Quote from: Sacrosanct;798720Yes.  She's not ugly.  Not really my type, but she's not an ugly person or anything.  It seems people have been attacking her appearance based on this situation, and that's pretty low.

Well, she's not totally hideous, but from the hype I was expecting some femme fatale type, not the rather plain & overweight typical gamer nerd I saw.

Meanwhile, the typical GamerGater girl (Syrian Division):

Good thing people are showing how non-misogynist GG is.

Quote from: Will;798599Well, hey, at least we can come together in joyous harmony about how much Twitter sucks.

What James and Alathon said.

No seriously, this is why I've said elsewhere that Huxley was a better predictor of dystopia than Orwell.  In 1984, Orwell assumed that the government would need a campaign of converting Newspeak to destroy people's ability to think in coherent sentences.  In the real world, we developed Twitter.

JG

Quote from: Justin Alexander;798653So, to sum up:

(1) Reviewers should not receive compensation from developers (i.e., being given a review copy of Halo);

(2) Reviewers should not pay developers (i.e., buying a copy of Halo and then reviewing it)

I'm not sure what process of immaculate conception you think reviewers are engaging in, but I've got bad news for you.

When I was still on The Banning Place, sometimes companies or small publishers would email me asking me to review their product on RPG.net.  Mostly it was PDFs, but I got my hardcopy of Legend of the Five Rings 4th Edition this way.  I certainly appreciated it (especially given that these are free reviews) but it didn't stop me from saying what I thought.

JG

Quote from: Sacrosanct;798720Yes.  She's not ugly.  Not really my type, but she's not an ugly person or anything.  It seems people have been attacking her appearance based on this situation, and that's pretty low.

I think we should be able to agree on that too.

JG

Quote from: Will;798722Good thing people are showing how non-misogynist GG is.

Yes, because discussion of personal tastes of beauty are classical signs of 'hatred of women'.

Watering down loaded terms, does no one any service.

Quote from: Novastar;798727Yes, because discussion of personal tastes of beauty are classical signs of 'hatred of women'.

Watering down loaded terms, does no one any service.

To keep Will happy, another cool pro-GamerGater, not so conventionally beautiful (but certainly much more beautiful than Will!):

Quote from: S'mon;798721Well, she's not totally hideous, but from the hype I was expecting some femme fatale type, not the rather plain & overweight typical gamer nerd I saw.

Meanwhile, the typical GamerGater girl (Syrian Division):

Who knows if she's typical.  But most importantly, why does it matter?  Why does her being more attractive than Zoe (I'm assuming that's what you're trying to imply) somehow make GG more right?


it doesn't.  Not relevant.  Making attacks on Zoe's appearance, like you've just done*, only proves that there's merit to the argument the antiGG have been making.  And it just hurts the proGG side.


*saying someone's "not totally hideous" and "plain and overweight" are attacks on an appearance.  I'd like to think we'd all agree on that

I don't think the attractiveness of various women involved in this issue has any goddamned thing to do with the topic, unless you are trying to show that the comments about GG are correct.

Seriously, it's like having a female CEO on a financial TV show and asking her about her favorite dress designer.

As for predictors of modern craziness, one of my favorites:

Quote from: Imaginary Magnitude, Stanislaw LemAre we not threatened with a flood of information? And is this not the monstrousness of it, that it crushes beauty by means of beauty, and annihilates truth by means of truth? For the sound of a million Shakespeares would produce the very same furious din and hubbub as the sound of a herd of prairie buffalo or sea billows.

Quote from: jhkim;798650OK, let's say I genuinely like a game designer's work. Yes, there's some sense that I am "biased" or "predisposed" to report on them favorably, because I like their stuff. Is it at all unethical or corrupt for me to report on them? Consider two cases:

1) I genuinely like a designer, and I donate to them.

2) I genuinely like a designer, and I don't donate to them because of policy.

It seems to me that in case #2, I am going to be even more motivated to give them a good review, because I am blocked from being able to donate to them directly - when I want to help them because I genuinely like their stuff.

Well, if you genuinely like their stuff, then of course you're likely to give a positive review - a review is basically an opinion piece, after all, and there's nothing wrong with that from an ethical standpoint. There's still some "wiggle room" to say that you just like the game. But when you give the developer money, there's a much lighter shade of gray there, IMO.

If you don't see a problem with that, fine, but I do.

Quote from: Werekoala;798735Well, if you genuinely like their stuff, then of course you're likely to give a positive review - a review is basically an opinion piece, after all, and there's nothing wrong with that from an ethical standpoint. There's still some "wiggle room" to say that you just like the game. But when you give the developer money, there's a much lighter shade of gray there, IMO.

If you don't see a problem with that, fine, but I do.

Can you unpack why? I think I've explained logically why there is a problem with the publisher or developer give gifts like free copies or extras to reviewers. The reviewer stands to gain more stuff if they continue to produce reviews that the publisher likes.

However, I don't see what the problem is with the reviewer giving money the other way. If you do see something, can you explain it?

If you can't explain it, could you at least describe what looks more like it and what looks less like it. Consider a few cases:

1) A reviewer on his own time and money buys a copy of the game to play.

2) A reviewer on his own time and money buys a special "designer's edition" of a game that is sold for $90 with signature and extras, which the creators make an extra $30 profit.

3) The reviewer on his own time and money buys into a Kickstarter for a game, and then gets the game plus some rewards after it is funded and released.

4) The reviewer pays for a "ransom" model game, where if enough people pay for it, it is released to the world for free.

5) The reviewer donates to the developers without buying something tangible.

Professional reviewers typically get a copy of the game to play so they CAN review it, so cases 1-4 don't really apply. Only case 5 seems to meet the Patreon threshold, where someone professionally employed to review games gives money out of their own pockets to support "developers".

I suppose it's possible that they could shell out to help the developers buy food and pay their bills while they develop a game, then once the game is sent to the supporter - who then reviews it - they could give it a shitty review.

If you are going to give someone money to support them while they develop a game, I'd say that would be ok so long as they do not review any games released by said developer.

Quote from: S'mon;798721Well, she's not totally hideous, but from the hype I was expecting some femme fatale type, not the rather plain & overweight typical gamer nerd I saw.

Meanwhile, the typical GamerGater girl (Syrian Division):

When people talk about pro-GG people being sexist morons, this is the type of stupidity they're talking about. Y'all are gross.

Quote from: Werekoala;798754If you are going to give someone money to support them while they develop a game, I'd say that would be ok so long as they do not review any games released by said developer.

You have still completely and utterly failed to explain your "reviewers must not review games they preordered" maxim here.

This is pretty straightforward: In order for a conflict of interest to exist in the absence of a personal relationship, the reviewer has to be receiving some form of compensation from the subject. If the reviewer is instead giving money to the subject of their review, there is no quid pro quo and there is no conflict of interest.

What you are seriously proposing here is a situation in which the designer is either directly or indirectly saying, "If I let you give me money, you'll give my game a good review." And you're claiming that this is a statement which is something other than total nonsense.

Quote from: S'mon;798721Well, she's not totally hideous, but from the hype I was expecting some femme fatale type, not the rather plain & overweight typical gamer nerd I saw.

Meanwhile, the typical GamerGater girl (Syrian Division):

YOU FUCKING DUMBASS!

How the fuck does looks determine any thing?  If your shock by my statement, then think about this.  I called out on Will for his stupid ass shit and now I am calling on you for this stupid ass shit.  Just what the hell man?  Your giving gamergate a bad name and you need to stop.

Just when I decided to give this thread a break.

Quote from: Will;796939Um. What's the difference?

Details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marysville_Pilchuck_High_School_shooting


(And in case people need it outlined in crayon, no, I'm not claiming the Marysville shooting had anything at all to do with Gamergate Really really really really really. Ok?)

A school shooting tends to apply a generalized mass shooting, where random people are targeted, usually after a specific person.

In Marysville, all of the victims were called to the location by the shooter before hand. Two were his girlfriend/ex-girlfriend and his cousin with whom she was sleeping/seeing.  Classic love triangle shooting. The other two victims were friends of the victims and the shooter, and I can only speculate that they may have been involved in facilitating the love triangle.

The reason it is important is that when you call it a school shooting you are conjuring images of sociopathic loners with giant grudges against society stalking the halls grimly looking for cool kids.

None of which applies in this case. The shooter was very popular and well liked. There was no hall stalking, no apparent mental issues other than an adolescent broken heart.


I was going to punctuate this with an example personalized to you, but I can't think of a good one that isn't gratuitiously insulting, so I'm letting you off the hook there.  Its almost holiday season, doncha know?