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Zoe Quinn has sold both a memoir of her time at the centre of GamerGate and the film rights to her story -- and Scarlett Johansson is already tipped to appear in the movie.

The book, Crash Override: How To Save The Internet From Itself, is due to be published by Simon & Schuster, with the film rights already sold to Sony-backed Pascal Films.


Reports from Deadline, which have been partially confirmed by Quinn on Twitter, speculate that Scarlet Johansson is keen to step into the role of Quinn.

Quinn, a games developer, was the author of simple indie games like Depression Quest when a post by an ex-boyfriend went viral. She was subsequently embroiled in what has come to be known as GamerGate, a campaign to expose what they believe have been ethical lapses and bias by videogames journalists.

The phrase has since taken on meme-like status and spiralled into a complex controversy. Anti-GamerGaters argue that the campaign is actually driven by misogyny and that the harassment and threats received by Quinn and other women have more to do with sexism than gaming. It is these threats, and their aftermath, that will apparently be depicted in both the book and film of Quinn's life.


In order to see this embed, you must give consent to Social Media cookies. Open my cookie preferences. Two announcements in one:

1 - I'm publishing a book with Touchstone, a Simon and Schuster imprint

2 - That book is being made into a movie — zoë “leonardo doujinshi” quinn (@UnburntWitch) November 6, 2015

"Gaming and internet message boards used to be niche interests, mostly for young men," Quinn wrote in her proposal. "In the past few years, however, they’ve gone mainstream." "Millions of people -- including women and other marginalised people -- have taken an interest in the platforms, image boards, and discussion forums that once belonged by default to a much smaller population. Most gamers give zero fu*ks about this. Like the rest of us, they’re just here to play games." "But a vocal minority are clinging onto the brand of Cheetos-and-Mountain-Dew exclusionary identity ‘hardcore gamer,’ muttering ‘fu*kin casuals’ under their breath."

Crash Override, the book, will be released in September 2016. There are no details on the movie, however -- the sale of rights is usually the first step in a very long process of development, which can easily fall apart or be shelved before concrete release plans are announced.