The return of Gamergate is smaller and sadder
The return of Gamergate is smaller and sadder
This time, though, developers are speaking out.
Evidently on a posting tear today. What happens when you're stuck in a Dr.'s waiting room, I guess...
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It certainly is more mask off this time around. They aren't trying to hide behind euphemistic slogans like "ethics in game journalism". Now they are just blatantly open about their anger that women and minorities are being represented in games and how that's a bad thing.
There certainly was some actual "ethics in video game journalism" discussion early on that I felt was legitimate, but that got drowned out pretty quickly by the misogynists (which, from what I gather, was the entire point - it seems the misogynists started the whole thing and used the "ethics in game journalism" thing as a front to try to legitimise their agenda).
I think the discussion about the personal relationships game journalists have with developers in general was a reasonable one to have. It unfortunately ended up just laser focusing on Zoe Quinn supposedly trading sex for good reviews, which was untrue, sexist and resulted in nasty personal attacks. But I think it was worth at least examining the fact that game journalists and game developers often have close relationships and move in the same circles, and that game journalism can often be a stepping stone to game development. Those are absolutely things that could influence someone's reviews or articles, consciously or subconsciously.
And another conversation worth having was the fact that gaming outlets like IGN were/are funded by adverts from gaming companies. It makes sense, of course - the Venn diagram of IGN's (or other gaming outlets') readers and gaming companies' target audience is almost a perfect circle, which makes the ad space valuable to the gaming companies. And because it's valuable to gaming companies, it's better for the outlets to sell the ad space to them for more money than to sell it to generic advertising platforms. But it does mean it seems valid to ask whether the outlets giving bad reviews or writing critical articles might cause their advertisers to pull out, and therefore they might avoid being too critical.
Now I don't think the games industry is corrupt or running on cronyism, personally. And I certainly don't believe it's all run by a shadowy cabal of woke libruls who are trying to force black people, women (and worse, gasp black women shudder) into games. But I do feel it was worth asking about the relationships between journalists, developers, publishers and review outlets - and honestly, those are the kinds of things that both game journalists and people who read game journalism should constantly be re-evaluating. It's always good to be aware of potential biases and influences.
The fact that the whole thing almost immediately got twisted into misogyny, death threats and a general hate campaign was both disappointing and horrifying. And the fact that it led to the alt-right, and that you can trace a line from it to Brexit and to Donald Trump becoming US president, is even worse.
There were a lot of valid conversations to be had about journalistic integrity. Which made it all the more damning that Gamergate never once had any of these conversations, ever.
It's nice to see someone acknowledge that it started it as an actual, important conversation about the shady monetary influence that game publishers have on gaming news sites. That's what made the hijacking and eventual media branding of Gamergate even worse, because the media bought into their narrative that there were the same conversations, by the same people, and everyone sort of threw the baby out with the 4-chan-brigaded bathwater.
If you look up histories of Gamergate now, sites like Vox actually talk how it began on 4-chan and later 8-chan as a troll campaign, but no one ever really talks about what it was they were hijacking.
I think a lot of those conversations, like publishers' power over reviews via withholding review copies (as perhaps most famously, Bethesda did to Kotaku), and what it meant as a reader to trust the sites that hadn't been blacklisted, got totally forgotten after the dust had settled.
It also says a lot about our mass media, and it's willingness to elevate and legitimize troll campaigns for the clicks.
The fact that the whole thing almost immediately got twisted into misogyny, death threats and a general hate campaign
It was their hate campaign you joined, not your movement they derailed. I know you mention that in your first paragraph but you should be consistent.
As far as I remember, the name was coopted after the fact so the original intent was there
You’re right, it started as a harassment campaign and they used ethics in games journalism as a recruitment tactic. Most of the people roped in were (at least initially) useful idiots
Not really. It was initially called the Quinnspiracy, after Zoe Quinn, author of Depression Quest, an e-choose-your-own-adventure-book that got some coverage in videogame journals.
Shit blew up when her ex made massive accusations about sleeping with the journalists in question. Then some actor coined the term Gamergate, and their targets expanded to then-journalist Anita Sarkeesian (I think she works more as a DEI advisor now) and indie game developer Brianna Wu.
Make no mistake, the games journalism industry was not spotless, far from it. But the rampant misogyny in Gamergate cannot be ignored.
I mean, the subreddit was originally called KotakuInAction, because it was specifically highlighting perceived nepotism and ragebait at Kotaku.
Here's the thing though, KIA was only created after the banwaves and mass-deletions that happened across all social media (even 4chan). KiA was created long after everything started kicking off.
Could be, I guess. I found the whole mess through SubredditDrama, which was already a bit of a cesspool of its own. To me it initially just looked like part of the whole back and forth between a lot of the notable players and subs that tended to make a sport of fighting one another. Then it was suddenly this whole other thing.
video game journalism never really had integrity and it's gonna be a long time until we can take an honest look at it because of gamergate
I don't see why we can't take a look at it now. No one cares about GG anymore, and IGN has practically become the punching bag of the industry for their... interesting choices
Everyone has their own view of a movement, my introduction to gamersgate was through total biscuit and it was about ethics in gaming journalism but it then got derailed by a bunch of idiots and the people wanting more factual journalism and fewer paid reviews left because they didnt want to be associated with what gg had become.