Video Game Controversies

[Skynet]

A far-right gaming site One Angry Gamer compiled a "Traitors to America" list of various content creators, games studios, and even some non-game-related companies who even so much as said the #blacklivesmatter hashtag and/or spoke out against police brutality.

With literally hundreds of entries complete with specific links to the statements at hand, this ended up serving the opposite effect. Many found it a useful resource for seeing which individuals and companies align with progressive goals, and made an alternate site for it to avoid giving him traffic.

It should go without saying that saying a slogan online is a far cry from affecting actual change and holding to your own standards in your personal and professional life, so as usual use your discretion.

[Twisted Crow]

Dat Randy Pitchford at No. 153, though..    ^-^

[Brittlby]

Dat Randy Pitchford at No. 153, though..    ^-^

;D Talk about imperfect allies.

[TheGlyphstone]

Logan Paul, of all people, has come out swinging in favor of #BlackLivesMatter. The enemy of my enemy might not be my friend, but dark times do make for strange bedfellows.

[Twisted Crow]

An interesting coincidence, as I was just explaining to my father who Logan Paul was.

To be serious, I am kinda on board with some of these but my gut tells me that some of these are mainly image preservation moves. But others I can totally see. Felicia Day? Totally believe that she is a BLM supporter. I can see it.

Logan Paul... eh... honestly? I dunno about that one. This is the same guy that slurred KSI and 'joked' that every black guy they saw looked like KSI. And also purposely referring to him as 'KFC'.

I see Pewds, too. Hmmm.

I mean, can people turn a new leaf? Absolutely. I 100% believe it. I still hold close my bit about redemption in how important that chance is for a human being. However... I do also know some have a corporate (or otherwise) social image to maintain. *shrug* Yes, I know. Skeptic Dallas is skeptic. So, I'll ease up a bit on some of them.

I mean... I might say Electronic Arts is a rebel spy and a traitor to take away. But... you know, mostly for completely different reasons.  ^-^

[Oniya]

Logan Paul, of all people, has come out swinging in favor of #BlackLivesMatter. The enemy of my enemy might not be my friend, but dark times do make for strange bedfellows.

And Logan's kid brother Jake tried to capitalize on the looting - at least as 'content'.

[Tolvo]

I'm a little sad I didn't make it on the list as I've been streaming and guesting on streams raising funds. Though at least it means I don't have tons of shitheads messaging me. Also One Angry Gamer is quite a notorious far right jackass such as his memable raging about Celeste adding a trans pride flag in the background for a single frame of the ending cutscene, with people point out his picture was zoomed in and that it's barely visible fullscreen, with him explaining it's big in his picture because you have to zoom in, with them saying "Don't zoom in then" with him going "But I have to."

[Twisted Crow]

*facepalm*

I noticed Randy Pitchford... and didn't notice my dude Randy Orton.

Hitting that sleeper police state with dem RKO's, son!

[Twisted Crow]

Jim Sterling (Jimquisition) on Activision-Blizzard's "altruism".

[Tolvo]

In the gaming industry and streaming communities many have been coming forward about a lot of abuse. We are having another surge of #MeToo focused on these communities and the rampant misogyny, racism, transphobia, albeism, various forms of bigotry, and the many predators in these communities. From Imsoniac Games and Ubisoft, to big name youtubers, influencers, streamers, big and small, who stalk and harass and assault people, so many are being exposed and there is hopefully going to be some action. People like AngryJoe, Escoblades/Adrian(Of Ubisoft), so many are being exposed. It's been harrowing as a survivor and victim, and I've been speaking with others and backing them up as they make statements and making my own. This is to both vent a little but also inform people about what is going on.

Some examples below, with content warnings for sexual assault, harassment, abuse, rape, pedophilia, misogyny, suicide, just, I fucking am disgusted.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

https://twitter.com/apocalynds/status/1275440172188893184

https://twitter.com/GrimKim/status/1275587362102411270

https://www.vg247.com/2020/06/22/twitch-ceo-abuse-partners/

https://twitter.com/kohquette/status/1275590691469447168

https://twitter.com/themiabyte/status/1275105940233170949

https://twitter.com/wuffles/status/1275481914200092672

https://twitter.com/AllawayJ/status/1275314300521820162

https://twitter.com/CHERdotdev/status/1275170269729079296

https://twitter.com/winnersusedrugs/status/1275162842543480832

https://twitter.com/DennyVonDoom/status/1275177254281150464

https://twitter.com/lomadia/status/1275140865883865088

https://twitter.com/betterthemask/status/1275149696101646340

https://twitter.com/WookieMonsterTV/status/1274229302540808192

[Tolvo]

https://twitter.com/betterthemask/status/1275484517244026881

Someone is making a fairly comprehensive thread now, they likely can't spot and include all of it. But there's a lot. I also forgot to mention one of the biggest ones which is Chris Avellone. Sorry I've been exhausted, still dealing with this, people messaging me saying they feel bad because they don't know what to do about someone who hurt me and that's been stressful. There's just so much going on.

[Brittlby]

How does Ubisoft NOT have any safeguards against predatory behavior in this day and age? More and more their ubiquitous “Statement of inclusivity“ intro of theirs sounds like a lip service shield against criticism rather than a statement of ideals. Thats a Big percentage Of these cases out of them.

Pretty shocked to hear about Angry Joe. He’s Austin based so I’ve met him a half dozen times working cons. Has anyone else come forward?

[Skynet]

How does Ubisoft NOT have any safeguards against predatory behavior in this day and age? More and more their ubiquitous “Statement of inclusivity“ intro of theirs sounds like a lip service shield against criticism rather than a statement of ideals. Thats a Big percentage Of these cases out of them.

You wouldn't believe how many established companies lack basic departments like PR agents, Human Resources, and other such things necessary to combat disruptive and exploitative work environments; in some cases it's incompetence, in many it's apathy as long as the shareholders get paid. Ubisoft's corporate culture has long struck me as one where they know that they can coast on by the bare minimum (and not even that) and still make money, even as they weather controversy after controversy. Hoping that things end up differently this time around.

[Tolvo]

Flat out so far the vast majority of people exposed recently have been working at or with Ubisoft to the point it seems more like this was not an error but instead working as intended. We're also seeing the Skullgirls community suffering as multiple people have been exposed as sexually abusive and even pedophiles(Some were not a secret they did work with Zone Tan a pedophile artist very openly) who work on the game. This came not too long after one of the developers Mike Z made fun of George Floyd's death during a livestream of the game. Mike Z has also had numerous people come forward about him creeping on them.

[Top Cat]

Wat.

I did a Google search on "Zone tan pedophile" and came up with zero hits. Do you have any evidence of any of that other than internet hate machine bullshit?

[Oniya]

It probably wouldn't be too difficult to look at the art this person has done and apply body-proportion standards. 

[Top Cat]

I'd want to hear the actual claims before I even started to discuss it. ” He was thrown out of ComicCon for molesting 8-year-old cosplayers” is hugely different from "he drew porn of this character, and if you read the developer notes for Season 1 Episode 37, you'll see that she's canonically 14.” Two entirely different things there.

[Tolvo]

Zone Tan's rise to prominence was through doing porn of kids cartoons which mainly were of underage characters. Their Newgrounds account has quite a lot of material like that, not even the pretense of "aged up." But frankly I don't want to link to 2d underage porn.

[Oniya]

Zone Tan's rise to prominence was through doing porn of kids cartoons which mainly were of underage characters. Their Newgrounds account has quite a lot of material like that, not even the pretense of "aged up." But frankly I don't want to link to 2d underage porn.

Thanks for that consideration.  ^_^;;

[Top Cat]

There's a considerable difference between art that people produce and the people that they actually are. If people's artistic creations spoke of their actual sexual desires, then we would see:

• Luc Besson, writer for Leon/The Professional and La Femme Nikita, charged with pedophilia.
• Vladimir Nabokov charged with pedophilia for Lolita (And Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne for directing movies based on it)
• Joe Eszterhas for rape in Showgirls
• A pretty high percentage of Disney artists, who have drawn porn of the characters that they're animating or drawing for Disney - are they pedophiles, too?
• Hundreds of other novel writers, script writers, animators, and artists of every stripe who have depicted rape, sexual abuse, pedophilia, and so on.
• ...and, oh, I don't know, somewhere around 2/3 of all of the writers on E, particularly everyone who participates in the Non-Consensual or Extreme subfora.

I write stories (here on E and elsewhere) about mind control, enslavement, sexual abuse, and worse (and I'm fairly tame compared to what my wife writes), and I've never once thought, "Hmm, maybe I'll do it for real this time." The fantasies that we write, that we create, and that we play out with others, does not speak to how we treat other people in real life. Moreover, I once organized a group story/game where my own "faceclaim" was flagged as underage (and then approved, after I found a in-world birthday party for the character that considered canon in the show that character was from), but wasn't accused of being a pedophile.

If you want to convince me that someone is a pedophile, you'll need to show me something more than just artwork. Are there some people who write pedophilic stories, pictures, or animation who actually sexually abuse children? Certainly. But not all of them, and probably not anywhere close to half of them (kind of hard to get a real poll on this sort of thing, you know?).

And that's even before we start talking about the significant difference between actual pedophilia and ephebophilia.

[Tolvo]

Top Cat you named some pedophiles in that post, your basic argument is "Pedophilia isn't so bad if they haven't personally touched a child that we know of." It's frankly really disturbing to read and is a pretty bog standard defense of pedophilia, it includes a lot of false equivalences. Enjoying non-con or bdsm, various fetishes like that are seriously different from enjoying erotic artwork of children. I also frankly don't care about worthless distinctions between pedophiles for different stages of someone's life it's splitting hairs about a difference I don't give a fuck about, a difference that doesn't matter for jack shit.

[Top Cat]

Let's take a look at the actual definition of the word, shall we?

According to Wikipedia, Pedophilia is:

Pedophilia (alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children.

Don't like that one? Let's try Encyclopedia Britannica:

Pedophilia, also spelled paedophilia, also called pedophilic disorder or pedophilia disorder, in conventional usage, a psychosexual disorder, generally affecting adults, characterized by sexual interest in prepubescent children or attempts to engage in sexual acts with prepubescent children.

No? How about Psychology Today?

Pedophilia is an ongoing sexual attraction to pre-pubertal children. It is considered a paraphilia, a condition in which a person's sexual arousal and gratification depend on fantasizing about and engaging in sexual behavior that is atypical and extreme. Pedophilia is defined as recurrent and intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children—generally age 13 years or younger—over a period of at least six months.

Note the distinction that you're not applying? Pre-pubescent.

And no, the difference between a fantasy and a crime isn't a fucking false equivalence. It's the difference between people making nasty looks at you, and you spending time in jail. Your "false equivalence" argument is the sort of hair-splitting that got gay men killed only a few decades ago, because idiots thought gay men were automatically pedophiles. There has to be a victim for there to be a crime.

And I say that as someone who was abused by a friend of my family.

[Oniya]

Please remember that the civility rules apply in PROC as well as the rest of the site.  If you can't discuss the matter with a modicum of decorum, Staff may have to put a temporary lock on the thread.

[Tolvo]

I'm going to stop replying on that specific subject since I think I'll just repeat points and I don't want to end up getting heated and talking down to or getting angry at anyone.

[Top Cat]

I will rephrase my original point: I want to see evidence of actual criminal conduct before I'll condemn someone for it. Calling Zone a pedophile because you don't like their work - whatever, you be you. I think you're wrong for a variety of reasons. I won't support your crusade, and I will call it out when/if I see you try to rally other people on it (like what happened here).

Accusing other people of being pedophiles because they worked with Zone at some point is textbook guilt by association, and that's the sort of thing that gets 4chan hate brigades doing terrible things to innocent people.