When I first caught wind of this debate I was extremely confused. One site explained #GamerGate as a movement for women in the gaming industry to receive equitable treatment on a professional level. Another site explained #GamerGate as an onslaught of inappropriate, cruel and violent threats on women in the gaming industry. Other sites note the movement is one of change; one to see Indie/Self-Published games become another genre equally as popular as any first-person shooter or rpg that a gaming giant would release. Having read many of these articles I have come to this conclusion: #GamerGate is a movement of ethical and personal opinions that is fueled by the agendas of folks who want nothing good for anyone in this scenario. The fact that death threats have blossomed from what should have been a constructive discussion is very much disturbing.
As one who does not often comprehend the need for political debate it saddens me that something as amazing as video games are turning into the book debates of the early 20th Century; debates that lead to mass burning of literature and unneeded loss of life. I grew up on games from Nintendo to Windows. I have spent much of my life admiring the development and craft of games.Have there been times where I wished there was a female character I could play? Absolutely. Did I stop playing the game because there wasn’t? No. The only time I stopped playing games was when their violence disturbed me so much I had nightmares or when the game had so many strobe effects I had to stop (a history of seizures makes you pause when considering a gaming title).
I understand the passion associated with games. If someone came to me and said that Final Fantasy VII was made only for men I’d have a few words to toss their way but I would not threaten them with violence. The same defense would occur if someone told me that Skyrim had no artistic value. Yet, I would bear no ill-will towards that individual. Why? Well, it’s very simple: we are allowed to have opinions. Opinions help mold you into the person you want to be. They teach you when you are wrong or when you are right. They help you understand the value of morality and the fragility of ethos. It’s through opinions that laws are formed, that religions are evolved and that communities are formed. It is through opinions that we, as humans, connect.
Perhaps I am biased. Being an artist I am acclimated to constructive criticism. I am used to someone telling me why I am wrong and how to fix it. I accept that I am not perfect and I use that criticism to make me stronger. In the end, #GamerGate is a matter of respect and perspective. In the words of Yoda: “Fear is the path to the dark side – fear leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose“. Good luck out there Fan Girls and Fan Boys; never forget that what oppresses you in the short term will only make you stronger in the long run.
If you want games to be only about fun, then you have to side with the Gamergate movement. The other side is supposedly a group of spoiled mafiosos with mental illnesses that all they do every single day is spit bile and stick “odious labels” to everyone that doesn’t give them everything they want, while at the same time doing nothing to get it themselves except whining.
However, that is not exactly true. If you have read “Animal Farm”, you identify those as the rabid dogs used by the pigs to bully the other animals. The pigs in the book make changes to rig the farm so that every discourse is one of impending doom, inconditional loyalship to the leader as the only one able to prevent it, and the necessary destruction to anyone opposing it. Furthermore, “Animal Farm” is not a work of fiction, it’s a historic retale of what happens under a socialist regime, which is why the risk is real, and why “socialism” is such a bad word if you believe in freedom and equality. The most important quote to remember from this book is “All animals are equals, but some are more equals than others”.
If you look at the recent “gate” scandals from the outside, you know something smells incredibly wrong when Gaming and Technology journalism suddenly switched focus from games and technology to progressive politics (climate change, feminism, etc), and when someone buys 4chan specifically to silence GamerGate out of sudden, and when ALL progressive-controlled media, without exception, sides against it and uses lies and deception to discredit it. If you don’t act now to stop them, they’ll make it incredibly hard to stop it later, when things get really ugly.
Oh man, google alerts for GamerGate strike again! Wooboy.
I’m a woman who has worked in the game industry for ten years now. Even the most well-meaning Gamergaters I’ve spoken to usually have some serious misconceptions about how the gaming industry, journalism, and art criticism work. In other cases, they are striving to oppose the movement that seeks to add video games to the cultural pantheon of entertainment that is treated as art.
The world of art criticism is foreign to some, while others are absolutely opposed to the idea that games should be treated in the same way as other artistic media. Music, movies, tv, books, comics, and the visual arts are all critiqued according to personally cultivated taste, and their themes are analyzed by scholars and social scientists. As games become an increasingly powerful cultural force, the same thing will happen to them. Without a harassment campaign or government-level censorship, it would be literally impossible to stop it. Academics don’t stop studying something simply because consumers of that thing do not like the results of their studies.
Think of game journalism like food writing. Food critics, yelp reviews, nutritional information, and health board ratings all tell you very different things about a restaurant. If gamergate’s suggested rules applied to food writing, we’d have a world where food critics are abolished and Yelp reviews can only be posted if you talk about objectively measurable things like portion size and whether the food you were delivered matches the menu description. In the world of objective food reviews, most restaurants would be judged exclusively by their health code grades, nutritional information, and portion sizes. Personal tastes and opinions would be restricted to private conversations, and discussion of potential issues with sustainability or industrial waste would be verboten.
The idea that game site have “switched” to writing about politics is not borne out by any serious data analysis. The percentage of articles on game sites that directly address sexism, racism, or other social issues is minuscule. From Morgan Ramsay’s survey of full-text archives of various gaming sites:
“Of the 130,524 articles downloaded from 23 outlets in a 12-month period, only 0.41% of those articles referenced feminism, feminist, sexism, sexist, misogyny, and misogynist. Less than half of 1% of the articles published by professional video game journalists for major publications during a 12-month period brought up these more progressive subjects explicitly.”
https://storify.com/MorganRamsay/how-often-do-video-game-journalists-write-about-fe
Orwell says you’re wrong about Animal Farm, by the way. In his essay “Why I write,” he said:
“Every line of serious work I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism.”
That said, there may in fact be a dearth of conservative, right-wing games and technology media outlets. If the market is really underserved (and I believe that it is), gamergate could turn a huge profit by starting up just such a site. I might strongly disagree with the opinions on any such site, but I’d support its right to exist.
Thank you Leah. I couldn’t say it better myself.
And seriously, get the cliff notes on Animal Farm before making a claim that wrong.
You absolutely are being biased.
100%
No question.
Without a shadow of a doubt.
How do I know this? You are claiming that “Death Threats” are somehow related to GamerGate, and not simply a part of Internet Trolling.
It’s the internet. Everyone gets harassed, everyone sees meme’s they aren’t familiar with
( http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/navy-seal-copypasta )
and misconstrues them as a commonly held belief within an internet community.
Everyone gets crap flung their way. Assigning GamerGate, or indeed any community, as a cause of this, regardless of whether supporters of said communities have committed these acts, whether by ignorance or outright maliciousness, is disingenuous.
And since it’s apparently impossible for me to support GamerGate without stating these things;
I do not condone Harassment or threatening of any individuals, regardless of cause or justification.
I do in fact believe in the intellectual and human equality of women and non-binary sex/gender/whatever.
I am not a Conservative/Republican/Right wing affiliated person.
I am not a sock puppet, an “Uncle Tom”, a “House Nigger”, or a white supremacist.
Also these are just the things I’ve been called for being a GamerGate supporter *in the last month*. Just sayin.
As a supporter of #GamerGate who does not support any violent threats and harassment. We got more harassment and violent threats than the the media glorified “victims” it just goes mostly unreported. Our vilification is a media spin. If you don’t tow the line you hate women! If the “victims” stories are summed up we time travel and are everyone who ever did a bad thing on the internet.
And please we are all over the political spectrum we are not right or left wing. We are a consumer revolt against corrupt dishonest media outlets I’m former leftist who really turned centrist on this. I’m pro gay marriage, I think anti vax people are nuts , and pro civil rights and freedom of speech and expression.