“What We Talk About When We Talk About Gamergate” -A Critique

*note*This piece was written as an assignment for one of my classes in college, but by my own decision I opted not to turn this in and instead focus on another topic. To not let this go to waste, I opted instead to just upload this piece onto my blog. Enjoy.

 In his editorial “What We Talk About When We Talk About Gamergate”, Internet editorialist, self ascribed relationship coach and love expert, and Online Personality Harris O'Malley, better known by his nom de plume Dr Nerdlove, aims to inform the reader on what he calls the true reason behind the online movement known as Gamergate. For those not in the know, Gamergate is a movement that calls for better ethical behavior in video game journalism, opposes collusion in the video game journalism industry, as well as the censorship of video games by outside parties, particularly feminists who are otherwise uninvolved in video games. Harris O'Malley, however, presents an alternative raison d'etre for this movement, which is mirred by the omission of some important details.

O'Malley begins by informing the reader of the “Quinnspiracy”, the name for a scandal involving video game developer Zoe Quinn, who was accused by an ex boyfriend of having slept with several video game journalists in exchange for favorable press coverage. Harris O'Malley asserts that these accusations are false, because one of the journalists who was accused of sleeping with Quinn, Nathan Grayson, never wrote any positive reviews for Quinn's then latest game, Depression Quest. Here, however, is where O'Malley's editorial falls apart, because the accusation against Quinn was that she slept with Grayson for positive press coverage, not positive press review. And the positive press coverage of Quinn's game does, in fact, exist; Nathan Grayson wrote that Depression Quest was one of the new games to watch out for in 2014. In exchange, Nathan Grayson's name appears in Depression Quest's credits, as a “Special Thanks”. O'Malley does not include these facts in his editorial.

The article goes on to explicitly state that Gamergate's argument about being anti corruption in games journalism is fake by presenting some rather flimsy evidence. An example would be implying that the so called “collusion” between video game journalists amounts to simple exchanges via social media. One thing that was omitted, however, was the GameJournoPros mailing list, a secret mailing list where several video game journalists sent each other messages in regards to which stories to cover, which to ignore, and whose career was to be destroyed. Ironically, Harris presents a photo of himself exchanging some messages with Leigh Alexander, a video game journalist who wrote one of the many “gamers are dead” articles, a collection of articles all released on 29 August 2014 and all saying the same thing: that the core audience and main consumers of video games were irrelevant to the game industry and could safely be ignored. These articles were released within weeks of the “Quinnspiracy”, when gamers were starting to ask just what's going on in gaming journalism. Some things O'Malley omitts are how in sites like Reddit and 4chan, popular hangouts for gamers, any discussion on Zoe Quinn and the controversy resulted in a ban from the site. Several message boards discussing the controversy were erased by the moderators, effectively silencing anyone who dared raise their voice to ask “what's happening?” Something else that Harris doesn't talk about is how many Reddit moderators were explicitly friends with Zoe Quinn, and the email exchanges that proved that they were removing and deleting these threads as a favor to her. One would wonder why this detail was omitted from an article claiming to teach the audience the true reason behind a movement.

As he continues, O'Malley makes mention of the death threats that Zoe Quinn and famed online feminist pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian allegedly received from gamers. He specifically writes on how Anita Sarkeesian was forced to cancel a talk in Utah State University due to a bomb threat made against the school if she were to continue with the speech. What O'Malley fails to mention, however, was that the police scoured the entire campus and declared it safe for Sarkeesian to give her talk, and that the USU declared the bomb threat to be “not credible”, that it was just a threat to try to get Sarkeesian to cancel her talk. She wilfully canceled her appearance anyway, citing the University's gun control policy; specifically that the University does not forbid handguns on campus. Harris O'Malley also fails to mention that the many times supporters of Gamergate identify the individuals who send Anita Sarkeesian threats and they sent her this information, she consistently fails to take any action other than to ask for more money on her Kickstarter. An example would be when the owner of Brazilian video game website Portal Celebrinando, Mateus Prado Sousa, was found to be sending death threats against Sarkeesian, various supporters of Gamergate attempted to contact authorities against him. When they were informed that Sarkeesian herself had to issue the complain, several Gamergate supporters sent her the information required for her to make an official complaint and have Sousa arrested. She never did contact the police. Why would these details be omitted?

In a short paragraph, Harris O'Malley accuses Gamergate of being anti progresivism. He mentions that the one thing all “Gamergaters”, a name given to the people who support Gamergate and participate in their online communities, is that they are anti feminism in gaming. He, however, fails to mention that one of Gamergate's most vocal supporters, Christina Hoff Sommers, is a famed feminist. She's also a former philosophy professor, and has written many books on the unfair disadvantages boys suffer in Academia. O'Malley also neglects to point out just how diverse the supporters of Gamergate truly are in regards to their political ideologies; while some identify as Right Wing, others identify with the Left. Furthermore, he makes no mention at all of how pro-women Gamergate supporters truly are: between September and October of 2014, supporters of Gamergate raised thousands of dollars for charity to be used as schollarships to get more women into Computer Sciences. An organization known as The Fine Young Capitalists, which has been in favor of Gamergate since the very beginning, also raised thousands of dollars to help female game developers make their own games. The only time Harris deigns himself to even mention this organization is to demonstrate that Zoe Quinn had nothing to do with the release of the personal information of said organization's members. One would think that the existence of charities designed specifically to get more women into the gaming business would merit at the very least a pause in an editorial about how the supporters of said charities were trying to keep women out of gaming.

And then O'Malley attempts to discredit Gamergate's claim of being about ethics in gaming journalism by presenting some instances of corruption in gaming journalism that O'Malley claims the supporters of Gamergate are not giving enough attention to. He makes mention of game developers holding review codes “hostage” in exchange for favorable reviews, and yet offers no examples of such a thing happening. He then points out the alleged hypocrisy of demanding that Polygon be punished for giving the game Bayonetta 2 a low score, and then makes a point of establishing that Polygon gave the game a 7,5 out of 10, implying that the score isn't even that low and that supporters of Gamergate are making a mountain out of a molehill in this case. Two things he fails to mention: first off, in video game journalism, anything below an 8 is often thought of as mediocre. Second of all, Bayonetta 2's low score was given not because of any technical issue the game may have, such as unresponsive controls or graphical glitches, but because of its artistic presentation; mainly, that the main character is a sexual woman. A game was denied the score it deserved because the critic did not agree with how the main character was presented. The problem is that Polygon is a professional video game review site, and its consumers expect product reviews; when reviewing a product what should matter is if the product is worth buying. The main problem with this low score is that the critic was not able, or willing, to set aside his personal discomfort with an element of the game to do his job. Imagine a critic giving the film The Hunger Games a low score because he did not agree with the violence in the film, or if another critic gave Casablanca two starts because the French Anthem was sung in the film and the critic was anti France. A review is supposed to be based around a set criteria, and seeing if the work meets said criteria or not, but O'Malley seems to disagree.

Perhaps the most damning paragraph in the entire editorial is when Harris brings up the harassment those who support Gamergate have received. He brings up when Britbart contributor Milo Yiannopoulos was sent a syringe in the mail. Milo Yiannopoulos made a name for himself in Gamergate by being the journalist who exposed the GameJournoPros mailing list, and since then has been unapologetically pro Gamergate. Harris brings a legitimate question: how can he believe a Gamergate supporter has been sent a death threat when many of the death threats received by Anita Sarkeesian have been dismissed by the supporters of Gamergate as being fake? But here, Harris shoots his argument down by implicitly applying a double standard, and by explicitly stating that he personally believes Milo Yiannopoulos is lying. A question that needs to be asked: why should Anita's alleged death threats be taken seriously when Harris and those who oppose Gamergate are so willing to dismiss Milo's?

So much evidence that was left out of this piece, and one asks themselves “why?” The abscence of this evidence if damning, regardless of the author's intention. If the author left this evidence out by accident, then it demonstrates his poor research skills, which then turns the article into a shoddy piece of work that fails to inform the audience of any truth. If the author left out this evidence on purpose, then it just shows how dishonest he is, which then turns the article into a smear piece, one that can safely be disregarded without a second thought.

An article that purports to educate someone can not withhold evidence from the reader, whether intentionally or no. When one seeks to write an article on a topic, one has the responsibility to research the topic as much as possible, and then present the results of that research to an audience. Withholding information is, therefore, dishonest and offensive.

From a stylistic point of view, the article is top notch. The writing is crisp and crystal clear, engaging when it needs to be, and in many ways feels like the author is sincere when he says he wishes to educate, not indoctrinate. The article stands out by both its respectful vocabulary and its casual approach towards the audience; the writer of the article made great use of the visual elements, presenting a generated image of the character Beetlejuice as a joke, and a few paragraphs later an image of a screen capture of a harassing message Anita Sarkeesian received. The visuals never distracted, instead they helped emphasize the author's point, or helped convey the message more clearly. The subtle use of jokes in the footnotes helped keep the piece from being too dry and academic, which helps the article because its intended audience is not Academia, but rather, casual readers.

The greatest flaw in the article, however, has nothing to do with its style and everything to do with its substance. The fact of the matter is the article omits too many facts. Does not an audience deserve all the facts? Does not a reader deserve the chance to make up his or her own mind? If a position needs to hide facts in order to convince a neutral party of its validity, does that not invalidate the position itself? At the very least, one can rightly say it debilitates whatever argument it has, no matter how self righteous it is. If an argument, or a narrative, can be destroyed with facts, it deserves such a fate.