How NOT To Run Your Games Education Programs

So back when people started attacking me for having been really critical of The Fine Young Capitalists earlier this year, there was one thing I couldn’t quite defend because I didn’t remember well enough - their policy on trans women. It was one afternoon almost a year ago and unfortunately people being awful to trans women is far from uncommon so I didn’t remember the exact wording well enough to discuss it much, and when trying to find the original policy I came up emptyhanded as it appeared that they had silently changed it. I didn’t want to say something false and have it end up in yet another conspiracy jpg, so since I didn’t have some solid evidence to back it up and a half-memory of an issue I had with a policy almost a year ago, I stayed silent on that point.

 

Helpfully, Matthew Rappard, the public face of TFYC, popped up on reddit to say exactly what it was as well as threaten to to *sue* me.  This comes at a time where the struggles marginalized people face in the industry is more visible than ever, and a lot of people have been asking what they can do. So I figured after getting all of my documentation together for my lawyer in case they make good on their threats to try and silence me, I realized now is a better time than any to clarify what the hell exactly happened here since I still see a ton of misinformation being perpetuated by even well-meaning people as well as use it as a case study of what not to do if you want to help. Let’s address the situation point by point, and let me clear the air in terms of why I have the problems with their organization that I do, and use it to discuss how to properly execute programs to get more people involved in the games industry (or what NOT to do as the case may be).

 

1. Zoe Quinn called TFYC transphobic for no reason at all!

 

Here is Matthew (SillySladar) clarifying what the original policy was on a reddit thread (where these comments have since been deleted) about if their policy had changed or not, and the conversation that resulted for full transparency.

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(Sorry for the anger, it’s been months of being pushed around by these people)

 

To hone in on my first point, the original wording was:

“Is the contest open to transgendered individuals that identify as female?

Yes, as long as they transitioned before the start of the contest.”

 

The original wording of “Must have transitioned” can mean a ton of things. It means a lot of things to a lot of people, and the wording of the policy, as myself and a number of other people read it, seemed to be keen on policing it - self-identification sounds like it is simply not enough. If it was enough, a simple “yes” would have sufficed and there would be no reason at all to word things this way. If that is not what TFYC meant, they could have been explicit and apologized to the people they’d stressed out. This is clearly not their stance, as is demonstrated in this reddit thread where other people told them unilaterally that they were fucking it up, and Matthew had a policy of doubling down instead of listening:

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(source: https://archive.today/UQs7c - He goes on and on like this for the entirety of the thread. Note that this was months before he decided to dogpile on me.)

 

He also likes to obfuscate that the policy had ever been different to make the criticism seem unwarranted and the fault of the women who had criticized it, instead of owning up to the fact that they had fucked up and miscommunicated and changed the policy.

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(source here: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/95518563725/theres-been-accusations-that-you-have-a-trans and archived here: https://archive.today/B5YPX)

 

This attitude is a crucial misstep to discuss. If you’re looking to run a program designed to reach out to marginalized people and you’re not part of that group, lesson 1 is to listen to people from that group. It doesn’t matter how right *you* think you are in terms of addressing them. It doesn’t matter if you have all the good intentions in the world, and I know it can suck super bad to be told you’re screwing up when you’re coming from a good place. I screw up too and it always bums me out. But the fact is no one springs forth from a deity’s head a perfect activist or a perfect whateverist - you get better at this stuff by listening to other people and making room for them. I have no doubt that Matthew thinks he’s helping - but you fuck up when you tell the people you’re trying to help how to feel about your fuck ups instead of listening to them honestly and questioning your judgement. Think about why people are reacting this way and recognize that someone who has to live day in day out as part of a specific group is an expert on the experience in a way that you can never be. Realize that for you, being criticized for this is a relatively small part of your human experience, whereas having to deal with most of the world having misconceptions (sometimes with deadly consequences) about your very existence is a significant part of theirs.

 

It’s weird to get used to at first because I feel like we’re all under a societal pressure to be right all the time and no one wants to think of themselves as someone who hurt someone else, but owning that you said something thoughtless or misguided and apologizing and correcting is a skill. I’ve been working on that more and more - years ago I got frustrated with someone for getting mad at me for saying “dude” like a general untargeted exclamation in a conversation with her online. She had turned out to be a trans woman and told me that she was annoyed that I had misgendered her (there was no indication of her gender on her profile) and I did the douchebag thing of doubling down and saying BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT. It had already been kind of a hostile discussion but my reaction made it far worse and I felt like a total ass for it later. Two months ago, I had said “transwoman” on twitter in regards to something and a few trans women reached out and told me that not putting a space in felt kind of dehumanizing to them, which was something I hadn’t heard before. They told me adding the space meant that “trans” was used as an adjective, not a noun like the spaceless “transwoman” that made it kind of othering, like they were a different species. Instead of defending my fuck up, I said “oh shit sorry, my bad, thank you for letting me know” and instead of a bitter fight the ladies who told me what was up were surprised I listened (which is super shitty when that’s surprising and not the norm but I digress), thanked me for giving a crap and letting them be heard, and I didn’t feel so shitty about it anymore and worked to make it a learned lesson going forward.

 

When it comes to specifically women in games programs and you’re not sure how to “keep out men pretending to be women”, chill the fuck out. It’s highly unlikely that this will happen in the first place (I’m saying this as someone who has run multiple WIG programs and never had it come up), and if you start trying to make people “prove” they’re women you’re gonna punch down on people already incredibly punched down on by society. Don’t try to police people’s “trans-ness”. Would you rather err on the side of a mean spirited gross dude trying to infiltrate your organization getting in and looking like an asshole, or would you err on the side of excluding and stressing out someone who is already stressed out about their transition and has to worry about things like getting killed for not “passing” just for going to the bathroom? Who’s side do you want to be on here? If you’re making policies around such an edge case as a hypothetical sleezy dude but not more likely edge cases like someone using open source resources without proper credit given or something, then *maybe* you need to look at yourself and ask if you’re being transphobic for being overly concerned about people trying to trick you about their gender. Mrs Doubtfire is not a fucking documentary.

 

I have no doubt that I’m far from perfect when it comes to shit like this, but I think listening and trusting other people’s preferences for how to be talked to and how to be addressed is a key component for making real progress on welcoming marginalized voices into places that are traditionally hostile to them. When you think about it from what you’re trying to accomplish  (making spaces better for marginalized people) versus what you’re doing (justifying your actions) it makes more sense to chill out a little bit and do a lot more listening.

 

If you can, try and make sure you have someone who is willing to talk to you about this sort of thing involved with your project, and even better, pay them for their time if possible.

 

2. Zoe Quinn Doxed TFYC!

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This literally never happened, and he knew it. I have emails of him admitting he knew I never doxed him. Here they are: http://imgur.com/a/KEtcp?gallery with the relevant part screenshotted here:

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This is the supposed “dox”: people asking who runs a company that seems to have appeared out of nowhere with little to no credentials attached and trying to figure out who these people are:

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(note: notice that none of those people are me but that’s a whole other discussion).

 

The image has since been deleted, but it was a public post by Matthew on how he needed to find a “smarter sounding woman” for the videos for the company. It only included his name, and was publicly attached to TFYC. In fact it was the only person anyone could figure out was involved with the project. Even Matthew doesn’t believe sending out public social media information is doxing.

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But that doesn’t stop him from libeling me anyway:


We asked for a phone call. Zoe wanted us to deny that she had doxxed us, we said we wouldn’t lie but would make a statement.”

 

“On the Aug 27, Zoe contacted us via email asking why TFYC said she doxxed us. We explained that she had retweeted Maya’s doxxing information. Zoe explained that Maya was not associated with her (A point which goes against Maya’s webpage and the Twitter conversation) and attempted to manipulate the situation and blame it on Maya.”

(source: http://www.donotlink.com/bkgz note: this was after I had ignored their multiple emails about them wanting to be involved with Rebel Jam, which is nothing I had offered or talked with them about. Again, the full emails are here: http://imgur.com/a/KEtcp?gallery)

 

There are a few things that need to be addressed here but I’ll get to them all. Really quickly though, I don’t have any employees. Talking on twitter is not a legally binding employee agreement or anything other than *talking on twitter*. I am a sole proprietor. I had a friend (not Maya) helping me out with some email sorting for a month or two, but that’s it. You’ll also notice that I am not among the users who had retweeted the supposed “dox”. But all of this is completely irrelevant because *Maya didn’t do anything wrong either*.

 

Who is running a whatever-in-games initiative is important for several reasons, especially if you’re the intended audience. It’s good to know if the people you’re dealing with are a member of the intended marginalized group they’re targeting too or not. You need to know who you’re talking to, if they understand what challenges you face first-hand and if not, if they are being advised by anyone. It’s good to know if they are a game developer, academic, activist, or something entirely different. An initiative run by people who have prior experience running programs like what they’re currently offering will likely be very different than a total novice, and if you’re planning an initiative it’s important to communicate these things to your potential participants and supporters.

 

Doxing is done with the intent of harming and intimidating someone, and done as part of a threat - to communicate “I know where you are and am coming to get you”. Posting ONLY the name of someone who runs a company and has publicly affiliated themselves as such is not a dox, it’s important information to people who are looking at your organization. It’s one that should be publicly listed on the “about” page of your would-be program. This is why nonprofits disclose as much as they do. The reason people want to know is to contextualize your organization and it’s merits is not to threaten or intimidate you. When you decide to dip your toe into getting marginalized people into games, you have to realize that you’re specifically asking for the trust of people who have been traditionally discouraged from joining the party, sometimes to a heinous degree, and that you have to provide reasons that you’re worthy of that trust. If you’re asking for the faith that what you’re offering is different from the culture at large, you have to show that you are. Simply reaching out to a marginalized group is not enough - you have to do it well.

 

The reason people want to know this stuff is to make sure you have a decent track record of following through on the values you’re purporting. It’s important to know if you can walk the walk. So when you claim you’re “radically feminist” (especially on your horribly sourced wikipedia page) and just trying to get women into the industry, but your track record contains the following…



- Piggybacking on a harassment campaign of a female developer to advertise your project and ask for money from the people attacking her.

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(source: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/100084170915/on-feminism and archived: https://archive.today/jv5ni)

 

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(source: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/96323681805/reminder-that-v-does-not-actually-support-feminism and archived here: https://archive.today/d6Lz0)

 

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(source here: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/97065270320/do-you-have-any-concerns-about-funding-from-4chan and archived here: https://archive.today/DiS7n)

 

- Joke about the claims of a female developer sleeping her way to the top and bemoan that it’s harder for men to do so.

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(source: one of the earliest threads on attacking me, but since publicly threatening to sue me his reddit history is suddenly a lot smaller! what a shock!)

 

- Devalue the work of a female developer, falsely misrepresent her finances, claim she has made less games than she has, that her coding doesn’t count on the one you acknowledge, and her success is due to her appearance

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(source here: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/98422490495/a-response-to-social-justice-viv and archived here: https://archive.today/ikWyY since a certain someone is deleting things)

 

- Publicly thank a known harasser of women in the industry

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(source: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/98525462265/on-endings and archived here: https://archive.today/RbYNQ. Source on FartToContinue being a stalker here: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s2fjne and his site hosts mine and my family’s dox)

 

- Publicly thank men who make videos about the alleged sex lives of female game developers and attack women who make tools to report harassment on twitter with slurs.

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(source: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/98525462265/on-endings and archived here: https://archive.today/RbYNQ. source for IA’s bullshit here: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/11/20/former-gamergate-r-and-continuing-douchebag-internet-aristocrat-fights-wam-with-slurs-abuse-dumb-photoshops/)

 

- Ignore the concerns of trans women when they express concerns with your policy and talk down to them

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(source: https://archive.today/UQs7c)

 

- Leak out of context emails from one female developer to hurt another person in the industry (this is what prompted me to post the full emails)

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(source: https://archive.today/OWpvJ)

 

- Insist that the harassment campaign targeting female developers are the ones REALLY being oppressed

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(source: https://twitter.com/TFYCapitalists/status/508660103982379009 and archived here: https://archive.today/8KYIU)

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(source: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/95548937520/on-opression-and-narrative and archived here: https://archive.today/NA1qG)

 

  • Claim women in games make up their harassment (“Zoe and we were aware that Wizardchan had not raided her, and assumed it was common knowledge and posted to the thread what happened to us, expecting 10 upvotes.” source: http://www.donotlink.com/bkgz)

 

- Insist that you are entitled to the time and effort of women in the industry to fix your own shortcomings (see above reddit exchange)

 

- Threaten to sue women asking you for your credentials (see above reddit exchange)

 

- Keep company with people who hire PIs to stalk women they disagree with and encourage the doxing of “sjws”.

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(source: https://twitter.com/TFYCapitalists/status/535309840244293632 archived here: https://archive.today/QPINi)

 

- Post weird gender essentialist bullshit.

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(source: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/95606074710/what-do-you-think-is-a-better-method-of-creating archive: https://archive.today/gUf4D)

 

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(source: http://thefineyoungcapitalists.tumblr.com/post/96169860190/on-equality-and-differences archive: https://archive.today/1HxMd)

 

…then at best you have not given much of a reason to suspect that you can follow through on your stated intent of helping get more women involved in games.

 

If you are trying to get more marginalized voices in to an industry one of the WORST things you can do is actively attack the members of those industry already present. In this case, other women in games are one of the biggest support structures I have to keep me here. Other queer people in games do something similar and I likely would have ollied out a long time ago without them. I assume the same could be said for any group (please correct me if I’m wrong though).

 

Furthermore, marginalized people tend to experience online harassment in very different degrees. It is important to acknowledge and plan around that if you’re looking to do any work in that sphere, and to keep intersectionality in mind so that you can better support and understand the people you’re seeking to help. Even if you are a member of a marginalized group that you’re assisting into games, being mindful of other axises of privilege and how they impact things like online presence and harassment is important. If you’re working with women in games in particular and someone is also queer or disabled or a person of color, it’s important to keep that in mind, especially in the case of game development where the internet is our biggest option for distribution and one of the largest forums for harassing marginalized people. Avoid equating your experiences as though they are equal if they are not, and be mindful of co-opting the experience of other marginalized people.

It is not simply enough to get more marginalized people into games - you have to care about what culture you’re fostering for them once they get there.

 

3. Zoe shut down TFYC cause she had a competing game jam and wanted the attention for her own! Zoe killed a charity effort for women in gaming!

 

Even if you’re running a program designed to get anyone involved in the games industry and it’s not targeted toward marginalized people, it’s important to know how to actually do that, and to do this, you need to know how the industry works.

 

Leaving aside that TFYC is not a game jam (game jams require multiple people making games in a set period of time together), not a charity, and are paying themselves to make their contest winner’s game (source: https://pixietalksgamergate.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/tfyc-questions/), the notion of a competing game jam is ridiculous. Game jams happen constantly, and the culture around them are one of support and encouragement and jams are not in competition with each other. It’s named as such because it closely resembles jamming in a garage like a band, and to think a jam would compete with another (for what exactly?) shows that you don’t understand the culture you’re asking to be part of.

 

Unfamiliarity with the culture you’re jumping into also leads you to make patently false assertions like this and pass them onto your participants:

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(A short and horrifically incomplete list of games made by a single person: Cave Story, Gunpoint, Adriel Wallick makes one every week, Cactus has made one every week, I used to make them bi-weekly, Konjak’s work, etc etc etc)

 

This is a problem because if you, as an organizer, don’t know what you’re trying to get involved with, you’re not imparting useful expectations on your would-be developers. You need to educate yourself on the culture you’re inviting them to, and do so honestly, to be a good ambassador. Thankfully indie developers in particular are a good resource for this since many of us are organizers ourselves. If you are not currently involved in the industry but want to help people break into it, one of the best things you can do is buddy up with someone with in industry with community organization experience and have them help walk you through it. There are a lot of enthusiastic people here that love to help - consider simply tweeting at some of us politely!

 

Culture aside, you also need to know what roles exist in the industry if you want to target your program to help people break into it. “Idea person” is not a real position, it’s a joke - literally. Everyone has ideas, including people with useful skills like game design (which is not simply having ideas, it’s an actual discipline), programming, art, and so on and so forth. Most people who make games have more game ideas than they could possibly make in a lifetime. The most important part of game development is actually finishing things - people can’t play something that doesn’t exist. If your plan to help get women in the industry resembles exactly a barbie book that is widely being taken to task for being awful, you should reconsider your structure.

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Similarly, you should know how games become successful. In this case, you can tell that didn’t happen because of blaming the small amount of coverage (which was not a blackout by the way) on an indie dev somehow telling people not to cover you is a silly notion. Lots of projects and games do not get a ton of coverage for a ton of reasons. Sometimes it’s your fault - maybe your press release sucked or was in a dumb format (seriously I’ve seen people send .zip files before), maybe you didn’t target your pitches at the right journalists who write about those projects, maybe your project is too early on to be worth writing about. Sometimes it’s totally out of your control - things can influence coverage like what other games are coming out, if a major press event is happening, if a similar project is overshadowing yours, tons of stuff. It’s important to talk to who you can and research this if you want to equip your future developers for success. Even if you don’t focus on it in your program, it’s another piece of the puzzle of how to structure your program to make a lasting impact on your participants lives instead of being a short thing they do and move on from.

 

Again, the best thing you can do is talk to devs, but aside from that do some googling. See what routes to success are out there, what qualifications employers are looking for, who the movers and shakers are and look at how they got there. Properly equipping your students is key to having them stick around once your program is done, and be able to take what you’ve given them and do something cool with it.

 

This goes for people running games education programs at all levels, not just grassroots organization efforts. I’ve visited and spoken at quite a few college game dev programs now, and they almost always have a group of people with real talent and ability to follow throgh on it that end up with the program getting in their way of actually making games. I’ve seen people who can’t make games without their school claiming the IP they generate until they graduate, I’ve seen schools offer bad publishing programs that take almost all of their student’s cut, and other egregiously unhelpful things. It’s always heartbreaking to see them resigned to just graduating so they can finally do what they are good at. Getting proper feedback from your most enthusiastic and productive students can be a godsend, and please adapt your programs to make sure they’re not stifling those who are most likely to actually make games. Talk to employers and see what they’d be looking for in prospective hires. Talk to indie developers who run their own business and ask them how you could help students that potentially want to go down that route to succeed. We’re game designers for fucks sake - playtest your programs and do proper QA!

 

A poorly run program meant to get people involved with game development can sour them on it forever. It’s an intense industry to work in regardless of what your role in it is, and you’re very much racing your own burnout. Don’t screw over your students by starting them out disillusioned and frustrated. You are going to be one of the first and most formative interactions they have with something that may turn out to be a career, so you have to take that role seriously. You cannot conduct yourself like a scumbag, not just because it demoralizes your students, but because in affiliating with you, they will carry some of your reputation with them going forward. Do not make moves that would make the people you’re trying to help ashamed of their time working with you - make it something they wear with pride. Give them a good experience that makes them feel supported, understood, and encouraged to launch their development life off of, or don’t do it at all.

 

I am not remotely sorry for taking this organization to task. If they do end up taking me to court, I will happily countersue for the actual libel they’ve committed and donate their money to an actually effective women in games program, requesting that they help their contest winner make her own game if she is interested.

 

Seeking a scriptwriter for Camp’s Not Dead

Hello folks.

Here at The Quinnspiracy I find myself needing at least one other script writer for Camp’s Not Dead, an FMV game I’m working on featuring B-movie stars like Greg Sestero. It’s still early stages so I’ll cut to the chase and let you know what I’m looking for.

  • Experience in script writing
  • Experience working on small teams
  • Willingness to work on equity (sorry)
  • Record of completing projects
  • Experience in comedy
  • Love of campy b-movies, MTS3K, and FMV games like Night Trap
  • Appreciation for a variety of weird bullshit like found footage festival/everything is terrible/Tim and Eric
  • Basic understanding of game design
  • Someone who can commit to the project and spend a decent amount of time as a full member of the team

Things I am not explicitly looking for:

  • Experience in game development specifically
  • Anyone in a specific location

Responsibilities would be to basically work together with the team to draft, edit, and punch up the script for Camp’s Not Dead, which I will help with & be turning into levels and designing the game alongside. 

If you’re interested, please send an email with the following to zoe (at) beesgo (dot) biz:

  • Name, location, and contact info
  • Links to applicable works you think would show you’re a good fit
  • A little bit about yourself and why you’d like to work on this project.
  • If you would rather fight one lion sized goose or 3 goose sized lions

Thanks!

An Open Letter To People Calling For “Neutrality”

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Hi [Insert “The Truth Is Somewhere In The Middle” Advocate’s Name Here],

I am writing this letter in good faith and hoping that you can see it as such. Obviously, I can’t speak for everyone with this stance, but I want to let you know why people like me, who you deem “anti-gg”, may not be so eager to accept a chance to debate or publicly speak with you directly to defend our views. Especially if you make your request public.

You may not understand the nature and current context surrounding GamerGate, especially if you’re a late-comer, so let me get you up to speed on what you’re asking of someone before you think that we’re simply afraid of debate or being “called out on bullshit”. People who have been targeted by GamerGate (I am not going to call them “anti-gg” because that is a nonsense term created by GamerGate to falsely paint this as two equal groups when in reality it is a mob calling themselves a movement and the targets of their scorn. There is no organization or movement that runs counter to it, just individuals who condemn their actions) are under constant watch. There are bots collecting everything we say, and people who camp out watching everything we do, waiting for a slip-up or something that can be twisted and used against us. Deleting anything for reasons of phrasing or even typos has become impossible - everything is instantly archived and passed around. Beyond that, any perceived slip up or misstep can instantly become fuel for the group to go after not just us, but our families, colleagues, employers, and friends. The environment is too charged, ruthless, and toxic against those who would defend their stances to reasonably expect that you’re making a simple request when you ask for a dialog. Without fail, I have watched every critic of GamerGate end up harassed at the least, and had their families targeted and terrorized at worst. The stakes on those being asked to speak out or defend themselves are exceedingly high, and we all know it. We’ve all been watching, and we are *scared*, not just for ourselves but for the people we love.

It’s not just the environment, either. The simple fact of the matter is that GamerGate is *not* about games journalism, and even if it was, their targets are disproportionately powerless in the industry, disproportionately female or feminist, and disproportionately *not games journalists*. Their methods are centered on destroying the livelihoods, safety, voices, and mental health of who they oppose, and that’s the primary progress they’ve been able to make thusfar. And as a personal note, I’ve watched this evolve out of a specific (successful) attempt to destroy my life, knowingly given to people who wanted to do just that. Weeks before GamerGate had a name, it was purely about finding myself and those I love and hurting us - the false veneer of ethics came to retroactively justify the harassment, recruit more neutral people to the cause for the use of whitewashing the hatred, and vent pent up frustrations with the industry. None of this is reasonable. None of this is a simple matter of difference of opinion, no matter how many well-meaning people still associate with the group thinking that the destruction of the lives of GamerGate targets are somehow not a big enough deal to leave, for whatever reason.

So in this environment, when you, well-meaning person who wants to have a conversation, request that people on “the other side” defend their positions, what you’re asking them is to defend their right to exist in the industry without having it ruin their lives. When you do so publicly, you draw the attention of those obsessed with proving them worthy of this destruction, looking to take whatever is said and twist it to perpetuate an environment of fear and violence. It is impossible to actually have that conversation - I’ve tried it. Every time I’ve tried to answer specific allegations, the answers are immediately talked over and new allegations get thrown in my face until they run out of them and resort to simply calling me a whore. Most of my day is spent dealing with the extensive damage and fallout caused by GamerGate - I had to leave an industry function to go have a panic attack shortly before writing this. I’m looking at having to potentially spend years going to court dates, I have to relocate, and I have to help my partner find a new job. You have nothing to lose by asking and they risk their family’s safety by answering. Threads on 8chan and Kotaku in Action spring up around them, their twitter mentions become an untenable hellhole that would make a youtube comment thread blush, and they now have to worry about how long until they get doxed.

Think I’m being hyperbolic? Look at what happened to Phil Fish when he stood up for me. Look at what happened to Brianna Wu when she made a meme mocking GamerGate. Look at the anonymous person that had to explain to their children what to do in case they got a SWAT team called into their house.

Look at what will happen to me after I post this letter.

This is not a debate with two sides. It never will be. It makes it really hard to have a conversation about anything when it feels like one side has a gun under the table. Even if the gun isn’t yours, even though you don’t condone it, it’s there all the same. Treating it as though it were a mere matter of difference of opinion when one group has been relentlessly ruining lives and trying to cover it up, and the other is made up of people targeted by that group, treating them equally is NOT fairness. It is NOT balance. It is falsely seeking the Golden Mean for the Golden Mean’s sake, while discarding the spirit of fairness it represents by asking victims of a group attacking them for weeks or months to defend their right to live their lives without that. Even if every single false justification that GamerGate has given for their existence was true, even if I was the Machiavellian hellbeast they make me out to be, no one deserves to be GamerGate’s target. No one deserves to have their real lives ruined over video games.

Someone punching you in the face isn’t a dialog, and it’s not something you should be called upon to prove yourself undeserving of. Beyond that, you cannot reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into in the first place. I appreciate the noble intention of attempting to build a bridge, but maybe consider why some of us have been forced to live behind a moat.

  • adimlytwistingplanet asked: hey zoe. im sorry to bother you but i was wondering if you knew of any up-to-date tutorials for stencyl? After your ama I downloaded it thinking it would be cool to learn it but all the site tutorials are out-of-date and trying to install the dialogue extension just wont work. at all. I've looked at all the steps in forum answers also but they dont work. google points me back to those tutorials and in asking for help it turns out I have friends who've given up on stencyl because of these issues
  • Answer:

    Yeaaaah I kinda had that problem with Stencyl too. For me, reinstalling usually fixed stuff like that, but I moved onto greener pastures with Construct 2 and haven’t really looked back for 2D stuff (outside of Unity). Construct is pretty baller.

    But if you want, PixelProspector has probably the best hub of resources for this stuff out there. Maybe give it a look and see if anything strikes your fancy? http://www.pixelprospector.com/game-development

  • lordanski asked: I've been considering getting a magnet implant for a long time. What size magnet did you use and where did you get it? Any advice/warnings?
  • Answer:

    I got it done at Pure Body Arts in NYC by a dude named Brian Decker. Did a great job of it. They offered me two sizes, large and small, and I went with large just to be a bad bitch about it. 

    Advice? I’d say that even though it’ll hurt like hell, know that it’ll be really really temporary. Your finger goes numb in reaction to it pretty quickly, mercifully. I’d also caution against getting it done if you don’t have health insurance on the off chance that something happens.

    Also, make sure you ice the living crap out of it for the day after you get it done. It’s gonna swell up real bad and sting like hell, but the ice really really will help. Since it’s on your hand, it’s really important to avoid touching stuff and keep it clean, since our hands tend to be the filthiest things on our bodies. 

    Typing is gonna suck for like a week, but you get used to not using the finger it’s implanted in really quickly and by the time you adapt fully to that it’ll have healed anyway. 

    Don’t worry if you don’t feel magnetic waves for like 2 weeks after. This is normal. A good way to check if you can feel them or not is to go turn on a microwave and try and see if you can feel the field around it - microwaves tend to be the most common household object that put out the most easily felt fields in my experience. 

    If you need to do something like lift weights or play guitar after the magnet has healed, but it keeps sticking to things in annoying ways, putting a normal bandaid around the tip of your finger should take care of that.

    That’s all I can think of for now!

What To Expect When You’re Expecting (the internet to ruin your life)

So here’s what I’ve learned from the last two months of getting hacked and helping friends who have gotten hacked. It’s a work in progress cause I am currently mad as hell so I will be adding to it as time goes on, but since another woman got doxxed tonight I figured it’s a start.

  • General Tips:

  • Don’t give yourself a hard time for feeling a certain way. It’s a messed up position you’ve been put in and there’s no “right” way to feel. You’re not failing if it bothers you, you’re not failing if you’re angry, you are not failing for not being “tough enough”. A lot of emotions come with these situations, and you’re totally allowed.

  • Document everything. I can’t say this enough. If you set up a dropbox screenshots folder, you can have a screencap automatically saved with the press of the printscreen button. For stuff longer than a screencap, use http://archive.today/ in case of deletion. It’s better to have it and not need it than not have it and need it. If you end up needing to take it to the authorities, they’re gonna wanna see this stuff, and the more you have the better. You might not know what the situation will evolve into, so be vigilant in your documentation. If it stresses you out or gets to be too much, ask a friend or loved one to help you. Similarly, if you see this happening to another person, maybe screencap it just in case. If you go to the police, they’ll want this stuff, and want it printed. It’s good to have more than less.

  • Don’t suffer alone. Make sure you reach out, and again, don’t judge yourself. It’s not weak to want or need help or to vent. There are so many women in the industry who understand what you’re going through and would be happy to help however they can. If you have someone in person that can look after you, all the better. They’ll remind you that what is happening to you is wrong, they will help make sure you’re taken care of, and it’s a huge huge asset.

Doxxing:

  • Spend the $10 to hide your whois info off of your websites ahead of time if you can. This is a very common tactic.

  • Pre-emptively remove yourself from Spokeo: http://www.sileo.com/spokeo-scary-bad-how-to-opt-out/. Spokeo is a service that a lot of doxxers use, and even if you’ve already been doxxed you might still want to do this.

  • Most cell phone providers will allow you to change your number on their website.

  • Make your FB private. They will likely be trying to dig up whatever they can on you, real or imagined, and there’s no reason to leave stuff out there when you’re being creepily obsessed over. Make sure old posts get limited too - go to settings > privacy > limit past posts to do this.

  • Give other people affected a heads up & make sure they don’t give out more info. For example, in my case they spammed my former employers dating back all the way to when I was a teenager, trying to dig up more info on me. I know it can suck to have to try and explain this stuff to people, but it can keep more information from leaking out. Similarly, try to make sure people don’t freak out, and that they shouldn’t engage with these people or do anything other than hang up.

  • Change your security questions to something that isn’t related to your personal life. Come up with phrases that you use in place of your mother’s maiden name or your childhood best friend so someone who has your personal information can’t get into any of your accounts using these methods.

  • Crash with a friend if you can, in the thick of it. It’s a huge load off the mind to know that you’re safe and can handle dealing with this stuff without having to worry about someone knocking on your door. A thing a lot of people don’t understand till they’ve been there is the paranoia that comes with being doxxed for a lot of people, so make sure you’re doing things that will make you feel safer. Don’t worry about seeming like you’re overreacting, either - taking care of yourself is paramount.

Hacking:

  • Preemptively lock everything down: http://segonmedia.com/2014/08/21/the-quick-indie-guide-to-protecting-your-accounts/ Enable 2-step on everything, use a progam like 1 password or keepass to generate strong passwords, unique for every site, and store them in one location. Consider making a separate email account that you ONLY use for password recovery requests, and not revealing the account name to anyone, so in case everything gets hacked you have one clean email to send passwords to.

  • General stuff for any site:

  • If you can still login, change your password then change your recovery email.

  • Revoke any third party app permissions. Third party app permissions will let things be posted to your account regardless of password. This is how they were able to post stuff from my Tumblr to my Twitter when my Tumblr got hacked - it had a function that automatically blogged anything I posted on my Tumblr to my Twitter.

  • If you can’t login, fill out a password reset request.

  • If that doesn’t work, there’s usually another protocol in place per service.

  • Try and remember if there’s any places you have accounts for that you might have forgotten. For example, they got into a dominos.com account I had made and forgot about to try and send someone a pizza. It can be especially damaging if that account is automatically set up to charge any of your accounts.

Twitter: Contact support here if you can’t login and your recovery email account has been changed: https://support.twitter.com/articles/185703-my-account-has-been-hacked

Tumblr:

Gmail: I honestly have no idea here so preemptively lock down I guess. It will also let you see at the bottom of the page if anyone is logged into your acct from a different location and let you remotely terminate it, so keep an eye on that too.

Facebook’s account recovery: https://www.facebook.com/help/131719720300233/

Dropbox’s contact: https://www.dropbox.com/support/s/92/8281995/c/2

Skype has been the most commonly hacked thing throughout gamergate. Their live chat is decent and works. Their live chat is here: https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA10656/what-is-live-chat-support

Here’s hoping you’ll ever need this.

troize:

cornerof5thandvermouth:

curiouslyhigh:

rincewitch:

poison-liker:

19thperson:

sanesaga:

superhighschoolleveldoujinauthor:

holy fuck hahahaha

sic semper tyrannis and thanks for all the fish or whatever meme is appropriate here

iiiiiiiiiiiiihihihihihihihiii

ironic that they get so mad about social justice then turn around and essentially cry about not having a Safe Space

rest in piss

tl;dr is moot put new mods in charge who won’t put up with dogshit sexist/racist/gross opinions and now /b/ is crying because apparently it’s more important to make sexist remarks than to be decent human beings

praise be unto satan

and here is moot’s response to all the little babies getting upset that their boards are being deleted

you’re welcome

(via azshara)

  • boa-heck asked: I am actually playing depression quest right now and noticed that you were answering questions. Do you see depression quest as an interactive story, a sort of simulation, or something different? Or is this a silly question that doesn't matter and it can be seen however I want to see it?
  • Answer:

    hang onto yer butts I’m about to get pretentious as hell. I can feel my black plastic glasses getting thicker and in anticipation.

    Depression Quest is about it’s system - the system of removal of player choice, of trying to emulate the downward spiral of depression and doing things like making it so if you’re on meds, instead of taking like a -2 hit to essentially what is your HP, you take a -1 because that was our experiences with meds - they help, but they don’t cure. It was designed around trying to use a system/mechanic to relate our experiences with how the illness had impacted us - essentially say “hey, depression means playing by different rules, and here they are, try them on and maybe start thinking about this stuff”. Primarily because depression is hard to communicate, and just /telling/ someone what it is like leaves a lot of stuff out. Asking them to suspend their disbelief and try out someone else’s ruleset for a while seemed like a different way to try and express that experience. Everything else in the game was designed around reinforcing that, without adding anything that didn’t actively reinforce that.

    In my opinion, that’s a game, but my personal definition is essentially “a thing with systems that is a back and forth of some sort between the designer and the player” but holy heck that’s vague (how do you define “system?” How do you define “back and forth”?)and I’ve seen a ton of “what is a game” arguments that have gone down incredibly unproductive rabbit holes super quickly. I don’t expect my definition to be particularly helpful or useful to anyone else, but it’s what I’ve settled on for the time being, and leave perpetually open to changing around whenever it makes sense to.

    Similarly, I’m cool with you seeing it however you wanna see it, even if I disagree. The point of making the thing was to make a cohesive piece of media first, classifying it wasn’t anywhere near important. I try and take an attitude of coming up with the thing that I want to say or explore or whatever first, then figure out what medium would suit it best the way I want to do it. I try not to go “I’m gonna make a game about X!” if X doesn’t take advantage of the format or if it feels like I’m making it a game just because. I don’t like doing anything in my creative output that isn’t incredibly deliberate (and usually really overthought [which is a thing I’m working on])

  • yamijoey asked: I recently played that game you made 'Gone Home', which you'll obviously deny making, and it just felt like feminist propaganda made to further the gay agenda.
  • Answer:

    this is because I kept joking about being steve gaynor on twitter isn’t it

Depression Quest Donations!

For the time that Depression Quest was released on Feb 14th, 2013 until August 11th of this year, our website was stating that a portion of the proceeds of the pay-what-you-want version would go to iFred. We have donated at least $698 to iFred, though I know a number of folks have been donating on our behalf which is super cool, especially since a free game doesn’t really make a ton of money. I’ve spoken with them to clear up confusion with routes of donation, and they are happy to confirm that this has been the case. I did mess up and not let them know about this ahead of time though - whoops! Lesson learned: if you’re gonna do a thing to support a charity, it’s polite to send them a letter first. 

On August 11th to coincide with the Steam release, we switched charities to go to the National Suicide Lifeline to spread the love around (and partially because I had gone through some dark times and they’ve helped me out before. Oh no! Bias!). The Steam version is 100% free with no links to external places to pay for the game, but since the itch.io build was released at the same time, I’ve been mixing the contributions with some of my own cash from my Patreon and been able to give a total of $971 dollars to date, totaling half of the gross sales of that version so far :D I’m really happy about this, and glad that y’all have been so supportive of a risky and non-traditional game.

Just to try and make up for the stress the #gamergate folks have placed on the wonderful people who work for these organizations, I’d like to state that 100% of the proceeds of Depression Quest in the next 24 hours will go 50% to iFred, 50% to the National Suicide Lifeline. If you’ve already bought the game or just want to donate, I strongly suggest you making a contribution on your own behalf. And yes, I will be posting those metrics too. Gladly. 

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