as I did before I started writing the previous post, either, and I don't think I'll be subscribing to his Youtube channel or following him on Twitter any time soon. I don't think he's a completely lost cause, and I think he could be a real force for good if he'd just stop supporting GamerGate and kick them to the curb as they so richly deserve.
"Which is a little bit weird, considering the fixation supposedly on Kerrigan, one of the most powerful characters in the Starcraft universe, ridiculously powerful, in fact, who will no doubt be key to the conclusion of the Starcraft II trilogy story."
And who, TB neglects to mention, has been given enormous breasts and stripper boot-like bone spurs in her (otherwise really fucking creepy) Zerg Queen form. No, Kerrigan totally hasn't been hyper-sexualized, TB, you're absolutely right. Except that Blizzard guy explicitly said himself that Kerrigan was hyper-sexualized, right there in the very same goddamn interview that TotalBiscuit is quoting from. What the hell is going on here, seriously? Just because she's a powerful character means she somehow can't be visually hyper-sexualized by her designers? Is that really the point he's trying to make here? Power Girl is extremely powerful, too, almost as strong as Superman himself. I wonder if TB would try to seriously claim that Power Girl isn't hyper-sexualized as well. Seriously, I'm tempted once again to just stop right here because this is just getting stupid.
"DOTA style games in particular are a very bad example, I feel, of objectifying women. Nathan states that it should be a genre about empowerment, and yet that's exactly what it is. Female characters, male characters, genderless characters in those games generally are balanced. They're all powerful in their own way, and they make up a strong team composition. Female characters in these games inherently have as much agency as any other character and are as powerful as any other character, though often in different ways because, hey, that's how asymmetrical balance actually works."
And... all of this is relevant to how the female characters have been visually designed... how again? Oh, right, it's not, at all.
"I think it is fallacious to claim that female characters in DOTA style games are objectified as opposed to empowered but that is another debate for another time."
Really? Then why did TB just spend literally around 5 minutes, or almost 20% of his 28 minute spiel, trying to debate it then? Go figure.
"This is just an example of where games media has a tendency to blur the line between op-ed, editorial, interview, and journalistic content."
Oh, right, he was actually talking about that at one point earlier, wasn't he... huh.
"But the question is is that actually a bad thing in the first place?"
Well, when it's "agenda-driven" and the agenda in question doesn't fit the agenda of a typical GamerGate-supporting, misogynistic asshole, then yeah, they'd likely say it is a bad thing.
"If I go into an interview, for instance, I'm most likely going to be fairly fixated on the PC aspect. I'm going to be fixated on the performance. I don't really want to talk about the ability to share videos over the Internet with the share button on the Playstation 4. I don't care. That is not something that I am bothered about."
But but but what if his listeners are bothered about that sort of thing? If they are, and he doesn't address it, then that obviously "shows a disconnect between what the general audience of that interview actually wanted, and what the interviewer was attempting to derive from it," to use TB's own words. Wouldn't that be the fault of the interviewer if the audience wants to hear about the Playstation 4 share button and the interviewer doesn't ask about it and instead fixates on the PC aspect of it? Of course, by now, given that TB is himself one of those "individual personalities" that many people have come to trust, they'd already know that he's PC centric, just as most of RPS's core audience already know that certain writers on RPS are rather feminism-centric, anyway. Different strokes for different folks and all that. But what if a bunch of people who were already predisposed to dislike TotalBiscuit in the first place showed up to comment on his interview and give him shit because he didn't ask about the Playstation 4 share button? Yeah, that's the equivalent to all the GamerGate-supporting, misogynistic assholes showing up en masse in the comments under Grayson's RPS interview to give him shit for asking, shock of shocks, a feminism-centered question.
"But I go into it saying, 'Well, what about the PC port?' And if I get a bad answer, I will try and badger them on that."
Oh, so it's okay if TotalBiscuit badgers an interviewee, but not if Nathan Grayson does it (at least by TotalBiscuit's definition of badgering, which apparently doesn't match my own, since I don't think Nathan Grayson badgered anyone in that Blizzard interview). All right. Gotcha.
"I'll say, 'Look, I want to know what are you going to be doing for PC users. What are the certain minimum features that you can guarantee? Do you even understand what it is that PC gamers tend to prioritize and why the PC as a platform is different?' You see, I'm agenda-driven as well. In reality, almost everybody is, and that makes the discussion quite interesting. The term 'agenda' being labelled as a negative is really quite inaccurate."
Just so long as the agenda in question fits TB's own, of course. But since Nathan Grayson's didn't, he was obviously acting "incorrectly" and whatnot. Um hmm, let's continue on.
"Everybody has an agenda of some description, whether it be the desire to change the world from their position, or whether it be something simple and innocuous like 'I would like this game to have a colorblind option. What is my agenda? Well I'm colorblind or I have a friend that's colorblind that has difficulty enjoying these games so I would like to see a colorblind option so it's my agenda that I wish to push you in order to get that.' That seems harmless, right? And for the most part, having an agenda is. Having opinions is harmless. Indeed, it's our right as human beings."
Unless said opinion is the opinion that Nathan Grayson espoused, of course, in which case it's "incorrect," and TB will spend five minutes trying to refute it before declaring it "another debate for another time."
"Back to the question. What do you want out of games media? Some people simply want to know whether a game is worth buying."
And some people consider a game that portrays women as sex objects as a game not worth buying. But, no, it's "wrong" to ask about that and wrong to "badger" a company spokesman about that.
"And honestly, for the longest time, that's what games media's role has actually been. It's not been about journalism, it has been about review. It's about taking a product and saying 'This is good,' and 'This isn't good.' Games media has been a giant buyer's guide for a very long time. And I have a feeling that a lot of games media are getting a little bit sick of just being that. And as a result, they have tried to branch out into other areas. And I do the same thing. I'm okay with being a buyer's guide. I mean, it's one of my most successful series, and I continue to do that, and I think I'm pretty good at it, and my videos are helpful to a lot of people."
Caveat emptor. I say that to both consumers of TotalBiscuit's own product as well as to the buyers of games for which TotalBiscuit is acting as a buyer's guide. You get what you pay for.
"But I also like to talk about issues like this. Now if we look at some of the ridiculous stuff that's been going on over the past couple of weeks, including the barrage of articles declaring gamers dead and attempting to put millions of people into this box that has the word 'misogyny' written on the side of it and shove them away in the attic somewhere."
No. Those people put themselves into that goddamn box when they decided, perhaps hastily and foolishly, to rush in and associate themselves with GamerGate, even if they don't consider themselves to be misogynistic assholes. TotalBiscuit is, himself, in that box as far as I am concerned, as long as he continues to champion GamerGate. Guilt by association. He, himself, may not agree with the rape/death threats and the doxxing and whatnot, but he is claiming association with a group that does, by and large. It has been proven to my own satisfaction that GamerGate got its start on 4chan, even though it wasn't called that at the start. That, for me, puts the whole thing into an "enough said" state of being, and if you don't agree with that, then tough fucking shit.
"What we see is what can happen when editorial is taken to these extreme degrees, where it begins to condemn large portions of its own demographic."
When said large portions of its own demographic deserve such condemnation, as all those misogynistic assholes most certainly do, then for me it would be a failure of the games media if they didn't do so. Honestly, that actually refutes, to an extent, one of my previously held tenets (though I still believe that to be mostly true on the whole, mind you).
"And games journalism, when it does that, is essentially eating itself. Who reads this kind of stuff? The sort of person that reads games journalism and games media is generally an enthusiast. They want to hear some interesting opinions."
I've been a video game "enthusiast" for a very long time now. Over two decades. And, until relatively recently, I wanted to hear interesting opinions. But then said opinions started to get really dumb, as far as I am concerned. So I stopped listening to and reading them. Hell, if anything, their condemnation of GamerGate was one of the few redeeming qualities remaining to games media, generally speaking, as far as I care about the whole thing anymore. So, basically, what I'm saying here is that TotalBiscuit does not speak for all "enthusiasts" when he makes these "in fact, this is indeed how it actually is" sort of definitive statements that he's making in this video, as if the apparently monolithic entity that is "GAMERS" agree with him by default. It's just not the case. I don't claim to speak for them either. I speak just for myself.
"The more casual observer might jump over to Metacritic, look at a score, and then decide based on that whether or not they're going to purchase a title, and that is the only interaction they will ever have with games media, outside of maybe the occasional announcement."
To go off on a bit of a tangent here: as far as I am concerned, Metacritic and similar score aggregator sites are one of the worst things to happen to game reviews in a very long time. Hell, arbitrary scores on reviews in general are a terrible thing, I believe, because in far too many cases, the scores don't in any way reflect the actual content of a given review as to whether a game is actually good or not. I have read reviews that made a game sound great, only to then see a very low score at the end of it, and I've read reviews that have utterly trashed a game, only to then see a 8 or 9 out of 10 at the end of it.
"And then you've got your enthusiasts who are into the hobby to the degree where they wish to hear about industry issues, they wish to read interviews on a particular topic, they wish to read op-eds on a specific topic, and so on and so forth."
Well, if that's his definition of an "enthusiast," then I suppose I am no longer a video game "enthusiast." I don't care about any of that shit anymore, aside from a few very rare exceptions from time to time. However, what I do still care about are the fucking games themselves. That is what I consider to be an "enthusiast," someone who plays a shit-ton of video games and wishes to continue to do so. Their interest, or lack thereof, in video game journalism (or the true lack thereof, as the case may be) only factors into that a small bit. I am a video game enthusiast. I am not a video games journalism enthusiast.
"Now this is where I would toss out a call for understanding. We, as games enthusiasts, wish to read this kind of stuff. We wish to read editorial and opinion pieces. Here's the thing. We don't get to say we wish to read opinion pieces and we wish to read op-eds and engage in this kind of discussion, and then say well you really can't write about this specific aspect of it."
This, I actually agree with.
"We can condemn it if we believe that it is factually incorrect, if it is stereotyping the audience."
Just as I am and others are free to condemn all the bullshit that spews out of GamerGate-supporting misogynistic assholes. Tit for tat.
"There's nothing wrong with condemning the articles that are saying gamers are dead, but I would like you to actually read them, because you'd be surprised, there might be some value in it."
And that, likewise, is why I'm am currently in the process of listening to this TotalBiscuit video and writing this post about it, even though I said "fuck TotalBiscuit forever" and all that in the previous post. I agree with his sentiment here. Doing so has not been a complete waste of time and energy for me (though it has felt like a slog at points, to be sure). With that said, though, I can listen to "well, actually, it's about ethics in game journalism" only so many times, while it's being simultaneously accompanied by all the news about all the shitty, horrible, subhuman things that GamerGate-supporting misogynistic assholes keep on doing before I just have to say enough is enough, and I'm simply not going to listen to or read about that horseshit anymore. But then things like this keep happening that keep dragging me back into it.
"And I would say the same thing about people like Anita Sarkeesian."
Absolutely, I agree with this as well. Good on TotalBiscuit, for once. Don't just dismiss out of hand what she's saying just because she happens to be saying something about your favorite video game that might hurt your poor, widdle feelings, or because she just happens to have a pair of ovaries, or maybe you don't like flannel shirts and hoop earrings or whatever. I actually used to be a fairly strong critic of Anita Sarkeesian, though I wasn't remotely as vocal as some of the others. Hell, if anything, it was fucking goddamn GamerGate, of all things, and its asinine, horrendously overblown reaction to Anita Sarkeesian that actually made me switch sides and become more supportive of her (and Zoe Quinn and the others).
"I don't want to drive critics out of the industry. What I do want is accurate critique. 'I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it,' is the axiom of those that actually believe in free speech. The cool thing about free speech is that when we see something we disagree with, we're able to provide a rebuttal. Now, we don't even have to do it on the site in which this particular piece of speech has been hosted. We can do it elsewhere, that's the wonderful thing about it. If someone turns off comments, like me for instance, everyone is more than free to critique my work, either on Youtube and I will certainly not use DMCA claims to bring that down. That would be illegal. Or to write a blog about it, or to go on Tumblr about it, or go on Reddit about it, have a conversation in IRC chat about it. There is nothing I can do or would even want to do to stop that from occurring. And that's the important thing, isn't it?"
Indeed it is. Because it's funny. That's exactly what I'm doing here. Using my blog to refute a bunch of his stupid bullshit. And there is quite a bit of bullshit to be found here, in this very video. And yet, at the same time, that previous little section right up there has come dangerously close to making me almost reduce my ire against TotalBiscuit back down to the simple levels of apathy and tolerance and even grudging respect that I had for him before I wrote the previous LJ post. I'm not quite sure I'm actually there yet, but it's a dangerously close thing. He's still got 10 more minutes to piss me off all over again, though, so let's not get too ahead of ourselves here.
"The conversation is wider than simply that one piece of media's comments section. And indeed the comments section is a terrible place to have that discussion. As I've said, it is a poisoned well. An eternal poisoned well that just keeps on bringing up bucket after bucket of poisonous water. Children die by the thousands as a result of Youtube comments. It's as simple as that."
And here's another funny thing. Even if TotalBiscuit didn't turn off his Youtube comments, I still would never see them. So yeah, there's another thing he's said that I agree with.
"I don't condemn websites that decide to moderate their comments, although I do feel that many of them have gone completely overboard in deleting things that they disagree with and simply leaving up the things that they tend to agree with. What you're doing there is creating an echo chamber. And that's not helpful to anybody. There is no discussion that happens in an echo chamber. It's simply the same line bouncing off the walls over and over and over again, and that is the antithesis of good discussion and debate."
Yet again, I agree. Simply put, I dislike sites that cherry pick comments like that more than I do sites that just disallow comments altogether. If anything, I have more respect for the sites that finally just say, "Fuck it, that's it, pool's closed, everybody out!" and then just gets rid of the comments section altogether (like Spoony, for example). Although it mostly doesn't matter to me anymore either way since I try to avoid comments on any site, aside from my own LJ here, as though they are truly the Black Death.
"Games media should be able to create videos and critiques about whatever it is that they want. Now, if they are factually incorrect, you can take them to task for it, and more to the point, as a consumer, the power that you do hold is the ability to not visit those sites..."
And boy have I been exercising that very power to the max lately. And except for right now, and unless I change my mind by the end of this, I'll be exercising it all over TotalBiscuit's own ass as well.
"...because, here's the reality of it, right? These are not a bunch of rich games journalists that are lording their power over everybody, no. They do have power, there is no doubt. They have a disproportionately large amount of power as individuals or small organizations compared to other people. Because they have a voice. They have a podium. They have a pulpit from which to preach that has an audience. And this is the sort of thing that most regular people do not have. As a result, you see people forming into groups, or as some people would describe them, mobs, in order to get their voice out there, because that's the power of the democratic process. That's the power of voices en masse."
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it." I'm not saying that big, amorphous groups of people can't get their voices heard, I'm just saying that those big, amorphous groups of people often say asinine, misogynistic things that not every part of that big, amorphous group may want to have associated with them, that's all.
"The problem with voices en masse, of course, is that their cause can be co-opted by the louder voices who are, in fact, extremists and don't really have that much interest in the matter at all. They simply wish to push another agenda."
And this, right here, sadly and frustratingly, is where TotalBiscuit loses me. This is where TotalBiscuit is, himself, misinformed and misguided. GamerGate was not co-opted by the extremists. No. GamerGate was started by extremist, misogynistic assholes on 4chan. If anything, it was co-opted by the right wing blowhards, Adam Baldwin and Breitbart and the like. And then, lastly, the more well-meaning people, like perhaps TotalBiscuit himself, showed up and have been, themselves, making a horribly failed and doomed attempt to kind of "co-opt" this thing which had such dark, evil origins. And this is why I just don't get it. As I've said so many times in the past, GamerGate is just an irredeemably toxic shithole of a buzzword now, and it always has been. I don't get why the more well-meaning people continue to cling to this useless buzzword so desperately and defiantly. Why is it so very important to them that they continue to call themselves "GamerGate"? Here's the thing. I would, for the most part, be fucking agreeing with most of these people, if only they'd stop calling themselves "GamerGate." "GamerGate" is the bullshit that started on 4chan that later got called "hashtag GamerGate" by that asshole on Twitter. Drop GamerGate. Form your own new group and give it a new name (but don't call it anything "-gate" because the "-gate" thing as a whole is just fucking stupid anyway), and do your absolute damndest to differentiate yourselves from the misogynistic assholes in GamerGate, who were there and have always been there from the very start, even before you were, and who were, in fact, the very progenitors of your so-called good cause, a cause that I would indeed not mind being a part of, if only you weren't associating yourselves with those very same misogynistic assholes by clutching at the "GamerGate" name so tightly.
"There's been a lot of hijacking going on, on many sides of this particular debate. Some websites have tried to paint it as a misogynist crusade..."
Because it is. GamerGate is a misogynist crusade, and has been so from the very goddamn beginning. The sooner you johnnies-come-lately realize this, abandon GamerGate back to the depths of 8chan where it belongs, and move on to your own unsullied thing, the better off you will be, and the more people you will attract to your cause. As long as you continue to call yourselves "GamerGate," though, you will never be the true "voice of the masses" that you strive to be. It's such a simple thing, to just shed yourselves of that layer of dried up horseshit that is the "GamerGate" label that you covered yourselves with the instant you leapt with both feet without looking right into that cesspit. It's frustrating to watch, honestly.
"...some people have tried to paint it as simply an issue on games ethics..."
And that's the joke. "Actually, it's about ethics in games journalism." That is exactly why that phrase is so tragically comedic. You're trying to paint red the turd that is "GamerGate" and call it a rose, and that's simply an impossible task. It's not even Herculean, it's Sisyphean.
"...but some others have painted it as the unholy influence of so-called 'social justice warriors' ruining our hobby and their agenda is to drive those people out of the industry."
It is the so-called "social justice warriors" that the misogynistic assholes who make up GamerGate are indeed warring against. That's who the shitbags on 4chan and now 8chan and wherever else have been fighting against since time immemorial. Before God ever decided to call for light in the beginning, misogynists and so-called "SJW"s have been at war. Long after the heat death of the universe, misogynists and so-called "SJW"s will be at war. The "social justice warrior" is, in my opinion, one of the most heinous of strawmen, and as I've said before and I'll probably say again, anyone and everyone who uses the phrase "social justice warrior" in a true, earnest attempt to be taken seriously has already irrevocably lost whatever argument or debate or shitstorm or whatever that they were trying to start, as far as I am concerned. To the progenitors of GamerGate, the likes of Anita Sarkeesian and her supporters and, indeed, anyone who claims to have even the remotest interest and support for anything they deem the "feminist agenda" are all "social justice warriors" to be stamped out of existence. (To be fair, I'm sure many would probably call my interpretation of people in GamerGate in particular and people on 4chan in general a strawman as well, and... yeah, it probably is. Like I said, Not All GamerGaters and Not All 4channers... ¬_¬)
"And I don't believe we should be driving those people out of the industry."
I totally agree, and that's why I find it so disheartening that these seemingly otherwise well-meaning (for the most part) guys like TotalBiscuit here and the rest (not including the misogynistic 4/8chan assholes who started the whole goddamn thing) are so thick/bull/hardheaded in their stubborn determination to continue to so strongly attach themselves to the sunken S.S. GamerGate. I mean, it's not even sinking in the present tense. GamerGate is already down there with the fucking Titanic, as far as I'm concerned.
"I believe that we should be informing people. Informed people make sensible decisions."
And this is what GamerGate (and from now on, when I say GamerGate, I mean the 4chan/8chan/whatever misogynistic asshole douchebag fuckwits who started the whole thing, and not [necessarily] guys like TotalBiscuit who merely jumped on what they mistakenly thought was a good cause after the fact, although guys like TotalBiscuit will simply get tarred with the same feathers as long as they continue to support GamerGate) absolutely does not want. GamerGate doesn't want people to be informed. If that were the case, GamerGate wouldn't be trying to silence people like Anita Sarkeesian with threats of rape and death and doxxing and whatnot. GamerGate doesn't want people to have the option to listen to Anita Sarkeesian and then come to their own decision as to whether or not she's full of shit or not. No, GamerGate wants Anita Sarkeesian to fucking shut her mouth. GamerGate wants her silenced. The individual members of GamerGate may not literally want her to die, but you certainly can't say for sure if that's the case or not based on how GamerGate as a whole decides to conduct itself.
"This is the rest of the quote, by the way, from the American Press Institute: 'History reveals that the more democratic a society, the more news and information it tends to have.' End quote."
*nods in agreement*
"Ignorance is the enemy."
And, as such, that makes GamerGate the enemy.
"In all walks of life, ignorance is where hatred springs from. Understanding and tolerance is bred from information and knowledge, and that is the sort of culture that we should be promoting. An informed consumer can make an informed decision and will not be negatively misled by a piece of misleading critique, because they will already have the information that says no, you are wrong on a number of issues and here's why. And more to the point, because they have well-rounded knowledge of the area, they can still see some value in something that they disagree with."
Yes, exactly. And so, I have to ask... why, exactly, is TotalBiscuit still supporting GamerGate, then? He is aware that GamerGate has a rather extensive boycott list, isn't he? (EDIT) Or, at least, had one (which can still be found here via archive.org), before gamergate.me apparently disappeared off the face of the Internet altogether, at least as of the time of this edit (and absolutely nothing of value was lost, and if that site ever does come back up, the Internet will be all the poorer for it). (/EDIT) If GamerGate is boycotting all of those news sites, then it's certainly not abiding by TotalBiscuit's own aforementioned principles of understanding and tolerance and trying to see some value in something that they disagree with, now is it? Sound pretty fucking ignorant of GamerGate, wouldn't you say? Yeah. Yeah, it does.
"Most of these games media sites are fighting for survival and they have been for years. Why? Because they have become progressively less relevant. There are other means to acquire the information that they previously were the sole purveyors of. Traditional games magazines used to hold a monopoly on getting early copies of games. And then games websites came along and slowly but surely built up the contacts and the reputation to also gain access to that. And now Youtubers have come along, and they're also slowly building up the reputation. And what happened to games magazines? Well outside of Game Informer, that is owned by GameStop themselves, they, for the most part, died off. And what's happening to websites now? Well, outside of the large ones, they're suffering and they're shrinking. In some ways, that's a good thing. Because there is plenty of corruption going on in this particular industry."
Yes, I completely 100% agree. There is indeed corruption in games media. Without a doubt, there is. However, unlike TotalBiscuit, I personally don't think that the issue of the misogyny that runs rampant in GamerGate is a distraction from this issue. I think it is a separate issue entirely, one that is equally deserving to be discussed and debated. I would love to see both of these issues tackled and dealt with accordingly. I don't think the misogyny that exists (and it most certainly does exist) within GamerGate should just be swept under the rug in favor of talking only about the corruption in games media, as though this were some sort of Bad Things Special Olympics with corruption in games media winning the gold medal. Why can't this be one of those "we're all winners here" events where everyone gets a gold medal?
"There are people that seem so comfortable in their position that they find the idea of disclosure to be abhorrent. They find it to be uncomfortable and unacceptable. Now I entered this industry with the idea that disclosure was key and that transparency was not only essential to maintaining your authority when it came to your critique, but was, surprisingly enough, a marketing tool. The ability to put yourself out there as a transparent individual was actually a bonus. It was something that you could market to the demographic, and that's ludicrous. It shouldn't be a marketing tool. It should be the default position."
On the first hand, I like that this is his position. On the second hand, I am appalled that he is so cynical about using it as a marketing tool. And on the weird, mutant third hand, I am heartened that he, at least, recognizes that the ability to use it as a marketing tool is a weird aberration, and not something to be lauded.
"And imagine just how well informed the consumer would be if it were the default position. Imagine how many misunderstandings could be avoided. The issue of the embargo, there's a great example. When I bring up the term 'embargo,' people immediately cry 'censorship.' But that's not actually what the original intention of the embargo was all about. The point of a press embargo on a release, and if I'm talking about games journalism and review and critique, I'm discussing the idea of a review copy, about reviewing a game prior to it coming out, is to make sure that all outlets have an equal opportunity to release their critique at around the same time, and have a good amount of time to do it. Otherwise what would happen? It would be a race to the finish. It would be a race to see who got their article out first, because they get the lion's share of the traffic. If you want to look at corruption, then you can look at the practice of giving that review copy to somebody else prior to the rest of their competition. The idea of the 'world exclusive review.' Just ridiculous. That's something that needs to be stamped out of this industry entirely."
Oh yeah, I absolutely agree with this, as well. And I'm not sure if he's edging toward this point or not, but I'm going to perhaps jump the gun on him anyway by saying that this touches on the idea of the early review copy itself, and how I think it's kind of fucked up that many in games media seem to think that they are actually entitled to receive such an early copy of a game for reviewing purposes, and if they don't, then they get incredibly buttwroth about it, and sometimes use it as an excuse to slag on the game, regardless of whether the game actually deserves it or not. They make the issue about themselves, about them not getting their precious review copy for whatever reason, and not about the game, no matter if the game is good or the game is shit.
"And if we talked more about the embargo process, then I think we'd get a lot more understanding. Because sometimes it is used to try and suppress negative criticism. Sometimes. Not always. In fact, I'd say not even a majority of the time. But it is a practice that PR agencies and games publishers do use to attempt to suppress it and push pre-order culture."
Oh fuck, don't even get me started on "pre-order culture." That's something that I feel is just ridiculous and needs to be stamped out entirely.
"There are many other aspects of the games industry that I feel that games journalists could be doing a good job informing people of. But there is very little investigation going on in games journalism. There is very little effort to inform the consumer outside of 'This game is good,' 'This game is not good,' 'Hey, this game is coming out,' 'This game has announced a season pass,' and so on and so forth."
And, to be honest, I don't know that I would trust the current crop of games "journalists" to tell it to me straight, even if that sort of investigative stuff actually was going on.
"If I were to sum up this conflict in a short sentence, if I were to boil it down to its barest possible essentials, I would say this: the reason there is currently a large conflict is that games media organizations seem to have forgotten that they were supposed to be pro-consumer."
That's a fair assessment of the situation. It, obviously, ignores completely the rampant misogyny in GamerGate, which TotalBiscuit still, to this day, misguidedly supports (and, to be absolutely fair, this video was posted in September 2014, before most of the more heinous shit that GamerGate has done came to light, but that still doesn't explain why TotalBiscuit is still supporting GamerGate even now [unless he actually is, after all, a misogynistic asshole, but I'm leaning toward the conclusion that he actually is not, and is actually a fairly decent guy who just got roped up into this shit without fully examining things and maybe now doesn't know how exactly to extricate himself from it, at least not without losing a ton of followers, but by the same token, any followers he'd lose by denouncing GamerGate are followers he should honestly be glad to see the back of, assuming again that he really isn't indeed one of the very misogynistic assholes I've been ranting against]). But still, as far ignoring all of that and swallowing, for just a moment, the lie that "actually, it's about ethics in games journalism," then, yes, that's a fair assessment of the situation.
"The articles that have come out of the last couple of weeks have been anything but. They have been condemning their own audience, their own consumer base. They have been doing it either directly or indirectly, expressly or implicitly."
Well, to turn it around and be fair to those games media companies, I have, myself, been saying for years now that I think the whole gaming "community" is one big fucking joke, and I really want nothing whatsoever to do with it, and I was saying this well before GamerGate was ever a twinkle in 4chan's eye. I've been saying it, if perhaps not publicly, at least since before Robert Summa left Destructoid, and that happened back in 2007. (Though... ... ...I... pardon me a moment, I feel like I just swallowed a whole lemon... I just had the supreme displeasure of learning that that goddamn motherfucker Summa is apparently back at Destructoid again now, and apparently has been since January 2015. What in the fucking fuck? ಠ_ಠ Okay, well... okay. I haven't followed Destructoid at all for literally years now, which is why I didn't know about Summa coming back until just now, and I certainly won't ever be following them again in the future, especially if that cuntbag Summa is there again, so... yeah. That's a tangent for you. Back to TotalBiscuit.)
"If you wish to lose your audience, that is a surefire way of doing it. And frankly, I would say that at that point, you deserve it, because you lost sight of your true goal, you lost sight of what you were supposed to be doing and the people you are supposed to be protecting. And some of these sites are simply misled. They feel that they are doing the right thing, that they have the moral authority and that they are protecting innocent people. And to some degree they are, but they are doing it by shelling everyone else around them, and that is not okay."
And yet, given TotalBiscuit's continued support of GamerGate, I would turn those exact same words right there around and apply them directly to TotalBiscuit himself. He's misled. He feels he's doing the right thing and that he has the moral authority and is protecting innocent people. But if he still considers himself a part of GamerGate, and still feels the need to defend GamerGate, then he is doing both himself and his audience a huge disservice. He is shelling everyone else around him, and that is not okay.
"Critique is inherently pro-consumer even if you disagree with it."
So again, I ask, why is he still supporting GamerGate then?
"It's important that we have these discussions."
GamerGate disagrees with him on that point, and yet he still defends it. Why?
"But it's also important that the critique remain accurate, that it remain factually accurate, and that those that put out incorrect critique, or even a critique that is for the most part right that has some errors, take responsibility for those errors."
I agree. Hell, I've had to post a mea culpa or two of my own over the years.
"Because we all make mistakes. I constantly make mistakes."
And, in fact, he is, to this day, making a mistake by continuing to support GamerGate. It's sad that he just doesn't seem to be able to realize it. (Or, otherwise, he does realize is but just really is a misogynistic asshole and simply doesn't give a fuck. Could go either way, I guess. I can't really tell, but I'm leaning toward him not being a misogynistic fuckass.)
"Some people say that I like to call my videos 'First Impressions' to avoid that very criticism, but in reality, I do post retractions quite frequently. I'll even take videos down and redo them if I feel that the mistake is that egregious, and I lose quite a lot of money whenever I do that. But it just feels like the right thing to do. I enjoy a position of authority and I enjoy a position of power."
And it is exactly for that reason that it is so disheartening and frustrating to hear him say these things, and yet know that he still supports GamerGate despite saying them.
"As do all of these websites. They gain access to things that your regular joe schmo cannot get into. They are trusted as voices of reasons. They are trusted as critics. And people spend money based on what they say. And it's quite a lot of money, too. It's not an insignificant amount. We're not talking about a sandwich here. These are $60 titles with $30 season passes and $60 a year premium subscriptions and all sorts of things like that."
I can feel my eye twitching as he says that and as I transcribe it here. Just... ...goddamn, man.
"To games media in any form I would say, remember who it is that you are trying to protect. Remember the fact that you are supposed to be pro-consumer, and remember who it is that your readers are."
TotalBiscuit should take his own advice here.
"And of course to the readers themselves, the viewers, the fans, I would say this. Attempting to silence critique is not pro-consumer. It does not help you as a consumer. If ultimately you care about video games, if you are an enthusiast of video games, then the thing you want to be doing is educating and informing. Inform yourself to the greatest possible degree to minimize the number of mistakes that you make in purchase and to make sure that you have a full understanding of the situation going forward that you can share with others. Ignorance is the enemy. And ignorance is what breeds hatred. People who disagree with you are often more valuable than those that agree. They can give you a different perspective. Or if you're able to deconstruct their argument, they can inadvertently reinforce your own. And that is something that we should be embracing. I'd like to end with a final quote that I think we all need to keep in mind from time to time, even though it's very tempting to indulge in this kind of mindset. 'Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.' - Ralph Waldo Emerson. I'll see you next time."
Those sound like wise words. And they are. Which is why it is so absolutely baffling to me, mind-boggling, that someone who has this mindset is still able to support the misogynistic assholes of GamerGate, even if only by mere association and appropriation of the name GamerGate. It would be like me saying, "Hey, I think the words 'Ku Klux Klan' sound cool, and those guys seem to be champions of free speech and freedom from censorship, because they tried to keep the Confederate flag from being removed, so I'm going to claim to be part of the Ku Klux Klan when I go out and fight for free speech!" See how absolutely batshit insane that sounds? That's how I perceive TotalBiscuit and the other otherwise potentially well-meaning people when they claim to be a part of GamerGate. As for that quote, I have to say, TB sure seemed like he felt he was being persecuted when people contradicted him in that GOG thread I posted about yesterday. Seriously, TotalBiscuit, come to your senses. Please, dude. For yourself alone, if for nobody else. Drop GamerGate like the bad habit it is.
So, in the end, I have once again revised my opinion of TotalBiscuit. I don't actively and intensely despise him as I did after writing the previous post. But I still don't have the level of respect for him as I did before I started writing the previous post, either, and I don't think I'll be subscribing to his Youtube channel or following him on Twitter any time soon. I don't think he's a completely lost cause, and I think he could be a real force for good if he'd just stop supporting GamerGate and kick them to the curb as they so richly deserve.