Gamergate

Post Reply New Topic

I'm having a bit of an argument with a friend on Facebook about Gamergate, since I made a post about how all evidence suggests it was never about ethics in video game journalism, and he gave a rebuttal about how it did change things, but when I asked for evidence he posted a link to two articles that are quite frankly pretty questionable and antagonistic instead of trying to create a whole picture, such as blaming other sites and such. I'm afraid I'll start posting flame war stuff to refute him, so I am wondering, does anyone know of any sites that are objective, focused on putting together the whole narrative of the thing, and not say writing off the death threats or calling everyone who disagree with them horrible names? Not because I care about video game subcultures and outlets on the internet, but because I want to know what happened for future generations to know and think "Wow, that really, just, is awful, on all sides", and then not think about it again, or have it happen again, or something. Also, the sites cannot be One Angry Gamer or Medium, already checked those, very biased.
By the way, as far as I can tell, the thing started as a bunch of reddit and twitter misogynists seizing on a blog post by a revenge-seeking ex, and soon it spread, with a small number of other persons thinking it would be an outlet for ethics, but did not.

I really don't understand what the big deal is. From what information I was told (because I couldn't bring myself to be interested in the subject at all), people are all surprised because they didn't know that videogame reviewers will exchange good reviews for money and/or sex, even if your game is awful. No duh?

Or am I misinformed?

It's the internet. Lots of people dont know much about basically anything.

I had pretty much the same reaction as you to it though, in that I just *really* didnt care. It was one of those things where it's not THAT big of a deal, certainly not worth freaking the heck out over.

I'm really glad that people seemed to have mostly stopped endlessly yammering about it on most sites.

It's not that it's not a big deal, it's just weird that ten years ago, the public reaction was "lol, meh, not surprised", and today the reaction is "OMG I AM OUTRAGED, VIDEOGAMES ARE OVER" or rape threats.

But yeah, nice to not see "Zoe" or "SJW" being spammed in the chat rooms as much anymore.

Gamergate began when that one woman journalist/author/gamer published her expose on sexism in gaming.

Sexism is quite prevalent in gaming be it on the development side (most women will have a hard time working in studios due to sexism) and in the consumer side (be it online and competitive gaming, etc... )

Then a massive blow back followed from male gamers, who view women gamers as filthy casuals ruining their industry aka those who made DS and Wii popular..

Then she countered them... Then those who are sick of over encroachment of feminism and entitled women entered the debate

Then it became so bad for her, the FBI and EU were brought into monitor the threats against here.

Then Dick Wolf ripped it off for an episode of L&O SVU, which created even more controversy though provided a big boost to NBC's ratings...