Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Who is Killing Video Games？

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March 10, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

22:38

Who is Killing Video Games？

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	So the anti-gamers have got a blog post going around at the moment entitled Gamergate is killing video games and they said Gamergate wouldn't have an effect on anything.
	So the blog begins by mentioning that Total Biscuit wrote a Twitlonger questioning the theory of media influence, particularly in video games, asking where are the scientists.
	Because I don't trust anyone from Gamergazi to document anything accurately, we'll look at this for ourselves.
	TB begins his post with, I'm consistently bothered by this throwaway phrase, media affect people, as if it's some kind of argument winner, an inarguable statement of fact.
	In reality, it's lazy.
	It's too vague.
	It's pseudo-intellectual at worst.
	It makes a gigantic broadstroke which is so heinous in its inaccuracy as to render it an utterly meaningless buzzphrase.
	And he goes on to say, so I ask you this, in what way, specifically, do video games affect people?
	What kind of people do they affect?
	Is it universal or are some people more susceptible than others?
	To what degree does it affect people?
	What attitudes can it inspire?
	We already know based on uncountable studies that video games do not cause violent behaviour.
	So that indeed is one way that video games do not affect people.
	These are perfectly reasonable questions and apparently an actual social scientist posted a lengthy explanation of media influence.
	And just to show you what side of the fence they stood on, they posted it on Reddit's Gamergazi board.
	A place so biased they have a picture of Anita Sarkeesian with a sun halo around her head like she is a goddamn Byzantine icon.
	So why anyone would post anything that they want considered by all parties on Gamergazi is baffling.
	So Gamergazi describes themselves as a community of 6031 cultural Marxists destroying video games with 189 social justice warriors there at the moment when I took this screenshot.
	They say do you think people who care about social justice should have the freedom to review and make games without harassment and doxing?
	Well as someone who's both been threatened and doxed, yes I totally agree that they should be able to do anything without the threat of harassment and doxing.
	Or do I just think that Gamergate is a bunch of hypocritical right-wing conspiratorial horse crap?
	Well as someone who gives a damn about facts let me check.
	Hmm it does seem that the vast majority of people in Gamergate are in fact very much left-leaning libertarians.
	So no, I don't think that Gamergate is excessively right wing.
	Anyway getting back to the answer to where are the scientists in response to Total Biscuit's question, someone called Anoni Social Scientist has posted a reply here.
	The person claims to be a real social scientist who studies video games and their impact, and for the sake of argument I'm going to believe that they're telling the truth.
	They claim to have published peer-review research.
	They're not a member of Digra and their work is quantitative rather than qualitative.
	This person says I think everyone here knows that video games are not linked to violence even amongst vulnerable populations and gives a citation.
	However, that does not mean that video games can't have negative real-world consequences, which is the first point on which we will stop.
	No one said they can't have negative real-world consequences.
	The question isn't can they have negative real-world consequences.
	The question is do they have negative real-world consequences?
	And like you have just stated, the answer appears to be no.
	This person has deliberately reframed the question in order to make the answers ambiguous.
	For example, they say there is a difference between linkages to violence and links to aggression and other negative effects.
	This is deliberately nebulous terminology.
	Total Biscuit asked for solid, concrete, specific examples.
	To say aggression causes negative effects is deliberately vague.
	And of course, being deliberately vague in the face of a request for specific concrete examples means that this person is, frankly, not answering the question.
	They go on to say that in the past few years, there have been much better evidence of the link between violent video games and aggressive behavior.
	Again, the nebulous undefined term aggressive behavior.
	A quite impressive recent long-term longitudinal study in Jamma Pediatrics concluded, the study found habitual violent video game play increases long-term aggressive behavior by producing general changes in aggressive cognition.
	And this occurs regardless of sex, age, initial aggressiveness, and parental involvement.
	And I am sure that this is true.
	But now you have to explain to everyone how this is a bad thing.
	The closest they get is by intimating that it's going to cause bad behavior.
	There are apparently populations who are particularly vulnerable, especially those with the traits of high neuroticism, apparently prone to anger and depression, highly emotional and easily upset, disagreeableness, cold, indifferent to other people, and low levels of conscientiousness, prone to acting without thinking, failing to deliver on promises, breaking rules.
	If the worst effect that video games have on people is that some people who play video games a lot are prone to acting without thinking, failing to deliver on promises and breaking rules, then I personally am of the opinion that that's their problem for them to deal with and is absolutely in no way my responsibility or should be pressed upon me as an issue.
	The fact of the matter is that nothing that this social scientist has said has translated into reality.
	There have been no real world effects.
	You can say all you want that video games cause quote unquote aggressive behavior.
	But if the real world effect of people becoming quote unquote more aggressive is that the rate of violent crimes are a third of the rates of 1994, then it seems that either your studies are wrong or it doesn't matter.
	And let's not forget that in the time between say 1990 and 2012, the population of the United States increased by about 65 million people.
	Our anonymous social scientist goes on to talk about gender next and says that studies have found that playing video games with the theme of female objectification I'd like to see what video games that was made prime thoughts related to sex encourage men to view women as sex objects and lead to self-reported tendencies to behave inappropriately towards women in social situations.
	There's still more work to be done but the early evidence suggests that games matter on views of gender.
	Well let's have a look at say the crime statistics again.
	Let's look at say the forcible rape statistics from say again 1990, 102,000 people down to 2012 where despite an increase in population of 65 million or so we're down to 84,000 and comparing this to the video game sales figures in the United States that have quadrupled since 1996.
	I don't know how your studies are wrong but they are not adding up.
	They are not translating into real world damage to women.
	Laws are not being broken.
	Video games are not encouraging people to be criminals.
	I really think you should ask yourself about your own biases.
	Specifically in this case confirmation bias.
	You have something you are looking for.
	You want to prove something and the evidence does not seem to support your hypothesis.
	I'll let you explain to everyone what your bias and your agenda is.
	Mr or Mrs. Anonymous Social Scientist.
	Added on reflection, let me say one other thing.
	There are a number of us in academia who love games, who care about games and believe games are important.
	We have been working for years to make games a legitimate tool for education and for study and we were making progress.
	People were starting to take games seriously.
	And then came Gamergate.
	I have seen the careful progress of a decade come crashing down and now, when I go to talk about the games industry to groups or fellow academics, Gamergate always comes up of an example of how terrible and immature the people who play games are.
	Well, Mr. or Mrs. Social Scientist, I'm going to give it to you straight.
	I don't care.
	I don't give a damn if people in universities take games seriously or not.
	I literally don't care if you want to make games a tool for education or for study.
	By wanting to make this the prime focus of games you have missed the point of games.
	Games are not for education or study.
	They are for entertainment.
	It has been this warping of the industry to try and fit your agenda through the journalists, through academics, through feminist critics, through pressure on developers that has caused Gamergate to come about.
	And I can't believe the entitlement.
	I've worked for a decade to try and change your hobby into something it's not.
	Or tough shit.
	That's your mistake then, isn't it?
	So these were my thoughts after reading this post on Gamergazi and I had a look at the comments.
	Thanks for the great in-depth analysis.
	We have facts while Gamergate has their hate and misogynist crap.
	Big boy on campus 95.
	I don't think you know what a fact is, especially given that the person making the post says, we're not sure we have a long way to go.
	That is not what you would call a fact.
	Or this one from 1080piza.
	I've been looking for a proper scientifically supported post.
	What solid conclusions did we draw from it?
	Only one, that video games don't cause violence, sexual or otherwise.
	So I decided to make a post, postulating this to our social scientist, which was of course censored.
	Why?
	Because I am from Gamergate and I care about facts and evidence and reason.
	Gamergazi does not and this threatens their echo chamber.
	So GG please go.
	But like everything Gamergazi does, they do it incompetently.
	So here are my questions to our anonymous social scientist that were censored.
	Why has the violent crime rate dramatically dropped since the advent and explosion in popularity of video games?
	And if our social scientist studies are correct and the studies that find no correlation between video games and violence are not correct, why is there no effect on the violent crime rate from this?
	And the reason that I say that Ghazi is incompetent is because not only did the social scientist see and reply to my question, but they left our social scientists' response to that question intact.
	And the response is interesting and is as follows.
	I stated pretty clearly that there is no direct link from video games to violent crime.
	Agreed, there is not.
	And the paper does not show a link and I do not claim that it does.
	Good.
	I'm glad we can establish that video games do not cause violent crime.
	And they go on to say that the evidence presented links violent video games to aggression in a longitudinal study.
	There are issues with the study obviously, clearly, but it concludes that video games can increase aggressive cognition and aggressive behavior.
	But that does not for some reason translate into an increase in violent crime.
	So what's the problem?
	Apparently people who played more violent video games were significantly more likely to have aggressive fantasies and to answer questions about real behavior such as when someone has angered or provoked me in some way, I have reacted by hitting that person in the affirmative.
	Well, I'm afraid I do not care for such self-reporting when objective reporting shows that the number of violent assaults is down across the board, even though the population has risen.
	Aggravated assault, rape, murder, robbery, burglary, it's all down.
	So for this person to say, again, this is far from the final word, but either way, trends in overall violent crime wouldn't shed much light on video games one way or another is disingenuous.
	We're not trying to shed light on video games.
	We're trying to shed light on the results of playing video games on people.
	And apparently a four-fold rise in the number of people playing video games has not led to any kind of increase in violent crime whatsoever.
	It has in fact coincided with a decrease, a dramatic decrease in these crime rates.
	And this is despite the overall trend of increasing population.
	The violent crime rates would be how we know that there is a problem with video games.
	These would be the end effect of video games.
	More sexual assaults, more rapes, more violent assaults, more murders.
	And as you have stated, the best you can do is say that there is an increase of aggressive fantasies.
	Well, I don't care.
	I don't care if people have aggressive fantasies.
	As long as they're not committing crimes, they can have all the aggressive fantasies they want.
	Going back to our Gamergate is Killing Games blog post, they quote our social scientists added on reflection paragraph.
	Let's finish off the bit that I didn't read.
	It will take years and years to repair the damage that Gamergates caused.
	And this is absolutely devastating to the serious study and application of the power of games to real problems.
	We are going to have trouble getting grants, getting foundations to fund games and getting people to take us seriously.
	It's devastating and it makes me very sad.
	Well, honestly, I don't care.
	To be honest with you, this is kind of good news for me.
	Do you want to know why?
	The author of the blog post will show us exactly why.
	For many years, people have been fighting for games to be recognized seriously as an art form.
	I don't care if games are recognized seriously as an art form by pretentious hipsters or feminist academics.
	Social scientists have been studying the influence of games, not just because of their negative effects, but because of the potential positive effects as well.
	Do you want me to tell you about the positive effect of games?
	I can save you all this kind of studying, if you want.
	Games could potentially be a powerful tool to help teach empathy and to increase satisfaction and happiness.
	You know what, right?
	They are.
	Games are already a powerful tool to increase satisfaction and happiness.
	And this is done by fucking playing them.
	And it is unironically that the person says, but now that Gamergates has shattered public perception of gaming and academia.
	Tough shit.
	You corrupt motherfuckers sit there and demonize a consumer revolt that just wants ethical standards in the fucking industry that they spend their hard-earned money on.
	You run around to the press, you run around to the mainstream media, you run around to law and fucking order.
	So they say, oh, gamers are terrorists.
	Trying to drive women out of the industry.
	And you are now going to come to us with crocodile tears saying, oh no, our narratives backfired on us and no one wants to touch us.
	Tough fucking shit.
	Apparently though, Gamergates has not been shy about their disdain for academia and video games.
	That's not true.
	What we're not shy about is our disdain for feminist academia in video games.
	Because feminist academia seems to be crazy, frankly, and it seems to be corrupt.
	I'll show you why.
	But first, let's finish this.
	As evidenced by the popularity of anti-academic figures, such as YouTuber known as Sargon of Akkad.
	Well, that's funny, because I'm not anti-academic.
	I'm all in favour of the STEM fields.
	I'm all in favour of psychology and all that sort of thing.
	What I'm not in favour of is people making specious arguments who've got a goal that they're trying to reach and are desperately trying to find some way of validating their arrival at that goal, despite the fact that the evidence doesn't support them getting there.
	I mean, just reading the title of one of his videos tells you all you need to know.
	Well, it does if you are a propagandist.
	The author of this blog post then links to my video, The Professional Cretans of Academia.
	The picture on the thumbnail of the video is a picture of a person called Catherine Cross, who is a feminist academic.
	And we'll get back to her shortly.
	For now, let's turn our attention to Adrian Shaw.
	He could be a bunny rabbit for all I care.
	Identification with video game characters and arguments for diversity and representation.
	This is hosted by Digra.
	The conclusion of this paper is as follows.
	Playing as a character that is like you in terms of demographic categories does not necessarily engender identification.
	This calls into question both the educative benefits and the marketing benefits of playing as a main video game character that is a member of a marginalized group.
	What she is saying there is that her research shows that shoehorning in diversity into video games is not going to draw in people who aren't already playing the video games and it does not give any kind of educational benefits to people who might want to know what it's like to play as a person from that marginalized group.
	This is Adrian Shaw's conclusion.
	Gamers do not need diversity.
	So what does Adrian do?
	She takes the exact same study and repurposes it to try and avoid using the term gamer altogether as a way of forcing diversity into video games.
	Which was then passed down to the gaming press to perform their assault on the gamer identity.
	As if this intellectual dishonesty was not enough.
	Adrian Shaw and other Digra members Shira Chess, Mir Consalvo and T.L. Taylor have been meddling directly with the game's press and prominent figures within the gaming industry.
	At for example the Digra Playfulest Political Fishbowl Conversation in which Adrian Shaw asks how has feminist game studies influenced developers and games?
	Where's the impact outside of academia?
	A question which is answered by three people.
	Firstly, Deirdre Squinky.
	Who is Squinky?
	Well Squinky is someone who hates video games and men.
	And Squinky is very highly regarded by the founder of Silverstring Media Lucas J.W. Johnson.
	Why is Silverstring Media important?
	Because the other two people who answered this question were Zoya Street and Andrew Grant Wilson of Silverstring Media.
	Andrew Grant Wilson is the partner, CCO and Director of Design, and Zoya Street is an advisor and industry consultant.
	Also consulting for Silverstream Media are Anita Sarkeesian and Jonathan McIntosh of Feminist Frequency.
	What's their connection you say?
	Well they've got a few.
	The first one being through Catherine Cross who says that the reaction to Gamergate in her professional circles has been one of shock and horror, but also support for me and the work I do, which presumably involves her giving talks for Digra.
	But more importantly involves her being the secretary of Feminist Frequency, the non-profit organization that Anita Sarkeesian is the president of.
	But I know what you're thinking, I thought GameGrate was dealing with corruption.
	Sorry, did you think there wasn't corruption involved in all this collusion?
	Because there most certainly is.
	How about Silverstring Media's involvement on Crypt of the NecroDancer?
	Silverstring Media was contracted to consult on the story development, create a thematic arc, and write the narrative content sprinkled throughout the gameplay.
	Anita Sarkeesian naturally runs her feminist frequency steam curation service where she advises people on what games that she thinks they should buy.
	And I'm sure it will come as absolutely no surprise to you that Crypt of the NecroDancer is one of her recommended games.
	With, of course, absolutely no disclosure of her connections to the company that wrote it.
	Honestly.
	Fucking honestly.
	You sit there and say, oh academics, you're so anti-academic.
	You're trying to get academics out of the industry.
	You're all fucking corrupt.
	I just want to lay out this complex web of relationships so you can be aware just how incestuous this all is.
	So firstly we have say Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency.
	Feminist Frequency is written by Jonathan McIntosh.
	They are both advisors for Silverstring Media.
	Andrew Grant Wilson and Zoya Street of Silverstring Media work and have conferences with members of Digra.
	Specifically, Shira Chess, T.L. Taylor, Mia Consalvo and Adrian Shaw.
	And third party individuals such as Squinky Kai who connects to Digra and Silverstring and Catherine Cross the secretary of feminist frequency who connects to Digra personally.
	So do I care if academics are failing in the gaming industry?
	Not really.
	I think they've kind of brought it on themselves.
	This is what happens when you are corrupt and you are trying to shoehorn your agenda into an industry that doesn't need it or desire it.
	So when on this blog post, they complain that people in Gamergate are happy that academic feminists are losing their funding or having trouble getting games taken seriously in academia.
	You've really got to ask yourself, who do you think you're fooling?
	And then to have the gall to say, Gamergate is killing video games, and that's exactly what they want.
	Here's a cute little nugget for you.
	This is Maya Felix Kramer of Silverstring Media.
	She's being supported on Patreon by Deirdre Squinky Kai.
	Maya Kramer produced a line of t-shirts called Cuties Killing Video Games.
	Both Maya and Squinky have supported on Patreon a person known as Matty Bryce.
	Matty, death to video games Bryce.
	Yes, I'm well aware that they'll say, oh this is all ironic, but there's only so long you can go around saying that we hate video games, we want to kill video games, before people are going to start thinking you're not joking.
	Is Gamergate about corruption?
	Of course it is.
	Who are the corrupt people?
	Feminist academics, feminist journalists and feminist quote-unquote developers.

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