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GamerGate 2.0? Chuds furious about a consulting company named “Sweet Baby Inc” which overviews scripts to make sure nothing offensive was written
- Thread starter Mattmo831
- Start date
Best thing you can do is screenshot their tweets if you're dunking on them on X. They're banking on QRTs for visibility.
Catching up a lot, but on that Forced Diversity vs "Natural Diversity" thing, it definitely reminds me a whole lot of conservatives dismissing racism with "we had a black president" that they didn't vote for.
Blasphemy!!
Imagine an artist, let's say a comedian, testing out their new material at a small gig. See what works, tweak it around or even scrap it entirely before a larger set.
Blasphemy!!
One thing I don't get about this argument, if it was in good faith (which it obviously isn't) is why it matters if a few games have "forced diversity"? There's entirely too many games coming out to play them all and personally where I am in my life, I like having reasons to skip titles - for example with the Like a Dragon series, having a new protagonist for 7 gave me a reason to break from the franchise. If i want to go back to it, 0-6 is already 600 or so hours of game so that's plenty
And looking at https://steamdb.info/stats/releases/ apparently "4817 games have been released in 2024 on Steam." Which is more than enough to cater to everyone's taste no matter how niche/bigoted/etc
And with ~ 50 games a day releasing on Steam alone, it'd be very impressive if even the sweet baby inc they think exists was able to work on and influence anything near that level
And looking at https://steamdb.info/stats/releases/ apparently "4817 games have been released in 2024 on Steam." Which is more than enough to cater to everyone's taste no matter how niche/bigoted/etc
And with ~ 50 games a day releasing on Steam alone, it'd be very impressive if even the sweet baby inc they think exists was able to work on and influence anything near that level
These are my own anecdotes so take them with a pinch of salt, but when I used to hang around more chudish places, it seemed like the complaints about "forced diversity" boiled down to a few different things:
1. A lot of them weren't really enthusiasts about gaming, in the broader sense. I was always a bit surprised by how many only seemed to play a few triple A games, or just replay a handful of games over and over (I'll never forget this one person that apparently played Fallout 3 35+ times). There were also quite a number of them that didn't really play games any more, and were quite open about how they haven't really played anything since the 90s or early 00s. When all you play are games that get tons of advertising and marketing, or games from 10-20+ years ago, I guess you notice "forced diversity" more when more modern triple A games are not primarily just catering to a young male audience any more.
And any non triple A games either don't exist to them because they've never bothered to seek them out, or are "trash" in their minds (the own words of some of the Gamergaters I've seen online).
2. It seemed like they didn't like having to be reminded of issues that people that weren't them faced, or that people different from them existed at all. The amount of times I saw comments like "this game feels preachy" or "it's shoved down our throats" whenever there was an LGBT+ character in a game, or a POC character, or any other minority, was off the charts. Even if the game wouldn't explicitly have scenarios where said characters faced casual or blatant discrimination, just the existence of the character would be enough to ruffle their feathers. It was apparently legitimately "immersion breaking" for some chuds.
3. It's a control/entitlement thing. This obviously isn't something they would ever admit to, but that's how it came across for a lot of them. They'd pretend to be totally okay with "non-forced/natural" diversity, or point to older game examples like Metroid and Tomb Raider for how they totally don't have a problem with female protagonists in games or something. But a lot of their complaints felt like they were essentially saying "these things make me feel uncomfortable and/or alienated, I don't like it and therefore it feels "forced"." Games not 100% catering to them seemed like it felt like an affront to them, and I think they didn't like feeling like they were losing control over "their" hobby.
Ultimately though, a lot of them were simply just bigoted to some degree, which they either didn't want to outright admit, or they actually didn't believe themselves to be bigoted, but subconsciously they clearly were. As you said, this is all just assuming their argument about "forced diversity" is in good faith, which it never is. It's just another one of their many smoke screens in order to not appear as totally reprehensible to people they'd possibly be able to recruit, or to come across as "rational" when their "arguments" are based on nothing but negative emotions because they can't accept that some games aren't for them, or that everyone is entitled to enjoy games.
You can't cancel Mark Kern because his dumb ass was never picked up for a season order. Like, no one remembered he even existed until he got in on grifters grifting a nontroversy so he could plug and attempt to make money off his fake game. Him talking as though he has any relevance or importance beyond his Twitter circlejerk is just sad.
I have a feeling that this is exactly why he's grifting so hard.
Hence the reason he's dropped 40K and moved on super fast to the next faux outrage which will end yet again end with with him saying
"PLEASE SUBSCRIBE 🥺"
Dude wants to stay relevant so bad but as he hops from fandom to fandom he keeps losing people. Lowkey, he's hella bad at the grifting alt right outrage schtick mainly because he's far too transparent.
It is, this "Gamergate 2" is him trying to make himself popular again but his failures just make him the laughing stock by a majority so no one takes him seriously beside the most stupid
Brandon Sheffield (@brandon.insertcredit.com)
Just alerting the game devs on here - if you were considering being part of the OTK summer game fest stream and didn't know much about it (like me), it's hosted by Asmongold, one of gamergate 2.0 people among other things. If your game is in there you're gonna be sending a certain kind of message.
bsky.app
Brandon Sheffield (@brandon.insertcredit.com)
You might (like me) want to drop out of consideration for being in that event if you are into things like having a game industry that is welcoming to all sorts of people.
bsky.app
Brandon Sheffield (@brandon.insertcredit.com)
JUST to be clear, OTK/asmongold are not part of the official summer game fest - there are many streams that happen alongside geoff's event: guerilla collective, future of games, Ubisoft has one, sometimes Microsoft, etc etc - OTK is a new one of these that runs around summer game fest.
bsky.app
About the OTK (One True King) Summer Game Fest stream that's being set up right now with Asmongold as the host:
Can't wait for Asmongold and his flock of sheep toBrandon Sheffield (@brandon.insertcredit.com)
Just alerting the game devs on here - if you were considering being part of the OTK summer game fest stream and didn't know much about it (like me), it's hosted by Asmongold, one of gamergate 2.0 people among other things. If your game is in there you're gonna be sending a certain kind of message.Brandon Sheffield (@brandon.insertcredit.com)
You might (like me) want to drop out of consideration for being in that event if you are into things like having a game industry that is welcoming to all sorts of people.Brandon Sheffield (@brandon.insertcredit.com)
JUST to be clear, OTK/asmongold are not part of the official summer game fest - there are many streams that happen alongside geoff's event: guerilla collective, future of games, Ubisoft has one, sometimes Microsoft, etc etc - OTK is a new one of these that runs around summer game fest.
Is it just what people are posting here, or does this whole thing seem dominated by Mark Kern in a way Gamergate wasn't? Gamergate had a bunch of Trending Gamers and Breitbart writers all participating, you'd get their community making images depicting Gamergate figures in blue and Gamergate opponents in red.
Maybe it's because I'm not going out of my way to investigate this time, but here the community doesn't seem to be energized to do anything but tell us that they're into lolicon. They've failed to get the people on board who have the ability to give them any kind of effectiveness and instead just have some people who are very obnoxious.
Similarly, while this thread's been pretty active, this no longer really strikes me as a developing story since these people don't really seem like they're capable of doing much. Has anything newsworthy actually happened over the past week or so aside from Mark Kern just telling us that it's totally happening?
Maybe it's because I'm not going out of my way to investigate this time, but here the community doesn't seem to be energized to do anything but tell us that they're into lolicon. They've failed to get the people on board who have the ability to give them any kind of effectiveness and instead just have some people who are very obnoxious.
Similarly, while this thread's been pretty active, this no longer really strikes me as a developing story since these people don't really seem like they're capable of doing much. Has anything newsworthy actually happened over the past week or so aside from Mark Kern just telling us that it's totally happening?
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Between this stuff and the current Cass Report-boosted toxicity around trans people, I've finally stopped using Twitter.
Mark Kern is a joke.
Mark Kern is a joke.
Aside from Twitter randos complaining about the usual "wokeness", SBI, localisations, "safe horny" and how totally "furious" all the wokies are about X thing that most people have never even heard of, I can't say I've really noticed anyone "prominent" trying super hard to push "Gamergate 2.0" either. And AFAIK, there hasn't really been anything particularly newsworthy since the initial SBI "detected" curator group on Steam and Kern being Kern.
Right now they are mostly whining about posts of "woke community managers" and about individual "woke journalists", neither of which has much mainstream rage mob appeal especially since it is pretty much impossible to mask it with ambiguous "industry grievances" at this point. It is much harder to get somewhat normal people onboard this time around and cynical outrage merchants got no outrage loyalty, as said many times they jump at next engagement opportunities instead of really wallowing in chud activism.
Yeah it's mostly just mark kern grifting people along. No one else with a brain wants in because they don't want to look like they're having a meltdown.
There are no bigger figures to lead the way or any notable media willing to launder their ideas to the general public, so they're just hoping to just harass their way into relevance. Luckily, Elon Musk and Libs of Tiktok just did their token bit of boosting of the topic and moved on when there was no other juice to squeeze out of it.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGmESJM6BFQ
Sorry if this has been shared somewhere else already, been watching a lot of NeverKnowsBest lately so looking forward to jumping into this one
Finally something to watch and it's current events. Gonna get some chips after I get home from school later. Thanks, mate.
Just be warned his view is more of a centrist for better or worse though I still agree with most of his points
I said this before but I'll say it again.
Mark Kern is no Steve Bannon.
Yeah watched it earlier today. It is a very "even handed" take for sure. The first part is basically a history of GG and this new mess without taking a side. The second half and especially the back end goes a lot more pointed at calling "GG2" essentially a conspiracy theory fest full of crybullies and grifters who are doing the exact same thing they claim to rail against, and how dumb "go woke, go broke" rhetoric is.
But that's all framed by him thinking that whilst companies like SB can exist and the free market will decide their usefulness, he personally doesn't see the point of their role in the games they've been involved in and thinks it's a grift. He also sympathises with gamers who feel they're being left behind by the industry (ie not catering to their political views) a couple of times, and is overall much more generous and neutral in his overall take outside of the obvious bullshit, particularly in regards to GG where his take is essentially "it was charged on both sides, and both sides were trying to control the narrative" while essentially equivocating the validity of both ends of GG as equally bad/good/valid. He also doesn't really go very hard at pointing out how obviously bigoted and racist a lot of the rhetoric and people involved in this are and how central it and dog whistling as a whole is to the whole thing, leaving most of the work on that part to his showing of the facts on screen and letting you come to that opinion if you want to on your own accord - again, it feels overly generous in an attempt to be "neutral and even handed". Which is fine I suppose.
It's not a bad video and by and large I agree with his main takeaways about GG2, but it's also not really going to convince anyone who is even slightly primed to buy in to the rhetoric of something like GG and its nothing that anyone who has had a cursory eye on this thread didn't already know.
For what it's worth, I think it's pretty good that someone who's totally neutral (or even sympathetic to those poltically right), can make a video that completley dunks on this whole affair. The second you engage your brain, the second you realise it's a grift.
It does feel like the whole thing has started stagnating now that Kern appears to be the biggest voice still peddling the usual garbage.
I'm mixed on this video because the take on the original Gamergate is pretty enlightened centrist (though it's not an especially big part of the video) but it does a great job completely eviscerating the nature of "Gamergate 2" in the second half, even if it's funny that everything he said could easily apply to the "first" one as well (hell Mark Kern was doing completely identical crybully bullshit back then!)
I also find his idea that a bunch of channels screaming into the void on Youtube means they've "won" questionable; even in the video he only shows like fifteen channels at most (if that), and only a few that are actually focusing on the SBI grifting rather than dropping a video or two and moving on, when there are literally millions of channels on YT. It was near impossible to get away from Gamergate in 2014 on YT, but I've only had the algorithm expose me to a few videos relating to the SBI stuff that I wasn't subscribed to. Also when I've seen him touch on political stuff in other videos like the Deus Ex one he showed (although I haven't seen the TLOU one) I recall him criticising it from a progressive perspective like Mankind Divided trying to tie itself to movements like BLM in clumsy ways rather than just the existence of those themes in the first place; I'm not sure if he's giving major benefit of the doubt in an attempt to sound neutral or somehow doesn't see the difference between that and the clear GG2 call of "I don't want woman, minorities and queer people in games"?
Edit: I admit this is 99% likely to be cope but I almost feel like the mask of neutrality was to give GG types a sense of security at first; treating heelvsbabyface with sincerity rather than a unserious clown man and then dropping the "FOOKING PRONOUNS" ~an hour in felt like a coiled snake going for the throat.
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Yeah if you want this saga covered by a leftist, Dead Domain got you covered. The Mark Kern bus drama is absolutely hilarious.
View: https://youtu.be/NzrA_GMbXWo?si=d2Uz0yIsHblGXkfL
Yea that NKB video is good for people who are the "I'm a white logical centrist btw" but not the people who're like, genuinely affected by the bullshit/harassment. Like yes he says and it tells it is regarding the part where it's at this point mostly relegated to Mark Kern but in the most "they may have some valid points" way possible. 🙃
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Wasn't a fan of how some of it was presented either, I still liked the majority of it it, he still clearly paints them as negative and really lays into them in the second part of the video. It's a lil strange since he partially approaches it from a neutral perspective while also clearly aligning on the anti side, the free market will decide is a lil funny tho
No despite the both siding he doesn't really show off much of the left point of view of Gamergate 1 (I'm really hate that I'm typing that now) outside of media websites and videos of Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian so resetera never shows up in the video. The second half of the video is pretty much just complaining about how the right in gaming became the "new sjws". Like I said a very centrist point of view and thus quite a few eye rollers. The point where I agree with him are about how pretty much all the big names "leaders" of Gamergate 2 are just grifters
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GamerGate 2 seems just as pointless as the first one,I agree there are problems with games like layoffs, but it has to do with bad management from CEO's of companies than consultants, just another grift for rage farmers on Youtube.
Everyone's favorite nazi plagiarist loving the video in the top comment is very telling of that shit review.
Also to add to the list here is a good video about gamergate 1 and it's tactics
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYWHpgIoIw
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYWHpgIoIw
It also shows how pathetic this attempt at a gamergate 2 is in comparison.
I mean I'm glad it is, but wow, it's just incels with fried brains now. They did not age well.
Seeing chuds like PeanutButterGamer reply to Kotaku articles with smartass comments... fuck these guys.
Never knew he was a chud. Though to be expected given his origins I suppose.
If anything I'm kind of glad this guy is more centrist and avoids labeling himself as progressive because normally guys like Asmond who pushed this garbage early on tried to pretend that's where they are politically. Albeit, i don't like how he gives credence to white people feeling underrepresented in the industry when virtually everyone making the decisions they're mad about are from the same demographic as them.
And Valve won't do anything to moderate that with their libertarianism.
Yeah, that tracks. Never kept up with the guy so wouldn't have known.
