GamerGate-Gate
I tried to write this article three times.
Every time I tried, I would just stop writing and get insanely depressed.
Because #GamerGate is the movement with a thousand faces. So many labels have been thrown at it, and there is so much malice and mud being thrown around, it’s almost impossible to say what it’s actually about.
Because saying “Actually, it’s about ethics in journalism” is really not enough to create any change.
I swear to all of you: I am a lifelong gamer, and I have no hate towards anyone in GamerGate who truly believes they are doing the right thing. If you are not harassing anyone, and actually believe that games journalism is an important issue, I am not attacking you personally. Despite the many articles condemning GamerGate, I know there are some good people within the movement.
I see a lot of people in there who are passionate, who love videogames, and who just want the medium to grow into something wonderful. Discussing the ethics of Patreon donations, of relationships between journalists and developers, is awesome. It’s a conversation that is happening right now within the offices of every gaming website out there, as evidenced by the many pieces being published about it.
What I am doing is criticizing “GamerGate the movement”. I am going against it’s core ideas and mission statement. But every time I’ve tried to have a discussion about it online, I am instantly shouted down by five burner accounts. Some of these people believe that maybe they are doing some good. That this cause is their hill to die on.
I wish I could come along with you on that ride, but I’ve been following this whole thing since the beginning, and I cannot support GamerGate in good conscience. Again, I am not attacking the people, I honestly think that gamers are almost all great individuals, and we deserve a medium that entertains and enriches our lives.
But GamerGate, as a movement, was built on a foundation of lies, with four walls of baseless conspiracy theories, and is trying to be sold to you as something that will change your life by people who don’t give a damn about you.
I’m sorry you had to hear it like that. But I really can’t think of a better way to describe it. It’s not worth your time, believe me. Consider this article an earnest plea to my fellow gamers. To anyone who supports the movement: read this, and think about the message you are sending to the world.
I beg you, please either stop supporting this movement, or find a way to turn it into something positive and meaningful.
There are quite a few things to cover:
The Corruption that sparked GamerGate never happened.
Everyone is guilty until proven guilty of something else.
GamerGate’s primary tactics are intimidation and fear.
There is no leader, no message, no order.
The whole movement is politically motivated.
Journalism has changed.
A plea to GamerGate.
Let’s start with the origins of GamerGate. Right at the start, we hit the first huge problem with the whole movement.
The “corruption” that sparked GamerGate never happened.
The GamerGate hashtag was started by actor Adam Baldwin (because when I think of ethics in games journalism, I think of Jane from Firefly).
Damn your sexist yet sexy goatee, Adam Baldwin!
The movement actually started as #thequinnspiracy, named after Zoe Quinn, developer of Depression Quest. To make a very long story short, an ex-boyfriend named Eron Gjoni posted a massive, multi-part blog about their relationship woes, which blew up online. Whatever your personal feelings on the blog post are not important: The fact is that it’s only one side of a very complicated story. I don’t know any of these people personally and I’m not going to pretend to know their business. As far as I know, this is one guy who made a break-up story into an essay long adventure, where most of us would just listen to some Disturbed and maybe eat an entire box of coffee crisp bars.
If that’s where the story ended, nobody would have cared. This wasn’t like catching Obama having an orgy with Christina Hendricks and giving her the secret code to his private cloning lab, this was two people on the internet airing their dirty laundry.
What made the internet care was that Gjoni implied that she slept with journalists, developers, and anyone in the industry to get positive press and/or reviews. That shred of evidence was all that was needed for some to then harass, post personal information of her online, spread around nude photos of her, send threatening phone calls to her family, and drive her from her home.
A lot of this was done in #thequinnspiracy hashtag and in the early days of GamerGate, but Quinn & Grayson are still mentioned in the movement from time to time. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell who’s doing what on the internet, but this association has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many people.
Justice has been served, right?
Except no, it wasn’t. The journalist that Quinn allegedly slept with, Nathan Grayson, published two articles about Quinn, and only one of them was about Depression Quest. It was not a review, it was a round-up of indie games that just happened to include Depression Quest. The other article was about a failed televised game jam that was already making the rounds on the internet. So, in Kotaku’s case, it would have been irresponsible to stay silent, and when they researched the article they had to at least talk to Zoe Quinn.
Kotaku took the allegation of corruption so seriously that it was investigated by the Editor-in-Chief himself, Stephen Totilo. Even Eron himself debunked the corruption, saying that the timeline of their relationship was wrong, and merely a typo.
As for whether or not Grayson & Quinn were in a relationship at the time, well, the only people who can prove it are Grayson & Quinn. This is where we start wading into murky waters, and it becomes hard to define when a line has been crossed. Is this person a friend? Or a well-liked source?
Again, none of us know the true relationship. There is no evidence. We may never know.
But it was too late, #thequinnspiracy engulfed the internet. Why? Well, who doesn’t love a story filled with sex, scandal, and a chance to pile more hate onto a woman who was already getting shit from her work? There were some conspiracy theories out there that said Quinn was the pawn of a feminist cabal, and she had the entire industry under her control using her magic feminine whiles.
Which is crazy. We all know that the only person on this planet with that kind of power is Ryan Gosling while he’s wearing a sexy Mario costume.
No, I don’t have a picture for that, you perverts.
Anyways, then Adam Baldwin swoops in from nowhere, and suggests the hashtag #GamerGate, which is where we are now.
Seriously, can anybody explain why Adam Baldwin of all people cares about this? That’s still the part that’s messing me up.
The articles sprung from a shady arrangement at best, but it was hardly the massive conspiracy it was made out to be. The association with #thequinnspiracy as well as Adam Baldwin coloured the whole movement. It’s being seen as a continuation of the harassment and trolling from that post, and beyond saying “I don’t condone the harassment,” there hasn’t been a lot done to move away from it’s origins.
But, ok, it started on shaky unethical grounds, and while the initial claims were false, what if it rises to become something great? See, that didn’t end up happening either.
Everyone is guilty until proven guilty of something else.
Eventually, the movement started to get traction, and GamerGate people were asking reasonable questions about the media they consume.
Except, that never happened, or if it did, it was drowned out by a sea of blind accusations that would make Bill O’Reilly shake his head in disgust.
GamerGate swung between accusing the victims of harassment for making it up, shaming them for speaking up, or just trying to steer the conversation away from what they didn’t want to hear. The movement was making people feel terrible about getting very personal death and rape threats. That’s the kind of thing that makes Satan shuffle his papers awkwardly and say “Wow, I don’t even have a form for that. What circle of hell do you belong in?”
Answer, the same place they put murderers, evil masterminds and that person who doesn’t cover their mouth with their sleeve when they cough.
The people wanted to know: Why had the victims not filed a police report? Why are you lying about donating money to charity? Where is the evidence you are being harassed? The burden of proof was on the victim, not the accuser. Which doesn’t even work that well in a court of law.
Turns out GamerGate was wrong about that too. The FBI is taking the threats to the safety of Zoe Quinn & Anita Sarkeesian very seriously. Police reports have been filed. Quinn was accused of lying about donating to iFred, until she literally posted a receipt of her donation online, which was confirmed.
And, of course, no apologies have been made by GamerGate for slinging so much mud they could build homes from it Minecraft-style. The movement can keep blindly accusing these people, even if you have no evidence at all, and if you’re called out on it or proven wrong? Hey, you’re just practicing free speech, and therefore all guilt for engaging in a witch hunt based on the terrible journalism you are fighting against is absolved, right?
I’m being a bit of a jerk, but in all honesty, nothing is created in a vacuum. Everything is subjected to the culture that surrounds it, and while one or two people in a quiet debate hall might have been able to ask these questions, thousands upon thousands of twitter accounts & emails constantly throwing these questions at you wears on your soul. These create an environment where these accusations are ok, and without any due process on the people who made these judgments, all we have left is a thousand people screaming the same question at one person. That person is most likely a female game developer, or a feminist writer, or some other type of creative person. None of whom work in public relations. I’m not sure why we expect them to be perfect PR people, but that’s a story for another day.
Side note: “Free speech” exists to protect you if you speak out against your government. Not to call everybody who doesn’t agree with you a “sheep” or an “social justice warrior” or a “Men’s Rights Activist” or whatever other label you use to remove a person’s identity.
Side-side note: If you feel the need to say “I don’t condone the harassment but-” stop. As yourself something: If you were going through the same thing, and someone said that to you, would you feel better? Would you feel like engaging in a philosophical debate on the topic that has lead to you getting constant threats to your safety? What would you actually want someone to say to you?
Speaking of mud-slinging, let’s talk about GamerGate’s major “victories.”
GamerGate’s primary tactics are intimidation and fear.
I’m not talking about the harassment, which is going to be a whole section unto itself. I’m talking about getting Intel to pull support from Garmasutra. I’m talking about “Operation Disrespectful Nod.”
As far as we know from statements from Intel and Gamasutra, Intel pulled their ads because of GamerGate. This isn’t just “a few trolls”, this is a barrage of complaints large enough to make Intel sit up from their hot tub of solid gold and take notice.
This wasn’t because Gamasutra talked down about an advertiser, or they published a badly photoshopped picture of Gabe Newell kicking a puppy. This was because one opinion piece was misunderstood by some customers. Not a race, not a sex, not a major political movement, just a group of people who feel strongly about a piece of entertainment.
That’s censorship. Sure, it’s dressed up to look like a tech giant losing faith in a website, but it’s punishing a bunch of hard-working writers and editors for one opinion article by one person, even though Gamasutra published a counter-piece by another writer on the same day.
Then there’s Adobe who pulled support from Gawker Media (the parent company of Kotaku) because GamerGate convinced the company that Kotaku was “bullying” people. For printing op-ed articles. Thankfully, they reversed their decision when they saw that GamerGate was a bigger bully than Johnny from The Karate Kid.
Call him a misandrist SJW, Johnny!
For those of you not keeping up: That is censorship. That’s forcing someone to stop talking by threatening to take away their livelihood. That does not prove your point, that just proves that you’re willing to kick, scream, and lie until you get your way. Leigh Alexander (the writer of that article) did not send death threats or do anything other than have an opinion. Granted, it was a very angry opinion filled with a lot of cynicism, but it was an opinion. An opinion with a point that seemed to have been lost on it’s intended audience.
It’s part of an active campaign called “Operation Disrespectful Nod,” where people of GamerGate plan out ways to attack publications by attacking advertisers. There was no due process here, no justice. Just one side forcing their opinion on someone else. Literally forcing. Not just speaking their mind, like every other publication is doing. And GamerGate is congratulating themselves for this. Congratulating themselves for doing the very thing they are actively fighting against. Censorship, spinning the narrative, and putting politics before all else.
You might say that I’m not being fair. That I’m just picking the bad parts of the movement, and I’m condemning everyone for a few bad apples. I just don’t understand the core message of GamerGate, right?
Here’s the biggest problem of GamerGate: There is no message.
There is no leader, no message, no order.
Every single GamerGate advocate has a different list of demands that will change depending on what direction the wind is blowing that day. All of these demands are vague as hell, but alright, you want more transparency in games media, you’ve got it.
Polygon updated their ethics page. Kotaku actively investigated accusations of corruption. The Escapist practically re-wrote their entire ethics policy. This doesn’t seem to be enough though.
Just saying “it’s about ethics” is great, but not so great when you don’t have a solution, or any solid rational to base your movement on. Do you want a private review board to look into corruption in an entertainment medium? Ok, who’s going to pay for it? Who will staff it? How will they keep themselves in check? What will constitute a breach in ethics?
Some GamerGate people are calling this a consumer revolt. They don’t need a unifying message, it’s the media’s job to figure out what’s wrong. But without a unifying message, without a list of demands, your message can be twisted and abused to say whatever it is people want you to say. It can be twisted to mean anything, like say a headline in the New York Times. Or an interview on MSNBC claiming it’s about misogyny.
If you don’t control the message, the message is controlled by everyone else. By having no leaders, no demands, nothing other than first-year philosophy arguments, you have nothing that can actually sustain a movement.
There is no solid ground for GamerGate to stand on. I’ve seen a lot of the infographs, I’ve read a lot of articles, and none of them come close to a solid reason or a win condition. Some GamerGate people point to the “feminist agenda” that the media seems to push, others point to articles that were clearly written about friends, nobody can agree on anything. There are a lot of emotions, but no truth. No organization.
There is no way to tell who is harassing people, who is just trolling, and who has a legitimate point. Every time you try to point this out, it’s just one deflection after another. “Oh, that’s just a minority, those people don’t represent us.” Do you realize that almost anybody can say that, and instantly be absolved of their sins? That there’s no way to prove anything you are saying? Every time someone tries to get closer to the “truth” of the movement, it seems to sink further into the shadows.
Without order, without leaders, without anything solid, the whole thing is painted as an attack on feminism in gaming masquerading as a revolt on unethical journalism. You don’t like how the message is being twisted? That’s because you do not have a message.
I’m sorry that you had to hear that. There’s no nicer way of saying it. There is no message. There is nobody who can explain it that isn’t a self-described “neutral party.” GamerGate is getting better at reporting the accounts that harass others, but that’s really just putting a band-aid on a sword wound.
There have been a few charities that are supported by GamerGate, the only one of which I could find is this one (https://grapplingwiththought.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/charity1.png) and this one (https://www.crowdrise.com/nshgamers/fundraiser/loping), both started by the same person. This is awesome. But from what I see on the hashtag and from many of the detractors, this is less “hey let’s all get together and do this amazing thing” and more “hey see we aren’t all bad people, look we donated to charity! See? See? That proves we’re all super nice people! Now let me tell you about ethics in games journalism.” Without apologizing for the many things that occurred before, it’s seen as disingenuous.
Donating to charity doesn’t magically make all the bad things you’ve done in your life go away. If you are legitimately donating to a charity to help and not because it will make you look good, then great! Keep doing it. It’s a good start to maybe going somewhere positive with all this, but don’t expect it to excuse all the bad press or all the people who’ve been forced from their homes.
Basically, mention it, but don’t use it as a shield. That’s just some free advice from me to you. Back to my main point.
Since GamerGate has no organization, they claim that they have no leaders. They do have some notable people, and they are the closest thing we can get to a “core” of the movement.
Which brings me to my next point.
The whole movement is politically motivated.
Yea man! Keep your politics out of my video games! I just want to stare at Laura Croft’s sexy ankles in peace! Stop pushing your agenda on me!
Seriously, damn fine ankles lady.
But it’s too late. GamerGate is so politically motivated it should start taking on campaign funds to be president.
Like I said before, Adam Baldwin started the GamerGate hashtag. Who is Adam Baldwin, apart from that super serious FBI guy from Chuck?
Well, he’s a right winged conspiracy theorist who is, by his own admission, “has done a little bit of gaming.” He has become involved in a few politically motivated movements online. To make a long story short, he is anything but a fair and balanced resource for equality or journalism.
You have to wonder what he gets out of all this. Like, why should he care about ethics in gaming? I honestly don’t know, all I know is that he was instrumental in pushing GamerGate into action. A movement that was all to happy to target websites that happened supported left-wing and feminist ideals.
Then there’s Milo Yiannopoulos, the neutral reporter for GamerGate, as he calls himself. He is a writer for BrietBart, a conservative right winged website that regularly posts conspiracy theories. He’s said quite a few negative remarks towards feminism, transgendered folk, and he’s even said some hateful things about gamers. Of course, nobody is talking about that, and I’m really not sure why. What does he get out of all of this?
Almost every single figurehead for GamerGate (that is, people who are strictly on the “pro-GamerGate” side) has at least one or two things that put them strictly on the conservative end of the political spectrum. An end that is very much anti-feminist. Or in Milo’s case, against third-wave feminism.
Do you know who nobody is targeting? IGN, or Gamespot, or one of the many other publications who have actually had real corruption scandals in the past. Who are their main targets?
Kotaku, GamaSutra, Polygon, AKA a bunch of freelance writers who usually write about equal rights & representation in games. Which, as the statistics prove, is not as much as people think.
Also, a lot of GamerGaters use the hashtag #notyourshield to show that minorities support GamerGate. Which doesn’t really prove anything, it’s like saying “hey, I can shout the N word in the middle of the street because here’s my black friend! Look at him, being all African and urban! It’s totally cool my n******.”
Minority representation only matters enough so they can all prove they are not racist. Then it’s thrown to the wayside (warning, previous link leads to a 4chan thread archive. There’s a lot of nasty stuff there, you’ve been warned.)
Side Note: Two huge Youtube personalities, TotalBiscuit & Boogie2988 (John Bain & Steven Williams , in that order) have entered this fiasco, claiming themselves to be neutral. TotalBiscuit is trying to have an honest discussion about ethics in games journalism, which I commend. Both are consumer advocates, and I respect their work, but I don’t agree with a few of their points and questions. But their actions really indicate they are neutral, so I’m going to stick with that for now.
Anyways, back to my point about the pro-GG activists.
GamerGate will take on anyone who kind of agrees with them, regardless of their potential bias. There is even a YouTube personality whose intro to his GamerGate videos is a goddamn Conspiracy Theory rip off with a very terrible Jesse Ventura impression screaming “SEX FOR FAVORS” into your ear piece. These are not just fringe members, they are the closest thing GamerGate has to representatives (if we aren’t counting Totalbiscuit). They say people judge you by the friends you keep. You guys keep some very, very weird friends. All of whom seem to fall on the right side of the political spectrum, and all of whom have a very vested interest in seeing pro-feminist and politically left writers thrown into a proverbial fire.
All of whom became internet famous after pushing GamerGate.
Ain’t that something?
Gee, it’s almost like these people happened upon something that sounded like a feminist conspiracy, and push it because they know gamers are a passionate, reactionary people who will swarm anyone who talks down about their medium. Sources: Jack Thompson, Roger Ebert, anybody who has ever gone against gaming ever.
Please tell me some of this seems fishy to any of you. Please, please PLEASE tell me some of this is getting through to you, that these people are, at the very least, steering this whole thing in a direction you don’t want to go in. I don’t know their motives, but these are not the people who should be representing your movement if you want it to remain objective.
I’m not sure what’s going on with them, but it looks bad. And in the apex of the internet age, perception is reality.
I’m not arguing against bias. Everybody is biased in some way. Hell, be skeptical of what I’m telling you! Full disclosure: I’m a human rights and mental health advocate who is strictly left winged. What I’m saying is be extremely critical of everything you are reading, especially when the movement’s origins have a vested interest in a specific topic.
But it’s about the ethics, you say. Look at that email group thing! That proves that journalists talk with each other, and they might even have secret black lists! These people are way too friendly with one another, that’s why there were a bunch of articles being published about how “gamers were dead” at the same time!
Yea, here’s the thing about journalism…
Journalism has changed.
Not just gaming journalism, but the entire profession has changed drastically. The internet brought us all together, but it also keeps us apart. Journalists follow each other on twitter, they conduct interviews over skype, they have drinks with PR people on a regular basis.
There is no longer a boundary between the journalist and the news they report on. Maybe it existed before we posted our entire lives online for everyone to see, but not anymore.
My class is jokingly called the “Crecomm Mafia,” because we are everywhere and we almost always help each other out with getting jobs. All of the TV news anchors in my city meet for drinks on a regular basis, many of them talk about the right way to approach a story, and the ethics of journalism. Not just the whole “offer both sides of the story” thing, but things like “should we make the killer’s name public” and “what actually is newsworthy and what is just TMZ garbage?”
Journalists talk shop with each other all the time. That’s how we keep each other honest. That’s how everybody in every creative field keeps honest. As for jobs, the old saying holds true: It’s not what you know, but who you know.
This is not corruption. It’s how the world works now.
If you punch Peter Mansbridge in the nose while doing an interview with him, chances are you are never going to talk to anyone from CBC again. Actually, you probably won’t talk to any journalist who talks to journalists from CBC, and you should probably just change your name and move to Alaska at that point. Why? Because word travels fast, especially in the media.
This is not corruption. It’s how the world works now.
We all have our own opinions. We are all people capable of making our own decisions. The big devil GamerGate keeps pointing at is Ben Kutchera. For some reason, he’s not free to have opinions or to suggest things to his peers. In the emails that were released by Brietbart, Ben is not threatening anyone with anything. He’s not putting a gun to anyone’s head. Journalists ultimately make their own decisions. The Escapist decided not to heed his advice, and published several articles about GamerGate, trying to keep them balanced. They failed, in my opinion, but that should prove to everyone that there is very little corruption going on among these writers.
This is not corruption. It’s how the world works now. Actually, it’s how the world has always worked.
The discussion between TotalBiscuit and Stephen Totilo, the editor-in-chief of Kotaku, is awesome, and it’s as close as we can come to a journalist explaining their work to consumers. I don’t agree with a few of TotalBiscuit’s concerns, as he sometimes misses the point of the ethics policy’s he’s quoting, but overall it’s awesome that there’s a calm conversation happening about this stuff.
Also, when you spend most of your time working in a niche field, especially when that field consists of a shockingly small number of writers(most of whom are freelance writers, meaning they barely make enough money for rent and maybe a grilled cheese sandwich), guess where you are going to make friends? That’s right, the industry you work in. That’s not corruption. Those people are sources. Sources are how a journalist is able to accurately report on their subjects. Again, it’s not something new or corrupt, it’s just how things work.
Many of these accusations are made by people who have never actually worked in Journalism, or who quote this guideline for journalists without realizing that those strict guidelines of ethics were meant to protect news reportage. Not a bunch of people writing about an entertainment medium. Without the context, you can twist almost anything you hear or read into whatever you want it to mean.
So what does this all mean? What am I trying to say with this massive article about an internet movement?
A plea to GamerGate.
This is where the journalist part of me takes a break. I’m coming to you now as someone who loves gaming as a whole.
To the people of GamerGate. To the people who don’t harass, who don’t “sea lion” people, who legitimately want to improve games media, I beg you, move away from GamerGate.
To understand a movement, you must look at their targets, and their victories. And so far, your targets are not the AAA developers who shill the same cut-content $100 DLC games to you, they are small indie developers and writers, all of whom barely control the websites they write for much less a giant feminist conspiracy. Your victories have been forcing advertisers to leave industry publications because you feel an opinion piece “attacked you.”
I wanted this movement to be something. I wanted this to be the final wake-up call, the thing that changed this medium for the better. I wanted gamers to call out sites that post a million things about Destiny, hyping it up beyond belief, until they quietly drop a review that says it’s not worth the hype they themselves created. I wanted us to go after the publications that have turned into corporate shills, that exist as machines that just spit out press releases and don’t inform you as a consumer. We should be going after the huge company parties, the free gifts, and the paid promotions.
Hell, forget journalism, you know what the real issues are? People who make video games for AAA companies are forced to work insane hours for little pay, and are unceremoniously fired after words. $60 games that spend more money on their ad budgets than their development budgets. Companies that force DRM on the software that you pay for, and restrict content that was on older versions of the game because of money reasons.
We face the possibility that maybe, just maybe, we need to rethink the entire business model for how we make and sell video games.
That’s just what I could come up with off the top of my head, and I haven’t even touched on the social justice issues that games are still struggling with. In 2014.
I look at GamerGate, and I see a bunch of good people being played. A bunch of passionate people who are being strung along by people that probably have worse things to say about you than the writers you hate so much.
Please, I’m begging all of you. This isn’t the way. You’ve been had. We as gamers are better than this. We are on the cusp of the most powerful entertainment medium in the world, and the world does not see a cry for ethics. They see MSNBC’s interview with Zoe Quinn being forced from her home. They see The New York Times interviewing Anita Sarkeesian about the abuse she’s received because of GamerGate. Even the Colbert Report is saying the same thing:
They are saying that it’s a harassment campaign against women because that’s exactly what it looks like.
Please gamers. This whole thing just makes me sad that we’ve sunk this low. If we do not change with the times, we will be left behind. It’s important to be critical of the media you consume. But before we do that, we need to be critical of ourselves.
We aren’t perfect. We have so many problems that we just ignore as a culture. But if we look at them, and really work hard, we can become stronger than any other subculture on this planet. And then we will truly be a medium that the world can be proud of.
