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Sept. 30, 2014 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
11:21
Critical Distance's Modern-Day Book-Burning of GTA V #GamerGate #NotYourShield
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This video is only tangentially related to my Digra videos, and as usual, I don't want you to contact any of the people mentioned in this video.
I want you to leave them alone, but I want you to know who they are and what they do.
This is David Lifshitz.
David Lifshitz is the president of the GER Group.
GER Industries engages in the manufacturing, sale, and distribution of wire and cable, industrial supplies, and related products throughout the United States and Canada.
In the past 30 years, GER Development has owned and operated over a thousand residential units and over a million square feet of industrial office and retail space.
The GER group doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, and I couldn't find any information on the net worth of the GER Group, nor about the net wealth of David Lifshitz, but here he is conducting $170 million portfolio financing as the GER Group acquires a Manhattan Hotel.
David Lifshitz is undoubtedly a multi-millionaire.
Alex Lifshitz is David Lifshitz's son.
Alex got a haircut and is now a video game producer.
And he can be found on Twitter under the pseudonym Known Cold Titty Man, where you can see him empathizing with Gamergate randos by telling them welcome to real life where you're not owed anything.
Alex's work in the video game industry includes quality assurance for Call of Duty World at War and Fallout New Vegas, where he was a production intern.
Alex Lifshitz comes from an exceptionally wealthy family, as can be evidenced by this photo of him hanging out with one Zoe Quinn.
Critical Distance was founded in 2009 and operates in a very similar manner to Digra.
The group provides a platform for ideas to be disseminated to the gaming press.
The mission statement states that the goal is to bring together and highlight the most interesting, provocative and robust writing, video and discussion on games from across the web.
At our heart, Critical Distance is not here to create a canon of best works, instead, we want to facilitate dialogue.
In March 2014, Critical Distance hosted a games criticism conference called Critical Proximity.
The purpose of this conference was to bring people together in a shared space and they aim to move forward together to locate common ground, build bridges and get directions.
The sold-out conference was organized by Silverstring Media's Zoya Street.
Since I've been investigating this subject, Silverstring Media have removed their team page from their website, but the internet never forgets.
Zoya Street is an advisor to Silverstring, alongside Anit Sarkisian and Jonathan McIntosh.
Zoya Street is a name you'll want to remember for future videos.
Alex Lifshitz gave a talk at Critical Proximity called The Treachery of Games and his views were rather outlandish to say the least.
I will play you a few clips of the most glaringly insane things he said.
I'll include a link in the description and I strongly recommend that you watch the whole thing.
Alex Lifshitz is very clearly on board with social justice.
Hi, I'm Alex.
I produce video games.
Quick warning, some of the slides late in the presentation depict some transphobic, violent and sexist content, all of which are screenshots from modern titles.
Alex is the sort of fruitcake who conflates being alive and growing older with actively dying.
So this is the familiar, voluble refrain of the Steam Green Light Peanut Gallery.
Committed to snuffing out the imposters in their midst, their concern is in deference, perhaps unconsciously, to the fact that we are all going to die, probably soon and probably painfully, so of course, we need to min-max our time on Earth.
Alex appears to rank Depression Quest over any other mere video game.
If we judge the validity of media by its success in fulfilling the purpose of media, then Depression Quest is more valid than any mere video game could ever hope to be, and this directly affects your purpose as critics.
Alex is under the impression that the negative reaction to Depression Quest was because people are defensive and afraid of new things, and not because it could have been programmed in an hour by student learning HTML.
We are insecure about games.
We are insecure about game criticism.
When confronted with intruders like Depression Quest, which dare to exist in the discourse reserved for AAA travesties and the Unreal Engines of Power Them, our reaction is defensive and neophobic.
Alex is not a gamer.
He doesn't understand gaming.
And he thinks that gamers don't like gaming.
To quote a recent obituary of Philip Seymour Hoffman, it's like watching a group of children gossiping in a nonsense language they had invented in order to exclude an unpopular classmate.
There's a certain internal logic apparent in the chatter as the gibberish is repeated in certain sequences, respecting vague rules using distinct inflections.
But all an observer would be able to discern amidst the nonsense is latent contempt for the subject.
Alex also shows us that social justice warriors have no idea of their own levels of projection.
All this in defense of a thoroughly besotted, narcissistic industry that fabricates its sense of integrity from whole cloth.
Alex could whiter on about the merits of Depression Quest for hours.
Depression Quest is a map to the territory of depression, and it uses interactivity to draw a startlingly accurate diagram.
As a piece of pure media, then, it's a resounding success.
Video game isn't just a label, it's a subclassification, a phylum of media.
It's a low bar that Depression Quest manages to leave in the dust.
As you can see, Alex has no idea what the merits of video games are.
He also thinks that criticism should contain nothing but praise.
And this is where you come in.
I view creators of not just games, but of all media as cultural cartographers, with the duty of praising their maps falling to you, the critics.
Not just for their presentation and legibility, nor their format, but for their accuracy.
And as the proverb goes, the best way to learn about the journey ahead is to ask someone who's just returning from it.
And it's at this point that Alex goes truly off the rails.
Except this industry, this readership, this consumer demographic, we demand knowledge of the route, but shun knowledge of the journey.
We want to muzzle your experience and call it journalistic impartiality.
Let's be perfectly clear.
Impartiality is bullshit.
You heard him correctly.
He doesn't think it's possible to be impartial.
You can't control how you feel.
You heard that correctly, too, to an ovation from the audience.
To his credit, Alex is well aware of the corruption in the gaming industry and how that informs a reviewer's bias.
I'm a AAA producer.
That's where I live.
I've seen the emails come down about E3 demos and press junkets, and I'm line level in a producer pit.
So chances are, I'm the one booking your flights and your bar tabs and spa treatments and catering and rooms full of HDTVs and alien wares and razor keyboards with neon fucking undercarriages.
And none of these are about the game.
We're plying you with payola.
We're not just expecting you to not be impartial.
We're fucking banking on it.
And then we have the gall to demand your impartiality when it stands to work against us.
As a social justice warrior, Alex naturally hates Grand Theft Auto V.
But more than that, he condescendingly looks down on all the people who bought it.
When Grand Theft Auto V launched, Carolyn Petit dared to give the game a generous 9 out of 10, docking at a point for being exceptionally misogynistic, more than its presumed cynicism could really justify, a very real problem that threatens the enjoyment of anyone with an eye for spotting marginalization.
For her commitment to her readership, she was pilloried by the internet's teenage nihilist Moshpit.
They deemed her too sensitive to get it, nursing their sense of denied grandeur, with the implication, of course, being that they do.
In their mind's eye, they are all very hard, enlightened cultural connoisseurs with sharp wits who enjoy ham-handed, mealing-mouthed cultural shit kicking, their minds and collective conscience honed to a steely indifferent edge by the brilliant satire of South Park.
After whipping himself up into this self-righteous frenzy, he goes on to show just how much he hates the people who bought Grand Theft Auto V and wishes physical harm on them.
These people who so vociferously defend a quarter billion dollar technical marvel from a woman looking out for the best interest of others.
They are mice that roar, dishonest sacks of hot garbage who should be broken on racks.
Once again, we can see an astounding level of projection.
And in his attempt to give what he considers to be an accurate representation of the mental state of gamers, he actually gives us an accurate representation into the mental state of social justice warriors.
Their sibilant hissing should not be mistaken for love of games or ideological purity, but for what it is.
Insecurity.
Hegemony in motion.
A pleading request for the homogenous neurotypical Mountain Dew, easily ingested but utterly bereft of nutritional value.
Alex also despises the nature of the free market, which allows people to produce what they want and consumers to enjoy what they want.
We seek meaning and guidance from you.
They seek to become lost, to set a torch to the path, and they prefer we burn up with them.
And our industry would settle to be an eternally burning garbage fire so long as willing consumers stoke the coals.
Alex actively wants biased game reporting.
He wants social justice warriors writing game reviews so that he personally will know how he will feel about the game instead of how he might enjoy playing the game.
When GTA 5 stands a good chance of making me, a straight white dude, feel exceptionally uncomfortable about race and gender portrayals, I want to know.
When God of War is going to surprise me with a sexist trophy that makes me put the game down, I want to know.
And when something is relatively benign as having to suspend your engrossment to gloss over the fact that Nathan Drake is murdering hundreds of dudes for Mayan Trinkets, you know what?
I do want to know.
Alex actively calls for bias in journalism.
He all but demands it.
I want your insight.
I want your agenda.
If I didn't, I wouldn't be talking to you.
So go Gonzo.
Don't conflate personality with bias.
Even if you do, don't see bias as a bad thing.
When Alex talks about the game industry, he has a hard time not sounding like a Nazi talking about Jews.
The game industry is decadent and depraved.
But his greatest moment of insanity lies ahead, when he participates in what I think could be accurately described as a modern-day book burning.
If you want formalism, you know what isn't a game?
This.
This is not a game.
It is a disc.
It is fragile.
It is tangible.
It is not nearly as invincible as Rockstar would like us to believe.
That's right.
He just destroyed a disc of Grand Theft Auto V to a cheering crowd of ideologues.
He finishes stoking up the peasants with the stupidest thing anyone could possibly say.
Now, I assure you, the game is in fact fine.
In fact, millions of people are enjoying it right now.
But those millions of people, well, they're on their own.
Yes, Alex, that is exactly how it works.
And I'm sure that Rockstar are terrified that you have symbolically burned their most successful game, if not the most successful game in history.
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