I recently came across this tweet:

This echoed perfectly this other one:

They are also in line with this quote from Georges Orwell:

“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”

(This is interesting to notice because “having Orwell by your side” seems a hot commodity in the so-called culture war.)

So in a way, these two tweets are absolutely correct… and markedly unhelpful.

They are correct because any review, any play, anything can be considered political. That is in taking political in its widest possible definition (existing/or not is political, so is breathing, etc…). And unhelpful for that same reason. What these tweets are missing is to try and understand what the people asking to “keep politics out of gaming” truly mean.

Let’s examine what politics and gaming could refer to:

Politics in a game: for example many games, from BioShock to Xenogears are heavily influenced by and incorporate political aspects (directly or indirectly relatable to real life politics or creating their own system)

Politics in a review: this is the specificity of a reviewer compared to another. You could call their politics their opinion. It’s what make them unique and is overall the interaction between the game, their experience/knowledge of the genre/system of values.

Politics as review: the review is now centered around a political point that the reviewer want to make, the point rather than the game being the main aspect. The actual point could be varied, and take unexpected forms. For example someone may focus on racism in games and expand beyond the tested game, but this could also be someone using an edgy Japanese game to defend a genre.

Politicization of gaming: it’s when the reviewers/critics become deliberately provocative, sometimes judging a game or a genre and those liking it with deeply pejorative terms. It’s also when the review/commentary serves an underlying larger vision, for example when activism is the goal (feminist, social justice or others such as religious, conservative, etc…), and generating action/reaction through controversy the real endpoint. Gaming is now a tool rather than an end, and the field is transformed in a “hot-button”.

There may be other possibilities and a combination of them is frequently seen.

In recent tweets I said:

My first tweet was singled out, both positively and negatively. This is very interesting.

I was trying to underline a personal observation based on my interaction from within GamerGate: It’s true that people from the group often want and ask for politics to be kept out of gaming, but when pushed to explain more about what they truly mean, they often refine it around having issues with the politicization and to a lesser extent with politics as central aspect of reviews.

They acknowledge that politics exist in games and reviews, but that’s not what they are talking about.

Some commentators opposed to the movement pointed out that this isn’t what GamerGate is about. During the discussion, the underlying politics of the movement itself was discussed. It went this way:

Let's pass on the inflammatory nature of the first tweet (which is a good example of politicization). In a sense, the “right to offend”, and especially those seen as “un-attackable targets as per the politically correct culture” is often associated with GamerGate. But is this a defining characteristics? Is this something that people would claim being part of?

Yes and no. This is where my second tweet on Milo Yannopoulos comes into play. The Alt-right, emerging political movement, has a strong focus on absolute free speech, especially offensive speech. It doesn’t really recognize the concept of hate speech as a valid entity. An unquestionable aspect of its ways of functioning is a strange mixture of conscious trolling and real political convictions. For example people will push the boundaries of Islamophobia (in the “hateful” definition) with offensive imagery/discourse while being fundamentally islamophobe (more in the “fear” definition). A clear champion of this movement is Milo Yannopoulos, who has been an early ear to and one of only positively reporting on the GamerGate movement. One reason is that the initial focus of GamerGate, as defined by Adam Baldwin, was rooted in a deep political culture war, between what is seen as controlling progressive forces and libertarian conservative forces. It’s interesting to notice that the genesis of GamerGate is in fact rooted in the politicization of events in the gaming world, as the reference to WaterGate underlines.

As Brad Glasgow noticed, based on the results from his survey, GamerGate is nonetheless composed by many Leftist, which doesn’t align well with the idea that GamerGate and the Alt-right overlap. I would argue that those who responded to Brad are a subset of the movement, those actually convinced that it may represent a useful force fighting for improved ethics and freedom of creativity in gaming. These people are really fighting the politicization of gaming, ideas of forces external to gaming coopting the field for their own politically driven agenda.

But equating GamerGate with only these people would ignore those fighting any political vision of gaming opposed to their own. They are actively pushing against changes and diversity as defined by the progressive critics. This weird de facto cohabitation of forces with different aims is only rendered possible by the unusual dynamic offered by social media. You hardly see who may be with you, or against you. You have very little ideas of what may be said in the name of your movement, especially as it is defined by a hashtag. From an observer point of view, you can easily politicize it as will, ignoring the dissenting components, to create either as a beneficial force, the way Yannopoulos does, or a perfect enemy, the way people like Kuchera do for example. So in some ways, GamerGate is both fighting politicization of gaming and politicizing this fight!

By ignoring the complexity of the politics of the movement/hashtag/controversy and the same complexity of those identified as the progressive forces, people have created an impossible dialogue, because nobody debates the same thing, with the same definitions.

So, of course politics and gaming is a fascinating subject that goes way beyond GamerGate, the progressive critics and the menial online “battles”. But if I may, I would suggest that when it comes to politics and other challenging subjects, people ask their interlocutors exactly what they mean prior to judging too hastily! Trust me, this helps tremendously!