So What is it that Gamers Want? by TomPreston

It happened Pertson, there is plenty of information within Gamer Gate proving you wrong.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKmy5O…


Listen, you pretentious Social Justice Hipster Douchebag, Gamer Gate is about Jounralism and it's about the sheer corruption of gaming journalism.

Thanks for proving your part of the corrupt establishment Petrson.

I love your attempt to spin Gamer Gate as an Authoritarian cult when it's your side that is pushing an Authoriatirain Agenada.

Umm Tom... your being an idiot again. SLEEPING WITH PEOPLE WHEN THEY ARE A JOURNALIST AND THEN THEY POST A POSITIVE REVIEW OF YOUR GAME IS A NO NO, MUCH IN THE SAME WAY YOU DON'T GIVE A GUY $500 BEFORE HE REVIEWS YOUR GAME.

Sure it is part of her personal life but the salient feature here is she used sex too gain positive reviews for a poorly made game.

Journalism is the key thing here. And to be a journalist your not supposed too take bribes. You are to talk about the thing in question. Was it a enjoyable movie was it slow was it funny. Not the actors drug problem. That is the key issue when you have a bribe that damages credibility, and guess what these positive reviews of depression quest? Its a awful game I played the damn thing and it is just a chore

Well, the loud gamers want this and that. Ehat about the silent gamers who just want this shit story to blow over.
This is not a scandal like Gamespot firing Jeff Gerstmann for giving Kane and Lynch a 6/10 score.

So... who actually reads/listens to that stuff? I look for gameplay on youtube and sometimes listen to recommendations of youtubers and people I know. Mostly look at gameplay, though.

Also, anyone who goes out of their way to insult/threaten a specific person who didn't really do anything utterly horrible on the internet, or anywhere, are just a bunch of idiots. Cheating on somebody? Who cares? Doesn't have anything to do with the games. Someone has an opinion you completely disagree with? You can always just say why you disagree and not be stupid enough to leave a death threat. Doesn't matter if you're just trolling either because it's all some form of cyberbullying, and I think you could get in trouble for it? Not sure, but either way death threats, and other forms of cyberbullying, are just as bad, if not worse than whatever Quinn was doing, Phil being an arrogant butt, ect.

Yes, there are differences between cyberbullying, general criticism, and constructive criticism. If someone can't tell the difference, you still don't need to be a butt. 

Okay I get your confusion now, the current corruption that gamers are pointing at are the games like Aliens Colonial marines where the demo was really just a scripted level that had nothing to do with the finished product when people bought it at $60 it was clearly a blatant attempt at false advertising. Lately I think most of the gaming community are becoming aware that some reviewers of games where the product is so poor and is given 8/10 or above in the score from reviewers has started a cynical trend where you can't believe in what the reviewer is saying. A good resource to understand this new trend is to watch a few videos of the Angry Joe show.

It's not like this wasn't gonna to happen, game launch's by EA, Zenimax, etc where the launch was so full of bugs and crap that it was unplayable for weeks at $60 or with subscriptions while reviewers were screaming buy this game now or preorder nonsense where they cut up each piece of the game and sell it to you $20 dollars has angered the community to where some of them have become vile cynical lot and others are just furious that the industry has become incredibly greedy and deceitful in their practice. Then the whole Tomb Raider remake buyout from microsoft didn't help in which they paid a huge amount of money for to Crystal and Square to make the game a temporary exclusive angered their faithful fanbase who supported them, despite the pitfall budget Crystal Dynamics set out requiring each gamer household to buy 3 copies of the same game to break even.

I also don't get the Zoey101 thing, she slept with a few people in the industry that had nothing to do with the review of her product. Her life from my perspective is in quite a shambles though, especially given her current depression and developing a game on top of that is the epitome of entering a self destructive behavior that could end her life in suicide. I don't want that for anyone and think she should just take a break from the whole gaming scene so she can find herself again. However if I am wrong and she is enjoying her current lifestyle then I can't argue that with her. It's her life. But honestly I think the community really needs to back off from her.

I think that's why most are calling journalistic corruption because something that seemed so sensational wasn't even covered by the gamer sites and many felt they were just being Social Justice Warrior (Whatever crap that means) and hypocritical in their nature to report the interesting current gaming news. Honestly I was interested in seeing their take from the sites I read, but realized after the gun battle stop and the flames died down there was really no substance to report other then "Hey this developer was sleeping this Journalist that had nothing to do with her Game review". Kinda pointless to me.

Finally as a Gamer what I want is just honest and fair pricing from the industry and having fun playing games with the community.

I don't follow the 'gaming news world' since it seems more like what mainstream news are except with games, but you know, seeing this and all the comments here, I'm actually glad my sister changed her ideal major from game design to music composition. I don't want her going through all of this even though since people want to blame the maker of the game than the journalist(s). She's a good kid and all, but jeez I don't want to see her name in game news about a scandal.
What I want as a gamer is less cliches and a story plot (whether it's there or not) that actually keeps my attention like back in the day.

That's where your wrong dude,

The reason why gamers are angry at Zoe Quinn, the five guys she slept with (which three of them have been identified), and the gaming journalist websites like Kotaku, The Escapist, and etc. is something that I can sum up in two c words; one of them you mentioned, corruption and censorship.

Now yes this all started when she made called Depression Quest, and she claimed that men on Wizardchan were harassing her, and saying sexist comments about. When in reality it was one thread with four comments, saying that they didn't like the game. Instead of ignoring or taking the negative criticism like everybody else, she demonized the entire board. Plus her game did not get on Steam, through Greenlight, the first time since people said that the game didn't belong on Steam and were giving a lot of criticism about it. She then said that everyone who didn't like the game were "trolls and sexist man children.

What allowed this to rise again was a post from her ex-boyfriend  thezoepost.wordpress.com/, which a youtuber named MundaneMatt did a video on; but when he uploaded the video he received a DMCA from Zoe herself for using an image from her game. However the "supposed" copyright that she claimed over the image he used, was image you see on the Steam page of the game. Making the image public domain, youtu.be/C5-51PfwI3M?t=19s . 

In that video that MundaneMatt had made, he mentions the post from her boyfriend, the three out of five people that she slept with, and a company that was trying to get more women into gaming. The company said they would make a game for women is someone would give a idea. 8% of the royalties would go to who ever gave the idea, and the rest would go the charity. Now that doesn't sound horrible at right, someone is giving women a chance to be in the video game industry and money is being given to charity; but Zoe's response was "Women shouldn't make games for free", and after that she doxxed all of the members of company. Making it hard for them to function, and then when they went to Kotaku and other gaming websites and tried to get the word out about this. They were banned from the sites and their stories weren't published, because of Zoe's connection with those five guys.  youtu.be/C5-51PfwI3M?t=11m51s 

Then when people started talking about, they would get banned from gaming network sites and Twitter just from mentioning her name, and replies on TotalBiscuit's thread on Reddit had all, but one, been deleted youtu.be/Gi6ga7NOVYA?list=UU22….

The fact that these journalist and Zoe Quinn did this and tried to cover it up is the fact that gamers are angry. It has NOTHING to do with the fact that she's a girl who plays video games or the fact the slept with five dudes. This has to do with the lack of transparency with the journalist and developers, them preaching about us being immoral and unethical yet they are doing it themselves; such as Zoe sleeping with those guys for a good review of her game, and blatant CENSORSHIP; which SHOULD NOT be taken lightly. That is the CORRUPTION that is getting men AND women, who are gamers, angry.  

But if this doesn't get you see why we're made or at least upset, then fine; just don't think that everyone hates Zoe Quinn is a sexist pig trying to keep girls out of gaming. Look at the other side of the argument- www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV_8RH… , www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s5b… (Jim Sterling's thoughts),  www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-51P…,  and there are countless more.        

I CAN'T HELP IT I'M SORRY.

*whether

Also, journalism is written by HUMANS, who are influenced by multiple outside sources, and unless you want a damn science paper, it's going to have opinion and be slightly biased. If people are pissy about that, then maybe they should ignore the gaming journalism field all together and just shut up.

Personally, I can see why gamers would think reviewers like Gamespot an IGN are corrupt. The Total War: Rome 2 is pretty good example why the rumors of reviews being bought isn't 100% unjustified.

Now the harassment campaign against Zoe Quinn and Annita (sorry, forgot her last name) is atrocious, and a complete disgrace to us gamer, and I do wish there was more being done about. And who ever released their contact info and address I wouldn't mind seeing arrested for egging on the harassment, and potentially putting them in danger if one the sexist pricks was crazy enough to take his vulgar behavior to an even more extreme level.

I've seen this term crop up a couple times, and so I have to ask- what the fuck is #GamerGate?

Not being belittled for the actions of the extremists would be nice. Maybe a little less corruption such as reviewers being fired for giving games bad reviews when they deserve it. And to be less blatantly obvious with how in bed they are with the industry, such as one of the largest figures in game gjournalism giving an interview next to a big old halo 4 mountain dew product placement cardboard cutout, or putting one of their staff members into a game as a voice actress, and then pretending like that wouldn't at all affect their reviewing of that game.

And then there's the double standards, the blatantly sexist and quite frankly racist attitudes the industry has decided to take in saying all gamers fat white male basement dwelling psychos and should all die. Then turning around and claiming thst gamers are just being mad out of nowhere while their "followers" harass, threaten, and frankly bully those who arent aligned with them ideologically.

And then having the audacity to make "open letters to stop harassment in the gaming communities" while never mentioning how these blogger journalists have made death threats, made xenophobic, sexually violent, messages themselves to folks in the gamergate movement.

Theres been a lot of bullshit thst people with no platform to Stan on have taken over the years. And now its all come to a head with this irrelevant game designers antics, and the massive censorship and bully tactics employed by her supporters.

I don't really follow all this mess so well it's so weird and confusing...
All I can say is that even IF Zoe Quinn slept with people to gain good reviews... isn't that more on the journalist as the bad guy? Sure it would be shady of her but it's the actual journalist who'd have done the real wrong. Why is it all the hate on Quinn not the 'fake' reviews?

 Journalism integrity is on the journalist to ensure, not the people who'd 'want' favors. As well the public can't blindly follow anyone person's word either it's their job to pay attention and look at lots of sources to make sure they are getting the real data.

When sex is used for bribery, it becomes business, like with money. Just because sex is involved doesn't make it a matter of sex life. Just a detail. I agree with you because it's looking more like an accusation born of bitchery and trying to paint someone into something they can get away with harassing; creating an artificial scandal. On more or less the same note, wanting to support or sponsor a project isn't corruption--or do they expect people that hold particular jobs to suddenly become ubber neutral and devoid of personal taste?

What I want as a gamer is more originality and innovation in the gaming world, less cliches, and if there is something new, I don't want people to jump down the throat of the person who made it and make a mess out of the person, like what happened with Depression Quest, as far as I heard. Regardless of who made a game, or who came up with the concept first, shouldn't we look at the good things rather than the bad things? It shouldn't matter whether a girl made a game, or the events that led up to it. Judge a game for what it is, a game, not the story to how it got published.

*Nods* well said. Well said.

It makes me upset to see these kinds of things. As a gamer, what do I want? I just want to play my game in peace without having to deal with trolls of any kind. Which these guys who want to weed out 'corruption' are pretty much being. :/

How do you corrupt opinion columns? People can have their own bent for any number of reasons, but if you're reading any of it as objective or factual, you're missing the point.

What do Gamers want?  That's a strange question as the only thing Gamers have in common is the desire to play games.  People who like to play games can come from any walk of life imaginable.  It's almost like asking what do people who breath want?  They want to continue to breath.  Which is what gamers want, to continue to play games.

A better question is, what do gamers want from the gaming press?  Well as far as I'm concerned, what we want is to be able to trust what we're told.  Unfortunately, that trust has been all but destroyed by said gaming press over the last few years.  Between glowing reviews of broken games and the outright contempt shown by many in the gaming press for gamers has eroded that trust.

As for disclosure of bias, I might be mistaken, but isn't that part of journalism?  Journalists are suppose to report on things and if they have a personal tie to that thing they should reveal that tie.  If they don't reveal that connection and people find out about it later, this makes the reporter look suspicious.  People wonder if they got the entire story or is the reporter covering something up or in some other way not telling the entire truth.  So the problem isn't with the personal connection to the developer but the disclosure of that connection.  It's all about context and trust.

Take you for example, I've read enough of your journals to know what your bias is.  I don't care that you have a bias, everybody has one about something.  Realizing it and taking your bias into account allows me to still enjoy you journals, but I do tend to verify some of your claims first.

I agree that an adults sex life is entirely their business but what proof is there that Zoe Quinn didn't so what she's been accused of? I'm not questioning you I'm just assuming I've missed an article or journal somewhere.

Only problem I ever had is when reviewers were suspected of being paid to give better reviews. I don't like it but also have no proof it happens. I'm sure it does, it's not entirely improbable, but it's a vast minority. As a gamer, I wish the ones being assholes could see what the hell they are doing. Game Journalists were our allies when they were trying to be restricted by countering propaganda. If such an even were to happen again, not only might we have lost an ally but all this REALLY dickish behavior is evidence against us. I think both sides of the gaming community have to admit our culture is changing and finally fissuring like literature and movies. Some people go see movies for their at face value, sexism and all. Others go for the art and meaning. I just hope we can convince the world it's just a really vocal bad subsection of gamers, our extremists, and not gamers in general.

here's a pretty good article about it if anyone's interested: www.theguardian.com/technology…

I don't really understand why this becomes a thing of 'gamers vs. game journalists' all out of a sudden. There are some people who stuck their nose into a private affair that didn't relate to them in any way and brought it to the court of public opinion. Made a witch hunt out of it. Those people are majorly playing games, and affiliated to certain websites (especially, for example, 4chan), but that doesn't mean that there's any outrage amongst 'gamers'. Most gamers are playing their stuff and probably don't even know too much about this thing. And many of those who are part of this bullshit are ill informed and demand things based on facts that are wrong.

So, what do gamers want? Probably just to be left alone with this stuff. What do those people want who're making lots of noise about this thing? Probably to burn the witch or something similary irrational and unrealistic.

I don't know about every other field, does that include regular journalism? I mean these people call themselves game journalists, right? What's the difference between a journalist and just a blogger?

And it doesn't seem hard to avoid writing about games you've financially invested in. Say I liked a game so much I decided to support it with Patreon, or that the game's developer was my buddy and I wanted to support him. I couldn't really trust myself to write an objective review. I think regular journalism would see this as a conflict of interest, right? So is it really that hard to just get my coworker to do the piece instead?

Then there's other stuff that both game journalists and developers/publishers are guilty of. Jeff Gerstmann for example, was a game journalist for Gamespot who was fired because he gave a negative review of a Kane and Lynch game because the game's publisher and dumped a bunch of advertising money for it.

So how can we trust game journalists to just be honest? Whether they're obsessed with clickbait or being pressured by someone in charge of a game, or just being shills, all this stuff with the Fine Young Capitalists being attacked, the Five Guys scandal, the attempt to censor and silence the internet and being hit with the Streisand Effect, the multiple attacks by journalists against gamers as being nothing but terrible racist virgin loser nerds, I just can't trust major game journalists anymore or their websites. If they hate me so much I'm not going to listen to them anymore, I'll keep playing games but I'll get my information elsewhere.

More and more I find myself going to Youtube and find some LP footage of a game because that's the only way I'll have a real idea of what a game is like because the official system is so gummed up and insubstantial.

There isn't such thing as objective journalism. Every journalist is working for an interest, which can be political, economical, etc. The most integrity that you can get from a journalist is that his/her work is done thinking in the benefit of the majority, but that isn't equal to divide the good from the evil. Seems like gamer culture is biased by the idea of a journalist which is perfect and objective, but such a person doesn't actually exist.

Also, I was hoping that Tom will share his POV about the "Fappening".

I have honestly never understood why gamers, and really, a lot of other people involved in what could be considered "nerd culture", get so up in arms about things like this. Like they want some kind of exclusive club where you have to pass some kind of secret initiation. Is it because things that were once considered "nerdy" are becoming so mainstream and they don't want to lose what made them unique? Seems to me that this whole thing IS about control for the gamers, because they want to control what they think they have a right to, and who gets in. The "corruption" they whine about is just the people they don't want around their precious niche.

This former gamer prefers to watch LPers instead of relying on reviews. I see a game I want I immediately go to youtube to watch an episode of a playthrough. That's why I own Amnesia, Walking Dead, and Portal 1 and 2. I don't listen to any reviewers because I can form my own opinions about things I don't need people telling me what's good and what isn't.

I have nothing against networking as it is necessary to succeed in most industries. However, when that networking becomes more intimate like sex or friendship that's where i have a problem. Journalism should be kept as unbiased as possible, especially when it comes to reviews. When I read a review I want to hear the journalist's honest opinion about the game, movie, book, ect. I don't want to read someone just hyping up their friend's product because they want to help out that person or they feel obligated for some reason. That's not what reviews are for. All those kinds of reviews do is harm both the product, the developer, and the journalist. By only pointing out the good in a product, you're only preventing the developer from learning from their mistakes and fixing either current product or their future ones. And the backlash alone will just ruin all three's credibility which is exactly what's happening here with Quinn.

And if these journalists give stellar reviews for games they know aren't so stellar, well that's where the corruption is. False advertisement. 

so essentially they are turning into the comic book fandom

There is nothing in this world now that would convince me that game journalism isn't deeply corrupt, that what they do can't possibly be interpreted as conflict of interest and that their "network" is anything but a cool kids club full of nepotism. 
I can simply denounce this journal and say you did no research and leave it at that because seriously, you have no idea what's going on, you really shouldn't write about this because you have no insight. But you do because you deeply hate gamers.
What you say is complete bullshit, there is nothing that can hurt the industry by demanding more journalistic integrity, the opposite is true. It's not like you get less coverage of games or less people to talk about games when you disclose your ties at the end of an article, it's really simple.
"Disclosure: This developer is under my patronage." "Disclosure: This developer is a good friend of mine."
Is that so hard? Is that so wrong? Is the world going to end when journalists start being honest?

I would beg to differ. If someone is involved in a game that they're reviewing, how can they have an unbiased, objective view?

Now I'm fine with games developers having friends and relations in the industry. By virtue of the fact that they work in the same field means that a certain degree of overlap is going to happen.

As for gamers...to shoehorn gamers as a single voice is as crazy as saying all readers have a single voice. A vocal minority does not represent ALL gamers any more than a vocal minority represents all...well think of any group you care to name actually.

NOW the vocal minority want games to be their personal playground. They think games should only cater to them and ironically oppose change while complaining about a 'lack of innovation' They also seem to think that games shouldn't be subject to basic economics.

I have a suggestion: leave the issue alone already.
You have better things to live for than writing journals that'll never solve the problem of sexism, racism, etc. in games; those things will ALWAYS be there and in the rest of the world of entertainment.

Corruption is worse than that game devs give money and free things to the press who in order to keep the gravy train going give better reviews that almost scale upwards infinitely.

Zoe Quinn was the match that lead the worst of gaming's non thinking zealots to a huge wine fest, its not even worth talking about.

All gamers agree on the same things: No, just no not all gamers are mindless beer swilling bros afraid of women,ect. We can not even agree we need more depth/story and better mechanics in games.


Like anything else its a mild situation blow out of proportion for all the wrong reasons.


Obligatory Anita Sarkeesian rant, she is a bit inconsistent and hyperbolic yes she has a point but its mostly dulled by her approach and is no where near as prefect as her defenders portray her as.

We just want to be left alone from the media and enjoy playing the games we love to play... that is all we want...

Personally, I want more female main characters in war games (battlefield 3 tried it but with only one mission and Gears of War really took a leap but she was just an AI on a leash that you bring with you) and I don't want them overly stereotyped and overly sexualized, I want to see a proper female soldier with proper equipment, not some JRPG body thong with blue tack to hold it in place, I don't want breast size to be just "GGGWWWAAARRRRGGGHHH LERK AT DER BIG BOOBIES" cause really......are you going to war with breast implants?! You could hardly aim the bloody rifle let alone wear any of the gear! But........I digress, really what I am saying is that there really is no gender in war at the end of the day they are all soldiers and they are all family. Stop giving us female soldiers with unreal amounts of emotion and unreal breast size with horrid armor that wont save you in any type of combat. But this is something that a game dev will never look at or consider.

The only real "corruption" would be those that give positive reviews and conveniently have some big sponsorship from the compony

"when gamers" "gamers are saying" "gamers want to keep you out"

Tom, I respect the point you are trying to make and I agree with it, but I do not respect or agree with the way you are making it.

I am a gamer. I have been a gamer since I was four years old. Most of my friends are gamers, many of them female and some of those game developers. My girlfriend is a gamer and a streamer. My 50 year old mother is a gamer and she has been kicking my ass at getting Paragon levels in Diablo 3. Gamer is a core pillar of my self-identity and my daily life.

I may be a white, cis gendered male but I have been the victim of bullying for being thin, awkward, and having a high pitched voice for the majority of my life. I know it's not the same thing, but I have experienced what it feels like to be ridiculed and attacked simply for being the person I was born as, so when I see racism, ableism, sexism, homophobia in the gaming community, I speak out against it and I report it whenever that is possible. I have advocated that developers take more action against this. I am a humanist and I have cut people out of my life for being bigots and I will continue to do this to everyone in my life who reveals they are a bigot. The internet has labeled me an "SJW" on more than one occassion for these reasons. I have spoken out against these people, this vocal minority inside the gamer community that does not nor will ever speak for the majority of us (nor can they, considering 45% of gamers are female).

Mind you, I agree that games journalism has an integrity and nepotism problem, but I consider this to be because of instances such as Jeff Gerstmann being fired over giving a low review score to Kane & Lynch. I do not feel that Zoe Quinn's tiny little indie game has anything to do with this (and that her sex life is none of anyone's freaking business) nor do I believe that occassionally plugging something you like is a problem. I am not among the people abusing or attacking anyone and I thoroughly and publicly condemn those people. When Gerstmann got fired, I responded by no longer visiting GameSpot so they will not get my advertising money. Not by being an abuse asshole.

I think GamerGate is a huge overblown mess and that anyone hurling abuse and threats is indefensible. So why is it that I, as a gamer, am being lumped in with a vocal minority of bigoted assholes that I have nothing nor do I want anything to do with? Gamers aren't doing this as a group, gamers aren't saying this as a group, gamers are not conspiring as a group. Yes, these are people self-identifying as "gamers" but they do not represent gamers on a whole in the same way that fascists who are white do not represent white people as a whole.

I am a gamer, I am not a bigot. My friends, many of them women, nonwhites and non cis gendered, are gamers. Gamers and bigotry do not go hand in hand so please, for the love of god, stop referring to this vocal minority of indefensible human filth as if they represent gamers as a whole. It is demonizing and unhelpful and is exactly the sort of thing those people are doing when they demonize terms like feminist and SJW. You may explain that "of course, for purposes of discussion gamer refers only to these people" but the connection has already been made: All gamers are bad and the term has been demonized. This is THEIR strategy, not the strategy of openminded, smart people.

I know you're angry, but I also know you are better than that.

Okay then. You know, I could take the time to point out that you used the incorrect form of whether in your journal for one thing, but I won't. I could point out that you're painting Gamers as monsters despite claiming you yourself are one, but I won't. I could even mention how you seem to be jumping on the Gamer vilifying bandwagon that seems to be afflicting Game journalists lately, coincidentally after they were accused of corruption. (because there is nothing suspicious about that, right?) but I'll leave it be. I will, however, ask why you felt the need to write all of this. Why write any of these journals on this ongoing scandal, man? You, like a good chunk of the people vomiting out these "necessary opinion pieces" are so far away from all of this that there's no way that you can really be sure of ANYTHING. Plus, this is an art site, for Pete's sake! People are here to look at your blasted cartoons, not your cutting-edge, just-as-uninformed-as-the-rest-of-us reaction pieces. Lighten up, jeez.