Scarlett Johansson linked with Crash Override (Gamergate film)

[Foggy]

Crash Override, Zoe Quinn's memoir that centres on Gamergate, is heading to the movies...
The Gamergate controversy, which few would come close to describing as the internet's finest hour, is to be turned into a movie.

Pascal Pictures, heading up by former Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal, is set to use as the source for its feature project Zoe Quinn's upcoming memoir Crash Override: How To Save The Internet From Itself, which is due out in September 2016.

That memoir is set to focus in large part on Gamergate, which in turn raised worrying questions about harrassment on the internet, journalism itself, and the levels of sexism and discrimination without the videogames industry. Quinn's got an important perspective, too. An indepenedent game developer, she became the subject of vile harrassment when her ex-boyfriend penned a blog post about how she received positive coverage from a journalist she was dating. Staggeringly, this erupted to the point where Quinn was the victim of countless death threats over the internet. She ended up having to go to the authorities, in genuine fear for her safety.

Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum are set to adapt Crash Override for the screen. Meanwhile, Scarlett Johansson has been linked with taking on the role of Zoe Quinn in the movie.

Sony Pictures has first dibs on distributing the movie.

The proposal for the film, as reported by Deadline, reads thus:

There aren't many further hard details on the film as of yet, but we will keep you updated as we learn more.

Someone is going to have to explain to me what Gamergate is, because from what it sounds like, it doesn't make for interesting film material.

[GC Riot]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Someone is going to have to explain to me what Gamergate is, because from what it sounds like, it doesn't make for interesting film material.

Gamergate was basically a lot of idiots on the net who wanted more "journalistic integrity" they claimed, but what it turned out to be was an excuse to harass and demean women in any way associated with gaming culture. It caught on quickly and rape and death threats were commonplace. Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian and other outspoken feminist gamers quickly became targets.
I'd recommend watching this series of Youtube videos which tackle the subject.

Why Are You So Angry? Part 1: A Short History of Anita Sarkeesian - YouTube

[kidglov3s]

Originally Posted by GC Riot

Gamergate was basically a lot of idiots on the net who wanted more "journalistic integrity" they claimed, but what it turned out to be was an excuse to harass and demean women in any way associated with gaming culture. It caught on quickly and rape and death threats were commonplace. Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian and other outspoken feminist gamers quickly became targets.
I'd recommend watching this series of Youtube videos which tackle the subject.
Why Are You So Angry? Part 1: A Short History of Anita Sarkeesian - YouTube

I'd say those are elements in the story, but that's not the story.

I like to think of it as an onion:

Inner core: Worst, most dangerous parts of the internet.

Next layer: Idiots that took a seed from there and spread it to places it doesn't usually go, publicly supporting rancid awful shit, not caring how that would reflect on them or that this couldn't have been more poorly conceived from a general public perception standpoint. There are idiots on both sides (gamergate supporters on reddit/8chan, critics on tumblr, everyone who ever seriously addresses this issue without financial incentive, etc).

Next layer: Savvy opportunists that found a way to make this into a business, to varying degrees and on both sides.

And it just goes around and around in a circle. It's made a few people a lot of money and made a lot of people look bad, which perpetuates the cycle of a few people making money and a lot of people looking bad, etc.

If you want to see how this movie will probably go you can watch the bizarre SVU episode.

Law & Order SVU Intimidation Game Extended Promo NBC - YouTube

[Gamma_Winstead]

No no no!!!!! Why????

Originally Posted by GC Riot

Gamergate was basically a lot of idiots on the net who wanted more "journalistic integrity" they claimed, but what it turned out to be was an excuse to harass and demean women in any way associated with gaming culture. It caught on quickly and rape and death threats were commonplace. Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian and other outspoken feminist gamers quickly became targets.
I'd recommend watching this series of Youtube videos which tackle the subject.
Why Are You So Angry? Part 1: A Short History of Anita Sarkeesian - YouTube

That's not even close to what it was. That's what it became. I like that you left out all crap about Zoe sleeping with the journalists that reviewed her games though*. You know... The thing that started off the entire claim that game journalism is corrupt. Which it 100% is. However, once normal sane people realized that gamer gate wasn't going to do anything, they left, and wee replaced by a bunch of creepy hormonal sexist pigs. Which sadly is still going on.

I gaurentee the film portrays men in a horrible light, none of the negative aspects of Zoe will be called out, and nothing about the corruption in the games industry will be mentioned once.

And Scarlett Johanson as Zoe Quinn? That says it all.

*which ironically enough ended up being the least appalling thing about gamergate. And almost doesn't even count, since it turned out that Grayson didn't actually review her game technically

[L.J.]

Wow sounds like a lot of ignorant people on gamegate. Did not know this was going on. Maybe the film will shed some light on it. Interesting topic for a movie.

[Gamma_Winstead]

Originally Posted by L.J.

Wow sounds like a lot of ignorant people on gamegate. Did not know this was going on. Maybe the film will shed some light on it. Interesting topic for a movie.

Not particularly, no. It's a good topic for a documentary though.

[L.J.]

Originally Posted by Gamma_Winstead

Not particularly, no. It's a good topic for a documentary though.

A documentary would be a good idea.

[GP Legend]

Originally Posted by GC Riot

Gamergate was basically a lot of idiots on the net who wanted more "journalistic integrity" they claimed, but what it turned out to be was an excuse to harass and demean women in any way associated with gaming culture. It caught on quickly and rape and death threats were commonplace. Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian and other outspoken feminist gamers quickly became targets.
I'd recommend watching this series of Youtube videos which tackle the subject.
Why Are You So Angry? Part 1: A Short History of Anita Sarkeesian - YouTube

I love how people act like gamergate was the spawn of the devil and the other side were saints and poor innocent victims. That couldn't be further from the truth.

[kidglov3s]

Originally Posted by GP Legend

I love how people act like gamergate was the spawn of the devil and the other side were saints and poor innocent victims. That couldn't be further from the truth.

Like it or not, the publicly cemented narrative is terrorists beheading women.

I wish to think of it as this



meets

[Det. Bullock]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Someone is going to have to explain to me what Gamergate is, because from what it sounds like, it doesn't make for interesting film material.

Gamergate reminds me a lot of the italian 5 Star Movement, the only difference is that the original "scandal" (that alleged that a journalist made a favourable review of an indie game because he slept with the author of the game) was bullshit (looked it up myself at the time because he is one of the game journalists/critcs I followed more or less regularly, the worst I found was a mention in pass of the game in a list of about 120 indie games), but the end result is the same.
Gamergate is movement of concerned people with a core of conspiracy theorists, racists and ignorants that ultimately fails to address the ethics problem and damaged exactly the kind of indipendent critics that tried to get away from the corruption and incompetence of the big gaming portals like Gamespot and gave prominence to the worst part of gaming critics counterculture and gamer culture by effectively forcing the more informed and less fanatic views in a corner on both sides, it's telling when the worst consequences of the movement fell on a largely indipendent site like Gamasutra while all the big portals that give glowing reviews to the latest triple A games no matter what reamined largely unscathed.

And yes, the movement seemed largely intent (intentionally or not) to target women indie developers and journalists and indie journalism and developers in general, a large part of the movement seems to think that by liking a game made with pixel art means you got paid by the developer somehow.

Particularly if the most prominent feminist critic of videogames (in the sense that she goes on TV and the UN to speak) is a certain fanatic uber-radical sex-negative person, it's largely their fault as their trolling made her rise to prominence and incentivized her to get even more radical than when she was just a semi-unknown doing videoconferences on pop culture in general, this video summarizes it pretty well:

YouTube

Note the guy who did the video went indipendent because being a feminist himself was branded a "SJW" and the portal he was working for decided to go pro-GG, he's now working indipendently with his own blog and youTube channel.

Originally Posted by GP Legend

I love how people act like gamergate was the spawn of the devil and the other side were saints and poor innocent victims. That couldn't be further from the truth.

They weren't, the problem is that the devils on the other side thrived anyway or became even stronger while indipendent voices were paradoxically silenced by the movement, I repeat: big and medium corrupt game portals just went business as usual while indipendent sites, developers and critics mostly got a lot of trouble from the movement.

[Foggy]

Damn, I knew misogyny was going to be a part of proceedings but that's insane. Does sound interesting, granted the pitch for these sounds dismal, and following on from the dreadful Daniel Radcliffe GTA development film, I'm yet to see anything in Hollywood tackle game design and the Internet seriously and interestingly.

[JamesBenjamin]

Originally Posted by Gamma_Winstead

No no no!!!!! Why????



That's not even close to what it was. That's what it became. I like that you left out all crap about Zoe sleeping with the journalists that reviewed her games though*. You know... The thing that started off the entire claim that game journalism is corrupt. Which it 100% is. However, once normal sane people realized that gamer gate wasn't going to do anything, they left, and wee replaced by a bunch of creepy hormonal sexist pigs. Which sadly is still going on.

I gaurentee the film portrays men in a horrible light, none of the negative aspects of Zoe will be called out, and nothing about the corruption in the games industry will be mentioned once.

And Scarlett Johanson as Zoe Quinn? That says it all.

*which ironically enough ended up being the least appalling thing about gamergate. And almost doesn't even count, since it turned out that Grayson didn't actually review her game technically

My understanding is she wasn't "sleeping with someone who reviewed her game" at all. She made a game, the guy reviewed it, then a few months later they started dating but it ended pretty quickly. Whether or not they had sex is immaterial, as the review came out before they were dating. Then her previous boyfriend wanted to "get back at her" and started all the stories, and it grew from there.

The "journalistic integrity" maybe gets called in if you think the guy who wrote the review "liked" her before they were dating and maybe he wrote a positive review to get closer to her. When you have "journalists" who are college age and writing for cheap/free on websites you can't expect the same integrity as the Washington Post. If it hadn't snowballed into crazy rape/death threats it wouldn't have gone further than the guy who wrote the "review" gets canned from his review job.

It comes down to one guy wanting to "get back at his ex" and it blew up.

Either way, it doesn't sound like a good movie script to me.

[Det. Bullock]

Originally Posted by JamesBenjamin

My understanding is she wasn't "sleeping with someone who reviewed her game" at all. She made a game, the guy reviewed it, then a few months later they started dating but it ended pretty quickly. Whether or not they had sex is immaterial, as the review came out before they were dating. Then her previous boyfriend wanted to "get back at her" and started all the stories, and it grew from there.

The "journalistic integrity" maybe gets called in if you think the guy who wrote the review "liked" her before they were dating and maybe he wrote a positive review to get closer to her. When you have "journalists" who are college age and writing for cheap/free on websites you can't expect the same integrity as the Washington Post. If it hadn't snowballed into crazy rape/death threats it wouldn't have gone further than the guy who wrote the "review" gets canned from his review job.

It comes down to one guy wanting to "get back at his ex" and it blew up.

Either way, it doesn't sound like a good movie script to me.

Even worse, the guy accused didn't write any review of the game (like many said), or at least I couldn't find it (not even as a screenshot), the only thing written on the game by the guy I was able to find was a list of indie games which included the game in question.

[klauswhereareyou]

Well here's "gameplay" of the controversial "game."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlpZ3zie9iQ

[Det. Bullock]

Originally Posted by klauswhereareyou

Well here's "gameplay" of the controversial "game."
CUT

LOL

Always those who miss the point I see (the point is there were never favours exchanged for that game and people got persecuted for nothing), and beside that by those criteria even Lucasarts games don't have gameplay (get stuck? use everything with everything and you'll complete the game, no death or other failure states), really, it's like people who grew up with console games just woke up and discovered there are other types of game.

Really, corruption in videogame journalism is mostly regarding shitty triple A games that get glowing reviews by large portals that get paid by EA, Activision and others, not experimental games by indipendent studios that you get only on PC.

You want a real corruption case?
In my home country a journalist usually known under the nickname Metalmark (real name Marco Accordi Rickards) gave a glowing review to Aliens Colonial Marines even though everyone knew it was shit because he wanted some favours from the local publisher.

PS: Also, as someone who had problems with depression and played the game: the game resemblance with some of my experiences is uncanny, if that was the mark Quinn hit it.

PPS: I don't remember these scandalized reactions with experimental cinema (stuff like just pointing a camera at the sky or other things like that) by those who like more mainstream fare, gamers should learn from film buffs: if critics like something you don't like just shrug and continue to watch what you like instead of inventing conspiracy theories on why indie games get coverage over the last CoD and AssCreeds.

[Wernski]

So what would happen in the movie? If all this arguing is online, what will we see in a film? Screenshots of twitter comments? In that SVU episode, someone was murdered. But nothing "offline" happened in the real story, right?

[klauswhereareyou]

Originally Posted by Det. Bullock

LOL

Always those who miss the point I see (the point is there were never favours exchanged for that game and people got persecuted for nothing), and beside that by those criteria even Lucasarts games don't have gameplay (get stuck? use everything with everything and you'll complete the game, no death or other failure states), really, it's like people who grew up with console games just woke up and discovered there are other types of game.

Really, corruption in videogame journalism is mostly regarding shitty triple A games that get glowing reviews by large portals that get paid by EA, Activision and others, not experimental games by indipendent studios that you get only on PC.

You want a real corruption case?
In my home country a journalist usually known under the nickname Metalmark (real name Marco Accordi Rickards) gave a glowing review to Aliens Colonial Marines even though everyone knew it was shit because he wanted some favours from the local publisher.

PS: Also, as someone who had problems with depression and played the game: the game resemblance with some of my experiences is uncanny, if that was the mark Quinn hit it.

PPS: I don't remember these scandalized reactions with experimental cinema (stuff like just pointing a camera at the sky or other things like that) by those who like more mainstream fare, gamers should learn from film buffs: if critics like something you don't like just shrug and continue to watch what you like instead of inventing conspiracy theories on why indie games get coverage over the last CoD and AssCreeds.

I know these sort of games existed years ago, they were called text based adventures back in the day. Comparing this to a Lucas Arts point and click game would be like comparing Smurf Adventure to Mario Galaxy.

I think the reason for the vitarol is that something like this gets praised primarily for it's intentions rather than if it's playable or something someone wants to play. Same goes for giving low scores to mainstream games because it doesn't fit your political/social worldview. Someone thinks Bayonetta 2 is sexist, therefore it is a bad game.

And I hate to say this but the reason many indie games don't get coverage is because they aren't very good, same goes for indie movies. Just because more and more people have the ability to create, doesn't mean they are creating things that are good.

[Det. Bullock]

Originally Posted by klauswhereareyou

I know these sort of games existed years ago, they were called text based adventures back in the day. Comparing this to a Lucas Arts point and click game would be like comparing Smurf Adventure to Mario Galaxy.

I think the reason for the vitarol is that something like this gets praised primarily for it's intentions rather than if it's playable or something someone wants to play. Same goes for giving low scores to mainstream games because it doesn't fit your political/social worldview. Someone thinks Bayonetta 2 is sexist, therefore it is a bad game.

And I hate to say this but the reason many indie games don't get coverage is because they aren't very good, same goes for indie movies. Just because more and more people have the ability to create, doesn't mean they are creating things that are good.

It happens with movies and nobody bats an eye, a review is inherently subjective in entertainment, for example I have problems with Medal of Honor on PC (on console they had once a french woman protagonist that really existed or imspired by a real historical figure if I remeber cporrectly) because they often (not always, thank god) feel too much like "America saves the day: The Game" and preferred CoD's take on WWII in which you even play as a russian.

There are also people who feel Bayonetta is cool even though they are even bigger "SJWs" than the guy who made the review you are talking about.

Indie games don't get coverage because there aren't big publishers spilling loads of money in marketing behind them, Legend of Grimrock is an awesome game but outside of certain circles nobody knows about it because it's an indie game, Pillars of Eternity couldn't even find a publisher for the physical version until a small publisher named Paradox stepped in.

And I can say a large chunk of triple A games are either bad or terribly unimaginative same as mainstream movies, but I don't see film buffs accusing people of being corrupt because they cover indie movies, because if nobody covers them the good ones will NEVER get known, gamergaters are only facilitating things for big corporations.

Triple A publishing is a mess of lackluster drivel, just look at Star Wars Battlefront, it doesn't have half the content of the old titles in the series and the spaceship controls are done like they were froma world where Rogue Squadron and Rogue Leader never happened.

[dvdmike]

[Hellraiserfan]

Originally Posted by Wernski

So what would happen in the movie? If all this arguing is online, what will we see in a film? Screenshots of twitter comments? In that SVU episode, someone was murdered. But nothing "offline" happened in the real story, right?

Yeah, as someone else said this is better off as a documentary. Scarlett as Zoe Quinn? That is some really bad casting right there.

From everything I've read about Gamergate, it seems that Zoe's ex was full of s*** and butthurt she dumped him. All I know is that this "film" better not focus a lot on Anita Sarkeesian. She's the one that's full of crap and really just wanted her 15 minutes of internet fame. I was disappointed when Stephen Colbert had her on The Colbert Report that one time, basically gave her exactly what she wanted. She's essentially a fake feminist who really doesn't give a damn about what she's complaining about.