Regarding gamergate, I think that this is as evenhanded and rational discussion as one is going to get:

http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2014/09/22/a-gamergate-discussion-thread-noh/

Wow...#Gamergate managed to get Intel to drop it's ads from Gamasutra:
(of course, when your EiC is posting racist tweets: http://theralphretort.com/racist-tweets-leigh-alexander-discovered/ )

(though, sadly, I've read that Felicia Day has come down as anti-#GG, because of this...)

So this started out with a guy crying that his girlfriend fucks around, and despite having a shitty boring game, fucked her way to good reviews in gaming magazines.  Guess he was right? :idunno:

What are the sides, and which side cares enough to DDOS Escapist?

It seems to be the Gaming Press (which has drunken mightily from the tap of SJW), versus the sprawling masses of teh Internet.

The masses, using the hashtag #Gamergate, basically want the Press to be some semblance of professional. Admit conflicts of interest, don't report on people you're sleeping with, don't report on people you are tied to financially, and don't collude to suppress stories.

The Games Journalists think the masses are misogynistic trolls, that need to fuck off and die in a fire, and have been all too happy to pull in 3rd Wave Feminists to their cause.

Somehow, in logic that defies any attempt of rationalization, the journalists have engaged in a campaign of mass censorship, trying desperately to control spin, and damage control the increasing evidence of their shitty behavior. EDIT: the DDoS of the Escapist, is generally attributed to the anti-Gamergate side, as the Journalists had been trying for weeks to get the thread removed from the forum.

Being the Internet, nothing ever goes away, and both sides continue to escalate.

(In the interest of fairness, I am pro-Gamergate. I condemn harassment from either side, and feel there needs to be some serious discussion on journalistic ethics for the gaming press.)

For added lulz, go find the Zoe Quinn thread at VGO, and realize they've got it ass backwards. That's the average SJW line of thought.

Quote from: Novastar;789853It seems to be the Gaming Press (which has drunken mightily from the tap of SJW), versus the sprawling masses of teh Internet.

The masses, using the hashtag #Gamergate, basically want the Press to be some semblance of professional. Admit conflicts of interest, don't report on people you're sleeping with, don't report on people you are tied to financially, and don't collude to suppress stories.

For those who have kept up with it better, did anything come of the guys who said Quinn behaved in a sexually inappropriate way towards them turn into anything? Wife said something about it a while back and it struck me as an issue that should have toppled her from the high horse, but judging by the article on cracked since I'm going to say it didn't happen.

But yeah, general consensus among the people I know is that you should put 'Hey this is my friend/wife/corporate overlord' at the start of any article in which there is reason to believe your judgement may have been influenced by personal relationships. We still don't care if she was cheating on someone, but we'd be liable to be concerned if we'd taken any of the outlets involved seriously. I stick to the bigger ones myself, that way I can always assume the corporate overlord is involved.

Still amuses me people are talking like this is all some media breakthrough for indie games. If you have to be sleeping, friends with, or bribing people to get publicity for the game, something is wrong.

Oddly, the only real fallout from the "Quinnspriracy" was ZQ sleeping with Nathan Grayson, the journalist. Now, the official line is that they weren't a couple while he was writing about Project Greenlight, and out of 50 games mentioned only 3 (one of which was Depression Quest, ZQ's game), used screenshots only of Depression Quest for the article, and prominently displayed it throughout the piece. But Kotaku's Editor reviewed it, and found no conflict of interest, even though NG was living in the same apartment as ZQ later.

:rolleyes:

Robin Arnett, was a judge on a contest panel, where a lot of Silverstring's Media (which ZQ pays for PR services) won awards at the contest. Actually, only Silverstring Media games won awards, no one else.

The one I don't get is her married boss, Joshua Boggs. Every job I've ever had, if the boss was sleeping with a junior female employee, that boss would be given a pink slip, and the junior female employee asked/paid off to sign a NDA, so they could not sue for sexual harassment later.

Quote from: Novastar;789949Oddly, the only real fallout from the "Quinnspriracy" was ZQ sleeping with Nathan Grayson, the journalist. Now, the official line is that they weren't a couple while he was writing about Project Greenlight, and out of 50 games mentioned only 3 (one of which was Depression Quest, ZQ's game), used screenshots only of Depression Quest for the article, and prominently displayed it throughout the piece. But Kotaku's Editor reviewed it, and found no conflict of interest, even though NG was living in the same apartment as ZQ later.

:rolleyes:
.

I haven't been following this too closely, but I keep seeing this argument that no favoritism took place because she didn't sleep with him before the article came out, only immediately afterward.

:huhsign:

That doesn't exactly mean that no favoritism couldn't have taken place.  Has anyone heard of, 'Hey, I'll give you a good review if we hook up later"?  I'm not saying that's what happened, only that saying it couldn't have taken place because the horizontal nasty didn't happen until shortly after is very flawed reasoning.

And while I agree that a person's sex life is totally private, I also think that if such behavior is leading to people spending money on a product they may not have bought otherwise, then it is perfectly relevant to discuss.

Quote from: Novastar;789949Every job I've ever had, if the boss was sleeping with a junior female employee, that boss would be given a pink slip, and the junior female employee asked/paid off to sign a NDA, so they could not sue for sexual harassment later.

Only if it was proven there was a quid pro quo relationship, otherwise the boss can sue for wrongful termination, and for a management type, that could be an expensive settlement.

Most of my jobs have explicit language that forbids fraternization amongst co-workers. She/he can be a manager, and the other a subordinate, but not directly interacting with one another. The conflict of interest is just too tempting (and, quite honestly, the likelihood of nooners, too great! ).

Quote from: Sacrosanct;789968That doesn't exactly mean that no favoritism couldn't have taken place.  Has anyone heard of, 'Hey, I'll give you a good review if we hook up later"?  I'm not saying that's what happened, only that saying it couldn't have taken place because the horizontal nasty didn't happen until shortly after is very flawed reasoning.

He didn't write a review of the game. He mentioned it in an article about Steam's Greenlight system, along with 49 other games; it got the article pic, but as the first Twine game to get greenlit, that seems justified.

QuoteAnd while I agree that a person's sex life is totally private, I also think that if such behavior is leading to people spending money on a product they may not have bought otherwise, then it is perfectly relevant to discuss.

DQ is available for free. I think it was originally intended to be released as paid software on Steam, but ended up not.

There is a PWYW button on the site, but those are everywhere on the internet, and the game isn't gated behind it.

Quote from: Novastar;789978Most of my jobs have explicit language that forbids fraternization amongst co-workers. She/he can be a manager, and the other a subordinate, but not directly interacting with one another. The conflict of interest is just too tempting (and, quite honestly, the likelihood of nooners, too great! ).

True, I know you are right; but enforceability of the language is the thing. Office relationship are often frowned upon, but you can't use the water cooler gossip. The worst I saw was an intern who slept with two different guys, and then the guys flipped on each other. My boss told me to handle it, so I told them that if any impropriety is found, it can be used as grounds for termination. That shut them up about it, though if it had been used, it would have been hard to prove.

Quote from: dragoner;789983True, I know you are right; but enforceability of the language is the thing. Office relationship are often frowned upon, but you can't use the water cooler gossip. The worst I saw was an intern who slept with two different guys, and then the guys flipped on each other. My boss told me to handle it, so I told them that if any impropriety is found, it can be used as grounds for termination. That shut them up about it, though if it had been used, it would have been hard to prove.

There was a young lady at one of my previous emplyers who had slept with a couple of people around the company. At our christmas party that year, we all went out to a nightclub, the two guys got drunk and angry with each other, A Fight Ensued, and everyone's friends waded in for the scrap. Me and the IT guys just sat in the middle of it, drinking our beers; it was like a saloon scene from a western (Only with awful scottish accents).

On of the guys had also recently started sleeping with the deputy head of HR, as well, so she had to stay out of the disciplinary process entirely.

(There's also a very nasty rumour going around that someone at my current employer was sleeping with her boss, which is the only plausible explanation for her rapid promotion, given that she's as thick as shit.)

Quote from: Ladybird;789991There was a young lady at one of my previous emplyers who had slept with a couple of people around the company. At our christmas party that year, we all went out to a nightclub, the two guys got drunk and angry with each other, A Fight Ensued, and everyone's friends waded in for the scrap. Me and the IT guys just sat in the middle of it, drinking our beers; it was like a saloon scene from a western (Only with awful scottish accents).

On of the guys had also recently started sleeping with the deputy head of HR, as well, so she had to stay out of the disciplinary process entirely.

(There's also a very nasty rumour going around that someone at my current employer was sleeping with her boss, which is the only plausible explanation for her rapid promotion, given that she's as thick as shit.)

That would be humorous, if nothing else. Nothing so glamorous for me, construction management for mid-sized firms in California up until five years ago. With 200-300 people, you do see a lot of weird stuff, but it isn't fun, mostly just extra work.

People also get promoted to do jobs nobody else wants to do, and there is nobody better than a stupid person. I actually feel sorry for them sometimes. Usually the only way I can get ahead is if somebody dies or quits, thank god for cost of living salary increases and performance based bonuses.

One time I had to talk to a guy about not shopping his female relatives to the other crew during work hours, and maybe that wasn't so good of an idea anyways. That was weird. Or the former communist insurgent who got in a fight at lunch at a liquor store, selfies me a pic of the stab wound and needs the afternoon off.