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Gamers boycotting the last night because of gamersgate

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There's no harm in it; but I think folks take this concept of being a "gamer" way too seriously... It's a tag that really describes a bunch of people who happen to share a hobby. That doesn't make us a cohesive social group.

The tag, a decade ago, had a much more positive air about it, IMHO.
People are embarrassed to say they're a gamer because certain stigmas are attached to it. I don't think you should have to hide the fact that you enjoy videogames as to not be lumped in with all the stereotypes.
 
I'm just not a fan when people bash videogames and say it's a waste of time and then will binge watch 10 episodes of some season in a sitting. My thing is not every second of what you do in a day needs to be occupied with something that is deemed productive. As long as you don't neglect things that need to get done then I see no harm in whatever activity you chose to do that helps you unwind.

I played a lot of videogames in my life especially when I was really young. Wouldn't mind having spent some of that time more productively. I don't think I got much more than minor carpal tunnel in my left hand.

I do think it is weird that just because TV is of higher quality these days that it is considered consuming art. You are still consuming and not producing though. I have never felt that what you consumed was more defining than what you produce. I like TV though, I mean I had to watch something else after the cavs lost the other night to distract myself. I'd say the most TV I watch is Cavs, but I am reconsidering my unhealthy obsession with the Cavs now. Really considering dropping league pass and trying to watch national games like a normal fan. I know it isn't right to get so caught up in this. On the other hand, when is my team going to have someone like Lebron again? It is a tough call. I think that the reality of sports and the fact it is live and is happening right now makes it different than mad men.

Everyone should be asking these questions about their habits. I have truly seen everyone even older people begin to be truly addicted to the internet in the past 5 years. My parents were never interested and they are now.
 
People are embarrassed to say they're a gamer because certain stigmas are attached to it. I don't think you should have to hide the fact that you enjoy videogames as to not be lumped in with all the stereotypes.

I totally agree!!

That's why I resent the entire narrative behind "Gamergate;" I don't even like the fact that such a scandal is a thing or was pushed by reactionaries who choose to hide behind the label "gamer" to put forward their otherwise objectionable ideologies.

Drop the tag "gamer" from many of those folks in "gamergate" and you end up with a loosely bound group of hateful people who just happen to like video games.
 
Isn't the Crux of gamergate people wanting people to leave their hobby alone?
 
Isn't the Crux of gamergate people wanting people to leave their hobby alone?

It's not supposed to be... it's supposed to be, according to Gamergaters, about "ethics." :chuckle:

Seriously it's a facile argument, and I think your take is probably closer to the truth as to how many people felt about games being criticized by feminists and a reactionary push-back from those who weren't keen on such criticism. That all seemed to boil-over into this rage against a few people that included harassment and threats from people who were just concerned with "ethics in gaming journalism."

Again, it's ... an absurdity.
 
It's not supposed to be... it's supposed to be, according to Gamergaters, about "ethics." :chuckle:

Seriously it's a facile argument, and I think your take is probably closer to the truth as to how many people felt about games being criticized by feminists and a reactionary push-back from those who weren't keen on such criticism. That all seemed to boil-over into this rage against a few people that included harassment and threats from people who were just concerned with "ethics in gaming journalism."

Again, it's ... an absurdity.
I've heard some about gamergate and it seems like there are different storylines depending in who you ask.

Ive heard of what was Essentialy a payola crisis, but I'm not sure that was the main message
 
I played a lot of videogames in my life especially when I was really young. Wouldn't mind having spent some of that time more productively. I don't think I got much more than minor carpal tunnel in my left hand.

I do think it is weird that just because TV is of higher quality these days that it is considered consuming art. You are still consuming and not producing though. I have never felt that what you consumed was more defining than what you produce. I like TV though, I mean I had to watch something else after the cavs lost the other night to distract myself. I'd say the most TV I watch is Cavs, but I am reconsidering my unhealthy obsession with the Cavs now. Really considering dropping league pass and trying to watch national games like a normal fan. I know it isn't right to get so caught up in this. On the other hand, when is my team going to have someone like Lebron again? It is a tough call. I think that the reality of sports and the fact it is live and is happening right now makes it different than mad men.

Everyone should be asking these questions about their habits. I have truly seen everyone even older people begin to be truly addicted to the internet in the past 5 years. My parents were never interested and they are now.
I think if you have an addictive personality anything you like can be over-consumed. Also, you can actually produce in a lot of games. Games like minecraft, garys mod, doom, mario maker, you're actually a producer of content for other people to consume.
 
I've heard some about gamergate and it seems like there are different storylines depending in who you ask.

Ive heard of what was Essentialy a payola crisis, but I'm not sure that was the main message

I think you could just take a look at the facts of the matter and it'd be pretty obvious the level of outrage and the reactionary takes didn't really fit the level of the supposed scandal within "gaming journalism."
 
I think if you have an addictive personality anything you like can be over-consumed. Also, you can actually produce in a lot of games. Games like minecraft, garys mod, doom, mario maker, you're actually a producer of content for other people to consume.

I don't think the bolded is true in most cases though...

Yes you can produce consumable content, but that's rather rare - and if you're producing consumable content that you cannot profit from, by private corporations can, then there's some degree of exploitation to be addressed (see, modding community).

Now, what is more common is the production of content consumed by gamers, such as gaming related videos, articles, etc; but that's not really content produced IN a game insomuch as it's content produced about a game... and even then, if we're talking about videos -- really, that content is being paid for by companies like Google that might get out of that business in the next few years solely because of people who are abusing the platform... which speaks volumes in the context of the faux outrage behind "gamergate."
 
I don't think the bolded is true in most cases though...

Yes you can produce consumable content, but that's rather rare - and if you're producing consumable content that you cannot profit from, by private corporations can, then there's some degree of exploitation to be addressed (see, modding community).
Let's bring in @Cratylus for this. He would be a good person to ask. Valve was looking at sharing profits with modders. I heard that may come back.
 
Let's bring in @Cratylus for this. He would be a good person to ask. Valve was looking at sharing profits with modders. I heard that may come back.

Would be nice if they and other companies did. I would likely get into developing mods (both small and large-scale) if there was a shared profit structure for developers. I'd love to finance and oversee the development of say, a cheap/smallish DLC-like expansion mod for Fallout 4 (as others have done for New Vegas); but there's no way in hell I would do that just to make Bethesda some more money.
 
Let's bring in @Cratylus for this. He would be a good person to ask. Valve was looking at sharing profits with modders. I heard that may come back.
Would be nice if they and other companies did. I would likely get into developing mods (both small and large-scale) if there was a shared profit structure for developers. I'd love to finance and oversee the development of say, a cheap/smallish DLC-like expansion mod for Fallout 4 (as others have done for New Vegas); but there's no way in hell I would do that just to make Bethesda some more money.

I'm on the fence with this.

On the one hand, as a small scale modder myself, yeah it would be cool to get paid to release some of my work for others to use and enjoy. But that's not really why I mod. I do it to add what I consider improvements to the game (my game of choice is Skyrim) that are missing from the original vanilla "out of the box" version. I don't mod for the purposes of making a buck, but yeah it might be a nice incentive for me to make public the stuff I do create. I know that the Bethesda modding community is quite robust with numerous sites dedicated to nothing but modding Skyrim, FO4, etc. But for the most part, the sites I use to augment my game are free and so are all of the mods available there. I remember the fiasco that happened with Steam allowing modders to profit from their work. That lasted all of what, a few weeks?

On the other hand, I do think that if Valve or Bethesda or whoever shared some of their profits with modders, I believe it would improve both the quality and the number of mods available. Hardcore gamers like the three of us tend to see the shortcomings and flaws better than developers do for whatever reason. And there are some really, really amazing mods out there done by the modding community that add to the enjoyment of the original versions of these games. I know, for me anyway, there is no way I could go back to playing vanilla Skyrim.

I'm not sure how they would go about calculating their payouts... number of downloads?... number of "likes"?... average rating?... size of the mod? Certainly @gourimoko isn't going to spend a lot of time and resources developing a cool DLC-like mod for FO4 is the payout is peanuts.

Another concern I would have is the potential for a lot of this modding content to be controlled by Valve, Bethesda, etc. which brings in a whole host of problems.

- Are users going to have to buy these mods that otherwise would have been free?
- Who controls the copyright on the content? Will it be a case where modders have to sign away their rights to Valve in order to share in the Valve profits?
- Will the companies limit the types of content that they will reimburse (i.e. only PG-13 content, only "expansion pack" type content, minor game tweaking type content won't be eligible, etc.)?
- Will the developers and publishers use this as an excuse to shut down all free modding not under their umbrella?

I could quite easily see things like these happening, especially if Bethesda's or Valve's legal teams have anything to say about it (which they will).
 
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People are embarrassed to say they're a gamer because certain stigmas are attached to it. I don't think you should have to hide the fact that you enjoy videogames as to not be lumped in with all the stereotypes.
I'm a board gamer, it's off my chest, I feel free!
 

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