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The women who reviewed Cyberpunk 2077 for GameSpot and Polygon are being harassed and threatened on social media
- Thread starter ZeoVGM
- Start date
I think you can limit it so that only people who follow you can actually tweet comments to you that are visible,, but then they could always just follow and spam. I don't think there's a convenient way to prevent people from sending random ass tags to you, but you can limit people in twitter convos you start. That'd help curb the spam you get from replies, not so much from someone just making a bullshit comment and tagging you so it's the first thing you see when you check notifications.
Its not a failure to rebuke it.
It was a conscious, purposeful, direct act to grow, cultivate and serve that audience.
Thet are the same. Both have the same mentality of not caring about others and trying out them down if they have a different point of view than you.
But those online harasses get together, while the typical "Karen" (I personally disapprove of the term) operates alone.
Yep.
Ironic that gamergate was originally going off the tag of "it's about ethics in games journalism", when in reality the biggest obstacle to impartiality now is these goons threatening reviewers and other journalists.
While CDPR has been pandering this bro gamer culture I honestly feel is a major problem in the gaming culture, from TLOU2 to this we have this rotten lake of human vile that propagates through the whole medium. It has been nurtured for many years before CDPR came into play at all.
Don't disagree at all. This shit has been bubbling around for a long time.
The difference in this case is that CDPR appears to be (to my knowledge) the first dev company to take those horrific undercurrents and wholly embrace them with a view to weaponising their own fan base against anyone who might have an opinion against their shitty practices.
Yes, this stuff is old, like I remember even back in the early xbox 360 days, sexists and transphobic stuff was all to prevelant, both in the fandoms and from the game studios and publishers. Like how idea of a woman being on the cover would somehow lower the games sales and appeal (see Bioshock Infinite, EA and Microsoft with Mass Effect, EA with Timesplitters etc), how in games that allow you to choose your gender, the man option would always be canon (and if it was a woman, they'd nearly always be instantly killed off or said to have died, see Bioware and the canon Warden from DAO or The Exile from KOTOR2) and of course the marketing. from Dead Island's infamous "bait" statue, to Sony's God of War marketing and blatant sexism, to Team Ninja... Being Team Ninja and EA's marketing campaigns for games like Dante's Inferno or Dead Space 2:
None of which excuses CDPR, I'm still baffled and amazed they were so blatant with that Cosplay contest senario, like no way did they not know what they were doing with that or who they were pandering to with that. CDPR needs to clean up their act.
To them, it's a calculated decision that there's no money in doing so, so they won't. In fact, continuing to cultivate the problem bring in more cash. Almost any other major developer would get raked over coals until they were forced to speak up, but when the entire corporate image is not giving a fuck, it's just not going to happen. Hell, they would be scorned by their own fans for doing the right thing.
This all started years ago as a corporate decision that it was better for business to permit a toxic fanbase--that it would make them money, and their products would still be mainstream enough--that they could sell millions of copies to people who didn't know what a shit company they were buying something from. This bubbled up for years, and here we go with a major retail product. It's exactly what they've hoped would happen. Hell, "too much hype" was a news item coming into launch.
Agreed.
Actually a really good article on how game companies actually benefit from this:
Worse than Scabs: Gamer Rage as Anti-Union Violence
Nerd rage has been a powerful tool for the industry to use against its workers. Could international solidarity be the antidote?
rhizome.org
I was thinking about making this thread, so I'm glad one already exists.
What I have seen on Twitter these past few days, since reviews dropped, has been incredibly stupid and shameful. I've already had one person threaten a Goobergate 2.
The sad truth is, nothing has changed, since the last time a bunch of idiots (who sport the men they wish they were or anime girls they wish they could bang) in their avatars.
Irish journalist Cian Maher wrote a brief piece on how the reaction to these reviews proves these idiots don't actually understand either the genre Cyberpunk or even the individual game Cyberpunk.
Based on that people have been messaging his actual friends on facebook to..... I don't know what they think is going to happen:
This is what we are dealing with, people who will take something they have no actual stakes in and will make it as personally damaging as they can.
This is the culture that Cd Projekt have been tending in their fanbase. It's not just in the edgy marketing either.
It is in the positioning themselves as the friend, one of the only developers staffed entirely by "hardcore gamers", working hard because their passionate, not because they don't have a choice.
I'm sick of seeing them congratulated on giving out thank you notes with The Witcher 3, as if that wasn't a marketing tactic. A very intentional choice to win a passionate and unstable fanbase onside. One that we are very much seeing come home to roost right now, as they flood into defend a game they haven't even played.
What I have seen on Twitter these past few days, since reviews dropped, has been incredibly stupid and shameful. I've already had one person threaten a Goobergate 2.
The sad truth is, nothing has changed, since the last time a bunch of idiots (who sport the men they wish they were or anime girls they wish they could bang) in their avatars.
Irish journalist Cian Maher wrote a brief piece on how the reaction to these reviews proves these idiots don't actually understand either the genre Cyberpunk or even the individual game Cyberpunk.
Based on that people have been messaging his actual friends on facebook to..... I don't know what they think is going to happen:
This is what we are dealing with, people who will take something they have no actual stakes in and will make it as personally damaging as they can.
This is the culture that Cd Projekt have been tending in their fanbase. It's not just in the edgy marketing either.
It is in the positioning themselves as the friend, one of the only developers staffed entirely by "hardcore gamers", working hard because their passionate, not because they don't have a choice.
I'm sick of seeing them congratulated on giving out thank you notes with The Witcher 3, as if that wasn't a marketing tactic. A very intentional choice to win a passionate and unstable fanbase onside. One that we are very much seeing come home to roost right now, as they flood into defend a game they haven't even played.
I don't see any benefit for CDPR to support this attack on women, so I very much doubt this is intentional by them.
However, they cultivated the culture of "EA bad, Geralto good", by keeping games as they were in good 'ol days - no DRM, no microtransactions. Too bad this "no change to my precious games" very much overlaps with the audience of "no women, minorities and progressiveness in my games". This is harder to see if you just skimming pas the headlines of the internet, but I'm pretty sure CDPR knows that side of their audience and are afraid to do anything about before release, knowing the aggressiveness of alt-right.
But they should and it's primarily their responsibility to change their own audience.
However, they cultivated the culture of "EA bad, Geralto good", by keeping games as they were in good 'ol days - no DRM, no microtransactions. Too bad this "no change to my precious games" very much overlaps with the audience of "no women, minorities and progressiveness in my games". This is harder to see if you just skimming pas the headlines of the internet, but I'm pretty sure CDPR knows that side of their audience and are afraid to do anything about before release, knowing the aggressiveness of alt-right.
But they should and it's primarily their responsibility to change their own audience.
After all what happened with the trans community, they put this in the game
they know.
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Really? Given how bonuses are so incentivised by metacritic scores these days, you don't see the benefit of hoards of neck-beard incels attacking any journalist that dares to give this a lower score than expected?
It was touched on in a Jim Sterling video, we are at a point where the audience has been conditioned.
* Create their identity around products
* As such, their being is linked to hype and Metacritic
* Criticising product is the equivalent of being attacked themselves
* As "the consumer", they are central to everything, anything that they do not value should be resisted, any way they are not satisfied should be loudly complained about
The only way to really change this is to change brand marketing. Break the link between product and consumer, stop the consumer-centric perspective, start spinning in outsider perspectives.
* Create their identity around products
* As such, their being is linked to hype and Metacritic
* Criticising product is the equivalent of being attacked themselves
* As "the consumer", they are central to everything, anything that they do not value should be resisted, any way they are not satisfied should be loudly complained about
The only way to really change this is to change brand marketing. Break the link between product and consumer, stop the consumer-centric perspective, start spinning in outsider perspectives.
Does it really work? Woman reviewers were under attack for a long time and they are still going strong and giving scores they want. The only ones who think it changes metacritic or anything are die-hard bigots and incels.
Agreed.
Actually a really good article on how game companies actually benefit from this:
Worse than Scabs: Gamer Rage as Anti-Union Violence
Nerd rage has been a powerful tool for the industry to use against its workers. Could international solidarity be the antidote?
This is a great article, i just want to boost this. Lana Polansky is a great writer.
I mean, in reality it's hard to say, but I recall when the reviews dropped a couple of days ago, plenty of people commented that the text of several reviews read as a lot more critical of the game than the final scores given would have implied.
Obviously nothing is certain and I could be talking complete shit, but it wouldn't surprise me (and quite frankly nor would I blame any reviewer for this given what we're seeing) if a few of the scores were inflated a little to avoid just this type of targeting by these dickheads
There is two problems here, one easily "fixable" and others more complex :
Big shame on you if you read this.
- Big part of "gamers community" are toxic ass (that's the complex part, because they are toxic ass before being gamer)
- Only two journalists brings those problems and they are women.
Big shame on you if you read this.
Gamers are a big subsection of the general public, its not very surprising that gamers have low maturity level when the same can be said about the general public.
So when do we finally make gamers a second class citizen? Anyone claiming to be a gamer should be forced to wear an armbinder in public, they have to live in Ready Player One inspired slums and their only method of internet connection are government issues 56k Modems, where the dial up tone is programmed to be twice as long just out of spite.
People like TheQuartering have to live at the top of one of the stacks, only accessed through a really long series of ladders that are at random places along the stack and at random lengths.
People like TheQuartering have to live at the top of one of the stacks, only accessed through a really long series of ladders that are at random places along the stack and at random lengths.
I fear those comments are more representative of society rather than just gamers. Had a read through of an article on Elliot Page coming out as trans and so many people are going through 'correcting' anyone that refers to Elliot as he in the comments. It's really depressing how much hate people have for something that should be nothing to do with them.
What the... What the... What the fuck (sorry), just WTF, how... Just how can they get away with being that so brazen about it, I'm just, fuck CDPR.
Yeah, their is no ambiguity to that, they know.
Unfortunately this is not the first time either of these reviewers have been targets but this is probably the most high profile game either have been targets from. This shit is so disgusting. This shit isn't new either. I can remember the mail section of EGM occasionally showing letters from people who were upset over a review but this shit is ALWAYS worse with women than it is with men.
Pathetic, embarrassing, and needs the bleach of sunlight called on it whenever it happens.
I understand the motivation behind the "don't signalboost" argument; but ultimately this type of bullshit will only continue for as long as these people think they represent the opinion of the silent masses.
When they start to realise the rest of the world recognises them for the insecure, childish cowards they are, it might not stop; but they might at least think twice before trying to vomit their bile into public discourse next time.
I understand the motivation behind the "don't signalboost" argument; but ultimately this type of bullshit will only continue for as long as these people think they represent the opinion of the silent masses.
When they start to realise the rest of the world recognises them for the insecure, childish cowards they are, it might not stop; but they might at least think twice before trying to vomit their bile into public discourse next time.
Professionally I think they've just burned a lot of credits they had in the industry, an industry that has deeply changed to now permit project like Control, Sekiro or Death Stranding. And they've contributed to such changes, but after that it's like they've been hiding in a time capsule to avoid any other influences.
To send only a PC version to dismiss PS4/XB1 MC score (that are still under embargo until the 11th) , than the terrible technical state of the game for every range of machines, and the game itself that has nothing remarkable outside the amount of money put in assets, world building and scripting.
It's already hard for every studios to hire people, and some are accepting pressure to have their name on RDR2 or TLoU2. Here the crunch was terrible like delays were, but the result is too, on the technical side and the gamedesign one, proving that the management isn't at the level of their pretention, even after seven years to crawl on dollars, recognition and fans.
Do Polygon's reviews even factor into Metacritic?
If they were that concerned about controlling reviews, they would have skipped an outlet like Polygon in the first place, because we all knew what a large chunk of that review was going to be about.
This is just a large community of fandom on the internet, doing what those "communities" do - act like horrible people safely ensconced in the consequence-less anonymity of the internet, towards anyone who dare cross the product a piece of their self-identity is directly zip-tied to.
Huh the two women who had guts and conscience to strip off the hype and do their jobs unlike their male counterparts gets harassed? Says a lot of about the gaming culture and incel stereotype attached to it.
I wish this sites would band together and just stop posting numerical scores until publishers start speaking out against this type of behavior
Sounds like Cyberpunk's an unoptimized mess on PS4/Xbox One. The same people defending CDPR will be getting bent over by them. Looking forward to seeing them now turn on CDPR for releasing the game in a messy state.
I can never stop myself from going down the rabbit hole on these Twitter threads, no matter how many times I do it, and I always regret doing it. These people are so insanely illogical and can't be reasoned with, and the absolutely absurd standards they have for what constitutes a "proper" review are a joke and do little beyond showing a poor understanding of how journalism works.
I ended up watching the gamespot review. The review isn't even that bad. She was very positive on the game. In fact this is the type of review people need to do instead of just overlooking the game's issues.
Like seriously. I fully understand that these people are hateful fucking idiots but how much worse can they even be?
Fuck gamers man.
Like seriously. I fully understand that these people are hateful fucking idiots but how much worse can they even be?
Fuck gamers man.
I just wanted to write in defence of Kallie Paige's reviews - which I think are generally great. I don't know if anyone else here needs to hear this but it's not necessarily a reviewers job to be entirely analytical about every element of a game. A lot of the criticism on the gamespot comments section suggests that she somehow wasn't doing her job, because she didn't analyse every component of the game, and delve into every subsystem.
Typically a good review would present their experience as it lies, not force themselves to engage with the game in a way that they felt was unnatural, for the sake of a review. That's what Kaillie did in her review, she earnestly presents her experience with the game. However she experienced it, her experience is perfectly valid and likely resembles that which many others are likely to have with the game.
I also like her Pokemon review. While it's often reduced down to 'too much water' she raises a fair point about how featuring too many water areas negatively impacts the experience of a Pokemon game - (predictable typing, and constant randomised battles).
I also dislike the continuous sentiment that games journalists can't be trusted or are somehow inferior to games youtubers. Those two groups of people are almost the same thing. In the end it's just one persons perspective on a game. I tend to enjoy video game reviews because as a gaming enthusiast and professional I find their perspectives tend to lean more towards mine than the average youtuber. The professional reviews often pay more attention to the social and political context that the game has released into, as well as paying more attention to technical innovations within the field and genre.
Typically a good review would present their experience as it lies, not force themselves to engage with the game in a way that they felt was unnatural, for the sake of a review. That's what Kaillie did in her review, she earnestly presents her experience with the game. However she experienced it, her experience is perfectly valid and likely resembles that which many others are likely to have with the game.
I also like her Pokemon review. While it's often reduced down to 'too much water' she raises a fair point about how featuring too many water areas negatively impacts the experience of a Pokemon game - (predictable typing, and constant randomised battles).
I also dislike the continuous sentiment that games journalists can't be trusted or are somehow inferior to games youtubers. Those two groups of people are almost the same thing. In the end it's just one persons perspective on a game. I tend to enjoy video game reviews because as a gaming enthusiast and professional I find their perspectives tend to lean more towards mine than the average youtuber. The professional reviews often pay more attention to the social and political context that the game has released into, as well as paying more attention to technical innovations within the field and genre.
Are you expecting people who comment to actually watch the whole thing...when the Reviewer didnt actually play the whole game?!!!?!?!?!??!
/s
lol
Perfectly sums up how bad this controversy is. Like what did they think the 18 minute video is supposed to be? Her talking about the so called "SJW!!!!!!!!" stuff? I was surprised that it wasn't even a big part of the review. She just mentioned it and gave examples then moved on.
Fuck CDPR for cultivating this type of behaviour, fuck CDPR for being a shamelessly transphobic company and fuck CDPR for the months of crunch and terrible working conditions. Good thing this unfinished piece of trash is DRM free *wink wink*
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Haven't gamers done similar things over Nintendo games? How long was Jim Sterling harrassed over his BotW review.
While this clearly has echoes of the gamergate circus it's by no means a new phenomemon. I can't recall other companies stepping in to calm down overzealous fans either.
While this clearly has echoes of the gamergate circus it's by no means a new phenomemon. I can't recall other companies stepping in to calm down overzealous fans either.
- Terminator and its totally not evil defense contractor megacorp Cyberdine Systems.
- Tron and its absolutely not evil megacorp ENCOM creating an AI that eventuall plans to take over the Pentagon.
- Ghost in the Shell and it's entirely not evil multiple megacorps that are definitely not the cause of the majority of the shit the Major has to clean after, including the illegal surveillance AI Puppet Master in the first movie, and a factory where human girls are kidnapped and turned into sex robots in the second movie.
- And yet my favorite example of the works with no anticapitalist messaging that he mentions is probably Total Recall and its completely not evil corporate overlord Cohagen that sells breathable air to poor people and whose cheap, low quality habitats cause poor people's babies to be born with often crippling deformities.
If someone with a Reddit account wants to paste this as a response to him, feel free.
Yeah, and the infamous 8.8 for Twilight Princess also on Gamespot.
It's funny that she may have one if the most honest reviews on launch for the game to help consumers make an informed choice as she is one of the few reviewers that mentions the bugs and rightfully lowers the score for it. Like the amount of bugs is frankly not acceptable to be getting such crazy high scores.
The Difference is CDPR has actively engaged and cultivated this fanbase.
Precisely, there are so many reviews out with high scores and the minority are tripping over the low ones, the game is still 90+ on MC.
Makes no sense to me but I'd have to severly lower my IQ to even comprehend the stupidity.
To be fair, it's messy with bugs for every format.
Can attest to the PS4 Pro version going great - dips for sure, but works fine. I think if you go in with the expectation of 60fps smoothness you're in for a sharp shock, it plays well though.
If you want the smooth smooth, like many versions of many games, you gotta go PC (or actual next gen versions in 2021).
This shit has happened as far as 2000 with Shenmue and Gamespot who reviewed it, gave it a 6.8 initially. Jeff Gerstmann who was the Reviews editor got a lot of hate mail for this.
It really sucks for those reviewersé Their scores won't affect sales, get over it.
It really sucks for those reviewersé Their scores won't affect sales, get over it.
I'd argue they only became a company worth rattling cages over after The Witcher 3, their giant breakout hit. Before that they were moderately successful PC game developer. Their games nor the studio could not command this kind of fervour and lunacy back in 2015. They're now "big dogs" and what we're seeing is "big dog" shit on the level of console wars or highly anticipated exclusives.
I'm not saying there isn't another angle at play but this happened repeatedly without any other unsavoury contributing factors.