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How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

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Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#21

Post by thecatspaw »

tbiwiti wrote: post #9
Bizarro wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a dumb analogy and bordering on being disingenuous. He's not barring women from something...you know that. And the people that he plays with are not his employees. You know that too.

Getting to stream with Ninja would have a large, direct effect on their income, not to mention the promotional aspect. But sure, lets instead imagine a male-only social club that directly promotes the business and career interests of it's members. That would get shut down real fast.

I(male) cannot play with ninja either

Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#22

Post by dangeh »

lwansbrough wrote: post #14
tbiwiti wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is really strange to me. On one hand, he's probably 100% right. There's no other way to avoid rumors and jokes like that. On the other hand, that's a completely unacceptable excuse to bar women from something. Can someone refuse to hire a female secretary out of respect for their wife?

It’s not Ninja’s job to fix the immaturity of children. Nor is it reasonable to expect that he could even if he wanted to. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to tame hundreds of children in your chat? Let alone hundreds of thousands. It’s totally fair that Ninja wants to limit his family’s exposure to that toxic environment. It’s no secret that women are subjected to excessive abuse in gaming communities (espec…

So what if he said Jewish? What then...is there a scenario where you would you stop defending him?

Seems like a sad shrug to bigotry and misogyny.

I'm just here for the money, fame, and influence - not my problem.

Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#23

Post by eksemplar »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #17
drb91 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) I’m not sure how geography plays into this. Perhaps you were making a cultural claim? B) You only need to take the issue as seriously as you take gaming. However, for the companies involved, figuring out what is preventing >50% of their potential market from engaging is a serious, valuable problem. FWIW one of the main reasons my (woman) SO plays overwatch is that the abuse controls tend to yield tangible results.

The problem is not as clear cut as you make it out to be. For instance, I stopped playing Overwatch because the abuse controls you mention got in the way of me having a good time with the game. So while some people may come in as you try to "control" the community, others will leave. As for geography, I'm from Brazil. It's been my experience that people from 3rd world countries tend to have a thicker skin when it com…

Since when is the worlds 9th largest economy third world?

Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#24

Post by baxtr »

Every day, people tune in by the hundreds of thousands to watch him play, and he's making bank doing it. The most commonly reported figure is $500,000 a month. Blevins suggests the number is closer to seven figures.

And then later:

"Until my family is taken care of. Say this ends tomorrow, we don't have enough for the rest of our lives. I tell Jess, 'Honey, we're not going to have that much quality time this year, or even next year. But if we do this right and I continue to grind for a couple more years, we can set ourselves up, and our family and our family's family, for the rest of our lives.'"

Even though he makes so much money I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. He doesn’t seem to have a good, relaxed life. One vacation in 8 years while making 500k+ a month? Why...?

Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#25

Post by drb91 »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #17
drb91 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) I’m not sure how geography plays into this. Perhaps you were making a cultural claim? B) You only need to take the issue as seriously as you take gaming. However, for the companies involved, figuring out what is preventing >50% of their potential market from engaging is a serious, valuable problem. FWIW one of the main reasons my (woman) SO plays overwatch is that the abuse controls tend to yield tangible results.

The problem is not as clear cut as you make it out to be. For instance, I stopped playing Overwatch because the abuse controls you mention got in the way of me having a good time with the game. So while some people may come in as you try to "control" the community, others will leave. As for geography, I'm from Brazil. It's been my experience that people from 3rd world countries tend to have a thicker skin when it com…

This seems contradictory. People from third world countries have a thicker skin but don’t play games because the abuse controls aren’t strong enough?

I can understand some part of this. Shit talking is not automatically abusive. But if you’re playing, and someone says “bitch you suck stop playing” repeatedly, I really can’t blame you for not playing anymore. This is not as cultural as it is psychological IMHO: if you’re distracted from the game you won’t enjoy it.

Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#26

Post by drb91 »

eksemplar wrote: post #23
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not as clear cut as you make it out to be. For instance, I stopped playing Overwatch because the abuse controls you mention got in the way of me having a good time with the game. So while some people may come in as you try to "control" the community, others will leave. As for geography, I'm from Brazil. It's been my experience that people from 3rd world countries tend to have a thicker skin when it com…

Since when is the worlds 9th largest economy third world?

I always thought it aligned with cold war alliances, in which case brazil would be third world.

Not a terribly meaningful phrase on the whole.... china’s doing well these days, but you’re only going to feel that if you happen to be in the middle or upper class, for example.

Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#27

Post by eksemplar »

charleyma wrote: post #3

Toxicity in gaming + virtual communities (particularly against women) seems to be an issue that no company has a great grasp on. I recently gave Fortnite a try and ended up turning chat off due to relentless abuse by someone that sounded like they were pretty young. It made me a bit sad - I met some of my best friends growing up online in irc channels playing CS, WoW, etc - not sure if I would be able to do so today.…

You can argue that it’s sexist, but really, the platform is so hostile toward women, that I understand why you’d chose not to.

It’s the easy route of course, but we’ve all stood by and watched something shitty happen a few times in our lives.

I mean, have you ever watched the chat of girl/women streamers? It’s some of the most volatile stuff on the entire internet, and those people are who the boys/men also have to deal with.

This may be easy and turning the blind eye, but I don’t think individual streamers can really change anything by going Rosa Parks. It’s the platforms problem, and when it remains as unmoderated as it is, I think decision to ignore parts of its repulsiveness is perfectly understandable. I wouldn’t count on Amazon to foster a healthy culture anytime soon though, and even then you could argue that what is really needed is better parenting.

Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#28

Post by thecatspaw »

sushid wrote: post #20
tbiwiti wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting to stream with Ninja would have a large, direct effect on their income, not to mention the promotional aspect. But sure, lets instead imagine a male-only social club that directly promotes the business and career interests of it's members. That would get shut down real fast.

Not sure if you read the article, but he's more than down to play with women in group settings or public events. It just happens that 1. you tend to banter and joke as you play together 2. due to his popularity, any innocent interaction is clipped and made into a scandalous clickbait for profit by people online. If anytime someone in an office had a private meeting with the blinds down with a female employee led to a…

I get what you're trying to say, but your analogy isnt the best imho. It would be more like having the blinds open, and you both get photographed going into the room, and taking of a jacket (oh look, they go in there and undress)

Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#29

Post by cglace »

eksemplar wrote: post #23
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not as clear cut as you make it out to be. For instance, I stopped playing Overwatch because the abuse controls you mention got in the way of me having a good time with the game. So while some people may come in as you try to "control" the community, others will leave. As for geography, I'm from Brazil. It's been my experience that people from 3rd world countries tend to have a thicker skin when it com…

Since when is the worlds 9th largest economy third world?

Third world does not have to do with the size of the economy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

Re: How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star

#30

Post by dangeh »

Bizarro wrote: post #7
tbiwiti wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is really strange to me. On one hand, he's probably 100% right. There's no other way to avoid rumors and jokes like that. On the other hand, that's a completely unacceptable excuse to bar women from something. Can someone refuse to hire a female secretary out of respect for their wife?

That's a dumb analogy and bordering on being disingenuous. He's not barring women from something...you know that. And the people that he plays with are not his employees. You know that too.

The top competitor in a supposedly open competitive field is refusing to compete with [blank] players for fear of [blank]. So what, exactly, does that look like?

Here's an easier experiment: play out a scenario to the extreme:

When the #2 spot is held by a female gamer, his refusal to play with female players is exactly what you claim it's not. By refusing to play she will never get the chance to compete for the "top" spot. Then sequentially every other player that is not "a her" will get a chance to "win."

Last point, he's not just playing games he's building a massive brand/business (at this stage) that rationalizes the exclusion of women. The secondary and tertiary effects will be damaging for younger generations - as they will see this as the norm.

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