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Womyn are Once and for All Proven to be Bigger Gamers than Men

[Trigger Warning: for misogyny and the implicit threat of male rape]

This week a harmful myth perpetuated by the male-dominated gaming patriarchy has been completely dispelled for all time; womyn are in fact far bigger gamers than men. We have long known that womyn comprise over half of all gamers, and now the relevance of this statistic cannot be denied by the CSI gendered boy’s club, simply because they feel threatened to see womyn as hardcore gamers. Flurry Analytics has found that womyn spend more time gaming [by thirty-five percent], spend more money on in-app purchases [by thirty-one percent], and exhibit a far higher retention rate past the seven day mark [forty-two percent greater than men]. Despite this market defining result, patriarchal developers continue to make games which cater towards men, despite having no good reason for doing so beyond their deeply ingrained misogyny towards womyn.

In the wake of the incredible success of hardcore gaming celebrity sim, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, Flurry Analytics noted that:

The media didn’t question Ms. Kardashian’s star appeal, it questioned the game’s appeal to a broad mobile gaming audience, an audience long believed to be dominated by males in general and teens and college students in particular. It might be true that Ms. Kardashian’s fan club is not packed with teenage boys and young men attending college, but the fact is this: the mobile gaming audience is not what is used to be.

While the fact that females invest more time in gaming apps, especially in management and simulation games, has rarely been disputed, the fact that females also outspend males in In-App Purchases came as a surprise to us.”

Indeed, while womyn clearly spend more time gaming on engrossing simulators like Farmville, nobody ever supposed they might also be spending more money on them than men! Flurry Analytics found that the userbase of most game genres skewed far more heavily towards womyn than men. Womyn dominated nine gaming generes: Management/Simulation, Solitaire, Slots, Casino/Poker, Match3/Bubble Shooter, Bingo, Social Turn-Based, Brain/Quiz, and Endless/Runner. Men meanwhile dominated a comparatively paltry six genres: Card/Battle, Strategy, Tower Defense, Sports, Shooter, and Action – RPG. This goes to prove that womyn are undoubtedly bigger gamers than men, which makes it blatantly unfair that most AAA console games are not made to exclusively cater towards the tastes of womyn, since they would obviously sell better to the predominantly female audience. There is no longer any point in the patriarchy denying that hardcore life sims and Solitaire would sell better on PS4 and Xbox One than the crummy first-person shooters and open-world violence games which currently saturate the market. Smash the patriarchy by demanding an end to misogynistic game development today!

Such people would clearly be terribly worried by somebody's correct useage of the term 'retarded'.

We must prevent such people being hurt by the r-word!

JonTron Has Been Spitroasted for Being an Ableist Pig

[Trigger Warning: for ableism and use of the r-word]

Internet game reviewer and ‘let’s play’ personality, JonTron [A.K.A. Jon Jafari], has found himself in hot water this week for using one of the worst ableist slurs imaginable, which had the effect of triggering all of Tumblr terribly. The hate crime occurred when Jafari used the word ‘retarded’ to describe the regressive thinking that went into designing Sony’s Playstation Now streaming service. The r-word is used exclusively as a derogatory way to refer to persons with mental disabilities, so when it is used to describe something undesirable, say for instance something that is a tad regressive or backwards looking, then it serves to harm the mentally challenged.

When Twitter user, Ben Huber, helpfully stopped by to police Jafari’s use of the r-word and to educate him about his privilege, his helpfulness was met with the self-same slur being cast at him for his troubles:

JonTron: “Playstation Now” is the most painfully retarded thing I’ve seen in a while. WTF even.

Ben Humber: please don’t say “retarted” Jon, it’s pretty rude. Thanks.

JonTron: I’m sorry I forgot you were retarded, my bad.

Ben Humber: nah, it’s just rude to people who have mental disabilities. That’s all! It’s just about being nice.

JonTron: I am nice I just think Political Correctness is stupid.

Ben Hubner: well, it’s good that you’re nice. I’m just saying being mindful of people you could be hurting is important.

JonTron: The god damned hell are you talking about.

Ben Hubner: Using it like that causes emotional harm. The less we use that word, the more accepting we are of people with disabilities.

Radshiro: well if you are nice, not saying “retarded” or “retard” should be easy right?

Siberian Slut: It’s 2014, understand the context of the word before you say it @JonTronShow.

JonTron: Your name is literally “Siberian Slut”.

Jon Miller: Dude, damage control. Just apologize for offending people and move on. Dragging it out like this is never good.

JonTron: Did HITLER give up?! I THINK NOT!

Following this exchange, the good Samaritan, Ben Hubner, was rightly triggered, and took screen captures of the conversation back to Tumbler where they could be reblogged backwards and forwards in a super supportive circle perk. Jafari for his part was immediately dismissive of his transgression, stating that “Today I have been called things I didn’t even know were things. I think it’s time we declare Tumblr a national threat.“, however, by the following day he was running damage control for his hateful outburst. Jafari proved to be such an opportunist as to attempt to use the Israeli atrocities committed in Gaza as a smokescreen to excuse his ableism:

I don’t usually respond to this kind of criticism, but this has gotten so out of hand and always happens when I make some sort of ‘controversial’ statement on twitter. To you people who get offended at every turn: Why don’t you try focusing your civil unrest at something that dearly needs it, like the fact that today the Israeli air force struck a school with a missile killing 10 people, most of which were children. I suppose you’re all ok with that, as long as the missile didn’t call the school ‘retarded’ first, right? My job as a comedian is to make people laugh and feel better about their lives. So no, in the midst of so many other pressing matters in the world, I will not apologize for calling a PS4 retarded. I encourage you to look at yourselves and think about what really matters.

Tumblr has a deep spiritual connection and understanding with the people of Gaza and their suffering, as the Palestinians suffer from PTSD caused by Israeli war crimes, while Tumblr users suffer from PTSD caused by reading cruel and callous words on the internet. Jafari’s shameful use of the tragedy in Gaza quite understandably shocked and triggered Tumblr users who had many panic attacks that day. The Tumblr community expected some accounting for this grave affront, yet appallingly the bigoted gaming patriarchy has stepped in to support Jafari, with well known gaming personality, Total Biscuit, stating:

Some people got offended that @jontronshow called the PS4 retarded when that would be the accurate, literal definition of it as a console, “delay or hold back in terms of progress, development, or accomplishment.”. Oh no, somebody please save us from our own ignorance of the English language and the offense we ourselves take as a result!

Meanwhile Jon Jafari makes it worryingly clear that he does not intend to mind Tumblr’s feelings going forward, all but guaranteeing future atrocities:

As far as being offended? Quite frankly, I think one should be an adult and grow some thicker skin. So what you’re offended? That doesn’t mean anything to me, or anyone. It is subjective. I’m offended by your offense. What now?

This story is pretty much all one needs know about Nintendo's current market predicament.

The bananas say they want a yes-man!

Nintendo Rids Itself of a Traitor

[Trigger Warning: for Nintendo-bashing]

This week Nintendo rids itself of the traitorous leech cum manager of independent developers, Dan Adelman, a man that has triggered panic attacks in many Yoshi-kin by saying mean things about Nintendo. Adelman is widely known for maintaining a Twitter presence for a time, yet this came to an abrupt end after two incidents. The first was his support for The Binding of Isaac even after Nintendo had rejected the game due to its overt religious tones, a stance that was terribly problematic for all of Tumblr’s pan-atheists. The second incident involved him ignoring Japanese company protocol by agreeing with gamers that region locking was a bad idea despite the fact that it was his employer’s official policy – as a recovering Japanese transethnic, one felt awfully triggered by this event in particular, and had several panic attacks over the course of the day.

Things do not stop here; freed from his employment at Nintendo, Adelman now considers himself at liberty to disparage every aspect of his former employer. The man even had the audacity to publicly criticise Nintendo’s former policy of requiring office space for a developer to self-publish digital releases on Nintendo platforms:

So yeah, I absolutely did try to fight internally to change whatever I could. There were a ton of policies that have been updated and improved. I already mentioned about that office requirement. It was crazy. There were people whose job it was to look up addresses in Google maps to see if the business address was a home or an office building. And if it looked a little residential, they’d ask for photos. There would be e-mail threads with literally a few dozen back and forth exchanges about whether the couch in someone’s office was really used for business purposes or did someone really live there? That policy, thankfully, is gone.

The man’s transgressions only get worse from here, as Adelman, in a stunning lack of judgment, even allowed rank-and-file internet users to ask him sensitive questions, one of which led to him completely rubbishing the name of Nintendo’s Wii U console:

Q: Do you feel Nintendo deserves the mess they are in (Wii U, and partially, 3DS) ? do you think they “are” in a mess?

A: Wii U is not selling as well as it deserves to. It has a lot to offer with great games you can’t get anywhere else. The value of the GamePad hasn’t been justified. But the name Wii U is abysmal. I think that cut sales in half right there.

The man has shown himself to have absolutely no loyalty and no company ethic. Worst of all he has made Nintendo ambassadors look bad by criticising the company they support. One fervently hopes that Adelman’s successor will be a company thrall, incapable of offending Nintendo fans with their mean words and independent capacity for thought.

12 Comments

  1. James 'Gyme' Pagel
    Posted 2014.08.09 at 23:18 | Permalink

    I think you need to check your privilege after this post Julian.

    Also, I’m extremely glad JonTron didn’t apologize for what he said. I can only hope other people follow his lead because Social Justice Warriors are retarded.

  2. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.10 at 00:58 | Permalink

    Abandoning logic for feels will not help anyone in the long run.

    The only way to have a fairer society is for people to set aside their constant self-exaltation (“MY offence trumps YOUR right to express your views”) and proceed rationally.

  3. Chris Privitere
    Posted 2014.08.11 at 09:53 | Permalink

    Yeah, I got taken to task for using the r-word back in college by someone with a brother with down syndrome. I have tried to avoid using it since, as it really does hurt people. Something definitely changed with this word, and I expect it’ll fall out of common usage entirely over the next decade.

  4. Julian 'SiliconNooB' Taylor
    Posted 2014.08.11 at 12:50 | Permalink

    If it weren’t Chris making that comment I’d think it were satire!

  5. James 'Gyme' Pagel
    Posted 2014.08.11 at 21:45 | Permalink

    Chris, that is an utterly retarded thing to think.

    The only thing that changed with the word retard (and plenty of other words) is that people just look for a reason to get offended. Unless somebody is using a word in a malicious manner, there is no reason to be offended, much less chastise a person for using a word. A word can only offend you if you let it, so grow some balls and remember the age old adage of sticks and stones.

  6. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.11 at 22:11 | Permalink

    @Gyme: Is that the one that goes, “Sticks and stones will break your bones, so that’s what I’m going to use”?

  7. Lusipurr
    Posted 2014.08.12 at 01:54 | Permalink

    “as it really does hurt people”

    How? In their feelings? Because they prefer to act as if the word, being used in one way, is actually being used in a different way? Sorry, no one is obligated to cater to that sort of nonsensebrain.

  8. Julian 'SiliconNooB' Taylor
    Posted 2014.08.12 at 04:25 | Permalink

    I just like the fact that Chris earnestly believes that the word ‘retard’ is going to fall out of use because Tumblr says it is mean. Newsflash: the more socially unacceptable the term ‘retard’ becomes, the more potent will be its use as an insult. Fact.

  9. Andrew 'Mel' Melcon
    Posted 2014.08.12 at 07:51 | Permalink

    I’d actually say “retard” has already gotten to that point of social unacceptability and potent insult. It went from an actual clinical term wherein a doctor would say something like “your son is a retard” or use some similar term like “retardate” (no, not retardant) to today where it’s pretty exclusively an insult.

    That said I agree that a declaration of taboo on the word will only make it a more potent insult, especially for people who are actually mentally handicapped in any way.

    I use the term often enough. If I’m not just reflexively using it I tend to avoid it, in all honesty. But what I DO NOT do is crusade against people who also drop it reflexively. Its use in “polite society” is already gone. If there’s a war to be won against “the r-word” that’s as close to a win as anyone will ever get and they’ll just have to be happy with that.

  10. Ethan 'Ethos' Pipher
    Posted 2014.08.12 at 08:47 | Permalink

    Pretty much, Mel. I personally see no reason to say “retard” except to get a rise out of somebody, but there’s not a positive thing to be gained from trying to tell people what they can and cannot say. I am not offended in the least if somebody says it, and I think that among friends, anything goes, but outside of that or artistic purposes, I personally see no use for the word. And, because I’m not shouting at people to become more like me, it’s far easier to listen for any counterarguments that might make me reconsider my personal stance on the matter.

  11. The Legendary Zoltan
    Posted 2014.08.14 at 18:03 | Permalink

    I’m also in the same camp as Ethos and Mel. I rarely use it because I don’t feel like it. Just like I never swear because I just don’t feel like it. But I totally do not care if others use it. I think JonTron himself put it well when he said, “in the midst of so many other pressing matters in the world, I will not apologize for calling a PS4 retarded.” I feel like that statement aptly shows why Tumblr’s reaction is ridiculous.

  12. Julian 'SiliconNooB' Taylor
    Posted 2014.08.15 at 04:02 | Permalink

    Personally, I’ve always preferred the term ‘mong’. It neatly side-steps all the grey connotations of the term ‘retarded’, and just tries its damnedest to be refreshingly offensive.