Harebrained Schemes retweeted and then unretweeted a post that was tagged with #GamerGate. This simple act of retweeting a message with #GamerGate caused enough controversy for the small indie studio to post a message about it on their website.

While a battle rages on whether or not #GamerGate is even considered gaming news, others are still picking their allegiances carefully.

Noted in a blog post, Harebrained Schemes, the developers behind the Kickstarted Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun: Hong Kong – the latter of which managed to accrue more than $400,000 in crowd-funding [via Attack of the Fanboy] – stated…

“We “Favorited” and ReTweeted the message, noticed the Gamer Gate hashtag and UNretweeted it, leaving the “Favorite” to show our appreciation for the positive comment. “The UnRetweet caused concern in our audience. It also caused some to infer that we do not support Gamer Gate supporters.”

They go on to explain, carefully, that they support gamers, as well as how they feel about #GamerGate in total – including the different “factions” of the movement that they state “perverts” the initial goals – writing…

“With this in mind, we feel it’s important to state for the record that we fully support women in gaming and believe in integrity in journalism which, as we understand it, were the original ideals of Gamer Gate. We absolutely support all gamers who share our belief in these ideals. “As far as we can tell, the current state of Gamer Gate is fractured into different groups with different beliefs, some of whom act against the whole. This subgroup, who also use the Gamer Gate hashtag, perverts the original intent through harassment and manipulation. That is why we UnRetweeted it.”

Quick clarification: there is no sub-group of #GamerGate that “perverts the original intent”. The original intent never changed, it’s just been misappropriated from the corrupt media outlets that stood before the consumer inquisition since August 27th, 2014.

This “sub-group” that “perverts” the consumer revolt is a boogeyman concocted by the very media that was found to be exercising indiscretion in their duties, some of which included allegedly breaching antitrust laws.

Worse yet, is that no one in the mainstream will report on things like the strong, independent, intelligent women, minorities and LGBT groups supporting a reform in ethics, as well as exposing the double-standards from the media failing to report about the harassment and threats consumers have received while using the #GamerGate hashtag. That’s not to mention the media’s absolute lack of addressing the #NotYourShield hashtag.

Anyway, Harebrained Schemes writes…

“To all of you who support Forwarding Women in Gaming and Integrity in Journalism, we salute you and we support you. Although we believe in these causes too, we cannot convey our support for the Gamer Gate hashtag as that hashtag also represents those who do harm.”

Citation needed.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the position of a group who knows much about #GamerGate, but are likely repeating what they’ve heard about or learned from corrupt and biased sources like Wikipedia.

We’ve still yet to receive any evidence from the media relating to their conflating Anita Sarkeesian’s harrassment with the #GamerGate hashtag. In fact, it was the #GamerGate harassment patrol that caught one of Sarkeesian’s harassers. From the media’s side, it’s all been a smoke and mirrors show that people have unfortunately fallen prey to due to the outrage-clickbait outlets that control the narrative.

I have nothing against Harebrained Schemes, and I love their Shadowrun games. It is disappointing that they’re not finely tuned into the truth, but here’s a good place to start.

#GamerGate – If It’s Not About Ethics… A compilation of the journalistic ethics activities of #GamerGate Aug – Dec 2014, told mostly through Total Biscuit ( https://youtu.be/MpmIrWqEUUU ) William Usher (codeGrit stream – https://youtu.be/kdO0VZW6h7w ) and Milo Yiannopoulos ( WhiskeyGrenade stream – https://youtu.be/Aw9UCX4u5Dg ) ( also sourced in annotations within video).

Even still, it’s nice to know that Shadowrun: Hong Kong met its goal and then some, and it’s also nice to know that the indie devs support gamers. Heck, they could have taken David S. Gallant’s position, attacking their own audience, and caused a lot of unnecessary heartache in the process. It’s good they didn’t. You can learn more about the game by paying a visit to the Kickstarter page.