15 Questions about #Gamergate



THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT BATTLE OF HISTORY!

 I'm hoping that by the time I publish this, it's subject matter will no longer exist. I'm sort of a late adopter, and I mostly sat out of the whole ruckus of Gamergate.

From the beginning I had my doubts. I couldn't muster any anger about some lady doing some sex things to some people from some sites  I didn't even frequent. I haven't had a console in roughly 4 years. Money problems is all.  And really, the whole thing where there where so many accussations and counter accusations...I wrote like 3 articles about it I never posted because it hardly felt right. Even the one I did post kind of makes me feel a little stupid, in retrospect.

But in that time I also watched. Gamergate was not about the pretty blond lady who made a text game, or the lady dressed as a sultry lumberjack, it's members said. They claimed that the media had them figured all wrong, and if we only listened. 

But if I don't assume Gamergate is about what it absolutely looks like it's about, by all the evidence and, frankly with most of it's supporters replies on Facebook (it rhymes with Shmarassment of Shwomen, and Shmear of Shmeminism), then I have to ask a question or 15 of them. Speak now, Gators. I will listen.

15. Why don't you harass men more?

I mean, yeah, not ALL the Gamergators or whatever, threaten women with death and rape. Some threaten some men, too. But...there's a disproportionate amount of hate towards females, who, like Leigh Alexander, aren't even being extreme: they're just disavowing the harassment.

This threats make you look bad and sexist. You should be equal opportunity harassers and harass some men. It's not like there's a shortage of men that disagree with your opinions.

People of all genders and creeds agree that Gamergate is just a bunch of idiots from 4Chan out to spook women for laughts. Won't you prove them wrong?


14. What are you gonna do when games grow up?

I mean, clearly, games are becoming more of an expression form. While the first 3 decades where spent mostly with the commercialist doldrums of selling children and young adults entertainment, they are now enjoyed all over the world as more than mere entertainment.

Gamergate is clearly here to stay for many years to come. It has all the components of a long lasting cultural faction. When we start seeing, as I suspect we will, more games made by minorities and women, games that are not only not adventures, but that aren't even violent at all...what are you gonna do?

But you are against such "political ideas" even being discussed. Naturally gamergate, as an addendum to gamer culture, needs to evolve WITH games, to recognize all kinds of ideas  can have a place. As much  as GG may gripe about their ar and it's users being put on the spot, it also has to recognize that this is still a young medium, ripe for growing.

15 years ago I'd have told you a game about a lawyer is a stupid idea. What's he gonna do, shoot laws at the enemies he comes across? And yet, they did it. One day, the lawyer might not even have to make his enemies explode!



"Your move, Richard Gear."

One day, all I'm saying is, criticism of games is gonna come in the form of a  game. And that day, GG will have to decide if it can take the contradiction.

13. What's up with all the stuff that didn't turn out to be true?

Your movement started with a bunch of trumped up charges against a lady that...I'm not gonna say you lied. You may have acted on unconfirmed information sound better to you?

I mean, if you think this is something so serious that 1000s from all over the globe need to get together....shouldn't your information be fully confirmed?

If I were you, and all the stuff  I'd said had been a full on not truth, and my achievements on It had been enabling a bunch of troglodytes to dox two citizens of the United States of America...well I'd have disbanded the movement right there. Any good you could maybe get done is already tarnished.

But maybe this whole "getting magazines to always tell you who their friends are" thing is bigger than all of us.

12. Why do you think your movement attracts such negative attention?


I did stab them! My view points are valid!

I understand that not all gamergatees are involved in the threatening of women. Some of them  even constantly remind us. But why does the media continue to focus on all the misogynists who happen to have attached themselves to your cause?

I don't know why you don't attract more people who aren't interested in Zoe Quinn's sexual escapades. Who WOULDN'T want to join the rough and tumble  world of telling magazines what their content should be? It's a universal thing.

But for some reason, people who join you are  very often, well...not misogynists, just...currently engaged in the production and distribution of  misogyny. You should do stuff that makes those people not want to join Gamergate.

11. You guys know a gamergate is an antclass, right?

I know, somebody must have said this. But I love me some bugs!



CHIIIIICK FIIIIGHT!

10. What is a Social Justice Warrior?

I'm asking, because I see the term bandied about a lot, and I'm still not sure what it means. All I imagine is an old 80s cartoon intro with  synthesizer music, or maybe  a crossover between Conan and Martin Luther King.



BY CROM! YOU ARE ALL SO UNDERREPRESENTED!

Is it anyone who thinks the depiction of women is important? Or does it have to do with  how much influence that person has.

Anita Sarkeesian, for example, wielded zero influence in videogames until she started getting harassed. Now, I know  a lot of you feel that this harassment never happened, and neither did the harassment of 9 whole people whose harassment is atributted to your group.

Is the guy who's bothered that Chris Redfield is gunning down African all over the place a Social Justice Warrior? If I say you are misogynists, does that make me a Social Justice Warrior?

I mean, I may very well be. I've written about how I agree with Sarkeesian on somethings, I also disagreed with feminists with their criticism of Skullgirls and  The Princess and the Bow(later Brave)


I either ran over her cat, or she doesn't like the way I play Rumble Roses.

I find extremes extremely tedious. Sometimes I agree with a person, but disagree with a method. For example, if you where to make a video saying you want video game journalists to be fair, I'd probably agree with that sentiment. But If your video says 5 times in as many minutes that you "don't care" if some lady had sexy times with some people, I'd probably tell you to take your bochinche trick ass  out of my eyes.


9. Could you guys create your own website?

Who am I kidding, of course you could! Being angry at publications is how most publications start! In your own website (IS GAMERGATE.COM TAKEN?)  you could have all the ethics you want, free of charge. You guys could follow kosher  law for all the world cares!

In fact, besides reviewing games and not colluding with anything, you could also be  investigating all that corruption. I mean, the movement so far is just a series of hashtags and defenses of what the movement is about. Why not go solid?


8. Why did your group donate money for a women's game making thing?

One of the allegations  you point out in your defense of why you're not a mysogiball is that you donated several thousand dollars to a  something to do with  women making games. Why?

I don't mean to be suspicious or anything, but your movement is two months old, and no friends of political correctness, as per most of the GG posts I've seen. Why, in the middle of all that, would it come up to say "let's donate money to a womanly cause"? That...doesn't even have anything to do with the ethics in journalism or whatever. What is the reason for this donation? It really looks, from an outsider's point of view, that you did it to further a case against Zoe Quinn.


7. Are you aware that there is no movement against Gamergate?

It's true. Whereas we know Gamergate has it's on little conclaves, and you guys go on there and talk about stuff, people who are against the movement because of stuff it seems to have done are even less unified. However, the difference is they all agree on several key points.

Harassing women is a terrible thing.

 

Gamergate seems specifically born out of a mentality that leads to women getting harassed.

 

Gamergate overall seems like a bad thing that needs to end.

So whereas GG alternates between complaining about journalism, women, social justice warriors, and such,  all your opponents need to do is point out what the results of your movement have been, and that's it.

Find something you all agree on,  a goal make it specific, and not about a private person having sex.

6. Do you guys have any female family?

Wait, don't answer this one. Anonimity and facelessness are key to your movement. I have a handful of sisters, and my mother's still alive. I have several cousins.

You see, sometimes, I'm playing my videogames or reading about them, and they need me. Sometimes they're hurt. Sometimes they have problems.


"I love you, but if you mess with people's videogames, you on you own, ma"

If they where getting death threats and having their personal shit spread all over the web, I'd be livid. I know for sure, whatever happens in the videogame world would just drop out of my priorities.

I dunno. Maybe that's just me. Maybe there's a mental space where threatening someone with rape is an appropriate response to videogame shit. I've never been there. I'd never even associate with people who do that, you know? Even if we agree that the pie sucks, I would not hang out with someone who feels that the only response to Obamacare is to bomb the hospital.



5. What changes, specifically, have SJWs/Feminists, brought to videogames that make them such a target for Gamergate?

I mean, I could get behind the idea that these people are making videogames too PC...but I'd need to see them successfully achieve that, first.

Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm a big old horndog. But if you want to know who's really making your games PC, you should look  at the lower part of the box.

That little letter right there decides if your game can be sold to the public at large in a brick and mortar store.  The ESRB makes, and has been deciding which content is "street acceptable" and which isn't. Everything over the M mark is basically not accepted.


Thanks for the heads up.

These guys, under the behest of the ESA, gaming's own special interest lobby(and you guys saying you don't want politics in gaming), are the reason more games don't actually  show you what's under the boob-shaped armor.  Formed in 1993, as a way to avoid the government enforcing it's own arbitrary forms of censorship, the ESRB has taken more boobs off of the screen than Anita Sarkeesian could see without bursting into tears of blood.

Now, we could try to get rid of the ESRB. That'd be nice, wouldn't it. It's not the 90's anymore, daddy: you can know what's in your kid's game with a single Let's Play. The comics industry blew off IT's ratings system, and it's fine.

 But maybe that's too specific for  Gamergate, huh?


4. Why not just not go to the offending websites?

You call this a consumer's revolt/revolution. You want these sites to give it to you straight, and without any corruption or thinkpieces about gaming as anything other than periodically delivered commercial entertainment.

But...why not just not go to those sites? Aren't there any other sites that can satisfy your needs? Frankly, I'm not much of a Kotaku or Escapist fan, or IGN visitor, and that suits me fine. I go somewhere else.

3.Actually, have you guys considered leaving reviews altogether?

I mean, really, buying games based on reviews is for the birds. This is the part of the industry I feel would MOST be at risk from the kind of corruption you pay lip service to. Instead of demanding THESE websites give you fair reviews, how about FUCK reviews, I'll find out by my own damn self if the game is worth it. There's demos, there's rentals. There's even illegal downloads. Why take the long ass road of changing a bunch of sites?

2. Is Gamergate just a bunch of disgruntled people just being disgruntled?


Seriously, there's so many people in our gang. We're mostly good, but invariably some of them are gonna be bad.

I mean, gee, I don't know. I know these movement things can be pretty fluid and stuff, but It seems like this group is just vaguely aiming at the concept that videogame corruption is bad and then...continuing to aim.

Like, what DO you want? Should the president of Kotaku resign? Do you want Anita Sarkeesian to apologize to you for saying something you don't agree with?  What suits you?

The notion that these people have wronged you, somehow, can only take the movement SO far. At this point, you should at least have one of the companies you think is in corruption with specific demands. Not specific like "Let us know if you're fucking someone in the industry." Specific like "Nixon planned that espionage. Impeach Mode!"

1. Uncover any scandals that don't have to do with SJWs, Feminism, or anything like that, yet?

You can always tell a tree from it's fruit. Gourd trees give you gourds, pear trees give you peers, and pine cones give you Chris Pines, I assume.

So if Gamergate is a movement hell bent on bringing more ethics to videogames, surely it has something more than some ladies disagreeing with them to worry about. I mean, you've been at this for MONTHS. I expect you to have cracked this case by now.