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[Antsan]

While reading an interview on the whole GamerGate disaster I noticed the following:

People started to wonder if those journalists were allowing their personal politics or maybe friendships affect what and who they were covering.

I can understand how friends affecting reviews might be a problem.
"Personal politics" is not as clear cut. As much as some people wish it wasn't that way, politics are a part of everything that's distributed between people who don't know each other personally (and politics also enter the spaces where all people know each other, but that's not important right now). Games are always involved with political topics.

I guess there are a lot of people who believe that politics shouldn't play into the evaluation of a game. I see that as a problem - if you ignore them they won't go away but instead they'll run rampant. Not discussing political problems will make them worse. So, in my eyes, a review of a game will have to cover the political side of that game.
At the same time a review is almost necessarily largely subjective. If it is not, it's probably not going to be read by as many people. That might not be a problem for a blogger who doesn't rely on revenue being generated by his writings, but it's definitely a problem for gaming magazines, so I think professional writers have quite significant incentive to write subjective pieces. Now this isn't as true for politics - opinionated articles on politics are probably bad for revenue (I don't really know), but it is probably really hard to write about the great graphical style and the awesome story with those dreadful game mechanics in a subjective tone and then switch to discussing improbable cleavage and marginalization of minorities more objectively.
So, when games journalists try to do the right thing (that is, accept their responsibility for what politics they promote together with the games they talk about) they aren't trained and experienced enough in writing about politics to not stir up a big controversy. Hence GamerGate'n'stuff.

Does that make any sense?

Spoiler: Why I believe you are responsible for the politics of the games you are talking about (click to show/hide)

I know a lot of reefers. Most of them are also part of the left.
OCB is the most well know vendor for long papes around here, thus many of the smokers I know use those. The problem is, that there are rumors that OCB is supporting the "Front national", which is a French right-wing party. So, if you talk about how awesome OCB papers are then you may be supporting the right wing in France.

Now, most game studios are probably not sponsoring political parties (but I guess there are publishers who do), but nevertheless they do promote certain political views. Talking about that is important, as this kind of thing is a kind of free propaganda for certain political views. So, a reviewer needs to come to terms with the fact that he might be promoting propaganda for something which he doesn't want to promote. It's not like he can just ignore it and thus avoid spreading the propaganda - everyone who buys the game will be exposed to it.
At least there is a necessity to point out that this propaganda exists and which political views it might support, so consumers don't face it unprepared.

[scrdest]

That seems to believe people just accept whatever idea the game is promoting unthinkingly.

[DJ]

Well if you buy *anything* you're supporting the megacorps that are ruining the world, so I guess we should just lay down and wait to die?

[Antsan]

That seems to believe people just accept whatever idea the game is promoting unthinkingly.

I thought someone would think that was the assumption.

I don't think the major impact is on your opinion but rather on how sure you are of it or alternately how able you are to defend it.
If you start arguing against a game that a short while ago managed to enrage you for political reasons you are more likely to unwittingly construct strawmen (for instance).
Also a lot of politically inclined people automatically analyze the stuff they see for political implications, so they extend additional energy towards a politically loaded game. This can be used as training, in a way, but it probably is mainly exhausting.

@DJ:
Yeah, your arguments are really invincible against any kind of argument.

[DJ]

I'm just saying that games in general have as little to do with politics as the next product, and if a reviewer of any consumer good tried to cram politics into his reviews he'd be doing a bad job. If I want politics I'll read what real political commentators write, not something written by people with a completely unrelated area of expertise.

And I don't see how your OCB example is any different from what I said.

[Antsan]

Then we have different expectations of what a review should entail.
For me a review is about how desirable it is for the reader to use said product. For me that also includes how desirable it is to support whoever benefits from the money I pay.
My OCB example is not different from what you said. It's just that what you said draws the conclusion that we shouldn't buy from anybody and rather wait to die, whether I only said that maybe one should pay attention to what they are promoting.

What Anita Sarkeesian is talking about (from my point of view) is the lack of attention to politics in video games compared to the abundance of political issues concerning gender in video games.

[DJ]

But the fact is that *any* participation in the economy supports the exploitative relations of modern capitalism. Everything is interconnected, and if you follow the chain of trades long enough you'll wind up with companies like Monsanto at it's base.

So yeah, product reviewers should leave political commentating to the real political commentators, and focus on the utility of the product they are reviewing.

[Antsan]

I see it as an optimization problem. Doing perfectly might be ideal but is not the goal when it's not attainable.

So, then we need political commentators for games journalism.

[Phmcw]

I know a lot of reefers. Most of them are also part of the left.
OCB is the most well know vendor for long papes around here, thus many of the smokers I know use those. The problem is, that there are rumors that OCB is supporting the "Front national", which is a French right-wing party. So, if you talk about how awesome OCB papers are then you may be supporting the right wing in France.

Two minute of google show that OCB, when those rumor started, belong to Vincent Bolloré who doesn't support the FN in any meanigfull way (he's a political Animal, and try to court the right wing and left wing politicians, but not the far right, at least not at the moment). Currently iand since 2000's it belong to Repblic Tobacco who own the brands     
    JOB®
    OCB®
    ZIG ZAG®
    TOP®
    SWAN®
    GAMBLER®
    ROLLING®
    ALTESSE®

It's yet another stupid baseless rumor useless "activists" are fond of.

I see it as an optimization problem. Doing perfectly might be ideal but is not the goal when it's not attainable.

So, then we need political commentators for games journalism.

What a wonderful, novel idea. Political commentators for video games, it has never been done before /s

Here' where Sarkeesian took most of her ideas : http://www.academia.edu/3499503/VIDEOLOGY_-_VIDEO_GAMES_AS_POSTMODERN_SIGHTS_SITES_OF_IDEOLOGICAL_REPRODUCTION

It's from 1995.

[DJ]

Sure, political commentators should by all means go and commentate on politics in video games, just like they comment on politics in everything else. On their journals and blogs which I will never read. When I read a review of a game in a gaming journal, though, I expect it to stick to commenting it's entertainment value, and not sidetrack into things that are irrelevant to my enjoyment of the game. Is it so outrageous to expect writers to have some sort of focus rather than ramble about everything and nothing?

[Antsan]

@Phmcw:
Sorry, when I searched for OCB on DuckDuckGo I could only find stuff not related to OCB at all.
And I explicitly called it a "rumor". That's exactly why we need reporting on that kind of stuff.

I cannot see the stuff behind your link and I don't even get what your point even is.
I also don't see why a site called "academia.edu" should be even considered to be a part of gaming journalism - it's not like this would be a place gamers use to look up what games to buy next.

Why the hostility/sarcasm? Is the call for more political awareness in gamer culture somehow taboo or are you going to claim that gamers actually are politically aware?
If you want to I can extend my demand to any other not explicitly political subculture - being aware of how your behavior influences the society around you is a good thing, after all.

@DJ:
What is outrageous is the unwillingness of some people to take responsibility of how they shape the society around themselves, for example people in cities complaining about how dirty everything is when the next day they throw their own trash on the ground or people complaining about how cold society is and how nobody supports them in times of hardship and then use that as an excuse to be cold and uncaring themselves.
So, yes, ignoring the politics surrounding gamer culture when you are a part of it is outrageous.

[DJ]

Well you are outrageous for supporting big oil with virtually every purchase you make. Every one of those purchases puts a little bit of Middle Eastern blood on your hands, and makes you an accomplice in the slow murder of Earth's entire ecosystem.

[Antsan]

I see it as an optimization problem. Doing perfectly might be ideal but is not the goal when it's not attainable.

[DJ]

You could do a hell of a lot by adopting an Amish lifestyle, but you are unwilling to give up luxuries for sake of doing less harm. Yet you have the audacity to criticize me for giving a small contribution to sexism by not giving a damn about political connotations of my entertainment. We're both making the world a worse place, the difference is that I'm not being a hypocrite about it.

[Phmcw]

are you going to claim that gamers actually are politically aware?

Does anonymous ring a bell? Online gamer/tech culture was and still is furioulsy political. Hell weev himself is furiously political.
And while the libertarian wing is definitely influent, the majority of it is left wing and progressive. You can get on the receiving end of an hate/love mob from any of these quickly.

You could do a hell of a lot by adopting an Amish lifestyle, but you are unwilling to give up luxuries for sake of doing less harm. Yet you have the audacity to criticize me for giving a small contribution to sexism by not giving a damn about political connotations of my entertainment. We're both making the world a worse place, the difference is that I'm not being a hypocrite about it.

Personally I do give a damn. A big one, too. But I don't agree with the reporting that has been done, and I think that at the end of the day, the community try hard to do the right thing. Valve got a lot of love for its treatement of women's character.