Honestly, I don't go onto dedicated pro-gamergate forums.  I've just seen some of what's on twitter and 4chan, and that's overwhelmingly sexist, as you pointed out.

That said, I also don't see many pro-gamergaters publicly denouncing the sexism, on any forum. So, while I can't speak to precisely how rare it is, it definitely looks like a very quiet minority if it exists at all.


To be fair, not all like-minded people constitute a group.  However, some gamergaters have organized, in the sense that there's a fair number of them actively working together towards a common goal.  There is no equivalent feminist opposition, and certainly none that resort to doxxing, rape threats, or death threats.

I was being a little sarcastic.  However, I'm not the kind of person to tell you what hill you should die on.  If you really want to force a change in journalism, you're going to have to take on the entire media establishment, and even then, I think you're stuck in the 80's. (And I imagine you may not have even been born then, so take that figuratively.)  My generation of gamers grew up relying on word of mouth to find good games, plus publications like Dragon magazine.  We believed in our sources, because we believed in journalism.

However, we're now in the internet age.  You should never trust anything you find on the internet, at least not without cross-verifying it from a dozen different sources.  That's the new reality in this age.

Finally: even if a few gamergaters are good people, that doesn't mean the entire movement isn't toxic.  A friend of mine uses the skittles analogy to describe her reaction to men and rape culture, but it applies here as well.  Less than 5% of men are rapists, so they're a distinct minority.  However, let's say I hand you a bowl of skittles, and I tell you only 5% of them are poisonous.  Does that mean the bowl is safe to eat from?

4chan is no longer GamerGate; discussion of GamerGate was banned on 4chan shortly after the owner of 4chan came back from the XOXOFest.  The 4chan branch moved to 8chan.

 It's very strange that a discussion about a movement that is ostensibly sexist is banned from a site which is supposed to be notorious for its sexist speech.

I've seen plenty of sexist stuff from big named people against #Gamergate, and not so much from people who can be identified as supporting #GamerGate.  #NotYourShield was a response to claiming that women/poc people in support of #GamerGate were either fake accounts, or were internalizing their misogyny, being a gender/race traitor, or were generally too stupid to understand the issues.

https://twitter.com/b0ltwolf/status/506172311817711616

Add to that the fact that they continue to characterize the movement as anti-feminist and comprised of mostly straight white males in the news outlets they work for, and you can forgive me if you characterize a few trolls on twitter and 4chan saying something stupid as trivial compared to the vast consensus of sexist/racist/bigoted narrative being pushed by the people who stand to be the most affected by the backlash against ethical violations.

As for the few genuine cases of a person on youtube/#GamerGate I have found saying some unsavory things, I have confronted those I have encountered.  Results were not favorable, and it's not like anybody had their back, but this is the internet, you can't do anything if they refuse to leave, except make it known that they're not wanted.



I will point you to the first page of the Offical GamerGate Thread on The Escapist Forums.  I find that at this point, considering the medium people are communicating through, that you have to post over and over that you condemn these actions once it's already been stated as officially as it can be in places of permanency to be either not aware of the fact, or an attempt to derail the conversation. (your case being the former.  Usually the latter is only identified as the reason if somebody has already been informed/is posting in a forum where the very first page has the official statement)

http://www.escapistmagazine.co...and-Resources?page=1



There are plans that people establish which people may or may not go through with if they agree with the goal the plans are trying to achieve.

I have contacted via email and phone advertisers and sponsors of the targeted companies, in order to inform them about things representatives of those companies have stated, or terms of use contracts they have violated.



Well, it wouldn't be feminists that are opposing us (I don't consider the misinformed or neutral to be the opposition), since this is not an issue about feminism, it's an issue about consumer dissatisfaction over the media.  So the opposition would be the media, and from that perspective it becomes very very obvious what's going on.




You're not wrong.  In fact, you're late to the party a bit there.  We were interested in just taking care of gaming journalism, but it seems like it's just too intertwined to allow that, and it might have to do with one of the people behind the stuff that went down with the Games Press.

Have you ever heard of Ezra Klein?  Honestly I don't watch too much real news anymore, so I've just now been learning about JournoList and CabaList.  Apparently big controversy about collusion in the mainstream media in order promote a specific narrative while quashing opposing ones, news organizations influencing eachother's hiring and firing decisions, that sort of thing.  Was a big controversy.



1989 actually.  Dragon, Dungeon, Nintendo Power, EGM, Computer Gaming World.



That's acceptable for the internet rumor mill.  That is, as it is becoming apparent to a lot of people, unacceptable for professional news organizations.  It renders them unfit for purpose.



Far more are good than bad even if you include all the trolls.  That is my experience.  Also from my experience is that the people responsible have shown no remorse for allegations of violating ethical codes and the law, even as they try to cover it up and switch the issue onto sensational deflections.



I hate to argue an analogy, but you've equivocated somebody being mean on the internet to somebody getting raped...that's kind of trivializing rape.  I'm not really a fan of that.

Second, Poison and Toxicity are two distinct concepts.  A Toxin diluted sufficiently will not kill you or even have any noticeable effect; Potatoes are from the Nightshade family, and contain the same toxins as normal nightshade does, just in lower amounts.  If you eat enough of them, especially raw or undercooked, you will die, and people have died. That's not a convincing argument not to have mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving.  Nobody would take you seriously except for maybe Homeopaths, it's just not a line of thinking that you could nonsensically apply to the real world.

I've seen similar statements.  However, I judge people based on the actions taken under their flag.  And there are plenty of self-described gamergaters who are blatantly sexist and have issued threats.  Really, if you want to hold yourself apart, you may have to consider breaking the movement.  Sort of like how the Baptist church declares themselves to be separate from the Westboro Baptist church, or the Mormons and the FLDS.


It is a feminist issue, because it's mostly women who are being targeted.

Honestly, there's no longer any difference.  Some of the biggest information sources out there are entirely built on opinion.  Wikipedia, IMDB, and even Rotten Tomatoes get their information from individual reporters.  There is no news organization that lives up to your stated standards anymore, and there hasn't been for a long time.


Considering that female gamer friends of mine have gotten rape threats over this, I don't think it's a bad equation at all.

Really, this is just the eruption of a bigger problem lurking in the gamer world.  Women have had a rough time in gamer circles recently.  For example, female cosplayers get a lot of rough treatment, I don't know any who haven't been harassed at cons or the like.  Most of it is accusations of being a "fake geek girl", but there's all kinds that happen.

What's more, this is in part my fault.  Back in the 80's, gamers were persecuted, and gamer culture developed something of a persecution complex as a result.  I was accused of being a Satanist, more than once.  So, we banded together, bonding over games, and thumbing our noses at the world.  We took pride in our identity as rebels, and accepted everyone who was welcome to game and rebel with us.

Times have changed, though.  Games are more acceptable, if not outright mainstream.  But, my generation gave yours our persecution complex.  Now, you've become rebels without an enemy.  And because our complex runs so deep, I think your generation is spoiling for a fight, and finding enemies where there are none.

So, if this is the hill you want to die on, feel free.  I don't believe in telling people what battles they should fight.  But I do think that this is a battle you cannot win, and gamer culture may take a deathblow as a result of this.  The gamer identity is kind of fading anyway, games are so mainstream that it's no longer a defining feature.  I hate to see it pass, but gamergate and "journalism ethics" may be signs of its last gasp.

Considering the standard of evidence which has been used to associate a vast majority of these attacks with us, you're going to have to make a convincing case.  Since #GamerGate was formed for that exact purpose of separating ourselves from the undesirable roots of the initial scandal to focus on the ethical segments, the futility of that is empirically proven.

Basically, to hold ourselves apart from the undesirables for these people in any way that would satisfy them, we'd have to stop raising the issue entirely.  In other words, they're telling us to shut up unless we want to be called sexists.



This is a completely false claim.  For every woman you can name whom GamerGate is targeting I can name three men.  This is a false narrative.  And I am using a high standard, as in there is a document to actually say "we are targeting these businesses' advertisers; they associate with these people, and they committed the following criminal/unethical acts.", not some anonymous twitter account.  I'll name nine of them now to cover the three who have been on television.

(even though they are not being targeted by GamerGate, since one's an iPhone game dev, the other helped make a choose-your-own-adventure text game, and the third runs a crowdfunded video series on critical theory as applied to videogames.  None of which has obligations towards ethical journalism).

Ben Kuchera
Dan Golding
Stephen Totillo
Mike Pearl
Kyle Orland
Joseph Bernstein
Robert Chipman
Ezra Klein
Nick Denton
--- Bonus Person
Sam Biddle
Nathan Grayson
Robin Arnott






None of the major ones do, no (except CSPAN LIVE coverage of congress).  But I don't see an argument here.  The standards still exist among organizations like Reuters and the Society of Professional Journalists, they're still written down, they're still taught in University.  It's not some art lost to the depths of time, it's just laziness.



I've never gone to a Convention but maybe next year I will.  The "fake geek girl" is as real as the "fake geek guy", the more correct term is hipster.  I've never met a fake geek girl, but I remember watching G4 back when it existed to show games and thinking "man, that guy doesn't know anything about games, what a phony".



I was accused of satanism by my own family members, and was bullied heavily as a kid because of my hobbies, beaten up, mugged, attacked on my paper route and thrown into a river.  It's not a complex, it was reality.

Based on what I've seen being said in articles, the mainstream news, forums, twitter, you name it, I really can't say where you get the idea that gamers don't have a social stigma anymore or aren't persecuted.

https://coxrare.files.wordpres...17-at-6-03-12-am.png



We shall see how things work out, but I am feeling really good about this.  Not about the media nerdshaming mind you, no I'm seeing a therapist and am on suicide watch because of that.  But if GamerGate is going to lose, it'll be after everybody who feels the same way I do dies of old age, because I'm not going to stop fighting for what is right no matter how many horrible names they call me, comparing me to the KKK, ISIS, Westboro Baptists, doesn't matter.

If there is any hill to die on, it's on a hill made from the bodies of crooks, bullies, and misologists.  I don't believe it will come to that however.  Holiday Season will determine if this is a long or a short game.

Are you seriously trying to say if most people can't tell the difference between gamergaters, it's our fault for not using "empirical standards"?  Dude, you may as well call youself NAMBLA or Westboro, and then blame everyone else for getting you confused.


I'll put my money down here.  Online, I've seen reports from almost a hundred women who say they've been harassed by gamergaters.  Now, name 300 men who've recieved similar threats.

Journalistic integrity is, for all practical purposes, dead.  If it exists anywhere, it's just lip service.  It's now the Internet era, and the new doctrine is: verify, verify, verify.

You might have thought it, but girls get harassed for it.  Cosplayers especially, they get a lot of flak.  That's the reality of geek girls.

Hate to break it to you, but the popular perception of gamergaters is that they're silly and annoying.  No one really takes them seriously, and the louder you scream, the less seriously people will take you.  And if you take stronger action, then you're no different than the doxxers and sexists who threaten women.

Gamergaters have already lost.  Because they're closely linked with toxic sexists, the movement will never be taken seriously, and outside the gaming community, no one cares about integrity in gaming jounralism.  No one cares about integrity in journalism period, else Fox News wouldn't the the #1 news channel, despite being fact-checked at about a 50% lie rate.  All that's in doubt is how much of the gamer culture will crash and burn with it.

Are you seriously trying to say if most people can't tell the difference between gamergaters, it's our fault for not using "empirical standards"?  Dude, you may as well call youself NAMBLA or Westboro, and then blame everyone else for getting you confused.


I'll put my money down here.  Online, I've seen reports from almost a hundred women who say they've been harassed by gamergaters.  Now, name 300 men who've recieved similar threats.

Journalistic integrity is, for all practical purposes, dead.  If it exists anywhere, it's just lip service.  It's now the Internet era, and the new doctrine is: verify, verify, verify.

You might have thought it, but girls get harassed for it.  Cosplayers especially, they get a lot of flak.  That's the reality of geek girls.

Hate to break it to you, but the popular perception of gamergaters is that they're silly and annoying.  No one really takes them seriously, and the louder you scream, the less seriously people will take you.  And if you take stronger action, then you're no different than the doxxers and sexists who threaten women.

Gamergaters have already lost.  Because they're closely linked with toxic sexists, the movement will never be taken seriously, and outside the gaming community, no one cares about integrity in gaming jounralism.  No one cares about integrity in journalism period, else Fox News wouldn't the the #1 news channel, despite being fact-checked at about a 50% lie rate.  All that's in doubt is how much of the gamer culture will crash and burn with it.

As a lifelong gamer, a liberal feminist, a woman who is approaching thirty far faster than I ever care to think about, and as someone who remembers this from the beginning, and has a few experiences that I can identify with from this group on either side.

I more or less agree with Katisara on this one. I think his post nails it most for me, short though it may be. What I've seen from the initial movement are just matters I can't condone. I agree with most of Katisara's points, but one last one in particular is the one that irks me the most.



That's the one that gets me. By all accounts, even the GamerGate side, this started with the account of developer Zoey Quinn, and the accusation that she slept around for favorable reviews of her game Depression Quest. These have since been so very thoroughly debunked, thanks in large part due to the unreliable narrator who publicized these details in the first place (a bitter ex-boyfriend). But why did it require that decidedly sexist jumping point to get the ball rolling on what is declared to be a serious, community wide cry against of journalistic payola and the inappropriately close ties between developers and journalistic institutions?

You already pointed out, Sciencemile, that there are a number of journalists, including males journalists, along with websites, magazines, and developers who the GamerGate have taken to task of for inappropriate behavior. That's great! So why now? It's not like it wasn't a known issue for years by this point. Jeff Gerstman, for example, was fired from Gamespot for giving a less than glowing review to a game that was being heavily advertized by the site. That happened back in 2007. Why didn't the outrage come back then? Why did it take the inclusion of a salacious story involving a woman sleeping around for favorable reviews (which involved some incredibly insulting assumptions to even begin taking seriously), and the less-than-noble shitstorm that followed for the gaming community to start this?

Look, I completely understand the majority of GamerGate supporters, who are concerned about their blanket condemnation and how the community is being portrayed as a boy's club. I was a gamer in the 90s. I missed the worst parts back in the 80s and the Satanism, thankfully, but I certainly remember the strange looks, insults, the concerned parental lectures, the scapegoating for societal ills and popular dismissal you get as identifying as a gamer back then. Heck, I remember the strange reactions I got from fellow gamers back when gaming really was a boys club, because gaming girls were often considered something of an oddity or a phony trying to get nerd cred. The gaming community has come a hell of a long way since then, and I completely understand wanting to represent the diversity that now comes with the territory of being a gamer.

But I'm sorry, this movement has been tainted with misogyny from it's conception. It's cool that some, maybe even most, GamerGate advocates are trying to take it back from it's misogynistic roots. I truly believe most of it's supporters are well-meaning in their intentions, and just trying to stick up for their fellow gamers. But to the popular media, to the feminist community, and to much of the world at this point, you've lost them. It's been too mired with rapey threats and anti-femininst charges, and the sad thing is, there's a small basis of reality that will always follow those wild accusations, even if those elements have been managed to be thrown out, simply by it's past actions before the movement became serious.

My advice, to a fellow gamer truly concerned about the cause? Give up the name. The name's the problem, not the cause. Feminists don't really have any issue with the concern for journalistic integrity, they just question it's sincerity. They see the GamerGate advocates as either misogynists who are resisting women being included in their hobby and want to keep their highly-sexualized characters and uber masculine protagonists, or people who are trying to save face for the community by changing the original focus of the cause to a more politically acceptable one, or even to try and make themselves seem like the victims. Until you all let the GamerGate label die, any progress it makes will be brushed aside because people already associate the label with the boy's club xenophobia and with harassing female developers. Let the hashtag die. Once the dust has settled, and people have largely forgotten about it (which won't take long in this era, really), bring up the issue of journalistic integrity once again, under a new name (GamerGate kinda sucked as a name anyway, it's nothing like WaterGate, try GamingIntegrity or Game-ola or something). Oh, and make sure the founding intent stays far away from women's sex lives, unlike this one, or men's for that matter. That way, maybe you'll have a chance of the larger media actually listening to your charges.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:11, Wed 05 Nov 2014.

I'd just like to compliment Vexen on an excellent post. Not being a PC or console gamer, I don't have an interest here and have only tangentially heard about what's going on with GG, so I have nothing to add to the conversation. Still, I've been reading what SM and GMC have been writing on this thread, and they've been talking past each other the way that so often happens in this "game".

That's not really putting your money down.  That's saying that you have money, since you didn't name any names but expect me to.  But very well, I will give you what you asked for and more.  15,413 GamerGate twitterers who have received harassment.  Not all of them are men, but I don't think that it will matter in terms of meeting the quota.

https://raw.githubusercontent....ster/block_names.txt

Even though you didn't say the kind of harassment they received, so I cannot be certain they did not receive similar harassment, here is a database of the harassment received by members of GamerGate throughout the lifetime of the event so you can compare.

http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/archive

I provide actual names and evidence of harassment via screenshots to match your claim of a number of unnamed people receiving undescribed harassment.  Yet I will probably be the one who has his claims dismissed.  At some point yes, you're going to have to take personal responsibility for not being able to tell the difference between us and members of NAMBLA, there's only so far we can go to accommodate your inability to tell the difference before it becomes your responsibility.



You keep saying journalistic integrity is dead in one way or another.  That's simply an unacceptable reality.

Either integrity needs to be restored to journalists and journalistic sites, or they need to be put out of a job, because a journalist without integrity is just another individual rumormonger, and one that doesn't deserve the special privileges and access journalists were originally granted because of their reputation for integrity.

So far, they've decided that it is better to go bankrupt than to be responsible.  So be it, they will be replaced by those who will be responsible.

If they have outlived their purpose in this internet age, then they won't be replaced by anyone, and we will have eliminated waste.  So be it.



It's only been 3 months since the movement started.  The people who need to take us seriously now are taking us seriously, and the popular perception doesn't matter.  We will debunk the false narrative with the overwhelming truth of our consumer action and its consequences.

The only people screaming louder and louder are the corrupt journalists who stand to lose their jobs if consumers continue to voice our displeasure to the industry and advertisers.  They do so via proxy, but then they did get their jobs because of connections, not competence.



Are you saying that an organization with toxic roots will never be taken seriously?
I disagree with your association of us, but even if the perception is there, history shows contemporary examples contrary to your claim.

And to say that we've lost is to not know what the game is.



I believe you highly underestimate how many people actually care about this.  Or maybe I overestimate.  We shall see.  But I think that, since the games press is funded by gamers and advertisers selling to gamers, that the gaming community is all that is needed to improve journalistic integrity in the games press.

If we are successful, who knows how many people outside of the gaming community who are watching this will feel re-enfranchised to their consumer power, who want what we want, but feel powerless to change things.



They'd have to kill every single one of us, destroy every single fetish, statuette, painting, museum, piece of pottery, and other monument to gaming culture.  We're not going away. No matter how many times they claim we're dead, we're not.

Just want to make some comments on a few things Vexen said.



Actually it's been confirmed that Nathan Grayson did not disclose their relationship, whatever it might have been at the time, at the time of publishing pieces that talk about her or her game. It's not even a matter of sex, they were friends beforehand, he is mentioned in the special thanks section of her game (not recently either, the game was last edited in February of 2013), and Zoe Quinn stated that he helped beta-test her game.  None of this was disclosed.

None of this in anyway is criticism of Zoey Quinn.  Robin Arnott, a judge who was responsible for giving her an award, rather than recusing himself from judging because of their relationship, is also not criticism of Zoey Quinn.  Nor is it criticism of her that a Married Man who was also her Boss engaged in a sexual relationship with her behind his wife's back.

All of these things are criticized because of those people's positions, and the violation of ethics that they're supposed to be held to.  A Journalist not disclosing his relationship with the subject, an Impartial Judge, a Boss sleeping with an employee.  Conflicts of Interest.



Streisand Effect.  That's what I think is the greatest amplifier of this is.



It did, it was called DoritoGate.  EDIT: Actually that was a seperate controversy, there was actually one called Gerstman-Gate (sigh, so many gates, you know the next controversy if this one dies is going to have a -gate too probably :/)


There's been outrage at each of these things, steadily growing, as has been the contempt for the audience on behalf of the press.

I remember the outrage at the Mass Effect 3 in 2012 ending bait-and-switch, and how the games press started insulting anyone who was dissatisfied with the way things had been advertised vs the way things had actually happened as "entitled".

http://www.forbes.com/sites/er...f-gamer-entitlement/



That wasn't actually what started it.  It was closing of ranks and the censoring that followed that started GamerGate.  The Streissand Effect.

The initial controversy was called The Quinnspiracy, or 5GuysBurgers&Fries, and they were focusing on Quinn definitely.  People discussing this were dismissed by people like me for the same reasons you are dismissing it.  Then came the banning and censoring across a huge number of the big sites, sites that you wouldn't expect to be banning things like that since they allow far far worse. Not just banning people for that, but for even discussing the possibility of ethical violations.

People like me saw people closing ranks around this issue instead of letting it burn out, and it made us go "wait, maybe there's something more to this", and holy crap was there ever something more to this.



I understand your concerns, however I cannot with good conscience follow such a course of action despite not following it in every other example you could apply it to.

I am still a citizen of the United States, and I still vote Democrat.  Neither of these group's roots will convince me to expatriate myself, or to vote Republican now.

EDIT: I kinda wish it wasn't called GamerGate, all the -Gates are pretty silly...but Adam Baldwin started the Hashtag and that's history :/
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:34, Wed 05 Nov 2014.

That site has a very broad definition of "harassment".  Hurting your feelings is not the same as active threats, and none of the "harassers" are identified as feminists.  It looks like a site where people got trolled, to be honest.

However, I will acknowledge that I may have been overly broad.  I've seen reports from about 300 women that they're received threats from someone who identified as part of gamergate.  These threats range from  "Bitch, I'll fuck you up" at the mild end, and death threats at the high end.  What can you produce to compare to that?  And don't just post people who have been trolled, if that;s your standard, I can proivde a list of thousands.


Movements that fail to acknowledge reality are doomed from the start.

This saddens me.  Sciencemile, I know how smart you are.  But you seem to have blinded yourself to the fact that social movements are won in the court of public opinion.  If gamergate had a legitimate social issue (it doesn't) and if it was a legitimate social movement (it's not), it would still fail if it does not recognize this fact.  Popular perception matters, and there, you've already lost.


Not unless they take extreme steps to disassociate themselves from their toxic members.  During the Civil Rights movement, the two biggest voices for black rights were Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.  King's movement took strong steps to separate themselves from the pro-violence Black Panthers, and ultimately, they became dominant.

There are many others. During the early 80's, NAMBLA was held up as an example of how evil the gay community was.  It took years for them to separate themselves, and now, gay marriage is legal across the country.  The Islamic-American community nearly circled the wagons after 9/11, but a concerted effort from the president on down convinced people to stop harassing American Muslims, by making sure people understood the difference.


First, the battle for journalism is long over.

Second, nobody cares.  Gaming is becoming more popular, but honestly, I haven't looked at a gaming magazine in years, online or otherwise.  When I want information on a game, I look up information on several sites, usually fan-based.  Or, I'll check a forum or three and read the responses.

What this means is, only a fraction of gamers actually consume gaming journalism.  It's a niche market in a niche market, and was almost dead anyway.  Most of the "journalists" you complain about aren't true journalists, they're bloggers.  They're individuals with an internet soapbox, and are about as trustworthy as any other internet source.

Third, the more your compare yourself to a real social movement, the harder it will be for real social movements to gain hold.  The general public is already dismissive of gamergate, if future geek-based social movements appear, the public will say: "Oh, it's just gamergate all over again", and dismiss them.

Fourth: You've got an interesting contradiction going here.  On the one hand, you claim public perception doesn't matter.  On the other, you claim you've got a majority of something on your side. Those statements are inconsistent: if your movement is right without being numerous, why are you so concerned with the number of members?

Fifth: are you familiar with the concept of groupthink?  You seem to be showing signs of it.  You're intelligent, but you're also repeating the party line.

See, the popular perception of gamergaters is the traditional troll in someone's basement.  The sexism moved them from "harmless" to "threat".  But if you spend most of your time talking to other people who agree with you, your perceptions will drift far away from reality.  There's a lot of examples of this you can research.

Also, even within the gamer community, gamergaters are a minority.  I'm on multiple major gaming forums, and every one is shaking their head at gamergate.  Nobody is willing to support them after the crimes committed under their flag.

My advice?  Take some time away from your usual feeds, and look long and hard at what others are saying.  Try and see things from another perspective.

Wow, martyrdom.  And people wonder why gamergaters have trouble being taken seriously?

Ok, Sciencemile.  I see that you've been persecuted for being a gamer.  And I feel for you, I really do, the persecution was bad in my day.  But, you've made it clear that my generation's persecution complex is still part of the gamer identity.  That persecution was part of what gave gamers counterculture cred back in the day.

Gaming is mainstream, now. Gaming doesn't make you counterculture anymore.  The way gamergaters are acting, they seem to think gaming is some secret persecuted underground movement, just waiting for its turn for a civil rights movement.  That's not the case, and I'd debate rather or not it was ever the case.  But, it is true that gamers still have a persecution complex, inherited from my generation; and now, even if they don't have an enemy persecuting them, they make ones up.

Gamergate is dead, it just hasn't stopped moving yet.  In the battle for public opinion, the only battle that matters, gamergate has not just lost, it's been whipped and sent running with its head hanging in shame.  All that matters is how much thrashing the corpse can manage, and how many gamers it takes down with it.

Really, gamergate is similar to the backlash from any entity that realizes it's losing power and cohesiveness.  I've seen some arguments that the gamer identity is dying, and gamergate is the last gasp of the old mentality.  Given that you're using last stand language, I'd say there's some truth to it.  The gamer identity is dying, they're acknowledging they're on their last breath, and it's only a question as to what legacy the gamer identity will leave behind.  Unfortunately, it may end up being the sexism of gamergate.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:39, Wed 05 Nov 2014.

EDIT: I say several times here and in previous comments that this is "Not a Social Movement".  Now, in some senses it can be said to be a social movement.  However, in the contexts of set goals, and the ways in which people intend to achieve these goals, it cannot be said to be behaving as a social movement.  It's behavior is more descriptive of a consumer movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_movement



I and other people have accused of victim blaming and misogyny for making that very same argument.



Perhaps we should establish how to identify genuine harassment from being trolled before we can proceed.  Establish standards before we start dismissing anything as not meeting our standards.  Because I'm not sure by what standards you conclude "Bitch, I'll fuck you up" is harassment, but that the below message is only trolling.

http://38.media.tumblr.com/29d...My1tkhroeo1_1280.png





Like I said, you're missing what game this is.  It's not a social movement.




Come on, clearly this isn't true.  You don't care, but a lot of people do.



Except when they want access to E3 or a review copy of a game in advance, or some other benefit that being a blogger wouldn't get them, then they're journalists.

 

And they will either become deserving of the privilege they have over other soapboxers, or lose that privilege.



This is why changing the movement's name or giving up now and waiting until later is pointless, the fool's compromise.



It's not a contradiction, you're simply still looking at this as a social movement.

The public perception doesn't matter, because even though gaming has become more mainstream, the public at large still doesn't purchase video-games.

The majority that is on our side, the majority that matters, are the advertisers and the publishers. People who base their actions and support around the bottom line and market demographics more than the nebulous public opinion, and have reacted appropriately; advertisers have begun to pull their campaigns from the offending sites, and Press Badges, Advance Copies, and Exclusive interviews have been withheld and given to other outlets who have revised their ethics standards.



Listen, if "Popular Perception" as informed by a corrupt media isn't an example of groupthink, I don't know what is.  I don't accuse you of these things because I respect your ability to think for yourself.

I see you repeating claims that have been made of us on the media and I don't accuse you of "towing the party line", I think that you have found somebody else's claim and considered it valid enough to present.

I'd really appreciate if you could extend the same courtesy to me.
I've presented news articles both positive and negative towards GamerGate.



I don't think you understand the intent of my comment.  The point isn't martyrdom, it's to point out the ridiculousness that somehow this push is going to go away, like we somehow only exist on the internet.

and that continuing to say things like this:



Doesn't make it true, because all you're doing is saying it.



I'm sorry you feel that way, and you can see that the sentiment is what informs the actions of our opposition, but it really isn't true, and if what we believe will happen comes to pass, it'll be a harsh reminder that The Customer is always right.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:49, Wed 05 Nov 2014.

If none of this is a criticism of Zoey Quinn, or her sex-life, why include it in the first place? Why did you feel the need to mention the alleged affair? Why was this significant enough for any one to inspect this woman's sex life and memorize it? Like Katisara said, there seems to be a strange obsession with the female developers and their personal lives. If it's not important, why bring it up?

I ask because, as someone who isn't particularly involved in GamerGate, and is trying to be sympathetic to the plight of the gaming community I like to consider myself a part of, that is a strange detail that I just don't see any justification for. If it's not important, why is there so much attention to the details of her personal life?

As a side note, married men are supposed to publish the details of their extramarital affairs now? I mean, you say this isn't about the affair itself, but rather, that he didn't disclose it. I mean, sure, you can push for that, but I don't really see married men wanting to disclose their extramarital affairs they're presuming to hide from their wives simply out of journalistic integrity. That might be an unreasonable expectation.



Except DoritoGate Gerstman-Gate didn't get this big. It was rather short-lived. It didn't catch the passion of the gamer community as a whole, just a small minority, and it certainly didn't catch media attention at large. So the question remains: why Zoey Quinn?



Hold on. I thought this cause was supposed to be about the close relationships between gaming media and game developers. Granted, this story doesn't paint gamers in a good light, but what does this have to do with that? Colin Moriarty isn't accused of having too close a tie to developers, just being sympathetic to their concerns. Is it a sin now, according to GamerGate, to not agree with the consumer complaints? Cause I think the man's entitled to his opinion, even if it happens to be an unpopular one.

That's a strange thread I also found while investigating your claims. That list of journalists for example. I was actually familiar with Ezra Kline. So, naturally, when you mentioned his name as someone GamerGate is targeting, I was curious enough to look into it. But, after looking through a few pro-GamerGate sites, I found that the largest criticism against the man was for not taking the GamerGate side, and making some inaccurate generalizations about the population he's likely not a part of (a sin, no doubt, but hardly one limited to him). Is that worthy of the cause now? Because it's starting to look less like this is about journalistic integrity, and more like targeting anyone who disagrees with the majority of the gaming community.

And, I have to say, if that's the concern, it paints the GamerGate cause as a far less noble one than I originally was taking it for. You have to let people have opinions, even disagreeable ones. That shouldn't be a basis for targeting. Stay focused on the original cause. Otherwise, it just looks like lashing out against anyone you disagree with, and running with a persecution complex, and that's not going to win over the perfectly rational people you're trying to appeal to.



It sounds like you're trying to dismiss my statement on a technicality. The "Quinnspiracy" is what got the ball rolling. So much so that GamerGate activists, even well-meaning ones like yourself, have taken the time and effort to document and memorize intimate details of this woman's personal life, even as they try to prove she wasn't at any point involved. It's silly to say that it wasn't related to how this got started. Even by your own account, GamerGate wouldn't had started in the first place if it wasn't for the Quinnspiracy, even if you're reluctant to tie the two together.

Ever think that, maybe, just maybe, these matters were initially dismissed and people banned because it had gotten out of hand, just like you thought it did initially? Most people thought the whole Zoey Quinn thing was unjustified, but so many people were shouting to the hills about it. I remember 4chan at the time, the threads were constant, unending. Why couldn't it had been just being sick of the subject? Or, from the more popular forms of media when this stuff was starting to be protested, just wanting to rid themselves of a decidedly sexist cause?

I think there's a lot of fantasy thinking going on by the GamerGate side here, attaching conspiracy theories or sinister intentions where there likely isn't any. It's understandable, because they feel persecuted (and to a degree, they are right to feel that way), but panic and anger don't lend themselves to an objective look at their opposition's perspective. There are self-serving interest, perhaps, in the way that all businesses tend to be, but not as complex as some of the GamerGate notions seem to make them out. Some websites and businesses do take pre-emptive measures to save themselves from possible PR follies. Considering how much the Zoey Quinn thing was getting out of hand, and how obviously misogynistic it was initially (or just appeared to be from the outset), they might had just wanted to nip it in the bud before they were going to be tagged with being associated with it.

I think there are often perfectly reasonable, non-sinister causes the explain away much of these controversies. Not innocent, perhaps, but not quite as all-encompassing evil. Dogmatism rarely lends itself to rational and thoughtful consideration. You have to be willing to look at things from the other side. And, thusfar, while I understand the concerns that the gaming journalism culture sees itself as different than the gamer culture as a whole, I just don't see their actions thusfar as particularly sinister. Quick to judgement, maybe, but not ill-intended.



I'd say a country and a political movement that has a century or two of acceptance and trust established within it's popular culture is a bit different from a fringe sub-culture that's challenging their stigmatization. It's not that it's any less pure, just that the established institutions (America and the Democratic party in this instance) have had a century or more to build themselves up to main acceptance, or were accepted from the start. They can afford the scandal now, because there's plenty of people who will still associate it with good principles.

Gamers just don't have that luxury. You're a relatively small community (growing larger all the time, but still not quite mainstream) that's trying to challenge a stigmatization and earn mainstream acceptance. It can't afford unnecessary black-eyes now. Not yet. GamerGate is too tainted to redeem, justified or not. You need to cast it away before it gets associated with the gaming community as a whole.

It's like the Swastika. Was it always about Nazism? No, absolutely not. It actually had an innocent history. But Nazism changed that in the world's eyes. Now, if a German Nationalist party wants to redeem itself, it's certainly possible. But, to do so, after it had been cast out by society at large, it needs to purge itself from all ties from the vilified movement. Even something as relatively innocent as the swastika. Not because it's inherently evil. But because it's just too tainted. You can fight to the end of your life to try to redeem the Swastika, but I think that energy would be put to better use by focusing on the ultimate cause of German nationalist interest, rather than dying for a relatively minor element of the cause.

The "GamerGate" name is a small price to pay in the scheme of things. If they are serious about making this an issue and reforming gaming journalism, and the reputation of gamers, then they need to focus on the larger issue, and not get caught up in dogmatic purist hang-ups.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:52, Wed 05 Nov 2014.

Honesty, I guess?  It's important to show your work.  What would the alternative be, not mentioning where investigations started?



The ethical concerns really aren't about her, it's about the people with whom the ethical concerns actually apply, whom happen to be all men by the way.



Because people ask how the controversy started, and we don't believe in historical revisionism, even by omission.

The omissive answer to "How did GamerGate Start" would be "It was started by Adam Baldwin as a result of the massive outpouring of "Gamers are Dead" articles over the course of 2 days, as well as massive censorship in response to any outrage over the articles."

Would you prefer that instead?  How would you feel if we left out the other part, even though it really doesn't matter?



Like I said, her personal life isn't important, it is only by nature that it takes 2+ to tango that she is mentioned at all.  As to the personal lives of journalists, that's only important so far as it applies to undisclosed conflicts of interest, which are important to disclose so as not to mislead the reader.  If you are friends with somebody and are talking about them or their game, you should state in the article that you are friends with them.  If you're a judge and one of the contestants is your friend, you need to recuse yourself from judging their game.  If you're an employer, you're not supposed to sleep with employees, because you're taking advantage of a position of power.



No, it's not even the affair part.  You're not supposed to abuse your position of power, or even appear to be abusing your position of power, by dating people under your employ/management.  Most people in other industries and fields would be fired for that, and have.  It's one of the things they teach you in those company meetings on sexual harassment in the workplace.

Edit-----------------------------------------

Here's a pamphlet, relevant section begins on page 5, but the whole things good, really.

As I've said before I am also a feminist and I'm very familiar with a lot of things like this that were implemented to educate and enforce a safer workplace environment for everybody.

http://www.hrhero.com/basictraining/BTE_Ethics_6.pdf

-------------------------------------------



As I've said, each event that has happened has resulted in a larger outcry over a longer period of time, with more and more people.  And actually the Mass Effect 3 ending did reach the mainstream media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIq0ehGsdKE



That is one of the concerns.  The concerns also involve other ethical things, like the close relationships between competing press outlets.  Ethics an professionalism throughout the entire industry.  I pointed out three distinct examples earlier in this post and also in previous posts.



Perhaps.  Everyone's entitled to their opinion.  If you're consistently disagreeing with majority consumer complaints in a consumer press magazine, however, you should find it very hard to monetize that opinion.

Frankly, that is a separate issue, but I included it because it did catch the passion of the community at large for many of the same reasons, and there is a general consensus that you shouldn't be coming out against the consumer when you're the consumer press.  And it's not like it was just Colin Moriarty, it was similar to the "Gamers are Dead" statement, where tons of articles and videos from across the press came out in a short period of time.

The thing is has in common with this movement is the games press's contempt for its readership, which has only escalated since then.





I would certainly not want Ezra Klein on GamerGate's side, no idea what site you're on that would be suggesting that.

Klein is responsible for founding JournoList, an example of independant press outlets colluding to push a uniform narrative during election season.  It resulted in a lot of controversy in the press, and a lot of journalists ended up getting fired/resigning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList

Ezra Klein is currently the EiC at Vox.com, which Polygon is a press outlet of.

A private google+ Group, called "GameJournoPros", containing EiC, Journalists, and PR people from across the media, including Polygon, was discovered to be colluding in private to push uniform narratives throughout the Games Press, as well as to fire and blacklist people who did not fit the narratives.

The establishing post of GJP, made by Kyle Orland of Arstechnica, credited the inspiration of the list's creation to JournoList.



I hope you now have the proper context and can be assured the interest in Klein is still ethically-minded.




Either we're reluctant to tie them together, or we keep bringing it up.  I don't think these two mesh very well together.  We have a desire for the truth, if you accept this statement then our statements regarding the origins of this despite our declarations of distance make sense.

World War 1 wouldn't have started if it wasn't for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.  This doesn't mean that the vast number of people who entered the war later were doing so for his sake, even if that's how it initially started, because that's not the reason they were drawn in, and that's not what they were fighting for.

It's important to remember that here, too.



The thought crossed my mind in the past 3 months, yes.  The thought has become less and less credible the longer things have gone on and the more that has been brought to light.



That was a really bad mistake.  The thing is, the internet is like a stratographic volcano.  You do not prevent an eruption by blocking off the vents.  A lot of people in the movement want their PR departments fired as well, because they clearly don't understand public relations.  If they did, they would have had the offending parties offer apologies, kept them off twitter from making stupid comments, and then proceeded with business as usual.

What you don't do, in regards to public relations, is hire trolls to infiltrate a movement and attempt to break it up.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1lXHzECMAA55gJ.png



I'll again refer to the GJP, as well as the union-busting tactics described in the above screencap.



http://i.imgur.com/EnIgbnB.png

You don't say.



And despite the Democratic party being anti-abolitionist and conservative in the past, I still vote Democrat.  You know what the Democratic party didn't do to change its reputation?  Change its name or dismantle the party.



That's not really what we're trying to do.  If somebody says something horrible about us, we will challenge it, but that's not our goal.  It's pretty motivating though, if you just look at the history of the movement.  The more they insult us, the larger the movement grows.

Mainstream will never accept gaming culture until the older generation is gone.  It's like Rock Music or R-Rated Movies in that way.  The perception has an Ozymandian permanency for now.

What we're trying to do, is to show our consumer dissatisfaction with the current quality of the product we're consuming.  So far that tactic has been working.



I'll let Grandmaster Cain tell you why that wouldn't help anything, since nobody listened to me when I said it.


This message was last edited by the GM at 00:14, Thu 06 Nov 2014.

Fine.  Any credible threat issued to someone, generally involving rape or death threats, but also includes threats of hacking, doxxing, or other electronic damage.  And, it must be from someone who identifies as either a gamergate member, or identifies as a social justice warrior.


Ok, you say this is a consumer movement.  What percentage of consumers go to E3?


That's where you're wrong.  In the marketplace, when a businesses name is tarnished beyond repair, they have to change their name.  If gamergate is actually a consumer movement, it has to be aware of that fact.

You're wrong on multiple points.

First, public perception does matter, because without the ability to sway other consumers to your side, you will never succeed.  At the very least, you have to look like you can do so, and gamergate does not.

Second, the public at large does matter, because they're the majority of the game market.  According to Wikipedia (not a reliable site, but probably unbiased in this regard) the Xbox 360 has sold 78.2 million units worldwide since its release.  Let's assume this is correct for now.  What percentage of that market are gamergate members?  And that's just the Xbox, there's still other consoles and the PC market to consider.

Next, the advertisers and the publishers are not on your side.  Intel was originally listed as an advertiser who pulled ads in response to gamergate, but once they found out, they not only reinstated the ads but put out a public apology for even looking like they were associated with it.

Finally, a consumer movement is still dependent on large numbers and the ability to affect change.  In this case, the change is supposedly the bottom line.  I don't see any evidence that gamergate has any ability to affect the bottom line of even a niche game.


If you don't understand why you need popular perception on your side, you have indeed already lost.  Consumer movements can't win unless they have the ability to sway large numbers of people.

Look, back in the 80's, there was a church group that threatened to boycott, well, nearly everything that offended them.  The reason they were so successful was that, even though they only have a handful of members, they convinced everyone that they had hundreds of thousands of christians who'd follow their lead.  That's the power of public perception.

Well, while I admit to creative license, I was trying to show that you've crossed all the way over into purple prose.  Gamergaters are using very overdramatic language, which makes them very hard to take seriously.

*sigh* It may not be what you're trying to do, but it's what you're achieving.  And honestly, I'm the older generation.  Every gamer of my era that I know is shaking our heads at gamergate.

What's more, we're the ones who are making gaming mainstream.  Us old fogies tend to be more settled in their careers (or, in my case, retired), and we have more disposable income for games.  We also tend to have families, and we raised our kids with games (and in some cases, grandkids).  I taught my daughter to play RPG's when she was 4, and she's trying to write her own video game now.  We taught *you* to game, after all.

Actually, I believe I've said similar things, repeatedly.  If you do not separate out the toxic parts of your movement, you will fail.  You will have to abandon the name "gamergate", and whatever comes next will have to work triply hard to avoid any sign of sexism, but it is possible.  In fact, that is your only hope-- not fur success, but for any hope of recovery.

Are you referring perhaps to this statement?

http://newsroom.intel.com/comm...amasutra-advertising

Did they make a secondary statement reinstating the advertisements?  I'd very much like to know your source for this.

I believe that was it.  I've heard they reinstated the ads, but I'm not actually paying attention.  Gamergate isn't an issue in my real life, it only exists when I internet in certain places.  Which is true for most people, I might add.

Well I would like to know if you can remember where you heard it.  Some articles have been misleading about what the statement actually says, I know that much.  But maybe things have changed.

I also heard the same thing about Mercedes-Benz reinstating its ads at Gawker after pulling out, but I haven't been able to verify that either.

In both cases the publication's response to the advertisers were to write insulting articles about them, so I'm kind of skeptical that they would want to do business with such people in the near future.



I'll take your word for it.  It's hardly ebola or the midterm elections.  But I'm not a doctor or a politician.

Interesting discussion.  I'd never heard of Gamergate before all of this and had to look it up.  Strange stuff.

A few thoughts here.

1) Regarding Quinn, if the issue is journalists, how come the story is still about Quinn? Specifically, we're told about all the people she slept with. But the journalist is the issue. How come we don't know how many people the journalists have slept with? One person isn't enough to establish a pattern of behavior (unless, of course, the target is Quinn).

2) As you point out, the hashtag is started by Adam Baldwin--who also said and continues to say all sorts of nonsense stuff you REALLY don't want to hitch your wagon to. Again, my conclusion is that of all of the people I'd want to be the face of 'journalistic integrity', 'crazy guy with a lot of twitter followers' is *probably* not my first choice.

Right now from my perspective, when you say you're from Gamer Gate, I have an image in my mind of a house on fire with people jumping on everything and throwing poo. If you're going to convince me of anything, you have a long way to go just to convince me I should listen to you (and that by listening and possibly disagreeing with you, I won't get hit by poo).

That seques nicely into ...

3)  I'm pretty active in the gaming community. Mostly RPGs, but there's  a LOT of computer/platform gamers there too (no surprise, right?) I'm talking people who actually get designed to make stuff. Not just people who game a lot, but people whose names are listed on the spine of some of the big name products you probably own.

Among those people, they publicly speak out against Gamer Gate consistently. They make it clear they believe the movement is fundamentally flawed and hurting a lot of people.

Now granted, these aren't game journalists. And they aren't video game designers. (Well, except Mike Mulhvill, but he's a little out of his element there still.) But they're *really* close to that same community, and they feed many of the same fans.

They have made it clear that anything associated with GG should be cut loose. So among the people you most want to impress (the content producers) GG has already lost, and I'm pretty sure that can never be undone.


4) Totally jumping tracks here, but ...

It's all about the money. Unfortunately, the guy who shares my interests plays second fiddle to the guy who pays my mortgage. And with news sites being a race to the bottom with prices, who is paying now? Yes, when was the last time you paid money for your news (game or otherwise)? My news is free thanks to CNN and Weekly World News being posted to free web sites.

Recognize that I'm not their customers. Customers pay for a service. Their customers are advertisers.

I'm their product.

I am what CNN provides to expedia.com in exchange for a pay check.

As long as I am the product and advertisers are the consumers, how am I possibly going to make a real impact on them?

If you really want journalistic integrity, you need to put your money where your mouth is, which is to say -- pay for it.

Honestly wouldn't know, as I don't actually follow most gamer media.  I honestly don't know many people who do. If we want to find reviews or news on a game, we look it up directly or google a few dozen reviews.  I don't ever follow professional reviews.

But, if I, as a gamer, can't be bothered to follow gamergate, what makes you think non-gamers will as well?  To most people, gamergate is a total non-issue; when they make a huge mess of things, they get regarded as an annoyance.  And since companies are made up of "most people", they're even less likely to care about your grievances than I am.  They'll just see the sexist mess and stay away.

Wow!  That's a really good explanation of the state of the media these days, and one I hadn't seen put so clearly before.

Yeah.  I was digging around for a reliable source for this, but apparently, Fox News is the #1 news channel out there.  That's despite the fact that they're fact-checked to be inaccurate about 50% of the time.  If anyone's interested, I'll look for the link.

But interestingly, Fox's major competition isn't a hard news source either-- it's Jon Stewart and the Daily Show.  Now, Stewart is witty and more than a little controversial, but he's also very clear that he's not a responsible news source.  He's a comedian, on Comedy Central, and is not a reporter by any stretch of the imagination.

What this tells me is that people aren't going to responsible journalists for their news anymore.  They're going to entertainment channels that have a few news-y trappings.  This is why journalistic ethics are dead, nobody pays much attention to ethical journalism anymore.  And this is not new, this has been coming for at least thirty years, if not longer.

Unfortunately, it's incorrect.  Advertisement is a service.  Customers are not their product, advertising space is.  The value of that advertising space is based on the customer numbers, demographics, and the reputation of the site.

This is why, if customers complain about advertisers purchasing advertising space on a website, they might consider withdrawing that advertisement.

Most businesses do not view viewers at an advertising space as product, they view them as their customers.

Were the viewpoint of customers as product accurate, contacting advertisers would not be an effective boycotting tactic, but it is.  No business I know of looks at their relationship with advertisers from the aforementioned perspective.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:42, Fri 07 Nov 2014.

"IS TOO!!!"