Why the Dwindling Gamergate Deserves a Second Look.
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Where the media is concerned, the weird (and almost impossible to navigate) phenomenon known as Gamergate has begun to dwindle into exhaustion.
And yet, it’s something that still demands a closer look, if only because of what it has left in its wake.
For those of you wondering what I’m talking about, Gamergate started as a controversy back in August of last year over journalistic integrity in the video game industry. Advocates of GG claimed that rampant nepotism and favoritism have colored the way in which new video games are received by the public, specifically in their reviews which appear on sites like Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Kotaku.
The original prerogative of GG addresses a salient concern, especially because it involves a media and press outlet that belongs to a counter-culture, and has been able to fly under the radar in terms of journalistic ethics.
What GG became is something else entirely — and depending on who you ask, it’s virtually incomprehensible and so paradoxically at ends with itself it’d put the Greek Hydra to shame (as in, there are so many goddamn heads, no one can make up their mind what Gamergate is actually about anymore).
But some background… It all starts with a woman, indie game designer Zoe Quinn. After concerns were raised against positive reviews she received, on the website Kotaku, for her game Depression Quest, and corresponding allegations that she had slept with one of their journalists, she was met with an influx of hate mail, rape and death threats, and online antagonism. She and other women game developers like Brianna Wu, as well as those who voiced support on their behalf, became the targets of harassment and doxxing (release of private information, including personal addresses), to the point that many of them didn’t feel safe to be alone in their own homes.
All over a video game.
Well, not really. The gaming culture has always struggled with sexism, both in terms of how women are portrayed in video games, and how they’re treated and regarded as players. It’s a decades-old conundrum. Game development has been one of the last and most insulated frontiers when it comes to antiquated ideologies and resistance to non-traditional ideas of what a game should be, and on a more fundamental level, what role women play in its evolution.
What Gamergate brought to light was not only the extent of disparagement and marginalization of women in the gaming community, but also the presence of a culture war being waged on both fronts.
The Problem
Supporters of Gamergate are quick to point out that their original mandate was focused on journalistic integrity and had nothing to do with discussions of sexism or misogynistic tendencies, in spite of trolls and other members of the online community who have used the movement as a platform to harass women or feminist points of view. Views that may or may not run 180 degrees contrary to those represented by true Gamergaters.
That’s the two-fold problem with an anonymous online movement, and it’s something that GG proponents have failed to understand. On one hand, its participation with an online anonymous community prevents individual accountability — the #gamergate hashtag has been hijacked by forums like Reddit and 4Chan, clogging threads with vapid and often violent accusations and insults against women in the gaming community, under the guise of protecting traditionalist gamer identity.
Secondly, its presence online has allowed it to evolve rapidly, beyond the ability of its progenitors to keep it focused. Many critics have pointed out a lack of direction or any unifying raison d’etre, and its leaderless nature on the forums often contributes to conflicting points of view. It has become susceptible to its own mutation.
As a result, the GG of last month is not the GG of today — and whether or not we agree with this evolution, it is a product of the actions of individuals who have taken up the GG mantle. Even if they’re not representative of thewhole, even if they’re not representative of the movement’s original modus operandi.
You can’t escape the individual narratives that creep into the conversation, and Gamergate as an entity has become a symbol of the overriding misogyny in gamer politics.
Rationalization
In an article on Vox, writer Todd VanDerWerff is quick to point out that “every single question of journalistic ethics GamerGate has brought up has either been debunked or dealt with.” So the question is, what is this culture war really about?
What has concerned me, in addition to the harassment of prominent figures like Felicia Day, Zoe Quinn, and Anita Sarkeesian, is the part that journalistic ethics has played in deflecting conversation away from another issue. One which is, arguably, at the center of this conflict, and is a feminist issue. Insofar as women have begun to play a more prominent role in gaming culture, and are helping to redefine it.
Video games are exceptional, in that they exist both as an art form and as entertainment. It’s in the widening divide between the two that we’ve seen a lot of resistance to change. Especially to this idea of gamer identity. Some have argued that games should adhere to their original entertainment purposes, while others have explored their potential as a creative medium, including Zoe Quinn. Her game Depression Quest has been lauded as an avante-garde approach to the traditional gaming experience, but she has also received a considerable amount of negative feedback and disapproval for its social criticism.
She isn’t the only one. An inordinate amount of flak has been directed at female gamers and game developers in particular, with similar reprimands ranging from the use of dark themes to the inclusion of political points of view. The argument being that games ought not to be mediums for political, social, or cultural discourse, but should be treated as what they are: only games.
Which, like chauvinism, is not only a limiting attitude, but also an outdated one. And the fact that these efforts to quell progressive criticism of gaming culture have been directed primarily at women is not coincidental. That video games are inappropriate vehicles for flexing some kind of social commentary is a bullshit rationalization, at best.
Rather, these legitimate concerns over the aesthetic of video games as appliance versus art has been used, repeatedly, as a diplomatic shield for Gamergate’s perpetuation of harassment.
Now what?
That’s a good question. I hear phrases like maelstrom in a teacup thrown around, suggesting that this is just a blip on the proverbial radar, and once rogue Gamergaters get too hoarse to bitch about the changing face of gaming that the story will die down and we’ll all return to a familiar homeostasis.
But I don’t think that’s good enough. And I’m not saying this because I’m a feminist, or even because I agree with everything the anti-GGs are saying. I’m saying this because my best friend belongs to the demographic being targeted, and it makes me sick to think of her being afraid to voice her opinion or be a part of the online community.
If we’re talking about an incident, then sure, Gamergate will probably go the way of #Kony2012 or #YesAllWomen, and that’s probably a good thing. And while journalistic ethics is still an issue that has fallen on the wayside, what the GG has done is re-illuminate a pre-existing condition. And if anything, stressed the importance of holding on to strong female role models in the gaming community; I’m talking about developers like Brianna Wu and Heather Kelley, actors and writers like Felicia Day, and especially active members of the gaming community itself like Sasha Hostyn (Scarlett) who took first place in the 2012 StarCraft II World Championship.
It begins by standing up for something that should be self-evident: diversification and equality in the gaming industry. It involves supporting and protecting the indie-gaming industry and the people who work within it by continually calling out those who threaten it, and not giving them the satisfaction of scaring us off. Not easy. Probably, it’s not enough. It rarely is.
Shit, I know that. But am I really supposed to be fucking idle about it?
This isn’t rocket science. It’s Occam’s Razor at work. I want to play games. Games that make me think, games that are fun, games that push the boundaries. I’ve never judged someone based on what sorts of games they enjoy or companies based on the types of games they develop, especially the indie organizations.
But the second someone else starts targeting members of my community based on gender, that’s when you have to fight back, and make their voices louder than the assholes trying to silence them.
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Jordan Mounteer is a nomad poet whose travels have taken him from New Zealand to South America, and he is currently teaching in Japan.
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