f13.net

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/12/06/changes

Pretty much a "who gives a shit" event, but them firing Ben Kuchera puts a smile in my heart.

I actually liked their "reality TV" stuff; it was more entertaining than the strip itself IMO.  But they haven't done anything with that in a while, and the PAR didn't do much for me, so I agree, non-event.

I do owe PATV for introducing me to SU&SD, which I've just been watching on their site directly since not everything gets replicated over to PATV.

That post reads incredibly dumb.

"Hey, we want to focus on PA, so we won't do this other stuff.... instead, we're going to do this OTHER other stuff..."

I think they consider that stuff PA, more than the TV and stuff is.

In the end, it's a guy who likes drawing and a guy who likes telling stories. Honestly, I get the impression that while the strip and a lot of their day-to-day stuff remains games and internet shit and occasional bits of news, what they'd both like to be doing is graphical novels.

Albums? really? That's closer to PA than PATV?

Yeah, sorry, it's dumb.

Here's the problem. It's very dangerous to get outside your wheelhouse if you built a business on something for the last 15 years. They may be bored and they may have made a lot of money, but if you're bored and you're done with what made you rich and famous, you quit and fade away to the French isles to fuck models and retire as best you can. You don't try to retool your business into something it's not.

PAR was nothing but a glorified blog Kuchera used to ride his personal hobby horses into the ground anyway. I'd occasionally click over and have a look after checking out the comic, and it seemed like it was just always the same Oculus Rift bullshit, Kotaku-lite gender issues clickbait, and plugs for random Kickstarters.

The PATV stuff was mostly dreck that I couldn't be arsed to click on, but I did sort of like Checkpoint. I won't exactly miss it, but I would have kept clicking on it if it had stayed. Sure it was just old news repeated by dorks who were trying too hard, but I found them sort of likeable.

All the new side-project bullshit Tycho posted about means fuck-all to me though. I go to PA looking for a mildly amusing comic about nerd shit; whenever I see that Lookouts crap I know it's time to tune out for a week. It's the nouveau equivalent of that cardboard tube samurai shit.

Meh, they can do whatever they want. If I like it, I'll read it, if I don't I won't.

/shrug

You know, I never found PA amusing or informative enough to generate the fame it enjoys today.  The Pax thing is a total mystery to me.  All the current comics are trash and PAR was worse.   :geezer: Or maybe we have come to accept less?

I like the art style of the PA comics, but I could think of at least 5 other comics offhand that I would think of as more funny.

"We want to focus on pins."

Ok.

Makes sense, and I take what he wrote at face value. They're very startup-y in how they approach everything from their decisions through how they comport themselves in public. They've brought on some great people who've parlayed their brand into other things. I personally love what PAX is doing, and hope it can keep itself gamer-focused. That wasn't from two guys creating comics though.

So if the two guys who are creating comics want to focus on doing that across the media types, good on them. It's al fine to grow and stuff.

But you sleep better when you focus on what you like doing than by going through the motions on all the shit other people say you should be doing.

I still look at the comics, but no longer read the articles after all the water carrying they did for ME3's shit ending.  Actually enjoyed some of their podcasts before that, but the Bioware love was the straw.

Good for them, I guess, to focus on their comic....and pins...

and albums.

Seriously, shit like "albums" kind of throws all that rhetoric about focusing on the core thing out the window.

I'm not at all a fan of their attempts at work with continuity either.  Pretty much every run of not-Penny Arcade they've done has required extensive explanation outside of the comics, which to me is a failure of story telling.

I like the idea of Sand, or the Eyrewood, but their execution has pretty much led me to believe they cannot depict or tell the stories they have in their heads.

Dude, I think you need to reread the post.  You've said it twice now, but I cannot see anywhere were they said they are cutting stuff to go back to 'core' or what ever.  They said they've had a lot of shit they've wanted to do, and are now focusing on doing that instead of putting it off.  Which includes albums and pins and shit.  There is nothing inconsistent I can find in that post....

Now if what they do will be shit or not is a whole different question. :awesome_for_real:

Unlike most here I still mostly enjoy the comic.  I also think their side stuff is very neat as an idea, but as pointed out, it seems to fall apart when they tell the story.  I really liked the beginning concept comics for automata and Sand.  They seem like good 'idea people', but they seriously need somebody to help them craft a story.

I don't think they are the types of guys who can achieve similar success when they try something outside their wheelhouse.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Sigmund_Freud_LIFE.jpg)

And what exactly do you think is the cause of your obsession with wheelhouses?

He's a Cowboys fan, he's used to seeing wheels spinning in place. BOOM!  HEADSHOT!  *runs from thread*

Shoulda *dropped mic*

The core thing is a red herring as Teleku said.  They want to pare PA down to "the core" and move on to other things.

What they're really saying is;  "We want to have time to do the 'creative' bullshit that gets us so much fan wankery about how awesome we are, despite it being utter trash.  We believe the reason we haven't sold our kids books, graphics novels and other assorted side projects isn't because they're garbage, but because we haven't had the time to dedicate to REALLY selling them."

Which is probably partially true. They have the connections and our history is littered with tons of untalented people becoming rich & famous because of connections.  Folks with even moderate talent and the right connections will do ok if they work them.

The Tithe, coming to a theater near you. 

/cat_yack_gif

They don't have bad ideas even with the tithe but the writing is such offensively pretentious hack.

Yes, and Felicia Day was wrong for choosing a career in acting instead of sticking with the Orchestra. We get it, if people have talent in one area they should never try doing anything else for a living even if it's something they're passionate about.

This thread should really be more about bashing the shithead who ran / was the mouthpiece of Penny Arcade Report. I'm sure he'll have no problem getting a job with Kotaku.

Ben Kuchera?

In my opinion, he wasn't terrible back when he was at Ars Technica, but there he had editorial oversight that didn't exist at PAR. I doubt he'll slum it at Kotaku though; it's much too low-class for a seasoned veteran  like himself.

He'll probably go to Polygon or something.


Though I imagine the Extra Credits guy's not terribly happy now, since I recall some bridges being burned over at Escapist when the show left there to go to PA.

Extra Credits is terrible, so all the better really.

I have no problem with a business person selling a business and starting something else with a moderate amount of seed money they earned if it makes them happy. I think it's stupid to try to retool your current business that is already successful into an arena that's not. I would feel like Coke was doing something dumb if they tried to launch a cookie business suddenly because the owners were tired of making beverages.

Doesn't coke make cookies through some owned company?  :why_so_serious:

I believe it's Pepsi that does that.

So, more dickwolves?   :ye_gods: nothing of value is lost or gained from this PA is hipster central.

Anyone who burns bridges in such a small, incestuous, self-aggrandizing industry as gaming - never mind game 'journalism' - deserves everything they get.

Rule #1 in any small industry is ever burn your bridges, no matter how shitty the job was. You never know when the guy who had to clean up after you will be the guy deciding if you have a job or not down the road.

These guys have done pretty well making a living off of doing what they enjoy. As guys who at first just made webcomics and did some games commentary there was nothing to suggest that they could pull off organizing something like PAX let alone having it become as successful as it is today until they put in the effort and actually did it. By your logic, it was stupid of them to try. Writing and drawing a three panel comic strip is a completely different skillset and business than organizing large conventions and taking on something that was so time consuming and likely took a lot of resources seems like probably the biggest change that they've ever gone through in their business.

I don't see them stopping the comic anytime soon, and I would assume they've got a number of people helping them putting the various PAX'es together. If they want to shift resources from PATV and PAR and do more of the side-project stuff that they seem to be into these days, that's not a huge change in their business plan and I can't really blame them regardless. I'm not a huge fan of any of that stuff they've done, but with the amount of success they've had with PA and PAX I would say they've pretty much earned themselves the chance to go do whatever random shit they're excited to be working on. Whether or not any of it is good or ends up being a financial success, I'm pretty sure they aren't in any danger of going broke anytime soon.

I liked the part where the front page announcement of his getting shitcanned was buried under the usual comic newspost and under pictures of cock-shaped cookies.

Pins = merch. I could give a shit about merch. The point about shedding a lot of crap to focus on projects... that are still projects... just seems dumb and silly. Seems to be trading one diversion for another, specifically when talking about extraneous things like "Albums". Which sounds just as weird as PATV or Penny Arcade Report. To me, that's an inconsistency.

It occurs to me that PA is like the WoW of webcomics.  Very popular, kinda bland, and continually being doomcast by jilted fanboys.

Now you've done it.  :grin:

Much like WoW, I'm not interested in doomcasting, merely interested in pointing out where I'm no longer interested.  Pins being much like WoW Tanking in this regard.

 :why_so_serious:

I agree/disagree with you in that I always like the ideas they come up with, its just that they do a few panels worth and then instead of expanding on an interesting premise, they either drop it utterly or make a card game about it.  I think they could depict the stories they come up with, they just rarely seem to have the desire to do so.

That was at the time The Escapist was outed by several content providers as not paying them anymore, despite promises of money soon. As much as I find Extra Credits to be so Pollyanna as to be useless (and the ultimate case of turning minor games dev experience into becoming an INTERNET EXPERT), I think they probably had a case.

PA hired Kuchera to be a frequently producing antagonism magnet. He often succeeded. Of course, I think he's just had a baby (after all, he compared touching the PS4 controller to both touching a boob for the first time AND feeling his unborn child kick) and that changes things, since I've seen a lot of people complain recently that his writing isn't as good as it once was.

Heh.  Paints a picture.

Looks like PA is diversifying.

Penny Arcade Leak Describes Diversity Hub For PAX (http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=d26aa463ebba8cc5ad2f5d735aae0dae&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rpgcodex.net%2Fforums%2Findex.php%3Fthreads%2Fsecond-best-thread-ever-part-3-occasionally-nsfw.57009%2Fpage-766%23post-3015100&v=1&libId=21b7f9f8-6f34-4ee5-8a9a-50e9b6831fe3&out=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rockpapershotgun.com%2F2013%2F12%2F18%2Fpenny-arcade-leak-describes-diversity-hub-for-pax%2F&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rpgcodex.net%2Fforums%2Findex.php&title=NSFW%20-%20Second-Best%20Thread%20ever%20(Part%203)%20%5Boccasionally%20NSFW%5D%20%7C%20Page%20766%20%7C%20rpg%20codex%20%3E%20now%20with%20extra%20cod!&txt=Penny%20Arcade%20Leak%20Describes%20Diversity%20Hub%20For%20PAX&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13874084199087)

I love the internet offended reactions to this.  :drillf:

Already posted that in Useless Conversation.

I'm surprised anyone would be offended but I just don't get the correlation to a gaming con.  I'm really curious to know exactly what this thing is gonna be.

Not familiar with the continued gaffes of the PA wondertwins then? Anything they do will be seen as tonedeaf and wrong because they're, well, twits.

This is being interpreted as, "Hey weirdoes who are offended by our rape jokes and comments about transsexual people being weird. Here's a place to go be different and separate from the real people.  Go be diverse there because we're inclusive by setting you aside!"

I'm familiar and I agree this whole thing is likely PA overcompensation or "throwing a bone"  I just don't get how you shoehorn something like a tolerance center into a gaming convention.  Just, logistically how is it even going to work?

The same way they do at universities or high schools:  A room is set aside with literature and some friendly faces.

The problem is, it'll be more of a meeting place for like-minded individuals who already know this stuff pretty well and not something which educates the people who need to know it.  Mainly because it's over a weekend.  Our LGBT and Women's centers work year-round to educate people in a variety of ways.

The proper solution is to shut the fuck up and just run the convention as normal without saying or doing anything really dumb.

I'm all for the idea in theory but in practice(at a pax show) it will just be like the museum to walt disney inside disneyworld.  Two lonely ushers waiting at the door, watching people walk past all day long on their way to the toy story ride.

So then what's the point? Just to give the PA people street cred and give lip service that they can point to when they make dick jokes.

Saying/doing something dumb *is* as normal for them.

My feeling is that creating a cordoned-off safe space is really just not enough when much of the reason you need a safe space in the first place is the garbage that originates from one of your two public faces. It also seems to send a message that the rest of the place isn't for you, minority gamers, and you should keep to your own kind. I'd say it is unbelievably tone deaf, but they blew past that standard a few scandals ago.

That's exactly correct. It's more or less a tacit admission that the rest of the con is a hostile realm of manbabies. Which it is, of course, but the idea should be to lessen the rest of the con's bullshit.

They should make everyone go to diversity training before they can get wristbands to try demos and gets swag.  :why_so_serious:

Or again, just run a convention and kick people out when they're assholes instead of saying stupid shit, or trying to make it into a hugbox.

Yup.

Also, if you're running a convention that you want to feel safe and inclusive, stop acting like assholes your self. Lead by example, etc.

Yeah, let's face it... if there aren't demos of games running, how many gamers are going to stop to get educated about... well, anything? Almost none.

(http://i.imgur.com/mxkeK9o.png)

Yeah, that's about right.

"Senior Editor, Opinion"

wait wut

That place is like douche central.

Yep. It's like a honeypot for gaming media super douches.

I think I've heard the name Polygon before, but never been there. Just visited, not missing anything.

Polygon is the bunch that people were sniggering at because they got 750000 from Micro$oft to make a documentary on Polygon, and when when the XBone came out Polygon suspiciously conveniently gave raving scores to It and its games despite the fact that they were having major issues with the controls all through their livestream, and their staff utterly slated the games while they were playing them live.

They gave it an 8, barely above what they gave the PS4. I really don't see that as "raving".

From the console bullshit thread


have a look at that and then ask yourself if they were being a touch generous with the scoring based on their experience and comments.

15 minutes cherry picked out of 12 hours doesn't really go a long way to convincing me of anything.

The very fact they rated the xbone over the ps4 is a bit damning.

750k is such peanuts to MS that I don't think they even remember it anymore. The score is just Polygon trying to prove how well they play ball, in the hopes that they'll get more money.

So the conventional wisdom now is that the Penny Arcade guys are intolerant a-holes?  As far as I can tell they made a comic about the immorality of MMORPG quests one time that mentioned rape only in the context of poking fun at the idea that in those games players won't save someone unless it fulfills completion of a quest objective. 

Then another time Gabe espoused his shocking opinion that his definition of a woman includes a person with a vagina.

So yeah, these people are clearly Neanderthals.

That's opinion, not fact. And having read the reviews, I would be hard pressed to disagree on the statements, and I was one amped more for the PS4 than XBone.

I've just never gotten any of the bias arguments thrown at any outlet.

I'd kind of like to know how many of the people objecting to the ratings actually have experience with both systems.

Considering how unreasonable it is to expect anyone to have both at this point, that sort of a demand is only good for ending the discussion altogether.

Funny that.

Someone's a sourpuss today.

Giving an actual numeric rating to a console at all is borderline retarded.

Aside from the usage of "retarded", I'd be hard-pressed to disagree. Especially at launch. However, that wasn't the point at hand.

Yeah I more meant the idea that one is better than the other is a pretty silly thing to hitch your wagon to without having tried both. All most of us have to go on is the pre-release hype and whatever biases we bring to the table. And I guess the difference in cost, which is of course significant.

It was not the comic, it was the merchandising.

Don't feed the troll.

Given that their entire business model relies upon merchandising their comics, and given that we both seem to agree the dickwolves comic was a non-starter, then it doesn't logically follow that the merchandising of one specific comic was objectionable. 

Says the guy with the sexually provocative and scantily-clad female avatar and three out-of-context quotations from women in his sig that are suggestive of sexual promiscuity in a discussion purportedly about misogyny.

My enthusiasm for PA really declined when they carried water for Bioware for ME3's awful ending.

Absolutely untrue.  The argument which is not mine, is that the comic was offensive to which the PA guys said "FU artistic license"  which was enough to annoy people but it wasn't until they gave those offended the proverbial middle finger by way of t-shirts and jerseys that people became very upset. 

I'm not saying who is right I'm just pointing out the issue didn't really get heated until the PA guys saw fit to throw salt in the proverbial wound.  Yes they make a living off of merchandise but no they didn't NEED to make the dickwolves stuff.  They would be close to brain dead to not realize what they were starting at the time.

I personally never found the comic all the offensive but they handled the backlash from it in the worst possible way and  it's still biting them on the ass.

I haven't seen any blog opinions yet on this PA newspost (http://penny-arcade.com/2014/01/01/resolutions), but I'm sure they will mostly be along the lines of "sorry I can't hear when rape apologists talk".

I kinda feel bad for these guys.

Normally gruff start up-y people get bought up by a conglomerate whose media folks either train to be PR-able, or hide them behind people who are. Secondarily you get people who start up something but have the personality and self-awareness to intuitively self-regulate.

Neither has been the case here.

It sounds like they're finally getting to what they should have recognized after they launched PAX East: shed the stuff they can't handle so they can focus on comics.

But I suspect they'll need to shed even more than they realize. They're starting to impact the PA brand itself. That has a knockon effect to their philanthropic, event and other business ventures. Letting other people manage those things was the right move. But they're still the face of them, and the fact has warts.

Either they'll get all Dan Quayle'd up to achieve some level of manageable competence for a time, the non-comic activities get rebranded to separate from PA, or the PA strip goes away in favor of some other strip they focus on (like the trial balloons they've floated) while the PA brand lives on without them too nor a comic.

I'm guessing #3.

You didn't quote the most important part, IMO:


The response I've seen has generally been people encouraged that he's realized it, at least. With a lot of 'wait and see' on if it means anything in the long run to what they put out.

He's known he's been a bully, and why he's been a bully, for a while now (a la Ocean Marketing (http://www.penny-arcade.com/resources/an-update1.html)). Maybe he is trying to change. Or maybe he just keeps making excuses for himself.

Of course they didn't NEED to make dickwolves merchandise.  The real question is can people make jokes that include the word rape, or references to it, without being legitimately accused of "propagating rape culture."    Because really, depending on everyone's own personal hobby horse, it's not a drastic leap to denounce someone for promoting murder or gun culture for making a joke including a violent reference, bullying culture for making a joke including references to insults or harassment, or any of a number of other ad hominems.

People don't usually do this to Louis C.K. The gaming community is so. fucking. retarded.

We don't even have to bring into account "context" before seeing a gulf of difference between CK and PA.

"Offending people is a necessary and healthy act. Every time you say something that's offensive to another person, you just caused a discussion. You just forced them to have to think." - Louis C.K.

That's pretty much been the philosophy of South Park.

No, that's not correct.

The difference being Louis CK doesn't make a rape joke and then go make t-shirts that say "rape joke:the tshirt, fuck you whiners".  It is possible to make offensive jokes and I don't believe any topic should be banned from humor.

The case with PA was that they started getting called on being assholes and rather than discuss it or explain it or even apologize, they turned up the asshole meter to 11.

What Louis CK thinks about this topic.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-16-2012/louis-c-k- (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-16-2012/louis-c-k-)

Yeah, that worked out SO well for Michael Richards.  :why_so_serious:

No, the difference is people pay $60 up front to see Louis tell jokes live, whereas PA tells a joke for free and hopes to cash in on the backend through merch.

His special is $5 online, so there's that.

His stuff is also on Netflix.

You can also email him and explain that you think he is amazing but don't have any money to spend at the moment and he will send you a link to download what ever it is you wanted to see. I read about it on the internet so it must be true.

lol, ok. funny.

That may well be if you're arguably one of the best comics on the planet right now, yet just because a master can do it, doesn't mean that a beginner or journeyman can pull it off.

Your quote also ignores that there's quite a lively debate over how to handle controversial and offensive content among comics and in the comedy 'scene'. With comics - like Louis C. K. - arguing that highly offensive or controversial content needs top notch writing and delivery or in other words a masterful comic to pull it off.

Lastly especially CK but all kinds of other comics never do offensive material for the sake of being offensive it's almost always framed in a way to achieve exactly what you quoted. If you're interested then you can find a lot of theory crafting on how offensive or controversial material is constructed on the web or in podcasts by all kinds of different comics. Just listen to a few of the WTF podcasts when they discuss 'blue' material to catch a glimpse on just how much thought is put into such jokes.

The whole dickwolves debacle is certainly not even remotely on the same level and shouldn't be defended by anyone. I doubt that those two have put even a modicum of thought into those jokes and even if they did it wouldn't even have become the scandal that it did, if they hadn't acted like the absolute jerks they usually are.

Turning this into a free speech issue is giving Penny Arcade much more credit than they deserve.

As for that apology: It's great if he actually learned something about himself. Talk is cheap though and actions speak louder than words so while I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I'll also wait and see if they actually change.

It would be nice if he actually personally apologizes to the people he mistreated instead of 'just' offering a general apology on his website though.

I still think it's a joke to say the backlash has "hurt" PA. It only appears like it hurt them because they apologized, ironically enough.

What would the consequences be if Gabe/Tycho hadn't apologized? Nothing really. Gabe's gigantic mea-culpa and explanation for his head issues was mostly met with "pfft, whatever, he'll just be an asshole again later you'll see" by his more prominent critics.

Fullbright pulling out of PAX? Who the fuck cares? Nobody who matters. Not their primary audience, and probably not most people who AREN'T in that audience.

RockPaperShotgun refusing to cover PAX? Oh no, one of the umpteen games blogs not covering something literally every other outlet is going to cover anyway? What will we do?

I also liked the Cards Against Humanity people whining about the panel where Gabe said he regretted taking down the Dickwolves merchandise because it "stole their thunder" or whatever. Excuse me shit stain- isn't your card game the one that has cards with shit like "Date Rape" on them?

And this is coming from someone who:
-Thinks the comic hasn't been funny for years.
-Thinks Tycho is a pretentious twat who can't write for shit.
-Thinks Gabe is also a twat and that his art has gotten really bad over the last couple of years.
-Thinks Child's Play isn't the first charity for children you should probably think of when donating money.

Really they should just stop listening to Khoos.

It hasn't hurt them, why should it? Their core audience doesn't care and the criticism came largely from external entities that don't regularly read Penny Arcade anyway.

Just like most of those controversies it was simply a tempest in a teacup. Something activists could get exasperated about until the next 'scandal' comes around and the commentariat moves on. Gabe and Tycho just exacerbated everything by acting like they always do (like Grade A dicks, mostly). The first reaction to any sort of criticism is that they double down on the thing that brought them into the situation they are in the first place, with a sort of 'now more than ever' attitude. Secondly they run with the tails between their legs once they get their asses handed to them by their critics.

This doesn't turn this into a free speech issue though. If you think that it is the right of Penny Arcade to make those kinds of jokes (the general 'you') then you should also be OK with accepting the opinion of people that are offended by it and speak their mind on the issue.

This for me is the main difference between professional comics like Louis C.K. and the in my opinion mediocre PA guys. Really great comics know most of the time exactly where the line is and what the consequences and benefits are of crossing it. They also mostly know how to handle any fallout from doing it. They know people will get offended by it and they know which fight to pick. C.K. especially has talked and written quite a lot about how to craft offensive material in a way that offers insight or elicits laughs without unnecessarily offending people.

That's what differentiates comics like C.K. or Jimmy Carr - comics whose material largely consists of 'inappropriate' content and offensive stuff - from guys like Tosh, Richardson or even Gabe and Tycho. The former can get away with material that on the surface is much worse without being mired in constant scandals and they are quick to handle any fallout if they miss the mark (which doesn't happen very often), the latter end up with their foots very much lodged in their mouths and face a certain amount of personal and professional repercussions.

Most of the stuff Gabe and Tycho do strikes me as essentially tone-deaf, they either don't seem to know or care that there are certain issues people are passionate about and if they are confronted with that they deal with it by marginalizing or ridiculing those people for actually being passionate about stuff just because they themselves don't care or 'don't get the fuss'. Tycho and Gabe mostly act like dicks and turning the whole dickwolves debacle into a sort of free speech or 'controversy is good' issue gives them too much credit for something that they didn't think through and never even intended to be controversial and which only became that once they doubled down on the stupid.

With that in mind the latest post is a pretty big acknowledgement of that behavior and I hope that it does lead to some sort of personal growth. Since this is neither the first 'here's why I'm a dick' post nor the first public apology by either Gabe or Tycho I'm a bit skeptical though, not that I care that much since I stopped reading their site years ago.

This is a non-point.  Since real life isn't Ultima Online, and hence there is no metric for a 'master' comic, 'neophyte' comic, 'journeyman' comic, or any other, what you're really saying is you think it's ok for C.K. and Carr to say fucked up shit because you personally find it funny.  But you don't find PA funny, and seem to have a personal distaste for them, thus it's not ok for them to say crass and vulgar things.  Yours is really the internal viewpoint of almost all human beings dressed up with the trappings of education (which helps convince yourself you're right).


Your argument completely ignores and depends on people forgetting the fact that the dickwolves strip inescapably wasn't about rape.  It was about the (a)morality found in the design and play of MMORPGs.  Almost as if there was an intention to make a larger point and thereby provoke some semblance of discussion.

At that point our argument will largely revolve around craft and execution.

Intent is only 20% of what makes a joke 'work' after all.

The apology was stupid. He will do it again because most assholes don't fundamentally change, especially with each passing decade. It sounds like they are going through some sort of early mid life crisis and posting about it with a huge megaphone.

btw. reducing my point to one that is purely about personal taste is also a non point. Firstly because it can easily be flipped around to also dismiss the point you made just as well just be replacing the attributes. Secondly because it ignores that there is lots and lots of debate and theory crafting about the crafting and execution of jokes, especially when it concerns offensive or blue material.

You can criticize my taste or try to dismiss my argument because of my supposed bias but that doesn't change the fact that lots of comics make their living with material that is significantly more offensive without a mob brandishing torches and pitchforks following them around everywhere.

There are a LOT of comedians who tell offensive jokes just to be offensive because that's the point of their "art".

Gilbert Gottfried was telling 9/11 jokes in his act literally the next day and he didn't catch shit for it because his audience (and anyone who knew anything about the comedy scene) knows that's just what Gilbert does. See the Aristocrats movie too.

Both of your first two statements are straw men.  To begin with, I never criticized your personal taste (although I was tempted with your reference to Marc Maron).   Likewise, when you complain  that I am "reducing your point to one that is purely about personal taste"  when your last three posts revolve around the idea that blue jokes are o.k. if properly theory crafted by a master comedian then...I'm not sure what your complaint is.  Your entire "point" if you can call it that is entirely based upon personal taste.  Yours to be specific.  

Finally, when you say "lots of comics make their living with material...more offensive without a mob brandishing torches" it's irrelevant, unfounded, and quite likely wrong.  Even Bill Cosby has gotten himself into hot water for impolitic statements before for Pete's sake.  

Though Gottfried was fired by Aflac after tweeting jokes about the Japanese tsunami.

Here's Louis CK dancing along that line in his latest special, while making the audience aware of what's happening: Of Course... But Maybe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkjmzEEQUlE)
I'd say there's more going on in quite a bit (but not all) of his humor than just going blue/verboten for shock value.

None of which applies to the dickwolves merch, which was aggressive assholery.

Being a voiceover guy isn't Gilbert's primary gig though. You didn't see any venues refusing to have him on after the tsunami jokes; that's his primary gig.

It would be a rare occasion when a comedy club boycotted a comedian that sells tickets.  Even if one comedy club took a stand, there would be dozens hundreds thousands of others that would feel lovely about selling out their venue, so you never hear about it.

Of course.  But maybe, if videogame webcomics make a comic about the ethics of MMORPGs and a bunch of feminists get butthurt about it then it's not really a big deal just because a few nitwits with personal blogs and a desire for page views go into hysterics.

And maybe, arguing "the comic was fine, it was the merch that crossed the line!" is a canard.  I don't think anyone here is arguing there was anything wrong with the comic, except perhaps that it wasn't funny.  Thus, because their business model relies on creating web comics gratis with the hope someone will buy a t-shirt or a pin because they like the comic upon which it is based, there is only a manufactured problem here.

The complaints about PA has always been the attitudes of he creators and their actions. In the spectrum of the art vs the creator, there has only been the one comic that has gotten a lot of attention, and the main reason it got the reaction it did was because of the creators response to rather measured tones by the audience saying they were a bit offended by it. Everything else has been issues that have come up outside from the comic, for the most part. (PAX, etc)

The early reaction to "dickwolves" wasn't vitriol and venom for the most part. And that's twhy there has been an issue. Any time these issues have come out with PA, someone from their audience has reached out voicing their concerns, and they have been met with assholerly on the part of Gabe. Because Gabe/Tycho have done a lot to create a fun/safe atmosphere, it makes it more frustrating on the parts of those that want to be fans of there's but feel unsafe or insulted.

I suppose it's too simple to say that if you're offended by their bullshit to stop paying attention to their bullshit?

 :facepalm:

I mean honestly, they are in the entertainment business. At what point do we just say "Fuck em" and stop worrying about some petty assholes with a webcomic?

Said people HAVE stopped supporting them, but the conversation remains. I hadn't been reading it anyway, because of their asshatery.

Yeah, and those two dozen or so people were a grievous blow to the Penny Arcade machine.

And?

 Here's one of the earliest reactions:  http://www.fugitivus.net/2009/06/24/a-woman-walks-into-a-rape-uh-bar/

I'll leave it to you to decide whether it has any merit.   But it's at least useful in demonstrating that the root of the criticism stems from an objection to the original comic.  The argument goes that the original comic propagates "rape culture."  If that is true, then obviously merchandising the propagation of rape culture would be bad.

What's interesting is that nobody in this thread has argued the comic propagates rape culture.  My theory is the reason for that is because it is a stupid argument that would be ridiculed here.  What people have tried to do, is misappropriate the original feminist objection and adopt the more defensible position that the real reason they are assholes is because they made t-shirts about a comic after bitches on the internet got sad.  And I guess that's why you guys are heroes.

I think the Morgellon's Research Group is up to 47 members now.  Just sayin' bud.

There doesn't seem to be anything in that article that is addressing the comic stip in particular, but the issues with jokes about rape in general, which are still valid. It is also the opinion of one person, whether or not I or you disagree or agree with said position. There is no "polar" argument in the situation like this.

You're simplifying the argument in general and specifically and as well painting it an ill-light to respond to something that you don't like it. There's absolutely no reason not  to use your voice if you feel the need. The attitude that it's whining or whatever is immature and simplistic. It discredits the other side. The point of addressing their reactions IS that, for the most part, the reactions to any of their fumbles has been "hey, I like your stuff man, but that's not cool" and they've doubled down on their crazy. When Gabe has given it the chance to discuss it at length with people, he has understood and tried his best to apologize and be better, which most people have at least given him credit for. The fact that they continually shoot themselves in the foot is the problem.

Saying "I don't read their shit anymore" or "I don't think you should give those assholes money" is not making yourself a hero, nor will most people who do that think that of themselves.

I'm not even remotely sure what the fuck the comment about the Morgellon's thing is about. This entire convo is so fucking mired in logical fallacies.

So are you saying the original comic did propagate rape culture?

I wondered how long it would take to get to "rape culture".  Now that it has been said, can we drop it.

I don't want to find out any of you assholes are MRAs.

Typical cis-hetero white male talk.

Can I come out of the closet now?
Oh wait, wrong forum. 

I actually had to look up the original comic to see what all the fuss was about as I'd never heard of any of this


Having found it, I thought the point was the whole "ok, done the bear minimum to finish the quest, I can leave the rest to their unbearably horrific lives" silliness of most "heroic" MMO quests. I couldn't see anything wrong with the original comic as such. Unless rape victims are a special category of horror above violent abuse victims and therefore making a joke about violent abuse is a-ok.

The Merch was a bit over the top I'll admit. Team Dickwolves? And I haven't read any of their later comments so I cant comment on that.

This is the shirt:


Aside from the fact that there was nothing wrong with the original joke, one look at the shirt reveals that it is itself satirical of the professional sports industry.

Can't see any dicks there.  :awesome_for_real:
Them butthurts are just over exaggerated IMO.  :oh_i_see:

These things get out of hand because people are dumb. PA could've just said "sometimes we make really dirty jokes, viewer discretion advised" and that would've been that.

There wasn't really anything wrong with the original comic.  But, people being people and 'triggers' being a valid thing, some had objections.  (My view here is that if you're triggery about that sort of thing, PA isn't the best place to hang out anyway, but hey ho).  Once the objections were lodged instead of 'Ok, Cool, Soz' or *BLANK SILENCE THAT RADIATES OUR DISREGARD* PA came out with 'Ha, fuck you anyway, you losers deserve rape'.

Which was, er, fun times for them.  What's silly about the whole thing is that they're a business and yet people who should have known better never, ever, ever took The Mic away (no pun intended) so they just kept on saying worse and worse and worse and worse things.

And here we are.

Listening to the 567th apology from this wee scrotum of a bloke, thinking it might, in some way, ever get better.

I completely understand seeing something in entertainment, deciding it was offensive, and boycotting it.

I don't understand going beyond that. It always seems to be opportunist to whatever your cause-de-jour happens to be, and making it fit into the current teacup tempest.

Granted, raising a stink in other areas of life, I get that too. But entertainment? It's just too easily ignored and frankly not that important to the overall social politics of society.

Entertainment is no different than any other aspect of life mate.  I wrote a long post about it, but frankly it's my first day at a new job and I'm exhausted.

But it's no different.  People gotta crusade.

Yeah well I'm I suppose I'm no fan of crusaders on any topic.

Right.  That's what they said.

How does anything go beyond it? That's what people have done. Voiced their concerns, attempted to use that time to raise awareness, and say "I'm not supporting them anymore".

Gabe/Tycho have a large platform, so if your goal is to make the world a fairer and safer place, it makes sense to attempt a dialogue. And when that dialogue has happened, there's been progress.

I'm not sure what you think is happening beyond that.

Yeah, pretty much.  When you grow up you realise that you have two choices in this situation :  You apologise or you SHUT THE FUCK UP.

So if I cam sum up your position, it's that there was nothing wrong with their comic, and then when people became distressed about it, PA "pretty much" told everyone they deserved to be raped, but you're not really sure.  Either way, it's immaterial to you since all true adults know that when people falsely accuse you of perpetuating rape culture, you only have two choices:  apology or SHUT THE FUCK UP.

I'm stunned by your acumen and powers of deduction.  You should look into cryogenics, we need to preserve this sort of wisdom for the ages.

You obviously haven't grokked the whole 'shut the fuck up' part.

I thought we weren't feeding the troll?

Shuush, he decided to go for Ironwood. The show is about to start.  :popcorn:

Clearly you cam't sum me up.   :why_so_serious:

Edit;  Oh, hey, new page.  Didn't see that.

No, I'm not going to fight with someone who has that grief title.  Not a chance.  I'm entirely uninterested in fighting with someone who's clearly acting like some fucking rocket down the pub.  I'd rather go wank, to be honest.  Everyone else clearly sees how PA doubled down on the stupid, and then tripled and then quadrupled down on it.  Fuck me, we're discussing the very post where the guy admits and tries to apologise for it FOR THE SIXTH TIME.

Think I want to fight about reality with someone like Dusematic ?  Go fish.  Or wait for Bob to come and tear a haunch.  I'm too old for this shit and I'm 6 days away from retirement.

So I went for the 'Ha Ha, you Spelled Shit Wrong' instead, which sums the whole thing up for me really.

Pretty much that. I hate people trying to raise awareness or starting a dialogue. Fuck raising awareness, it doesn't do anything. As an example, It's a pet peeve of mine in the non-profit community that they get to throw big parties to "raise awareness" for breast cancer while donating about 10% to actual research and hoarding the rest.

We live in the internet age. We're aware. Actually we're hyper-aware and as a result mostly hypersensitive. So whenever something like this comes up where somebody is being an asshole, nevermind it's done by a guy who writes a shitty webcomic that we can easily ignore and that a ton of people haven't got a clue even exists in the first place, people are going to jump on it and go for the throat to raise awareness for their issue. It's a waste of time.

If your issue is really helping rape victims, give your money and time to a women's shelter, tell your friends about it, promote it, and ignore the stupid people of the world who don't get it. Do something constructive. Attacking people for what they say is the worst kind of way of getting your point across. This kind of thing is just wank that only makes people feel like they've achieved some moral victory when Gabe/Tycho apologizes, and yet it did nothing at all.

Well, I'm out. I can't even begin to reason with someone that says " I hate people trying to raise awareness or starting a dialogue. Fuck raising awareness, it doesn't do anything".

BTW, Komen IS a horrible organization. That's why you don't support them. There are others.

It takes a big man to abruptly refuse to debate the issue entirely, lob a few ad hominems, and then proclaim it's all because it's just so OBVIOUS he's correct.  After all, if anything proves the PA guys are assholes, it's their many heartfelt apologies.

Let's take AIDS awareness.  How many non-crazed hobos living in the 1st world aren't aware of it?  "Promoting awareness" is generally a meaningless act designed to make people look and feel good. I reckon that's his point.

 :popcorn:

Hey dusematic, you're a fuckwit. Fuck off to politics or just fuck off.

My point is that just raising awareness without an action is pointless, and even when combined, the action is what matters.

Even in this particular example, we're fairly aware rape is wrong. Pretty much every civilized part of the world has criminalized the act. How does raising awareness or attacking people who said something stupid do anything at all for the victims?

My point is that it seems to be that people often confuse saying something or defending a position with actually DOING something. As if the acts are the same, and they are equally important. They are not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

Paelos: Raising "awareness", specifically applied to sexual assault and related crimes, is important in ways you're not seeing, in particular in regard to how it impacts views of jury members. We've criminalized the act but that doesn't especially help when there's a boys-will-be-boys and victim blaming culture around it that often gets people out of trouble in the face of evidence, etc. That's what the awareness stuff does, is it slowly changes those attitudes over time. It *is* action, in other words.

Awareness is not simply "telling someone about it". It incorporates education and action. You are also going a long way to assume that when people talk about a subject that they are doing nothing else. Every part of the puzzle matters, including attempting to talk with public people who are highly influential in a part of society that has shown to be cold or uneducated on the matter.

I could dig in deeper but you both make decent points. When it comes to it, I just really hate the term and I've watched a lot of rich people clink glasses at a lot of parties in the guise of it. It's one of those things that makes me see red.

I do still believe we should do more and say less, and in this case it's just a internet comic. Some people believe there's a need to fight every single battle on every front. I'm not really one of those.

Why say less?

If, as you mentioned, it's the DO that's important, then the amount of saying isn't important. So, why say yes? If there's the chance it DOES do something, it's already worth it. (I believe it does a tremendous amount of good.)

Do both. Do everything.

A surprising amount of people really aren't. See: Steubenville, etc.

I believe it waters down the message and has the reverse effect when overdone. I believe people start to sour on your point when they are hit over the head with it on every little thing, and in many cases just start to root against you because you annoyed them.

I 100% agree.  Speaking of which, let me clue you in on my soon to be unveiled murder awareness campaign.  After all, there are a surprising amount of people out there who still don't know it's wrong (you'd think after the Old Testament they'd have learned this by now).  See: James Holmes, Kai the Hitchhiker, Adam Lanza, etc.

You seem to have a shifting goal post of what you are saying is "too much". Most things that have required awareness as we've progressed as a society has centered around dialogue.

I choose optimism over pessimism.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82533/stopstop.gif)

Have you gotten this out of your system yet?  Has Duseshoggoth gathered enough internet blood go back to his eternal sleep?  FFS, I liked the tales of your exploding colon better.

My thing about being overdone pretty much extends to the entertainment world. That was my very first post on the subject.

Oh look, I found one.

Uh-oh. Dad's home!

Yeah, you really proved on this page that debate is what you're after.

 :grin:

I agree wholeheartedly.  The majority of my posts, though at times somewhat sarcastic, have remained confined to rational on-topic discourse (admittedly I didn't get the memo that PA were scum based on a comic strip they did, but I think that me having a difference of opinion goes without saying at this point).  Meanwhile, I have been subjected to repeated ad hominem attacks of every stripe, including by yourself, primarily by people who have added nothing else to the discussion (again, including yourself).

What has happened to this thread.   :ye_gods:

Dusematic:

(http://derpy.ponychan.net/chan/files/src/138751923478.jpg)

They're always around, man. Lurking. Waiting.

No single action by Gabe has offended me beyond tolerance. I say stupid, thoughtless things, and I make bad decisions. It's the overall trend in his behavior that eventually pushed me stop reading PA. I summed it up as, "Doing this once is an honest mistake. Doing it twice is a failure to learn. Do it three times, and You Have A Problem." I've lost count of the feet in his mouth.

I'm glad he acknowledges the problem and has declared he wants to address it. But I will wait and see. I hope he manages it.

What complicates my case is that I'm in the industry. I can stop reading PA and its forums, I can move my Child's Play donations to other children's charities, and I can stop buying tickets to PAX... but my employer still regards PAX as an industry event, and may require me to attend.

Fair enough.  I only know of two manufactured scandals involving Gabe.  One is the thing we are currently "discussing."  The other is his view that a woman has a vagina.  There may be other things he has said that I have yet to discover that may cause me to dislike him.  But I feel pretty o.k. about him regarding the foregoing.

There was no need to apologize for the Dick Wolves comic or for claiming that women have vaginas. The problem is that in both cases the PA guys (or just Mike I guess) doubled down on being offensive. But these guys are clearly assholes in a variety of ways  - their incredibly lame Kickstarters, their bullying of that Ocean Media guy, generally lording their wealth over others.

It's like a movie where the lovable losers who got picked on in life finally have something go right in their lives, only in this version it turns out the lovable losers were actually just assholes all along who would have been the bullies had they the means. I think it's fashionable now for everyone to claim that they are geeks, nerds, were bullied in high school, etc - something I can't stand. If you are in your mid 30s and still whining about how a kid pushed you into a locker at age 16 you really need to grow up, and "I was bullied in school" or "I was always a geek" is often used as carte blanche to do anything.

On the other hand I'm not a fan of twitter activism, "raising awareness" in self-aggrandizing ways, or the way social media tempest in teacups are almost invariably extremely overwrought and silly. That "women have vaginas" flap was just embarrassing all around.

Online activism tends to be very faddish. Ten awful things happen in a day and one blows up and becomes the most important issue ever while nine are ignored. I can't help but roll my eyes at all the "why I'm no longer going to PAX" posts. I think at some point you have to ask yourself "am I invested in this topic because it's actually worth investment, or because everyone else seems to be buzzing about it so why not pile on?" You aren't going to PAX because of Mike. Ok. Are you going to stop shopping at Whole Foods because their CEO is a super douche? Are you going to stop watching X TV show or stop seeing the movies of Y director? Are you also skipping IndieCade because the guys who run IndieCade are also assholes? (Note: As far as I know this isn't actually the case) It's one thing if that's how you live your life, but I find it a little silly when people only give a shit about causes that are en vogue.

It's the same with all this "this game is offensive to women" shit you read these days - which games are chosen as objects of derision is basically arbitrary and determined by what happens to snowball. People get all mad about Dragon's Crown, because it's fashionable to be mad about it, but not about Vanguard Princess, even though it's like the same fucking game. If you're someone who thinks carefully about the depiction of women in every game that's cool, but the vast majority of online activism (including sexism related) seems to be outrage of the day nonsense. I'm super angry about this thing that until today I had never heard of, and tomorrow I'll be super angry about something else, based on what other people on Twitter or HuffPo or some shit are angry about.


I stopped reading because the comic has not been funny in like a half-decade.

(http://i.imgur.com/MEv0NwX.jpg)

I had to look up what MRAs were.

Acronyms!

I worked for my country government in the midwest and I had elected officials surrounding me who said/did stuff that gravely offended me every day and had coworkers who were racist pieces of shit. I dealt with it since I needed the job. Then a right-wing shithead was made president of the university I now work at and I'm dealing with it because I like my job otherwise. Just one of those things.

Yeah, pretty much. If it's that big a deal to you, make a formal protest to your manager, take leave that week, work to rule, whatever.
If not, hold your nose and let it slide. Picking the right battles is important and attempting to take the moral high ground against someone who's just said "Hey, I've realised I'm actually an arsehole and I'm going to try and fix that" probably isn't going to get you very far.

Its going to get you trolled all over the internet by Duse and still thinking you have a leg to stand on apparently.

These are not just two guys tho.  These chaps are a Company.  It's much, much, much more important to sort your shit out, especially if you have a habit of jumping sharks in public.

I found the statement interesting, not because of the usual shit, but because of the nugget of information I didn't already know; namely that Childs Play isn't theirs anymore.  That tells me everything I need to know and, if you think about it, just make oodles and oodles of sense commercially.  Sure, it was their baby and a great idea, but you wouldn't want Dickwolves splurging all over it, since they can't seem to help themselves.

I think there are just so many signs of bad management practice because these two chaps refuse to face the fact that they are a company and not a small one either.

Hey ho.

Exactly.

That was never in contention. Nobody in this thread claimed that they should have apologized. At least I didn't.

It's just that what they did instead of not apologizing was just that much worse.

Oh no, they totally should have apologised (for what it's worth...). But they are a) too caught up in their own, very simple privileged world to understand why. They honestly, really cannot get it. And b) probably realized that the _majority_ of their audience would have liked them less if they apologised. See the cheering at that recent event when they said it was a mistake to retire the Dickwolves merchandise.

Man the whole women vagina thing does make me want to go off on a tangent about science vs social gender stereotypes, that's for politics though.

I think we have not ghetto-denned a thread for quite some time, go for it.  :why_so_serious:

(http://boourns.dynu.net/pics/1177564036106cm7.jpg)

 :grin:

THAT made me laugh.

Actually, When you grow up you realize that you have two choices in this situation :  You apologize or you SHUT THE FUCK UP.  So they could have apologized OR shut up.  Very important distinction.

I'm pretty sure we HAVE a denned thread about the exact topic from when the comment was first made.  I recall lengthy discussions from that time that suddenly stopped.


"Do More say less" is often used by folks who don't want to think about the issue and want it to go away quietly and exist in the darkness like it used to be, "Back when things were normal." While I don't believe you fall in to that category, think about that for a moment.

I've found the loudest protestors of 'raising awareness' of anything are those who have the most to lose.  White males dislike most 'raising awareness' campaigns because it equates to "I'm not in charge & special anymore,"  even if they don't consciously realize their current advantages.  Males in general dislike rape awareness campaigns because suddenly things that were 'perfectly normal' are suddenly realized to be pretty creepy abuses of power.  Like chatting a girl up while plying her with alcohol and then taking her home.

I get what you're saying, but my complaint about it comes from a personal viewpoint of people mentally masturbating over an issue, declaring victory because somebody apologized or got fired, and actually doing nothing. Or people spending money on huge consulting firms to raise awareness, when actually they are just fundraising so they can throw parties to get more fundraising.

I see the point about prevention of a social issue, but I want to make sure that's not the only focus. It should be coupled with helping the current victims as well, moreso in fact,, or you're really changing little. People will see how the victims are treated now and never want to go through that if they are assaulted. And the cycle keeps going. I just think there's a greater impact there than making some dickhead with a webcomic apologize.

IT ISN'T.  :facepalm:

How do you know that?

:oh_i_see:

lol

Sometimes "raising awareness" falls along the same lines as "all publicity is good" type excuse-making.

Someone does something inconsequential or idiotic but because it supposedly "raised awareness" it's still valuable. I'm not opposed to actually raising awareness, I'm just opposed to people who invoke it as a shield. And I don't think being bitchy in some moronic Twitter squabble is "awareness raising" as much as it is social media dogpiling.

Rape awareness campaigns or AIDS awareness campaigns or whatever are fine. I don't see those as having much in common with people taking to Twitter to share "fuk u cisgendered bigot" or making extremely melodramatic blog posts then claiming they raised awareness.

In the case of the PA gaffes I don't see a lot of "awareness raising", I see a lot of people acting like assholes (on both sides) while trying to claim some form of moral superiority.

Because that always ends well. (http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/daisy-coleman-maryville-rape)

Also, on the whole Dickwolves thing, here's a timeline for those wanting to catch-up (http://debacle.tumblr.com/). It was almost all wrapped up as an issue - such as it was - until PA brought it back in September by saying how they never should have stopped selling the Dickwolves t-shirts. That showed a complete failure to understand what had gone on because all they had to do was shut up. Instead again PA needed to say "I WAS RIGHT" as a final comment.   

They should've kept selling them. On that particular point, they are correct.

OF course it's a tumblr. lol.

I've found that when any culture reaches tumblr, it lets me tune them out like with *-kins and "body acceptance" groups.

Thanks for reminding me that that's a thing. Ugh.

Well, maybe if you weren't out apologizing for all that rape you'd remember some people just want to be vampire faerie kin. God.

Anyway, everything about PA is stupid and I don't know why of it ever became a THING.

#otherkin was my introduction to the internet at a time when I thought vampires and werewolves were cool, I was just a young teen interested in the horror genre.


I have seen true horror.

Thanks for posting that.  Most people in this thread agreed nothing was wrong with the comic itself but took issue with the way Gabe acted afterwards.  I googled "dickwolves" and stumbled across the "geek feminism" wiki that had a short summary of the controversy with no indication of any post-comic asshole-ish behavior.  Scanning the lengthy tumblr Debacle Timeline, I admit Gabe was sarcastic and snarky at times.  It also looked like he made at least one apology for "being snarky" and told a guy named "Dick Wolvington" (presumably an overzealous supporter of PA) on Twitter to simmer down and stop being a jerk.  

Ultimately I didn't see anything that would engender the sort of disdain evidenced in this thread.  I mean, I can appreciate if your position is the comic propagated rape culture, or crossed a line, or whatever.  I would disagree, but I can appreciate that, because then it logically follows that everything after was jerk icing on a douche cake.  But if you say the comic was unremarkable, as most here have said, then what are you left with?

Not much.  Just a few sarcastic comments after being accused of a pretty offensive act.  And the fact that's enough for people here to write someone completely off and equate it to telling rape survivors they "deserve to be raped" is laughable.

Truth be told, from a purely financial standpoint, they will make more money being chauvinistic asshole than not.  Right now people want to be more open to female gamers and grow that audience but until that happens, dudebro shooters are still king so PA could go as far as they want in the "screw you vaginas" dept. and it wouldn't hurt them much at all.  I would disagree with that practice but it's just a sad reality right now.

I am so ready to be a rampaging chainsaw troll-kin!

 :Love_Letters:

Thank you for posting that. After skimming through it for now, my first impression is that there was plenty of dicks and stupidity on all sides of this tempest in a teacup. Its possible that people were fed up with the PA crew for other reasons and they overreacted on this because of sausquatch.

And yeah, they shouldn't have stopped selling Team Dickwolves merch imo.

The fact that someone went to the trouble of creating that timeline is to me a sign of greatly misplaced priorities. This is the level of effort that should be put into persecuting Nazi war criminals, not unfunny cartoonists.

The timeline is for raising awareness.  :why_so_serious:

I kid, I kid.

It probably took less time to compile than you've spent, say, arguing with WUA about Star Wars.

loooooooooooooool (http://bit.ly/1bk0rHa)

I think the comic is pretty much standard PA, but it was how PA coped with that criticism that became a thing. Dickwolves wouldn't have become merchandise if PA wasn't throwing a big fuck you at all their critics on this issue. Ultimately PA walked itself back on Dickwolves because it hurts their mainstream legitimacy and expanding media attempts, even if it was popular among vocal sections of gamers.

There are some topics where some sensitivity would be nice to see. Rape is one of those topics. PA has complete freedom of speech to make rape jokes, but freedom of speech also means that people can call them out on it too.

It's on tumblr. Tumblr activists are the bottom of the food chain for activists. If you're an anti-globalist dressed in an otter costume lobbing a brick through a Starbucks window to protest capitalism, you justify yourself by saying "I'm perfectly sane and reasonable, not like those people on tumblr."

I will say one thing about gaming culture though. I live 90 minutes from the Hynes. I've never even tried to get a ticket to Pax. It's not the neighborhood, I go there for the MMA conference every few years. It's not that I'm boycotting it. It's the general gamer mentality. If I had friends to ride up with that would be one thing, but to walk into that environment as a woman alone. No way. And that's not Pax because they actually seem to at least want to care, that's the gaming world in general.

I see that as a problem.