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Freakmasta
 Posts: 370 |
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Aww, where are the Guns n' Roses references for Elphelt?
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 564 Location: PA / USA |
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Good read.
Would definitely like to see Dragon Quest & Musou/Warriors, but I'm not buying a PS4 just to play it. I'm kinda turned off by the Xrd stuff. I know past games in the series have had some goofy characters, but.... VERY excited for the Great Ace Attorney - I loved the Devil Summoner games on PS2 for their old-timey look & feel, but I worry that a localisation of GAA would gut the entire experience and give us another "eat your hamburgers Apollo" kind of game. I'm not hopeful it'll make it over here intact. |
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Penguin_Factory
 Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
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The Gamergate thing was kind of fascinating (from the perspective of someone not effected by it, obviously) in how it represented an intersection of a lot of reactionary trends among gamers lately.
The obvious factor was latent sexism and misogyny and the continuing backlash that Tropes vs Women became something of a lightning rod for, but that got mixed in with outrage toward games journalism outlets (a long-simmering "controversy" that mostly centers around review scores) and growing hostility toward indie games, which in some quarters are met with the same dismissal and vitriol as mobile "casual" games (see for example the bizarre amount of rage directed at Gone Home after it became a critical darling). It's kind of a perfect storm- you've got a woman, developer of a highly polarizing indie title, (allegedly) in bed with the "corrupt" and untrustworthy games journalists. Sexists, insecure Gamers who incorporate their hobby into their identity way too much and people harboring long-standing beefs with news outlets for some perceived slight against their favourite titles in reviews (often the same people) all found an instant satan figure to rise up against in the form of Zoe Quinn. (It must also be said that a lot of the people behind the furor don't appear to be motivated by any of these three factors and just get their jollies harassing and intimidating people or lulz) |
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Levitz9
 Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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Todd said it best: gamers aren't ready for the maturity they stamp and cry and beat their fists over.
That new GGXrd character actually looks sort-of cool. I'd be bummed if the entire classic cast didn't make it back (I legitimately like Bridget and I think his theme is the best in Guilty Gear X), but hey, if Ishiwatari keeps making crazy-awesome characters to fill in a few seats, I'm happy. |
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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The truly sad thing is nobody wants to be rational on either side. At least the obvious trolls can be classified as obvious trolls, but then you got the people who don't see the irony in their actions. people who care about social justice complain about rape/death threats/doxxing, but then turn around do it to people who support GamersGate because, in their own words, it's not misogynistic when done to women on the opposing side. The labeling of anyone who speaks out as white men, and when non-white men and women chime in, they're dismissed and oppressed. Irony levels are off the charts. People don't want to debate with people, they want a faceless mass they can generalize about. It's all cherry picking, which helps no one.
Really though, what I take away from all this is I'm glad this kind of culture doesn't exist in Japanese gaming. It's really unsettling when I found out just how connection a lot of sites and writers are in the western gaming industry. Everyone's friends, or more, with everyone else. Lots of sites share the same writers. The fact sites didn't see an issue with such close relationships with the subject matter like that. Most curious thing was seeing multiple sites all publish the same kind of "gamers are dead" story within hours of one another. If that doesn't set off warning flags, I don't know what does. Though the idea of telling investors that "gamers don't have to be your audience for video games" I'd like to think raised a few eyebrows. At the end of the day money talks, not blogs. I'll just sit here and play Rune Factory 4 while the industry gets worse and worse and just be glad you'd never see Sakurai, Kamiya, Kojima, Toriyama, or anyone else do stuff like this. -Stuart Smith |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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oh look a topic on gamer's;gate this should be a good place for an open topic of discussion and debate.
Oh look it's one sided argument that will not go over the facts on either side, WELP! 
That aside dragon quest hero's and that limited edition liquid metal babble/slime look fantastic. |
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Mr Adventure
 Posts: 1598 |
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The whole Zoe Quine thing has made me embarrassed to be a gamer. It stopped being about games journalism integrity the moment the first sexist comment and death threat was thrown.
And if even if she did attempt to use sex to get positive reviews that's on the JOURNALISTS. Not her. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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This is a criticism that's based entirely in ignorance and is exclusively brought up as some kind of problem by people who have never worked a day as a writer in their lives, in any field of journalism or entertainment writing. Literally every field of journalism operates this way. Reputations are built on relationships, access is given based on reputation. "Friendly" business relationships are not proof of collusion, compromise or everyone's favorite buzzword, corruption - they are the backbone of how any industry based on people working together operates. Journalists frequently know their interview subjects and sources on a personal level; it helps give them further insight, strengthens their questions, and helps the content be better than it would be otherwise. A writer who is "friendly" with a game developer - they get along, have similar personalities or tastes - is going to get you a better interview than someone with no report, or someone who has a cold, contentious, "I'm here to make you look bad because negativity and hostility to a subject always means truth and honesty" attitude. Games journalism and every other form of entertainment journalism functions this way. If you want success in the field, you want access to interviews, you want to be able to write the coverage you want to write, you're going to have to build relationships with people in the industry. Developers, publishers, marketing teams, the whole nine yards. These relationships can be friendly. You might hit it off with someone and enjoy talking to them. Or they're just cordial, with mutual respect, and you get the content you're after (this is the most common form of what folks like you are insisting is insidious collusion). Either way you're just doing your job, covering the industry, and you're also not a gigantic impossible-to-work-with unfriendly combative jerk that nobody wants to work with. Who knew that if you spend your life working in one industry, covering the personalities in that industry with the professionalism and demeanor expected of a pro journalist, you might - GASP - forge casual friendships with some of these people. It's almost as if they're all human beings! Corruption, clearly. Again, the complaint is based largely on ignorance. And the whole "sites hire the same writers" thing? You're aware of what a "freelancer" is right? And that being good at it and making a living doing it is incredibly difficult, and the reason you see a lot of the same names is because those people are hardworking and reliable and get a lot of work as a result, right? It isn't proof of some conspiracy to only hire the same people, it's that the pool of available, responsible, competent, hardworking freelancers that editors trust is small, and a freelancer who turns in quality work at his or her deadline is rare and treasured. Meanwhile you're holding up the Japanese gaming press as some bastion of quality when the most influential publication there is the famously unethical Famitsu, which actually does most of the corrupt stuff people are fantasizing about US publications doing. |
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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I would say it's on both parties, actually. The journalists for being bribed and her for bribing. Bribing is illegal for both parties, at least in my country. I don't see how it stopped being about games journalism just because some people said something sexist or a death threat was thrown out. Issues with thousands of people involved can not be boiled down to what one specific person does. If it did then virtually every issue in history would be because certain individuals who made threats or rioted on the issue. I am disappointed with how Zoe and Anita handled the death threats, though. Using it to plug their donation buttons and make money off them. Days earlier, Jon was flooded with thousands of death threats and rather than do that, he wanted to have a discussion with everyone to see their point so he went on a Twitch stream to discuss it with other people and the chat-room. It received hundreds of thousands of views and I felt was a nice way to see things eye to eye. Though since Anita disables comments on her videos and refuses to address any concerns or counter points, I am not terribly surprised by her course of actions. The most concerning thing of all this is seeing how powerful, important words in our society have become warped and twisted on the internet in all of this. Anyone who asks for evidence of a alleged attack is called victim blaming. In the real world, victim blaming was blaming someone for why something bad happened to them, but it seems to have morphed into any kind of asking for evidence, or even simple criticism. I do not agree with that at all and I think it undermines actual issues of victim blaming. |
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Levitz9
Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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@Guile: There are pages upon pages of IRC logs found by Zoe Quinn where individuals post and repeat plans in order to destroy her reputation. People have gone through those logs and found all kinds of crap. No, this isn't just in her head or a plea for attention: people were trying to hurt her.
I really don't know what kind of impartialness gamergate supporters are looking for. Am I supposed to ignore the part where it was started by a group of men from 4Chan that had plans to destroy Quinn's personal life? How about the part where they astroturfed their own movement in an attempt at de-legitimizing Quinn's arguments? Or the parts where rape threats and child porn was posted onto Sarkeesian's twitter page? Being called "misogynist" is the least that could happen to a group when its members, no matter how few, take part in such lowly methods. No gamergate supporter got child porn posted to their page, and I'll eat my teeth if that was the case. If there are victims in Gamergate, its the people who were genuinely worried about videogame journalism who were fooled by those jerks who just wanted to shut women up. The gaming community has been its own worst enemy for years now. This was bound to happen, and if we "lose some sense of identity" or whatever, then so be it. You get piles of rape and death threats, see if you keep your comments open. |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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what about comments/threats on the other side to woman that do support gamer's;gate?? Negoaf's owner told a woman that her vagina must be the size of cave because she's part of gamer's gate. Gee is it okay when he does something like this. I'm sure you're going make excuses such as he was pissed off or he didn't mean it. Guess what that doesn't make the situation any BETTER! 
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Penguin_Factory
Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
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How so?
Yes, wading through the tides of death threats to find the "reasonable" criticisms and then spending hours answering them really seems like a good use of her time. I run a blog with a fairly small readership, probably less than a tenth of a percent of the volume of "feedback" Anita Sarkeesian gets. I allow all comments disagreeing with me, even in strong terms, but I don't reply to any of them. Why? Because I don't have the time or energy for it. Anyone has the right to disagree with me, but they don't have the right to a debate with me. Likewise, anyone and everyone can say whatever they want about Anita Sarkeesian and her work but they do not have the right to a) have their opinions seen or heard by her (the only reason why commenting on her own sites and channels would matter) or b) engage in a conversation with her. Freedom of speech does not equal the right to be heard. |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 980 Location: Kansas |
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Is there an unbiased version of the gamergate story somewhere? Is Todd's description here fairly unbiased? I heard the story from reddit (yeah...) and they made it sound like, aside from the blatant misogyny, that it was about how corrupt video game journalism is. To me it sounded like an ex boyfriend writing up some nasty accusations about a woman that scorned him. Did they find his accusations (i.e. that she did sleep with every one of these journalists that gave her game a good review) to be true?
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belvadeer
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Fairy Fencer F: Seems I missed out on the LE. Dang. Well I'm not surprised; I've been playing Tales of Xillia 2 this whole time, so my attention was glued to that.
Contest Winners: Kudos to Ryan Powell's suggestion to put a Tales character in. Senel would be awesome in SF and I'd get the game just for that alone! (Truthfully I haven't played a SF since Alpha 3.) Heck, throw in Senel's Mascot and Formal clothing as skins and you've got yourselves a deal. I'd love to see a Tales character throw down with some of the big names. :D |
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Mr Adventure
Posts: 1598 |
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It was definitely started by a bitter ex looking to hurt his ex. Everything else was just pretense. |
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