B-Mask cites a recent debacle between himself and ex-game journalist, Matt Lees, in which Lees goes on a diatribe in his own podcast, condemning the use of female sexual attributes (exposed breasts and female fantasy armor) to sell mini games on the Apple App Store. B-Mask suggests that the issue isn't as black and white as most news outlets and journalists would like the public to believe, cites cultural differences and traditional marketing tactics (sex sells), and states that it's a topic worthy of having a rational discussion or debate in order to find out whether there's any real link between video games and real-world misogyny, and if so, formulate a genuine solution. Matt Lees' indignant reply consisted of essentially trying to shut him up by stating:
"this is one topic that [Matt Lees is] entirely unwilling to debate"
"opening the floor to 'fair debate' gives [the opposition's] wonky ideas an air of credibility that they simply don't deserve."
"[the opposition] can quite simply fuck off, as far as [Matt Lees is] concerned".
In addition, Matt Lees drops the biggest bomb with the claim that no one in the gaming industry is paid to have opinions that are different than his own, which not only reeks of a totalitarian and self-righteous mindset, but it's also telling of how first-world problems, professional victimhood and yellow gaming journalism have amalgamated into a massive source of revenue.
It seems like everywhere you turn video game developers, game designers, and game reviewers are flocking to questionable political ideologies like moths to flame while completely dismissing or outright ignoring any voices that question the potentially skewed world-view that these game industry insiders seek to perpetuate. Soap-boxing insiders like Adam Orth make a career of publicly denouncing the 'toxicity' of the gaming community, after being fired from Microsoft for actively trolling the Xbox One consumer base. Industry insiders like Halo designer David Ellis call out the questionable attire of other video game developers' female leads, and in the same breath over-generalize gamers as 'man babies', all the while featuring the sensual, digital naked woman (Cortana) as one of the main characters of his company's flagship franchise. Reviewers like Jim Sterling take short-sighted, under-researched, yellow journalism headlines and proceed to look down from their podiums and condemn the very people who listen to their shows as being 'toxic' or 'immoral'. Suey Park takes a Colbert Report joke entirely out of context and begins a knee-jerk campaign which, ironically, battles hate and bigotry with more hate and bigotry. And what conversation about professional victimhood would be complete without Anita Sarkeesian, whose feminist gaming videos, funded by a $160,000 Kickstarter campaign, have been met with scrutiny by legions of unsung YouTube watchdogs who actually bothered to fact-check the information that she suggests perpetuates misogyny in the video game industry. Meanwhile, the concept that video games have a direct influence on a gamer's real-world social behavior has been scientifically debunked in past video game political controversies, such as Jack Thompson's war on video game violence. And yet, gamers united against Jack Thompson's crusade against violence in video games in the early 2000's, so then why are main stream video game journalists so willing to side with Anita Sarkeesian's (often debunked) claims that video games promote misogyny and perpetuate 'the patriarchy'?
When will the madness and the blatant hypocrisy end?
Because it's a topic that video game journalists simply don't want to publicly investigate -for fear of being labeled as 'sexists', or they have a case of classic 'nice guy' syndrome- we had no choice but to jump on our own high horses, and return to the table to air our grievances and plead to the masses that some open discussion of these hotly contested topics take place.
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