There's certainly enough disgusting stuff happening related to games that repudiating the whole damn culture seems appropriate. A recent example of this was published at Errant Signal, the blog of game developer Chris Franklin: "It's rash and emotional. It's often hateful. It doesn't care who it hurts. This is the gamer subculture I rail against." Franklin's motives are good, and his targets are deserving of opprobrium in the piece.

But by framing it as a "gamer culture," Franklin and the many other people who've written this type of blog post do a disservice to their arguments.

For one thing, they provide a narrow view of "gamer culture," one which seems to surrender the very idea of games and gamers to the worst impulses of the community.

Are the people who donated $158,000 to Sarkeesian, more than twenty times what she asked for, not part of video gamer culture? Am I, a critic who includes social justice analysis in my discussion of video games, not part of the culture? Perhaps I'd feel better if there was some other term that I could flee to, but then I realize how hard I'd roll my eyes if someone told me that he or she were engaged in "film culture, not movies."

Why are the best-intentioned members of the subculture so willing to reject "gamer culture" in its entirety, treating it as though it's uniquely bad?

By framing these virulent cybermobs as an issue of "gamer culture" instead of connecting it to culture at large, these anti-gamer pieces miss the forest for the trees.

The use of the word "gamer" also gives the impression that there's something innate to video games or gamers that triggers this rabid response.

And there isn't.

These disturbing reactions are not confined to the world of videogames.