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Polygon "exposes" toxicity among male gamers

Cranberrys

Cranberrys

Member
TheWatcher said:
I don't care about Zoe Quinn or Gamergate. I care about exposing parasitic games 'journalists' that attempt to bully or pressure developers into changing their vision. I also despise the relationships many of these so-called 'journalists' have with developers and publishers (giving out great reviews in exchange for trinkets or trips). Video Game journalism has been going downhill since the early 2000s, and it has accelerated its downward spiral since the Kane and Lynch debacle with Gurtsmann. I doubt current games journalists even fully play through the games they review.
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They are not giving out reviews in exchange of something, it's not blunt like that. I worked in the gaming industry for 17 years. I was a marketing strategist (and still am but for an advertising agency) and my job, among other things, was to manufacture consent. Any consent profitable for my company (I've worked for a major french video games retailer).

So, in this kind of job you need a journalist for various reasons but not reviews because in retail, you don't give a fuck about review scores.

I'm not going to meet the guy and tell him "I want you to do that for me". I will pick a guy on various criterias and then I'm gonna send the dude some promotional material, goodies and stuff. I'm gonna invite him as a VIP to some trade shows and stuff like that. When I meet him, always in a professionnal environment, I will talk to him like we are buddies, grab a few beers, have a few laughs, if he need access to a certain publisher, I will call whatever friend I have there and arrange something, and I will do that for a certain period of time, let's say about a year. So there I've got my web in place. To him, I'm this cool guy he knows. I never ask anything and never will, but I established a relationship with him. So if he has to write a piece about my company is going to call me out of professionnal courtesy, if he hears that some other publication is going to write a piece about my company, I will also know, if I need to know what review score his publications is planning to give to a specific game, I also will know beforehand and that means I will now be able to call the publisher and give him the heads up (and so strengthening my relationship with this publisher) and so on. I will know have access to privilege information, with a few days before publications which in my line of business is golden. But, in fact, I never asked him for anything, and we are just two friends meeting after work and talk shop.
 
Phoenix RISING

Phoenix RISING

Banned
autoduelist said:
your definition of tolerated is broken. If I hear someone use a slur online, I let him know in no uncertain terms what I think of him and then mute him. However, since I disagree with you on very many points, you would consider me recommending muting peopleas tolerating.

You maufacture opponents by labeling anyone who disagrees with you as racist, sexist, etc. No. We just think you are wrong.
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I mean, if someone online uses a slur, I would mute them without even saying anything. Me telling them that they are racist would only provoke them become uglier.


Claus Grimhildyr said:
"Toxic Masculinity", at least the way Phoenix has used it, is nothing more than excuses to be coddled by everyone around you. Thousands of years we have seen the same phrases used in different ways, "Learn to deal with it on your own", "Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you", etc. Why is it only *now* they have become an issue? Because these past few generations have become more coddled and whiny than ever before.
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You couldn't prove that this generation is being coddled, but I can prove that this generation is committing the most suicide.

Fact: Words do hurt. It's one of the reasons why directly insulting people on this forum is against the TOS.
 
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DeepEnigma

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Dunki said:
meanwhile in Sarkesian land. Sorry do not kow any better place to post this

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It's just more proof that there is no genuine intent behind her motives and they don't practice what they preach.

Just like she flat-out lied about being attacked at the panel a year or two ago, when she was the one who went on the offensive projecting from her pedestal.

Both men and women that were in the audience came to the defense, and called her a liar.
 
Schrödinger's cat

Schrödinger's cat

Banned
Phoenix RISING said:
Fact: Words do hurt.
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Fact: Putting the word "Fact:" in front of something doesn't make it factual.

Unlike, say, a baseball bat, the only harm words can cause to an individual is subjective and based on interpretation of those words.
A good example of this is to have someone say the foulest, most detestable, abhorrent, personal, despicable things to your face - but using a language you don't understand.

Words can only hurt or have any sort of power as much as someone allows them to.
And, try as one might, they can't force their subjective interpretation onto anyone and claim it is objective fact.
 
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C

Cosmogony

Member
Schrödinger's cat said:
Fact: Putting the word "Fact:" in front of something doesn't make it factual.

Unlike, say, a baseball bat, the only harm words can cause to an individual is subjective and based on interpretation of those words.
A good example of this is to have someone say the foulest, most detestable, abhorrent, personal, despicable things to your face - but using a language you don't understand.

Words can only hurt or have any sort of power as much as someone allows them to.
And, try as one might, they can't force their subjective interpretation onto anyone and claim it is objective fact.
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It's part of the on-going defocusing of language. First, there was "violence", physical violence, and "verbal violence" was understood to be metaphorical. That bridge has long been crossed and now, fuzzily, both are often categorized simply as "violence", so to suggest their effects are in the same league.

Notice that Phoenix RSISING has a problem - and rightly so, I add - with abusive language directed at what he would deem his side but apparently none with real violence aimed as those he opposes. Consider, for example, what he has written recently here on GAF:

Phoenix RISING said:
I don't think much is going to change until people start getting violent. Lashing out. Suicide is a problem among LGBT, but they are killing themselves, not other people.

If/when that changes, then I think we'll see more action against hate speech. But for now, it's too profitable, as we can see in the US.
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A glaring lack of principles and ignorance of the history of the 20th century allows some to think the ends justify the means. Their ends are noble and so no means should be spared, including, but not limited to, denying others what they claim for themselves, such as free speech and freedom of assembly. Abusive language and violence are all terrible, except when waged by them against their adversaries. Then, political alchemy, they become laudable, legitimate and necessary.
 
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Dontero

Dontero

Banned
Cranberrys said:
So, in this kind of job you need a journalist for various reasons but not reviews because in retail, you don't give a fuck about review scores.
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Me and few of my friends run small gaming site in Poland (now defunct) we send out few "letters" to provide review copies and only 2 companies responded (which is understandable for such a small site).
EA literally wrote that they will send us games BUT we need to score them above 7,5 or deal goes caput.
That is just mine "input" on this subject. If you look at history there are shitload of cases where publishers mandated reviews.

Remember Kane&Lynch shitshow ? What was that ? Fake news ?
 
Cranberrys

Cranberrys

Member
Dontero said:
Me and few of my friends run small gaming site in Poland (now defunct) we send out few "letters" to provide review copies and only 2 companies responded (which is understandable for such a small site).
EA literally wrote that they will send us games BUT we need to score them above 7,5 or deal goes caput.
That is just mine "input" on this subject. If you look at history there are shitload of cases where publishers mandated reviews.

Remember Kane&Lynch shitshow ? What was that ? Fake news ?
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Well, as I said, I was in retail, not journalism so I Don't know exactly what arrangements are made with the press.

For me, the biggest problem with game journalists it's not even all this ethic thing going on, because I Don't purchase my games depending on a review score. It's the fact that game journalists live in a vacuum, without having any clue of what is happening in the Community. Because the gaming Community is not a bee hive, it's diverse. Some gamers love multiplayer games, others not so much, some love narrative experiences like The Order and other total open world Freedom and so on… There's a target audience for nearly every game out there. When a journalist say The Order is an average game, it's an opinion and it's OK for him to say so but when he is saying that like he is some kind of God Of Gaming speaking the Truth of Heaven, then he's talking shit because he is denying the fact that some gamers will love that game and their taste are as good as his.

I need journalists to tell to which specific gaming audience the reviewed game is addressed. If I take the example of The Order again, I really loved that game, I've had a terrific time with it, I play twice back to back but if I had listened to the reviews I would not have played it and I would have missed one of my favorite games of 2015.
 
prag16

prag16

Banned
Phoenix RISING said:
You couldn't prove that this generation is being coddled, but I can prove that this generation is committing the most suicide.
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So you're in favor of fixing the suicide problem by increasing the coddling, apparently. Of course there's NO chance that the increased suicide rates could have been caused by an increase in coddling, in your view. Not worth considering?

You really need "proof" this generation is more coddled than in the past? The generation of trigger warnings, safe spaces, and microaggressions? Really? Correlation is not causation, but I would wager that increased coddling probably isn't going to address anything. In the end these people still (usually) have to live in the real world at some point. And they're more and more unready to face it as the years go by. NO WAY they're being coddled too much though, doesn't fit the narrative.
 
DonF

DonF

Member
Dunki said:
meanwhile in Sarkesian land. Sorry do not kow any better place to post this

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C-658VsXoAo3ovC.jpg


She has literally made a career out of being offended...I can't even. Why would anyone on their sane mind support that tweet, let alone publish it proudly...
 
Phoenix RISING

Phoenix RISING

Banned
Schrödinger's cat said:
Fact: Putting the word "Fact:" in front of something doesn't make it factual.

Unlike, say, a baseball bat, the only harm words can cause to an individual is subjective and based on interpretation of those words.
A good example of this is to have someone say the foulest, most detestable, abhorrent, personal, despicable things to your face - but using a language you don't understand.

Words can only hurt or have any sort of power as much as someone allows them to.
And, try as one might, they can't force their subjective interpretation onto anyone and claim it is objective fact.
Click to expand...

"The pen in mightier than the sword"?

prag16 said:
So you're in favor of fixing the suicide problem by increasing the coddling, apparently. Of course there's NO chance that the increased suicide rates could have been caused by an increase in coddling, in your view. Not worth considering?

You really need "proof" this generation is more coddled than in the past? The generation of trigger warnings, safe spaces, and microaggressions? Really? Correlation is not causation, but I would wager that increased coddling probably isn't going to address anything. In the end these people still (usually) have to live in the real world at some point. And they're more and more unready to face it as the years go by. NO WAY they're being coddled too much though, doesn't fit the narrative.
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I'm not suggesting any solutions to the suicide problem. What will fix that is people not killing themselves.

I can say that "coddling" isn't increasing suicide, though. In fact, the generation prior to this one "coped" with its problems through alcoholism and beating the **** out of their wives and kids. I'm certain being born to POS parents who are under-educated in the Rust Belt era has some correlation to suicide though.

Trigger warnings and safe spaces are an improvement over the ****show that has been baby boomers and Gen X.
 
ILLtown

ILLtown

Member
Phoenix RISING said:
"The pen in mightier than the sword"?
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That phrase is not related to people being offended by words.

The reason that many leftist extremists are so keen to equate words with "violence" is so that they can try and control speech. That's also the reason why they're trying to taint the advocating of free speech as a "right wing" stance.

I've seen the effect that sustained emotional abuse can have on a person, and I'm certainly not willing to say "that person should have just toughened up and grown a thicker skin", however, when it comes to random idiots on Xbox Live or PSN, at the first hint of them being an asshole you can mute them and they're out of your life for good. Also, how do I know what words are going to trigger someone? Someone might be triggered by you talking about suicide, but you haven't typed a trigger warning, even though you seem to think that trigger warnings are a good thing.
 
C

Cosmogony

Member
Amnesia also curses Phoenixes, apparently.

Phoenix RISING, he says, is, quote, "not suggesting any solutions to the suicide problem".
Really?
You don't say.
Let's read his own words:

Phoenix RISING said:
I don't think much is going to change until people start getting violent. Lashing out. Suicide is a problem among LGBT, but they are killing themselves, not other people.

If/when that changes, then I think we'll see more action against hate speech. But for now, it's too profitable, as we can see in the US.
Click to expand...

I suppose it testifies to the depth of some convictions, that they would be forgotten less than a week after being uttered n public.

Phoenix's other blanket generalizations suffer from the usual problems of lack of evidence, anecdotal evidence, parochialism and the inability to distinguish between correlation and causation. He doesn't bother to defend those weapons of mass infantilization known as Trigger Warnings and Safe spaces. He asserts they're better than whatever took place in a mythical recent past, and people are supposed to just put stock on such proclamations.

Death by gunfire may well be less painful than death by drowning, but that doesn't make drowning any more pleasant.
 
hecatomb

hecatomb

Banned
Males are a lot more competitive the most females, don't think so? Just watch sports and watch baseball fights, football fights, hockey fights, and even basketball people get in fights a lot more. Males don't like losing as much as females, also females don't play as many competitive games as guys do, just watch fighting game tournaments, counter strike, or any competitive gaming tournament, most of them are all males.
 
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H

Hotel Security

Member
Skyn3t said:
Someone harasses you in a very direct and distastefull manner? Report the idiot, simple as that.
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Or maybe grow a backbone and realize it's just smack-talking.

And, seriously, Polygon is trying to show us that males are more aggressive and talk more shit than females? Wow, what an amazing discovery. None of us could have possibly figured that out.

DeepEnigma said:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1024982421593239559
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Wait, Tesla is making games now? No wonder they're in financial trouble.
 
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EventHorizon

EventHorizon

Member
Cranberrys said:
My point was that if Zoe Quinn really slept specifically for exposure or influence, she wouldn't have pick up a game journalist but people with better positions in the industry. All I was saying is that she probably slept with the guy because she liked him.
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That's really pushing it, and a bit demeaning to men, to suggest that Quinn could easily have sex with any influential member of the gaming community she wanted. If this were a sex-for-influence situation, then it was likely an act of opportunity. Quinn didn't have a 10 point plan to sleep with the guy. The opportunity would have been available, and the fact that it could help her would have pushed her over the tipping point to go through with it.

Once again I am not saying that is what happened. I am pointing out that the theory that it didn't happen because she had nothing to gain is false. That relationship definitely could have helped her.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
There definitely is a toxicity in gaming. No doubt about it. I think the issue here is painting the entire gaming community with that broad brush.

Gaming is incredibly popular. It's no longer a thing shut in nerds do. Today's young parents grew up in the NES era. Minecraft is totally acceptable. Fortnite is a phenomenon. That's a lot of people.

But there is this incredibly committed and psychopathic group that continues with this type of toxicity. Moreover, there is an intersection of social progress in the world overall and in specific groups. Many young male teens throw out homophobic and racial slurs in online gaming like it's nothing. I'd love to get to the place where these young men would understand that those words are wrong. That's not a good a look at all. Hopefully, as tech gets better, that type of stuff can get dealt with.

This group is also incredibly well versed in internet technologies. Unlike other hobbies, gaming tends to be in the forefront of internet culture. See Twitter, streaming, Youtube, and now Discord. Gamers also adopted crowdfunding en masse and so on. Gamers are incredibly sophisticated with the landscape of the internet. That's a good and bad thing. It allows these hate mobs to create very sophisticated attacks.
 
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Clear

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
D

Deleted member 752119

Unconfirmed Member
entremet said:
Blocking and muting is babysitting?
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It seems to be for the subset on this site that seem to care about nothing but the freedom to say whatever they want and be assholes to others with impugnity as it’s just “trash talk.” Smh. Unless someone says something mean about straight, white men anyway... Lots of hypocrites on here who are just as bad as the worst ResetEra members and are just on the other extreme.

DeepEnigma said:
And what online game service or console can you not already do this?
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The point is devs need better tools to filter out abusive users, ban them or lock them to servers with other people flagged as assholes so regular users aren’t having their experience ruined so frequently. As is, it’s just not worth going into public chat as most of the decent people are in party chat or on discord. Why bother listening to that filth and reporting and blocking so many people? As such, I just don’t play MP games much anymore as I have few friends that game and they mostly play SP stuff.

I did a lot of online play in the earlier Xbox Live days when the assholes were much fewer and farther between in most games. The failure of devs to have a good way to filter the assholes out as online gaming exploded and they multiplied has thus cost them MP game sales for me and others like me. If they can get some automatic flagging of slurs, more moderation of members getting reported and get those people out of the game or off the public server and onto their own island with other abusive people/shit talkers then some of us would come back and play more online with randoms and buy more MP games.
 
prag16

prag16

Banned
dmaul1114 said:
Lots of hypocrites on here who are just as bad as the worst ResetEra members and are just on the other extreme.
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Don't say shit like this in the form of broad nonspecific statements. If you feel so strongly that this is the case, let's see see some posts that reveal this alleged hypocrisy.
 
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