Hello World,

Chances are that if you’re reading this, you are already somewhat informed about the #GamerGate movement/hashtag. So I’ll make the introduction brief:

People taking part in GamerGate claim the movement is about ethical reforms in game journalism. Detractors claim it’s a movement about harassment of women in gaming. Each camp argues that the opposite camp is putting a spin on the whole thing.

Considering how the human brain works you probably made up your mind about what really happens about 5 minutes into the first opinion piece you read. There aren’t many who are brave enough to challenge their own views on a regular basis (and if you want a somewhat balanced perspective you should look for the ones who did just that).

But regardless of what your view is, in the long term the gamers (and the members of #GamerGate are essentially vocal and passionate gamers) will triumph. It’s just a matter of understanding gamer audience and some game design principles.

1. Gamers are multicultural. More than you think.

Many Americans will mistake to think that this whole blowout is just another US right-vs-left politics, especially considering how US media outlets are jumping on the hashtag bandwagon. It is not.

What you really have to understand is that gaming is a global hobby. It crosses countries, nations, and races. You will probably be amazed by how many gamers from all around the globe are closely following these events as you read this. Not because they really care which American liberal or conservative website sided with whom, but rather because of the aftermath: For the gamers it’s all about the outcome and how the fallout will shape out their hobby in the long run.

And videogame studios are also multicultural. This isn’t just a lip service in an Assassin’s Creed loading screen: In terms of cultural dominance the US game industry was never the equivalent of Hollywood or Silicon Valley. The seemingly all-American GTA is actually from a Scottish studio, Minecraft is a product of Sweden (just like the rest of your IKEA furnished living room), and the Nintendo mascots are proudly made in Japan. The US video videogame market crash of 83 was a sad affair, but it actually did wonders for international diversity: while Atari and other American companies were busy sinking, the Japanese industry rose to fame and Europe turned mostly to PCs.

So when Gamergate opposer are painting the people involved as a bunch of white heterosexual males (one of the many smear tactics used in the debate), gamers of all races and color are reading and bursting into laugh (or tears, depending on how easily offended they are). And when a close knit of similar minded reporters claim to speak on behalf of minorities, ethnicities and genders, all while ignoring their audience — the result is a backlash from said minorities.

That’s how you get hashtags like #notyourshield, and unless these reporters understand this first and apologize for misrepresenting their audience, they will only alienate them more.

Apparently No ISIS in Archer next year. Maybe they’ll change it to GG?

2. Gamers are patient

This is a simple equation actually, as games train you how to be patient.

You have to be patient when you play the game: waiting for that guard to finish his patrol route in Splinter Cell, waiting for that production to finish before you go on the offense in Civilization, waiting for that cloud to slowly make its way towards you so you can find one of the eight secret stars in Braid.

You have to be patient before you even play the game: When you wait for the game to download or install, when searching for an online server, or when the game doesn’t work and you go on forums asking question and following some voodoo magic suggestions.

And you have to be patient when you cringe to every piece of evidence that OMG HL3 CONFIRMED (Seriously Valve, it’s been 7 goddamn years since you threw that EP2 cliffhanger at us!).

Hell, if you’re playing social games you have to be extremely patient as you wait for 24 real life hours before chopping that carrot crop field again (either that or payz us de moneys plz). Even the more casual gamers are becoming accustomed to the slow grind of video games, and this is where patience is a virtue.

If you really wish to understand who you’re dealing with here, you might want to read into one of the many legends of the EVE online universe first, see how some stone cold gamers will patiently wait for months to end to ploy and execute an operation against a warring faction.

And EVE is just a game, so try to imagine how much effort the same enthusiastic gamers will put into something that they see as a real threat to their hobby. We’re talking people who take their time to replicate Game of Thrones Westeros inside Minecraft, block by block. They have all the time in the world.

So if you think that GamerGater aren’t here for the long run, suggest that they’re getting tired, or assume that the movement will pass on its own if you fart in their general direction… well you better clear your schedule and buckle up for the next few months. Or years. It seems that at least the people behind #StopGamerGate2014 already realized they will need a new one for 2015.

3. Gamers practice to perfection and are only being encouraged by defeat

Considering my earlier point this is should much a given, but from a game design perspective it’s important to discuss the kind of feedback-loop games enforce. If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again is not just a song. It’s the gamers motto.

Pfff…. I play SLASO

In games, especially old school games, the core loop involves trying, failing and trying again until successful. Live. Die. Repeat. For some gamers the experience is so compelling that one can only assume future neurological studies will find a link between endorphin release and successfully completing a level in Super Meet Boy (or getting that stupid band-aid), to levels that rival a good orgasm. And maybe even chocolate.

Gamers are over you say? Gamers are dead? You have to remember how game narrative itself often reinforces myths of “few against many” and “against all odds” —bullying the players around to trigger a counter reaction from them. Gamer fuel is not mountain dew, it’s frustration. And when gamers encounter setbacks or have to deal with overwhelming opposition, for them this is merely another reason to rise to the challenge and increase their engagement.

4. Gamers are good at finding patterns (even where none exists)

In the context of GamerGate, this fact is probably the biggest blessing and curse. Humans in general are excellent in pattern recognition (when the machines take over this might be our saving grace) but once again this is something that gamers practice regularly as part of their favorite pastime hobby. Some basic puzzle games simply are about pattern matching, but many other games will still favor players with good heuristics skills that help see through the random noise and find the important data. This is the exact reason why even scientists are using gamers for some DNA research instead of raw computing power.

One phenomenon we can see in GamerGate, is how so many individuals are searching for patterns and hidden connections all around the game industry, posting their findings and collaborating with the rest of the hivemind. For outsiders this might seem obsessive (and in some cases it is), but for some gamers this is just another challenge. Another puzzle. Another riddle to solve: Save the cheerleader, save the world. Find the connection, find the hidden agenda.

Wait, aren’t you that girl from Lollipop Chainsaw? Cheerleading is a tool of the patriarchy

Problem is, in many cases these somewhat obsessive searches can make you see patterns where none actually exists, make some logical hoops and publish the wrong conclusions. Apophenia is a documented psychological term for the experience of seeing patterns in meaningless data, although it’s a natural human behavior.

But this behavior can be problematic. One of the real problems with GamerGate is how quickly people jumped to conclusions over thinly threaded connections — ones that eventually were found to be mostly irrelevant. The prominent activists in this crowd research don’t really see the big deal: all they did was make some allegations based on patterns they found, someone else chimed in and researched said allegations, and eventually they either had some merit or were found to be baseless.

What they just don’t realize is how the collateral damage affects people, or how baseless allegations can still circulate even after being dismissed. As far as they’re concerned, they are merely crowd sourcing investigative journalism (and one might add it’s only because the actual reporters simply aren’t willing to do the research themselves).

But these patterns are still important: even if 90% of the allegations are flat out false, what people should eventually care about is how serious and damaging are the 10% of the allegations that are confirmed to be true. What the GamerGate movement should consider is how to decrease the horrendous ratio so we can have less false-positive claims tarnishing people’s reputation (without scarifying the actual stories that should be exposed). Without careful consideration and balance the whole thing will remain a messy affair.

5. Gamers are great optimizers and problem solvers

In Role Playing game design the issue of optimization is central: optimization, powergaming, and min-maxing are methods for building overpowered game characters, resulting in a more effective play style — sometimes to the level of breaking the actual challenge. Game designers try to overcome optimization abuse by delicately balancing and testing their games, but for gamers this is becoming yet another riddle to solve. If there is a shortcut that the designers did not consider, players will quickly find it and utilize it for their benefit.

This isn’t just a role-playing game trope. Optimization is central to almost every game - from Tetris to Minecraft to FIFA. Dedicated gamers have been practicing optimization for years and now it is a second nature to many of them, and they also quickly adapt to game designers making balance changes, like an infinite chase of cat and mouse.

So whatever you do, don’t try to downplay gamers or think you found a way to outsmart them. No matter what you try, it will probably not have a long lasting effect: If you’re dishonest they will find about it sooner or later, and if you attempt to game or cheat them they will quickly adapt to your tactics and even play your own moves against you. You will likely spend much more time trying to obstruct and throw gamers off your scent, then it will take them to workaround the obstruction (just check with companies involved how well copy protection DRM worked for games and why it was eventually dropped).

6. Gamers are libertarians at heart

One more thing driving GamerGate is the topic of censorship and forcing agenda into games. It seems like we’ve been in a similar situation a few years back, only last time around it was the conservative right claiming that violent games make violent people and this time it’s the liberal left claiming that sexist games make sexist people.

The big difference is probably how the conservative right dismissed games altogether with a “ban this sick filth!” approach, alienating all gamers in the process and effectively removing themselves from the equation. This time around it seems the liberal left is a bit more sophisticated: they understand how games can actually be used as a tool for pushing their agenda, so they don’t dismiss it point blank. They see games as an indoctrination tool for making you a better person.

To make the argument stick, their attempts are backed by accusations about how gamers are violent, racists, misogynistic, homophobic and whatnot. But as mentioned earlier, gamers are diverse and the distribution of gamers is probably all around the left-right axis of the political compass. The actual story is about the authoritarian-libertarian axis.

And here gamers lean heavily towards the side of Liberty and directly oppose authoritative intervention. While it might seem right now that GamerGaters are “in bed” with the “conservative” right and oppose the “liberal” game media, this is only because gamers feel abandoned by the game media. Not only the media ignored the pleas from their audience, but they actually came at them with a full frontal attack: being entirely dismissive about their hobby, identity and lifestyle choice, and marking gamer as the problem that won’t let games “evolve” and “become more”.

Abandoned, Gamergaters took to whoever was up for hearing their story. It’s clear to them that they’re being pushed into a framed narrative of political left-right debate, but they don’t and shouldn’t really care. These fragile alliances are just as temporary to them as the ones with the AI bots in their favorite strategy game: as long as the AI doesn’t hit rampancy and tries to backstab them, gamers have no problem keeping the alliance.

Games are about player agency and liberty, recognized and sometimes celebrated for the freedom (or illusion of it) they offer and encourage. This is probably why the natural instincts for experienced gamers is to question the routes game designers carved for them, always opting for an alternative.

And game designers play along by rewarding gamers who walk of the beaten path: It’s actually easy to spot a seasoned gamer when you’re beta testing your 2D platform game, as they will always try to go left instead of going right as the screen indicates they should be going.

So once again this is also reflected in the outside world: Try to force your agenda on gamers and you will get a serious backlash. If you really want to push your agenda then your best bet is to do this within the games you create, NOT by acting as a moral guardian for other game designers. Promoting your moral superiority in the media or telling artists what games they should or shouldn’t do is simply butchering creative freedom — and neither gamers nor game developers appreciate that.

Gamergaters see themselves now as the ones holding the front for freedom in games. They are the pirates rallying around King Elizabeth being called to hoist the colours. They are the obnoxious Gary King telling the network to fuck off, because they want to be free. And they actually have a good point.

So, what now?

First of wall, what you probably shouldn’t do (especially if you’re part of the media) claim that in order to have a discussion people must abandon #GamerGate first, or tell them that how the “general audience” feels that the movement has been tainted by trolls and harassers beyond redemption.

Do you even realize how ridiculous and hypocritical these demands sound? After the game media itself is responsible for pushing this portrayal in the first place? Outsiders and even some insiders are now irrationally scared of gaming culture as a whole because that’s what the media highlighted for them. This is how the gaming media itself framed the narrative around GamerGate — promoting the fallacy of the entire gaming community guilty by association with some random anonymous harassers based on zero evidence.

Mainstream media with it’s love for scandals quickly jumped in to pour some gasoline into the fire for instant clickbait $$$ profit. This is exactly how you get yourself yet another mass hysteria story revolving around video games. Jack Thompson would be proud.

And now the game media dare ask gamers to back off from the #GamerGate hashtag because of their own wrongdoings? You can’t, you simply can’t, do this kind of thing. This is the equivalent of the school bully / popular jock / school magazine editor picking on the outcast kids and turning the other school kids against them, then tells the outcasts it’s probably time to find another school because even if their intentions are good other kids don’t really believe their side of the story.

A smarter approach for media editors would be to separate the honest criticism from the general noise (not an easy task, I know), make a real attempt to lower the flames and give GamerGaters a chance to prove themselves and rise to the challenge — for example by cooperating together find and reveal the harassers. Its gamers, remember? Rising to challenge is what they do.

At the same time it’s important to remember that revolts thrive on challenge and conflicts. If game media were to publish and adhere to the kind of ethical code GamerGaters asked for in the first place, this one simple step could have possibly put the whole thing to rest before it even started. Throw in a sincere apology into it and you’ll realize how gamers are quick to forgive as much as they were quick to protest.

Twitter and social networks are a multiplayer game after all, and when there’s no conflict there’s just no point to keep playing. Swallow your pride, make an honest attempt to resolve the conflict, understand what gamers concerns are and what makes them tick — and things will turn for the better.