Gamergate: The Five Best Moments

It's been a year since Eron Gjoni posted "thezoepost", a giant post detailing the personal failings and the abuse he had suffered from his girlfriend, game developer Zoe Quinn, which included allegations that she had cheated on him with several video game journalists in exchange for favorable coverage. This post proved to be the spark that would eventually light the fire that became Gamergate, one of the most successful online movements ever seen. In the past year, Gamergate has seen its ups and downs, its successes and failures. We have seen several voices rise up against us only to be silenced by the facts. We have made an indelible mark in not just games media, but in gaming culture, and even in the gaming industry. We have forced EVERY LAST games journalism site to update their ethics code, we have critically hurt the media giant Gawker, and we have destroyed the credibility of dozens of "journalists" who, a year ago, seemed untouchable. But what have been the five best moments of Gamergate's first year? Here is my Top 5 moments in Gamergate:

5- Law and Order "Intimidation Game". Back in January of 2015, when it was announced Law and Order, a famed police drama in the US, was going to air an episode based on Gamergate and Anita Sarkeesian/Zoe Quinn/Brianna Wu, many gamers were worried that it'd be a smear episode, yet another example of mainstream media vilifying the gamer community. And they were right, that was precisely what "Intimidation Game" proved to be. There were many gamers and GGers that wanted to boycott the episode, but many more level headed gamers called for freedom of speech, to allow the episode to air, and to watch the show. And when it aired on February 11, the show proved to be everything we needed it to be. Poor acting, plotholes galore, presenting gamers to be ISIL level terrorists, obvious propaganda clumsily disguised as "entertainment", and all produced by a guy called "Dick Wolf". This was the day the Anti-gaming crowd lost so much credibility that it became clear the mainstream media could not be counted on to be a reliable Anti-Gamergate front. This episode was based on pretty much a dramatization of every argument the gaming journalists like Leigh Alexander made about gamers, presented with total honesty and seriousness. The episode proved to be so embarrassing, even Kotaku, a site that got name dropped in the episode, actually had to decry it. Before this episode, the "gamers are evil shit slingers" propaganda was gaining traction, and had several strong supporters; AFTER this episode, those same people came out looking like idiots. And Gamergate's response? Lulz. We laughed. We made memes. We all agreed that, in real life, the female game developer would have been called "Based", the complete opposite of Literally Who. And many, many voices pointed out how racist and xenophobic the character's name was. I mean really, Raina PUNJABI? There's a little thing called Google, people, you can look up a list of common Indian surnames. It's not that hard, three minutes tops!

4- Christina Hoff Sommers becomes "Based Mom". September of 2014 presented two great victories for the Gamergate community. The first of these was Christina Hoff Sommers' release of a video titled "Are video games sexist?", in which CHS refutes with evidence and logic the sexism claims made  by the opponents of video games and by various critics of gaming, like Sarkeesian. Because of this one video, and because of her continued opposition to authoritarian feminism (the same feminism supported, Christina Hoff Sommers was given the title of "Based Mom". Why was her support so important to GG? Because Christina Hoff Sommers is also a feminist, one with decades of experience in Academia, and has an academic credibility that people like Leigh Alexander and Anita Sarkeesian could only dream of. When she joined our cause, it was like "now we have the big guns." We had an ally that had a strong, reliable voice.

3- Weaponized Charity. In it's one year of activity, Gamergate has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for various charities and good causes. Anti-bullying, getting women into STEM, helping female developers make games (GOOD games, not that Rev 60 crap), among others. But perhaps our finest cause has been Cythera. On January of 2015, former adult film actress Cytherea had her home broken into by three teenage boys, who promptly raped her in front of her children. This despicable act resonated so deeply with GG that, when fellow porn actress Mercedes Carrera began a charity to help Cytherea recover, many of us IMMEDIATELY jumped in and donated all we could. Sadly, I was broke at the time, and had nothing to give. Anyway, ignoring the fact that the anti-Gamergate side completely failed to act on time for this, failing to donate but quick to accuse Gamergate of  "weaponizing" the charity, this one moment showed just how much Gamergate truly cared about rape victims. When Mercedes Carrera called for help, Gamergate was quick to say "here we are". It was truly one of our finest moments.

2- Ethics happened. One of Gamergate's most well known goals has always been the implementation of better ethical behavior in video game journalism. There were a large number of actions the games journalism scene was known for that gamers felt was time to end: collusion between Indie devs and journalists, acceptance of bribery, failure to disclose personal ties to the subjects of their writings, etc. Gamergate has forced every last games journalism site to update their ethics policies and actually follow them; even Kotaku writers disclose personal ties! This was Gamergate's original goal, and we succeeded. However, the fight continues; there are still things to do in regards to ethics in gaming.

1- GameJournoPros. The mailing list GameJournoPros, where various video game journalists would discuss which topics to cover, which to ignore, and whose career to ruin. We gamers knew there was collusion in the games journalism industry, it was proven on August 28, 2014, with the "Gamers are dead" articles, a collection of articles released within hours of each other all with the same main idea: that gamers were irrelevant. But it was on Septemberb 17, 2014, that gamers were given the solid proof needed to say, without hesitation and without a doubt, that there was, indeed, corruption in games journalism. Milo Yiannopolous, an ACTUAL journalist (edit February 21, 2017: a worthless troll in hindsight), revealed the mailing list to the world. September 17 became the day Gamergate couldn't turn back; we had the solid proof needed to show the world we were right. From that day onward, there was no doubt that this fight was a good fight, a righteous cause worth being in. Gamergate changed forever on that day; there probably wouldn't be a Gamergate if not for that day.