An Analysis of GamerGate

This is my FINAL piece on GamerGate. It is also a continuation of my previous piece, "Gaming Going Right?"

I had originally intended this to be a dispassionate, objective view on GamerGate, its history, and its influence. But as I put pen to paper, I couldn't help but notice a far more important topic creep up: how GamerGate served as a microcosm of the rise of the alt-right in real world politics. And let me not mince words: had people paid attention to GamerGate, they could have prevented Trump, Brexit, Marine Le Pen, and other calamities.

GamerGate: Lessons Ignored

No matter what your position regarding GamerGate was, there's no denying that it left an impact on gaming culture. The end of the old guard of game's journalism, the birth of new gaming sites, the rise of the alt-right, GamerGate was a microcosm of the larger Culture War that is still sweeping the Internet, the US, maybe even the world. There were many lessons to be learned from GamerGate; had the major population actually listened, maybe they could have avoided Trump's election as President.

A Quick Thought Regarding Gamergate

We've won. There's no two ways about it, we've won. We set out to put ethics in games journalism, and we did. We got Leigh Alexander fired from Gamasutra, relegating her to some no-name site she eventually resigned from. Dunces like Patrick Klepek have made themselves known to outsiders as corrupt, unethical bloggers who don't deserve a second of your time. The old guard of games journalism is dead, and new sites, like TechRaptor and Based Gamer, have taken their place. Conservative gamers now have a voice; likewise, Liberal gamers no longer need to feel ashamed of opposing 'feminists' who do little more than demonize games. We've won.

But the battle is not over, nor will it ever be truly over until every developer can feel like they can make ANY game they want and not worry about being censored by hyper-sensitive feminists. Until games journalism earns its credibility with gamers. Until a game can win an award and no one will have to wonder if the award was truly earned or if it was a "favor" cashed in. Until independent games are made by people with a passion for gaming instead of a frustrated Liberal Arts major. Then, and ONLY then can we say "Gamergate's over."

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:

“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.

Literally Wu

Brianna Wu, known to Gamergate as Literally Wu, is a game developer who made that notorious game, Revolution 60, a game that's been panned by practically every user that's come across it (unless they were game journalists). Before Gamergate, she was a trust fund baby who never earned a thing in her life, never struggled, had everything handed to her on a silver platter (example: given 200 thousand dollars to start an animation company that went nowhere). She's the type of person any hard worker, that anyone who has ever had to work two shifts to pay for college, work the weekends to pay off a car loan, etc, would absolutely loathe. Before Gamergate, she was nobody.

My Thoughts on Jonathan McIntosh, his ilk, and Charlie Hebdo

Two days ago, I wrote a blog on Jonathan McIntosh's stance on the need for games that are "not fun". McIntosh, for those lucky enough to be unaware, is one of the writers for Feminist Frequency, an online video series that offers feminist critique of pop culture. The series has gotten some well deserved infamy for its poor research practices, it's misinformation (Krysta was not going to be the sole protagonist of Dinosaur Planet in spite of what the show claims, in Hitman the player is penalized for killing strippers, not rewarded, etc) it's plagiarism (it's been proven that the show has stolen Let's Play footage and artwork for its Tropes vs Women in Gaming series) among other claims. And I, of course, wrote about his right to say such idiocies. I may not agree with it, but he has the right to say it.

Yesterday, tragedy struck France. A group of Islamist fanatics attacked a newspaper's office, killing eleven people and injuring eleven more. Why? Because the newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, continuously runs (yes, I am using present tense) cartoons that can be seen as offensive to religious sensibilities. I have seen some of these cartoons, and in all honesty I can say I can see how anyone, be they Muslim or Christian, can be offended. I will not be pasting any images from Charlie Hebdo, because I try my best to keep this blog Safe for Work. That said, I do not approve of a cover with a cartoon of Muhammed (PBUH) saying "Either you die of laughter or you get 100 whip lashes!" Yes, I know it's in jest, but considering the realities of anti Muslim attitudes in not just France but all of Europe, I question whether the intention was to laugh at Muslims or to push buttons for the sake of pushing buttons. For those not in the know, Charlie Hebdo is a satirical French weekly newspaper,

You may be asking yourself, "what does this have to do with video games?" Well, it has a lot to do with the current cultural debate regarding video games. You have two camps: gamers who wish to play games and allow developers to develop what they want, and authoritarians that wish to limit what developers can do, all in the name of "progressiveness". You have people who complain about misogyny in gaming: they hate how female characters (allegedly) all have one of three roles (Damsel, fucktoy, background character), how they are designed with the male gaze in mind, how there's a shortage of female characters in gaming that are strong and independent, etc. These people call gaming "hostile towards women", and for that they come up with several campaigns to try and make it less so, among them being #1ReasonWhy, a Twitter campaign where several people in game developing gave the number 1 reason why there weren't many women developing games (ignoring the fact that there ARE plenty of women who not only develop games, but they are the heads of their own game companies, proving that there are no real obstacles to women getting into gaming.)

Gamergate Stream I Did With a Facebook Group I'm In.

On Lies and Propaganda

I just came out of reading a Dr Nerdlove blog, titled "What we talk about when we talk about Gamergate", yet another piece from the Anti Gamergate propaganda machine set out to convince anyone willing to lend an ear that Gamergate is not about ethics, it's not about consumer dissatisfaction, and it's not about the feeling of betrayal that millions of gamers feel when they are told by the people that they had given their support  that their identity is irrelevant, that they don't matter as consumers, that they are misogynists, and well, you know the rest. The Anti Gamergate side keeps repeating the same lies over and over again and again: that this is about Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and an attempt by the "gatekeepers of gaming culture to evict women from their club house", quoted from Dr Nerdlove. His blog entry is propaganda. But what is propaganda?

Anti Gamergate Cartoon- An Analysis

The following is an analysis to an anti Gamergate cartoon that was propagated by a Facebook group that I had given my support until today. The name of the group will not be given because I have no intention of giving them so much as a single word of promotion.

Edit February 11, 2016: This comic was written and drawn by Kris Straub. 

100th Post- Just a few quick words

I'll be honest with you people: When I started this blog, I never expected it to reach 100 posts. And when I was making it a habit to write in my blog, I expected to reach 100 posts by February, but then I went back to college, and well, life happened. But here I am, 100 posts! One hundred entries, ladies and gentlemen, one hundred.

I'd like to say a few quick things. First off, I am deeply saddened by the way gamers are being treated by the people whose careers we made. Are there gamers out there who quite frankly need to see a psychiatrist ASAP and should be dragged away from any computer in the vicinity? Yeah, there are. Are ALL gamers like that? Hell no. Gamers are diverse: some of us are men, others are women, some are Left Wing, others Right Wing. Some of us read Jezebel, others read Return of Kings. Some of us play MMORPG's, some prefer FPS, some of us can't stomach FarmVille, and some of us never picked up Flappy Bird.

On Ethics and Free Speech

I'd like to say a few quick words in regards to the biggest concern regarding GamerGate: ethics and free speech.

Ethics is the philosophy of right and wrong. It is the study of ideas that define what behaviors and actions can be seen as righteous or condemn able. There are several schools of moral philosophy, including Ayn Rand's Objectivism, Immanuel Kant's Intentionalism, and John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, to name but a select few. To learn more, here's Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics

Free Speech is a bit trickier to define, but let's give it a shot. Ideally, Free Speech means that we can say whatever we want without consequence. This, however, is impossible, because every action must have a reaction. I know that sounds vague, so allow me to present an example. Say someone were to yell "FIRE!!!" in a crowded theater, thus causing a panic. Is that person excising free speech? In a way, yes, but what their action caused a panic, so the person must be punished. How about we give an example closer to our interests? Say someone uses their Twitter to harass, say, Anita Sarkeesian. Is she (let's make her a female to be fair. Not everyone who hates Sarkeesian, after all, is male) using her right to Free Speech? Well, technically, yes. But she's also committing an unethical act. Harassment means the continued and unwanted actions towards one party by another. This is illegal, and continuous harassment can get you in trouble.

Open Letters to Zoe Quinn, Phil Fish, Adam Sessler, Devin Faraci, Samantha Allen, and Kotaku

Dear Adam Sessler:

  Your words are those of a comfortable man, a man who has never in his life had to confront the horrors of war save from the safe distance provided by a couch and a television set, or in this new day and age, a chair and a computer. Let me show you some pictures, Mr Sessler:
(CAUTION TO READERS: THE FOLLOWING IMAGES MAY BE UPSETTING FOR YOUNGER AUDIENCES)

Gamergate

It's hard to believe that the biggest controversy to hit the gaming community since Jack Thompson's anti gaming crusade started when a jilted ex boyfriend made a blog post revealing that his ex-lover, Zoe Quinn, cheated on him with several prolific members of the gaming press. It's even harder to believe that the gaming press has reacted to this controversy with censorship and attacks on their consumer base, calling gamers "irrelevant". 

Or rather, maybe what should have surprised us was that it took this long for this controversy to start, because the warning signs were all there from the get go. Consider how long gaming "journalism" has been assuming a holier-than-thou attitude towards gamers, especially in regards towards gender politics. Consider as proof Ian Miles Cheong's article "Be Respectful and Considerate", an article about the Mighty Number 9 Kickstater and the controversy surrounding Dina Abou Karam, which does little more than paint the entire controversy as being about anti feminism when it was really about anti cronyism. A link that that article here. Zoe Quinn didn't "start" this, she was just the spark that lit the fire. The fire itself was a long time coming.

Maybe this controversy should have started earlier, but right now, that doesn't matter. What DOES matter is that the movement has started, and it seems to be gaining ground. Although we gamers are disadvantaged in terms of voice power (after all, we're not the ones with big traffic websites) we do have powers that gaming "journalists" just don't match.

We have the power of consuming. We are the ones that made this industry, with our hard earned money (or in the case of our younger gamers that do not rely on an independent source of income, our parent's or guardian's hard earned money). WE are the ones that made GTA5 the entertainment juggernaut it is today. WE are the ones that made World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Halo, etc into household names. And the publishers? They know it. They know we are the ones who made their careers, that the consumer is the job creator of the market, that without us they have no jobs. When the time comes, will publishers side with the gamers that made their careers, or with the "journalists" that insult their own consumer base?

Right now as of this writing, Gamergate continues, and I predict a victory for the gaming community. But what I think should come out of this is the following:

Shit like this needs to end. We want gaming journalism to be impartial to all audiences, to be dedicated to truth based on evidence. We want a gaming journalism that reports based on facts, not on what would earn the website revenue based on how many people read their articles. We want gaming news to be titled based on what the subject is, not on what would lure more people to click the article.

We want "journalists" to face consequences for their actions. When a "journalist" compares us gamers to ISIS (the Islamic State, currently one of the most infamous terrorist groups in the world) we want that person to be disciplined, hopefully even fired. We want gaming journalists to owe up to their sources, we want them to cite, we want them to tell the truth.

We want journalists to be impartial when they report the news. We're tired of journalists that defend Anita Sarkeesian and use her word as gospel; we want journalists to question her. We want journalists to ask her what she did with the 150K dollars we donated to her for a 12 part video series that was promised to be delivered by December 2012, of which she has, as of this writing, released only 5 videos, and which has been accused of NOT reflecting a dime of the money she had been given. We want answers to these accusations: that she stole Let's Play footage, that she stole artwork, that her some of her harassment has been staged. We want journalists willing to confront the wrath of any special interests groups in order to find the truth.

What else can I say? There have been hundreds of words spoken about Gamergate, and all of these voices have said whatever needed to be said better than I could. I guess I leave you what I can only call required reading and viewing:

http://themalesofgames.blogspot.com/2014/09/gamergate-and-notyourshield.html

http://themalesofgames.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-zoe-quinn-story.html
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp