The #LetDevsSpeak movement is designed to help developers with balls of steel and ovaries of titanium to step up to the social media plate and speak their mind without the frothing mouths of rabid media pundits tearing into them. Another alternative is for developers to come forward and discuss at length, with the gaming community, how they feel about #GamerGate through Kotaku in Action, Reddit’s own ostracized sub-Reddit that appears to be treated like an unwanted stepchild. Well, another developer has come forward to address the gaming community and announce his pro-#GamerGate stance. He also took time to thank gamers for fighting the good fight against the corrupt media slander from crooked journalists.

On a Kotaku in Action thread, game designer Ondrej Malota from Warhorse Studios came forward to actively stand against corrupt media. He starts off making sure that everyone knows – just like his boss Daniel Vavra – that his opinion is his opinion alone and not shared by everyone in the studio.

Malota goes on to explain how he got into gaming and why it means so much to him. According to Malota…

“I am a gamedev from eastern Europe (so excuse my poor english) with over 10 years of professional experience. I have worked on tiny flash games, mobile games (even for those old “stupid” phones), downloadable console games and even big AAA PC/console titles. I was born into communist regime behind the iron curtain, so my childhood gaming experiences were probably different than yours – there were almost none.” “So you can imagine what kind of love I hold for videogames and what an amazing time it was for me when the commies finally collapsed and all the “decadent western entertainment” started pouring in for gargantuous prices.”

Malota explains exactly why he joined #GamerGate and what it was that put him over the top. He puts into words his frustration with the media and the people who used to champion gamers, writing…

“[…] suddenly Iam reading the “Gamers are over” articles and speechlessly watching the same insults flung at me and my friends. The same slurs and accusations that we heard in the 80s and the 90s. And who is pushing this idiotic bullshit this time? Is it FOX? Is it a communist TV? Is it old conservative religious fanatics? No. It’s the gaming press. The very people that gamers always counted on as their allies and their voice in the storms we sailed through. All while we are watching the cracking paint reveal corruption of unexpected proportions. “So I joined #GamerGate.”

All of those inaccurate and poorly constructed articles helped contribute to an equally inaccurate and poorly constructed Wikipedia entry.

Previous to Malota making the post on KiA, he tried his hand at GamerGhazi. There’s a fairly invective thread from the political authoritarians over on the sub-Reddit GamerGhazi about the Warhorse dev stepping forward to support #GamerGate. Unfortunately their only argument is to fall to factless fallacies and broad strokes of accusations within their echo-chamber of hatred. They refuse to be reasoned with because they don’t seek reason or resolution, which is why Malota was banned by the mod over on GamerGhazi, again, for trying to start a two-way conversation.

It’s this kind of behavior – especially from some journalists, a few of whom participate in the GamerGhazi sub that level-headed people have begun to see as a hate group – that Malota reminds gamers exactly why more devs don’t step forward. He writes…

“Why don’t more devs come to light and speak up to support you? Because the fucked up gaming press and the rest of the ofendatrons and moral panickers still hold huge power. Being ripped apart or ignored by the gaming press can ruin your business. When my boss, Daniel Vavra, started openly supporting GamerGate, it was a big risk. If the prtess retaliated, it could impact our commercial success and put livelihoods of more than 60 people at risk. And you need to understand that. Many devs have families and kids to feed and going against someone who holds your balls and can squeeze at any time is just not something you would recommend to people.”

This makes the #RebuildInitiative even more important than ever before. Building up new media to help take away the power from the gatekeepers of old.

Some publishers may be willing to step forward in support of the goals put forward by the denizers using #GamerGate to enact change in the industry, but only if it can garner enough support from new media to help change the narrative. I did reach out and ask XSeed Games about rebuilding bridges with gamers who are supporting developers through hashtags like the Rebuild Initiative, and an XSeed Games rep mentioned…

“[…] of course we’re always for being as open and transparent as possible, but that doesn’t necessarily apply to Gamersgate as it’s so fractured that we don’t even know what it represents anymore.”

The lack of proper media representation from notable sites definitely makes #GamerGate look aimless at times, but as Malota points out, if it weren’t for hardcore gamers there wouldn’t have been an ethics train to ride on and all those achievements over the past seven months never would have happened.

As Malota puts it…

“I feel the urge to thank all Gators for fighting back. You have no idea how many devs were scared when this shit exploded. See, if gamers were not as awesome, dedicated, hard-boiled motherfuckers with the strength to keep this up, devs would be left with a hostile environment where any offense caused means you are done for good. We would be left with gaming press that does not give a shit about how much we worked, but will destroy our game based on some arbitrary „problematic“ nonsense.”

Right. We’ve seen what kind of emasculation comics have undergone, as well as the attempted neutering of the Atheism community at the hands of the “Offendatrons”. Gamers decided to stick to their guns and do what they do best: fight back… and win.

As Malota pointed out…

“You have turned an attempt for a media blitzkrieg into a trench war, in which we command the mechas, railguns and orbital strikes. You have shown these muppets that gamers are not to be fucked with. And you did that through humor, creativity and intelligent debate. “If we didn’t have your amazing support, this industry would be set decades back and mangled forever.”

Even when the ethics train looks like it slows down every once in a while, it doesn’t take a moment to stop because the ride never ends.