Slashdot Mirror
Interviews: Ask Brianna Wu a Question
Brianna Wu is the head of development at Giant Spacekat, a company specializing in cinematic experiences using the Unreal engine. She’s also a frequent speaker on women-in-tech issues and was one of several women subjected to a campaign of attacks in Gamergate. Wu has worked as a journalist and politico. She currently has a patreon campaign which helps to offset the costs of doing speaking engagements and work to further the goals of feminism and women in tech. Brianna has agreed to give us some of her time and answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
This is gonna be goooood.
:grabs popcorn:
What was your college life like?
Are y'all doing anything aimed at dome projectors for a planetarium?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
(See subject)
Congratulations slashdot, you just jumped the shark for me. A front page story about a scam artist with a victim complex and a direct link to a Patreon account so people can give her more money. Time to go find another tech news site.
If you haven't heard it enough yet, you and your fellow devs'/critics'/gamers' example of not letting these regrettably small-minded folk drive you away from your passions is truly inspiring. Now the question:
How has what you experienced / currently experience affected your dev and planning processes? Does it enter into your spitballing/design sketch/engineering phases at all? Are you making certain decisions to emphasize your position(s) or expose theirs?
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Just curious, Why did you Slander Brad Wardell? StarDock
And call for a Boycott of His efforts?
When you aren't one ?
I never heard much about game developers, but it seems like GamerGate has put many of them in the spotlight, specially women.
Has the Gamergate movement somehow boosted your popularity and of other game developers and benefited you in any way? Do you regret that a big part your popularity didn't stem from the work you've made all these years in your professional life and rather from a political counter-movement?
Sorry for my lousy english.
Which do women in tech prefer? Or do females like being advertised to?
Be sure to respond with bulletted items and quotable sound bites for APK to add to his ads!
Your name is an anagram of "Brain na uw"
You recently tweeted that no one who isn't transgender should voice opinions on transgender issues yet you regularly voice your own opinion on these issues. Is this a tacit "coming out" of your own transgender past, and if so, what does it mean for your own position as a representative and "megaphone" for women's issues and how you speak to the personal history of growing up as a woman?
Please go away. We don't care about your stupid crap game or whatever ideas you are trying to force on the rest of us. Do your own thing and leave everyone alone.
Hi Brianna. Gamergate kicked a major wasp nest of assholes but it also brought the issue of women in tech into focus for a lot of people that didn't understand the depth of the problem. Have you noticed any improvements for women in the industry since GG?
but please, one per post.
What happens if I ask two? Or if I accidentally ask one in the comment subject?
Oops.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
See the subject. Or is that just a rumor?
who is paying Dice to run these SJW stories day after day, and why?
Some excellent, serious questions she should answer.
- How does she explain the constant attacks by anti-gamergate against minorities in general? For example the mocking of #NotYourShield, the constant use of insults volleyed at minorities that disagree with her including the use of the term "House N*gger" by her supporters?
- How does she explain the constant attacks against women that disagree with her?
- How does she explain that early on in GamerGate she and former Ars technica reporter Casey Johnston retweeted an anti-gamergate supporter calling two minority gamers "Black Sewer Sh*t".
Are you ever going to stop criticizing other developers for having character design that is in fact less "hypersexualized" and "misogynistic" than yours is?
On your Patreon, it says you're the Godzilla of Feminists. Do you have any concept/fan art of this? Because that would be incredibly awesome.
I'm interested in what development languages you excel in and how you mastered them - as head of development for a gaming company, I think that's my first question. Follow-up side-points would be when you transitioned from journalist to game developer, and why game development? Was it related to some of the 'sparks' and 'movements' by some other females 'in the gaming community' - and seen as an easy way to jump on a bandwagon that was clearly going to make waves? Journalist to developer just seems like a very strange transition to me, so I'm curious about the particulars.
Do you have a github account where you publish some of your code?
Very disappointed in the editors on this one.
Hello Brianna, Can you explain why you tried to get TheRalph kicked from the whole convention for simply taking a picture of you while doing a conference? It would seem he really rustled your jimmies https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.giantspacekat.com/games-1
Without comment I promise you its worth it.
If you think Brianna Wu knows anything about being a woman or developing a game, you guys are dopes. The game was outsourced to someone else, and 'she' has been a woman for approximately 5 minutes. The industry and the gaming playerbase might have it's fair share of misogynist shitheads (though not more than the population at large,) but that doesn't mean you should elevate a crazy fraud like Wu to speak for women in gaming.
-Signed
An Actual Woman in game development.
n/t
What the hell happened to Slashdot? Are you really providing a platform to professional victims and panhandlers? I love that there's even a Patreon link included.
oh great another site to ask for handouts
Ms Wu, you've been accused of exaggerating the scale of the harassment against you. For example, you've stated that you were so scared that you moved out of your home, but a number of people were able to reconstruct the location of your various online broadcasts and establish rather conclusively that they were all made from your home.
How do you respond to this? Were you actually scared out of your home or not? When?
Hi Brianna, thank you for coming by and speaking with us. Considering your prominence and activism in the gaming community at large, why are you working with third parties to manufacture death threats against yourself?
http://i.imgur.com/dt9fFtg.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/M02QAOe.png
It is very brave of you to stand in the face of such threats.
Ms. Wu, when sending yourself harassment over steam or twitter and faking having to leave your house over harassment in response to trolling people, do you find TOR or a more traditional anonymous proxy to be more effective?
(Ob Disclaimer: Disagreeing with someone is not harassment. Asking people hard questions or holding them accountable to their own actions is not Harassment. Disagreeing with a woman (or in this instance, a transwoman) is not misogyny. Transmisogyny is not a real word. Treating women with kid gloves because they are female is sexism. Brianna Wu is a known con artist, and should never have been invited on Slashdot Interviews.)
Is it true that you (or Phil Fish) hacked yourself in 2014, and that's the reason why nobody has ever been found or charged?
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
What qualifies you as a self-appointed leader for diversity in the game industry? You have a single known title at a self-made studio. You don't appear to have any unique connections or pull in the AAA scene.
What actual, tangible, structures effort have you made towards progressing diversity in an industry that was already moving forward on its own? What lasting value have you added?
Are you happy with the changes made to PAX East? I was there and found the security and Muslim-like bans on bare skin there more than enough for my liking and plan to stop attending.
I am a 30 year old white male teaching CS in a public US university. Is there anything you think I can do to help the issues related to "women in tech" in the broad sense?
What's next for slashdot? Will we have breaking news stories about Nigerian princes, forced to flee their homes, who just need a bank account to store their millions?
As a fellow transgender game dev it was great to see a fellow transsexual do so well in the industry. You are an inspiration to all trans devs
When spouting off your mistaken and deceptive rants about Privilege -- male privilege, race privilege, cis privilege, et cetera -- why do you and other Social Justice Warrior demagogues ignore Class Privilege, arguably the most important and influential privilege?
An example of Class Privilege would be being given several hundred thousand dollars by parents who are "millionaire entrepreneurs" to start a sub par indy games studio, no questions asked.
Is your game going to see a release on Steam? Is it going to have any more polish than what people have seen, or is still going to look like it was straight ported to mobile?
What do you think about the feminists in the tech industry who are actively breaking the law by discriminating on the basis of gender and race, being that the case laws and states statues explicitly prohibit such discrimination, and the supreme court itself think that the use of "diversity" is a weasel word for discrimination?
What's it like to know that you have all of your genitalia?
As a man, I wouldn't know, because society didn't protect me from some ignorant lunatic sticking a sharp object into my sexual organ and then cutting a hunk of it off just because the creator of the universe supposedly wanted this done to me.
Why did you call someone a sexist for trying to help you with rendering your characters better?
and why did you fish for attention on the steam forums?
Hi Brianna, the TL;DR is bolded at the bottom.
I'm an early-40s guy who is, quite frankly, tired of being bombarded with the message that women are somehow unwelcome in the technology world. Of my 13 direct coworkers in my company's IT department, 6 of them are women: our web/app manager, our UI/UX lead, one of our two graphic designers, one of our three developers, our corporate technology trainer, and my closest coworker. I'm a network administrator focusing on the internet side of things and I have a direct analogue, who is female, whose title is also network administrator and she deals mostly with the telecom side.
We're a private "old money" corporation (think energy), not some new progressive company striving to meet any ideal balance of diversity in tech. The executive leadership is the usual white man's club you might expect in such an organization. Yet women are not underrepresented in any fashion unless you consider the grunts in the oilfield. My female coworkers are in this line of work because they developed, on their own, a passion for geeky things; yet day in and day out I'm bombarded (not from them!) with the message that this isn't possible, that women can't possibly like tech, that society must bend over backwards and spend millions of dollars to create new opportunities for women in tech.
My point here is that I have years of personal experience at a decidedly non-IT company, in a decidedly "good old boy" industry, yet still, women who built upon their own passion for tech make up almost half of the IT department. They liked doing computer things, got their degrees, applied for their jobs, and were hired on merit just as the men have done.
TL;DR My own observations tell me that women are not at all underrepresented in the tech workplace. I think girls are perfectly capable of making up their own minds as to what they're interested in, and which career fields they should pursue. Do you feel the same way, or do you think that companies like Google should continue to try forcing more girls into the tech field?
Why did you pick the computer world to launch a career in journalism? You get around $3k a month from hapless dupes with a case of the feels, any tips for setting this up? What is your actual technical experiance with computers? On a scale from one to ten, how much of a sucker is the average person reading your 'journalism'?
How did you secure the capital to start Giant Spacekat? How did you do it in 3 months, and what obstacles did you face?
Are you a backdoor kind of gal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Serious question: How do women and minorities get selectively harassed online when it is usually impossible to know their gender or race?
Blind auditions for orchestra positions are now standard. Can we not have the same for gaming and technology?
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Brianna,
When you posted the bait to try and get people to harass you on your Steam Greenlight page, why did you play but from your developer account? Was that part of your plan?
How has living the first 30 years of your life as a man shaped your ability to represent women in tech?
Are you finally going to stop being a coward and street race parkourdude91, aka SGT Stryker, aka Jace Connors? Why did you try to assassinate him? Also, phantom benis syndrome?
Well at least the mods will have an easy time filtering out the questions as the usual drivel is, unsurprisingly, posted by anon cowards.
I don't have a question, but jesus christ people grow the fuck up.
Willing to share any pics of yourself?
Slashdot really has gone full retard with the Socially Retarded Warrior bullshit. Time to shut it down, boys. Press 'F' to pay respects.
F
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Is what a friend of yours says in this article true?
But one of Wu's friends in the gaming industry has suggested that her story may be more complicated than she lets on--that as bad as the situation has been for Wu, she "wasn't dragged" into it. "She taunted Gamergate for weeks," this woman continued, who asked that her name be withheld. "She baited them, and then they finally came after her, which is exactly what she wanted them to do."
Literally who?
One steam commenter summed up the whole thing nicely:
"Say someone comes to my door and knocks on it. I open the door and it's a lady with a toaster in her hands. Before I can get anything out she yells in my face, "BUY MY TOASTER. I MADE IT MYSELF SO IF YOU DON'T BUY IT YOU HATE WOMEN!"
I look at the toaster, and it's a rather shoddy piece of work, and it doesn't even have a plug on the end of its cable.
I say, completely straight-laced. "I don't want to buy this toaster. It doesn't look very good."
The woman leaves and goes to a company that distributes toasters. She publicly declares that toasters are hard to make and entitled male toast lovers are ruining crispy bread everywhere and need to shut up and accept her new handcrafted toaster that she says wasn't even made for them.
That's you right now.
Take a deep breath and try harder next time you make a game.
Don't blame all the faults of your own product on outside sources that have nothing to do with it, and don't head libel campaigns with your friends on Twitter. You'll never get your foot in the door of the toaster factory if you talk crap about all the workers and people who buy toasters."
-KLLRFRST
Slashdot: providing and outlet for the mentally disturbed under the guise of feelings.
I'm not really interested in self-aggrandizing lamentations. captcha: fanfare
Why are we listening to this drag queen spout off? Get us a proper woman to talk to, not one with a cock and balls.
The sad part is that idiots like you believe that somehow personal experience and anecdata trump reality. It doesn't even occur to you to question either one.
What are your feelings on creating memes to mock people you disagree with?
Do you think someone running with a meme you might have created is harassment?
Do you feel it's ok to make fun of autistic children to score political points?
Good luck with the rest of the questions.
Did it hurt when you got the shit beat out of you with the ugly stick?
Also fuck you.
Brianna, you alleged that you are the the target of an online harassment campaign, and that law enforcement has done nothing about it, and yet it has come to light that you never contacted the police in the first place.
Would you explain why you made those allegations? Is there anything you wish to say in defense of your article?
Dear Samzenpus, how to you justify click-bait crap like this when you have the discovery of new sub-atomic articles being announced? I know that this will probably get 500+ comments, but do you realize that you are driving away the really interesting people that will make slashdot sustainable in the long run?
Nobody who matters cares about Brianna Wu or GamerGate. I come here to read opinions of people who matter. Do you care about readers like me?
Why iz you so dumb lol
What's it like to be mentally ill but be valorized by all the other mentally ill people in our society?
in light of your recent behavior on reddit that had you removed from a subreddit aligned with your own cause...
Have you ever been diagnosed with a personality disorder, and if so, which one?
Did you ever apologise to Dr. Husni for calling him a "raghead" and a "sandn*****"? If not, would you like to take the opportunity now?
Landing strip, completely bare, or a nice wild bush?
Do you regret calling Dr. Husni a "raghead" and a "sandn*****" and would you like to apologize to him?
Don't you wish sometimes that a person's suitability for a particular field depended on their actual skill rather than where their genitals happen to be situated?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Except for the other side of the debate is basically based on "Personal experience" and "anecdata" , and now straw polls which are filled out by their peers instead of actual people in the industry.
Wakkity Smackkity doo.
I am a "neutral" in the Gamergate debacle, preferring to observe more than directly interact, but in one case I watched the somewhat-infamous interview between Wu and Reddit KotakuInAction mod TheHat2. In it, they discussed the points of her iOS game "Revolution 60" and game design in general. One of the questions asked there was why she decided to work with iOS first versus the popular PC platform Steam. I don't remember the exact answer, but I think it revolved around developing for a platform that more women were likely to use, being the mobile market, and maybe some development-specific answers.
My question is this: Given what you've learned about programming in iOS, would you have developed for a PC platform like Steam first and ported to mobile later? Given female trends towards mobile platforms like the Nintendo DS/3DS, would it make more sense for your studio to explore developing games there? Or was your goal all along to produce a more 3D-visual action title for mobile phones?
For context, my wife is not as big of a gamer as myself, but I find she enjoys playing a lot of mobile puzzle games. I think the mobile market has a lot of potential for bigger things, and I think having the input of the majority player base on that platform makes sense, but I often don't understand why, as a mobile developer, you would be overly concerned with "the core gamer" demographic in the console platform. It seems to me that they aren't likely to crossover into the mobile market often, so there is little reason to "attack" that demographic as we've seen a few people, including Brianna, do through the last year.
From what I've heard from other developers, Brianna Wu isn't in the tech/games industry at all. None of the "women of GamerGate" are. They are usually indie developers or outside commentators. Women such as Jade Raymond actually work on major game projects. She directed several, but there are also women out there who work as art designers and such on major games, yet none of them are involved in GamerGate.
So my question is, Brianna, what qualifies you to speak on behalf of an industry that you are not a part of?
I'm disappointed that SlahDot would stoop to this level. Putting a Paetron link in the header is not justifiable in my eyes. If Mr/Mrs/Ms Wu wants to shill his/her "activist" side then do it on Twitter or Tumblr. Otherwise it looks to me like SlashDoT approves and wishes to push such activities, which is a big no no in my eyes.
Plus, "producing" one mediocre game hardly qualifies a person to speak on be half of anyone in the industry. Pick a more qualified speaker next time please, one with actual game programming experiences.
Fail SlahDot, just fail all around here.
Why is it that women in the independent games development scene seem to be greater targets for harassment than women who work for AAA studios?
Don't you think it is disingenuous for anyone to:
(1) Troll GamerGaters at the very beginning, when they were fighting for ethics in Games' Journalism.
(2) Get b***h slapped by a torrent of angry gamers.
(3) Cry on the roof-tops that you're being harassed by "men."
(4) That "men" are scaring "women" from the industry (when you are a trans-woman btw).
(5) Claim to have received death-threats and was too afraid to live in your own home but still gave copious number of interviews from it.
(6) Eventually got around to port your 1 game and it looks like a horrible game from 1996
(7) Create a storm whereever you go on Social Media (beacause maybe you are deranged?) and blame "men" for your shortcomings.
(8) Spoil my Slashdot by showing your creepy face on HERE and ask for money!
Any thoughts?
When are you going to admit the feminists lied about gamer gate and it wasn't a attack at all but a justified concern about corruption in gaming news?
Who doxed you and tweeted the death threats? I would think that would be easy to track down to the perpetrator, unless s/he was really careful, which seems unlikely.
Why are you a feminist instead of a egalitarian?
Why do you continue to believe that GamerGate is a hrassment campaign, when a study by Women Action Media! on Twitter harassment indicated that 88% of people reported as harassers had no connection to GG, and of accounts that do have a connection to GG, only 0.66% were even alleged of harassment?
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Let me get this straight, Brianna - if a developer makes a female character with huge tits and butts, that means the developer is sexist...but when YOU make a female character with huge tits and butts, then its THE GAMERS that are sexist!? That makes perfect sense...said no one ever.
Maybe people are calling your characters "deformed Barbies" and "Bratz rejects" not because of sexism, but because they look like Barbie dolls left on a sidewalk in Miami in the middle of the day in August?
I noticed that women in independent development are more targeted by harassers than women who work in AAA studios. If this is the trend why do you think Indie seem to get harassed more? And have you ever received support or advice from women working at AAA studios in dealing with harassment?
How will you choose which questions to answer? Will you answer them all? Will you pick the ones who won't embarrass you and ignore the rest? Will you randomly pick questions? Will you ignore this one?
when I opened the browser to see this. What insane person thought this editorial was a good idea? Please, stick to real news and not this controversial click bait radioactive waste.
This person lacks the credibility to comment on any topic relevant to Slashdot's readers. I am surprised and disappointed that this "ask-me-anything" was published on Slashdot.
It's almost like the Jon Katz Afghanistan article, but with a dress.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
This is just the best Slashdot comment section ever. I'm going to go get some more snacks, so please don't post any more comments until I get back.
You are welcome on my lawn.
How do you find partners? Do you stick within your industry or try to branch out more or what? Do you have suggestions for people in other industries? (Context: I'm an academic librarian and I've had limited luck with anything other than tangential industries.)
Also: not really an anonymous coward, just don't want a slashdot account. I'm @olinj on Twitter.
You hinted a bit in an episode of Rocket that you're playing with the idea of making a game for VR. Can you go into any detail on that, or talk about the future of VR gaming (if there is one)?
What are your (on paper) academic credentials in this CompSci field? And how many games have you programmed (or designed on WYSIWG package) since you started?
one of the aspects of gamergate that really bothers me is the immediate dismissal of anyone that suggests corruption is a problem is just using it as a cover for misogyny. It has led to an attitude that corruption is only a problem among liberals. Do you think that corporate sponsored politicians undermining women's health is a bigger problem than depictions of women in art? And what would you propose could be done to disassociate arguments against corruption from gamergate?
Look at this guy here, trying to white knight his way into some gamer lady's pantsuit.
Thank you Brianna Wu, this farce of an interview attempt at pumping cash into your patreon account has finally convinced me to kick my slashdot habit once and for all. Keep driving actual women in tech like myself away. Shockingly some of us have brains and can think for ourselves.
Posting as Anonymous since I've already nuked my account (of course no option to delete it).
If a young female high school student asked you, "Should I become a game developer?" given your horrific experiences, what would you say; and is what you say different now than it would have been before your experiences surrounding GamerGate?
How much of your harassment is faked by yourself, like this infamous thread on Steam https://archive.is/t1Oxl , in order to convince people to give you money through Patreon?
How are you ever supposed to get Revolution 60 ported to PC if you spend at least 8 hours of every day on Twitter?
What is the most difficult complexity you experienced (as a team leader) when creating Revolution 60 and how did your team navigate the challenge?
I guess page views are all that matter.
It's easy to dismiss others as being a troll when they say something you don't like, but that's also disingenuous. I'm also not denying there hasn't been harassment from people who support GamerGate, but you actively threw yourself into the fray -- you chose to fight GG. I see women in the industry like Jennifer Dawe and regular gamers alike not get blindly attacked by GG because of gaming while female -- clearly there is more than just being a female gamer that causes automatic resentment. It's attitude, not being a girl gamer that's the real problem. You claimed you had it tough in Mississippi growing up, but you're white and have well off people who raised you. Do you have family living on Indian reservations with crappy land the US gov doesn't want like I do? I doubt it. You've also bragged about buying a new sport bike awhile bike, one speculated to be bought by Patreon money. Between your parents and the Internet, you're hardly in a state of being oppressed and that's why people have a negative opinion of you. The antagonizing nature of your Twitter only serves to confirm. Not saying you deserve the harsher ends of it, just that most of this drama seems self caused and you block when people call it out instead of coming to grips you're far more privileged than you try to convince others. No one cares if you were trans, no one cares if there are women in the industry and no one cares to hear you talk about your "hardships" when there are people struggling just to live paycheck to paycheck -- some living off less than a grand a month. Those people deal with real hardship. You get several grand a month from the internet while engaging in a childish war with GamerGate on Twitter.
Just wondering if you think that the vast majority of middle school boys that participate in GamerGate attacks on women gamers are starting this due to perceived peer pressure, or do you think it's a reaction to the hostility towards young women built into movies and certain game types, and is it only because they won't bathe, floss, or brush teeth that they take their anger out on adult gamer women?
Wondering, because neither my son nor I did this, and we've been gamers since middle school, but notice a lot of the GamerGate participants seem to be mostly middle schooler boys.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Few women can start their own game companies or publications. Any top feminist friendly companies you'd recommend to women wanting to break into tech/games/tech writing?
Hi Brianna,
No idea if this will bubble near enough to the surface for you to see it, but I'm curious how much, if any, work you and your team had to do in the "guts" of the Unreal Engine to get your game out the door, or if all of your work was done at the Unreal Script / editor level.
The sad part is your evidence is no better.
Look and I managed to point it out without pointing out that you're an idiot. Oops.
Representative Katherine Clark (D-Mass) along with the National organization of women tried to rally the house to demand better enforcement of existing cyber stalking laws. She then herself became a target for online harassment. Has anything come of the congresswoman's efforts and did she reach out to you after becoming a target herself?
I have a question: How do you feel about being one of the biggest idiots on the planet Wu? Yes, I mean this planet.
A good mix of white knight and troll questions, with one or two legitimate questions thrown in.
Good job Slashdot. There is simply no way anyone could have predicted this.
Up next: "Game developer Briana Wu harassed in Slashdot comments y misogynist posters".
It's like you're doing it on purpose.
Ms. Wu I very much respect you for everything you done for women in games but I can't help but wonder why do you not acknowledge the rumors that you are post op transexual. I do not believe acknowledging this will affect anything you have already accomplished. In fact it would mean a lot more if you were to come out as one.
When Milo Yiannopoulos made false claims about your transgender status why didn't you sue the pants off of him?
Do you think anyone in the world is a bigger victim than yourself, or do you pretty much top out on the victimhood scale?
Who was the "close friend" mentioned in a previous article about you that claimed you purposely inserted yourself into the #GamerGate controversy to gain notoriety and money?
How is the motorcycle that Cliffy B bought you running these days?
The video of you being triggered by TheRalph was probably the funniest reaction video I've ever seen in my life - your facial expression makes me laugh every time. Can you comment on how you felt at that exact moment when you realized that you and TheRalph were in the same room?
This nails the coffin shut for me. I will not waste my time on a site that bald-facedly caters to (literally PROMOTES) professional victims. I don't care if it's Reddit, Slashdot, whatever.
What is a good alternative?
All data is anecdotal.
Was it tough going from being a journalist and politico to becoming a hard-working developer at a legendary game and media studio like Giant Spacekat?
What engine do you develop on? DO you have an on-site rendering farm that you work directly with, or do you outsource it?
How do you find the time for public speaking with all the 60+ hour weeks that you must put into developing Giant Spacekat's massive games and interactive media library?
Are you tired of ignorant people saying your "developer" title is just a joke and that your game company is just a sad front for your real job of gender hustling?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Wu is not a woman. and their birth name is John Flynt.
She's a self proclaimed Godzilla of feminists. All you need to do is offer her a soap box to get on and complain to an larger audience. She won't say no. She craves attention, and like people like Jesse Jackson, her 'career' hinges on there being some injustice or slight to complain about, no matter how small. The worst thing for their careers is a lack of something to get fired up about.
Considering you have spoken out in the past about female characters in games being overtly sexualized, could you explain why the protagonists of your own game Revolution 60 wear what appears to be skintight lycra to show off their perfect hourglass figures?
John Walker Flynt, Brianna Flynt, Brianna "Tuck-Job" Wu, or commonly known as Literally, Wu? is a batshit crazy "videogame developer" and former racist gay basher who underwent surgery to "become female" in order to gain success in the video game industry and lurk in girls' bathrooms. With the help of his millionaire parents' money and media connections, wife-beater husband and thousands of dollars scammed on Patreon, he's been spending his time creating a game that look like something Richard Garriott might have made 20 years ago on a budget of $20 and promoting it by making death threats against himself, getting caught, and trying to steal the spotlight from Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian, literally claiming to be the most important person to GamerGate supporters who he literally believes are planning to assassinate him.
Why are you wasting your time giving this dead website click-bait?
I've been reading daily since 1997, but I can't condone pandering to a professional victims and hatemonger and giving out a patreon link to fund more of this crap
Reddit was destroyed by SJWs in a matter of weeks, if Slashdot wants to follow the same route and promote safespaces after almost 20 years of being a respected destination, fine.
Any good suggestions?
Slashdot, why? The people running this site are blind and deaf. Brianna Wu is a joke and her game is a piece of trash. You're not going to increase your traffic by pandering to the very few idiots who like her.
Why do you proud yourself in becoming more and more shit each passing day?
In the interview with Mr. Pakman, you stated that you would update everyone when the results of the investigation completed. I've followed your timeline for a long time and have seen no updates related to this case. What became of the case?
nt
You mentioned one time you took apart Kinects to make an amateur 3D motion capture thingy. Can you talk a little more about that? That fascinates me.
Let's get some home truths out of the way. There's no hatred towards you because of anything you've achieved, ask gamers of either gender and they'll round off (actually talented) female idols of the gaming industry.
You're a mediocre talent, a liar, a hypocrite, a shyster, an alarmist, a manipulator, a money grubbing sociopath who is cruel to her supposed friends. You thrive on bad feeling and direct your moronic fans to your Patreon. Using your privilege, you've fast tracked yourself to a position where you can lecture and misguide other women with lies, perpetuating the myth that they must play victim to get ahead.
If you take anything from this exercise in e-begging, it's this. The actual female devs in the industry know you for the horrid person you are and think you're a joke.
So, my question to you is how can you sleep at night knowing you're a deliberate tumour that's actively crippling the chances of girls becoming devs in the gaming industry, due to your money focused pontificating? You've the Midas touch of fucking shit.
Revolution 60 sucked ass, btw.
Considering the hypersexualized models you chose for Revolution 60, what's the possibility that you're transsexual due to autogynephilia (per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...) ?
How the fuck can you dare to claim you represent women in tech when you are in fact genetically a male?
I don't read reddit, so I'm not always in the loop about whatever this hour's controversy is. As such, I need to ask, what is all of this even about? Can anyone explain this to me? Who is this person? Why is there so much negativity here?
I've looked through the discussion here, and all I'm seeing are an unusually high number of comments modded down to -1, a lot of talk about transsexuals, and pretty much nothing relevant to science, computing, math, or good stuff like that.
Can anyone, anyone at all, explain what the hell is going on here, and what the hell this is all about?
Do you ever worry that Georgia Dow is some kind of killer robot from the future? Doesn't she seem like the type of thing that SkyNet would build in face of their failure after Terminator 3?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Hi Brianna. What made you decide for Unreal as your main engine for games? Which advice would you give to gamedev newbies trying to check it out now that its free? What were the main pitfalls your team had to overcome in making Revolution 60?
12% of the anonymous posts in this forum which appear to lambaste Mr. Wu were actually posted by Mr. Wu.
I'm out. Enjoy your SJW echo chamber.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Why does your game Rev 60 has such low user scores?
Hi Brianna. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Hi Brianna. Does GSX plan to develop for virtual reality peripherals in the near / medium future?
As a game designer, I assume you've spent a fair bit of time playing games. What's your favourite arcade classic, and why? Or, if you can't choose one, what's the list of your favourites.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Hi Brianna. Does GSX plan on creating physical items related to the Revolution 60 universe, like collectables, figurines, scrolls? Also kudos to whoever animated C09.
And not report the other threats to the authorities offering to arrest those responsible?
My guilty pleasure is Sophie Kinsella novels. Are companies ever going to make games with these kinds of stories?
Where would you like to see internet culture in five years? Where do you see it actually going?
Why aren't those people being prosecuted? If your assertion that it is illegal is correct, then it would seem that large parts of the systems are in on this conspiracy and refusing to prosecute.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
More and more developers seem to be using the existing engines (i know you used Unreal 3 for Rev 60, Unity, UbiArt, etc) which makes sense given the huge number of features they provide with little initial development cost and common tool sets/plugins used by other developers. Do you think there is much future in developers using custom engines for games (both indie and non-AAA) or do you think it will continue to become more uncommon for common genre games as you start at a larger and larger feature 'deficit' by having to redevelop the features on your custom engine, let alone porting issues, leaving only vert large/profitable houses (Naughty Dog, Insomniac, EA, etc) to be able to bear the time/$ costs?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Reading the comments here and the listed questions, do you think this is evidence of the failure of the Slashdot system to effectively support a community? Where can I go for a better tech commentary without the trolls?
I read all the time about the experiences of online harassment victims. As pointed out in your Patreon, most all of this is obviously criminal activity, and it takes lots of time to document it for police. Why have I virtually never read about someone getting arrested? I've even looked around. I was sure at the height of Gamergate, a flood of news about arrests was coming, and now it seems like that's never coming.
I can only think of two cases: One was in Canada, where a very mentally ill young man, no older than 20 I think, was arrested for SWATting people repeatedly, among other things. The other was in the UK where again a very young man was arrested for threatening a politician over twitter.
Just googling "twitter arrest" brings up lots of cases where people who pulled various stunts had their anonymity removed and were arrested, but none of them for the kinds of harassment you've discussed reporting to the police. The first hit is several Huffington Post articles about it.
Is it not reported in the media? Do the police just not care, or not know how to investigate it? Are the people doing the harassment just that crafty?
Do you believe increased enforcement will reduce harassment online, and particularly if so, what needs to happen between then and now?
She talks about women's issues? That's the sum total of her credentials? Are you joking right now? Why is she here?
If you represent women in game development, how come talented and respected figure like Amy Hennig and Jade Raymond have not supported you AND have stated on several occasions that the game industry is welcoming to women?
Many games allow customization of character's bodies and appearance, but these changes are usually tied to the gender of the character, which rarely allow trans and/or non-binary folks. What do you think is (or should be) the future of customizing a character's gender in games? Gender independent body customizations? Selecting custom pronouns? Or just more of the same?
Was trading your elderly upper middle class testicles worth the ensuing leftist rush to encourage your mental illness?
For pity's sake, the emperor has no clothes. Go away you awful little mouthbreathing man.
The comments are going to go ape shit. :)
Dome projectors for planetariums are interesting, but I'm more interested in figuring out what the heck is going on here at Slashdot today!
I don't read reddit, so I'm not always in the loop about whatever this hour's controversy is. As such, I need to ask, what is all of this even about? Can anyone explain this to me? Who is this person? Why is there so much negativity here?
I've looked through the discussion here, and all I'm seeing are an unusually high number of comments modded down to -1, a lot of talk about transsexuals, and pretty much nothing relevant to science, computing, math, or good stuff like that.
Can anyone, anyone at all, explain what the hell is going on here, and what the hell this is all about?
This person is a liar, an agitator and generally disreputable. Slashdot is worse off for hosting her and providing a platform for her to spew her lies, Twitter is already quite sufficient. Paying attention to the faux controversy devalues the Interviews section of this site.
I see no replies from Brianna Wu. Is xe going under an unrecognizable name or did xe just not answer any questions?
One more question. I'd almost forgotten.
I think it was Anita Sarkeesian who made the determination, but do you have any information about why, exactly, The Fine Young Capitalists were determined to be transphobic?
I mean, I get the /b/ connection, but iirc that was only after they were determined to be transphobic. Is there a deeper reason? I'll appreciate your insight.
Thanks,
-- kurenai.tsubasa
To be fair some SJW claim that the entirety of STEM is part of a misogynistic conspiracy. You really should not make fun of someones tin hat when yours is cutting off the blood flow.
Were you born with the capacity to get white knights to defend you against imaginary threats and criticism or do you have to work on your art daily?
Were you always this handsome?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
It's a conspiracy!
It must be the lizard women in the hollow earth, who control the shadow government, keeping them from facing prosecution for the egregious crimes through an advanced and comprehensive cover-up by the Builderbergs and the Freemasons.
Required reading for internet skeptics
You recently ran a successful campaign to get your game approved on Steam's greenlight. What approaches did you use to get your game ranked high enough to be greenlit. What do you feel had the biggest impact in getting the numbers? What suggestions do you have for other Indie Game Developers who want to get their games approved on Steam's greenlight system?
Been coming here long before any chans, half or otherwise but I would be lying if I wasn't pissed when I seen this post.
What does Brianna "blew 200k" Wu have to do with anything on slashdot? GG aside, the only news that would be appropriate is the horrible animation that was spawned from the last failed company ran by Wu. But we get a patronbux ad for Wu like its some sort of tech news breaking event.
"Company is run into the ground and the previous owner starts a new one, and gets poor saps to shell out more money for yet another (soon to be) failed company."
You have lost a long time ad revenue generator, this im sure hurts as that is all we have become.
What are your own thoughts about the sexist manner in which you were banned from /r/gamerghazi? Is the misogynistic toxicity of that community reflective of the anti-gamergate faction?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Why are you suck a dishonest lying sack of shit?
Modded up because in the sea of bait, this is probably the most balanced question I'm reading.
She wants people to be mean to her. Her career is a professional victim. She'll either now refuse to answer the questions, or give sideways talk about hatred, misogyny, etc. Then she'll point to this as more "harassment" of her and use that to get in the news and get more donations.
She hasn't been in the new much, if at all, lately and her game on Steam is a flop before ever launching because it had to compete against real quality games. So shit like this is how she'll stir up sympathy and keep it going.
The worst thing that could have happened would be nothing but a bunch of nice questions, or no questions at all. She wanted combative questions because she can spin it as "abuse".
Your Patreon post states "So, I waste hours documenting this for law enforcement."
Can you enumerate the law enforcement reports you've made? Columbus District Attorney said they had no complaint, and you apparently followed up that it was a communication error.
Given the penalties for filing false reports, have you actually filed a report? Please include jurisdiction and date.
... that Wu then proceeds to claim to be entitled to speak on behalf of ALL women IS. That all is a red-herring anyway. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Brianna Wu. Nothing here that can't be independently verified - http://www.dailymotion.com/vid... I really thought this place knew better than to allow professional propagandists and pan-handlers a stage and a microphone.
smilies are for reetards
Well, Renee James did get fired the day after I went to the US Attorneys office and the FBI to investigate her for the hiring quotas and connection to John Kitzhaber
Similarly http://uomatters.com/2014/05/bonine-goes-to-asuo-and-the-students-vote-to-help-revise-student-conduct-code.html#comment-71524
Have you ever produced anything of note, notability commensurate with your celebrity status? Have you ever demonstrated any technical ability?
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Just one word: Thanks.
Wu, does it bother you when you are being interviewed or praised that, more often than not, it has to do with receiving harassment rather then the projects you've worked on?
I haven't heard a well known interview in which your games were discussed any where nears as much as your harassment.
Don't you find that you are entirely too focused on drawing attention to the dissenting voices rather than drawing attention to our products?
Have you cut off your penis yet or does your husband like it when you fuck him up his ass by a below average sized dick?
Captcha: degrade, sounds about right
What fiscal advice would you give developers that don't have the privilege of being funded by millionaire parents?
Why is Slashdot favouring devotees of an ideology that refutes science, evidence, reason, facts and logic in favour of feelings, values and experiences? Isn't the underlying foundation of postmodernism and identity politics antithetical to the tech and science backgrounds of the Slashdot readership?
They oppose free speech, democracy, they reject reality, they are authoritarian, their principle methods of activism; privilege theory, call outs, safe spaces, social media shaming and mobbing are regressive, divisive and are indirect opposition to the values that bind society.
It also has to be said, Brianna is the very epitome of trust fund feminism. This is a 1%er claiming victim hood and oppression where none is present.
Third wave feminism and their application of identity politics are simply the bourgeoisie oppressing the proletariat. The ruling elite are using their idle children to place themselves in the media and in popular culture, and invented new theories placing themselves above those traditionally oppressed, the poor, working class, minorities etc.
This is why a millionaire like Wu can claim a poverty stricken, unemployable white male destined for an early grave is "privileged" and oppresses her.
On several occasions, during online discourse and in recordings of live speaking engagements, I have seen you accuse people you do not know of "speaking from privilege". My question to you, as someone born to a wealthy family who was given $200 000 to start your own business at the age of twenty, is "What makes you think you are in a position to accuse others of being privileged?"
(Actually most of them don't, but yeah, a small number of... uh, newcomers do.)
Are you willing to take a DNA test in front of a neutral party to prove that you are actually a woman?
Do you think games like Duke Nukem Forever are sexist?
Fiction, none fiction, doesn't matter. I was looking for something new to read.
What made your studio choose the Unreal engine over other engines?
Who inspires you most?
Why do you consistently lie to the media about being a woman? You are not a woman. You are a man who has a mental disorder and you need help. It's worth noting if slashdot deletes this comment, I'm interested in knowing if SJWs are running the shop here.
Wu,
Why is it that you claim you're supporting women in gaming, but if those women disagree with you, you block them or accuse them of internalized misogyny?
you used to be good, slashdot
Two days, no answers from Wu. Can we at least take down the patreon link?
My view of Brianna Wu is based on how radically she changed her story back and forth on interviews taking place just weeks after her original allegations of having fled her home. It's also reliant on not knowing how Twitter works.
On MSNBC, in a testimony vetted by a Re/Code reporter, she claimed to have gotten "thousands" of responses "from 8chan" after sending six memes via Tweet.
Well, you can't tweet to "8chan" (there may not even be a hashtag for it). There's no Twitter button which sends tweets to ANY chan board. Someone would have to pass it along, and these "thousands" of responses would have to be passed back in the form of tweets --- none of which would include any trace of originating with anyone on 8chan unless they actually said so. There IS a #GamerGate hashtag, but few of its members reference 8chan in any way, let alone identify themselves as members of an image board where almost everyone is completely anonymous.
What Wu apparently did was tweet to the #GamerGate hashtag, and then declare that all these "thousands" of responses were from Twitter users who also have 8chan accounts. For that matter, the responses which she and the Re/Code reporter showed MSNBC were virtually identical to the memes she had sent herself --- which she and he had characterized as "funny pictures, like lolcats" which she "thought nothing of". She then shut off Twitter and came back to it "later that evening".
At this point, the story is a nothingburger. Where is the harassment? We can't even say the sheer number of response amounts to that, because thousands of people post to the #GamerGate hashtag. Bomb a hashtag with memes, get bombed back, and it's all "funny pictures". Nothingburger.
The original MSNBC story changes when Wu goes on Pakman, however, and dramatically so.
All reference to fun disappears. Suddenly, Wu is saying she was engaged in a back-and-forth "for hours and hours and hours". Which doesn't sound like sending off six tweets, thinking nothing of it, shutting down Twitter, and turning it on later that evening. She says that she took a 24-hour break, after which a friend of hers said she was being doxxed on 8chan. She says she went there, witnessed the doxxing, and immediately received the Seven Deadly Tweets (from one unidentified burner account), and on that basis fled her home after calling police.
Well, the police now say they never heard from her (she calls it "communication errors"). This whole bit about a 24-hour break followed by doxxing, followed by the tweets, never appears in the MSNBC interview... her testimony there indicates it was a direct response to the "memestorm".
For Wu not to have been misrepresenting herself (at best, lying at worst), time travel becomes a requirement.
Finally, there is the fact that Wu is on record months BEFORE #GamerGate's existence, saying she was already getting so many rape and death threats on a daily basis that she lost track. The Seven Deadly Tweets make no mention of #GamerGate and barely touch on her job as a game developer. There's no real motive even given for the tweets, in the tweets, just threats.
In short, there's no actual reason to believe these tweets came from #GamerGate or anyone affiliated with it. They could just as easily have come from her pre-existing base of haters, or could even have been manufactured by someone who wanted to make a martyr out of her "for the cause".
Wu's strongest claim, that she personally witnessed being doxxed on 8chan followed immediately by the tweets, isn't something she presented in interviews until weeks after appearing on MSNBC --- as though she felt she needed to shore up her allegations. She certainly presents no screenshots of being doxxed, although she had no trouble screencapping the far more horrific tweets which arrived "immediately" after.
Fellow Slashdotters, nothing good can come of this. All Wu and her ally the OP wants is to harvest any comments that express disagreement with Wu, are less than nice, or that reference Wu's past bad behavior. She won't answer any real questions, much less hard ones. She will take all those harvested posts and tell everyone in the SJW-sphere that she was subjected to a "sexist hate campaign on a male-dominated tech site" or some such. Note that Wu has an incentive to get attention and be attacked, since this leads to Patreon bucks. She has no incentive to do anything to "help women in tech", since that won't get her any money.
But I've said too much - maybe my post will be evidence of "misogyny"! Oh well.
TLDR: Don't take this bait. If someone's Patreon is linked front and center, that should tell you everything you need to know about them.
What did you have for breakfast? Did it make you fart?
Do you consider this entirely gender-neutral fart joke to be a form of sexual harassment? Do you appreciate that making wild accusations against people who disagree with you on sociopolitical issues has a chilling effect on public discourse? Do you understand that I am posting anonymously because even making a fart joke in the presence of a deranged militant Centrist like you could be hazardous to my livelihood and personal safety? For reals.
1) He only has appeal within the very narrow SJW circle as it is. So if he harvests comments from here and raises his stature the action will siphon resources away from people who might potentially be effective.
2) He is easily discredited. Any news outlet or publication that backs his position destroys their credibility as an unbiased presenter of factual information. (there are people that still believe in such things) The stories become brickbats that can be used against them when they go to bat for other causes. Don't think so ? Just look at what running this story has done for slashdot. People are really disgusted with this crap. Me I'll stick around but I have running adblock for years.
3) It shines a light on posters agendas. If you look at this thread there are posters who raise the same question over and over, even though it has been answered repeatedly. Their purpose isn't to seek answers but to cast doubt without any factual basis to do so.
https://archive.is/k4wVu
She's not at all interested in answering anything at all. Right as has been predicted by just about anyone asking questions that people *really* want answers to.
Why on Earth did Slashdot think interviewing her would be a good idea? Or even yield any results? We're talking about a person that has done literally *nothing* for the Gaming Community, other then attempting to drive it apart with her political agenda and social justice naratives. She's not even produced or help produce a sinlge popular game. Why is she even mentioned here? Slashdot is not a political/social justice site, but a site with news for nerds with stuff that matters. And Brianna Wu clearly does not 'matter'.
::crickets::
smilies are for reetards
Just as an aside everyone, either this article got brigaded by Ghazi or some other SJW hugbox, or some specific user with 6+ accounts is running through hitting things repeatedly with -1 Flamebaits. Two of my questions that were critical of Wu that were +5 are suddenly -1 Flamebait.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
As you can see, it's very obviously someone abusing multiple accounts, as both comments were -1ed into oblivion before moving on to the next one:
http://i.imgur.com/jK54m0Z.png
In addition every other question that was critical of Wu has been docked down to -1 or 0 Flamebait as well:
http://interviews.slashdot.org...
http://interviews.slashdot.org...
http://interviews.slashdot.org...
http://interviews.slashdot.org...
Granted, this doesn't surprise me as having happened, as sockpuppet abuse is a very common tactic of these Social Justice Warrior Trolls, but it's still amusing to see in action.
And the FCC has what to do with cameras? They might say you can't block the wireless signal used to copy pictures to the internet, but they have ZERO jurisdiction regarding the filming/photography itself.
And yeah, if the organizers were jamming they might have a leg in the game. That doesn't preclude the organizers kicking somebody out for a violating the rules. Not sure what kinda crack you're on but you might want to cut back a bit.
Femzilla