GamerGate: The Unnecessary Debate

[Note: This is mostly a commentary, not a review. If you want a review of GamerGate, you can read a pretty accurate version of it in the KnowYourMeme entry.]

For the last few days, the consumer gaming community has been on about what they call #GamerGate and #notyourshield.

I have composed a modern small play, in three Acts, of what happened, chronologically. I shall name it M’lady.

-[Act I]-

Gamers: LOL DEPRESSION QUEST SUCKS QUINN SLEPT WITH EVERYONE THOSE REVIEWS 
ARE SO FAKE

Game reviewers: um what *twiddles thumbs*

Quinn: Whoa SLUT-SHAMING MISOGYNY
[Quinn calls in tumblr social justice warriors]

[Enter SJW and Tumblr police, stage right]

SJW and Tumblr police: YES, MA'AM!
oh, it's ok they're all just m'ladying. teehee.

Gamers: EXCUSE ME

[Enter Journalists]

Journalists: Gamers aren't even a thing ...



-[Act II]-

[Single spotlight on Ben Quintero, sad, with Gamasutra over him]

Ben Quintero: why are journalists doing this :( 
i wish the community wasn't so harmful to itself.

Gamasutra: WHAT. DEMOTED

Ben Quintero: WHY DID I GET DEMOTED



-[Act III]-

Gamers: :( *Forms GamerGate Harassment Tumblr*

Gamers: #NOTYOURSHIELD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@!

And now I’ll explain my stance with a tone that’s a little less akin to a LiveJournal entry:

Basically, this is a situation where everyone - consumers, professionals, and internet personalities - handled everything with the least possible tact, except for Ben Quintero of Gamasutra.

Regardless of whether or not Depression Quest was a game worth its weight or not, the gaming community is well known to be an awfully critical lot unless it has to do with themselves. For reasons I don’t quite understand, the offensive gamers are both quick to be offended and quick to have a word choice that is offensive to others (see: faggot). It was no surprise a few of the more abrasive people took to disrespecting Quinn.

Regardless of whether or not those who belitted Depression Quest’s success were being misogynistic or not, they do not speak for the entire gaming community. That does not warrant a call for an entire host of people (the aptly named social justice warriors) as backup against a select few who aren’t known to have respect for anyone. This response is what skyrocketed this entire confrontation so quickly straight into the eyes of journalists. The journalists couldn’t have ignored it even if bees had stung them in their retinas.

What’s worse: The silence on the end of the high journalists after the accusations of biased reviews in favor of Depression Quest. As figures the consumers trusted (or likely had teetering trust for) and respected professionally, it is not their place to be silent. As Quintero puts it:

"The film and music industry is pretty widely known for having 
their dark days, and so why not gaming as well.  I don't think 
it was uncalled for to at least entertain the question and 
finally put it to bed.  Instead of calmly responding with a 
short but cleanly written open letter that explains their 
policies and practices, journalists either waited in silence 
until the resonance was too strong to avoid or they completely
exploded on the internet much in the same way of the people 
they were criticizing."

It was certainly not practical for the journalists to berate their audience. Insulting a moniker that represents a large demographic of people will undoubtedly end in hate. And to disregard the culturally diverse nature of the gamer is precisely where those who supposedly stood up against misogyny and bigotry went wrong: their words assumed all gamers are white, cisgendered, fedora-wearing basement-dweller men.

Cue in #GamerGate and #NotYourShield. I’m not entirely sure why the hashtags have those names. I don’t think I’m ever going to understand.

They have a tumblr, though, which is slightly ironic, seeing as the social justice warriors are usually summoned from there.

But the movement resulting from it was an uprising of women and minority gamers who, too, felt the need to fuel the flame. And this is another point in which I feel the need to quote Quintero:

"There are a lot of angry voices but each of them is screaming
 something different.  Some are upset about the radio silence,
 others are expressing their anxiety over the threat of 
 cronyism from a group of hungry writers who started out as 
 fanboy gamers themselves, and others are inexplicably trying 
 to destroy the lives of other people because they can."

The most mature response from the gamers would have been to leave the articles be and fight the social justice warriors as they came along. If an article (especially something with such a heavy presence of opinion) does not get a lot of attention, it is likely that it will not be run again or copied by another journal or magazine.

If representing minorities was truly an issue, a good method of addressing it would have been to create more communities that appreciate the presence of these supposedly underrepresented consumers.

Whatever the reason for the uproar and unrest, no party handled this in a situation that was at all progressive. In the end, Quinn gains popularity, social justice warriors and game journalists get a bad stain on their reputation, and people have lost or quit their jobs because of the #GamerGate movement. I suppose the only thing we see is that the gaming community is much more resilient. And that everyone is, more than anything, really bad at English.

Oh, and some statistics showing that the journalists did, indeed, ruin themselves (from twitter user @Int_Aristocrat):

The charts are true, I checked. Ever since the reliability of these gaming journalism websites began getting questioned in early August, they have been losing traffic.

I believe it to be only temporary, though.

– Andrew