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It’s traditional for articles about #GamerGate to start with a brief overview of why the video games world has been at war. But we’re going to assume that if you are reading this article, then you probably already know what #GamerGate is, and have some opinions about it.

Probably very strong ones.

So we’ll skip that and go straight to how #GamerGate succeeded in getting the attention of the mainstream press...and crashed and burned.

Last week one of #GamerGate’s targets for abuse - Anita Sarkeesian - made the front cover of the New York Times.

If the movement was looking for more coverage, it’s got it. Unfortunately for #GamerGate, the mainstream press have almost exclusively focused on the abusive side of the campaign - much of the glut of coverage prompted by her being forced to cancel a University talk due to gun threats.

It’s one of the ultimate ironies of #GamerGate. After years of trying to explain to the media that mass school shootings shouldn't be linked to violent video games, violent video game fans are threatening school shootings to silence women.

And now the mainstream media is covering #GamerGate, the pieces are coming thick and fast. And all of them are scathing.

Charlie Brooker says it's "increasingly toxic" in the Guardian. Metro calls it "Video gaming’s worst year ever". And Wired adds: "Games aren't very fun these days."

The Washington Post published a piece by one of #GamerGate’s other targets Brianna Wu in which she says: “They’ve threatened to rape me. They've threatened to make me choke to death on my husband’s severed genitals. They've threatened to murder any children I might have.”

New York Magazine had this to say.

And Fortune magazine has even written “Gamergate: What a business executive needs to know” so you know how it might impact your share portfolio. The answer basically being: "It won't."

And we even had our own joke poll about the issue on the Mirror.

Here's the thing.

As several commentators have observed, it isn't that game journalism ethics couldn't be improved. That’s probably true of all branches of journalism.

The press around the games industry has historically had a problem with editorial content and review outcomes dictated by money. But that's not because one indie developer slept with a journalist once who hadn't even reviewed her game. It's the big bucks from the big studios.

Since #GamerGate broke there has, for example, been the exposure of the contracts YouTubers and others were obliged to sign before reviewing “Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor”.

One clause insisted that: “Videos will promote positive sentiment about the game. Videos must not show bugs or glitches that may exist.”

That’s problematic in any branch of journalism.

But much of what #GamerGate is objecting to are just examples of how journalism works. A sports journalist inevitably knows some players and coaches and their agents. A music journalist inevitably knows some bands, their managers, and record company PRs. You couldn't get the job done otherwise.

Journalist Jesse Singal has been confronting this head on in #GamerGate threads on Reddit after writing “Gamergate Should Stop Lying to Journalists — and Itself”. One lengthy response nails the loop that journalists repeatedly find themselves in when trying to write about #GamerGate:

“Me: I don't think this is really about corruption as much as it's about discomfort with feminism. After all, a lot of the heat seems to be aimed at small female devs/commentators of a feminist bent.

GamerGaters on Twitter: Not true! So unfair! Go to KIA!

[Goes to KIA. Suspicions appear to be mostly confirmed.]

This has happened over and over and over again”

Every time a journalist encounters the hate and misogyny that has been a core part of #GamerGate, they get told “But that’s not really what #GamerGate is about, do more research!”.

And more research always turns up into a journey of more miserable abuse of women involved in the games industry. Or McCarthyite spreadsheets of unacceptable journalists.

And yesterday ,satire site Clickhole published the definitive response to #GamerGate, in a piece that left journalists around the world who had tried to grapple with the campaign thinking ‘I wish I’d written that.’

Here’s a sample of it...

“Gamergate is a movement of video game fans who are fighting to achieve something involving ethics in gaming journalism using reasonable, measured debate. Note, though, that should a single word of that description make members of the Gamergate movement angry or uncomfortable, we are perfectly willing to rewrite it. Please just let us know!”

Have a read of the whole Clickhole piece, because really, for #GamerGate, it is time to admit it is...