I write about videogames

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jen-and-aster
@jen-and-aster

The latest harassment campaign occurring over a Steam profile and community posts should be less surprising than it is, TBH. Valve's hands-off approach to moderation, along with creating a forum for every single video game, has led their Community tab to be one of the most toxic hubs on the Internet. Turning off the forum feature in Steam wouldn't fix the toxicity, but it'd sure as hell give it one less space to fester unchallenged.


jen-and-aster
@jen-and-aster

Another observation: nearly every "great" article we've seen linked across Cohost, Bluesky and Twitter is only adding fuel to the fire. We've seen a lot of writers taking the harassment campaign at face value, explaining "No, this isn't how the industry works at all." The thing is, we know that. The harassers and YouTube personalities at the forefront of this know that. So why are you addressing their vitriol by what they're saying, when their words mean something else entirely?

The way these fascists are wielding woke translates to "There are too many Black/queer/women characters in video games." Would you deem it necessary to challenge their claims if they were saying what they meant? No, because it's obvious that they're wrong, and it's equally obvious that they're not going to be talked out of it!

By addressing their words in this manner, you're debating on their own terms. And you never debate a fascist on their own terms, as history has proven time and time again. Yet here these outlets are, repeating the same mistakes from nearly a decade ago, refuting their "concerns" rather than shutting them out entirely. It's especially infuriating when some of these outlets were around for the same old shit, making the same, decade-old mistakes!

The next time you find yourself tempted to address the people engaged in this harassment campaign, ask yourself this. Do you really want to debate someone who sees anyone under the "woke" umbrella as subhuman? Or would you rather do literally anything else with your life?


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in reply to @jen-and-aster's post:

the argument for mandatory forum was always "well, we as a store owner don't want to offer anything without support" as if auto-creating that stress burden and harassment vector for every developer was somehow a guarantee that support would happen there, and not just be a 50 gallon drum for chud juice to slowly fill up and spill over with.

tons of things valve does that suggest that they are mentally and socially incapable of putting themselves in the shoes of a developer trying to make it on their hellhole of a platform but this one is perhaps at the top.

ah but at least they added clown emoji badges to gamify the creation of off-topic / content-free / harassing nonsense on said forums! that shows how seriously they take the responsibility of getting developers to provide support.

I think it's really cool how they added a feature that allows randos to place their garbage in pride of place on store pages, then refused to moderate it. it rules and is so big brained and smart

Valve not moderating anything should have been the story all along yeah, not "one of these hundreds of hate groups are targetting this, are they right??"
Obviously it was all BS, but by taking the question seriously those article have made all this more legitimate and given it more visibility.

in reply to @jen-and-aster's post:

wish I could make everyone in the industry understand your addition, it's been so frustrating lately, like watching someone argue with a campus preacher. virtually no one is actually concerned about "wokeness" and those that are are so far removed from reality that you're not gonna bring them back with actual facts lol. but at least the argument is being shared and legitimized to a wider audience who doesn't need to be convinced at all, hey