I'll be honest with you people: When I started this blog, I never expected it to reach 100 posts. And when I was making it a habit to write in my blog, I expected to reach 100 posts by February, but then I went back to college, and well, life happened. But here I am, 100 posts! One hundred entries, ladies and gentlemen, one hundred.
I'd like to say a few quick things. First off, I am deeply saddened by the way gamers are being treated by the people whose careers we made. Are there gamers out there who quite frankly need to see a psychiatrist ASAP and should be dragged away from any computer in the vicinity? Yeah, there are. Are ALL gamers like that? Hell no. Gamers are diverse: some of us are men, others are women, some are Left Wing, others Right Wing. Some of us read Jezebel, others read Return of Kings. Some of us play MMORPG's, some prefer FPS, some of us can't stomach FarmVille, and some of us never picked up Flappy Bird.
Some of us have invested 100 hours to get the Triforce several times, while others preferred investing that time perfecting our shot in Halo. Some of us mastered play and using Dan Hibiki, Servbot, and Roll, while others prefer playing it safe with Akuma, Sentinel, and Storm. Some of us main Leona support, others play Leona jungle. Some of us have a main on Windia, others have long abandoned Maple Story.
And yeah, some of us are a bunch of dicks. Some of us are assholes, some of us belong in mental institutions. But here's the thing: not all of us are like that. And I know what our opponents are going to say: "Hah! A No True Scotsman fallacy!" But a question: isn't generalization also a fallacy? The idea that the whole is represented by a few is, in itself, highly illogical.
This is not the first time our pass time has been attacked, as we all know. The memory of Jack Thompson is still in our minds, as are the controversies surrounding games like Mortal Kombat, Thrill Kill, and Night Trap.
Some of my younger readers might not know about those last two games, so allow me a super quick history lesson. Thrill Kill was a video game that was deemed so violent, it's publisher canceled it before it was to launch. It was a fighting game set in hell, and you controlled the souls of serial killers. Oh yeah, that does sound violent! That's why Virgin Interactive (oh the delicious irony) cancelled the game, likewise refusing to sell the rights to release the game to any other company. The game was literally weeks away from shipping.
Night Trap was a Sega CD game, where you controlled...actually, no, let me explain a few things. Night Trap was an FMV game, with footage of real actors, including the late Dana Plato (the girl from Diff'rent Strokes). Basically, in the game there's some bad guys that try to sneak into a house full of girls, and you're the cop controlling the security cameras. You spot the bad guys, you push the button to activate traps and apprehend them. Simple stuff. So why the controversy? Well, the game depicted teenage girls getting assaulted by grown men. This is a parental nightmare, and the fact that it was depicted by live actors just made it worse.
So what does this have to do with Gamergate? Well, it turns out that both games suffered because of special interest groups: Thrill Kill was outright cancelled, while Night Trap was pulled out of the shelves on Christmas 1993. A question for you: is this tolerable? Is it OK for a special interest group to dictate what's acceptable and what's not?
Again we return to Jack Thompson. This man, in the noughties, tried to censor video games, calling them "murder simulators" for teenage boys to "plot out their acts." We stood up to him, we used reason (well, not all of us, right Tim Buckley?) and we prevailed. The man destroyed himself, got himself disbarred and humiliated. We triumphed over Jack Thompson.
Jack Thompson tried to tell people that gamers were evil and that gaming was poisoning the youth, and in his crusade he destroyed himself when it was found he lied to the courts, falsified evidence, and harassed litigators. These days, people like Anita Sarkeesian and Ian Miles Cheong are trying to tell us that gaming is sexist and anti woman. People like Devin Faraci are trying to tell us that gamers are sexist terrorists, while people like Leigh Alexander are telling us to our faces that our identity is "dead".
What these people are REALLY saying is that we're nothing. "You gamers have no power, no voice. Gaming is dead because WE say it's dead." Are we dead? Is the gamer really a dead identity? Or are these the words of people for whom the death of the gamer identity is beneficial? I am reminded of a quote from Game of Thrones: "When you cut off a man's tongue, you do not prove him a liar, you prove you fear what he has to say."
What is it we gamers can say that makes people like Leigh Alexander claim that gaming is "dead"? I have a theory, backed by ample evidence: Maybe they're scared we can destroy their jobs by turning our back on them. They are scared that we can destroy them when we find out their corruption. They are scared that they NEED us, they need OUR clicks. They are like the abusive husband that loves to tell his wife that she's worthless, but the minute she grows a spine and leaves, he's a wreck. They KNOW we don't need them. They KNOW gamers have no need for Kotaku, Cracked, Joystiq, Polygon, etc. But they don't want to admit it. They want to think they're these big, untouchable celebrities that can make or break a person's career. They LIKE the idea of their word being the gospel, they LIKE the idea that they can write up a made up list of reasons Tomb Raider is sexist because of Lara's boobs and no one will call them out on it and be taken seriously.
That's why they hate us, because we can easily take that away from them. We have the evidence that Anita Sarkeesian is dead wrong in regards to the following: there are no significant gaming franchises starring women, women are often little more than a background object in gaming, women are objects instead of characters in gaming, etc. We, not Leigh Alexander, are the ones who can make or break a gaming journalist's career. They hate us because it's not gamers who are irrelevant, it's gaming journalists. It's time to remind them of that fact.
I'd like to say a few quick things. First off, I am deeply saddened by the way gamers are being treated by the people whose careers we made. Are there gamers out there who quite frankly need to see a psychiatrist ASAP and should be dragged away from any computer in the vicinity? Yeah, there are. Are ALL gamers like that? Hell no. Gamers are diverse: some of us are men, others are women, some are Left Wing, others Right Wing. Some of us read Jezebel, others read Return of Kings. Some of us play MMORPG's, some prefer FPS, some of us can't stomach FarmVille, and some of us never picked up Flappy Bird.
Some of us have invested 100 hours to get the Triforce several times, while others preferred investing that time perfecting our shot in Halo. Some of us mastered play and using Dan Hibiki, Servbot, and Roll, while others prefer playing it safe with Akuma, Sentinel, and Storm. Some of us main Leona support, others play Leona jungle. Some of us have a main on Windia, others have long abandoned Maple Story.
And yeah, some of us are a bunch of dicks. Some of us are assholes, some of us belong in mental institutions. But here's the thing: not all of us are like that. And I know what our opponents are going to say: "Hah! A No True Scotsman fallacy!" But a question: isn't generalization also a fallacy? The idea that the whole is represented by a few is, in itself, highly illogical.
This is not the first time our pass time has been attacked, as we all know. The memory of Jack Thompson is still in our minds, as are the controversies surrounding games like Mortal Kombat, Thrill Kill, and Night Trap.
Some of my younger readers might not know about those last two games, so allow me a super quick history lesson. Thrill Kill was a video game that was deemed so violent, it's publisher canceled it before it was to launch. It was a fighting game set in hell, and you controlled the souls of serial killers. Oh yeah, that does sound violent! That's why Virgin Interactive (oh the delicious irony) cancelled the game, likewise refusing to sell the rights to release the game to any other company. The game was literally weeks away from shipping.
Night Trap was a Sega CD game, where you controlled...actually, no, let me explain a few things. Night Trap was an FMV game, with footage of real actors, including the late Dana Plato (the girl from Diff'rent Strokes). Basically, in the game there's some bad guys that try to sneak into a house full of girls, and you're the cop controlling the security cameras. You spot the bad guys, you push the button to activate traps and apprehend them. Simple stuff. So why the controversy? Well, the game depicted teenage girls getting assaulted by grown men. This is a parental nightmare, and the fact that it was depicted by live actors just made it worse.
So what does this have to do with Gamergate? Well, it turns out that both games suffered because of special interest groups: Thrill Kill was outright cancelled, while Night Trap was pulled out of the shelves on Christmas 1993. A question for you: is this tolerable? Is it OK for a special interest group to dictate what's acceptable and what's not?
Again we return to Jack Thompson. This man, in the noughties, tried to censor video games, calling them "murder simulators" for teenage boys to "plot out their acts." We stood up to him, we used reason (well, not all of us, right Tim Buckley?) and we prevailed. The man destroyed himself, got himself disbarred and humiliated. We triumphed over Jack Thompson.
Jack Thompson tried to tell people that gamers were evil and that gaming was poisoning the youth, and in his crusade he destroyed himself when it was found he lied to the courts, falsified evidence, and harassed litigators. These days, people like Anita Sarkeesian and Ian Miles Cheong are trying to tell us that gaming is sexist and anti woman. People like Devin Faraci are trying to tell us that gamers are sexist terrorists, while people like Leigh Alexander are telling us to our faces that our identity is "dead".
What these people are REALLY saying is that we're nothing. "You gamers have no power, no voice. Gaming is dead because WE say it's dead." Are we dead? Is the gamer really a dead identity? Or are these the words of people for whom the death of the gamer identity is beneficial? I am reminded of a quote from Game of Thrones: "When you cut off a man's tongue, you do not prove him a liar, you prove you fear what he has to say."
What is it we gamers can say that makes people like Leigh Alexander claim that gaming is "dead"? I have a theory, backed by ample evidence: Maybe they're scared we can destroy their jobs by turning our back on them. They are scared that we can destroy them when we find out their corruption. They are scared that they NEED us, they need OUR clicks. They are like the abusive husband that loves to tell his wife that she's worthless, but the minute she grows a spine and leaves, he's a wreck. They KNOW we don't need them. They KNOW gamers have no need for Kotaku, Cracked, Joystiq, Polygon, etc. But they don't want to admit it. They want to think they're these big, untouchable celebrities that can make or break a person's career. They LIKE the idea of their word being the gospel, they LIKE the idea that they can write up a made up list of reasons Tomb Raider is sexist because of Lara's boobs and no one will call them out on it and be taken seriously.
That's why they hate us, because we can easily take that away from them. We have the evidence that Anita Sarkeesian is dead wrong in regards to the following: there are no significant gaming franchises starring women, women are often little more than a background object in gaming, women are objects instead of characters in gaming, etc. We, not Leigh Alexander, are the ones who can make or break a gaming journalist's career. They hate us because it's not gamers who are irrelevant, it's gaming journalists. It's time to remind them of that fact.
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