PART 3
Death Of A Gamer
"Games culture is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online ‘wars’ about social justice or ‘game journalism ethics.’"
These sentiments, espoused by Leigh Alexander, Editor at Large of Gamasutra, would be echoed in one form or another in almost all of the largest gaming publications. These were the shots heard round the internet, and those shots were solely targeting the gamer identity. Kotaku's Luke Plunket wrote "There has been so much hate. So many angry words, so many accusations, over...what? Video games? Women in video games? People who write about video games?"
"One side has folded its arms, slumped its shoulders while pouting like an obstinate child that has learned they are getting a little brother or sister but wants to remain the singular focus of their parents' affection," wrote Polygon's Chris Plante. "The other side has opened its arms, unable to contain its love and compassion, because they understand they are no longer alone."
These sentiments, espoused by Leigh Alexander, Editor at Large of Gamasutra, would be echoed in one form or another in almost all of the largest gaming publications. These were the shots heard round the internet, and those shots were solely targeting the gamer identity. Kotaku's Luke Plunket wrote "There has been so much hate. So many angry words, so many accusations, over...what? Video games? Women in video games? People who write about video games?"
"One side has folded its arms, slumped its shoulders while pouting like an obstinate child that has learned they are getting a little brother or sister but wants to remain the singular focus of their parents' affection," wrote Polygon's Chris Plante. "The other side has opened its arms, unable to contain its love and compassion, because they understand they are no longer alone."
This common narrative was only compounded by the fact that a dozen of these articles were all written within a 24 hour period, from nearly every major gaming site. These examples illustrate the narrative: Gamers are these obtuse shitslingers, wailing hyper-consumers, childish internet-arguers. That there was no ‘side’ to be on, there was no ‘debate’ to be had. It is understandable if you feel this is unwarranted hyperbole on my part. I assure you it is not. This is from the conclusion of Leigh Alexander's August 28 Article. As the internet has seen, there is indeed a debate to have.
To be fair, that preceding week had been particularly volatile. Turns out a large part of the public did not share Totilo's faith in Grayson, but this was merely the kindling for the fire to come.
To be fair, that preceding week had been particularly volatile. Turns out a large part of the public did not share Totilo's faith in Grayson, but this was merely the kindling for the fire to come.
The Fire Rises
As mentioned, there was a particularly strong outrage amongst consumers that week. You'd be forgiven, having seen the magazine's perspective, for thinking that this was the result of a woman making a game, or a transgendered person winning an award. Rather, it was something very different. Youtuber Mundane Matt, who at the time had only a few thousand subscribers, released a video entitled "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Lover Scorned." In it he discussed the allegations made by Quinn's ex-boyfriend.
The reaction to this was disproportionate by any account. Quinn lodged a DMCA against the video, using legal action to force Youtube to take it down completely. The reason provided for this was that he had infringed upon her copyright by showing a still image, made publicly available by Quinn to promote her game, while talking about the issue. There will be no editorializing at this point. I have full faith in the reader's ability to determine, for themselves, if they think this legal action was taken to protect her intellectual property, or if it was used to silence criticism.
"The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet." That's on Wikipedia. That effect was proven right here. Another Youtuber, The Internet Aristocrat, made, by all reasonable accounts, a scathing critique of the entire situation, focusing a large chunk of his video on that act he felt was censorship. This video as of writing time has been watched over 900,000 times.
The reaction to this was disproportionate by any account. Quinn lodged a DMCA against the video, using legal action to force Youtube to take it down completely. The reason provided for this was that he had infringed upon her copyright by showing a still image, made publicly available by Quinn to promote her game, while talking about the issue. There will be no editorializing at this point. I have full faith in the reader's ability to determine, for themselves, if they think this legal action was taken to protect her intellectual property, or if it was used to silence criticism.
"The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet." That's on Wikipedia. That effect was proven right here. Another Youtuber, The Internet Aristocrat, made, by all reasonable accounts, a scathing critique of the entire situation, focusing a large chunk of his video on that act he felt was censorship. This video as of writing time has been watched over 900,000 times.
The offending image worthy of legal action. It is identical to the one used in Grayson's article.
These videos, as well as follow ups by them and other Youtubers, both prominent and not, began to speak critically of not just Kotaku, but an entire industry that was not reporting on a story their communities felt very strongly about. One of these criticisms came in the form of The Cynical Brit tweeting these controversial statements:
" If Zoey Quinn did engage in censorship via the abuse of the DMCA on Youtube then I thoroughly condemn her actions as being both fucking stupid and unethical. If outlets did provide her favorable coverage because she had intimate relations with some of the writers, they're goddamn idiots for doing it, why the hell would you compromise the trust of your readers for that?"
How was this sound criticism handled?
" If Zoey Quinn did engage in censorship via the abuse of the DMCA on Youtube then I thoroughly condemn her actions as being both fucking stupid and unethical. If outlets did provide her favorable coverage because she had intimate relations with some of the writers, they're goddamn idiots for doing it, why the hell would you compromise the trust of your readers for that?"
How was this sound criticism handled?
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These images illustrate the outright deletion of over 25,000 comments from users relating to the controversial opinion that doing unethical things is bad. And what of those wailing hyper-consumers, those childish internet-arguers? They reacted exactly how one might expect they would.