When a Sydney man was seen allegedly assaulting his wife while livestreaming a game of Fortnite, the condemnation from gamers who witnessed it was swift.

Key points: Gamers, men's rights bloggers say man was 'baited'

Gamers, men's rights bloggers say man was 'baited' Social media posts attack unseen woman in video

Social media posts attack unseen woman in video Gaming expert says the industry has long dealt with this

Yet a vocal pocket of men and some in the gaming community have mobilised to defend one of their own, flocking to online forums to attack the woman while uploading their own videos to YouTube to suggest the man was a victim of manipulation.

The response is the latest in a series of incidents that have shone a light on men's rights activists and raised questions about gaming's response to violence against women.

Police charged the 26-year-old man with common assault and served him with an apprehended violence order after a video of the incident was streamed from the account of MrDeadMoth and shared online on Sunday night.

In it, a woman off-camera asks him to leave the computer because he is missing dinner.

"I'll be out soon," he replied.

A cardboard box and other items appear to be thrown at him from across the camera.

"Can you not," the man says.

He leaves his desk before a slapping noise is heard off-camera and a woman is heard crying.

He then tries to continue playing the game but she demands that he stop.

"F*** off you dog, you don't pay the f***ing bills," he says.

He then disappears off-camera again and a thudding noise can be heard before a woman is heard loudly wailing.

The man has been granted conditional bail and will appear at Camden local court on Thursday.

Fortnite is a first-person shooter in a cartoon style. ( Epic Games )

Commenters target woman in video

Video of the incident has since gone viral, with many condemning any violence towards women and expressing dismay at what the livestream shows.

However, others have taken to social media, YouTube and a Reddit gaming forum to attack the unseen woman.

"She's a bit dumb if you ask me," one Reddit commenter wrote.

"It seems as if he was streaming on Twitch, which can actually be a viable form of income nowadays. She could be interrupting him while he is trying to do his job," wrote another.

"If you watch the entire thing she clearly antagonised him," wrote another.

Reddit moderators have since removed a number of these comments.

Others took to Twitter to suggest the viral clip had been edited to give a false impression.

"Why don't you play the full clip? Huh afraid that you're wrong and you will find out the truth that both of them are wrong," one person tweeted.

One YouTuber, who has a history of posting men's rights videos, uploaded a 10-minute post titled, "MrDeadMoth gets baited by his wife into altercation".

"People are reaching as far as they can to say that this guy is somehow more in the wrong than this other female," the YouTuber says in the video.

"This female was very clearly trying to bait him … women do not want to fight fair.

"You might have some cucks and some feminists saying, 'Oh dude you've got to pay closer attention to your girl, don't play so much video games'. That's irrelevant."

"Cucks" refers to a popular term among the alt-right to insult those deemed to be weak or effeminate.

Some of the comments on the video include that the man was "standing his ground" and "got baited".

Research into online gaming has raised concern about its influence on sexism and violence against women, and video games have often been criticised for their portrayal of women and violence.

Most recently, Western shooter game Red Dead Redemption 2 came under scrutiny after a YouTube channel uploaded a video from the game titled, "Beating up annoying feminist", showing a character assaulting a woman calling for the right to vote.

A screen grab from the RDR2 video uploaded to YouTube, which showed a man beating up a suffragette. ( Supplied )

Prominent Australian gamer and former host of TV show Good Game Stephanie Bendixsen said the response from some to the Fortnite video was distressing, but not totally surprising.

"It's definitely a minority, but I do think it's something that has existed within the gaming industry for quite a while," she said.

"There's always going to be pockets of people that vehemently defend the right of the gamer regardless of the situation, which is just awful.

"People not really seeing the situation for what it was and rallying behind the idea that the gamer is someone that should be held to a standard that supports gaming above all else."

Bendixsen said this was seen in the GamerGate controversy as well, which blew up in 2014 and saw multiple women in the gaming industry become targets of harassment.

She said she did not want the entire gaming industry tarred by this viral video and the response by some.

"It is kind of frustrating that the focus is always on harassment," she said.

"I love video games and I love this industry, the streaming community, my experience with it has been pretty incredible."