The latest brilliant plan by the GamerGaters to bring gaming industry corruption publications that say mean things about them to their knees?
OPERATION KRAMPUS, which is literally a plan to RUIN CHRISTMAS by … boycotting every game maker that continues to send review copies of games to the ever-growing list of game-related publications that the GamerGaters have decided aren’t sufficiently adoring towards the GamerGate Revolution.
No, really:
![OPERATION KRAMPUS The Leader of Gamergate 10/13/14 (Mon) 16:56:46 ID: 15d7f7 No.104068[Last 50 Posts][Watch Thread] OPERATION KRAMPUS Winter is coming, and with it the holiday sales rush. We are two months into #GamerGate, advertisers continue to withdraw, but the gaming websites have issued no apology and continue to survive. It's time to escalate. People have said from the beginning that if this drags out until winter, it will affect games sales and force the hand of developers. It is time to assure that. The operation is twofold: 1) A complete boycott of games made by companies who send review codes/copies to anti-gamer publications. Gamers are under attack by the gaming websites. The developers cannot support both, and anything done by developers that allows these websites to thrive is a show of support. Contact the PR departments of the game companies. Let them know that we are angry and offended. Tell them that we will not support companies who work with the websites that have attacked us. 2) Spread the word to holiday shoppers. Flood #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday with pro-#GamerGate messages. Let holiday shoppers know which companies advertise on anti-consumer gaming websites and that they should not buy from those companies. Provide alternative places for holiday shoppers to make their purchases. Continue contacting advertisers with OPERATION DISRESPECTFUL NOD as before, but spread the word to other customers as well. The message needs to be crystal clear: Support people who attack your customers and your customers will no longer support you. First step is to collect information. Compile a list of companies who send review codes/copies to Kotaku, Polygon, and the like and how to contact their PR departments. Then let the emails fly. This will be our winter campaign.](https://manboobz.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/krampus.png)
Happily, I suspect that the GamerGaters’ master plan is simply too ridiculous to succeed. Because, seriously? The ever-expanding list of publications and websites they want to destroy consists of a rather large portion of all gaming media, not to mention pretty much every other non-gaming publication that’s written about GamerGate.
Here’s an incomplete list of the websites and publications that the GamerGaters are trying to boycott:
Kotaku; Polygon; Destructoid; Rock, Paper, Shotgun; The Escapist; Motherboard; IGN; GameSpot; Gamasutra; Gameranx; PCGamer.com; Xbox 360: The Official Xbox Magazine; Total Xbox; Gameplanet; Gizmodo; TechCrunch; Ars Technica; VICE; The Daily Dot; Badass Digest; The Daily Beast; Raw Story; The Mary Sue; Salon; BuzzFeed; Uproxx; Paste Magazine; Wired; The New Yorker; Cracked; Mic; xoJane; The Verge; Gawker; Valleywag; Defamer; Lifehacker; Deadspin; Screamer; io9; Sploid; Jalopnik; Paging Dr. NerdLove; RationalWiki; TV Tropes.
Now, granted, Dr. NerdLove and The New Yorker don’t exactly publish a lot of video game reviews, but do GamerGaters really think they can stop game makers from sending review copies to IGN, Gamespot, PCGamer, the offical Xbox magazine, The Escapist, and Kotaku? That seems about as likely to happen as movie studion forbidding critics from the New York Times and Entertainment Weekly and the AV Club from seeing their films.
I guess the open question isn’t so much whether OPERATION KRAMPUS will bring the eeeevill game sites and/or companies to their knees — seems a tad unlikely —Â but whether the GamerGaters’ collective tantrum will throw a wrench in game sales this holiday season and basically ruin Christmas for everyone in the games biz anyway.
But hey, there’s no reason any of this has to ruin Christmas for me. See, for some reason I’m not on this GamerGate list of baddies yet, as far as I know, so I would like to encourage all game makers out there to send me all their extra review copies and codes. I won’t review any of the games in question, because that’s not what I do, and also I suck at most games, but at least it won’t get the GamerGaters mad at you.
Merry Christmas!
H/T — @EffNOVideoGames
I object to their blackening the name of my favorite holiday icon. What’s Christmas without Krampusnacht?
The best part, of course, is that as several observers have noted, there IS a corruption issue in gaming journalism that long predates #gamergate, and it has to do with… game companies bestowing or withholding preview copies from gaming media sites that don’t give sufficiently acceptable reviews.
In other words, much like the MRM, on the one issue the pound-gators might actually have been able to form a coherent point, they got the approach exactly wrong, and are now exhorting the very thing they officially should oppose, if there was any truth to their claims about what they are doing and why.
WAR ON CHRISTMAS!
I predict that the effects of this “operation” will be so negligible that they cannot be meaningfully measured, and game devs and websites will receive confirmation that the GG monster has no economic clout whatsoever.
Good point, marlnerachel. Will this bring the Christmas defenders out from the hills to fight the misogynist false-gamers? Will such a conflict unleash paradoxical forces of bigotry and rage that will destroy the planet? Or will we just get to eat popcorn, point, and laugh?
Note how #Quinngate comes right together with #Gamergate on the name of the list. And I keep hearing it’s not about harassment…
So what, are they going to go outside and play this winter?
God I hope these faux gamers stop fucking up my hobby. It’s making me grind my teeth to keep having to say “No, those people who keep using this ‘gamergate’ label aren’t really gamers, they’re just angry children. Real gamers aren’t hateful, we just like playing games”. I’ve had to defend myself because of my hobby all my life, because there’s always some negative connotation being attached to it, but it’s always come from an external source that’s been easy to brush off (the media etc) – now it’s appearing to be coming from within, it’s getting very hard to raise above. These idiots just have no idea how much they’re ruining things for everyone else with this gamergate garbage.
Hahaha, how awesome would it be if those of us who are both Mammoth-hunters *and* game-players started reviewing games?
Just leaving this here:
Oh no please don’t shoot yourselves in the foot gamergate.
I love how the escapist landed on that list despite them giving a platform to some of the absolute worst gamergate had to offer
The people who buy games for holiday presents are buying presents FOR gamers, but they… aren’t particularly frequently gamers themselves, are they? So, Aunt Lisa knows that Jimmy wants this game, and Twitter says that… the company should be boycotted. Because it advertises on, what, Stormfront? “Anti-consumer-gaming websites.” What the hell is an anti-consumer-gaming website? Let’s Google this Gamergate thing. And here’s a bunch of news stories about death threats.
Brilliant.
@freemage – well said. Is there an ethics issue in gaming journalism? Yes. Is it so world-shakeingly important as these idiot children are making out? Absolutely not. Considering all of the real issues in the world, it’s pathetic as hell to see these 2000 or so people pour THIS much effort and time into something as inconsequential as industry reviews for godsake, and even more pathetic, to see them trumpet themselves as heroes and pat each other on the ass for every tweet while they literally ruin the lives and careers of people who did nothing wrong.
I really wish the USA had strict online stalking and hate laws like the UK does, then these little shits would get some comeuppance.
The less they buy games, the more they remove themselves from the market, and the more non-jerks contribute to the overall sales. I still think it’s a loss for them.
… Wait, why is The Escapist, which has defended them at every turn and done their damndest to ensure that other gaming media outlets can’t denounce the #Gits without looking biased, on their shitlist?
Also, gaming companies will sell far more by continuing their PR and selling to the rest of us than they would by stopping their PR and selling only to #Gits, but I suppose that goes without saying.
I literally put more thought into which t-shirt I should wear this morning than they put into their cunning plan, and I just grabbed the one on the top of the clean laundry basket.
Add the Los Angeles Times to the list of publications they have to boycott.
To everyone else:
http://www.deadburiedandback.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Merry-Krampus.jpg
@greyskye
GG actively avoids any actual ethical issues in gaming.
The Skinner box mechanics designed to keep people feeding money into so called “free to play” games for example
It’s not a matter of importance – the big problem is that a mass of Gaters is pointing at a real problem (corrupt gaming journalism), and fighting a fantasy culprit (social justice cabal) for the wrong reasons (reviews with content that makes their privilege uncomfortable). Their concept of “corruption” is not the same we have, that is, companies trading content for reviews. No, they think it’s feminism that is corrupting video game journalism for daring to suggest that games could be more diverse and less sexist!
p.s. Every day GG goes on it reminds me more and more of Nixon’s enemies list.
@greyskye
I’m pretty sure they’re allowed to care about game reviewing. Nobody is obligated to work on the “real issues of the world” or to put their own concerns in the back of the bus until world peace is achieved.
The problem is not that they care about what is, in the grand scheme, a relatively minor issue. The problem is that they don’t actually care about this minor issue at all and are simply using it as a cover to engage in behavior that runs women out of their homes.
Heh, by Christmas, I’ll probably have my new gaming PC. After years of owning a Mac and only being able to look longingly at a lot of games, I have plans to buy many with my holiday money.
Probably not enough to counteract the GG idiots, but I shall consider it doing my part.
This campaign seems so absurdly wrong-headed I’d be amazed if it went anywhere. Two big questions:
1. Do they mean ‘sent review copies since GG started’ or ‘have EVER sent review copies’? The latter seems unreasonably harsh, but the former seems hard to precisely determine, particularly in the less-the-two-months since GG started. I imagine there’s a delay between receiving a review copy and reviewing it, for example.
2. Is there a *single* game publisher, possibly excluding very small indie developers, who HASN’T sent review copies to at least some of those outlets? If the GGers attempt this, it seems like there won’t be any games they *can* buy. That’s a general boycott, not a focused protest.
I read that list of sites they want to boycott and busted out laughing. If you made a top 10 list of popular gaming websites, every one of them would be on it.
They probably put the Escapist on there because Jim Sterling didn’t kiss their ass:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/9711-On-Game-Journalism-Corruption
@Policy of Madness, I never said they should be putting their concerns on the back of the bus till world peace is achieved… of course they’re allowed to care about game reviewing (although as others have mentioned, that’s not really what they care about, it’s teh evil wimmenz) – As I see it there are things which affect people day-to-day which are what I would call “real issues of the world” (from minor local things that impact just one person to the “world stage” things that affect everyone), and there are fantasy issues which actually in reality have zero impact on anyone’s lives at all… how magazines review entertainment products is one of those things.
I 100% stand behind the opinion that game journalism is a ridiculously minor issue to be using as the shield to be pouring this kind of effort and time into and destroying peoples lives over. especially when the real reasons are just because these idiots hate women. Considering how many dozens of game reviewing sources there are out there, the fact that a few take kickbacks for positive reviews is meaningless when you can take 15 minutes to compare a few to find your actual median.
Are these chumps going to go after other industry review sites/magazines after they win the gamer war? Because the same shit happens there also, that’s why people who actually rely on reviews always go to a few different sources and read the negative reviews as well as the positives. That’s how reviewing works, at the end of the day you’re just reading other peoples opinions who often have their own agendas.
If these assbags need a cause to unite over, there’s a LOT of things that could use this kind of time and energy to drive forward. Seeing these idiots go to these lengths over something so meaningless is absolutely pathetic, makes me wonder how utterly powerless they must be in their actual lives that this is the cause they’re willing to fight so viciously and bitterly over.
There is a bit of weirdness here in that if they were somehow successful the most likely result would be to crater the gaming industry. This would leave them no option but to trudge over to iOS and Android or rummage through garage sales for classic games. Of course these #gamergate goobers would blame this state of affairs on the evil nasty girls who had the gall to invade their tree house.
Dear #Gamergate gomers: Please wither and dry up and blow away. The world doesn’t care about you and your little tantrums.