Stop Gamer Gate

*WARNING: This post contains some graphic content - explicit threats that have been leveled against women in the gaming industry.

Oh boy. I mentioned this briefly yesterday, but it's time for more detail. There has been a lot of press recently, internet and otherwise, about this group known as Gamer Gate. Gamer Gate is a collection of gamers whose goal is, supposedly, policing unethical gaming journalism and subsequently demanding higher standards. They allege that there is rampant misconduct in reporting because gaming journalists have relationships with developers that are too close and too personal to remain truly impartial. The hashtag #GamerGate was first used by actor Adam Baldwin - of Firefly and Chuck fame - at the end of August in a not so subtle nod to the Watergate scandal when posting a link to a video that "exposed" the scandal behind game developer Zoe Quinn's release: Depression Quest.

Oh boy. The Quinnspiracy. That's a whole can of worms in it's own right. Her game release was LAST YEAR and people are still pissed off about the fact that it was a success. When first released - for FREE - Depression Quest was pretty well received. As one might guess from the name, the game focuses on the experience of dealing with depression. Therefore, it's not a fun game in the traditional sense, but rather was created as a springboard for discussion about this complex and important topic, as well as providing a relatable experience for gamers suffering from depression or those who know someone who does. In those regards, it was a success by most accounts. If you go to metacritic today, you'll see that Zoe's game (made with Patrick Lindsey) has a score of 1.3 out of 100. But that's a farcical representation of the game's quality since the metacritic score is based on user reviews and never stops accepting them. In other words, after the so-called conspiracy involving Quinn came to light, people with no real knowledge of the situation, the game, or the creator went online to bash it out of some misguided sense of justice, to punish Quinn for her bad behavior. Here is a more positive review from IGN, widely regarded as a ethical, reliable gaming site, that says pretty much the same things I did above but in greater detail. Note the date on that report. Just 5 days after the game's release last year, before this hellstorm of internet hate came on scene.

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There was backlash when Quinn's game first released largely because, I can only assume, she was a successful woman in gaming. There seemed to be no other rationale for the vitriol thrown her way simply for making a game. A game, again, that was FREE. That you were not forced to play or even acknowledge existed. Things escalated in August of this year after her romantic relationship with Eron Gjoni ended. He expressed his distress at losing the woman he loved by creating a blog dedicated to exposing her as a fraud and a slut - not his words. He claimed to merely want to warn people who might encounter her that she was duplicitous. But the blog was wholly devoted to discussing the supposed affairs she had with 5 different men with they were together, including her boss and a Kotaku reporter. This is, of course, all hearsay, and generally acknowledged by people with some sense as either total crap manufactured by a bitter ex or, even if true, utterly irrelevant to her status as a game developer. So over a year after the release of her game, Gamer Gaters attacked. They pounced on Zoe Quinn for violating journalistic integrity despite the fact that she IS NOT A JOURNALIST, and the fact that the journalist she was supposed have slept with (again, based only on the word of a jilted ex) never wrote a review of her game.

Can you tell where this is headed?

The next target of the Gamer Gaters incomprehensible rage was Brianna Wu. Having seen the ridiculous lengths GGers would go to in order to discredit and destroy her fellow females in the gaming industry, people she considered friends having been the victims of their attacks, she had tweeted about them previously. A fan of hers attached her sentiments to a new meme, "Oppressed Gamer Gater." She tweeted out the images and almost immediately received an influx of attacks and threats herself for pointing out GGers ridiculous hypocrisy and disproportionately violent responses to criticism. And it wasn't just vicious tweets - which included rape and murder threats. They attempted to hack her studio's accounts to damage her financially. She was doxxed and her personal information, address included, released so that enraged GGers knew where to find her should they want to express their dissatisfaction in person. She and her husband were forced to leave their home and notify the police. You can read Brianna's own account here, where she provides much more detail.

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The most recent incident revolved around Anita Sarkeesian, founder of Feminist Frequency. Through her organization, Sarkeesian has made a series of educational videos addressing  the extremely limited, formulaic, and insulting ways women are typically portrayed in media, including a set specifically addressing the problems in video games called "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games." Side note, I highly recommend her videos, they are are eye-opening, so check out her youtube channel when you get done here. After the release of her most recent installment in the series, "Women as Background Decoration, Part 2," the attacks against her seemed to pick up in intensity and stories about her were all over the internet. She's been doing her videos - and being threatened about them - for a while now so I'm not sure why that one seemed to set people off more than usual except perhaps that the people who so seem to hate her had finally unified into a single group known as, you guessed it, Gamer Gate. Then, just this week, Sarkeesian was forced to cancel her scheduled talk at Utah State University after receiving very specific threats against her life (though she clarified in a tweet later that she didn't cancel because of the threat itself, rather due to insufficient security):

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I cannot even begin to comprehend the depravity that accompanies such indiscriminate rage. That someone out there is so offended by a discussion about video games for goodness sake** that they would threaten to murder dozens of innocent people. How does someone get so carried away by something so ultimately unimportant? This guy has an idea. (Seriously, that's an amazing read. If you don't have time now, save it and read it later. SO GOOD.)

It's also important that we know that these 3 women have not been the only ones targeted, just the most prominent cases. If you clicked on the link to Brianna's account and read it, she lays out the names of other women that have been similarly targeted by the Gamer Gate movement. In light of this newest, most heinous threat of mass murder, something finally clicked in the minds of the public, gaming professionals, and most gamers. We realized that this kind of ultra-violence targeting women cannot be allowed to stand. A Twitter movement started to combat the GamerGate hashtag: #stopgamergame2014. I'm not sure why specifying 2014 was necessary, but I digress. Tons of people, including celebrities joined in the movement, amidst which Seth Rogan issued a call to action to Adam Baldwin to separate himself from this toxic community. The ESA even issued a statement formally condemning GGers harassment of women.

It's ridiculous, of course, that it was allowed to come this far before GGers were called out, but I'm so happy to see it happen at all. So often women's experiences, especially in the tech community, are discounted as lies or at best hyperbole. They are told, "That's just the way things are, the internet comes with trolls. Grow a thicker skin." But the fact is that being a woman in tech carries another level of danger entirely than there is for men. The number of threats is increased exponentially if you're a woman and they become much more personal and violent, almost always containing a description of violent rape and/or murder. In addition, as I've described above, these women face hacking attempts, doxing, online impersonators, and threats targeting their loved ones. God bless Anita Sarkeesian that after she started facing this kind of treatment, she put together an educational presentation about the methods these... people use to go after women. 

I really, seriously, HIGHLY recommend you spend the 16 minutes it takes to watch that. If you really just can't or won't, I will share what I found to be the most important point. Listen and believe. As I mentioned above, when women report abuse, whether it be catcalling, sexual assault, or online threats, they are so very often decried as being liars or exaggerating or overly sensitive. Next time, try just listening. Don't tell her - or anyone, basic human decency, come on! - about her own life and feelings. Just listen and believe when she tells you how bad it is. Because it really, really is that bad. Just read that mass murder threat above again if you doubt it. 

Of course, many GGers protest this new movement to shut them down, regurgitating the goal I described at the very beginning of this post. "It's not about hurting women!" they cry, "It's about ethical journalism!" I don't doubt that, at the beginning, there were people among GGers who really were concerned about honest reporting and reviews. But this monster has grown and mutated into something different and incredibly ugly. If this is really about journalism, they why are you attacking gaming developers and critics, NOT journalists? Why are all of the people you target women -in field disproportionately employing men (despite the fact that women make up 48% of gamers)? Whatever the original intentions of the GamerGate movement, it has rapidly become overwhelmed by misogynists who use it as a smoke screen to harass women in the field, beating angrily against their chests like cavemen chasing out intruders. The whole thing resembles little boys throwing a temper tantrum because they suddenly have to share their "No Girlz Alloued!" clubhouse with girls, except much more violent. Except that the clubhouse isn't theirs to defend, nor is it sudden at all. 

So, GamerGaters, if you really want to talk about ethics in journalism, we can do that. But find another hashtag. Because your history demonstrates that at worst, GGers are a group of violent, raging misogynists, and at best you have no ability to police those types people from infesting your ranks and subverting your purpose for their own ends. Either way, it's past time that we #stopgamergate2014.

**I don't mean to imply that video games are unimportant or have little value. I love video games and I think they are a versatile medium with the power to shape our world in subtle and profound ways. But they are, of course, not worth committing real-life violence over, especially mass murder.