Tag: games

The Roots of GamerGate 2.0

The Dark Herald delves into the latest iteration of GamerGate at the Arkhaven blog:

It all began with GamerGate.

Well, no it didn’t. It began with decisions that the editors of PC gaming magazines made.

Back in the 1990s I had a subscription to Computer Gaming World. It was a don’t miss back then. Given what the internet was like at the time, a print magazine was an absolute necessity. At least if you were going to find out if Master of Orion II was anywhere near as good as the first game, (BTW, it was better). Is the full version Redneck Rampage as difficult to run as the share-ware? (Yes, definitely). Or is John Romero really going to make you, his bitch? (No, he wasn’t.) You would also get interviews with people like Roberta Williams and Richard Garriott. Plus, you would find out which conventions were going to have the best computer gaming room. (It mattered in those days because it might be the only place you could play some titles if your friends didn’t have a copy.)

Here’s the big thing. There was a real sense of community back then and gaming magazines were the glue that was holding us together. The guys that wrote those articles were part of our tribe. They spoke our language, shared our concerns, and agreed with us on what was cool.

The gaming magazines were huge and I don’t just mean within gaming culture. They were physically gigantic. There was a point where CGW had 500 pages. That was where the trouble began.

When you have that many pages, you need to fill them with something. The editors of gaming magazines had run into a problem there. They could hire more gamers and teach them how to write, a longer process to be sure but in the end, you would have more in-depth articles by people who know and love gaming. However, given how fast the gaming magazines were growing and how much original content they needed month to month, a shortcut beckoned siren-like to the editors.

There was always a pile of resumes from journalism majors who were shotgunning any publication in the hopes of landing a gig. They knew absolutely nothing about gaming, but they did know how to write, (sort of, they were journalism majors after all). The view clearly was, just give them something easy to play until we can find someone better.

So, the editors started hiring journalism majors as a temporary shortcut. The kind of temporary shortcut that stays forever. Journalism majors could write about games, but they didn’t love them. They didn’t care at all about game mechanics, what they had a passion for was narrative story structure and pretty, pretty pictures. So long as a game had those it would get a ten-star review even if the gameplay sucked.

It was obvious that these journalism majors were setting the game difficulty on Toddler Mode and playing through as fast as possible. They wanted to experience the narrative with as little interruption by gameplay as could be managed.

This temporary fix stuck around. The journalists got promoted. Then the magazines started getting bought by media conglomerates like Ziff Davis, who definitely preferred to work with journalists. Consequently, the gamers at the gaming magazines got shunted to the side and the journalists started making the hiring decisions. Guess who they hired?

You guessed right. Other journalists.

Most readers here know of my involvement in GamerGate, including the hosting of #GGinParis with Mike and Milo. But I was much more deeply involved with game journalism starting more than 20 years before the exposure of the GameJournoPros list.

Computer Game World was arguably one of the greatest magazines in publishing history. I read it from cover to cover, carefully taking notes as to who did what and worked for which company, to the point that when I started attending industry events, I could speak substantively to pretty much anyone of note that I met.

I eventually started writing for them, had one of our games reviewed by them, and even contributed by writing the initial review for the much-anticipated id-and-Raven game Heretic. In fact, I was the only game developer who was permitted to write for them, for as Editor-in-Chief Johnny Wilson once said, correctly, “Vox would rather cut his arm off than cut a bad game any slack.” Johnny was eventually replaced by Chris Lombardi, who was also excellent and possessed of a formidable intelligence, but once Ziff Davis bought them and Chris was hired away by one of the early gaming networks, the quality declined rapidly, to the point that I no longer even bothered subscribing even though I was a game developer.

So, I can state with some authority that it’s a good history. Read the whole thing there.

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GamerGate 2.0

Buckle up, boys. The ride never ends. A summary from /pol/

  • DEI-gaming consultants “Sweet Baby Inc” exposed for harassment and coercion to insert wokeism into video games (example: CEO talk admitting to their coercion tactics
  • Issue mostly ignored by Media/Gaming “Journalists” for at least a week
  • A group on Steam forms with a list of games that employed Sweet Baby to consult on their creation, along with a discussion board and chat about the issue
  • Group swells to just under 200k users as of the time of this post
  • Kotaku and other gaming “news” start posting articles over the past 24 hours to start calling the group and users a bunch of wayciss chud nazis
  • Alyssa Mercante, “Journalist” who wrote the Kotaku article, starts taking heat for defending the Sweet Baby company and CEO for her own racism vs whites
  • “Journalist” then hauls off her mask to obliviously spout critical theory talking points after posting said article denying that Sweet Baby pushes critical theory agenda. “hi! you can’t be racist against white people! thanks for tuning in!”

I think we all know who is going to win the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Related Work now. I’m a little surprised Kotaku is still around, to be honest, given the fact that no one who is actually interested in or plays games reads them anymore.

UPDATE: Curiouser and curiouser…

  • Sweet Baby Inc is funded by Baby Ghosts
  • Baby Ghosts co-founder is Eileen Holowka
  • Eileen Holowka’s brother was Alec Holowka
  • Alec Holowka was LITERALLY WHO’s boyfriend

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The PC Master Race Does Not Mourn

The Xbox is reportedly being put down by Microsoft. To which, the PC Master Race says, in a thunderous choir of golden masculine voices, “Good.”

It’s real. Bond’s hacking Xbox to pieces. They want to move to a stadia-like platform because XB hardware hasn’t been financially viable since the One. They were told this during yesterday’s morning minutes meeting that Spencer is furious with her about this but Corporate MSFT is backing her on it. This year’s new model XB MAY be their last.

I hated the Xbox, hated its stupid Atari Jaguar-like controller, and even disliked HALO from the start. Xbox was never anything more than a crippled PC, and it did massive harm to the PC games industry just so Microsoft could attempt to exert even more direct control over the individual gamer. The total inferiority of the console approach could be seen in the way that multiplayer games had to cordon off a special zone so that the console weaklings could play by themselves without getting repeatedly obliterated by their technological superiors.

JC Denton spoke for all of us when he said: “So many games were crippled in order to run on consoles or appeal to the console multiplayer market. We PC Master Racers will gladly view the ruin of Xbox with a smile on our beautiful Aryan faces.”

The PC Master Race contemplates a glorious future without Xbox.

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Battlegames

Spent the day wargaming with some professional types. Smart, very well-informed guys. Gave a brief presentation, listened to some longer, more detailed, and much more impressive ones. Reached three conclusions:

  1. Blitzkrieg is not a strategy, much less a doctrine.
  2. Hoping that the leader of the other side is a) the sole reason for the war, and, b) he will vanish as soon as the other side faces a setback is not a strategy. Not a viable one, anyhow.
  3. Wargame is a misnomer. Very, very few wargames actually involve the primary elements of war. They’re battlegames.

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Everything That’s Popular Must Converge

Clown World finally managed to converge Warhammer. From the new edition of Fantasy Battles.

And yes, he would have been a fine knight and earned his spurs in less than a year. His knight’s oath sworn on the midsummer’s morn. He would meet a boy with a smile that lit up the world, their love so great that all Bretonnia’s poets would weep as they penned exquisite odes in its celebration.

They’re going all in. Not just gay, but pedo. So pride. Much wow.

For the Emperor! The Gay Emperor!

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I’m the Real Victim Here

A woman complains of her virtual gang-rape on Facebook:

A woman has revealed she was ‘virtually gang raped’ by four male avatars in Meta’s Horizon Worlds – and she said the trauma is similar to a real-world assault. Speaking to DailyMail.com, psychotherapist and start-up co-founder Nina Patel said that her attackers may have felt ‘disinhibited’ due to being in a virtual world.

I don’t mean to minimize Ms Patel’s experience, but let’s face it, it simply can’t compare to the way I have been repeatedly murdered in World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. And I can assure you, each and every experience was every bit as traumatic as being murdered in real life!

To this day, I find myself shaking uncontrollably whenever I encounter a Tauren, or a Blood Elf, on the street.

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Reddit Bans Autarch

As well as any discussion of the RPG Adventurer, Conqueror, King System that has been so successfully crowdfunded:

This is, for Autarch, a triumph of the greatest magnitude. I am profoundly grateful to all of the backers who have supported and continue to support my magnum opus. Thank you, truly.

Of course, the success of ACKS II attracted the attention of some of the more unattractive denizens of the /r/rpg and /r/osr subreddits, who promptly began to defame and slander me with their usual half-truths, falsehoods, and slurs. When some of the ACKS community refused to allow the disparagement to go unrebutted, it led to a flame war the likes of which has not been seen since the days of the Usenet. Ultimately, the moderators decided it was best to simply ban discussion of both the game and designer, citing “brigading.”

Evacuate? In Our Moment of Triumph?, 6 November 2023

I think these sorts of bans are only helping advance the alternative economy. I can only speak for Castalia, but we have zero desire, much less any need, to be on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, or even Amazon. The more they attempt to silence and deplatform us, the more people climb out of their walled gardens in pursuit of something different, more traditional, and on average, better.

And, as Autarch has discovered, the stronger and more independent we become.

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The Ultimate RPG System

The long-awaited ADVENTURER CONQUEROR KING SYSTEM II kickstarter has been launched by Autarch and it has already exceeded doubled its initial launch goal.

Enter a world where empires stand on the brink of war, and terrible monsters tear at the fragile borderlands of men; where decaying cities teem with chaos and corruption, weeping innocents are sacrificed to chthonic cults and nobles live in decadent pleasure while the realm burns; where heroes, wizards, and rogues risk everything in pursuit of glory, fortune, and power. This is a world where adventurers can become conquerors – and conquerors can become kings. Will you survive the perils of war and dark magic to claim a throne? Or will you meet your fate in a forgotten ruin beyond the ken of men?

The Adventurer Conqueror King System™ Imperial Imprint (ACKS II) is the new edition of the acclaimed bestselling fantasy role-playing game. Within the pages of ACKS II you’ll find everything you need to enjoy epic fantasy campaigns with a sweeping scope. Whether you want to crawl through dungeons, experiment with alchemy, crossbreed monsters, run a merchant emporium, raise an undead legion, or conquer an empire, ACKS II supports your playstyle.

If you spend enough time in online RPG communities, you’ll have seen someone post something like “They need to make a game that… has mass combat mechanics that work at every scale / keeps fighters competitive with mages / has figured out how to make thieves fun / has an economy that makes sense / could actually simulate my game world.” And someone will inevitably respond: “ACKS already does that. ” And it’s true.

Now, with ACKS II, we’re doing it even better.

Castalia House is supporting this RPG system because we expect future sourcebooks to be produced from a number of our properties using ACKS II. Autarch is already planning to produce one based on CHUCK DIXON’S CONAN and we have already discussed the possibility of producing similar sourcebooks for MIDNIGHT’S WAR, ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT, and perhaps even QUANTUM MORTIS someday with them. How cool would that be?

But first, it’s necessary to see that the core RPG system is successfully established.

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Of Games and Civilizations

This is an interesting digression on the multiple aspects of what can be described as “Western civilization” and how game developers have attempted to account for some of its various aspects:

Civilization is not so much an architectural style but a thought process of metaphysics. And these different metaphysics create different cultures which create different civilizations.

From the other side of the world, the West might as well just be ‘Western Civilization’ with all histories plopped together as ‘History of the West’. Yet, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Without understanding the multiple Western Civilizations, how can one learn to utilize it? Or even to understand it?

One Western Civilization is a Christianized Paganism. The Second Western Civilization is the Protestation of the former. While you may think these are mere religious differences gone today, you would be completely wrong. There are two Western Civilizations that exist today.

The Christianized Paganism is easier to find its roots. You have the Greeks and Roman Empire metaphysics converted (e.g. instead of an Emperor, you have a Pope). This Western Civilization can mostly be found in non-English speaking countries or in some isolated conclaves of English speaking countries.

As far as the Second Western Civilization, it is better to see it as ‘Anglo-Saxon’ especially with its English language. The Paganism has been rooted out and obliterated in this civilization. It is the civilization of individualism, of hypocrisy, of the Enlightenment thinkers, but also of constant Revolutions. The modern ‘Woke’ culture is a byproduct of the Calvinistic Second Western Civilization metaphysical reality asserting itself. While Christianized Paganism stresses the experience of life, the Western Protestant Civilization stresses the rules of life. Aesthetically, Christianized Paganism bathes itself in the glamour of the ancient arts. Western Protestant Civilization lives in a stark utilitarian mindset and removes all such ancient glamour.

The history of the development of the Ultima games is very nearly as interesting as playing them, and to this day, Akalabeth remains one of my all-time favorite computer games.

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Adieu Divine Right

You can put this one squarely in my list of failures. This morning, I relinquished all of the development and publication rights to the excellent fantasy wargame Divine Right, nine months before our rights to it expired, due to my inability to get Divine Right reprinted or get the computer game developed. The project wasn’t a complete failure, as we did manage to get Minarian Legends published, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to oversee the other aspects of the project and the volunteer project leaders didn’t have the ability to complete either the boardgame or the computer wargame.

Anyhow, as a fan of the game and its creator, I wish the next group of developers great success with the updated Divine Right, and eventually, one hopes, Scarlet Empire. Sadly, it will not be featuring this excellent cover, based on the original artwork, that we had produced for our now-cancelled edition.

For some reason, it appears that gaming volunteers are reliably less able to get a job done than those who volunteer in various other areas of development, from print books to open source office projects. I was very briefly involved in what was supposed to be a Linux distro dedicated to games, and I have never, ever, observed a more useless horde of worthless gammas, all of whom had multiple, often contradictory, opinions, and none of whom were willing to lift a finger to actually do anything at all. I quit the project three weeks after being given responsibility for overseeing the development of the first demo game for the distro.

Despite being 21 years old, The Battle for Wesnoth is still the flagship for open source game development.

My theory is that those who are actually willing and able to successfully develop games are mostly already doing it on their own, as the thriving independent game scene demonstrates. That leaves a lot of people who very much like the idea of game development, but are more interested in the trappings than in actually dealing with the decidedly less-romantic reality of it. The same is true of those who want to be a writer more than they want to write anything; it was surprising to observe how many of the members of a much-accomplished Minnesota writers’ group of which I briefly was a guest never actually wrote anything at all. However, it’s important to keep in mind that one can’t actually know if one has the ability to do something new until one tries; volunteers must always be respected for being willing to try rather than criticized for an inability to do.

That being said, it’s still rather remarkable that the Arkhaven, SocialGalactic, and UATV teams have been able to accomplish bigger and more difficult tasks in less time than the various groups of game volunteers have. I have some ideas as to why, but nothing concrete enough to state an opinion on them.

So, if you want to know why we’re not planning to pursue anything in the game space beyond finishing the ALT-HERO RPG for the backers and possibly licensing various properties to other game companies, now you know why. I’m not blaming anyone but myself here; that experience with the Linux project was 14 years ago, and I should have reached the correct conclusions at the time.

This doesn’t mean I won’t do any game design, but in the future, I’ll do the development myself or we’ll hire a proven professional team to do it. And let’s face it, it’s not the worst thing to give up the Divine Right license, as this means we’ll own all the rights to whatever fantasy wargame I end up designing in the future.

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