The only Dev to leave Games due to harassment in #GamerGate

Jason Miller AKA J_millerworks is credited for creating the idea behind NotYourShield. He is the developer of UltraGamr for Windows and Android, as well as Polar Roller Nights for Android. He can also be found on Gratipay.

So a little background and I’m going to try to keep this succinct because I hate writing and assume you hate reading. I’m not the “ white shy bitter nerd” archetype they keep trying to push GamerGate as being consisted of. About a year ago I decided to try my hand at creating my own video games. I’ve worked with various companies before in certain non-developmental roles, promoted brands while working as a DJ, loved the gaming community, even built some Hall of Fame PC’s on 3dmark and wanted to experience the development process 1st hand with modern tools.

So I got some books, some applications and released a few apps on android and looked forward to developing a larger project for PC. I also ran a small promotional twitter for one of my games Polar Roller a noisy physics based infinite runner largely created for my niece who loves frozen and to have an app under 10 mb as required by Google. I also befriended some devs online.

One day I came home from my real job, sat down eager to post some updates, screenshots, and work when I saw an article another dev had posted. “Gamers are Dead”. That’s when everything changed.

It’s too far back to find it but I remember exactly saying “If that is her view of the gaming community and hates gamers that much she should leave”. That article is frankly insulting to me no matter what group of people you are writing about. I wasn’t catering to “gamers” by her definition but I certainly don’t feel the need to trash people over that. “gamers” being an idea entirely created and perpetuated by marketing and media. Developers and media personalities on Twitter became a large trove of other insulting, unprofessional and unethical behavior and by opposing that I became a member of the controversy known as #GamerGate.

I also created a hashtag for the minorities that supported GamerGate #notyourshield because people were racist as fuck and still are racist as fuck towards us. Yes I believe you can be racist towards white people, ESPECIALLY if you’re being racist to minorities under the ASSUMPTION they are white. I try not to complicate things and treat people how I’d like to be treated.

I came out and made youtube videos because of the media spin on it and that’s when the trouble started. Harassing phone calls, threats, my job getting called, getting fired, being hacked, false suicide reports taken out on me, swatting attempts(btw my brother in law if a cop and lives close), outright libel and slander being spread by other game devs.

Very few in the media took interest in what was happening, Breitbart, Reason Magazine, Pocket Full of Liberty and next week the sarkeesian effect. But they’d even go as far as having OTHER anti-gamergate writers write about my methodology. Even Wikipedia seems to be on this tip.

Everything that happened to me and the way it was treated was evidence why gamergate is necessary. You are very corrupt, you are protecting a false narrative and you know it. I’M the most harassed person in GamerGate and what do you think the odds are someone would write the following stories?

“Vigilante Violence Hurts Struggle for Justice”

“Was This The Dream? Remembering MLKs Legacy”

“The Dangers of Social Justice Revealed”

“When the Punishment Is Greater Than the Crime: A Look At Retaliation Against dissenters of feminist narratives”

“Has The Highroad Been Abandoned?”

Now at the beginning, I was trying to be a good person, both online and in my life. I tried to reach out only to be censored, I wanted to broker some meaningful discussion to keep this community together but there is no way.

I can’t pretend to care about journalism ethics anymore, I can’t ask you for something you don’t have. To see the unseeable, reach the unreachable, you don’t have one good bone in your body. Just hypocrisy. You traded all of that away to be part of the collective. That’s where we will always disagree to me the smallest and most important minority is the individual. The one good thing about myself is you always know where you stand with me and right now, it’s not a good place. I want you to hurt. I will allow you to be hurt the same way myself and others were hurt. I remember each and every one of them you mocked, intimidated, turned away from when they needed help, some of you doxxed yourselves, and I take each one as personally as myself. You will know them by my deeds and actions. I know there’s people out there that want to hurt you and I will put every effort I put into helping you at the beginning at stopping those that would help you now. We both know you’d just lie about them if they did stick their necks out like the gamergate harassment patrol people that didn’t even get a single thanks. We know if it were a gamergate supporter like myself about to freeze in a midwestern winter you’d laugh.

It makes no difference, what you say about me because I’m leaving games. Not buying them, definitely pirating them and helping people with that, not making them. The world is such a big and beautiful place I’d like to see much more of it before I go. I’d encourage others to do the same. It’s a shame so few of you have seen enough of it to realize despite our differences we are all the human race. But so called proponents of “social justice and feminism” fall into tribalism that more resembles gangs that haven’t seen the outside of the city in their lifespans.

I consider myself more of a “gaming anarchist” now. Not fully active because I respect the people in GamerGate that still care enough to try to reform you. For me it’d take nothing short of a week in Akihabara or a position at Nintendo, Platinum, or Valve itself to care about games again. I honestly haven’t even cared about CES usually when I plan what I’m buying that year. The best game I’ve been playing is “hunt down and ruin the bastards dumb enough to fuck with me today”. It’s rather addicting I can see why people do it. I’m sorry I can’t play victim, that’s just not how I’m cut, people would like me to, I was asked to write this article to but it’s sincerely not in me. You get hit you hit back. Hopefully I hit enough people hard enough they start getting curious whats really going on.

So congratulations, that’s one gamer you killed. Great job. My best advice is to get right with the people that still care about you and see if you can salvage something out of this affair.

I’ve worked with them, seen them, tested them, fought them and I don’t think all of them put together are as cruel as what’s coming.