salarta

petercoffin:

(clarification on what you’re about to read: it is about misogyny and very much so, let’s just take a look at another shitty thing it’s about)

AAA games, in certain people’s eyes, are “the market speaking.” When they see a display in the store with Call of Duty, Mountain Dew, and Doritos all jammed onto one shelf, they are not annoyed (not that Doritos annoy me) from the overt shoehorning. They are titillated. Excited. It’s not because CoD is an achievement, changing everything in the way that some AAA games actually can and do. It’s that it’s a huge success. It’s gaming being a success. It’s – in their eyes – GAMERS being a success. “Us And Them” has always been a big thing in what gamers perceive as “the culture,” and if it’s a public representation of gaming, like this amazing shrine you see in every Walmart and Target if you go near the electronics nowadays, it’s “us.”

In this way of thinking, Call of Duty symbolizes gaming. That is what they see this as: free market economics made Call of Duty a success, because everyone chose Call of Duty and made it synonymous with gaming. It earned this synonymity, too! In their eyes, this is meritocracy at work, and this supposed meritocracy represents them and what they wish the world was like. Call of Duty is the public face of gaming and their politics in this respect.

Now, journalists using their reach to promote indies is (again in their viewpoint) Cultural Marxism, essentially “redistributing the wealth” only it’s with social reach. They are using their visibility to make video games that aren’t made by Capitalism At Work™ more successful.

This is why, by the way, certain people haven’t targeted AAA developers – who set review embargoes. Often when releasing a buggy game that will get a patch “soon” or just something… well, awful, a review would likely cause sales to go down because if it’s a terrible (or very buggy) game. Reviews would not be able to not talk about it in a positive manner and maintain credibility, meaning they would talk about it negatively.

However, indies didn’t “earn it.” Indies are small teams of people, sometimes a single person, who decided they wanted to make a game. They had either an idea they don’t see enough of or never see they wanted to make into something. They don’t spend money in large amounts (even highly successful indie crowdfunding almost never breaches a million dollars) and they don’t employ hundreds of people. They don’t have huge advertising campaigns where people are spending their lives finding any possible avenue to promote a game and then throw money at it. The effort is put into the game and rarely into other things, because the people working on it rarely have a real grasp over the rest of it. Indies are just that: people independent of a large conglomerate.

When games journalists talk about an upcoming indie game by a developer, it’s time and space that could have been devoted to a AAA game. It’s (to them) directly saying all this money being spent, all these people employed, all this success as an industry, all this GAMERS TAKING THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE AT THE TOP is up for debate. This thing some idiot is making in their house isn’t representative of how big and successful video games have become! It’s some basement dwelling people with problems’s shitty shit that will make gamers look like basement dwelling people with problems again! We want games to be art, but holy fuck, that art better come from a company so we are represented by a PR team carefully wording everything to come off well instead of… well, people.

Specifically, artists. People not being run through a filter for maximum impact and digestibility. Artists with weird ideas and views that we don’t like. Artists that haven’t made their way through an already-established corporate system and earned my attention! Artists that are in the same economic position as I! There must be a reason THEY are getting attention in the my world and I am not, despite the fact I have not made a game in any capacity. It certainly isn’t for the effort they have put into making a game, because they haven’t PLAYED “THE GAME!”

It’s because these “corrupt” games journalists giving them time over AAAs. And it isn’t because the game is good, no sir. No PR person has told me the game is good yet. It has to be for unethical reasons (disproven ones)! This game that was made by a few people can’t truly be worthy of interest, not in this environment. Not when gaming is just now achieving mainstream success and acceptance! Don’t put this shit out there for people to see! Some person could see this before they see Call of Duty and think that’s what gaming is! SPEND MORE MONEY ON PR, EA!

The problem I’m speaking to is capitalism vs. art. In these folks’ version of meritocracy, the merit is derived from the money and effort around the game, not the game itself. The merit comes from people besides the developer saying a game is good, the merit is in the convincing the game is good by people who didn’t make it. The merit is in the funding for the game, the merit is in the marketing budget. The merit is in the atmosphere, not the soup – personally never my criteria for a good diner.

The problem with the idea of meritocracy is that people can’t agree with what merit is and who gets it. Is it work to promote art? Yes. Is it as much work as creating it? Is it as much work as defining it? Criticizing it? Interpreting it? Who gets the merit from a team of 300? It’s certainly not all 300 people. It’s a company and a few individuals looked at as leaders. On a 5 person team, most people who liked the game will have a vague idea of who they all are. They’ll all see a bigger percentage of the profit, too, and if a game made for $15,000 can profit individuals more than one made for $60,000,000, what is the incentive to make games with large budgets? Why wouldn’t someone with money just say “here’s a million dollars, 5 people, now make whatever game you want, I’ll spend a little money promoting it and I’ll take home about the same as I would if I threw $100m at a lot more people!” Why wouldn’t they?

It’s a danger to their version of what a free market is (WHERE EVERYONE HAS A DICK AND IT’S HUGE AND THAT ALSO MEANS THEY’RE MALE™ – what, did you honestly think this isn’t primarily about misogyny?). It’s a danger to that CoD display showing that Gamers Are Something™ in Target. It’s a danger to their power as a consumer demographic. It’s a danger to the fantasies they have involving power. It’s a danger to how things are right now.

Gone Home’s success is a sign people also want stuff that doesn’t take 300 people to make. And therefore doesn’t cost millions to make. And therefore can be democratized. And therefore isn’t about those who (at very least subconsciously) view themselves as the caretakers, tastemakers, and gatekeepers.

At least not by default.

adirtyshisno:

pyrochemistry:

firstnametainted:

GIRLS — if you hit, slap, belittle, kick, punch, choke, throw things at, or control your boyfriends, you are the abuser. You are not a “strong woman”, “empowered”, or anything similar. You are hurting him. Even if his muscles are strong enough to take it, a hit or slap from someone you love is an emotional blow.

Written by a girl who’d never hit a guy.

this.

5k notes, wow good job tumblr 

cathodedebris:

One of the enduring myths about #GamerGate – ever since it was concieved and astroturfed by the “third party trolls” behind #thequinnspiracy – is that it’s about ethics in journalism.

The most prominent – indeed, perhaps the only – journalist in support of #GamerGate is Milo Yiannopoulos, AKA @nero.

Oh dear. It doesn’t look like #GamerGate has paid any attention to Milo’s past – which is a tangled fucking mess of lies, bullying, Nazi fetishism, refusing to pay staff money they rightfully earned and no less than two name changes to attempt to give his shady past the slip.

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