15-03-12

Posted to Reddit. http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2yq5yv/info_from_derek_smart_regarding_igda/

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As most of you probably know, my days of engaging in meaningless discourse on the Internet ended awhile back. Now, I tend to pop-in, say what I have to say and leave. It's like the equivalent of a drive-by. :)

So this is it.

First, I appreciate that you took the time to read my [IGDA missive](http://pastebin.com/3vmdTvHK) yesterday. The primary reason for writing it was on line 69.

When you engage in a shouting match or talk "past" people, the discussion flow ends and you just end up wasting time and effort.

Which is precisely why I tend not to give trolls and their ilk any quarter, instead I tend to engage them using the only language that they understand. Sheer verbal brutality.

But here is the thing, just as you would have protocols for dealing with your boss, teacher, girlfriend, best friend etc, so you should have the same sort of protocol for dealing with people online. If you know that you can't resist the urge to ignore trolls, but instead keep feeding them, you need to know that you've committed to wasting your time on a pointless effort. Been there. Done that. Hated it.

Similarly, when you engage in meaningful discourse with someone who has a beef (legit or not is subjective) and can articulate it in a manner that is conducive to meaningful dialog, regardless of the outcome, you learn something. You don't have to like it and you don't have to agree. That's what **meaningful discourse** is about. If you're out to gain knowledge and understanding, the urge to **win** takes a back seat.

I have used this technique since my early days, which is precisely why those who hate me, hate me with a passion; those who love me, send me flowers. OK fine, no flowers, but they keep buying my games.

Once you engage someone and have an impression of that person (known or anon), it is hard to form a different impression. What happens is that if that person turns around with meaningful discourse, it's hard to trust them. How can you?

Let's put it another way.

You're that kid who keeps getting a wedgie from the school's local ass clown and mascot. You're 11. Years later, at 32, you run into him at a reunion. He walks in looking like a million dollars and with the hottest babe in tow.

How do you feel?

Are you mad at him because he was a bully or because he ended up being this successful person, while you're probably still living from paycheck to paycheck?

At which point do you realize that you need to let go?

At which point do you realize that the universe doesn't revolve around you and that good, bad or ugly, people still tend to get ahead because that's the way life works?

At which point do you realize that holding onto a grudge is borne on hate, defeat and resignation.

People latch onto and hold onto a grudge like it was going out of style. To the extent that no matter what their target says or does, they will always deride and discount that person, regardless of merit. And every opportunity they find to attack or put that person down, makes them feel good because the rush of having done or said something to that extent, is better than the alternative: accountability for one's own situation.

This is precisely what has seen this whole GG bullshit continue this long and both sides pointing the finger, not trusting each other, engaging in meaningful and largely ineffective and inconsequential banter.

All noise.

Meanwhile, the media are having a field day, playing both sides against the middle and continuing to profit (what? web sites don't pay for themselves you know. See click-bait traffic) from the carnage. I have likened it to that guy who drops into the middle of a war zone - and sells weapons to both sides of the conflict. The highest bidder gets the best weapons. So the more egregious bullshit fuckers come up with, the more chances it has of making headlines.

I tend not to interfere in food fights. My reason for ever chiming in this GG thing is because it affects me as a gamer and gamedev vet.

Doing what my many industry friends and peers do, by buying their heads in the sand, shoving fingers in their ears etc, has worked out so very well, don't you think?

Which is why when I heard about, yet another IGDA farce, given my contacts and associations there, I decided to look into it and offer up some explanation. You know why that is? Scroll up.

Too hard? OK, here is it: **NOBODY IS GOING TO RESPOND TO BULLSHIT!!**

Which is precisely why, even in real life, you tend to get the "No Comment" more often than not. Then reporters and investigators go off and make up their own shit. Some get sued because, you know, liability insurance only protects ignorance, not willful actions or wanton acts of incompetence.

I took my time to look into the specific (I don't give a toss about all that other nonsense) allegations only because I already knew some of the answers and because I knew that nobody was going to respond and that was only going to continue propagating the bullshit, which seems to be the norm.

Dog meets bone. That kinda thing.

When I wrote that, I didn't write it because I wanted anyone to **believe** me. I wrote it because people asked and reached out to me specifically. I could very well have ignored it and that would've been the end of it.

So what you choose to believe, is your choice to make. It has zero effect on me. The fact is that I know more than you do and I chose to share it. What you do with it, is entirely up to you.

Simply put, I don't care what anyone believes other than to hope that the ass clowns doing stupid shit, get bored and move on to more fruitful ventures at some point. Though, as someone who has been the target and participant of the longest Usenet (if you know what that is, you're officially old) flamewars mankind has ever known, I know that some people **live** for this stuff; so quitting is like taking away their favorite toy. After all, when you take that away, what's left? Emptiness. Sad, lonely, emptiness.

When this was about "ethics in game journalism" (I have a hard time writing that with a straight face, seriously) I was curious to see how far it would go and how it would end. But in true human fashion, a bunch of ass clowns took a defining moment in gaming history and turned it into a vehicle for hate, misogyny and the harassment of women. To that I say, f*ck you! You're the problem!

The end result is that all this GG v anti-GG thing is just an "also ran" farce and just another day on the ranch that is social discourse. Nobody in their right minds would engage in it because the lines are blurred, most of the participants (on both sides) have no fucking clue which way is up, let alone what exactly it is they're "fighting" for.

At the end of the day, you've all made gaming a casualty of war. You shine the spotlight on this very thing you're claiming to "fix" (tbh, I had no idea it was broken) and once again, as has happened in the past, it got world-wide notoriety and attracted all the **WRONG** kinds of attention, from mainstream media, all the way to the top echelons of govt and law enforcement. Good job. You win.

And to this day, almost eight months, **YOU HAVEN'T WON OR CHANGED SHIT!!**

All you've done is succeeded in having a group of people with **legit** grips, branded as a hate group and laughing stock and completely changed the narrative.

Which is why the jokes are all on you, while gaming continues to suffer the consequences of your actions.

Back to this IGDA nonsense.

Listen, people who **know** me, know that I don't mince words, I'm no shill and I never shy away from a fight. I don't work for anyone. In fact, the last time I worked for anyone, was almost 32 years ago. And it wasn't in gaming.

Go ahead, tell me again how many people you know who've done their own thing for that long, against all odds. In fact, I'm probably one of very few vets from the old days who has never - ever- worked for **any** gaming entity. Ever.

So yeah, I'm that guy. Which is precisely why I can do and say whatever I want without having to lose sleep over reprisals from the cabal, or worse the Illuminati. But those Scientology clowns are a whole different story. They're just weird.

So when I take my time to write a lengthy missive about why all this IGDA hate is just bullshit, you just have to take my word for it because, guess what, you have no other choice other than fabrications and conjecture laden bullshit from people who don't know shit about anything.

Thing is that corps are run by people. People, by their very nature, are broken. As such, they are likely to make the wrong decisions and do/say stupid shit. Every day. All day. The IGDA, like every corp run by mere mortals, has had it's own share of that. Nobody has to make apologies for them; least of all me.

The thing is that when people find something to latch onto, that's pretty much all that they have. The blockbot farce? The whole sad chapter issue with Roberto? All those things are a direct result of poor decisions being made by people who thought they were doing the right thing and without actually thinking it through and realizing the ramifications.

I want to address two important things as well, based on my first hand knowledge - I don't deal in conjecture.

1) The blockbot. Over and done with. Move on. We all have ad blockers, AV software etc. That knee-jerk reaction by an org that is about and for gaming, was a poor decision. They thought they were reducing the noise, the social media harassment, the incessant trolling etc. It was a third-party thing, not unlike any other. Some people got caught in the dragnet that is no different from you finding email from your long lost uncle in Nigeria who came into a fortune, sitting in your spam box. Or false positives from your AV program which blocks a DLL your printer needs to function across the network. Shit happens. Nobody killed your dog. Deal with it. Move on.

2) The Puerto Rico chapter debacle. I can't even believe that we're still discussing this. Simply put, the IGDA does not open/run chapters. They are self-contained volunteer groups. Chapter head leaves, if no one in place to take over, it shuts down. If someone steps up, contacts the IGDA about re-opening it and goes through the process, it re-opens. That's how it's run.

As an example, Tom Buscaglia used to run the South Florida chapter for many years. After he left the State, someone else took it over. That person left, and someone else took it over. Then they left and I took it over. I eventually closed it when I found that I simply couldn't put in the time and because I was spending more time in my NYC place than I was in Florida. And given the dearth of gaming professionals in South Florida, nobody stepped up to take it over. So as it stands, there is not South Florida chapter anymore. Here, take a look: http://www.igda.org/?page=chapters

So that's what happened to that chapter. There is no conspiracy theory. There is no story; other than the rather unfortunate events that happened back then.

The fact that both of the above things are still raging on, despite **numerous** explanations from a lot of [connected] people, proves my point that there is no reason for anyone to respond because people are just going to discard it and continue to regurgitate the same only tripe repeatedly because there is nothing else of substance to latch onto.

This is the part where I say that you're all better than this and that you need to find something worthy of your time and effort, but I'm not going to do that because you know more about you and your motivations than I do.

However, while all this settles in and while you're coming up with the most creative way to attack me, ask yourself this: what have you done for gaming lately? I'll go first. I make games.

That is all.

As you were.

- DS

http://thedereksmart.brandyourself.com