Intel has pulled its advertising from gaming news site, Gamasutra, after the chip maker received complaints about an opinion piece claiming that ‘gamers are over', this article was part of a co-ordinated attack on the gamer identity as over ten big gaming sites posted similar articles all preaching the same message over the course of two days.
When you read the Gamasutra piece, its easy to see why gamers were angry, the site branded its audience (gamers) as “obtuse shitslingers”, “wailing hyper-consumers” and “childish internet-arguers”.
Gamasutra confirmed that Intel had pulled its advertising campaign on its Twitter account, saying: “Yes, our partners at @intel were flooded with complaints over a recent opinion piece, and they did pull an ad campaign.”
#GamerGate supporters got in touch with Intel over its advertising campaign and expressed concerns that the chip maker shouldn't be associating itself with sites that consistently attack their audience. One supporter received this email back:
The Intel campaign was launched much earlier this year before all of the controversy broke out between the gaming press, developers and gamers themselves. For more information on this subject look up the ‘GameJournoPros' secret mailing list and how it compares to the ‘JournoList' scandal of 2010, in which journalists colluded to push a single political agenda.
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KitGuru Says: As a tech website, we've largely stayed away from reporting on #GamerGate events but it looks like the problem isn't going to be sorted out any time soon. Have many of you guys been following the recent controversy? Was Intel right to pull advertising over this opinion piece? I suppose it can be viewed as a conflict of interest, Intel markets to gamers, so why would it advertise with a site claiming that “gamers are dead”?
I’m with Intel on this one. It’s disgusting when game journalists abandon their fanbase, the ones who helped build their reputation, like they were some sort of trash. Regardless of whether you’re just protecting
your “reputation” or being forced by some SJW agenda, you just don’t fucking insult your roots.
If you need some affirmation, just read this and be assured that gamers are most definitely not dead:
http://scar3crow.com/2014/09/i-am-a-gamer/
These game journalism sites are constantly attacking the people that are keeping them in jobs, so i am in favour of them losing adverts and money and potentially shutting down
however i’m not in favour of the absolutely childish name calling that has been used in these Gamergate shenangans
Whenever someone wants to know about whats going on, I like to let them google it themselves but post http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/25/gamergate-an-issue-with-2-sides/ — because anyone googling it themselves ends up thinking this is about an internet mob lynching some random dev who made some very poor choices, instead of general journalistic favoritism.
I actually think that part of the issue is that a lot of game journalists are becoming part of the ‘old guard’ of gaming.
And with that comes a lot of sceptism and jaded views of what gaming used to be.
I remember gaming back in the mid 2000’s, my collegue on the desk oporsit remebered gaming in the 90s. We both have different views on what gaming used to be but we both agree by and large what it’s like now.
with gaming bigger than it’s ever been, the amount of assholes who ruin it for everyone has gone up, and they’re getting louder.
It’s those guys that are ruining it for everyone else.
Saying gaming is dead is wrong, gaming is dead as they knew it from when they were a student.
but gaming isn’t dead, it’s just different.
If I’m honest, we need a new set of journalists who are more in tune with todays audience.
The sexist, abusive people who Gamasutra is targeting are not its readerbase.
I completely agree with Leigh Alexander. However, I also understand why Intel wouldn’t want to advertise on the site.
“Gamers” have become a minority demographic in the people who consume videogames, and they are extremely rude, sexist and worst of all, vocal. They are not Gamasutra’s target audience at all; Gamasutra is for industry professionals and consumers who are interested in said industry professionals (rather than just the products and face of developers) and in the philosophy of gaming. As such, they aren’t harming their own readerbase by publishing this piece.
Intel has many audiences it wants to appeal to, one of which is indeed “gamers”. Showing sympathy for any sites which are criticising Intel’s audience is not going to be in their interest.
Your last two sentences show that you haven’t read the original article at all. Maybe try reading it?
Actually, I did read the article.
I was talking about the articles writted by other journalists who are saying that gaming is dead.