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xraytango, Sony removed criticisms of the Ghostbusters trailer in the YT comments section but left up misogynist and racist remarks. The idea is to change the narrative from being about the quality of the product to being about the moral repugnance of (a fraction) of its detractors. Deflection.

I think there are perfectly legitimate concerns about these kinds of tactics polarizing and undermining tabletop gaming.

 Manchu wrote:
Extortion generally works best on individual targets as opposed to a broad section of society. KS didn't want to deal with being called a supporter of "rape culture." But Sony's Ghostbusters remake was a financial loss despite Sony's attempt to brand people who didn't like it as womenhating racists. When it comes to the tabletop game industry, as opposed to perhaps the video game industry, I expect extortion tactics will be more successful because the pressure points are so much more vulnerable.

One of the key differences would be that tabletop gaming is a very social experience. Video gaming? Eh, I can buy a video game. I can make any number of accounts online. I can't really do much with tabletop gaming without driving a significant distance- and even then, maybe not. Smearing someone as a 'bigot' can follow you. It can stick, regardless of whether or not it's a legitimate complaint. It can start little witch-hunts in communities for people like you. It can hurt the place you play. It can invite unwanted drama.

Reputation in tabletop gaming is kind of important.

xraytango wrote:
when JJ Abrams calls everyone that disliked TLJ a "sexist"

He didn't. The quote was taken out of context, and was referring to a specific sort of criticism which was in fact sexist.

@adeptus doritos: Very true, as we saw recently with Origins and Larry Correia.

 Manchu wrote:
@adeptus doritos: Very true, as we saw recently with Origins and Larry Correia.

Shoot me a link to that so I can look it over while I'm having coffee in the morning. I don't want to comment on it without reading it.

 Manchu wrote:
When it comes to the tabletop game industry, as opposed to perhaps the video game industry, I expect extortion tactics will be more successful because the pressure points are so much more vulnerable.

IMO it's the exact opposite. Aside from the question of whether "extortion" is the right label (IMO it isn't) the tabletop gaming industry is less vulnerable. Video games, at least of the mass-market sort, have a massive barrier to entry. You have to sink a ton of money into developing the game, and then you have to get the critical mass of players required for it to work. And you have to keep doing it, the lifespan of a game is measured in single-digit years at best and you'd better have the next version of it ready ASAP. With tabletop gaming the barriers to entry are lower. You don't need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on development, you don't need to find as many players, and you don't need to keep up with the relentless cycle of putting out new editions that are each a complete re-do of the previous edition. The industry is a lot friendlier to small publishers and a lot less dependent on a small number of large publishers accepting a project. Really, all you have to do to break the relevance of controlling authorities is to acknowledge that Kickstarter as a publishing method is using a tool for a job it wasn't meant to do and shift to a model of each publisher running their own pre-order system.


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 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Shoot me a link to that so I can look it over while I'm having coffee in the morning. I don't want to comment on it without reading it.

http://monsterhunternation.com/

TL;DR: Origins mishandled the situation badly and accused Larry Correia (a generic US conservative) of being just short of a Nazi in an attempt to salvage their own reputation. He clearly doesn't have a right to be an invited guest, but we as potential customers of the convention don't have to endorse their behavior.

Agreed, Manchu.

I would posit that the racist/sexist/misogynistic remarks are actually the minority rather than the rule, and certainly not the bugbear that they are made out to be. Reprehensible, certainly, but not as indicative as these reformers would hold it out to be.

There are many commentators who are women and non-whites, who have spoken out about the shortcomings of the current creative choices of comicbook writers and filmmakers.

Good point that tabletop has lower barriers to entry. I could develop a little game and try to sell it myself. But how would I deal with someone misconstruing my game, even while admitting to no substantial knowledge of it, so that the vendors I need to help fund it don't shut me down? That's the extreme case of the pressure point I'm talking about. Aside from Hasbro, the major players in tabletop are pretty small and pretty vulnerable to optical extortion tactics. When FFG bought Legend of the Five Rings from AEG the lomgstanding custom of doing a banzai chant at the tournamnet carried over until one Chinese nationalist complained via social media that this somehow affirmed Japanese war crimes. His opinion was magnified by a review site and FFG instantly chucked the banzai chant. Just as an example of vulnerability of even one of the big(ger) players.

xraytango wrote:
Agreed, Manchu.

I would posit that the racist/sexist/misogynistic remarks are actually the minority rather than the rule, and certainly not the bugbear that they are made out to be. Reprehensible, certainly, but not as indicative as these reformers would hold it out to be.

There are many commentators who are women and non-whites, who have spoken out about the shortcomings of the current creative choices of comicbook writers and filmmakers.

There's an element of the internet- the trolls- who just say things for shock value. I'm not doing that to deliberately insult your intelligence, but I'll show an example attachment-

In the attachment, this is someone attacking people who were criticizing a former Bioware employee that was making jokes about the death of Totalbiscuit (the employee was removed).

But there's people online that just... do this. And you can't use this as a means to poison the well. And it'll never go away, either.

Interesting, I had never heard about that death threat. But TBH the immediate impact of GamerGate on me was ceasing to follow all "game journalism."

 Peregrine wrote:

xraytango wrote:
when JJ Abrams calls everyone that disliked TLJ a "sexist"

He didn't. The quote was taken out of context, and was referring to a specific sort of criticism which was in fact sexist.

Okayyy, whatever, I've read the quote and I've seen the context, as well as the additional anti-criticism criticism in which writers double down on name calling and attempts at shaming that he emboldened with that statement.

Not to mention the remarks from KK and RJ, that if they weren't directed at a certain part of the population would be decried as sexist and racist. But you don't see that stuff do you.

I want to be able to criticize the issues in a game (while praising the good things as well) without being told that I am a bigot because of the identity of a designer. I want designers and artists to be able to exercise their free speech, even if I don't like it. They shouldn't have to worry about 'offense'. The free market will evaluate their efforts.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

xraytango wrote:
Agreed, Manchu.

I would posit that the racist/sexist/misogynistic remarks are actually the minority rather than the rule, and certainly not the bugbear that they are made out to be. Reprehensible, certainly, but not as indicative as these reformers would hold it out to be.

There are many commentators who are women and non-whites, who have spoken out about the shortcomings of the current creative choices of comicbook writers and filmmakers.

There's an element of the internet- the trolls- who just say things for shock value. I'm not doing that to deliberately insult your intelligence, but I'll show an example attachment-

In the attachment, this is someone attacking people who were criticizing a former Bioware employee that was making jokes about the death of Totalbiscuit (the employee was removed).

But there's people online that just... do this. And you can't use this as a means to poison the well. And it'll never go away, either.

I was going to talk about trolls as well there, however I am of the mind that by now we should know that they exist and say horrible things.
Internet death threats are largely a tempest in a teacup. If someone really wanted to get to you they wouldn't tell you aboiut it. The more they squawk, the more time you have to load a couple of magazines. It's the quiet ones you need to worry about.

Intelligence not insulted Adeptus, you're just fine.

 Manchu wrote:
Interesting, I had never heard about that death threat. But TBH the immediate impact of GamerGate on me was ceasing to follow all "game journalism."

Nah, dude- that was just something I pulled from a random comments section yesterday. In an article talking about the employee that was fired over ridiculing Totalbiscuit's death.

The thing about all these 'rape and death threats'- I've no doubt they happen. A lot. I mean... play a FPS on XBox. Some little 13 year old squeaker will hurl horrible things. I've seen kids saying some pretty nasty stuff online. Also, there's people in countries where they have internet and there's absolutely no repercussions for online sexual harassment and even death threats. I mean, who hasn't had their girl get the "hi dear show bobs and open cloth" from some guy in New Dehli? It happens.

But parts of the conversation are ignored, and this stuff is spotlighted as the 'other side'.

We get lectured constantly that feminism isn't the man-hating lunatics, but the same courtesy is not offered in return.

Everyone has an idiot cousin.


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xraytango wrote:
Okayyy, whatever, I've read the quote and I've seen the context, as well as the additional anti-criticism criticism in which writers double down on name calling and attempts at shaming that he emboldened with that statement.

Arguing with Peregrine is like...

...actually, I can't think of anything that's quite as counter-productive. Just rest assured, he really isn't worth engaging. Trust me. Join countless others and smash that little button in the bottom right hand corner of his replies, and you'll get a lot better experience on Dakka. I just did and it's great.

Are you referring to this quote from JJ Abrams: “Star Wars is a big galaxy, and you can sort of find almost anything you want to in Star Wars. If you are someone who feels threatened by women and needs to lash out against them, you can probably find an enemy in Star Wars,” Abrams said. “You can probably look at the first movie that George [Lucas] did and say that Leia was too outspoken, or she was too tough. Anyone who wants to find a problem with anything can find the problem. The internet seems to be made for that.”

I don't see where you are getting "He's saying everyone who disliked TLJ is Sexist". It seems to me that he's saying "Sexist Trolls had a problem with Star wars". You've already dismissed said trolls as existing (thus making his comment true) but irrelevant.

I hate to say it but it sounds to me like you're getting Triggered. Chill. Since you're not a sexist troll, he's not talking about you. He's not code wording or dog whistling you. He's just stating some truth about the internet. You want people to not assume you're sexist if you didn't like X female character - fair enough, but how about extending some assumption of good intentions to the "other side" as well?

I didn't like TLJ all that much, but it was better than The force Awakens, which was the worst star wars movie of all time (including the ewok Christmas special). Just gotta throw that in there. Oh, and I liked Jar Jar.

 kestral wrote:
"Sexist Trolls had a problem with Star wars".

Yeah, again, Context. Seems like he didn't address the rest of the criticism.

But hey, the fans are just 'wrong'. That's why this September...

...oh...

Hahahaha.... I hope it's true.

 Manchu wrote:
Good point that tabletop has lower barriers to entry. I could develop a little game and try to sell it myself. But how would I deal with someone misconstruing my game, even while admitting to no substantial knowledge of it, so that the vendors I need to help fund it don't shut me down? That's the extreme case of the pressure point I'm talking about. Aside from Hasbro, the major players in tabletop are pretty small and pretty vulnerable to optical extortion tactics. When FFG bought Legend of the Five Rings from AEG the lomgstanding custom of doing a banzai chant at the tournamnet carried over until one Chinese nationalist complained via social media that this somehow affirmed Japanese war crimes. His opinion was magnified by a review site and FFG instantly chucked the banzai chant. Just as an example of vulnerability of even one of the big(ger) players.

But how does this vulnerability translate into real-world consequences? If FFG had said " you, that's not what it means, we're keeping the tradition" where does it go next? Stores aren't going to stop carrying FFG products because they want to stay in business (and game stores are owned by a diverse range of individuals anyway, there is no central store authority to make such a decision), the Chinese companies that FFG uses to print their inventory aren't going to give a about some controversy in the US involving people who don't even know who the Chinese companies are, and the people who like FFG games are going to continue buying. FFG would be free to continue with business as usual if they wanted to do so. FFG made the decision to act on the criticism, but they were not forced to.

And besides that, what would you suggest as a solution? Are we supposed to ban criticism of game companies? Is it "extortion" to point out that AoS is a trash game and encourage people not to buy it? Because it sure seems like the only way to preserve "free speech" by game publishers is to limit the speech of game critics.


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 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Yeah, again, Context. Seems like he didn't address the rest of the criticism.

Why would he? The interviewer specifically asked a question about the sexist trolls, not criticism in general. You might as well complain that he didn't include a listing of what he had for breakfast that morning.


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 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Join countless others and smash that little button in the bottom right hand corner of his replies, and you'll get a lot better experience on Dakka. I just did and it's great.

And yet you keep responding. No doubt your supposed use of the ignore feature will last just long enough for people to forget about your dramatic exit, until you tell us all again about how you're done interacting with me and then promptly post another reply.

But feel free to actually use the ignore button this time and prove me wrong. I'd love to be able to point out all the ways in which you're wrong without having to deal with your absurd lying and false accusations directed at me.

RE "endorsing" the decisions of the companies that put on conventions:

I don't think attendees buy or don't buy badges to show support or disapproval of the company's political decisions. They want to see and buy and play games.

Let's say this upcoming GenCon continues the trend of year-over-year attendance improvement. We can't conclude that sponsors and attendees thereby approved of the decision host Ms. Sarkeesian as a Guest of Honor. People will have come for the games, per usual. Ms. Sarkeesian's role is tangential as far as these tens of thousands of people are concerned, to the extent they are even aware of it. There is an overriding, preexisting agenda of buying and selling and playing tabletop games.

GenCon is not going to get more people through the turnstyles with Ms. Sarkeesian. But they will preempt the accusation that GenCon somehow supports rape culture or misogyny or whatever, which is a real concern for this business at a certain level. Best result is, they earn this bragging credential and Ms. Sarkeesian can attend or not attend as a regular customer in future. Worst result is, Ms. Sarkeesian senses a career opportunity in deconstructing the tabletop industry and another (admittedly less interesting because lower financial stakes) GamerGate breaks out.

 Manchu wrote:

GenCon is not going to get more people through the turnstyles with Ms. Sarkeesian. But they will preempt the accusation that GenCon somehow supports rape culture or misogyny or whatever, which is a real concern for this business at a certain level. Best result is, they earn this bragging credential and Ms. Sarkeesian can attend or not attend as a regular customer in future. Worst result is, Ms. Sarkeesian senses a career opportunity in deconstructing the tabletop industry and another (admittedly less interesting because lower financial stakes) GamerGate breaks out.

Eh, if putting a washed-up huckster at a panel is what it takes to tone down some of the madness and stories out of Gen*Con, then so be it. I think the best we can hope for at this point is that she won't verbally abuse audience members she recognizes or other panel members. It seems to me, based on everything I've seen her do live, she can't really go off script without acting like a lunatic.

Also, posted for chuckles:

Actually Kestrel, I think that I acknowledge the existence of Internet trolls, I just don't think they should be given as much importance as some persons ascribe them.

I don't agree that AoS is a trash game but I think people who say that around here are most likely referencing game design choices they don't like (so giving them the benefit of the doubt really) as opposed to dreaming up some metanarrative about how Stormcast tacitly justify rape culture. Not that there aren't people who have tried to foist such absurdities on GW products.

 Manchu wrote:
I don't agree that AoS is a trash game but I think people who say that around here are most likely referencing game design choices they don't like (so giving them the benefit of the doubt really) as opposed to dreaming up some metanarrative about how Stormcast tacitly justify rape culture. Not that there aren't people who have tried to foist such absurdities on GW products.

Nah, unless you're talking about the Fimir... then, you might have a point. But I suppose even in that old lore- 'monsters are bad and do bad things', but even I was slightly unnerved by that little tidbit.

 Peregrine wrote:
TL;DR: Origins mishandled the situation badly and accused Larry Correia (a generic US conservative) of being just short of a Nazi in an attempt to salvage their own reputation. He clearly doesn't have a right to be an invited guest, but we as potential customers of the convention don't have to endorse their behavior.

Fun fact: Correia is a big gamer. He's posted his painted Infinity collection on the official forums a while back (very nice) and wrote books and short stories for Warmachine. Unlike Sarkeesian, this is a dude that belongs at a gaming convention.

Edit: Just saw this part in his blog, "play some games, buy some minis (seriously, I spent $1,000 before lunch the first day of GenCon last time)," - I think I need to become a writer... again.

 Sqorgar wrote:
Fun fact: Correia is a big gamer. He's posted his painted Infinity collection on the official forums a while back (very nice) and wrote books and short stories for Warmachine. Unlike Sarkeesian, this is a dude that belongs at a gaming convention.

More relevantly, he's also someone with a long history of being an invited guest at conventions and not causing any trouble. So the supposed "we don't hate you, we just worry about your presence being disruptive" excuse they made is a pretty blatant lie and attempt to weasel out of a PR debacle.


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 Manchu wrote:
I don't agree that AoS is a trash game but I think people who say that around here are most likely referencing game design choices they don't like (so giving them the benefit of the doubt really) as opposed to dreaming up some metanarrative about how Stormcast tacitly justify rape culture. Not that there aren't people who have tried to foist such absurdities on GW products.

Well yes, of course the objections are over game mechanics and fluff choices instead of real-world issues, but that's not the point. You can't have a double standard where criticism of one set of things is ok, but criticism of another set of things isn't (and the difference seems to be entirely in how much you agree with the criticism). If it's unacceptable to criticize GW for not having enough women in AoS and encourage people not to buy AoS then it's also unacceptable to criticize GW for removing the point system from AoS and encourage people not to buy it. Either way you're "extorting" the company and expecting them to make the game that you want them to make instead of the game they already make, and expecting changes to an existing product instead of ignoring the existing product and making your own.

 Peregrine wrote:
More relevantly, he's also someone with a long history of being an invited guest at conventions and not causing any trouble. So the supposed "we don't hate you, we just worry about your presence being disruptive" excuse they made is a pretty blatant lie and attempt to weasel out of a PR debacle.

Reading through his blog, I just don't think there's any way to defend Origins' behavior here. Regardless of whatever else is in this thread, can we all agree on the fact that this, at least, is bull-ploppies?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
Fun fact: Correia is a big gamer. He's posted his painted Infinity collection on the official forums a while back (very nice) and wrote books and short stories for Warmachine. Unlike Sarkeesian, this is a dude that belongs at a gaming convention.

More relevantly, he's also someone with a long history of being an invited guest at conventions and not causing any trouble. So the supposed "we don't hate you, we just worry about your presence being disruptive" excuse they made is a pretty blatant lie and attempt to weasel out of a PR debacle.


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 Manchu wrote:
I don't agree that AoS is a trash game but I think people who say that around here are most likely referencing game design choices they don't like (so giving them the benefit of the doubt really) as opposed to dreaming up some metanarrative about how Stormcast tacitly justify rape culture. Not that there aren't people who have tried to foist such absurdities on GW products.

xraytango wrote:
There is no such thing as "rape culture". Literally, there is no one saying that rape is a good thing and advocating it.

The thing you describe in sentence one, and the thing you describe in sentence two are not the same thing. I also would agree that rape culture doesn't exist if we invent a definition for it in which it means something else.

xraytango wrote:
There is no such thing as "rape culture". Literally, there is no one saying that rape is a good thing and advocating it.

But that's not what "rape culture" means. Few people outside of the lunatic fringe are advocating rape, but a lot of people are making excuses for it. Look at how short her skirt was, boys will be boys, what did she expect coming up to his hotel room, it was just a miscommunication, etc. We expect the potential victims to be constantly paranoid about rape (don't go out alone, always watch your drinks, etc), and immediately jump to questioning all of their choices. And that's the best-case scenario, when they aren't just accusing rape victims of lying (despite evidence that false accusations are very rare). The end result is dismissing the severity of rape, looking for anyone to blame except the rapist.

xraytango wrote:
There is no such thing as "rape culture". Literally, there is no one saying that rape is a good thing and advocating it.

Well, I'd argue that there is, but it is relegated to places like India, places in Africa and the Middle East. Applying the concept to a country that actually has written consent forms that adults are expected to fill out prior to copulation feels a bit misguided though.

 Ouze wrote:
The thing you describe in sentence one, and the thing you describe in sentence two are not the same thing. I also would agree that rape culture doesn't exist if we invent a definition for it in which it means something else.

Oh, then we really need to revisit some of the definitions that get thrown around these days, then. You sure you wanna do this?

The irony is: There is no rape culture in the US. It's not a tolerated crime. As a matter of fact, we used to execute rapists.

Weasling out of a PR debacle is exactly right.

RE: FFG/Asmodee NA and L5R

This is a general problem but I think tabletop game publishers are particularly vulnerable: Products are not received by traditional critics but rather social media influencers who have large followings because people, for whatever reason, like them.

The context for L5R is, FFG purchased the IP from AEG as part of a strategy to pivot away from relying on licensed properties. L5R has a significant built-in following, which is both good and bad. FFG decided to relaunch its own L5R product lines rather than acrry on AEG's efforts. So the built-in customer base was wary. Meanwhile, the idea is to sell not only to existing customers but as many people as possible. So now they have a tension between attracting new players and alienating existing ones. This is a very fragile state.

Shut Up & Sit Down reviewed the new L5R LCG to the effect of 'clever game but too boring to finish.' Not great. But the reviewer then went off-book completely to talk about cultural appropriation and sensitivity, including a very crude (in fact, self admittedly crude) discussion of the banzai chant because the reviewer had heard of this one guy's opinion and now was acting as an unwitting megaphone for that guy's racist/nationalist hatred of the Japanese, having confused racist/nationalist hatred for maybe something about diversity or sensitivity or something.

So into this fragile time and in the context of a backhanded review we blunderinly inject a potential narrative explosion via an influenced with a relatuvely huge following. No one put a gun to Christian Petersen's head but the situation was clearly, this is not a hill we should die on. Esepcially since the hill was a molehill that could easily become a mountain.

We live in an age where people and especially companies want to be "in control" of the conversation about themeslves and their products. They are often willing to cave sooner rather than later.

 Peregrine wrote:
The end result is dismissing the severity of rape, looking for anyone to blame except the rapist.

Heck, right now, there's some people in Europe who are desperately being prevented from blaming the rapists.