So Gamergate is still going. However I’ve noticed an interesting argument being used again and again by those staunchly opposed to it.

“Is it worth it? Worth all the damage?”

It seems like such a simple question very much akin to asking if the ends justify the means. The problem is in this case while Gamergate isn’t perfect, it’s not been the one to cause most of the damage. Most of the damage comes from poor media reporting, pushing of narratives and spreading round ignorance. The media is doing the damgae itself. and as such people are saying “If you hadn’t opposed the journalist no damage would have been done so you’re to blame”.

Who has been the one saying gaming is full of just Straight White Men ? It’s not those in #Gamergate, heck in Gamergate many women and people of colour formed an additional hastag #Notyourshield. The idea behind that was simple to say that the media cannot defend its vile stereotyping actions by claiming they represented “minorities”, or that this was somehow for some greater good.

What the media managed to do was tell people they’re not welcome by making false allegations and listening to those whose only interest was pity funding and profiting out of this. Now many in the media will defend their reporting as public interest. Ok fair enough but maybe the public would be interested to actually learn about what people in Gamergate are fighting for in this consumer revolt turned culture war.

The simple answer is freedom. The freedom for a growing medium to tell stories. The freedom for artists to tell the stories they want. Stories such as those we take for granted in other media.

How fair is it to deny a storyteller access to all the tools because he has chosen a newer medium ?

This is the big problem people keep saying how video games need to grow up. That’s not the problem. The problem is people need to let video games grow up.

Video games are no longer simply a child’s toy they are a medium in their own right. A medium that just overtook film as the most popular form of entertainment.

When people ask

“Is it worth it? Worth all the damage?”

What appears to be their motive is the mistaken belief that #Gamergate doesn't support diversity in games.

Now no one person can speak for everyone but I’d say confidently that most of gamergates supports have no issue with diversity. What they have an issue with is diversity for diversities sake and simply using tokenism to mask underlying issues such as poor writing the idea of

“You can’t criticise that character, they’re female”

As if that somehow defends poor writing. I myself recently traded in a copy of the video game WET which I’d finished. I still own copies of Mirrors Edge, Beyond Good and Evil, Primal, Infamous first light and the new Tombraider game. It doesn't bother me that the protagonist doesn't look just like me heck in video games you can end up playing aliens from other planets. If people really only cared about having a character look just like them then ask yourself this. Why on earth is World of Warcraft so popular ?

I doubt many people in the world look like this.

Diversity in games is a good thing and was becoming more common. The problem is certain people chose to start objecting the characters for seemingly arbitrary reasons.

Publishers got scared of being attacked because they didn't make some super perfect female Avatar but made a real character with depth and some people didn't like the depth.

Hell I bet the same people criticising female characters would even take objection to Loadout’s Helga.

The price is not diversity vanishing from games or being stomped out.

How on Earth would a push for better ethics stomp this out ? Because you feel the only way to achieve it is to lie to customers and try to manipulate the market using the media ?

I thought I had little faith in humanity, but I'm not the one who feels the need to try and Shepard people around and control them and hide anything that might make them think freely.

So when people ask

“Is it worth it? Worth all the damage?”

I can’t help but look at other mediums and see what happened there. I've written about this before, be it the Hays Code in films or the Comics Code Authority. Censoring and trying to restrict the new medium on the block has happened and kept happening in history. What video games did differently to those forms of media was it acted to self regulate with a ratings system rather than an arbitrary banned list of content. Video games were designed and allowed to avoid harsh morally motivated restrictions.

When you look at comic books and see that for example Batwoman being raped is considered controversial, but only just now ok to have as a story. Well it shows the damage the comics code authority did to the medium that this is considered to be treading new ground.

The comics code authority was brought in, in 1954 and was fully disbanded in 2011. Over time the Comics Code did relax the censorship of comics starting on 1971 and continuing relaxations with major relaxations happening in the 1990's. Comics books starting to become popularised in the 1930s.

The comics Code authority was brought in by one man making unsubstantiated claims about video games and how they would corrupt people and others believing it. If you let ignorance spread, it will and it will grow.

It’s a very similar message to the claims about how harmful comic books were and how they were corrupting people. Except this time it’s not a book like Corruption of the Innocent that’s spreading false information, it’s a webseries by someone claiming to be an academic. Yet ask yourself this, if they are such a good academic, there are plenty of research funds out there so why not get funding through traditional means to accomplish the research ?

The simple answer is because what’s being passed off as academic research an analysis would never truly stand up in academia, where claims need to be verified and proven. Where you need to be critical of different interpretations that could go against your own work and conclusions.

So

“Is it worth it? Worth all the damage?”

I have to answer 100% yes. Because as was seen with films and comic books the damage of not standing up for freedom is far worse. It took comics nearly 20 years to be able to have a comic published tackling merely the idea of some-one taking drugs (even showing it negatively). Once censorship happens it takes a far braver person to stand up and fight back once it’s in place.

What Gamergate is against is the modern day Mary Whitehouses who seek to have games censored or banned. I know what someone is going to now say “Anita doesn't want to take games away” and to that I say I’m sure she doesn't however many following her ideology do as was seen with Grand Theft Auto V . If people don’t stand up against the ignorance then it allows the ignorant to be on control.

As almost anyone will tell you art is more than some simple message. Art’s worth is more than if you feel the message is one you like or not. Taking art and reducing it down to some academic analysis of it’s worth is the kind of thing films regularly ridicule.

Art is meant to offend. Art can and does challenge ideas. Most of all though art is freedom to do those things or not. The worth of art is not in if you agree with it but in that said ideas could be expressed in the first place.

Games shouldn't be made to appeal just to me. Nor should game be made merely to appeal to Ms Sarkeesian or Jonathan McIntosh or the others who follow their ideology that all games should be some super safe thing.

Because I have a radical idea for you. Maybe just maybe sex being seen as some huge taboo is part of the problem? As such people confuse Sexy for Sexist.

Video games are now a bigger industry than film and yet in film would you say all horror films should appeal to romance film fans ? Would you say all sci-Fi films should appeal to fans of musicals ?

It’s insane to think about it right. However that’s just what is going on here the idea that every game should be something everyone should enjoy. The idea that something is inherently bad or wrong for not specifically appealing to you.

I dislike Mamma Mia but that doesn't mean I cant understand it’s existence. Just because I don’t like something I do go round claiming it shouldn’t exist or it’s “problematic in it’s existence”

What makes games different to other media is they require learning, they have entry requirements to fully appreciate them. I’ll let Dara O’Briain explain it

So as I’ve said before they shouldn't be turned into glorified PSA’s simply for those who do not understand them.

Would you ask Shakespeare to be made so it was far easier for school children? Or would you teach the children to understand it?

Would you want all the killing fighting and death in Romeo and Juliet to be edited out and a super happy ending put in because it might upset people?

You can’t keep people wrapped up in a bubble forever and never expose them to something that may make them feel sad. Emotions both happy and sad are part of the human experience.

So I now put it to you dear reader who has got this far.

Is it worth it? Worth all the damage to sit and let an artistic medium be neutered. Worth stunting the growth of an entire medium by 30 years or more just because someone might have to feel something at some point ?