The economic realities of gamergate

This came up again in tweets, so I thought I'd make a clearer explanation here where people can't jump in and derail the dialogue.



This is not a criticism of the morality of gamergate. People have the right to boycott anything they want. This is just a reality check on some impacts that people may not have thought of.



A video game website usually has a small staff of salaried full timers. The rest of the content a site publishes comes from freelancers. The number of freelancers a site can use depends on revenue.



Gamergate's tactics have been to make sites lose revenue for the unpopular, potentially damaging views of writers who at an editor or associate editor level. This means that the people who feel the pain first are not these editors. They're the freelancers with the potential to offer dissenting viewpoints.



Because freelancers are now being cut and full time jobs are nearly impossible to get, messaging power is now being consolidated in the hands of precisely the people gamergate opposes. Those editors and associate editors, in a period of less revenue, will be expected to put out more content themselves.



Sites that rejected my pitches on stories about internet harassment just went and wrote those pieces themselves. So of course not only were they situations of men speaking for women, but they were highly critical of gamergate.



Meanwhile, editors are inserting digs at gamergate into freelance writers' work. Because they can. Editors have final say over headlines, and they can even alter a writer's work if they choose without notifying the writer. Writers write at the pleasure of editors, who edit at the pleasure of publishers.



Gamergate has successfully pulled money out of the system. But this has not hurt the editors or full time staff who wrote the gamers are dead articles. It's given them more market share in the marketplace of ideas because fewer freelancers and part-timers are being brought into the fold. This is not to say that the boycott was bad. I just think it's important to understand what it actually did in real terms. People seem extremely frustrated that certain people still have jobs. Well of course they do: there's now much more work for them to do for no more money.



The only way to effectively support fair, ethical journalists, video makers and opinion writers is to direct money directly at these writers -- not just the ones that support gamergate. That is NOT ethical. Gamergate must be prepared to accept when it has made mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.



Instead of doing this however, instead of supporting actual work product, gamergate has chosen to put its money towards charity events. Charity events help, of course. But they do not build careers. Giving money to a service so a female game dev can make ONE game doesn't help her build connections, network, or get connected to actual business infrastructure. What it does is make her dependant on future charity hand outs. $70,000 is not enough to make, market, and promote a game. Far far from it. And a successful game requires good marketing as well as a great product.



Furthermore, $14,000 is not enough to pay for even one year's tuition for a woman in a STEM course at a US school -- another gamergate initiative in support of women. Average yearly university tuition is much higher, and STEM courses are among the most expensive. It helps. Absolutely. But I got similar help, which only got me through first year before I lost my funding without warning and could not afford to continue. In the long run, it just got my hopes up.



Charity does not replace a job. It never does.



These sums of money, however, can fund actual projects of people already established, with connections and a knowledge of the industry. People who are already connected can get those pieces into major publications because we know how. If we could offer the content for free because we're already being compensated, then the chances go up even more.



But as it is, the money being offered to people looking for paying work writing about games is not enough to live on. So we can't write as often as we'd like or as fearlessly as we'd like, because our pieces get shredded by editing committees through the freelance process. Very often, editors and editorial committees insert their own ideas into pieces that then run under only the author's name. It's a slower process to get a freelance piece approved. An editor with publishing privileges can react with an op-ed overnight, while it takes weeks for a freelancer to do the same. (The record for me so far is six months to get a piece published.)



So, in essence, the freelance process sucks. But there's currently no way around it because new hires are pretty rare.



However, if ethical, fair, experienced journalists and opinion writers were able to worry less about money, we could offer pieces to services for little to no money, but also insist that nothing be added and non-actionable opinions not be censored.



It's amazing how powerful "free" is.



The charity work is great. Totally. But it doesn't create jobs. Gamergate has shown the ability to fundraise extremely well. That means that gamergate could actually be a source of jobs -- provided they don't then start dictating what that author writes.



Patreon allows anonymous donating, so that is an option. If a writer doesn't know who sent the money, he or she won't be swayed by the source of the donation. Even 1 dollar a month helps.



Furthermore, YouTube is great. But dissent against existing media, especially the mainstream media, has to happen on mainstream turf. It's very hard to get positive video game content in the mainstream press and get paid for it. However, they'll happily take free stuff provided it lives up to the standards of quality. Frankly, I'm pretty surprised that the opinions of the mainstream press are terribly important to gamers, but it is so I'm offering access to my knowledge on that front. I used to work in TV, after all. I've heard "women in gaming is too niche" more times than I can count regarding TV, radio AND print.



Finally, I've noticed that many people react to article headlines linked on twitter without reading the article. This is a bad practice because, like I said, editors set the headlines. You're not judging the writer's work.



If gamergate is serious about showing you're not anti-women, minority, or anything else -- and if you're truly interested in changing the mainstream media narrative about it - you'll start building some people up who are established professionals who are ethical and fair. I personally don't think you should give a damn what the mainstream press or wikipedia thinks, but a lot of people are upset and feel unfairly treated, so I'm trying to help.



The message of what you are against is getting long in the tooth. Eventually the "someone's boyfriend/girlfriend works in a low-level job in a game company they wrote about" stuff is going to dry up. Do I think that any family member working for a game company in any capacity impacts coverage of that company? Well, of course it does. But now that examples have been made of those people, those things are going to become less common and harder to find. Gamergate is reaching a point where it needs to find new relevance. A new spin off llike Not Your Shield. That sort of thing.



Because the sad current reality of writing about video games is that unless you have an established relationship with a company, you get stonewalled. I've had COOs of companies intervene in media requests for me and the publicist still seriously restricts what questions can be asked. An in-depth piece drops to two questions in a single email unless you have a relationship with the PR department. This is, in part, because PR companies of major publishers just get so many requests. But I've contacted them on behalf of major newspapers and industry magazines and still not gotten what I need by my deadline.



However, the social media and YouTube wing of a game company's PR tends to be totally different teams. That's why YouTubers -- who can often be relied upon to deliver less critical, more fannish coverage, get significantly better access these days. YouTube personalities tend to be entertainment first, analysis second -- With rare exceptions like Totalbiscuit of course. Furthermore, YouTube tends to stream gameplay, which means that even bad reviews can sometimes intrigue players because they disagree with the personality and like what they see. This isn't good consumer advocacy on the whole.



As long as this continues, video games will not be given the same status as movies or TV by the mainstream media -- reporters cannot get access for stories. So gamers are stuck getting stories and analysis from gaming websites that have to pander to particular advertiser bases to get money. That's why things are so political: gaming, despite the numbers, is still stigmatized by many brands. Game coverage that throws gamers under the bus to get in front of the stigma, on the other hand, pays well.



Gamergate could, based on the numbers I've seen you raise, create an unofficial gaming PBS: coverage that is member supported, high quality, and different from mainstream coverage because it is not reliant on advertisers. Without fresh money and support for talent entering the system, the very editors gamergate opposes are only getting more powerful because there are fewer new voices able to be heard. The new sites don't get the penetration the established ones do, and it's extremely hard to compete that way.



Just a suggestion, guys. I'm really not interested in hearing why I'm an idiot or it won't work. Take the information and do what you want with it. Just don't give me a hard time about it. After all the crap I've taken, I'm not sure why I'm still trying to help. I think it's because I know there are still people who care about games and want coverage that doesn't feel like propaganda.



And you're right to feel that way: Destiny was a predictable disappointment, for instance. Anyone who demoed that game realized that the demo was lacking any sort of meat -- but the sad reality is that much coverage is provided by people without specific knowledge of video game design. So people like me who were saying "don't get too invested in this game, it's not as advertised, got lost in the massive race to see who could publish the greatest superlatives regarding Bungie's latest project.



Furthermore, the silly, random, censoring of games like South Park, and the corporate censorship of clearly labelled adult games like Grand Theft Auto, is because of hype-based coverage by people who treat video games as nothing more than interactive movies. They're much more than that. I work desperately to get positive coverage of games into the mainstream because I think games still have an unduly negative reputation. Sadly, ambassador awards go to people who confirm every negative stereotype about the industry.



So, do with this information what you will. Just don't be assholes about it.

Reply · Report Post