Intel Drops Gamasutra Sponsorship Over Controversial Editorials

An anonymous reader writes Processor firm Intel has withdrawn its advertising from Gamasutra in response to the site's decision to carry feminist articles. The articles had drawn the ire of the self-described "Gater" movement, a grass-roots campaign to discredit prominent female games journalists. Intel was apparently so inundated with criticism for sponsoring the Gamasutra site that it had no choice but to withdraw support. An Intel spokesperson explained that "We take feedback from our customers very seriously especially as it relates to contextually relevant content and placements" and as such Gamasutra was no longer an appropriate venue for their products."

Comments

gtfo

[Anonymous Coward]

So called gater movement needs to fuck off and die.

There are people who don't like Anita Sarkeesian or Carolyn Petit or a lot of other people who make it their overbearing agenda to misrepresent reality and gamers and focus 155% on perceived feminism in video games or perceived gender-damaging things. Those people aren't a grass roots movement, or gaters, we're just people who hate bullshit and don't tolerate it. Never heard of these gaters referred to as a group before but wow, give me a break.

Re:gtfo

[LordLimecat]

Alternate headline:

Irrelevant movement about how gaming news continues to make itself irrelevant by being unprofessional finds new ways to be unprofessional and irrelevant.

Since the last 2 articles, my level of caring about this issue hasnt budged beyond "its mildly interesting just how much drama a non-issue can generate".

Re:gtfo

[chill]

Horse shit.

Your right to free speech extends only to GOVERNMENT restriction of speech. Private venues are fully within their rights to limit your speech all they want in their venue. Don't like it? Leave.

Re:gtfo

[LordLimecat]

Pretty sure I didnt say it was, but this hair-trigger reaction to anything thats not resounding support is exactly the sort of drama I was talking about. I didnt immediately come out and defend Zoe Quinn, so I must be "the enemy".

This "movement" sure has a way of turning people off before they even have heard the full story.

Re:gtfo

[liquid_schwartz]

Yes, I am for free speech as well, but all speech has consequences.

Sad but true in some cases. The problem with not tolerating speech that you don't agree with is that it keeps a rational discussion from happening. Need an example, try this:

[Person A] We should discuss the problems of massive numbers of undocumented people crossing the borders. Possible downsides include non-vaccinated people, economic costs, crimes committed by said people, etc.

[Person B] You are obviously racist. Why do you hate hispanics, they just want opportunity.

If Person A is white then maybe they'll add comments about white privilege. Not a single point Person A said was considered, just a blanket dismissal as racist. That's the problem with "hate speech" either by government or by the "PC crowd". Not addressing reality carries more severe consequences than offending overly sensitive people who get offended by just about anything and everything.

Re:gtfo

[Anonymous Coward]

The misogyny accusation is just guilt-by-association -- used to tell people who are not guilty of misogyny to "shut up".

Re:gtfo

[retchdog]

Depression Quest is definitely a game in the sense that it's a really primitive interactive fiction. Zork is generally considered a game, so I don't see why Quinn's shouldn't be. Admittedly, it might not be a good game, but it is a game.

I played Depression Quest a while ago, long before this drama started. it was unpolished and had a lot of typos, but i thought it was a cute idea. iirc, wasn't the original outcry from "gamers" due to DQ being greenlit on Steam despite their not wanting it there? Honestly, I didn't understand that; if you don't like it, don't play it. I haven't been following this silly episode very well; it seems to have drifted onto various groups trying to "own" the incident. (yawn)

Re:gtfo

[jtwiegand]

This is a common argument. While it is technically correct, these institutions should promote a culture of free speech, not merely obey the letter of the law. Legally private spaces, such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. have become, de facto, the space for public discourse. While it would be perfectly legal for these entities to censor speech, it would seem fitting for these spaces to promote cultures of free speech if for the sole reason than they are effectively the space for public discourse.

People are leaving, and they're taking their traffic and ad revenue with them. It is certainly within their power to not promote this culture of free speech, but those that are not are currently reaping the whirlwind.

Re:gtfo

[khasim]

There is a lot of ugly misogyny in games.

Yes there is. And in society as a whole. And it isn't just misogyny.

If you're a woman gamer, and you don't respond to certain male gamers they way they want you to, you will get death threats, rape threats and doxxing.

I wish that someone with better gaming skills than me would do a few tests. As such:

Create an account with a female name and avatar. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be African American. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be LGBT. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be Jewish. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be Muslim. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be a teenage male. Play some games. Record the reactions.

I'd say that you'd find an amazing amount of hatred for each of those categories. Not because there really is that degree of specific hatred. But because the people losing are trying to hurt the victor with whatever insults they think might work.

The fact that most games are written and told from an adolescent male point of view does not help. It creates a sort of greasy milieu where it's easy to believe that any behavior toward a woman is acceptable.

While I believe that that is a MAJOR factor I think it is also an unconscious strategy on the part of the less competent gamers.

If a woman beats you at that game and you call her a whore and she leaves and never comes back then that is one less player who is better than you.

In my experience, no one bothers with directed insults at someone who is a worse player or who agrees with your opinions.

So, IMO, there is no solution in the larger context. But there are ways to mitigate it in the specific category of playing games. And the easiest to implement would be to restrict messages until a player has sufficient investment in a system to behave themselves.

I also hope that, someday, someone will come up with a variation of the Bechdel test to demonstrate how women are depicted in games. If the woman can be replaced with a bowling ball then there is a problem with the writing.

My daughter was kidnapped and is going to be auctioned into sexual slavery! I must kill all the peoples.
vs.
My bowling ball was stolen and is going to be auctioned on eBay. I must kill all the peoples.

Re:gtfo

[Russ1642]

Putting this in a different context if you ran a McDonalds and a table full of 14 year old were using language like that you'd have no trouble telling them to knock it off or leave. And nobody would think you're stamping on the free speech rights bought with blood.

Re:gtfo

[Verdatum]

The problems is that there are two sides to the story. And it's difficult to find sources that will decently explain both of them. One side claims that Zoe faked everything and slept with lots of people to get good reviews and get mods of all sorts of websites to censor anything negative said about her. It is likely true that she was involved with at least one person in the review industry, but not expressly for the purpose of getting good reviews.

The other side claims that it is the result of an ex-boyfriend doing his best to vilify her which caused a decent sized chunk of the gamer community to believe it was now alright to treat to woman like garbage. People, often using spambots, have posted her home address on countless websites (the real reason for most of the moderator censoring), and posted copyrighted nude images of her. She received a number of (idle) threats of rape and violence, and thousands of people on message boards and such started calling her just about every negative term I've ever heard used against a person.

Anti-zoe people were hurt because she became the target both for the reasons why the game review industry is so horrible (who hasn't purchased at least one shitty game do to inaccurate, overly positive reviews?), and the representation of every woman that ever hurt them personally. A large number of guys are drawn to gaming because they are not too good at interacting with women. For a subset of these guys, these problems with interaction have lead to bitter misogyny. In a number of threads and articles, a number of these guys have attacked anyone trying to defend her, claiming that those people either were currently sleeping with zoe, hope/wish that defending her will let them get to sleep with her, or they are loser-white-knights and Social Justice Warrior bitches who need to fuck off and leave us true gamers alone.

So yeah, it's a mess, and this bitter subset has gone and made the gamer community look really bad.

Re:gtfo

[HatofPig]

There is undoubtedly lots of sexist shit going on surrounding GamerGate (what you should have searched for), but most of the controversy is the nature of how feminists inserted themselves into gaming "journalism". There is no professional ethics in the industry, and the editorial boards of different sites basically handed the keys over to an ideological authority who is going to preach their message top down.

Lots of gamers resent feminism capturing their press and then immediately slandering the gamer identity. And lots of these angry gamers are women and LGBT people who don't want to held up as a shield when the readership of these sites complain.

This is more like /. users revolting against Beta then a gender war. The gamers, who just want to escape reality, feel like their corporate-owned journalism industry should cater to them if they expect to remain profitable. They aren't entitled to the eyeballs that they sell to advertisers. Instead the gaming "journalists" scream bloody-murder about evil misogynists and start twitter-wars when their readership reacts poorly to their social re-engineering scheme. If the readership wanted to be preached to, they would watch South Park instead of playing games.

The worst has come out in both camps, but this is a fight the journalism companies started, and they run at the mercy of their readership. It's just business.

Re:gtfo

[CronoCloud]

In the glory gays of gaming you could swear and taunt and not have to worry about getting arrested for homophobia, racism, anti-semitism, misogyny etc. None of it is was meant maliciously and it should be considered playful banter.

you know, it's possible to play a game competitively WITHOUT calling the opposing team "fags". By respecting them, you respect yourself. If they pull of good teamwork, don't claim they are "cheating fags" compliment them on it and figure out how you can do the same.

This " basket ball court style trash-talk" isn't necessary, it isn't even necessary THERE.

Re:gtfo

[ultranova]

[Person A] I have an agenda, and will try to hijack an unrelated discussion with my clumsy propaganda.

[Person B] I'm a strawman meant to paint A as a victim of persecution.

Fixed that for you.

Re:gtfo

[PopeRatzo]

They decided to start their ventures reviewing games, and built names for themselves in their niche. But they can not solve misogyny in gaming.

I don't know that they cannot. Critical theory, my field, is practically a history of how criticism changed culture. There have been a lot of behaviors that were acceptable once and are no longer so. In Rome, they used to have slaves fighting each other, and wild animals, to the death for people's amusement. At some point, it became unacceptable and now is unthinkable. I believe the same can happen to this kind of casual misogyny.

I believe you when you say that gamers like you are turned off by the immaturity of the greater gaming community.

Nosiree. It's not the immaturity of the greater gaming community that turns me off. I'm immature (yes, it's true). Rather, it's the ugly verbal violence towards women that turns me off. The ugly verbal violence of gamers toward each other, too. I'm not talking about, "Man, I totally headshotted you, fucker". I'm talking about, "Man, I totally turned you over and fucked you up your ass". There's a difference. You will be surprised to know that women gamers don't like being called "cunts" and "whores" and "hose-monsters" and don't really enjoy it when other gamers talk about raping and torturing them. They don't mind so much when someone who just headshotted them says, "Nailed you, noob". There's a difference, you see?

As far as companies go, if you don't like pandering to gamers then get out of the business.

Those companies have the right to decide for themselves what that business is going to be and more important, who their target audience is going to be. The fact is, nobody wants to be around creeps. Even other creeps don't want to be around creeps. Did you ever read any of the creep gamer forums? They all talk past one another and will turn on each other in a heartbeat. There's no "business" catering to those people except maybe porn. And maybe the game writers don't want to be porn for creeps any more.

What if gun-control advocates start getting editorials into gun magazines, and then when complaints roll in the magazines start calling branding their readership as a bunch of paranoid crazies.

Well, you're offering me a fat, slow-pitch right down the middle there. The straight answer however, is that if there was a growing readership of responsible gun owners who were just as interested in the safety of their children and communities as they were in how to properly Stand Your Ground when encountering a black youth in a hoodie, I'd say it was the prerogative of the owners of the magazine to aim their editorial decisions to the most desirable demographic. Wouldn't you? Don't you believe that the owners of a publication of web site should be allowed to decide who they want to sell their product to and who they don't? Of course you do. As the consumer of a product you have a very binary choice: either you want the product or you do not. The choices of the editorial purveyors are a lot more complex. Are the members of the Woman Haters Club growing in number or shrinking? Do they spend money on the products our advertisers sell? Is the growing number of female gamers a better audience for us going forward?

I'm sorry to tell you this, friend, but you just don't get a say. You can read the site or you can not. You can write letters and make noise and demands all you want, but at the end of the day, the ugliness is just ugliness and nobody's going to cater to it forever. Some day, the Colosseum is going to be used for X-Sports instead of blood sports and you can stare into your lap and commiserate about the good old days when men were men and got to watch slaves getting murdered.

Or, you can go over and read PC Gamer or IGN. But be warned, they're starting to feel the wind blow, too.

And, by the way, as a gu

Re:gtfo

[PopeRatzo]

On the basketball courts I've seen there is plenty of trash talk, but none of it is of the "I'll bend you over and rape you" variety.

Mostly it's the "you can't touch this" stuff. Call someone a "cheating fag" on the basketball court and there liable to be bloodshed. It's a lot different when the object of your trash talk is standing right in front of you and has prison tattoos. Even the men.

I'm pretty sure the anonymous nature of online interactions allows the worst in some people to come out. Heck, it brings out the worst in me sometimes. I generally try to stay away from demeaning someone over their gender or their sexual orientation, though. I don't understand why those are even insults. The gay people I know tend to have about the same breakdown of smart/dumb, competent/incompetent as the rest of the population. They're just less likely to pick their nose or fart loudly in public, which I actually consider a plus. Same with women. Maybe I just happen to know a lot of capable women, but for some reason I just don't think "here's someone I can pick on" when I encounter a woman, which is pretty often considering I have a wife and daughter.

Re:gtfo

[HatofPig]

It's not the gamer brand I'm worried about, it's the feminist brand. Bad feminists make feminism look bad, and stall progress on any noble goal they might be trying to achieve.

And yes, it's not up to me, but I can comment on them, tell them what will and won't work, and slap my head when they ignore common sense and drive their socially-just cause into a ditch.

Harrassing women is bad. Actions to diminish it are good. Actions which will not diminish it, but actually increase it are bad. That's what I'm against. These particular feminists are making gamers hate women more. Here is a feminist who agrees with me. Again, I've been following this for months, I assure you there is nothing righteous in defending these companies choices to "get on board early" because they are sinking the ship. Earnestly, I mean this. It's like unintentional sabotage. If early radio stations made audiences hate Otis Redding through bungling decision-making then black music would have been pushed back, and racisism would have been emboldened. Crazy feminists are doing that sort of damage to woman's causes.

If you really care about actual social progress, you should be able to discriminate between good paths toward improving the world, worthy of defending, and catastrophic setbacks like this one. Otherwise, I assume you are just picking a the side in a fight that will make you feel like a good person. You're just saying "I'm for human rights! I'm for equality!" without examining the issue, and unfortunately RTFA isn't enough for this one, because TFA emblematic of how bogus this whole issue is. So trust me. Social change which makes everyone inclusive is good, and you are right for supporting it. But this isn't that.

Re:gtfo

[Darinbob]

I have noticed this. I only come to slashdot for geeky news. I never go to reddit, tumblr, 4chan, or whatever all those other social media places are. But for sure on this site the misogynists come out immediately and in force when news like this arrives. Most likely infuriated at the interruption in their perusal of hacked nude celebrity photos that they don't notice the irony.

Re: gtfo

[CronoCloud]

Or I could not act like a faggot.

You use that word with people outside the internet? If someone says to you, "that was rude" do you say "stop acting like a faggot"?

No, of course you don't, that would get you social censure. Why should video games or the internet be different.

If you are so weak you can be hurt by mere words it is YOU who should leave and find some other group to play with.

It isn't weak to expect proper sportsmanship. That's what we should aspire to, not trash talk.

Expecting everyone to conform to your ideas isn't only selfish but futile.

Do you see people outside the internet behaving like you say you want to? No, because there's expectations. In fact in physical sports, bad behavior can get you or your team penalized.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...

This is what we should aspire to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://www.merriam-webster.com...

Inflammatory description of article.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've written at length about this particular topic - it's a bane on the existence of the internet at the moment.
I am not endorsing abusing the woman by any means, but she wrote a deliberately inflammatory article which decided to single handedly lump all gamers in as trouble and make the label gamer a "dirty word" In doing so, she alienated a *LOT* of people who previously had no stake in this entire saga.

People are doing the wrong thing on both sides of the fence on this debate. As someone who has followed it for 6 weeks and dealt with excessive censorship in regards to discussing it too, I recommend simply avoiding this one, it's nasty.

Posting Anon, I really can't be bothered with potential backlash (and this post is hardly spiteful but you never know at the moment)

Re:Inflammatory description of article.

[Wonko the Sane]

The degree to which the SJW crowd has to resort to increasingly-inflammatory headlines and articles gives me a lot of hope, because it indicates that the collective unconscious of the Internet really does have a funcitoning immune response that can limit the damaged caused by that particularly nasty virus.

I was worried for a while.

Re:Inflammatory description of article.

[pedrop357]

I stopped being concerned for now because like all movements driven by thin skinned, entitled, whiners, the SJW movement will implode. There's no slight or offense too small upon which a small cadre won't demand that the full weight of the movement be brought to bear.

When some resist as they don't think it's warranted or proper or worthy, there will be butthurt for days as the newly aggrieved subset whines about how the resisting side are traitors, tainted, sell-outs, etc. and they will have to fragment and waste time driving their own campaign against some minor (at best) issue.

Re:Inflammatory description of article.

[PopeRatzo]

The degree to which the SJW crowd has to resort to increasingly-inflammatory headlines and articles gives me a lot of hope, because it indicates that the collective unconscious of the Internet really does have a funcitoning immune response that can limit the damaged caused by that particularly nasty virus.

Now if only the Internet had a functioning immune response to misogyny, bullying, sick rape fantasies and adolescent jerkoffs whose hobby is making other people's lives miserable.

But thank goodness we've stopped feminism in its tracks, huh?

Re:Inflammatory description of article.

[Rakarra]

And what precisely is the "SJW" movement. As far as I can tell, the so called "SJW" movent may as well be called the "don't be a cunt" movement. Somehow this is being portrayed as a bad thing by some people.

The SJW movement refers to large groups of people who are outsiders wading into a conflict without knowing anything about the people involved, dealing solely with stereotypes. In this case, the SJW would assume the woman is automatically correct and all the men involved are misogynistic gamer assholes. They will throw straw-man insults and arguments at the person they have stereotyped, try to ruin reputations and careers, and basically shit on everything until the discussion area is a husk. It's an ill-informed lynch mob howling for justice.

"Swarm cyber-shaming" isn't a bad phrase to use, as Andrew Fox called it when a mob ran amuck in the SFWA. Malzberg and Resnick didn't handle this as well as they could have, but no way did they deserve the building, escalating firestorm of a reception that they got.

So Intel pulled out

[TheCastro1689]

their advertising because the site will carry female journalists and articles about female gamers? That sounds like the type of decision that backfires on a company.

Re:So Intel pulled out

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel pulled out because one of the editors wrote an article about how Intel's customers "are dying" and "should be eliminated" as a group.

Not surprisingly, said Intel customers didn't take kindly to being told that they should be irrelevant and should be eliminated. And they told Intel.

It's not going to backfire on Intel. No one who buys Intel products is going to stop buying them over this. The feminazis who are going to whine about it don't play video games anyway and you can't boycott what you already don't buy.

It mean, Intel is pissing off the latte-drinking hipster "you aren't allowed to offend anyone" Apple crowd. They'll still be using their Intel-powered MacBook Airs regardless. It's not like they even realize they use Intel products.

Gamers, on the other hand, have a choice: Intel or AMD. And Intel knows not to piss off their enthusiasts.

Face it, Feminazis: Gamers still matter to real companies.

Re:So Intel pulled out

[rochrist]

Anyone who uses the 'term' feminazi, has instantly outed himself as a sub-moronic troll.

It's not about unjustly discrediting journalists.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about calling out scam artists like Anita Sarkeesian and her bogus kickstarter. It's about calling out scumbags like Zoe Quinn and the gaming journalists with the undisclosed conflicts of interests that reported on her games. It's about calling out those who defend those other people by ignoring facts and manufacturing controversy, trying to discredit legitimate criticism as misogyny. People just like you, Timothy. This trash piece is unsurprising, though, since Slashdot has completely sold out to the SJW lie.

Rubbish.

[Anonymous Coward]

>> "Processor firm Intel has withdrawn its advertising from Gamasutra in response to the site's decision to carry feminist articles. "

Nope. Intel removes advertising after Gamasutra lead a charge of articles saying gamers were dead. Obviously Intel are quiet taken with PC gamers and the millions they spend on CPU's each year. As Gamasutra was no longer a site targeted at that demographic they decided not to waste the money advertising to people who aren't there.

>> "The articles had drawn the ire of the self-described "Gater" movement, a grass-roots campaign to discredit prominent female games journalists. "

Nope. it's a campaign is to rid Gaming of shitty, biased, corrupt journalists who conspire against their supposed audience. Like whichever anonymous cockroach submitted this article. These same journalists like to hide behind feminists and minorities to avoid criticism.

>> "Intel was apparently so inundated with criticism for sponsoring the Gamasutra site that it had no choice but to withdraw support."

Nope. Intel realised that advertising on sites that are aggressive and hateful towards the demographics being targeted by an ad campaign is counter-productive and a waste of marketing budget.

As ever anti-GG brigade are there telling lies and twisting the truth. So which PR company did this submission company come from Slashdot? We know you know. Anonymous my arse.

Re:Rubbish.

[Luckyo]

It may come as a shock, but people who actually buy i7s instead of i3s and i5s for their gaming rigs tend to be active enough in their gaming hobby to care about industry articles.

Intel doesn't care about the content

[Higaran]

They only care that people are complaining, it's a PR thing. They are pulling their advertising because there is some controversy going on with the site, so it's easier to pull out then pick a side and anger people. Intel would plaster their logo on the side of churches if they knew that people wouldn't complain about it.

Re:Intel doesn't care about the content

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, pulling their advertising is picking a side.

Re:Intel doesn't care about the content

[Luckyo]

Advertising is picking a side. Pulling advertising but not starting to advertise with other side is not picking a side.

Umm, no

[Attila Dimedici]

I know that the submitter lifted this line from the article, "campaign to discredit prominent female games journalists", but I read the earlier articles on this subject. The attempt was not to "discredit prominent female games journalists." The attempt was to discredit specific female games journalists, at least one of whom acted in a manner which was calculated to stir up outrage and was possibly unethical (for those of you who want to argue about whether or not her behavior was unethical, I am not interested in spending the time looking at what she did in order to reach a conclusion).

Re:Umm, no

[skine]

The attempt was to discredit specific female games journalists, at least one of whom acted in a manner which was calculated to stir up outrage and was possibly unethical (for those of you who want to argue about whether or not her behavior was unethical, I am not interested in spending the time looking at what she did in order to reach a conclusion).

Even that's not accurate.

There was not attempt to discredit anybody, but rather exposure of corruption in the gaming press. Some of the people exposed were women, but most of them were men. This whole situation probably would have been ignored like every other instance of exposure of corruption in the gaming press, except about 20 articles were posted on the same day proclaiming the end of gamer culture because it was overrun with misogynists.

In particular, they pointed to a claim that a female game developer had had sexual relationships with male game journalists around the same time that they provided positive reviews of or financial backing for her game. The resulting ire was described by all (yes all, as in not one disagreeing) prominent gaming journals as misogyny and slut-shaming the woman in question, even though it was almost completely directed at the men she was purported to have relationships with.

As for what you have in parentheses, I also don't care whether or not one considers her behavior unethical. She is not a journalist. Rather, I care about whether the journalists acted unethically. Even if all of the original claims of corruption are false, it still seems dishonest and unethical that the games journalists have not yet addressed the claims at all, while instead accusing the accusers of being motivated by bigotry. Even if they are bigots, an ad hominem - or more specifically ad feminam - attack does not prove their accusations false.

Re:Umm, no

[meta-monkey]

You're absolutely right, and the "gamergate journalists," without irony, generalize an entire group of people (gamers) because of the actions of a very few people (assholes).

Sexism exists. There are those who, upon learning Steve is bad at math will say "Steve, you suck at math." But upon learning Amy sucks at math will say "girls suck at math." Not cool.

And if Amy (or Steve) threatens a man with sexual violence ("I'm going to cut your dick off and kill you"), we say that Amy (or Steve) is a deranged lunatic. However, if it turns out Steve threatens a woman with sexual violence, then it's because men are deranged lunatics.

Bullshit. I dislike the term "gamer," but yes I have been playing video games my entire life and do so to this day, PC and console. I am a man. But I have never threatened a woman and am not a misogynist. So quit breathlessly telling me how "gamers have a problem" and "men have a problem." No, no we don't. The problem consists of the one or two assholes who threatened these women.

Go after them! Punish them! Sarkeesian says she was "driven from her home" by these awful, awful threats. Did she call the police? No. No she goes running to the SJW blogs so they can berate millions of people for the actions of one.

And that's exactly how you know the real agenda. Follow the money. If these women were game developers for, say, Blizzard, and somebody made a credible threat against her in the course of doing her job, you know what would happen? She'd go to her boss who would say "shit, can't have that, I need this woman working so we can make money off her!" He'd call security, they'd talk to the police, talk to twitter, get IP addresses, talk to ISPs and bust the guy for harassment. It would be non-story, justice would be served and the woman could get on with her life.

But no, she didn't go to the cops because there's no money in it. The money is in the 500 clickbait blog posts to drive ad revenue and fund kickstarters and all that bullshit. That's why we have to hear about it.

To Zoe Quinn, to Anita Sarkeesian: I am so sorry somebody said mean things to you on the internet. But your issue is with those people, not the entirety of men who play video games. Leave us the fuck alone and go deal with real problems. Thank you.

Re:It's not feminism at this point.

[BarbaraHudson]

Intel has pulled an advertising campaign from video gaming website Gamasutra after it reportedly received a number of complaints from self-identified gamers upset that the site was championing fair gender representation in video games.

When you write:

However, Women's Rights activist/advocates should be firmly expressing their disdain towards this horrible movement of Femi-nazi's.

Why? When people point out that "gamer" no longer includes just a small hard-core subset of males who orgasm over every new video card and think that all female characters in games should have "vital statistics" that would put a Barbie doll to shame, they're not being "femi-nazis." The appeal of games like Minecraft (58% female) shows that the word "gamer" is either an archaism or needs to be updated to include the new reality.

If the old guard doesn't like that women are "invading their space", they need to realize that it's simply not just "their space" any more.

WOW, the propaganda never ends

[Anonymous Coward]

"in response to the site's decision to carry feminist articles. The articles had drawn the ire of the self-described "Gater" movement, a grass-roots campaign to discredit prominent female games journalists"

I am not going to attribute this to ignorance, this is plain malice trying to discredit #gamergate

the linked verge article is just as bad

[XaXXon]

as the stuff people were complaining about.

Intel has pulled an advertising campaign from video gaming website Gamasutra after it reportedly received a number of complaints from self-identified gamers upset that the site was championing fair gender representation in video games.

Wow, could this have been written to represent one side any more strongly?

That's one way to summarize it...

[DRMShill]

Another would be that video game players(intel's customer) are kind of sick of feminist extremists posting articles about about how all gamers are a bunch of basement dwelling woman haters.

This medium seems to get attacked a lot by people who don't understand it. Which I kind of understand. If you saw someone playing GTA you'd probably think they're a murderous psychopath.

First we had Jack Thompson blaming games for school shootings. And now we have third wave feminists blaming games for some kind of rape epidemic.

Re:That's one way to summarize it...

[PvtVoid]

Another would be that video game players(intel's customer) are kind of sick of feminist extremists posting articles about about how all gamers are a bunch of basement dwelling woman haters.

Way to conform to the stereotype there, bro.

Re:can relate

[Spad]

For the love of God, if you think your games (or any media you consume, frankly) don't have any politics in them then it simply means they have politics that you already agree with. The number of truly apolitical games out there is vanishingly small.

This idea of "just let games be about the games" is as bullshit as saying "why can't my music just be about the music".

Re:can relate

[Anonymous Coward]

http://midnightresistance.co.uk/articles/shitty-toys

Don't worry. Just because many games are sexist and/or misogynist doesn't mean they'll go away. Porn won't go away either. There's a market for these things, and that will stay that way.

People need to realise some things are sexist and misogynist. That is all. We don't need a world free of these things.

I watch Tom & Jerry and am very well aware it has racist elements. But I know these things as relics of their own time. By knowing it contains racist elements, I do not allow it to actually turn me into a racist. Some games have misogynist elements, but they are not fully misogynist. Know it for what it is.

The headline and article misrepresent the issue

[quietwalker]

The issue is video game reviewers and sites providing unearned positive praise for a product due to:
    - Bias from personal relationships, including those of a sexual nature
    - Political pressure to over-represent games which claim to be the product of a given minority group

If the 'customer' in this case, is the person expecting a fair and non-biased review of upcoming and current games, they are not served by these biases, especially when they're not revealed from the beginning. This is a basic failure of journalistic integrity.

This was further compounded by a backlash that centered around censorship of any discussion of these issues, no matter how applicable or tangentially related, which pointed these issues out, which is seen as patently unfair - not to mention draconian.

Perhaps the worst part of it all is that those trying to hide this discovery - or promote their side with no argument - chose something ethically sound to stand against, Women's Rights. This is unfortunate, because women's rights have nothing to do with this issue, and pretending it does only weakens future ACTUAL complaints that involve Women's Rights.

Re:The headline and article misrepresent the issue

[MozeeToby]

This is like complaining that professional food critics have personal relationships with many high profile chefs, it's true but it misses the point. Reviewers who make bad (as in, inaccurate) reviews lose readers, no one wants to waste money on a lemon.

I'm much more concerned about AAA publishers leaning on reviewers for good reviews or outright buying them, as has been shown in the past, than I am concerned about some shadowy conspiracy to... promote games by indie developers who happen to be minorities or women? I guess...?

And finally, in today's world of aggregated reviews, it's incredibly difficult to game the system in the way you are describing. It wouldn't be enough to convince one or two or even a dozen reviewers to give you good review. Even if you managed good pre-release coverage the user reviews would sink you after the fact (see the latest SimCity for an example).

(And finally again, there's no evidence, at all that any of the accusations that started this mess are even true. The only thing known for sure is that she had a relationship months in the past with one person who worked at a website which reviewed her game. Jesus H Christ, can we please just let this die already!?)

Dear Intel

[PvtVoid]

Read this article five times, and then promptly fire the brain-dead fuckwit who decided to pull your ads because of complaints from a mob of psychos.

"These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers -- they are not my audience. They don’t have to be yours. There is no ‘side’ to be on, there is no ‘debate’ to be had. "

Re:Dear Intel

[Piata]

I actually applaude Intel's decision because of articles like that. As someone that grew up playing Atari, NES, Genisis and everything that came after, the contempt most gaming sites show for people that actually buy and play games is abhorent. It's about as tone deaf as those stupid "don't pirate movie" ads they play in movie theatres before the movie (that you paid to see) starts.

Re:It's not feminism at this point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel has pulled an advertising campaign from video gaming website Gamasutra after it reportedly received a number of complaints from self-identified gamers upset that the site was championing fair gender representation in video games.

When you write:

However, Women's Rights activist/advocates should be firmly expressing their disdain towards this horrible movement of Femi-nazi's.

Why? When people point out that "gamer" no longer includes just a small hard-core subset of males who orgasm over every new video card and think that all female characters in games should have "vital statistics" that would put a Barbie doll to shame, they're not being "femi-nazis." The appeal of games like Minecraft (58% female) shows that the word "gamer" is either an archaism or needs to be updated to include the new reality.

If the old guard doesn't like that women are "invading their space", they need to realize that it's simply not just "their space" any more.

You are missing the point.

Most gamers, male and female alike, just want to play video games. They want to be able to simply ask, "Hey, wanna play Street Fighter/Quake/Halo/Warcraft/etc?" without any drama, and 99% of the time that is how it goes amongst friends. Random idiots online are trying to get a rise out of you, don't pay attention to them. For most gamers, it doesn't matter if someone is male or female. There are plenty of creepy males and females online, but they're not the norm.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software is related to the above statement.

Apparently, also, Anita Sarkeesian, being a horrible human being undeserving of the attention they get, may have very well fabricated the death threats against herself. http://www.staresattheworld.com/2014/09/anita-sarkeesian-fabricate-story-contacting-authorities/

The major, and salient, point is the fact that there is an endemic corruption in journalism as pertains to gaming. Not just that, but most of them, except for IGN strangely enough, are connected to a sort of PR company (Silverstring Media) that is more focused on generating controversy than on anything related to gaming, equality of sexes, improved representation of strong women in video games, etc.

They're pushing a hardline, militant form of feminism, attempting to pervert the word further to gain more legitimacy, Feminism used to be about equality of the sexes, removing all institutionalized discrimination and attempting to foster an environment more conducive to viewing each other as equals, or perhaps even, view each other as just other human beings. Rather than "that black dude", or "that asian chick", etc, you think of them as people like yourself.

Another equally important point is the over-exaggeration of all gamers (and I myself view anyone who sets aside some of their free time specifically for playing a video game of SOME SORT (computer, console, handheld, cellphone even!) to be a gamer, hardcore gamer being the more nebulous term) as being mysogynists and constant desire to sexualize women in games as if their lives depended on it. I understand, in say, Dragon's Crown that the male characters are probably not even close to every woman's fantasy of their perfect man, and that the female characters (except the thief, whom is more modestly dressed) are quite sexualized... But I can accept the ridiculousness, you know why? It's all part of the game's style and aesthetics. Most of it is ridiculous!

Take a look at Mount & Blade, without any modifications mind, and play as a woman. You put on plate armor, it's the same shape as men's armor, because boob-plate would be ridiculous in a game attempting some realism (and make melee blows more likely to strike the center of the chest). There are other games like that, and other games that are on the more ridiculous sexualization side, though I feel it'd be better to

Re:can relate

[Anonymous Coward]

>You could keep your politics out of my entertainment

There is no such thing as non-political entertainment. Your entertainment came with political views, whether they were consciously put in there or not. You just can't see them because they're the defaults. So no, until you can find a way to engineer society in a way that there are no such things as "default settings", I will continue to inject my politics into everything, until they become the new default setting.

For the record, your examples of how "both genders get idealized" are stupid and don't equate. The muscular body-builder type of ideal is an ideal of strength, control, and power. The kinds of ideals we push women characters to aren't about those things - they're about looking attractive to men, and reduction of the character to a sexual object. When we reverse these ideals, the women who are idealized as strong, powerful, and in-control look about the same as the men who occupy that same niche. But if we look at how the men fare, well... If we just blindly apply the objectification tropes we apply to women, to the men, the kinds of people who think the way you do would be instantly offended. If we apply objectification, but tune it towards what women want, we get movies like Twilight and cartoons like Free, which again result in horrible backlash from the "I don't want feminism I want equality" people.

It seems that, when women are pushed towards the sexual object ideal, people like you are okay with it; but when we turn men into sexual objects you guys scream bloody murder. Now imagine a world where every time you see a man anywhere, they are either engineered (in the case of media representation) or are engineering their appearance to look submissive, inferior, or passive. Imagine a world where every man aspired to look, act, and be like Edward from the Twilight series. I think you would be a little justifiably pissed - but you can't be, because now you're just pushing your politics onto everything, and why can't I just enjoy a night looking at hawt guyz OMG LOL - queue rabid hate storm of angry Twilight-playing teenage boys.

Oh and by the way, "feminism" is such a ridiculously big-tent ideology that Sarah Palin qualifies as one, as well as the transphobic crazies that want to remove all hints of masculinity from existence. As well as many millions more of people who are reasonable, and just happen to see the obvious problems you are continually missing.

Re:Ethics in journalism

[Tridus]

Umm, you do know that all that stuff about the woman you won't name was made up by her ex-boyfriend, right?

Now there's a credible source of "journalism" if I ever heard one!

Gamergate is a smear campaign based entirely on lies and bullshit, used as a shield to protect a bunch of people who really don't like the woman behind those Feminist Frequency videos. Nothing more.

Re:The offending article

[Anonymous Coward]

She wasn't saying that "gamers" as individuals are over, but that "gamers" as a specific culture is over. I think she's right. Gaming has gone so mainstream that saying you're a "gamer" doesn't really mean anything anymore. I don't buy the newest and shiniest hardware (I suspect the same with most /.ers), so am I gamer or not? Can you tell? She's just saying that she doesn't write for the "gamer culture" because it's dying out. Now she writes for the modern gamer culture which is damn near anyone. I think she's making a point that the gamer purists who fit the old mold are mad they aren't the focus anymore.

Is the immune system working?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The mass censorship of gamers over the last month has raised questions about how well functioning that immune system really is. Gamers and the game media have never gotten along. But the degree to which gamers were thrown out of sites for talking about Gamergate was disturbing, and the "trivial" nature of gaming as a subject matter does not soften the blow.

Gamers were ejected from all major game news sites/blogs, almost all major game forums, news media outlets, subjected to shadow bans and mass deletions across the whole of Reddit, barred from editing Wikipedia, and finally -- in the the most absurd capstone to the whole farce -- all gamergate discussion was banned from 4chan, a place which still openly permits the posting of severed human body parts and rabidly anti-semetic hate speech. What few remaining forums for discussion were left ended up being DDoSed.

What happened during gamergate was what we were told could never happen to free discussion on the web: Site by site, the lights on the internet went out for video gamers.

In retrospect, it could only have happened for something as "trivial" as video games, and to a group as "subcultural" as the gaming community. But it has happened; It is still happenning. The entire concept of the Internet as a "fifth estate" or a forum for open debate has been severely discredited by recent events. If video gamers are unable to discuss or dispute that "Gamers are dead", or that games are not misogynist on the internet, then what can be discussed or disputed?

If the internet has an immune system, I don't see the patient recovering yet, and even in the event of a return to "health", the complications of this acute inflammation of censorship will be with us for a long time. This may yet end up being a watershed for the medium and our assumptions about it. Something has just gone very, very wrong.

Liar!

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't sending death threats to anyone, just protesting the smearing of the gamer community.

No, they are playing "I'm Spartacus!" with people who ARE sending death threats to women.