Is #GamerGate misogyny posing as concern for ethics?

[Civil War Man]

GTA is too busy trying to win writing awards with the most trite shit to bother with anything of that nature. It's a sad day when, even as bastshit crazy and it has become, Saint's Row writing ends up being more engaging. Oh yea, and fully-voiced female protagonists.

I wouldn't call it a sad day. I think embracing the absurdity actually helps it be more engaging, since it's one of the reasons the characters in the series are colorful and memorable. It's not just generic white guys (or, since it's a sandbox crime game, generic black gangbangers) running around killing people.

[TheFeniX]

You still see a lot of that, even if it's less obvious. Female gamers get lots of condescending "helpful advice," and other things based on the sheer assumption that if they must not really understand what they're doing. When they win, then comes the wonderful gender based insults and accusations that they must have just been lucky, or their opponent made a mistake.

"You got lucky," "LAAAAG!," "Noob cannon." All sorts of lame ass excuses exist for lame-asses when they get stomped. I've been declared a homosexual who can't get laid among many other thing across all manners of games. Once or twice someone has picked out my very slight Texas accent, and just started quoting FMJ like it's so fucking original. The worst of said games, by far, has been the CoD fanbase, but really any competitive shooter on XBLive.

As a guy, it's obviously easier to let this shit roll off my back. And the insults directed towards female have more bite since even in grade-school: guys just run their mouths at each other. These kinds of people are looking for anything they can to sling shit. I think a big problem with this is they used to be avoidable for the most part due to dedicated servers and other technical aspects of gaming that not longer exist. But just like how my sister can plug in an xbox and get into a game with 3 randoms immediately in L4Dead due to the matchmaking system, so can mouth-breathers.

Let me put it this way: I puged Counter-Strike and even I wasn't prepared for the absurd amount of vitriol on XBLive. And it's so fucking hard to get away from, you spend more time muting/reporting people than anything.

@TheFenix: Why aren't people who play mobile games and shit real gamers? Who decided this? It'd be like if baseball fans decided they were the only sports fans and everyone else wasn't worthy of the name.

Because gamer is a stupid fucking label to begin with. Lumping everyone into one giant pile isn't helping anything. It's why EA looked at the half-rotten corpse of the Dungeon Keeper franchise and said "You know what this needs? Pay to Play, because people like that shit now, right?" Are people who play Solitare in the same demographic of those who play Arena Shooters? I love MMA and watch it exclusively. Does this make me a "sports fan?" Is "sports fan" a stupid thing to call yourself? Sounds like it. Are video games a sport? Should football fans keep up with the pro-Starcraft scene?

But really, my comment was more about how my mom would be insulted by the term "gamer." To her, they are a way to burn time here and there and her game choices reflect that attitude.

[Lord Revan]

Big problem with the "label" gamer is that it's used by people no social skills to make themselves special and they're also the ones to evoke that label most often so it gives the impression that all people playing videogames as adults are no-lifers who think playing videogames makes them special, while in thruth for most people playing videogames it's a hobby or just a way to kill time aka nothing special.

[PKRudeBoy]

Not exactly. A lot of people still regard KJA as the absolute worst author ever involved with the Star Wars EU, even though he hasn't written anything more than the occasional short story since around 1997 or so. Compare that to, say, Vonda McIntyre, whose novel The Crystal Star came out at around the same time as Darksaber and got if anything an even WORSE reception. Yet hardly anyone ever talks about her nowadays, and those who do tend to regard her writing style as just being a poor fit for Star Wars, rather than her being unable to understand the franchise because of her gender.

That's the thing though: Vonda McIntyre didn't try to upset the apple cart. That's what all these women also have in common. Particularly Traviss, who dared to question the Jedi (I happen to think she was wrong, but I don't want her head over it).

I think with Traviss it's a combination of her work being more recent, and the habit she had of publicly attacking fans who didn't like her work.

That's my question though: did she actually attack first? It's hard to see from within the situation, after all.

Ah, but not only was Traviss publishing while the board existed, unlike Darksaber or Vector Prime, she committed the unforgivable heresy of Minimalism, which I think is punished by death by flaming here.

Side note- Fuck Darksaber. Crix Madine was awesome, and having him killed off by a megalomaniacal slug sucked. The Imperials sucked. And don't get me started on the Wampa.

[Gandalf]

Big problem with the "label" gamer is that it's used by people no social skills to make themselves special and they're also the ones to evoke that label most often so it gives the impression that all people playing videogames as adults are no-lifers who think playing videogames makes them special, while in thruth for most people playing videogames it's a hobby or just a way to kill time aka nothing special.

Gamer is an easy label to adopt, and as a result it's an easy way for middle class white guys to claim persecution, because someone dared question aspects of their subculture and its practices.

[Eleas]

Ah, but not only was Traviss publishing while the board existed, unlike Darksaber or Vector Prime, she committed the unforgivable heresy of Minimalism, which I think is punished by death by flaming here.

That's my point though. Darksaber was far worse in respect to minimalism, in that it had a full alpha strike on the Yavin Temple fail to do anything more than start forest fires, when it should have cracked the crust of the planet.

The "3 million clones" thing could be derived from Lucas. The Darksaber idiocy was completely self-inflicted.

[Darmalus]

Ah, but not only was Traviss publishing while the board existed, unlike Darksaber or Vector Prime, she committed the unforgivable heresy of Minimalism, which I think is punished by death by flaming here.

That's my point though. Darksaber was far worse in respect to minimalism, in that it had a full alpha strike on the Yavin Temple fail to do anything more than start forest fires, when it should have cracked the crust of the planet.

The "3 million clones" thing could be derived from Lucas. The Darksaber idiocy was completely self-inflicted.

Proximity in both time and space matters. Darksaber was old before this board was even founded, Chewbacca was dead for years before I found out, and it was even longer before I read the book where it happened. By contrast the board got to watch every detail of the Traviss drama as it unfolded near the peak of the board's popularity.

Minor transgressions that happen in your presence generally have far greater emotional impact than true horrors that are distant in time or space. The average person will reach greater heights of emotion after getting cut off in traffic than learning about virtually any crime against humanity in history.

[Eleas]

Proximity in both time and space matters. Darksaber was old before this board was even founded, Chewbacca was dead for years before I found out, and it was even longer before I read the book where it happened. By contrast the board got to watch every detail of the Traviss drama as it unfolded near the peak of the board's popularity.

Most of the old cadre on SDNet carried over from ASVS, and the culture was largely similar, with even greater vitriol. Yet nothing like it happened back then in respect to KJA.

[Eleas]

Recently, Chris Kluwe writes a scathing, profanity-packed diatribe against GamerGate, while Wil Wheaton points out the amount of 'useful idiots' in the movement and Felicia Day explained how she felt ashamed at how the GG issue had made her afraid of speaking out about her experiences, and none of them were attacked.

AHAHAHA sorry guys Felicia Day was totally doxxed within the hour, unlike the other two. Who's surprised? Apparently, for GamerGaters, being called by every swear-word under the sun is no biggie, but as soon as a woman says you make her nervous, she's cruisin' for a rapin'.

[SilverDragonRed]

Having only learned about GG from this thread, I did some research about it. I have to ask because I am honestly confused: What is NotYourShield and how did that get entangled in this mess?

[Thanas]

So I spent a bit of time reading up on this (God, I wish I had not).

1. Seems to me most of the guys up in arms about this are misogynist idiots. Doxxing (I did not even know the term existed) is a coward's act. This reads like 4chan gurgled up some extra douchiness and infected a lot of people with it.

2. Is there anybody really here that gives a shit about the "gamer" identity? I've been playing games since I got my computer. Does that make me a "gamer"? What is it these guys are even discussing about here? Ugh. So annoying. WOMEN THREATENING MUH IDENTITY is about on the same level as DEY TOOK R JOBS.

3. Seems to me that there is an underlying problem (review sites are shit) that is not addressed at all and the industry is probably pretty happy about that. Honestly, the review stuff has gotten so bad that I cannot even trust most sites. Right now I mostly stick with purchases to a few companies where I know what I will be getting. WHich is not the way it should be. I remember the Alpha Protocol debacle - Probably top 5 game I ever played, but nobody bought it because reviewers undeservedly shit on it - until legions of friends told me to get it.

[Eleas]

3. Seems to me that there is an underlying problem (review sites are shit) that is not addressed at all and the industry is probably pretty happy about that. Honestly, the review stuff has gotten so bad that I cannot even trust most sites. Right now I mostly stick with purchases to a few companies where I know what I will be getting. WHich is not the way it should be. I remember the Alpha Protocol debacle - Probably top 5 game I ever played, but nobody bought it because reviewers undeservedly shit on it - until legions of friends told me to get it.

I agree that it's a problem. The thing is, and what makes me laugh at the people who claim this began with a few indie devs, I remember this being commonplace back in 1988. Major publishers like Ocean would demand favorable treatment from gaming mags, and get it (because otherwise, they wouldn't send previews and/or promos). It was never addressed, and it was in fact seen as the cost of doing business. This "corruption" has been industry standard for as long as many of the gamergaters have been alive.

The exception? Indie devs, because indie devs cannot unilaterally demand favorable treatment of magazines and expect to be obeyed. Those same indie devs that are now being attacked.

[Civil War Man]

3. Seems to me that there is an underlying problem (review sites are shit) that is not addressed at all and the industry is probably pretty happy about that. Honestly, the review stuff has gotten so bad that I cannot even trust most sites. Right now I mostly stick with purchases to a few companies where I know what I will be getting. WHich is not the way it should be. I remember the Alpha Protocol debacle - Probably top 5 game I ever played, but nobody bought it because reviewers undeservedly shit on it - until legions of friends told me to get it.

The review venues being in bed with the AAA developers has never really been much of a secret, and the fact that GamerGate as a whole is largely silent about that is the biggest indictment of their claim that it's about journalistic ethics. Of course, there is little impetus for them to try to change that relationship because the status quo in AAA gaming already caters to the 18-34 straight white male demographic.

It's an interesting quirk I've noticed. It's similar to something I posted in another thread where atheism is used to describe both someone who passively does not believe in gods as well as actively evangelical anti-theists who feel the need to try to convert religious people to their side. Being a nerd has always carried with it some level of being ostracized by "mainstream" culture, though much less so now than in previous eras (and video games have historically been considered a nerdy pursuit and have only fairly recently started gaining broader appeal). I've found that the two most common reactions to this treatment is either incredible tolerance towards different people, possibly out of a desire not to mimic the people who originally shunned them, or being militantly exclusive of different people, seemingly out of a fear that mainstream culture is now trying to co-opt the fantasies they took refuge in when they were originally shunned. So, by this logic, one of the reasons GamerGate is disproportionately targeting female and indie developers would be that they view them as barbarians at the gates of Gaming, and that if the barbarians are able to get in, they will take over the entire industry and stop making games for the "real" gamers, effectively sending them into exile once again.

Having only learned about GG from this thread, I did some research about it. I have to ask because I am honestly confused: What is NotYourShield and how did that get entangled in this mess?

From what I've read, NotYourShield is a tag for women and minorities who support the whole GamerGate thing. It doesn't look like it was a thing that got entangled in the mess, but something specifically created to deflect accusations of racism or misogyny in the GamerGate community, in a way that personally comes across as a "Some of my best friends are X" defense.

[Siege]

Are GamerGate as a whole is largely silent about journalistic ethics though? Or is it just that the rabid harassment of women by a segment of GamerGaters is (justifiably) bigger news and thus drowns out other issues?

The thing with these internet cesspit arguments is that it's pretty much impossible to draw lines or distinguish how many people are decent folk with genuine complaints versus how many are frothing psycho stalkers. Personally I wouldn't associate with GamerGate for all the lunacy associated with it, but they clearly aren't all rabid misogynist dickbags, as evidenced by subreddits like KotakuInAction that are seething at the damage that kind of fuckery does to what they perceive to be their cause.

Not that there isn't plenty other things wrong with those places, but to me it isn't a clear-cut case of either misogyny or journalistic ethics. Having said that, misogyny and rampant abuse in general are way bigger problems than a bunch of journalists getting fêted by big publishers. Traditional gaming media are on the way out anyway, so fuck 'em. Clear out these psychos first, we can worry about the media later.

[TheFeniX]

The review venues being in bed with the AAA developers has never really been much of a secret, and the fact that GamerGate as a whole is largely silent about that is the biggest indictment of their claim that it's about journalistic ethics. Of course, there is little impetus for them to try to change that relationship because the status quo in AAA gaming already caters to the 18-34 straight white male demographic.

What group are they really targeting though? In and around 2000, PC gaming was the standard for online play: consoles either didn't have Internet access at all or it was so limited (and clunky) that it may as well not existed at all. The Xbox, then later the 360 and PS3 opened up not only another market, but also lead to the smashing together of a lot of genres. Before that, there really was no competition between PC and console.

That whole "lonely depressed loser" PC gamer stereotype has already been heavily marginalized. CoD didn't push a zillion units pandering to that playerbase. I've heard the term "gaming is dead" and how now gaming belongs to the masses as if this is some current phenomena that just recently started. Among so-called hardcore PC gamers, those old-hat guys who supposedly spend all the money and have all the power: Arena shooters were a huge deal. That shit's been dead for over a decade. How long did these depressed losers hang on for? Halo, Gears of War, and Modern Warfare cribbed an entirely different market of white dudes to play video games. Really though, just men in general.

Yes, a lot of those guys (me included) moved on and played whatever was available, but the market didn't get to where it is solely on the money provided by those buying when 100k units was a big fucking deal. The market got bigger because it opened up to pretty much anyone who can plug a VCR in. So, are the neckbeards really just that loud and angry, or is sexism a big enough deal in society that now "normal" people buying games get to show their sexism off in an anonymous way and they are just as big (if not bigger) assholes about it?

I'm honestly curious. In my experience, I didn't talk about video games when I was socializing. But there was a point in my life we were partying at A&M and UT right around the time the 360 was a thing. Now, the same guys who used to brag about "banging skanks" and how their fantasy football team is doing, now add on about how they'll get together later and tea-bag bitches in Halo.

MMOs are like the last bastion of pathetic virgins. You can't mention WoW with normal people without getting some kind of flak and it's insanely popular for an MMO. Yet I've met many more women in MMOs and also many that are not nearly as worried about letting it be known they are women than I ever did in any other gaming genre. Yes, the sexism is there "women should heal" and other such bullshit. But shit for just playing the game? Actually quite rare, even if women get creeped on way too much. All those tacti-cool shooters the market is flooded with? My wife can't queue her mic without eating shitloads of vitriol.

So why is it that games flooded with "normal" people are also filled with the worst kinds of people?

Not to say sexism hasn't been a big deal in gaming. I've gamed with more than a few women and a lot of guys don't deal well with losing to women when sex isn't on the line. They don't deal well with women at all. By why have I noticed over the past 20 years that sexism has become considerably worse from both gamers and publishers now that the market has opened up to "normal" people? Honest question. Maybe I've got rose-tinted glasses on, but that's how I've seen the market move.

[Kuja]

Are GamerGate as a whole is largely silent about journalistic ethics though? Or is it just that the rabid harassment of women by a segment of GamerGaters is (justifiably) bigger news and thus drowns out other issues?

The thing with these internet cesspit arguments is that it's pretty much impossible to draw lines or distinguish how many people are decent folk with genuine complaints versus how many are frothing psycho stalkers. Personally I wouldn't associate with GamerGate for all the lunacy associated with it, but they clearly aren't all rabid misogynist dickbags, as evidenced by subreddits like KotakuInAction that are seething at the damage that kind of fuckery does to what they perceive to be their cause.

Not that there isn't plenty other things wrong with those places, but to me it isn't a clear-cut case of either misogyny or journalistic ethics. Having said that, misogyny and rampant abuse in general are way bigger problems than a bunch of journalists getting fêted by big publishers. Traditional gaming media are on the way out anyway, so fuck 'em. Clear out these psychos first, we can worry about the media later.

The problem with gamergate is that even if you'd like to give it the benefit of the doubt and try to divorce the genuine attempts at reducing corruption from the nubars screaming rape/dox/death threats, the movement itself isn't trying to distance the good from the bad.

Gamergate started on 4chan (/v/ in particular) and you can definitely tell they're trying to be anonymous 2.0. They've actively resisted attempts to organize and structure their membership, they refuse to rally behind leadership (apart from a few celebrities who patronize the movement) and attempts to split the wheat from the chaff are limp-wristed at best. To reiterate what I said on another board, I could fire off an angry email to Felicia Day right now, use the hashtag #GamerGate and I would be just as genuine a member of the movement as anyone else on the internet.

Fact of the matter is though, a large part of gamergate's accusations of 'corruption' basically boils down to 'SJWs comin' to take my games!!' I've seen people rant for paragraphs on top of paragraphs about how Bayonetta 2 getting a 7.5 out of 10 because the critic was made uncomfortable by the game's overt sexuality is an utter travesty of journalism; about how game journalists need to be 'objective' (a word that's been reduced to meaninglessness) and keep 'bias' (defined as "an opinion I don't like") and 'agenda' out of their writing. It's pearl-clutching and nothing more. Let me quote myself on the matter-

Gamers and the gaming industry have had a longstanding tendency to circle the wagons against outside attack. To a degree, this has been justified by people like Hillary Clinton and the old troll himself Jack Thompson trying to do everything from ban video games as a whole to restrict their sales, blaming them for such things as antisocial behavior and school violence despite numerous studies examining how wrong that hasty conclusion can be. There's also defense against the wider perception that while video games aren't harmful, they're a kid's thing, and the only adults that play Call of Halo: Gears of Honor are basement-dwelling neckbeards, like the spores of Kevin Smith. Lastly, the gaming industry itself has a bit of a history of tottering from one near-disaster to the next, with individual companies barely treading water or else getting eaten by EA, their souls devoured in ritual pursuit of dollar signs. Change to gamers means bad. It means people coming to take your games. Defend the status quo; protect your hobby.

This has conspired to make gamers a vehemently defensive lot, with a heavy-handed 'rally round the flag' mentality. You can see it in a lot of game forums, like Bioware when TOR was struggling, or the WoW forums when unpopular changes happen. Certain people will just charge in and bellow about how the complaints are just 'whining' with a side helping of 'you don't like it, then quit.' Gamers can get really fuckin heated even about comparatively silly subjects like flying or no flying in the next WoW expansion, to say nothing of serious discussions like the potential future of IPs or whole companies, or such a thing as heavy as representation and diversification in video games.

So here's the gg movement - no head, no body, just a roiling tangle of defensive rage that isn't quite sure of what it's doing but knows what it wants: it wants games to stay the same. Stop touching my games! Stop ruining things! Stop making the games industry look bad or we'll lose it! Some of its members are no doubt focused on corruption, but the movement brings along with it a great many bandwagoners flying off the handle and just striking out in anger at the people they perceive as harming the hobby. And when the movement refuses to exercise the discipline in removing the hateful parts (keeping the wagons carefully circled), it loses the right to complain that its message is being corrupted.

[Jub]

So here's the gg movement - no head, no body, just a roiling tangle of defensive rage that isn't quite sure of what it's doing but knows what it wants: it wants games to stay the same. Stop touching my games! Stop ruining things! Stop making the games industry look bad or we'll lose it! Some of its members are no doubt focused on corruption, but the movement brings along with it a great many bandwagoners flying off the handle and just striking out in anger at the people they perceive as harming the hobby. And when the movement refuses to exercise the discipline in removing the hateful parts (keeping the wagons carefully circled), it loses the right to complain that its message is being corrupted.

When anybody can use a hash tag and send hate mail, how the fuck can anybody be expected to excise the hateful parts of the movement? It's a lot easier to threaten and bluster than it is to make an insightful comment about the state of games journalism so no matter what you do the signal to noise is going to be awful. So what do anti-gamer gate people think that people that do want inquiry into the corruption of games journalism suggest be done?

[Flagg]

1: anyone who identifies themselves as a "gamer" needs psychological help.
2: anyone defending these gamergate h4ck3r losers should be perm banned.

[Vendetta]

When anybody can use a hash tag and send hate mail, how the fuck can anybody be expected to excise the hateful parts of the movement? It's a lot easier to threaten and bluster than it is to make an insightful comment about the state of games journalism so no matter what you do the signal to noise is going to be awful. So what do anti-gamer gate people think that people that do want inquiry into the corruption of games journalism suggest be done?

By defining the movement and its ideals better than just a hashtag.

By actually being an organised consumer advocacy movement with a verified list of vetted spokespeople.

And by stopping spelling "corruption" the same as "feminism". Because even if "GamerGate" isn't involved in the attacks on women that are happening at a far greater frequency in the gaming space than ever before, they are creating an atmosphere where women and female voices are "the enemy" (and coincidentally dehumanised by labels rather than names) and hence an atmosphere where those attacks are more likely to occur.

[Kuja]

When anybody can use a hash tag and send hate mail, how the fuck can anybody be expected to excise the hateful parts of the movement? It's a lot easier to threaten and bluster than it is to make an insightful comment about the state of games journalism so no matter what you do the signal to noise is going to be awful. So what do anti-gamer gate people think that people that do want inquiry into the corruption of games journalism suggest be done?

Stop pretending to be some kind of neo-anonymous online grassroots movement and actually start taking responsibility for itself, for one. Get some actual, structured leadership and some manner of membership and base going, because IRC and 8chan aren't going to fucking cut it. More importantly, denounce the psychopaths who send rape and death threats en masse. Send the message "these people are not us." In other words, do the exact same thing every major group for social change since the history of mankind has done. If protesters in Ferguson can defend local shops from looters then gamergate should be able to tell off the bandwagoners who fly off the handle every time a woman dares open her mouth.

Right now, gamergate would very much like to convince people that this is what's going on:



Except that because with every major dox/death threat that comes out the movement continues to show it can't or won't vet its own membership, this is how it ends up looking to everyone else:

[KlavoHunter]

1: anyone who identifies themselves as a "gamer" needs psychological help.

Why?

[DarkArk]

You know, normally I hold the SD.net community in fairly high esteem. Yes, I myself am mostly a lurker, but I lurk here because people usually know what the hell they are talking about. And if they don't they will almost always get called out on it.

But apparently today this is not the case.

Eight pages and not a single mention of the incredibly successful write-in campaign that gamergate has launched? Or the "gamers are dead" articles? Of how Intel got called a bunch of misogynistic assholes (hilarious when they have a female CEO) for pulling their ads off Gamasutra? Of how Gawker continues to make itself look like a bunch of petulant children? No mention of GameJournoPros and the proven collusion that has happened within the industry? Hell not even a mention of the segment NPR did on it this morning?

Instead you all focus on the one thing that has been on the internet almost since its inception and will likely be here a hundred years from now.

I have an honest question for you people. Given all of the companies that have been pulling their ads off of these sites as a result of the Gamergate write-in campaign (to the point where Kotaku was seen using aggregate ads), do you think they're misogynists too? Do you honestly think Intel didn't do its homework with regards to whether they had a point about being associated with corruption and harassment?

Gamergate started on 4chan

Yeah no. The hashtag was started by Adam Baldwin. This is elementary knowledge here that proves you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

The review venues being in bed with the AAA developers has never really been much of a secret, and the fact that GamerGate as a whole is largely silent about that is the biggest indictment of their claim that it's about journalistic ethics. Of course, there is little impetus for them to try to change that relationship because the status quo in AAA gaming already caters to the 18-34 straight white male demographic.

Perhaps because they're gigantic titans that have proper PR departments that make sure their people don't spout off terrible comments on Twitter? It's much harder to convince advertisers they shouldn't associate with extremists when there's no real examples of it.

because IRC and 8chan aren't going to fucking cut it.

Except apparently right now it is. The legitimacy that you think organizing would bring likely wouldn't bring it in the end. Mainstream media is so hilariously behind the times with regards to advancements in video gaming I don't consider their opinions to have a lot of merit. These people just noticed that League of Legends had more people watching its final than all sports combined that weekend, and ran the piece like it is some sort of interesting curio. They fundamentally have no stake in this, and so why should members of Gamergate give up their anonymity for that?

[Guardsman Bass]

If the "real" #GamerGate crowd really did want to separate it from the misogynists and the assholes, it wouldn't be that difficult.

1. Get a group together.
2. Set up a separate blog or forum with approval-only registration and active moderation. Include rules stating that cyber-abuse and threats of violence against women and other critics are completely unacceptable, and enforce it - ban people who show up and start ranting about SJWs or conspiracy theories involving Sarkeesian or Quinn, or who throw around misogynistic slurs, or who try to dox critics.
3. Come up with a widely agreed upon manifesto among the members of what exactly you want to do, what changes you want from game journalists and companies, etc.

Assuming you can actually find people buried in there who really do care about it, and aren't just reactionaries who want to scream and threaten female critics and anyone else who criticizes "gamers".

[Dominus Atheos]

I have an honest question for you people. Given all of the companies that have been pulling their ads off of these sites as a result of the Gamergate write-in campaign (to the point where Kotaku was seen using aggregate ads), do you think they're misogynists too? Do you honestly think Intel didn't do its homework with regards to whether they had a point about being associated with corruption and harassment?

Yes, they may not be misogynists themselves, but they got trolled by misogynists into pulling their ads without doing their homework.

Gamergate started on 4chan

Yeah no. The hashtag was started by Adam Baldwin. This is elementary knowledge here that proves you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

It was just some random asshole on twitter until 4chan got a hold of it and turned it into a "movement".

The review venues being in bed with the AAA developers has never really been much of a secret, and the fact that GamerGate as a whole is largely silent about that is the biggest indictment of their claim that it's about journalistic ethics. Of course, there is little impetus for them to try to change that relationship because the status quo in AAA gaming already caters to the 18-34 straight white male demographic.

Perhaps because they're gigantic titans that have proper PR departments that make sure their people don't spout off terrible comments on Twitter? It's much harder to convince advertisers they shouldn't associate with extremists when there's no real examples of it.

You're talking about that "Gaming is dead"? I've read that article, it's not extreme. The way gamersgate/4chan et al got their panties in a bunch over it is the one of the biggest reasons I believe the "movement" is 100% misogyny.

because IRC and 8chan aren't going to fucking cut it.

Except apparently right now it is. The legitimacy that you think organizing would bring likely wouldn't bring it in the end. Mainstream media is so hilariously behind the times with regards to advancements in video gaming I don't consider their opinions to have a lot of merit. These people just noticed that League of Legends had more people watching its final than all sports combined that weekend, and ran the piece like it is some sort of interesting curio. They fundamentally have no stake in this, and so why should members of Gamergate give up their anonymity for that?

This has what to do with corruption in video game review? Oh right, Gamersgate was never about corruption, it was always about "Gamers" throwing a sexist hissyfit.

[Dominus Atheos]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about this.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/n ... spotlight/

Chat logs show how 4chan users created #GamerGate controversy

A set of IRC logs released Saturday appear to show that a handful of 4chan users were ultimately behind #GamerGate, the supposedly grass-roots movement aimed at exposing ethical lapses in gaming journalism. The logs show a small group of users orchestrating a "hashtag campaign" to perpetuate misogynistic attacks by wrapping them in a debate about ethics in gaming journalism.

The saga grew from a single blog post written by an ex-boyfriend of Zoe Quinn, a game developer who designed Depression Quest. The post was a lengthy diatribe filled with details about Quinn's alleged relationships with men, including a tryst with a gaming journalist who works for Kotaku. Anonymous users on reddit and 4chan spun this material into a story about how Quinn allegedly slept with multiple gaming journalists in return for coverage, though the allegations did not support such a claim. The journalist in question had quoted Quinn, once, months before they dated; he never wrote about her or her development efforts again.

Nevertheless, Quinn soon had her accounts hacked and her personal information stolen (experiences she was accused of fabricating). Quinn's opponents tried to turn the entire situation into an ethical debate about the relationship between gaming press and game developers.

The "ethics controversy" then sucked in Anita Sarkeesian, founder of Feminist Frequency, a video series aimed at exploring systemic misogyny in video games. Sarkeesian is no stranger to harassment; she has received a series of threats for her Feminist Frequency video series since the day its Kickstarter raised more money ($150,000) than she had requested ($6,000). The amount of money raised incensed Sarkeesian's critics, and after her August 25 video, "Women as Background Decoration, Part 2," Sarkeesian received graphic rape and death threats, eventually leaving her home after one of her harassers tweeted her own address at her.

The Quinn and Sarkeesian events led several publications (Ars included) to discuss the notion of a "gamer." In this context, "gamer" does not mean "all people who play video games"—a group now broad enough to easily outgrow the term's narrow origins in '80s toy marketing. Instead, the term more narrowly refers to hard-core video game fans, who skew young and male. In the words of Leigh Alexander at Gamasutra, it was through catering to this group that video games came to overemphasize guns, women, and money. With the industry expanding its horizons, some "gamers" felt left behind in a world that has started to turn against aspects of their favorite pastime. Under this view, "gaming" itself is under threat.

Quinn and Sarkeesian became lightning rods for "gamers" of this sort, and thus was born "#GamerGate," a hashtag that became a breeding ground for all kinds of conspiracy theories surrounding the "corrupt" systems that allowed Quinn and Sarkeesian to figure in the industry as they do. As the hashtag spread, spectators got increasingly drawn into arguments about the ethics governing relationships between game developers and the gaming press.

#GamerGate spread through Twitter and reddit and eventually drew high profile support from actor Adam Baldwin. Eventually a second hashtag sprouted, #notyourshield, which was pitched as an "attempt by the worldwide gaming community to show that this isn’t just male gamers who are speaking about gamergate, and this isn’t an issue of hating feminism or not wanting women in the community."



Discussion logs, however, suggest that #notyourshield didn't begin as a broad movement but was a campaign manufactured and orchestrated by 4chan users via sockpuppet Twitter accounts. And, according to screenshots recently released by Quinn, so was the original #GamerGate.

"But seriously, I think we're doing pretty good on the #GamerGate front," wrote user OperationDunk in a "quinnspiracy" IRC channel. "Lot of support, and a ton of people are picking up the self-chastising when people start getting insulting. It took a few days of 4-5 of us doing it but it's taking off."

As for #notyourshield, its first reference appears on the /v/ video games board on 4chan as a suggestion for responding to "social justice warriors" who claimed the #GamerGate campaign was misogynistic. "Something like #NotYourShield and demand the SJWs stop using you as a shield to deflect genuine criticism," an anonymous user wrote on September 2.



As with the manufactured campaign #EndFathersDay, sockpuppet accounts appear to have figured heavily in getting the #GamerGate and #notyourshield campaigns going. The sockpuppets pushing the hashtags were easy to identify by their low post counts, the fact that they tweeted about little other than #GamerGate and #notyourshield, and reverse image searches of their avatars that showed the photos to belong to people who likely didn't own the accounts in question.

Another of the screenshots posted by Quinn shows IRC users referencing "sleeper cells" at a gaming conference. "I think all the sleeper cells are hard at work, there was a bit of organizing last night," wrote the user Prawnzilla. "If anything goes down at PAX [Penny Arcade Expo], and she approaches those folks, they better be diplomatic and let her bitch fit her way into humiliation." Quinn commented on the screenshot in a tweet: "SLEEPER CELLS. Probably the people who showed at my panel and took photos for 4chan." The logs also allegedly include at least two appearances by Eron Gjoni, the author of the original blog post about Quinn.

4chan members have denounced the logs to The Escapist, saying they are misinterpreted by Quinn. Both 4chan and Quinn provided copies of their logs to The Escapist; 4chan's copies do not include quotes about sleeper cells or the bit about 4-5 users said to have started #GamerGate, since they are from a different channel (#burgersandfries). They do include references to starting sleeper-cell Twitter accounts and "digging up dirt" on both Quinn and Sarkeesian.

The site We Hunted The Mammoth scoured the full transcript released by 4chan, turning up gems from some anons like, "i couldnt care less about vidya, i just want to see zoe receive her comeuppance." In another exchange, user Cyberserker says to another user, "You need a reason..." User Opfag responds, "Well I don't have a legitimate reason. I just want to see her die horribly."

After hours of reading the chat logs, David Futrelle of We Hunted the Mammoth summed them up:

The 4channers express their hatred and disgust towards [Quinn]; they express their glee at the thought of ruining her career; they fantasize about her being raped and killed. They wonder if all the harassment will drive her to suicide, and only the thought of 4chan getting bad publicity convinces some of them that this isn’t something they should hope for.

They gleefully distribute nude pictures of her, posting links to online archives of them and emailing them directly both to Quinn’s supporters.

They dig up all sorts of information about her and her family and do their best to track down anyone and everyone with even the most tenuous links to her. One industrious researcher even manages to find a picture of Quinn at age 13; while acknowledging that it had no relevance whatsoever to issues of gaming ethics, she posts a link to it anyway.

While the hashtag campaigns gained steam and was eventually sustained by a larger population, the the chat logs shed new light on the motivations and actions of those who did the most to push #GamerGate into the spotlight.

[Editors Note: For those focused on the kernel of actual valid issues of game journalism ethics somehow churned up during this whole mess, this post over on my personal blog may be of interest. For general questions over the tone or style or amount or timing of coverage of GameGate, Rock Paper Shotgun sums up our feelings nicely. -Kyle Orland]

Update: To clarify the above article, actor Adam Baldwin was the first to use the hashtag #GamerGate, according to results on the Twitter analytics website Topsy as noted by Cathode Debris. Baldwin used the hashtag when tweeting links to pre-existing misogynistic corruption conspiracy theory videos surrounding Quinn and Sarkeesian. The logs show that organizers quickly adopted the hashtag to further organize their efforts.

TL:DR summery: It's all astroturfed by 4chan.