It was fundamentally started in good faith... spoiled by rotten apples and gaming journalism (lol) has gone down the toilet since. What a fabulous outcome.

Maybe you should fucking play it and your opinion on the matter might mean something.

Also... how about a link to these 'conspiracy theory nonsense posts' from Stig79. As I said before, I've never seen him posting anything 'controversial'.

As for my 'MAGA' hat, I 'wear' it to piss off idealogues who can't put politics aside and have a rational discussion with another person based on their ideas, and not preconceived notions. People like you.

Was it the good faith of Eron Gjoni, a physically and psychologically violent stalker who writes 10,000 word hate manifestos and would not miss a chance to pour fuel into the fire that literally threatened the life of his former girlfriend? Was it the good faith of then up-and-coming Breitbart "journalist" Milo Yiannopoulos and his budding ghost writer Allum Bokhari, who literally made a career out of painting 150 mostly non-journalists and freelancers as some kind of Bilderberger "journalist elite" that supposedly made binding decisions for the entire rest? Were a bunch of purposefully mislabeled and purposefully misinterpreted articles that didn't all come out on the same day and didn't all say the same thing debated "in good faith"? From these rotten roots, as you yourself have understood, a tree grew that was anything but healthy. The whole fiasco that screwed our game culture, yours and mine, was nothing but a test scenario for the dishonest communicative internet weaponry that eventually handed the Mercers and their puffy puppet the US presidency. It's why the KiA subreddit of today is a carbon copy of /r/The_Donald/ interspersed with an occasional bit of gaming news.

Yeah, "Stig makes a thread" is a running gag. Recently he was pitching e.g. Ian Miles Cheong articles just to see how much he can raise the outrage level, gamergate-style, of the people who refused to do any research themselves. I'll find them for ya after GOG has introduced a sensible search engine. They shouldn't do that right now of course because it would facilitate systematic downvoting, first they would have to abandon the downvotes.

Oh, I see. So it's like KingBradley's identarian movement avatar or ciomalau's crossed out rainbow flag! How novel, thought provoking, ideologically sound and highly intelligent of you.

Unfortunately, when you're debating art like video games or any other kind of narrative, you're always, always, debating politics. "Putting politics aside" is literally nonsense. Or to quote Orwell, "No book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude."

Of course, if you prefer games that do not challenge your political preconceptions, but at all times affirm them, you could arrive at the false conclusion that those games are "not political". But that's not the case. Games that e.g. do not diversify their writing make a political statement in the same way as games that do, just one for the status quo.

Those who reject ideology or "ideologues", of course, are not themselves without forms of ideology, nor are they not ideologues themselves. They're just without ethics.

I'd say it was in good faith to tackle slimy journalists who all banded together to take on gaming culture. We're talking about 'reporters' that drape their web pages in advertisements for games, FEATURE JOURNALISTS IN THE GAMES and then rate the games 9-10 while the gaming public gives the game a 5-6.

I do find it humerous you brought up conspiracy theories earlier.

Except I'd agree with anyone criticizing the idea of putting that video up.

And how intelligent of you to go into a frothing rage at the sight of it.

Except you aren't. You only see through that lens when you are a flaming idealogue.

You are comparing apples and automatic transmissions. These are two VERY different mediums of entertainment. Though I'd love to hear your take on the politics of Pong.

I prefer ones that either aren't political as I play games for SKILL challenge or, if they do include politics I'd prefer it if they weren't RADICAL LEFT OR RIGHT.

Or they could just be focusing on the gameplay.

You're a radical. Your views reflect it, your rantings reflect it, and your interpretations reflect it.

Actually, that crossed out rainbow flag was first used by KingBradley; ciomalau adopted that avatar later.

(I should know; my current avatar is, in part, a response to that avatar.)

Edit: Why is amok's post in this thread (at the top of this page, using default settings) "low rated"? It makes no sense to me why people would have a problem with *that* post, of all the posts in this thread.

I'll bite here.

Pong is, at its core, a 2-player competitive game (though it does include the option to play against the computer). As a result, it pits one player against the other, and encourages competitiveness.

This is, in contrast, to a 2-player cooperative game, where the players have to work together to achieve a goal; said a game would encourage friendship and cooperation.

This is also, in contrast, to a single player game like solitaire, in which you aren't competing against anyone, but are rather trying to be the best you can be.

As one can see, even a simple game like Pong can be said to have some politics here.

Ah yes, another regressive leftist who sees politics in everything.

And I'm not just saying that based on this post. The only poster I've seen more regressive on these forums besides Vainamoinen. Open borders loon.

It was in bad faith to tackle journalists who made an attempt to document the cultural suicide, but of course the cultural suicide came earlier than the reports of the journalists. Naturally the strike against the free press had repercussions that reverberate today. More monopolies, less independence, thanks to gamergate. The landscape in gaming journalism is horrifying today. Journalists deal with so much hate, mostly unjustified. It's a shit job in a toxic culture with horribly entitled readers that pays shit. Meanwhile actual corruption especially among actual opinion makers i.e. youtube streamers runs rampant - gamergate never gave a shit about them. Gamergate goons will reap what they sowed, with Trump's video game summit, they already did. You just wish that so many good people in the industry had not been affected, you just wish actual corruption had been addressed, but of course gamergate never followed the flow of money, which actually does find you corruption quite reliably. It was always about that mystical enemy figure, the "SJW", who did this or that or whatever and is communist and shit.

Reminder, I didn't label you. You did that yourself, to make a statement.

Games are drawing on the time honored principles of both fiction writing and cinematography. They are in fact an amalgamation of these two. To not understand this means to not understand video games.

First of all, I was talking about narrative games like, this example will probably hit you as excessively far-fetched, Baldur's Gate Siege of Dragonspear.

Second, there's nothing wrong with playing a game for skill.

And third, to reiterate, a game that is "radically right" likely doesn't challenge your preconceptions. That's what "conservative" means. You're not being bothered by what you see, you've declared it the norm, especially if you're a heterosexual white man. You probably don't even have an idea of what a 'radically conservative' game narrative would look like.

I'll tell you what it looks like: Like every other game.

Or to get back to the narrative perspective, do take a look at what kind of narrative the "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies" were demanding from the Hugo Awards. THAT is radically right. And honestly, I have nothing against these stories mostly, not at all. Love me a good Conan, of course I do, I've been raised on that stuff. But that's the crux with analysing your media critically. You can love it and still see the problems.

If all it takes is some trolls and assholes for 'cultural suicide' then it isn't a strong culture. Except the culture is fine. It was a concerted assault from leftist idealogues.

That had started long before. 'Journalism' has been a joke for a long time, the 'gaming press' was just the first to show their true colors.

Hey we agree on something.

Oh wait, no we don't.

Blame journalism on that. When the public can no longer JUSTIFIABLY trust the media they turn to alternative sources looking for any sort of integrity in desert of corruption and bias.

I'm sure some of them didn't. Leeches attach themselves to any kind of movement.

I hope justice comes to all that deserve it. Those of your idealogy should be fearful of that though in particular.

Ok, maybe we CAN agree on one good thing. Though our definitions of 'good people' will probably differ.

Except that isn't some 'mystical' conspiracy theory. Extreme left ideologies have been cropping up in popular media and twisting it to fit their narratives. People who think like you.

And the reaction to the label is telling. Do you think I get into some frothy rage if I find out someone voted for Hillary?

You're speaking of modern gaming where it has been hijacked by 'casual gaming' more about the 'experience' than the challege of beating the game. Of testing your skill and/or wits.

Of course you were.

If you boil Baldur's Gate down only to it's narrative then you are missing the point of Baldur's Gate... HEY... JUST LIKE THE SHITTY DEVS! In sought to focus on a badly written narrative instead of focusing on OTHER elements, IMPORTANT elements of a western RPG, like GAMEPLAY and PACING and PLAYER AGENCY.

Hey that's TWO things we can agree on.

So you don't think the alt-right doesn't challenge preconceptions? I'd say they do... in a bad way... but they definitely do.

You think that 'conservative' means 'radically right'? Well... that explains a lot.

Bothered by what specifically?

Declared WHAT the norm?

Here comes that neo-Marxist racism.

Yes from a radical leftist perspective I'm sure anything right of Marx looks like 'radical conservatism'.

I have NO idea what you're talking about.

Or you can enjoy it for the gameplay.

Which brings us back to part of the reason 'gamers' hate 'SJW' content. Neo-Marxists are anti-challenge. They prefer to see games as political platforms opposed to what 'games' should be... a challenge to the player.

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/50420/my-thoughts-on-mizhena-as-a-transgender-person-myself/p3

Yup. Transgendered people complained.

I never saw Gamergate involved with any of this when it happened. Not even a word from them about the Gamergate comment that was added in the game itself. Never been a member of Gamergate and I never will. Not my cup of tea.

I am more concerned about these people, to be honest. The male feminists that were so loud when they bashed Gamergate some years back. Uncomfortable facts?

https://twitter.com/i/moments/851713200537993216