Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

14,136 total conversations in 683 threads

+ New Thread


What is this site's honest opinion on r/KotakuInAction?

Last posted Sep 05, 2024 at 09:42PM EDT. Added Aug 12, 2024 at 08:10PM EDT
40 posts from 18 users

r/KotakuInAction was the main discussion hub for the #GamerGate movement on Reddit, although now, it seems to be geared towards criticizing decisions in media geared towards the far-left. It also seems to be the target of hate from the rest of Reddit, with many subreddits claiming that it is alt-right and promotes harassment.
When I visited the subreddit, I didn't notice any harassment occurring (there are rules against it), but there were a few ideas I disagreed with somewhat. I additionally noticed that #GamerGate gains a lot of support on this site, some of which is from me. Thus, I would like to hear the opinions of the community here, and what they think of the community there, as well as if they truly represent #GamerGate.

martinprince12345 wrote:

Wait, do people still care about Gamergate 10 years later? I remember i really disliked everything related to Kotaku and thought of them as insufferable, smug and self-righteous, but that was years ago.

Yeah. It's like the Korean War, it never officially ended.

Also I have no opinion about them because I almost never browse reddit but from what I have checked they seem alright with decent and fairly constructive posts.
Just compare it to r/gamingcirclejerk which is a complete cesspool.

GeneHunt wrote:

Also I have no opinion about them because I almost never browse reddit but from what I have checked they seem alright with decent and fairly constructive posts.
Just compare it to r/gamingcirclejerk which is a complete cesspool.

Um, no offence, but that sounds like an opinion to me.

UngaDooda wrote:

$5 that the guy who drew this got pissed that people were telling him to stop posting culture war garbage and shut the fuck up

And he should have abided by that advice, even if I am being a hypocrite by saying this, he really should have.

SwipeWire wrote:

Nothing, this was just supposed to be a discussion about the almost-official GamerGate subreddit.

In a way, couldn't that be an answer in itself?

Anyway, I don't really know about it, but I tried going there to look around, just to see. It's … not my kind of place, but I've probably never been the right demographic. There's only a single thread on the "Stop Killing Games" initiative in the EU, with barely any discussion.

From what I last checked, it kinda devolved into vocally xenophobic (it also thinks gay characters are pushing an agenda, but I can't exactly remembered well enough) while taking everything incredibly seriously.

Aside from morbid curiosity, you're not missing much.

Spaghetto wrote:

It's on Reddit, so it's innately cringe. However, as far as Reddit cringe goes, you could do far worse than KIA. It's like a fossil from when Reddit was a lot less terrible.

Imo discord is worse

SwipeWire wrote:

You're not wrong. All these things leave me wondering where to find a safe space other than this site.

unfortunately there kind of isnt, this is the only website that has NOT completely gone to shit as far as I know.

While I agree with certain things that they complain about, their lack of understanding the intricacies, dynamics and politics within the game industry itself is very evident. They fundamentally do not understand the business side of the industry and what drives the bad decision making process that they then complain about. It's good that they are offering criticisms of tropes in video games. But I wish they'd have a bit more of sophistication when discussing the why.
edit: wanted to give an example.

It is not a secret that the industry is suffering massive layoffs, and as of May 2024 10% of the industry in the US and UK have been laid off. That subreddit was circlejerking about how they deserve it, that they aren't sympathetic at all because the game companies deserve the Ls. However, it's not the decision makers that were laid off but the artists, programmers, writers, designers, admin, etc. And it wasn't entirely driven by political brow beating (which does have a major impact) it's driven largely by COVID and interest rates. Specifically, COVID lockdowns was an unprecedented boon for entertainment industries across the board as people began consuming it massively. Cheap credit also allowed these companies to borrow a lot of money to expand to meet the demand, which means a ton more hiring. Well COVID is over, things are opening up, the demand has dropped meanwhile interest rates are higher than ever, and companies like EA which, literally doubled their debt, now have to pay tons of money to service it. SJW content had an impact on sales but COVID had an impact on demand itself, meanwhile high interest rates mean that borrowing tens if not hundreds of millions to develop an AAA title results in a severe pressure for the title to actually succeed.

The number one problem in the game industry right now is that AAA are unsustainable. Profit margins on even wildly popular AAA hits are so slim that many executives grasp at whatever straw they think will give them an edge. This flows down river in development where there is an over reliance on "safe" and "safe edgy". There are other issues all clashing with one another and against this number one thing. It's why you can make a strong case we are living through a ln indie game Renaissance.

Last edited Aug 15, 2024 at 02:04PM EDT

My general opinion on KiA is the same as my opinion on GamerGate as a whole:

Started off with good intentions, but lost its way and became more of a movement for people on the extreme right to just bitch and moan about how straight white dudes aren't the only audience being catered towards anymore. The main reason I feel that way is GG's lack of any real "leadership" meant there was no gatekeeping against bad apples that wanted to spoil the bunch. Like I recall when GG first started people were actually accepting of LGBT+ folk and other minorities by saying "we do not like journos lumping all video game hobbyists in with bigots!" The problem is eventually groups such as the alt right viewed this as a way to infiltrate and take advantaged of misguided youth, and began appealing to the bad apples who really did treat GG as "an attack on white straight men." The inability to properly weed these bad folk out ultimately lead to a lot of the more reasonable voices being drowned out as now you had both the bad voices being amplified, and those very journos we were fighting against now had legitimate ammo they could use to show "see I told you GG is all about bigots complaining about minorities" and people like myself were nowhere near loud enough to drown either out.

As much as I do heavily disagree with the userbase of GamingCirclejerk, I'll have to bite the bullet and say I'd rather deal with a GCJ person than a KiA person as I have at least seen people on GCJ act more reasonably and change their tune when others point out they're in the wrong. KiA members are far too stubborn, and folks like them and /pol/ have even been invading other fanbases like Asmongold (it was quite weird once going on the Asmongold subreddit and seeing a lot of far right reactionary posts and a lot of users unironically using phrases like "the west has fallen" or saying things like "what's wrong with racism?" and getting high upvotes for said comment, and sadly Asmon himself has fallen in to this far right reactionary rabbit hole going by all the thumbnails and titles of his videos for basically the past year).

Mistress Fortune wrote:

My general opinion on KiA is the same as my opinion on GamerGate as a whole:

Started off with good intentions, but lost its way and became more of a movement for people on the extreme right to just bitch and moan about how straight white dudes aren't the only audience being catered towards anymore. The main reason I feel that way is GG's lack of any real "leadership" meant there was no gatekeeping against bad apples that wanted to spoil the bunch. Like I recall when GG first started people were actually accepting of LGBT+ folk and other minorities by saying "we do not like journos lumping all video game hobbyists in with bigots!" The problem is eventually groups such as the alt right viewed this as a way to infiltrate and take advantaged of misguided youth, and began appealing to the bad apples who really did treat GG as "an attack on white straight men." The inability to properly weed these bad folk out ultimately lead to a lot of the more reasonable voices being drowned out as now you had both the bad voices being amplified, and those very journos we were fighting against now had legitimate ammo they could use to show "see I told you GG is all about bigots complaining about minorities" and people like myself were nowhere near loud enough to drown either out.

As much as I do heavily disagree with the userbase of GamingCirclejerk, I'll have to bite the bullet and say I'd rather deal with a GCJ person than a KiA person as I have at least seen people on GCJ act more reasonably and change their tune when others point out they're in the wrong. KiA members are far too stubborn, and folks like them and /pol/ have even been invading other fanbases like Asmongold (it was quite weird once going on the Asmongold subreddit and seeing a lot of far right reactionary posts and a lot of users unironically using phrases like "the west has fallen" or saying things like "what's wrong with racism?" and getting high upvotes for said comment, and sadly Asmon himself has fallen in to this far right reactionary rabbit hole going by all the thumbnails and titles of his videos for basically the past year).

Not trying to write like a bitch asking you to calm your cat ears and tail down, but can you show me morons writing about West falling and not understanding why racism is bad?
I mean, if you want morons who say this, it's guys from consumeproduct.win (successor to r/consumeproduct).
They do not write shit about dumb consumers and only complain about something like liberal media and stuff.
I just find them stupid and a waste of time.

Mistress Fortune wrote:

My general opinion on KiA is the same as my opinion on GamerGate as a whole:

Started off with good intentions, but lost its way and became more of a movement for people on the extreme right to just bitch and moan about how straight white dudes aren't the only audience being catered towards anymore. The main reason I feel that way is GG's lack of any real "leadership" meant there was no gatekeeping against bad apples that wanted to spoil the bunch. Like I recall when GG first started people were actually accepting of LGBT+ folk and other minorities by saying "we do not like journos lumping all video game hobbyists in with bigots!" The problem is eventually groups such as the alt right viewed this as a way to infiltrate and take advantaged of misguided youth, and began appealing to the bad apples who really did treat GG as "an attack on white straight men." The inability to properly weed these bad folk out ultimately lead to a lot of the more reasonable voices being drowned out as now you had both the bad voices being amplified, and those very journos we were fighting against now had legitimate ammo they could use to show "see I told you GG is all about bigots complaining about minorities" and people like myself were nowhere near loud enough to drown either out.

As much as I do heavily disagree with the userbase of GamingCirclejerk, I'll have to bite the bullet and say I'd rather deal with a GCJ person than a KiA person as I have at least seen people on GCJ act more reasonably and change their tune when others point out they're in the wrong. KiA members are far too stubborn, and folks like them and /pol/ have even been invading other fanbases like Asmongold (it was quite weird once going on the Asmongold subreddit and seeing a lot of far right reactionary posts and a lot of users unironically using phrases like "the west has fallen" or saying things like "what's wrong with racism?" and getting high upvotes for said comment, and sadly Asmon himself has fallen in to this far right reactionary rabbit hole going by all the thumbnails and titles of his videos for basically the past year).

Yep, a flagrant lack of gatekeeping killed the original GG's intentions in record time. Unfortunately it happens often, groups that might start being well-intentioned end up completely twisted and corrupted because the bad apples take over.

Mistress Fortune wrote:

My general opinion on KiA is the same as my opinion on GamerGate as a whole:

Started off with good intentions, but lost its way and became more of a movement for people on the extreme right to just bitch and moan about how straight white dudes aren't the only audience being catered towards anymore. The main reason I feel that way is GG's lack of any real "leadership" meant there was no gatekeeping against bad apples that wanted to spoil the bunch. Like I recall when GG first started people were actually accepting of LGBT+ folk and other minorities by saying "we do not like journos lumping all video game hobbyists in with bigots!" The problem is eventually groups such as the alt right viewed this as a way to infiltrate and take advantaged of misguided youth, and began appealing to the bad apples who really did treat GG as "an attack on white straight men." The inability to properly weed these bad folk out ultimately lead to a lot of the more reasonable voices being drowned out as now you had both the bad voices being amplified, and those very journos we were fighting against now had legitimate ammo they could use to show "see I told you GG is all about bigots complaining about minorities" and people like myself were nowhere near loud enough to drown either out.

As much as I do heavily disagree with the userbase of GamingCirclejerk, I'll have to bite the bullet and say I'd rather deal with a GCJ person than a KiA person as I have at least seen people on GCJ act more reasonably and change their tune when others point out they're in the wrong. KiA members are far too stubborn, and folks like them and /pol/ have even been invading other fanbases like Asmongold (it was quite weird once going on the Asmongold subreddit and seeing a lot of far right reactionary posts and a lot of users unironically using phrases like "the west has fallen" or saying things like "what's wrong with racism?" and getting high upvotes for said comment, and sadly Asmon himself has fallen in to this far right reactionary rabbit hole going by all the thumbnails and titles of his videos for basically the past year).

Since you mentioned /pol/, not every bigot comes from that board. Some come from other sites.

Mistress Fortune wrote:

My general opinion on KiA is the same as my opinion on GamerGate as a whole:

Started off with good intentions, but lost its way and became more of a movement for people on the extreme right to just bitch and moan about how straight white dudes aren't the only audience being catered towards anymore. The main reason I feel that way is GG's lack of any real "leadership" meant there was no gatekeeping against bad apples that wanted to spoil the bunch. Like I recall when GG first started people were actually accepting of LGBT+ folk and other minorities by saying "we do not like journos lumping all video game hobbyists in with bigots!" The problem is eventually groups such as the alt right viewed this as a way to infiltrate and take advantaged of misguided youth, and began appealing to the bad apples who really did treat GG as "an attack on white straight men." The inability to properly weed these bad folk out ultimately lead to a lot of the more reasonable voices being drowned out as now you had both the bad voices being amplified, and those very journos we were fighting against now had legitimate ammo they could use to show "see I told you GG is all about bigots complaining about minorities" and people like myself were nowhere near loud enough to drown either out.

As much as I do heavily disagree with the userbase of GamingCirclejerk, I'll have to bite the bullet and say I'd rather deal with a GCJ person than a KiA person as I have at least seen people on GCJ act more reasonably and change their tune when others point out they're in the wrong. KiA members are far too stubborn, and folks like them and /pol/ have even been invading other fanbases like Asmongold (it was quite weird once going on the Asmongold subreddit and seeing a lot of far right reactionary posts and a lot of users unironically using phrases like "the west has fallen" or saying things like "what's wrong with racism?" and getting high upvotes for said comment, and sadly Asmon himself has fallen in to this far right reactionary rabbit hole going by all the thumbnails and titles of his videos for basically the past year).

A Quora user gave an interesting reason for the way KiA is now:
"Most people don’t consider the large female and trans presence within gamergate or the whole ‘not your shield’ arc of the gamergate era. Due to this publicity, when the cesspool that was The Donald was axed on Reddit guess where all its refugees fled to? The moderators used to have a strict framework of operation, a point system for posts, but all that was swept away in the tide."

SwipeWire wrote:

A Quora user gave an interesting reason for the way KiA is now:
"Most people don’t consider the large female and trans presence within gamergate or the whole ‘not your shield’ arc of the gamergate era. Due to this publicity, when the cesspool that was The Donald was axed on Reddit guess where all its refugees fled to? The moderators used to have a strict framework of operation, a point system for posts, but all that was swept away in the tide."

So KiA started to really deteriorate when r/The_Donald got nuked and everyone there moved to KiA? Huh.
I think another reason why KiA fell off is as Games Journos fell into irrelevancy and the "male feminist allies" got exposed as being creeps themselves, most people on KiA moved on with their lives (even if they didn't bother unsubscribing from the subreddit), while some of the "old guard" that still stayed did unfortunately get radicalized.

Bullshit in the video gaming space (especially with AAA) is still happening, but at this point, I think the usefulness of the KiA subreddit as the vehicle to discuss and deal with them (including stuff like censorship) has decreased. And as Chewybunny notes above, the AAA space isn't really in great shape, so it seems like gaming won't be as centralized as it was before.

qx1511 wrote:

So KiA started to really deteriorate when r/The_Donald got nuked and everyone there moved to KiA? Huh.
I think another reason why KiA fell off is as Games Journos fell into irrelevancy and the "male feminist allies" got exposed as being creeps themselves, most people on KiA moved on with their lives (even if they didn't bother unsubscribing from the subreddit), while some of the "old guard" that still stayed did unfortunately get radicalized.

Bullshit in the video gaming space (especially with AAA) is still happening, but at this point, I think the usefulness of the KiA subreddit as the vehicle to discuss and deal with them (including stuff like censorship) has decreased. And as Chewybunny notes above, the AAA space isn't really in great shape, so it seems like gaming won't be as centralized as it was before.

Feels more like some sneaky bastard came there than any imbecile from r/The_Donald

This post has been hidden due to low karma.
Click here to show this post.

Mistress Fortune wrote:

My general opinion on KiA is the same as my opinion on GamerGate as a whole:

Started off with good intentions, but lost its way and became more of a movement for people on the extreme right to just bitch and moan about how straight white dudes aren't the only audience being catered towards anymore. The main reason I feel that way is GG's lack of any real "leadership" meant there was no gatekeeping against bad apples that wanted to spoil the bunch. Like I recall when GG first started people were actually accepting of LGBT+ folk and other minorities by saying "we do not like journos lumping all video game hobbyists in with bigots!" The problem is eventually groups such as the alt right viewed this as a way to infiltrate and take advantaged of misguided youth, and began appealing to the bad apples who really did treat GG as "an attack on white straight men." The inability to properly weed these bad folk out ultimately lead to a lot of the more reasonable voices being drowned out as now you had both the bad voices being amplified, and those very journos we were fighting against now had legitimate ammo they could use to show "see I told you GG is all about bigots complaining about minorities" and people like myself were nowhere near loud enough to drown either out.

As much as I do heavily disagree with the userbase of GamingCirclejerk, I'll have to bite the bullet and say I'd rather deal with a GCJ person than a KiA person as I have at least seen people on GCJ act more reasonably and change their tune when others point out they're in the wrong. KiA members are far too stubborn, and folks like them and /pol/ have even been invading other fanbases like Asmongold (it was quite weird once going on the Asmongold subreddit and seeing a lot of far right reactionary posts and a lot of users unironically using phrases like "the west has fallen" or saying things like "what's wrong with racism?" and getting high upvotes for said comment, and sadly Asmon himself has fallen in to this far right reactionary rabbit hole going by all the thumbnails and titles of his videos for basically the past year).

Did it really start out with good intentions? Given what we know about Milo Greeklastname and Breitbart now, they inserted themselves at the very beginning to get people to join the far right (this came from the mouth the owner, Steve Bannon, himself)

Steve wrote:

Did it really start out with good intentions? Given what we know about Milo Greeklastname and Breitbart now, they inserted themselves at the very beginning to get people to join the far right (this came from the mouth the owner, Steve Bannon, himself)

Yup. I believe Milo wasn't an alt-right and disgusting freak back then.
Also, I am one of those guys who wish Gamergate stuff never happened in the first place.

Derptastic Derp Man wrote:

People still care about gamer gate?

Yes and, as someone worried about how incoming generations might perceive it, i was expecting this site to at least do something in retrospect (as it was one of the very few mainstream sites who covered neutrally the whole fiasco as it developed), but it seems the staff distanced themselves from the issue as the entry had their comment section turned off


I wish we could have gone beyond the meme documentation (i've noticed that some of the older videos are becoming lost media) and start compiling first-hand experiences of the people involved (like some sort of truth commision to clarify past events) as many of them are now deceased or faded into irrelevancy.

Last edited Sep 02, 2024 at 05:57PM EDT

FatmanAss wrote:

Yup. I believe Milo wasn't an alt-right and disgusting freak back then.
Also, I am one of those guys who wish Gamergate stuff never happened in the first place.

He was literally working for Breitbart, a far right news syndicate; which is run by Steve Bannon.

He was literally inserting himself into GG to recruit young men to the far right; Steve Bannon said this himself

Cesar Acuña wrote:

Yes and, as someone worried about how incoming generations might perceive it, i was expecting this site to at least do something in retrospect (as it was one of the very few mainstream sites who covered neutrally the whole fiasco as it developed), but it seems the staff distanced themselves from the issue as the entry had their comment section turned off


I wish we could have gone beyond the meme documentation (i've noticed that some of the older videos are becoming lost media) and start compiling first-hand experiences of the people involved (like some sort of truth commision to clarify past events) as many of them are now deceased or faded into irrelevancy.

I thought Jim is retiring from the Internet shit and choosing to go into hospice because of cancer?

Derptastic Derp Man wrote:

I thought Jim is retiring from the Internet shit and choosing to go into hospice because of cancer?

He still does streams once in a while, mostly making fun of lolcows like Ethan Ralph or Boogie.

Word Up! You must login or signup first!