Tag: games

This is what happens when you don’t retreat

A journalist is astonished by what he finds by peeking under the rock of #GamerGate:

One of the most stunning experiences I have had so far, while keeping in contact with the community after the publication of my first story on them, has been to discover that GamerGate feminists are real. Despite what a person would assume after being constantly bombarded with the narrative of their misogyny, do-it-yourself feminism is an everyday aspect of the movement. The only condition to that statement is that the feminism which GamerGate represents is the type that becomes offended at the suggestion that women need help to achieve what a man can. It is the type of feminism that believes in promotion by merit, not quota, and where the women are themselves individually powerful enough not to require leadership to assist in determining what they are allowed to think or say.

That goes back to the cumulative character of the people who make up GamerGate. It would have been easy for any of them to eschew the label and enjoy the comfort of being a less persecuted human being. Instead, the character of the average gamer-turned-media-activist tends to be such that they stand directly in the line of fire, knowing that the temptation to disassociate from the movement is the primary means through which a corrupt confederation of clickbait media institutions and Social Justice charlatans intend to dismantle it.

That is how I went native; by becoming convinced that these people represent the highest ethical standard, and through watching them put their personal reputations in harms’ way on principle.

This is why you don’t cry and apologize when attacked. This is why you don’t back down when one vicious name after another is hurled at you. This is why you spit in the ugly face of the SJWs when they offer you the carrot and threaten the stick. This is why you don’t step aside and leave your ally’s flank exposed when they are targeting him and not you.

Because others, less willing to stand in the line of fire, find themselves inspired by your example. Every time you stand there and take a shot without flinching, you cause one, or two, or ten other people to realize that they can do it too. Every time you refuse to submit to the enemy, you make ten, or twenty, or one hundred other people see that defeat is not inevitable.

Don’t back down. Don’t apologize. Don’t disassociate. Don’t despair. Remember, the Reconquista began with a single little battle in northernmost Spain. It took 700 years, but eventually, Spain was once more Christian and free. You’re not given a spirit of fear, so don’t be afraid. We will win in the end.

SJWs hate science too

One of the most important things to understand about SJWs is that there is no end game for them. They exist to complain; if you submit to their demands and give them what they claim to want, they will promptly produce new and even more ridiculous demands. They are salami-slicers, which is why you cannot give into even the most reasonable-sounding, polite requests for fairness and justice and appeals to your better nature and human decency.

Doing so will only signify your weakness, which will cause them to make every more insane demands in ever-more demanding ways. The only thing that is important to them is their pinkshirt agenda. Consider the SJW response to the historic news that the European Space Agency landed a spacecraft on a comet earlier this week:

I don’t care if you landed a spacecraft on a comet, your shirt is sexist and ostracizing. That’s one small step for man, three steps back for humankind.

Yesterday the European Space Agency landed the Philae spacecraft on a comet, a powerful step forward for humanity and science alike. However, slightly before the big moment, coverage of the event reminded us how much progress remains to be accomplished back on Earth.

A number of the scientists involved on this incredible project were interviewed in the hours leading to contact by Nature Newsteam. One of those Rosetta scientists was Matt Taylor, who chose to dress, for this special occasion, in a bowling shirt covered in scantly clad caricatures of sexy women in provocative poses.

“This is going to be a very long day but a very exciting day,” said Taylor. “I think everyone should enjoy it because we’re making history.”

No one knows why Taylor chose to wear that shirt on television during a massive scientific mission. From what we can tell, a woman who goes by the name of Elly Prizeman on Twitter made the shirt for him, and is just as bewildered as he must be that anyone might be upset about her creation. But none of that actually matters. What matters is the fact that no one at ESA saw fit to stop him from representing the Space community with clothing that demeans 50 percent of the world’s population. No one asked him to take it off, because presumably they didn’t think about it. It wasn’t worth worrying about.

This is the sort of casual misogyny that stops women from entering certain scientific fields. They see a guy like that on TV and they don’t feel welcome. They see a poster of greased up women in a colleague’s office and they know they aren’t respected. They hear comments about “bitches” while out at a bar with fellow science students, and they decide to change majors. And those are the women who actually make it that far. Those are the few who persevered even when they were discouraged from pursuing degrees in physics, chemistry, and math throughout high school. These are the women who forged on despite the fact that they were told by elementary school classmates and the media at large that girls who like science are nerdy and unattractive. This is the climate women who dream of working at NASA or the ESA come up against, every single day.

That is the mentality that we’re dealing with in #GamerGate. What is significant about #GamerGate is that it represents the first time that a male-dominated community has stood up and collectively said: FUCK OFF to the SJWs utilizing their conventional entryist tactics. The hardcore gamers of #GamerGate would rather be attacked and publicly portrayed as evil, outdated, sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, death threat-issuing, blood-drinking, serial-killing rapists than give another inch to the SJWs attempting to infiltrate and destroy the game industry.

And that’s why you should support #GamerGate even if you don’t play games. That’s why you should learn from #GamerGate’s staunch refusal to back down, its tactics, and its willingness to go on the relentless offensive against the pinkshirts.

They are the incarnation of Dickson’s fictional Chantry Guild. They will cast aside everything, games, books, tradition, religion, science, Western civilization itself, without hesitation, because they simply do not understand the intrinsic relationship between cause and effect.

What you can do, part 2

This is the second part of my response to someone who asked what they could do to help fight the SJWs. A few days ago, a #GamerGater named @Ignideus with less than 500 followers came up with the idea for #OpSkyNet as a prospective solution for the tendency of e-celebs to dominate the public discourse on Twitter. Today, it is the #3-trending hashtag on Twitter and #GamerGate has been re-energized as the leaderless, decentralized force that it is.

Larry Correia did little more than mention a few SF/F writers he felt had produced work that merited award consideration, and in the process, exposed the corruption and hyperpoliticization of the SF Awards process.

Yesterday, a non-gamer named RooshV announced the creation of Reaxxion, a pro-#GamerGate game review site for men. He writes:

My younger brother, who considers himself a gamer, gave me the
definitive push into starting Reaxxion. He plays Xbox, PC games on
Steam, and also some mobile games. He particularly likes games with long
and intricate story lines, telling me that gaming is just not about
pushing buttons to advance a level but to be affected on some level by a
compelling story, but now those stories are being perverted by people
who truly believe that men are evil and holding women down just because
they may want to enjoy a traditional story line with attractive women.

The infiltration of SJW’s into gaming may mean that my brother will
have to put up with their narrative in his games. It may mean that his
entertainment options become more limited because a developer was subtly
threatened unless he inserted another “empowered female” in a game
where such a character simply doesn’t fit. I’ve learned that unless you
fight back against these people, unless you spread awareness and develop
a megaphone as big as them, they will surely get what they want and
impact the culture in a way that hurts normal men who don’t subscribe to
their strange worldview.

Roosh isn’t a gamer, but he understands the importance of #GamerGate as the current Schwerpunkt, or focal point, of the SJWs. That’s why he’s stepped in with the sort of material assistance that only someone of his stature on the Internet can; the very name of the new game site is a gesture of contempt for those who consider themselves progressives.

Ingnideus was an unknown. Larry is a New York Times bestselling author. Roosh is Internet-famous, or if you prefer, infamous. But all three of them are taking what action they can take and all three of them are having a real impact.  What you can do entirely depends upon your capabilities, resources, and inclinations, but all of it is, at the very least, capable of mattering.

Most people who want to get involved are more akin to Ingnideus than Roosh. What that means is finding someone who is already leading the way by doing something and lending support to their efforts. Find a Schwerpunkt of interest to you and throw your weigh behind it. Many of you are already doing this with Castalia House, by buying our books, subscribing to our New Release newsletter, or in some cases, proofreading, formatting, narrating, and slush-reading. A few are assisting Alpenwolf, Joe and Kirk have been helping with the First Sword art. But we can always use more and we are far from the only independent writer, developer, publisher, site or blog that can use the help.

General

  • Support the good. Don’t support the SJWs in any of their flavors.
  • Get on Twitter. Tweet once with #OpSkyNet. Retweet and favorite one #GamerGate tweet per day.
  • Email one Gawker (or other #GamerGate target) advertiser per week.
  • Join Recommend. Write one Game- or Book-related reco, good or bad, per week and I’ll add it to the appropriate list. Be sure to follow me first so I will see it.
  • Try an indy game from a #GamerGate developer.
  • Submit an article to Reaxxion. 
  • Speak out. Do a blog post. Tell a friend.
  • Stand by those under attack, especially if you don’t agree with them. The primary SJW tactic is 3rd Generation. They cut off, isolate, then swarm. They can’t do that if you refuse to permit them to separate you from their target.

Castalia House

  • I’m ridiculously behind on submissions. We need new slushreaders and probably someone to manage the process.
  • PR. We haven’t sent out a single press release to anyone yet even though we have a pretty good story to tell. We’re too busy producing to talk about it.
  • Bloggers for Castalia House. Mascaro is too busy now and Jeffro has needed to take a few weeks off due to burnout. It’s difficult doing one quality blog post per week; many people can manage one or two, but consistency is the key.
  • PDF Layout. LL is getting up to speed on this, but we have a pretty big backlog already and we are contractually obligated to get some of our newly signed books out in print.

Alpenwolf

  •  Art. We’re doing all right for code, I think. (Markku, correct me if I’m wrong) but we could use additional art help. 
  • PR. We don’t need it yet, but we will.
  • There is probably something else I’m missing.

Why bother? Who cares about random guys living in their mother’s basements fighting for large pixellated breasts sporting chainmail bikinis in their games? Nero explains why he, a non-gamer, is following the battle:

GamerGate is remarkable—and attracts the interest of people like me—because it represents perhaps the first time in the last decade or more that a significant incursion has been made in the culture wars against guilt-mongerers, nannies, authoritarians and far-Left agitators.

Games are merely the current battleground. TV is already lost to the SJWs. Movies are lost. Literature is largely lost. Genre literature is all but lost. Remember, this is the mentality we’re up against:

Humphrey, the former Subway worker, had been living with her uncle before she lost her job. She now bounces from couch to couch in her circle of protester friends — a sacrifice she said is worthwhile, because what is the point of working when she says she could be killed any day because of the color of her skin? Now, she said, standing at the Rowan Community Center on a run-down block in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of St. Louis, “I sleep, eat and breathe this.”

Sure, that sort of commitment easy for someone with no talent, job, or responsibilities, who has literally nothing else to do to throw themselves into something 24-7. But we’re not talking about that level of commitment, but rather a small and spare-time, but persistent one. My perception, and I could be wrong, is that far too many people on the Right are overly concerned that someone, somewhere, might profit from their assistance whereas there are no shortage of volunteers on the Left who don’t care at all about that. (This may, admittedly, be due to their general failure to grasp the concept in the first place.) Did Joe Farah benefit from my contribution of more than 500 columns to WND? I should bloody well hope so! What would be the point if he didn’t? I didn’t give him money, I gave him 30 minutes per week, and I remain pleased to see what effective use he made of it.

The Catch-22 is that there is never any money involved in getting something started from nothing, which is why it is hard to start anything without the approval of the SJW gatekeepers who have successfully infiltrated the foundations and the large corporations. There is only one way around this, which is for the talent of the right to be willing to follow the example provided by the Free and Open Source crowd.

This sort of thing should never be seen as a job, but a contribution to the cause given out of a positive spirit. It might turn into a job one day, but it probably won’t. And if you’re worried that Castalia, or Roosh, or the guys at Recommend, or might one day end up making a buck due in part to some of the time you’ve put in, consider this: Would you be here in the first place, reading this, if I has been unwilling to write columns or blog posts without being paid for my time?

Anyhow, those are my thoughts. Some of you will have additional ideas, and feel free to throw them out here. This is an open discussion, so brainstorm, don’t critique. And above all, one thing is clear. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t expect direction and management. Adopt a Fourth Generation mentality. Ignideus is the Leader of #GamerGate, Roosh is the Leader of #GamerGate, I am the Leader of #GamerGate, and so can you.

Never rely on a moderate

@totalbiscuit is one of the #GamerGate guys whose heart is more or less in the right place, but has never grasped the underlying issue. He released a joint statement with some other guy with whom he has been sparring. Most of the points are banal enough, but two require comment:

Diversity is important among game creators, players, and characters, and this is an important conversation that must be encouraged, not punished. Diversity leads to better stories, better stories lead to better games. If someone posts an article or video that you disagree with, the correct response is to write a comment, write to the editor, or create your own opposing article or video. It is not appropriate to threaten his or her safety, family, or anything else along those lines.

No. Diversity is not even remotely important among any of these people. Nor is it an important conversation that must be encouraged. It is simple SJW entryism and Totalbiscuit has fallen for it. If Diversity led to better stories, then SF/F would be better than the SF/F of 30 years ago. It’s not. It is considerably worse, by virtually every standard.

But yes, it is not appropriate to threaten people simply because you disagree with them. Or to spend hundreds of hours trying to hack their server; we are still seeing the hacker bounce off our security.

Gamers have endured attacks from the mainstream media for decades and we should be doing everything we can to bring that ignorance to an end, not further fuel it with incendiary rhetoric.

Again, @totalbiscuit is wrong. Only rhetoric can fight rhetoric. I cite Aristotle: “Before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest
knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For
argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people
one cannot instruct.”

In other words, you cannot use dialectic to convince anyone who cannot be instructed of anything. It will not work. Only rhetoric will suffice.

PS: Do to some various distractions, I will be posting my answer to “what can I do” tomorrow. In the meantime: join Twitter, follow, 1 #GamerGate retweet, 1 #GamerGate favorite. That’s a 10-second daily commitment. If you can’t do that, you can’t do anything.

SJWs devour themselves

Larry Correia is vastly amused by the spectacle of SFWA turning on an Campbell Award-nominated Asian lesbian:

Apparently a member of the literati SJW army—and super prestigious Campbell nominee for BEST NEW WRITER—has turned out to be a huge internet troll, with a bunch of aliases, attacking and tormenting people. Of course, those of you who read this blog or followed Sad Puppies are like, duh… They attack and torment Larry, and anybody who agrees with him nonstop, but not my friends… Benjanun Sriduangkaew did the unthinkable and used their regular SJW tactics of threats, insults, intimidation, and career sabotage against fellow SJWs, and that is super badthink!

Now, when you threaten, intimidate, troll, and try to sabotage the career of anybody who disagrees with the Social Justice narrative, then that is doubleplus good!

The SJWs are perfectly aware of their hypocrisy. They talk about how
Sriduangkaew was praised for “punching up”, meaning that it was okay for
her to use these tactics against non-members. Threaten somebody of the
correct sex and race, cool. Threaten somebody of the wrong sex and race,
bad. If you have a brain, you will find that sexist or racist, but you
are not thinking like a proper SJW. Anything they say isn’t sexist or
racist, but anything we do is. Simple.

As I’ve repeatedly warned, pointing out SJW hypocrisy is meaningless to any SJW. They aren’t dialectic. They aren’t rational or coherent. And deprived of any non-rabbits to attack, they naturally turn on each other. The funniest thing is, of course, that Benjanun Sriduangkaew was entirely correct to be cruelly dismissive of the likes of Jemisin and Rothfuss. At her best, Jemisin is mediocre; Rothfuss is painfully unreadable. He’s the Britney Spears of SF/F. I tried reading The Name of My Rose-Scented Wind or whatever it is called once when I was on the road and found myself turning to an Avalon Hill rulebook I’d previously read because it was more interesting. Rothfuss’s achievement is creating the only protagonist you would murder if forced to choose between him and Rand al’Thor. Larry also addressed #GamerGate:

This is one reason I’ve been enjoying the hell out of GamerGate. First,
it has been awesome having a great big group of people witness the same
bullshit that my industry has been dealing with for years. Second, SF/F
people tend to be squishy and polite, with a handful of outspoken
outliers like me and the rest of the Evil League of Evil, so SJWs have
run roughshod over my industry… But gamers? Holy shit. You really think
you can pick a fight with people whose brains are programmed to win?
Gamers will outlast, outthink, and outfight the SJWs. Tell a Gamer that
there is loot or XP in it, and he’ll grind SJWs to the grave.

That’s what SFWA never understood about me when they couldn’t figure out why I didn’t humbly lower my head and slink off the way a good rabbit who has been rejected by the warren is supposed to vanish. I’ve always been a gamer and a game developer first and foremost. It was more likely that I would go methodically through the entire SFWA directory like Michael Myers with literary taste than to even think about submitting to those ghastly little creatures. The thought literally never crossed my mind. The anti-GamerGate SJWs are making exactly the same mistake.

SJWs plotting entry points into games

SB discovered this excerpt from the Dispatch from the Queerness and Games Conference:

The first keynote of the conference was by Lisa Nakamura
on Social Justice Warriors in video game culture. She broke down what
seemed to be the ‘taxonomy’ of an SJW to better understand how people,
usually those actively against social justice movements, both see
themselves and what they want to get rid of. Some qualities Lisa listed
out: SJW framed as opposite to SWM or straight white male, a common term
used for a projected most privileged identity; fundamentally insincere
in their motives and use of ideology, while at the same time too sincere
and unable to take jokes or fit in; not native to the community,
foreigners from Twitter and Tumblr trying to immigrate to video games.
This helps identify not only how gaters treat people they assign as SJW,
but also how they see themselves: person vs ideologue; genuine vs
manipulative; native vs the opportunistic.

Wrapped up in this is how to
be a minoritized person that is a ‘true’ force for change, aka not a
fake feminist or gamer that wants social good, by the way of practicing
‘cruel optimism.’ Cruel optimism is that common response to inequality
that’s a mix of positivist individualism and ‘harsh reality,’ like for
more minoritized people to create games and THEN media will get better,
just sit back and wait and it’ll take care of itself. I feel like we see
this with the overabundance of girls in STEM initiatives and no
resources for those right now fighting against marginalization. Lisa
used the term ‘procedural meritocracy,’ that in order to earn respect in
gaming, you have to display exceptional skill. Basically the idea is if
men who spout sexist stuff online are beat in a video game fair and
square by a woman, they will include her based on meritocracy and
proving she’s not a fake geek girl.

This attitude doesn’t address that
the barriers to gaining skill are still very high for minoritized
people, and that this process ultimately turns the bullied into a new
bully; you climb the ranks so you can police the behavior of others,
essentially giving permission to those already at the top. The true
warrior looks like other gamers, talks like other gamers, and plays like
other gamers. The SJW doesn’t play by the same rules, or even worse,
doesn’t play the same games. This is hyperbolized by the codification of
certain games as worthy of getting paid for playing and not, and how
that is gendered, raced, etc. I think this is a pretty useful
perspective to have because it helps people frame how they talk to those
projecting the image of the SJW and better yet work to counteract the
qualities of being conniving interlopers by referencing their
credibility in the community.

This is classic SJW entryism in action. It’s not conspiracy theory, it is an actual, ongoing conspiracy on the part of SJW radicals to enter the game industry and prevent people from designing, developing, and playing the games they wish to design, develop, and play. This is why they have to be identified, confronted, and called out. They are actively planning to take over the game industry, just as they have nearly taken over SF/F and the sports media with their hyperpoliticization of it.

Do not tolerate them. Do not compromise with them. Do not seek to find a balance with them or meet them halfway. That is the core of their strategy, which they then rinse-and-repeat. They have repeatedly said that we are not fit for public discourse; very well, then do not engage in any discourse with them or permit them entry to anywhere we are.

If there is no place for us where they are, then there can be no place for them where we are.

Hotwheels explains the Nick Denton fraud

Or is it more wheels within wheels…. The founder of 8chan explains that the Nick Denton email and subsequent Facebok post are indeed fakes:

Time to cut to the chase: @Kingofpol’s leak is a fraud.

 I will explain why I trusted it, and then you can draw your own conclusions. I am releasing this information because I believe that it is more important that people know that this is a fraud than my own personal trustworthiness.

@Kingofpol told me about the leak on Skype. He showed it to me, and told me that it was Stephen Totilo, editor and chief at Kotaku who was the source. He told me that he had been speaking to Totilo for weeks, and that this was a confirmed leak from Denton. He told me how hard he worked for this leak, and I decided to help him out with a confirmation. He said that he was passing the information off to Milo, and that there would soon be a Breitbart story.

I found it hard to believe that anyone, even a drama queen like Denton, could be that melodramatic, so it’s not exactly shocking. But I also think it will be amusing if anyone thinks this will have any effect whatsoever on GamerGate. Death threats, media attacks, fake leaks, drinking the blood of innocents, it makes no difference at all.

To reiterate what I told a PhD candidate writing her dissertation on GamerGate who contacted me earlier today: It’s all about one thing
and one thing only: the right of gamers to design, develop, and play
the games we want to design, develop, and play. And we reject the
efforts of absolutely anyone and everyone trying to interfere with
that right.

A game developer on #GamerGate

Earlier this month, The Escapist featured a very good interview with developer Daniel Vavra concerning #GamerGate. Vavra is a co-founder of Warhorse Studios:

What is your definition of “gamer”?

According Encyclopedia Britannica it’s “a person who regularly plays
games and especially video or computer games.” I am ok with that. But
while I am not saying that match-three games are bad, playing them over
breakfast doesn’t make anyone a gamer. It’s silly that the same
journalists who insist on calling people playing such casual games
‘gamers’ are not reviewing those games in their gaming magazines. The
line between a “true” game and “casual” game is thin, but I guess that
everyone can see the difference between somebody who owns several
consoles and plays very often and somebody who plays Bejeweled on his way to work. Those people aren’t the same and the games for them are produced by different industries.

What is the root cause of GamerGate? Do you see it as part of a larger “culture war”? 

Over the last decade, media were taken over by people who think that
their ideals, opinions and way of life are superior to others and so
they have the mission to tell others how to live, what to think and what
to do. Those people have learned that there is a very easy way of
manipulating others with guilt and fake goodwill. They will tell you
that you should be ashamed, because you are privileged. You are white,
you are healthy, you are rich and it’s your fault that there are others
who are not as lucky as you. So you must redeem those crimes by doing
what those social justice warriors think will please those who are not
privileged enough. And if you don’t, they will jump on you and give you a
hard time…. And that is the root cause
of Gamer Gate. People had enough of those hypocrites that started to
inject their ideology everywhere while they do exactly the opposite of
what they preach to others.

Read the whole thing. The total contempt he feels for the SJWs attempting to stick the camel’s nose into the game dev tent is palpable, and he is very, very far from alone in the game industry. The key phrase is: “the games for them are produced by different industries”.

For some reason, none of the SJWs are concerned that there aren’t enough men playing Kim Kardashian Hollywood. Why are there no articles demanding that the developers of Kim Kardashian Hollywood add elements to the game that will make it more appealing for white male players? We all know that these demands for “inclusivity” in the hardcore market are nothing more than another SJW entryist attack.

#GamerGate is doomed… again

This may or may not be genuine, but it is supposed to be a note from Gawker Media’s Nick Denton. [UPDATE: despite the overly dramatic language, it is confirmed to be real.] I’m a little skeptical, but it is in line with SJW entryist tactics as well as some of the recent attempts at “tone-policing” we’ve seen – and ignored – within #GamerGate. And then there is this:

8chan.co @infinitechan
#GamerGate has no leaders, so you don’t have to trust me. I don’t confirm things lightly: what @Kingofpol has is 100% true.

In any event, this was supposedly leaked directly from a source at Gawker:

First and foremost I would like to say “Thank You!” to myself and for those who are more than willing to accept a bit of financial compensation in exchange for causing a disruption. I couldn’t have done it without you and I appreciate all your hard work.

For those of you that might be quite puzzled at the moment I will clarify. As you may have noticed over the last couple months. there has been a
group of individuals eager to ruin my business endeavors at every turn for the sake of “ethics”. I would go as far as to use their preferred banner name. but afler the work of my new colleagues. I don’t see it continuing on much longer. Yes. the circus will finally be leaving town and business will continue as usual.

Over the past few weeks I had tasked my employees for finding a means to destroy that which has been rather resilient. You cannot simply “attack” their leader when they have none. nor could you shun the group as a whole without them using their rainbow coalition to mitigate any claims. Fortunately for myself. I figured it out. I found a way to, as they would put it, “Kill the Batman”.

It was there all along and oh so very simple. infiltrate the group and kill
them from the inside. The media parade that has been going on for weeks
now hasn’t done anything worth a damn. Time and effort thrown out the
window with needless articles over this shit show. None of it has made a damn bit of difference until now. Everyone is eager to throw themselves at mainstream outlets. but none of them are eager to spend the money they are already using to fix this problem the right way. So I had someone send out feelers looking for people to work on a “special project” for me. Those that made it through screening have been taking part in an effort to police the group from the inside, causing a wedge to be driven amongst them. Today serves as evidence of money well spent. they have begun to crack and their influential people are beginning to part ways with the group.

Eventually there will be such a small minority that it will just blow over and nobody will care.

It feels good and I am proud of myself. I am slaying a giant and there is
nothing they can do about it. How does one separate themselves from
people claiming to be “doing what is right for the group” by tone policing? You can’t and it will continue to be the dagger that kills this silly group of entitled brats.
-N. Denton

I’m sort of curious who are supposed to be these “influential people” who are beginning to part ways with #GamerGate. From what I’ve seen, more people than ever are lining up behind it as it becomes increasingly obvious that #GamerGate is not about harassing women given the fact that there hasn’t been any harassment beyond that supposedly directed at LW1, LW2, and LWu back in August.

#GamerGate concerns one thing and one thing only. People designing, developing, and playing the games they want to design, develop, and play. Everything else flows from that.

The thing is, it doesn’t actually matter if this is fake, real, or a real plant meant to sow discord. The lesson for #GamerGate is the same. Ignore the moderates, ignore the placators, ignore the tone-police, and keep doing what you’re doing. The only thing a 4GW organization has to do in order to keep succeeding is a) don’t stop, and, b) don’t centralize.

Mailvox: why C&C isn’t strategy

RD asks about strategy vs tactics:

I was browsing through some of your old columns on WND and came across
an article where you mentioned that one of the premiere, defining games
of the RTS genre, Command & Conquer, could could not actually be
described as a “strategy” game. You wrote:

“Like those video game
reviewers who insist on describing RTS games like Warcraft and Command
& Conquer as “strategy” games, the media consistently confuses
tactics with strategy.”

Would
you care to elaborate on this point? As a long-time fan of the C&C
series and the RTS genre, I am most curious to hear your justification
for distinguishing between tactics and strategy with respect to
describing RTS games. Also, what in your opinion is the best example of
an actual “strategy” RTS game?

The difference between strategy and tactics is pretty clear. If you’re trying to win a war, it’s strategy. If you’re trying to win a battle, it’s tactics. Even Wikipedia is useful in this regard:

Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία stratēgia, “art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship”) is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the “art of the general”, which included several subsets of skills including “tactics”, siegecraft, logistics etc., the term came into use in the 6th century C.E. in East Roman terminology, and was translated into Western vernacular languages only in the 18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word “strategy” came to denote “a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills” in a military conflict, in which both adversaries interact. The father of Western modern strategic study, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as “the employment of battles to gain the end of war.” B. H. Liddell Hart’s definition put less emphasis on battles, defining strategy as “the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy”. Hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political aims over military goals.

Military tactics are the science and art of organizing a military force, and the techniques for combining and using weapons and military units to engage and defeat an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology have been reflected in changes to military tactics; in contemporary military science tactics are the lowest of three planning levels: (i) strategic, (ii) operational, and (iii) tactical. The highest level of planning is strategy, how force is translated into political objectives, by bridging the means and ends of war. The intermediate level, operational level, the conversion of strategy into tactics deals with formations of units. In the vernacular, tactical decisions are those made to achieve the greatest, immediate value, and strategic decisions are those made to achieve the greatest, overall value, irrespective of the immediate results of a tactical decision.

That’s the formal distinction, and it should be fairly obvious that most RTS are intrinsically tactical in nature. But there is also another way of looking at it, which is the one I actually had in mind, which is that strategy implies thinking and planning, whereas tactics implies acting and responding. Most RTS games such as Warcraft and C&C, involve considerably more of the latter than the former. Indeed, even if we disregard the fact of the old “grunt rush” tactic or the fact that success often boiled down to superior click speed, thanks to the “technology tree”, most RTS involve virtually no thinking or anything that can reasonably be described as strategy.

My old friend Chris, who has designed a few notable RTS games, is even quoted in the RTS article: “[My first attempt at visualizing RTSs in a fresh and interesting new way] was my realizing that although we call this genre ‘Real-Time Strategy,’ it should have been called ‘Real-Time Tactics’ with a dash of strategy thrown in.”

So, for both reasons, I don’t think it is possible for an RTS to be a proper strategy game. I actually designed an RTS, as it happens; the original WAR IN HEAVEN game was supposed to be an RTS. It would have been a lot better if we had gone that route too, but Valu-Soft wanted to chase Walmart with a DEER HUNTER-style game, which, as I have related in the past, backfired rather spectacularly when they foolishly hired the buyer who wanted it before the game was finished.