Anita Sarkeesian – one of the many female victims of GamerGate

A reader explains why he no longer has any sympathy for GamerGate and why he thinks moderate supporters should abandon it.

I actually submitted this article to GameCentral a while ago in its initial form, but ended up asking that it not be published due to the fact it wouldn’t be topical anymore. I swore to myself I would never touch the subject of GamerGate again. However, recent events (namely the harassment of game developer Brianna Wu, and articles published by The Escapist which have shown themselves to be highly suspect) have prompted me to edit and resubmit this article and get everything out of my system once and for all.



Before I begin, please be aware that this article assumes that you know the basics of the GamerGate story; trying to recap the whole thing for the benefit of beginners is frankly more trouble than it’s worth.

I also want to make it clear, before any of the ‘movement’s’ defenders claim that I don’t understand what it’s about, that I have done my homework on this. I’ve read all the manifestos, I’ve analysed every reasonable defence of GamerGate, I’ve cringed at the less-than-reasonable supporters, waded through every ludicrous conspiracy theory, and watched the analysis of those who have tried to stay somewhere in-between. What I’m about to say is what I’ve taken away from all that research, my own personal observations, and I’ll warn you now – it’s not pretty (and that’s putting it as politely as I can manage).


In fairness, I did have some sympathy for GamerGate when it first came about, especially after reading the vitriolic backlash written by some members of the gaming press. This article by Leigh Alexander in-particular is often cited as the main catalyst, though honestly I don’t see it as any more than questioning the usefulness of the term ‘gamer’ in response to the venom of those responsible for the initial anti-Zoe Quinn explosion (make no mistake; those initial voices belonged to nothing but a transparently vile hate mob of blatant misogyny and harassment).

In spite of all I’m about to say about GamerGate, and while I can’t say I really blame the journalists for venting their frustration, I stand by my view that such a backlash was highly unprofessional, and the attempts to fight fire with fire could only have backfired horribly. The main idea I got from GamerGate’s origins was that it originated as an attempt to defend gaming culture from accusations of misogyny, and to their credit some involved in the movement have pursued that goal in a positive and admirable way (such as those who have donated to movements that help get more women into game development).

However, what’s been causing me to lose all sympathy for the movement is the continuing, often grasping-at-straws attempts to claim that GamerGate has stuck vigorously to the most legitimate-sounding issue to come out of the Zoe Quinn matter: ethics in gaming journalism. It’s a perfectly valid concern to have; let’s face it, the relationship between games publishers and the press is uncomfortably cosy, and there’s an understandable amount of resentment for games journalism in general. Indeed, I imagine that that concern is where GamerGate gets most of its more reasonable supporters from.



If that’s the case, though, where was this level of outrage when Jeff Gerstmann was sacked from GameSpot after posting a heavily critical review of Kane & Lynch? Where were the death and rape threats when Geoff Keighley was interviewed by Pixel Perfect sitting amidst a pile of product placements for Halo 4, Doritos, and Mountain Dew?

Only recently, critic Totalbiscuit (who himself is a semi-supporter of GamerGate) blew the whistle on the dodgy contracts Warner Bros. (or perhaps more specifically the PR company Plaid Social) were using in their brand deals for YouTube reviews of Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor, which basically meant Warner Bros. had total control of what such reviewers said about the game. This to me is a shocking example of game companies trying to control how their game is portrayed by games journalists, yet I do not recall GamerGate spewing so much bile at the practice. In fact it seemed to slip almost completely under their radar. All the outrage that came about from the other blatant examples of corruption came about from the gaming press itself, not gamers.

That’s why, to me, GamerGate is more about clamping down on feminism and progressive criticism in gaming, something that has almost nothing to do with ethics in journalism at all. Looking through the various arguments around GamerGate, that strikes me as the only consistent thread; the actual ethics stuff is muddied, half-baked, shifting and grasping at straws, constantly looking for something to legitimise the intense levels of rage that everyone initially joined in on.


The group seems to be heavily into endorsing ever-more-extravagant, unverified conspiracy theories surrounding websites that supposedly have an SJW (social justice warrior) bias (SJW, in this case, apparently meaning anyone who criticises GamerGate in any way or tries to stem the tide of vitriol – including, ironically enough, 4chan) and engaging in organised attacks on such blacklisted websites, reporters and developers, while sites with much more flagrant and proven ethical violations go untouched (for instance the movement’s alignment with Breitbart, a site that had nothing but contempt for gamers and geek culture until they saw GamerGate as a means to promote its own agenda).

In any case, removing politics and subjectivity from games coverage – from anything, in fact – is absolutely impossible. My own studies in journalism taught me this, and as John Walker from Rock Paper Shotgun pointed out, all reviews are inherently political. Whether a reviewer chooses to condemn or celebrate a specific feature of a game (for example, how its female characters are represented), or chooses not to mention it at all, they’re taking a political position on the matter. The rational thing to do would be to call for more coverage that represents the reader, or even do it yourself (why that has seemingly not occurred to anyone in GamerGate is beyond me; you could probably get such a thing funded through Kickstarter), not call for the destruction of coverage that does not.

Events have confirmed to me that the ethics stuff is a spin job, a smokescreen attempting to divert us all from the fact that, in its pre-GamerGate incarnation, the movement was nothing but a sexist lynch mob, and in many ways it still is. The rampant hate and ugliness was the original goal of it, and not much has changed. The “#notyourshield” hashtag circulated to try to highlight the movement’s diversity, and ironically enough exists only as a shield, attempting to protect gaming culture from the consequences of the initial attacks. It’s a whitewash of the real issue – that a woman was attacked in an extremely vile and disgusting manner over allegations about her personal life made by an ex-boyfriend (accusations which have long since been debunked). You don’t get to drag a person’s name through the mud then arbitrarily claim it was never about them.


Attempts to stop the bile and harassment by closing comment sections and forum topics were arbitrarily decried as ‘censorship’, another term that’s become so rampant in the movement that’s in danger of losing any meaning and weight. While I’m on that note, trying to destroy, financially cripple and remove the advertising from gaming websites that don’t conform to a specific world view is censorship, and it is absolutely abhorrent.

I know I’ll get some responses along the lines of ‘The anti-GamerGate people are just as bad’, to which I have two things to say. Firstly, yes, it’s horrendous when anybody, regardless of which side of this debate they’re on, gets abuse; so channel that desire to condemn it and have the integrity to apply it to the abuse coming from GamerGate as well. To be tolerant of the abuse towards Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu and so many others (none of whom are journalists, incidentally) defies all sense.

Secondly, there’s no such thing as an ‘anti-GamerGate movement’. While I don’t doubt that there are stupid, dangerous idiots responding to GamerGate in awful ways, there’s no organised affiliation going on, no dedicated forums or coordinated attack mobs or specifically-expressed desires to ‘destroy’.

Furthermore, someone saying what amounts to ‘Everyone involved in GamerGate is a dimwitted monster’ is not equivalent to thousands of people sending personalised, frightening abuse to one individual. I’ve yet to hear of any campaigns to force the likes of JonTron and Adam Baldwin out of their homes and make them fear for their lives. To try to draw equivalence on the matter is ludicrous, and only serves to cheapen the debate.

That’s my view of GamerGate, and the more reasonable-sounding defenders of the movement have failed to convince me otherwise. No doubt I’ll get a lot of responses claiming that I just can’t see it from the perspective of a GamerGate supporter, to which I reply that most of those involved in GamerGate seem to have zero awareness of how it looks to anyone outside of it.

I was going to end by just encouraging the more reasonable supporters to think about what it is they’re supporting, rather than actively try to push people away from the GamerGate label (as in my experience that just causes people to dig their heels in). However, in light of recent news regarding full-blown terrorist threats made against Anita Sarkeesian, I honestly don’t care anymore. After such a threat, GamerGate officially died. I’m sorry if you’re involved in the movement for benign reasons, but if you’re a reasonable person and genuinely believe in journalistic ethics, you’ll divorce yourself from the movement. It’s too toxic now, even moreso than it ever was.

No excuses. No false equivalences. No ‘this doesn’t represent us’. No false flag accusations. People have now officially put GamerGate in the same bracket as domestic terrorists, and that is now how the movement will forever be perceived.

If decent people really want to get some positive change out of all this, they first need to let GamerGate die.

By reader Andrew Middlemas

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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