If headlines could be truly accurate and character limits didn’t cut them off at the knees in search engines, that last part would read “after a failed boycott was attempted.” But it’s stretching a headline into a paragraph, and that’s not the purpose of a headline. Anyway, an attempted boycott was pursued by an individual that the media might label as “anti-#GamerGate”. It’s a silly moniker given that #GamerGate represents a scandal about corruption in media, and consumers are using the hashtag to bring that corruption up into the light, so anyone who is “anti-#GamerGate” would technically be “pro-corruption”. But that’s beside the point. The point is that the developers behind SeedScape, the upcoming harvesting strategy game, have joined #GamerGate after someone from the anti-side attempted to start a boycott against them.

Most individuals utilizing the GamerGate hashtag are familiar with Jennifer Dawe. She’s been an avid supporter of reforming ethical standards and outing corruption from the media circles. She became quite a figure after it was revealed that her interview with the CBC was purposefully cut in order for the broadcasting station to spin a specific narrative about #GamerGate. A narrative steeped in the harassment angle (and one shared by other broadcasting stations as well).

Jennifer Dawe is an artist working on Dapper Swine’s SeedScape. I haven’t had a lot of time to write about the game even though I’ve been intending to do so. Recently it was successfully greenlit for Steam, as reported by sites like Tech Raptor and Niche Gamer. The game hasn’t received much love outside of websites willing to report the facts surrounding #GamerGate. Almost identical to The Fine Young Capitalists and Afterlife Empire.

In fact, the game was targeted for a boycott because Jennifer Dawe supports the reformation of ethics in media journalism, as reported by The Ralph Retort.

Please go support this game and female devs in the game industry like @GMShivers. https://t.co/nm7Cdvbtn6 #GamerGate pic.twitter.com/LPdAV5eNXm — Hokuto No Klaw (@DeadwingDuck) November 26, 2014

It was the attempted act of a boycott against SeedScape, and by proxy Dapper Swine, that prodded the owner of the studio to finally step in and step up to denounce the actions of individuals he had never had any interaction with. In a Twitlonger post on February 13th, 2015, the lead programmer and owner of Dapper Swine, Jason Brown, wrote…

“In late November, GamerGate was going full blast and my artist, Jennifer Dawe, had been deeply involved. “Up until that point I had been exclusively posting to the Dapper Swine account and had never once uttered the phrase GamerGate, nor had I used the hashtag even once (and may still never have as far as I recall). Out of the clear blue, a Twitter user called Untimely Gamer decided to call for a boycott of my game. Why? Because Jennifer is pro-GamerGate (which for the uninitiated, means she’s against corruption in journalism; truly a horrid offense punishable by death!).”

Brown explains that the boycott – while mostly unsuccessful – showed him how vindictive these individuals were in shouting down the “opposition”, even if it meant stripping food from the mouths of those completely neutral to the events of #GamerGate.

What’s more is that forcefully boycotting Dapper Swine and attempting to blacklist Jennifer Dawe is pretty much attempting to force a woman out of the games industry. Isn’t that what the game journalists said #GamerGate was trying to do?

Anyway, Brown goes on to say…

“The boycott was a flop, but the principle of the thing that someone would call people to arms in order to take food off of my table–I who have grown up poor my whole life–because of who I chose to employ for no reason but their artistic skills is reprehensible. I’d call it harassment but that would be letting it off easy. It’s what might happen if a highly unintelligent person got hold of nuclear codes.”

It’s also shocking that some of these people claiming to be for diversity are calling for women to be boycotted out of the games industry. Their attacks on Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers have also been inimical and asinine. I guess they follow Bob Chipman’s advice of “no bad tactics, only bad targets” mantra? Even then there’s more holes in that logic than Bobby Brown’s wallet.

This change of heart from Jason Brown wasn’t because #GamerGate came begging for his support or dogpiling him with infographics. Consumers just had to stay the course and let the twin-left-feet of the “anti” side dance the dance of inconsistency, incoherency and incorrigible anti-gaming antics in order to steer neutrals clear away from their side.

According to Brown…

“Untimely Gamer’s inhumane actions forced me away from the side he affiliates with. He is largely responsible and has himself to thank for my support of GamerGate. I certainly wasn’t going to run with open arms to the side that thinks like he does; who believe that burning the entire forest down is a viable strategy to find a wolf that isn’t actually a wolf.”

It’s nice that another developer has join the ranks of gamers looking for reform in the media industry. While some on the “anti” side are probably disappointed that SeedScape managed to get greenlit and that their attempted boycott to keep Adam Baldwin out of Supernova (as reported by Scrumpmonkey) has failed, at least gamers can take solace knowing that the only thing they need to do to keep winning over neutrals and gaining support is to not be hate-filled bigots like some of those who claim to be the opposition.