A war on the people who have the audacity to make budget-priced or free, independent games that represent characters other than grizzled white dudes has been ongoing since August. Their games push back against the idea that games must be power fantasies, whether the power in place is the ownership of a vehicle worth millions or being an individual assassin striking terror in the hearts of the orcs of Middle Earth. Most, if not all, of these games are pretty easy to acquire, run on your college laptop, and cost $20 or less.

This hate campaign goes by the name #GamerGate. The movement was primarily founded in two events; the harassment and revealing of personal information of game developer Zoe Quinn (“Depression Quest”) regarding her supposed impropriety in “attaining press through personal relationships”—which has been debunked, though persists in a “Five Guys, Burgers and Fries” meme you can see perpetuated even in our own State Street location—and an article by games editorialist Leigh Alexander proclaiming the death of the “gamer” identity. The latter led to the creation of the #GamerGate hashtag by Adam Baldwin of the cast of “Firefly.”