A lot of the pro Gamergate people aren't sending death threats and they will tell you they are well intentioned and wish to debate a serious issue. Is it true ?
Here is all you need to know, about the honest, well intentioned, non harassers members of the pro Gamergate movement:
1) Targets:
You will notice no one in Gamergate is going after EA, Valve, IGN or other large companies, just the opposite, they are all targeting minorities, indie gamers and people from youtube/ academia (Anita), So even the "good ones" at Gamergate are focusing on little fry while letting the big fish on corruption of the media act freely
2) Timing:
Even the Gamergate "normals" who aren't doxxing or harassing anyone personally are giving cover to the harassers, by picking this exact time to "wake up" about game industry coverage. Let's face it, it has been happening for years and waiting 6 months to discuss this would not be the end of the world. Why now ?
3) Allies:
Accepting help and linking to people from AEI (Sommers), which pays people to write articles denying global warning and Breitbart.com whose owner famously edited a video to make a person seem to be saying the opposite of what she said and then telling us they worry about Ethics in Journalism is like accepting help from the Ku Klux Klan to make your pro racial integration videos
TL;DR: People who say they are pro Gamergate have harassed and threatened people and caused real harm to women's lives, in the name of "Ethics in Journalism". This is an undeniable fact. So why are "good people" joining them ?
Details, cartoons and links below the spaghetti monster
The Gamergate story gets awfully confusing and as you delve into it feels like you are swimming in a sewer ? Never worry Kossack friend, here are the only things you need to know to judge their merits for yourself
1) Who are the Gamergate Targets ?:
- Not Journalists- Neither Zoe Quinn nor Anita Sarkeesian are journalists, a weird choice of targets for a movement worried about Journalism
- Indy Companies: Zoe Quinn is an Indie game developer, Anita Sarkesian is not part of a large media conglomerate. Rock, Paper.. the magazine who supposedly published one of Zoe Quinn's "slept with the reporter" pieces is a small independent web site. Kotaku is large but you will notice no one in Gamergate is going after EA, Valve, IGN or other large companies
- Minorities
So far the gamergate targets women and gives most men a pass. And all big companies get a pass.
Famous game reviewer TotalBiscuit was offered a free Alienware laptop to review a game, a "gift" of about $3,000. There are countless examples of this largesse but surprisingly not one of those has been targeted by pro Gamergate people
Anita Sarkesian is being crucified for saying videogames use the "damsel in distress" trope way too much. Yet Vanderbilt University's professor John Clayton has been telling students about the games "damsel in distress" trope for years on his online course Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative and no one has protested it. But John Clayton is a sweet older white male, whose love for video games is evident and Anita is complaining about the Gamersgate beloved videogames. And Vanderbilt is a big university while Anita is a single woman. Easy target, defnseless.
Defenseless ? Yes, defenseless. A pissed off indie gamer sent a death threat to Gabe Newel and Valve pulled off his game from Steam, destroying his career. Guess why no Gamergate paragon is accusing Steam or Valve of lack of ethics. Besides the fact Valve is probably innocent (but so was Zoe Quinn and that hasn't stopped them), Valve has means to defnd itself and punish the trolls who attack it. EA is famous for getting biased revies but they have an army of lawyers and guess what ? No Gamergate paragon has an issue with EA. Instead the Gamergate people blame, Zoe, Anita and other media outlets for somehow forcing AAA companies to "pussify" games. Because they don't have the guts to go after the company making the games or the big media outlets promoting the games then they blame the people they can harass with impunity. Yet the game developers themselves, Such as John Epler from Bioware claim nothing of the sort and are pissed off that Gamergate people are treating them as easily manipulate dolts.
Comic by Dick Jarvis @Pepperonideluxe - Read the whole thing
by Dick Jarvis @Pepperonideluxe.tumblr.com
2)Timing: Why now ?
The gaming press has been too chummy with developers for years and gaming fans have all but abandoned them as source of real intel about a game. Most gamers I know go for the play footage on Youtube or word of mouth, or game clips.
But there is a right time and a proper way to complain about those issues. The gaming industy isn't going anywhere and all legitimate critic that is being said now can be said in a few months and could have been said when it actually happened, like the laptop gift to Totalbiscuit mentioned above. Totalbiscuit never mentioned it before, but now he pulls it out to justify Gamersgate going after single women ?
When terrorists bombed London on 9/11 a lot of people here on Daily Kos were suspicious, myself included. I would not have put past the Bush junta to do something like that as their ratings were slipping. A lot of users wrote diaries and comments about how the attack was suspiciously convenient to Bush. I didn't. Those who wrote speculation pieces about the bombing, before the people in UK had had even time to bury their dead were banned from Dkos, rightfully so. Because that was absolutely the wrong moment to let your cynicism and rage at the Bush junta take over and write hurtful and callous screeds when people were dying and scared (well as much as brits get scared anyway, with their "keep calm and work" credo). There would be time to see real information and to verify things, after the "smoke on the ground cleared".
The same applies to Gamersgate. Bad gaming press is not a new problem and isn't likely to disappear. The only thing people accomplish by writing about it right now is to hurt and increase confusion, of people who are having their lives uprooted and are scared. And you are providing cover to the creeps who are hurting people. So think this is an issue that is too important to pass ? Where where you 3 months ago, why weren't you talking about it then ? If you didn't talk about it then, don't talk about it now. Shut up and condemn the creeps, and table the ethics discussion for another day when all this hysteria dies down and people can see facts clearly. If you truly are an ethical individual, this is what you must do. There will be plenty of time to discuss the ethics issue without hurting defenseless single women and indie gamers.
c) Who are the Gamergate main allies:
I don't really have to tell Kossacks how bad AEI is on the area of Ethics in Journalism. Suffice to say that Richard Perle, one of the Iraq War architects is nesting there after he got the boot from the Bush WH. And Judith Miller, of Plamegate and of NY Times "Iraq has WMD and is comming to get ya" series co-wrote a book with fellow Laurie Mylroie from AEI where she spun the tale that Saddam was the mastermind of all late 20th century and early 21st century terror. Oh and the charming fellas at AEI have also been funding Global Warming denial studies for decades
Another pro Gamergate powerhouse is Breitbart.com, a web site with absolutely no ethics as we've known since at least the Shirley Sherrod's incident where Andrew Breitbart edited a video to make it appear Sherrod said the opposite of what she actually said, and got caught.
Yet like people who really care about Ethics in Journalism ( NOT! ) the Gamerate people proudly comment on both sites and send links to Breitbart.com and Sommer's videos, published by AEI. Like I said, akin to hiring the Ku Klux Klan to produce your racial integration and equality videos.
d) Not about French Fries... and also not about Ethics
Gamergate is a poorly thought out movement that is giving coverage to real creeps that are harassing and sending death threats to people they don't like.
No matter who did what when or said what and who slept with who, this is not the time to side with the harassers. This is the time to condemn them.
And to use this moment to bring another issue to the table, any issue, no matter how righteous, is to provide cover and help the harassers.
If someone you know is worried about "Ethics in gaming journalism" then tell them that this is not the time to talk about it. The gaming industry and the press aren't going anywhere. To talk about ehtics in journaism right now is to give legitimacy to the people harassing women.
If someone you know must speak about Ethics in gaming journalism right now ask them why the hurry, if they think the gaming industry will disappear if they don't speak up.
If they do think is crucial to discuss this issue right now, then ask them why they don't go after the real culprits like the PR company who offered a game reviewer (TotalBiscuit) a free laptop.
Then finally, ask them to distance themselves from Breitbart.com and AEI
-- lawn