Something has been brewing on twitter for over three weeks now, that game console makers such as Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, should be keeping an eye on, as well as game publishers such as Activision, Electronic Arts, and Ubisoft. By extension, you ad agency folks working on these brands should sit up straight, put that pumpkin latte or stanky IPA down for a moment, and take some notes. It's gonna get messy.
While a peek into the hashtag #gamergate may at casual glance look like a hive of wasps and be difficult to read without knowing fifty layers of injokes and gamer-lingo, sites like Knowyourmeme, Forbes, even Breitbart, blogs such as sparkingtruth and countless others too numerous to mention have tried to keep tabs of the events. The hubub has birthed Vivian James who is our poster-girl for this article as I am a sucker for a fellow jaded redhead with green eyes.
It's a messy story that begins in gossip I don't care to repeat, but I'll try to give you the tldr; with the vital info for us advertising people. Gamers have been accused of being rabid death-threat sexist shits, and the "gamer culture" has been wished dead and then declared dead by an onslaught of gaming sites and magazines. The not-dead-at-all gaming culture posse isn't happy at being called names, and gamers are walking away en masse from the gaming review sites, while discussing walking away from buying games in the upcoming large selling season to make a point. As far as consumer protests go you can chose to ignore it if you want, but, there's a problem when the image of the frothing at the mouth lives-in-moms-basement-and-is-a-freak gamer image is promoted by the very media that is a vehicle where you try and sell the games & consoles... We might stubbornly respawn a million times to level up, but we're not all masochists that like our faces slapped before being told what game to buy.
Here comes the part that you, dear adgrunts, need to consider. I'm sure even the new intern guy in accounts will understand this, as our job is expand market and expand market share for the brands we work on. What do you think happens to the market share when all of the media declares the consumers of games downright dangerous misogynists? People will want to step away from that. That shrinks the market. Do you want your clients to risk poor sales during the industry's peak-sales quarter? Digitimes predicts that can happen.
When the gaming media paints gamers as socially stunted, possibly mentally ill, misogynists - parents won't want to allow their children to play video games.
And that's your gateway drug into consoles & more games people. The kids start out with angry bird and sesame street flash games, work their way up to happy Nintendo handhelds and at some point the parental unit invests in a console that can play their Golf and whatever the kids are into. The parental unit will not do that if the parental unit thinks this is a quick road into a real Grand Theft Auto or basement dwelling socially stunted lifestyle for the kids, now will they?
So here's your chance, Nintendo - makers of all the colorful bouncy games and snappy consoles. Microsoft, who make Xbox. Sony who gave us Playstation and all of the games publishers who give us FIFA games, Madden NFL , Destiny, HALO, NBA 2K15, WoW, Gran Turismo, Tekken, Pro-skater and thousands upon thousands of other titles. Step up, connect with your consumer who isn't a basement dwelling sexist shit just because they happen to chill out playing video games once in a while. It's gaming journalism that's dying, this is an opportunity for advertising that so often speaks highly of connecting with consumers in new and interesting ways on social media and in branded entertainment to actually do that for once. Hurry up before the market shrinks as uptight parents hunker down, hiding from what is fast becoming the Dungeons and Dragons scary urban legend hype of the 80s.
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A few things. I think we've already been through enough of a media scare around gaming in the past that it won't have any more significant impact that "Counterstrike caused Columbine!" and similar stuff.
But I believe the whole reason the neckbeards are frothing at the mouth is because more and more games that are inclusive to people outside the traditional gaming demo are coming out. The whole furor centred around two very creative, unconventional games that are appropriate for all sorts of audiences. The thrust of these articles isn't "gaming is only for misogynistic neckbeards" it's "gaming is attracting so many people who aren't neckbeards with demand for games that aren't Call of Madden '15 that the increasingly small minority of man-children are getting angry."
I'm seeing the message as "games are for women too!" which IS growing the consumer base. And at the end of the day, enough moms won't care and will buy their kids all the FPSs they wanted, and once they're old enough they'll buy them for themselves anyway. Not sure how much of an impact the 'parents won't buy them' will have (because my honest belief is that those parents ALREADY won't buy them and this won't sway many more) and it's not like the neckbeards are gonna stop buying 'em.
Upon re-reading your post, I think we're talking about the same thing - that neckbeard demo is shrinking, so we have to make DAMN sure in our ads we reflect the new status quo of game consumer.
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PermalinkThat's right, keep telling yourself that. If you say it enough times, it'll become true!
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PermalinkSome observations for you to consider: The primary purpose of advertising is to convey a message that induces a consumer to purchase a product or service. Secondarily, it can also be used to raise awareness of a product or service and engender good-will among the overall consumer base. How that message is received by the target demographic is of paramount importance.
The articles and news reports that the author is referencing were NOT received as the message of inclusion you interpreted. The #notyourshield tag serves to highlight exactly how many minorities and smaller demographics were personally insulted by the messages. If these articles really were intended to convey a message of "we makes games for you too" then they were written in the most counterproductive way possible.
Inclusion is a worthy goal and one that should be expanded upon, that is how every product or business grows, but to attack the primary demographic of your audience is professional suicide. Expanding your consumer base is achieved through offering a positive message and providing products and services that meet the needs of a wide range of consumers. Sacrificing your current, loyal consumer base to facilitate the influx of new customers will doom your business to fail long before those new customers have been established.
In this case, the message was so poisonous that even the potential new consumers were revolted by it. Emphatic statements and messages are excellent for impactful marketing, but juvenile insults and gross over generalizations serve only to alienate huge swathes of the consumer base (existing and potential) and polarize the demographics on an emotional level. Many successful advertising campaigns have been built on establishing an emotional connection to the consumer. When that emotional connection is interpreted as anger, rejection, and scorn on so large a scale then the message must have been so poorly conveyed it is almost laughable.
In summary, the articles alienated both the current demographic and the expanded demographic these websites were attempting to cultivate. Whether this occurred through actual intent or through unintentional incompetence is ultimately irrelevant. The message was received and it was received with overwhelming negativity. This should serve as both an object lesson on what not to do and as a warning for those attempting to expand their consumer base by using these online outlets in the future.
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PermalinkYou're severely misunderstanding the situation. This is a mini "consumer revolt" against the utter lack of professionalism displayed by games bloggers, who aren't willing to acknowledge the harm that their cliquishness and carelessness is doing to the industry.
They invent this narrative that their critics are misogynists in an attempt to derail the conversation. This kind of red herring is their usual MO and one of the reasons they are being boycotted.
Nobody is fighting to keep women out of gaming. Though, I sure all these hit pieces about gaming being hostile towards women are doing nothing to help with inclusion. It offends those who play games and makes the industry seem repugnant to those who might otherwise have considered trying games.
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PermalinkThe war on male gamers has been waged for years by misandrist journalist in gaming who shamed, intimidated, and ultimately forced everyone in the industry into towing their line or risk being black balled with the label of misoginist. This is hate mongering and idealogical bullying in the extreme and it needs to be confronted directly. The cultural misandry here is what enabled all this evasion but the organized effort to create it and derive power from it is goes back way before #GamerGate.
People need to stop downplaying the sexism against men issue. It's real and it's pretty darn serious.
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PermalinkI'm saddened and disappointed that you chose to put that image on our Adland and lower the discourse to this after reading my article. Please don't prove yourself a dick here.
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PermalinkI doubt these "games journalists" are misandrists, considering the majority of them are men. But, even if they were it would be irrelevant.
A person can be sexist in their personal life and still have the common sense not to respond to consumer criticisms with childish insults. Regardless of personal politics, the issue is that they just committed PR seppuku.
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PermalinkHi EqualityEd, I'm ReasonedDissent, and I'm here to dissent. Why, you might ask, it's pretty simple.
If we disagree, or find what you say offensive, we don't censor you, but, expect that we'll debate it, and everyone will know you're wrong.
First, your argument Ad Imago is tired. Posting a meme you didn't make to illustrate a point in a personal debate is not only a lack of originality, you've already admitted someone else is the authority on a moral topic that, honestly, is really a personal, individual thing. It says you're not interested in furthering your understanding, but the understanding of someone elses platform
Second, and forgive the latin, is the Ad Hominem. Attacking a person or persons in such a way that you're not attacking their argument, but attacking them for things you don't personally like is fine. Many people choose to live their lives that way, and that's wonderful for them, but unfortunately, when you begin to push that as a platform of behavior and belief for other people, it's a problem. Viewpoints are great, but when your viewpoint is based on a convenient misrepresentation of the position of the other party, it's called a strawman argument, and that's exactly what you're doing.
Simply assigning the moniker misandrist to anyone you like erodes the "feminist" viewpoint you theoretically support. As an individual party, you might assign that label to someone else, but that doesn't mean it's true for anyone but you. This spirals down into a non productive dissemination of who is and isn't a misandrist as opposed to a fair look at equlity issues as a whole.
Let's be clear, gender issues are one of a thousand ways equality matters. It's a big way, but not the biggest. If a stereotype exists, you can be prejudicial on it, it's the way we're made, blame biology. You're dead on the mark that men are discriminated against. Mostly because of their skin color, socioeconomic status, the car they drive, the language they speak, etc. It's almost never because "they are a man". Correlation does not imply causation, and your argument is the argument of black white, quite simply, it's a juvenile description of a complex social problem that has existed for millenia.
The fact that gender inequality exists in this day and age is a function of the culture we live in. If you want to change it, you change the culture, which is made up of people. Not the people. Focusing on the people makes you spiteful, cynical, and mean. I'm aware because it's a road I've traveled myself and still struggle with. I don't begrudge you your opinion, but I'm here to tell you, as an intelligent, and (I hope) enlightened man of the modern age, your argument looks like a thinly veiled attempt to hate feminism. I've seen many, and many of them are on target, but it has nothing to do with women, it has to do with our culture. It has to do with public perceptions that gender matters. It has to do with complex social issues of societal growth and economic inflation, where the traditional role of women in society is undergoing a series of pains to try to find it's way in a world where there's more people than space, more productivity than connection, and more distrust than empathy.
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PermalinkThe use of misogyny is blackmail. That word risks people their jobs and poisons any debate right at the start. How can you respond to someone who claims that you advocate misogynist behavior? What can possibly be said that isn't capitulation that won't risk you your current and future employment prospects?
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PermalinkI'm sorry, what?
Why is the core gamer audience suddenly reduced to "neckbeard gamer" in your eyes? They're IIRC ~60% of the money. And you just insulted them.
Could you please tell me which PR agency you work for so I can make sure to never hire them?
I don't want anyone alienating >50% of my potential customers by calling them names. (In terms of money spent at least.)
And sure, there are people who want things other than FPS and sports titles, see how the core gamers reacted to Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera and other such old-school titles. The problem have been how to fund and publish them, and this is getting solved. Those titles broke records on Kickstarter. People were stoked. They didn't need advertising outside word of mouth. A genre long thought dead. Other dead genres such as horror games have also had a renaissance. And they're being bought by the core gamer demographic.
Again, you're just showing that nobody should ever hire you to do advertisements for them.
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PermalinkLeigh Alexander, is that you? Please hun, stop. Just stop. You're making it worse. Your thesis revolves around the idea that somehow "Call of Madden Fifa Murder Simulator 2014" isn't actually, you know, the thing that makes the lion share of the money for the guys that are funding your websites.
Yes, Grandma does play angry birds. But you should talk to your marketing team about if Grandma is representative of the core gamer demographic or not. (Hint: she's not). Grandma doesn't spend 800 dollars a year on video games and then an additional 200 dollars a year on related merchandise.No one who actually cares/knows about the business of making and selling games read any of those article that shit themselves all over the internet and though to themselves, "Wow, this person makes a great point."
No, instead we thought "What the hell is wrong with these guys?" Even the basic thesis that somehow non-core gamers aren't being served by the market is tenuous at best. It's hard to say that the Candy Crush's and Angry Birds and Farmvilles of the world aren't already at core saturation for the majority of casual gamers. However, if you're suggesting that we might be underserving the black lesbian wheelchair bound art history student category - then you might be right, but y'know - market forces. How do they work?
Anyway, I know people with an agenda like to hand wave away facts that don't fit that same agenda, but unfortunately for you, this is still a business at the end of the day. W Haranguing people to "stop making money" is just down right laughable. If you think you can do better, then do so and make some damn money and games. Otherwise you're just bloviating out of your shit-pipe and asking people to change simply because you want them to, not because of any argument based in reality.
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Permalink"I believe..." - stopped reading there. Come back when you've actually educated yourself on our concerns.
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PermalinkIf you look up #notyourshield you can clearly see not only neckbeards but also most other people have a problem here thus your argument is invalif
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PermalinkYou believe... But then you also believe in Santa too... Right.
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PermalinkDon't know about others, but I'm mostly foaming at my mouth because I'm being called neckbeard by gaming press every day just because I'm a male gamer. Believe it or not, I don't like it when people shit on me.
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PermalinkHi! I'm a woman gamer of #GamerGate & #Noyourshield, we are FAR MORE INSULTED that "journalists" think that women and minorities need to be welcomed into gaming as if we were already not a part of it! https://medium.com/@cainejw/on-marginalization-of-gamers-ec0e385548ff -- check that out. If anything, the racist misogynists aren't your average "hardcore gamer" but the game journalists reporting & advertising the games! https://medium.com/@cainejw/on-diversity-in-games-media-245336e7c50! As much as I would love the AAA companies to realize that marketing should not be focused on the "lowest common denominator" it's not like the proof of why "games for everyone sell better" doesn't already exist! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games
As a GamerGater, please understand, this is not a misogynist backlash to changing demographics. This is a consumer revolt against corrupt bullying "journalists" who do not have a single ounce of integrity and are busy mislabeling, and defaming us every chance they get, and don't give press based on quality games but merely friendships, nepotism, cronyism, and what they can personally make for money of it, which is a HUGE conflict of interest!
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Permalink'Neckbeards'. Huh. See, here's where your reasoning and comment goes so off course. I'm 59, female, been playing games with those 'neckbeard' guys you refer to since the late 70's when games were in their infancy. They were and are my friends. My two daughters, 24 (bisexual) and 31 are both gamers, college graduates and progressive females. We aren't sheep we never needed anyone to tell us that games are for women too. And we still don't. Play or don't play, honestly no one cares.
What the furor is over, regardless of how the indie dev and game journalists spin it, that we asked a question about the developer's relationship with game journalists'. Now, don't get me wrong. I saw some of the abuse that was heaped on this person and it was foul and undeserved. But the question of journalistic integrity was asked and instead of gaming journalist's doing what would have been in everyone's best interest and investigate the possibility, they closed ranks AGAINST the gamers. The people that they depend on for their jobs--the reason their jobs exist!
No. This won't go away. We've banded together to force our voices to be heard. We're not neckbeards, we're not cis, white males, we are women and poc, gays and trans and everyone else and yes even white guys that have been here since the beginning. The people that are insisting differently are the ones that seemed to have been living in their parents' basements. Gamers have been diverse for a while now, it seems that the developers and press may be the only people that haven't recognized or--apparently--appreciated that fact.
We are gamers and we are not your shield.
Vickie,
Riley,
and Kenna Whitaker
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PermalinkYour kicking off your comment by referring to "neckbeards" (a derogatory term used to shame and paint a negative picture of a specific demographic) belies everything about your hypocritical view on anyone who does not agree with your assertions. That "neckbeard demo" you refer to are the very consumers who turned gaming into a multi-billion dollar industry. Those "neckbeards" don't give a crap for the gender, colour or sexual preferences of the people they game with. What they do care about is the broad brushing insults flung by people like yourself who look to disparage and denigrate their very existence. #GamerGate exists because of attitudes like yours and the shaming and downright bullying actions of people like you.
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PermalinkIceCreamGenius, you apparently have a bad case of brain freeze! First off, neckbeards, rilly? That is not a respectful term, and pretty much impossible for us female gamergaters to live up to.
If men are so threatened by twoOoooOOo games that yooooou consider "very creative", why are women pro-gamergate? All just "internalized misogyny"? Women should mope around and "play" Depression Quest instead, because we're such sensitive creatures?
The livelihood of many GG folks depends on gaming, so why oh why would they want the market to shrink even by a little bit? Even in the highly unlikely case that Depression Quest becomes the next big thing, it doesn't impinge anyone's ability to play games they like, as long as journos don't push their identity politics onto devs or give biased reviews.
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PermalinkI'd also like to add that Kotaku (one of the game journo sites at the center of the controversy) was created not created to triumph over misogyny but to cater to a male demographic and thereby bring in certain advertisers seeking those demographics. You may call them neckbeards, but the advertisers are paying for those neckbeards' eyeballs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/technology/04blog.html?_r=1&
"The motivation for rolling out these sites now is very much about advertiser and audience demand," said Nick Denton, the publisher of Gawker Media [in 2004]. "Right now, we don't have enough inventory for people who are trying to reach young males. The idea was to come up with sites that would interest them..."
And now that Kotaku is chasing away that demographic, it should not surprise anyone that the advertisers will leave, too.
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PermalinkWho had money on "neckbeard" being mentioned in the first comment? You won, come collect the winnings at reception. The rest of you still get a chance to win with the bingo cards!
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PermalinkSo a bunch of gaming blog sites called the majority of gamers sexist neckbeards and declared them dead and in a show of defiance the largest demographic got fed up with being put down like that and are revolting against the gaming industry until there are positive changes that treat all as one.
Surprise surprise, calling your core demographic names and berating them is a bad move.
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PermalinkYes it truly is amazing that journalists insulting their audience results in boycotting, consumer revolt as well general apathy towards that particular branch of media.
Who would have guessed?
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PermalinkWith few exceptions, journalism of any kind has never been about seeking the truth and reporting in an objective way. That, as much as any other story, was part of a narrative. The fact it's gotten so blatant in gaming is a larger symptom. The fact it is that easy to shape is also a byproduct of an industry that reacts in horror and shock, rather than investigates with objectivity.
Talking points are used to shape a unified narrative as much as out of sheer laziness on the journalists' part. But being this fascist about it, in such a cavalier way (shadowbanning, anyone?) is just plain stupid and reckless. While boycotts usually don't last or do much in the way of damage, If some news outlets saw a serious enough drop in numbers, they might at least think about biting the hand that feeds them a little less hard.
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PermalinkWow. yeah, whoever had the "neckbeard" OR "man-child" on the first comment cleaned up. Drinks are on you! That bit of vital discussion out of the way, I don't think the target of #gamergate frustration are the creators at all. Trouble is, those creators have relied on review sites and the game journo community to SELL their titles. Now they are going to suffer from the plummeting visits to those sites as we offer a hearty "GET BENT" to those bloggers and sites.
This mess isn't about misogyny at all. It has nothing to do with...what did IceCreamGenius call it, "two very creative, unconventional games" yeah that's it...it has nothing to do with those games either. Well...except for the fact that the creator of one of those games used connections in the journo community to advance the project. The Journos not only didn't reveal those connections but also colluded with each other to defend the creator after this mess was exposed. The problem that many of us have is the fact that we can no longer trust the media we rely on to get inside scoops on upcoming games or future releases of franchise games we already enjoy.
DaBitch does a great job of laying out what happened after that. Game journos called us everything but milkcows, banned us from other sites, and generally exhibited elite levels of asshattery in an attempt to hide the truth of it. I suppose they figured we would shirk away but they are wrong. I believe #Gamergate is here to enforce some basic principles. First, Integrity is important. We all screw up from time to time. Integrity is when we fess up to those fails, apologize, and try to make things right. Second, red herrings and strawmen simply don't fly with us. It might work on Uni campuses, Social Justice Club meetings, or in certain business settings but not in this community. We will recognize it and we will fry someone's ass for their effort. Finally, we don't much care for human shields. You best have a whole herd of people behind you nodding when you say something offends them. When that happened here...heh...that herd wasn't with the SJWs spewing their nonsense. Gamers are individuals and we are proud of it. Glom us all together into some group that best suits your redherring of a rant and you take serious risks that we might just say Fuck You Very Much and thus #notyourshield was born.
So you see...this isn't about women in gaming. At this point it isn't even about the sordid incident that led us here. I think it is NOW about respecting the customer. If we don't visit your review sites you lose ad revenue and hits. No worries...I'm sure someone out there is working feverishly to stand up a #GamerGate branded review site and many of us will be happy to help them out as a new breed of Gaming Industry Journalists...with Character, Integrity, and Ethics.
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Permalinkwell this is surprising an article that sides with gamers. and I agree with you those article denouncing gamers all coming out in the same time bracket which I believe was 24 hours is going to anger a great deal of people considring that 1.2 billion people are gamers
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PermalinkI've been surprised just how much hatred these games news writers have for the medium they write for as well as they people they write for. They seem utterly disgusted by their audience and insult them constantly, they despise anyone that dares call their conduct into question, but especially when women call them out these writers just say the women are idiots that can't think for themselves.
I've no idea why anyone would defend them.
I know I personally won't be supporting any business that dares associate with such sexist shits, and yes they are sexist even if they want to say otherwise.
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PermalinkIf you check steam page for Wasteland 2, reviews paragraph, you can see that developers are not citing any gaming site. Instead, they shared quotes from other game developers about the game. There is no metascore on the page either. This can actually be solution for game devs, because they don't have to deal with toxicity that gaming journalism is. If you have reputable people from industry, talking positively about your game, I believe that you can skip press completely.
This can be big problem for advertisers, mostly because big games like Wasteland should be those that create hype, which means more clicks on gaming sites and more profit for advertisers. Instead, they are advertising their gaming products on, "no gamers allowed" sites...
Very nice read.
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Permalink" which means more clicks on gaming sites and more profit for advertisers. "
This is really about it, isn't it? Like water, the audience will always seek it's level. When the ground shakes, it's going to look for a new level. Those clicks and profitability don't just go away...
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PermalinkThrough the magic of (scary) cookies I've been reached by full-page/site-takeover Destiny ads when I've tried to read/watch the local news-channel sites today. Just bought the game, last week, by the way so that felt creepy. It's a little like Minority Report, your footprint is more important than the market a specific site delivers. Our hero - you - will run through a corridor of digital ads and they'll serve you information based on what you've been searching -seemingly only thinking about - lately.
Sadly, the same magical system also prices ad-placement based on "views" and thus, we have a shrill type of journalism which is all about driving traffic, and not at all about making a properly researched article about X.
Oh hold up! Irony! In a press release 2004 we put a stake in the ground that advertising support was not for us. Why? You click-whore for the income. I know I managed to say that in an interview at the time but I can not for the life of me find it now.
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PermalinkWell, even when they do manage to get a properly researched or targeted piece of info, ad or otherwise, in front of you, the way the systems are set up, they've managed to target you, they will hit you at every single opportunity, because ad serving systems may place precedence on making sure your target is a "fit" based on whatever, but as soon as they've locked the target, they hit you with every ad, everywhere they can, it's how they fill their pockets.
Thus, whether they do it well or not, it pretty much sucks, unless used sparingly and strategically, which, let's be honest, it's not...
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PermalinkAll ads should be designed for strategic use. But digital ones even more so. The goal shouldn't be to stalk you. It should be to understand when you are receptive to the message-- and on what website.
As you said, most are neither strategic nor used sparingly. And that is digital advertising's biggest mistake, too. It's not designed to be used sparingly; the believe the larger the numbers the greater the potential.
I don't want to concede they have a point but ...I've had click-through rates of 7% for some of my rich banners onYoutube that were considered "an astounding success," by the people who measured the analytics. And that was for a large media budget.
What no one in the digital sphere really wants to admit is this: most "in-market" advertising is the same as direct marketing that gets sent to your real life mailbox.
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PermalinkAlthough I do feel that there is SOME truth to claims of misandry (I'm even talking about the men on the Anti-GG in my eyes) on this matter, it's something everyone within GamerGate has varying opinions on and does not represent the movement at large.
What everyone within GamerGate CAN agree on though, is that these "journalists" have proven every claim against corruption and agenda pushing (whatever agenda that may be) correct.
Every attempt to censor us, reporting only on abuse aimed at their allies, while ignoring the abuse being hurled at gamergate supporters (including a recent rash of doxxings) and the fact they use their media positions to outright smear the campaign, has outright proven all the corruption claims true in my eyes, but has also proven, they don't WANT to be ethical whatsoever.
It's this sheer refusal to at least address the claims with seriousness that makes me feel these people shouldn't be given any more chances and simply excised from the industry. The connection to the consumer should be more direct, in order to allow the developer's vision to be sent straight to the player without any interference or pressure to adjust to get media coverage.
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PermalinkThere is another group of media slandered and attacked activists, those of us STEM majors who have tried to expose corruption in both climate "science" and the media profiting off of such doomsday calling. I'm happy thunderf00t has also made a greenie boondogggle debunking video, about silly solar highways. The conservative blogosphere is picking up on #gamergate this week, who also are aware of the third wave feminist grievance industry, now themselves adopting the SJW phrase, which I found delightful, not knowing before that such a big counterculture has become anti-activist. We had our own Watergate event, Climategate, but the media whitewash was so huge and successful, we once were able to convert conservatives, but liberals started hating on us even more, equating us to Holocaust deniers and slandering us as being maverick deniers of the greenhouse effect itself rather than its vast 2-3X amplification hidden in computer models. But last year they revealed their cheating hand, producing a Michael Mann vindicating hockey stick that within hours was discovered to have utterly no significant blade in any of the temperature proxy input data, shown in a single glance, here:
http://s6.postimg.org/jb6qe15rl/Marcott_2013_Eye_Candy.jpg
I think of #gamergate as the mere tip of the iceberg of lefty activist media corruption in general. Gamers tend to be young and thus liberal by nature, so an anti-activist movement is delightfully unexpected. Us skeptics have been banned on so many sites like BoingBoing.net and most popular science magazine sites and lots of newspapers, but at least VICE.com is still unmoderated.
-=NikFromNYC=-, Ph.D. in carbon chemistry (Columbia/Harvard)
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PermalinkThe creator of this video pointed out to me that they also made the image I'm using as a lead above. The least I can do is link it. You Adgrunts though, should pay attention to it, because here's the part (at 2:30) we care about. "Games advertising used to be on TV". It still is, in some major sellers instances. Working on a game client used to mean instant Cannes lions. Wouldn't it be sad if games & consoles went the way of Masterlock?
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PermalinkI just want to quickly thank you for this article, you are doing God's work. I really don't want these people to kill our hobby, or at least try to.
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PermalinkWell, thank you, but don't fret.
The video games industry pulls in $93 Billion a year. This isn't going to go away anytime soon.
However the chunk of money used by the games industry to advertise games to consumers will have to be spent in places where the possibility of reaching the game consumer is likely. If the game consumer has walked away en masse from the gamer review sites (and a casual glance at stats does show a decline in readership), that's not the place for the ads. Obviously.
Creative agencies should take this as an opportunity to reach out to consumers by other means. Game advertising used to be the most creative in execution, now let's see if it can also be creative in placement.
Good luck adgrunts, do some creative groundbreaking work now, there's an actual market need for it.
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PermalinkIt seems to me that this fiasco is an excellent opportunity for companies with previously tarnished reputations to engender some goodwill by expressing support for the gamer brand and identity. EA already understands which way the wind is blowing.
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