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[Fhtagn]

But I just can't see how the term "GamerGate" makes any sense outside of the context of that first "conspiracy" ( which was nearly immediately disproved ). For that first week where maybe this did go down ( take gender out of it, and keep in mind, there was no widely available proof to discredit it for the first couple days ), it was actually kind of a cute term, obviously copying WaterGate to denote the potential conspiracy.

This is why when people say "GamerGate = conspiracy of ethics in games journalism", to me, this is actually 100% accurate on a semantics level. The term has just been co-oped to be a term for all the misogynist douchebags on the internet at this point. Which is fine.. but I wish we could all agree that it just doesn't make sense. When people say "No, GamerGate is about waay more than ethics in games journalism", I can't help but get a headache, cause the term was never supposed just represent misogynists.

I believe you're being sincere but a couple things:

1. The evidence was widely available immediately, because the review in question didn't exist. So if anyone did basic fact checking of the claims made in the initial post, they'd realize they were being had.

2. Using "ethics in journalism" as a cover story was explicitly a strategy employed by the core harassers in order to rope the unsuspecting into continuing the harassment.

3. The term was coined by a right wing nut job and elevated up by other Briebart level scam artists who quickly leveraged the mob for their own ends, who were inexplicably embraced as heroes despite having previously talked infinite amounts of shit about gamers.

At no point did Gamergate actually successfully articulate any goals wrt ethics in game journalism.

Gamergate only means angry mobs harassing people because they've been tricked into thinking those people did some easily-disproved nebulous bad thing. And are women. Because the men never get targeted.

 

[capylikesgames]

This was a big highlight of yesterday to me. I'm happy for her! I know her ex can keep at it in a number of ways, but this decision makes me a bit optimistic. Ideally, anything else he tries from here on out wont get very far. It's not an end to GamerGate, but if all goes well, it'll be the end of a big chunk of the movement being relevant enough to bring up anymore. It'll also hopefully some peace of mind to Zoe. I'd love to see her dip her hands in game development again. When she's ready, of course.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I don't think any sane person would think that the abuse Zoe went through was in any way correct, but [...]

Look, what happened to Zoe is bad; we can all agree that. But [...]

I wish no ill on her, but [...]

Abusing anyone is wrong, this shouldn't even need to be said, but [...]

There's always a "but" with you guys, isn't there?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

There's always a "but" with you guys, isn't there?

Holy shit, so obvious haha.

Obligatory:

 

[LeeRoyBrown]

My understanding: It's about someone who used her influence with multiple men to get positive game reviews, then hid behind feminist flags when people called her on it.

You need to learn that your opinion, even cinical or sarcastic isn't accepted on this forum. In every thread no matter the subject neogaf only accepts one view and not conforming isn't accepted.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

You need to learn that your opinion, even cinical or sarcastic isn't accepted on this forum.

This is true. Statements that are factual of nature, though false, can be disguised as "opinions".

In every thread no matter the subject neogaf only accepts one view and not conforming isn't accepted.

This is true. I've never seen disagreements or heated debates on GAF, not ever. This never happens.

Spoiler

Another day, another junior...

 

[PtM]

You need to learn that your opinion, even cinical or sarcastic isn't accepted on this forum. In every thread no matter the subject neogaf only accepts one view and not conforming isn't accepted.

I wish I could be as courageous as you, dropping the fricking truth like a mic. *swoon*

 

[Corronchilejano]

You need to learn that your opinion, even cinical or sarcastic isn't accepted on this forum. In every thread no matter the subject neogaf only accepts one view and not conforming isn't accepted.

That's why we have forty pages of people discussing the second Ghostbusters trailer. Because there's only one valid opinion.

Fly my pretty, fly away...

 

[capylikesgames]

You need to learn that your opinion, even cinical or sarcastic isn't accepted on this forum. In every thread no matter the subject neogaf only accepts one view and not conforming isn't accepted.

But it isn't an opinion? Quinn never slept with anyone for publicity, this is fact.

 

[Rains]

Jesus how can women hurt video games what a shitty excuse to to basically harrash a women on a massive scale i hate humanity sometimes well all the time

 

[mikeyvids]

Haters gunna hate. Gamers gunna gate.

 

[Famassu]

Well. I agree with your sentiment, but I don't remember it being quite exactly like that.

Please don't attack me here if I messed anything up, just calmly tell me, lol.. but I remember the origin more like this:

So, there was the Zoe Quinn thing, where a bunch of people flipped their shit because it seemed like she may have been sleeping with a games journalist who may have written something about one of her games. When I say "it seemed", I say that just because it was a thing that was said on the internet, not because I actually think she did. Admittedly, there seemed to be like zero evidence, and seemed to stem from some random person putting together some random facts that A) She made some games, B) she may have had some sort of relationship with that kotaku dude, and C) he wrote about one of her games once.

This is the one place where the term GamerGate makes sense. Its obviously a play on WaterGate ( or any other *Gate, which is a term a bunch of people use. I remember my mom undercooking 50 baked potatoes ~10 years ago and the whole family calls it PotatoGate ever since then ).

Then that was entirely all disproved. I think the kotaku dude did write one tiny mention of one of her games once, but it was a game that came out well before they got together ( I think ). Of course, certain basement dwellers couldn't let this go and thought they were still right, which was fueled by a different ( non-kotaku ) ex of hers writing that horrible note about her. Which I don't think the note even said she did anything unethical, it just looked like a typical note you would see from an immature, angry ex, and mostly called her a bunch of horrible names ( I think? ). Said basement dwellers started using internet doucebag tactics to make her life a living hell.

Around the time of the note, was the same( ish ) time Anita S. started doing her Female Tropes in Games series, which was basically a series pointing out how women are portrayed in games usually in sexist ways, and are rarely featured in non-sexist ways. She started kind of calling out to developers that they should try and represent women in more realistic and less misogynistic ways. Of course, the mere mention of this got many of the same basement dwellers from earlier to use the same internet douchebag tactics from earlier to make Anita's ( and anyone else saying similar statements ) life's hell as well.

So basically, you have the first 2% of this whole timeline tied to an unproven thought that maybe a developer slept with a journalist for positive coverage. Then the next 1% is that all being disproved. Then the next 97% on to the rest of everything else up to today is just misogynist raving douchebags freaking out on the internet ( and IRL in some cases ).

So let me be clear: I am just breaking this down as I understand it, and I 100% am not for any misogynist internet douchebaggery. These people are deplorable. I am 100% on Zoe and Anita and friends' side here.

But I just can't see how the term "GamerGate" makes any sense outside of the context of that first "conspiracy" ( which was nearly immediately disproved ). For that first week where maybe this did go down ( take gender out of it, and keep in mind, there was no widely available proof to discredit it for the first couple days ), it was actually kind of a cute term, obviously copying WaterGate to denote the potential conspiracy.

This is why when people say "GamerGate = conspiracy of ethics in games journalism", to me, this is actually 100% accurate on a semantics level. The term has just been co-oped to be a term for all the misogynist douchebags on the internet at this point. Which is fine.. but I wish we could all agree that it just doesn't make sense. When people say "No, GamerGate is about waay more than ethics in games journalism", I can't help but get a headache, cause the term was never supposed just represent misogynists.

Sorry for the long post. Hope I handled it with kid's gloves enough to not be yelled at! I have never once sided with a "gamer-gater" 1 time, I don't think that Zoe Quinn did anything disingenuous, I fully deplore any doxing, swating, or other douche bag internet tactics. But I can't help but get a semantic headache when I hear how people use the term at this point.

Sure, the term doesn't really make sense considering the claimed aim of the movement was clearly BS from day 1. Still, it was those Gamergaters who adopted the term and kept going with it to try to justify their actions in the eyes of the public who have no clue about the whole ordeal.

Much like MRAs (who overlap probably almost 1:1 with GGers) use a kind of ok sounding "men have issues too, not all white straight men have it good" premise for the movement that draws in gullible men who haven't been treated well by life. They get those men with generic statements like that that sound right and have a seed of truth to them. Then they start sprouting all the shit about those demonic feminazis taking away the rights & balls of men, even though they don't actually do a damn thing to try to address any of those men's issues that actually could use addressing (like how badly men are treated in cases of divorces & custody cases). They've long since abandoned all pretence and don't even try to do anything else but suppress the attempts of other demographics to reach equality.

I'd say Gamergate as a phenomena/event is about the stuff that happened around Zoe's claimed womanly sexually devious adventures and it's somewhat true that that part has been over since the supposed unethical game journalism claims were proven to be just a ruse (though the harassment remains). Gamergaters are just the people who got behind the harassment movement hard and the term is still used because those same people are still at it, attacking women as their daily job. So I personally don't attach the term GamerGate as some kind of battle of two sides that are equally fighting for the souls of gamers. It's a pretty one-sided deal with a group of nitwits organized some to push their conservative, bigoted views. While of course the more liberal people do push back against GGers, it's in more of a reactionary way rather than there being a similarly loosely organized group of people attacking GGers as visibly & vehemently.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Seriously? Are people still using the "I was there from the beginning" response as if they were in the room when it happened?

You see Gamergate as a one dimensional conversation and I see it as a nebulous concept.

I find it endlessly fucking fascinating that people think the latter is any better than the former.

In fact, calling it a "nebulous concept" is admitting that it's a fucking mess.

I never understood why people losing a debate have to announce the fact they are 'leaving' a thread.

It's the internet, it's not like it's a room and your slamming a door or sommit.

It's so they can say "I won and you lost" even though you won and they lost. It's a faux show of being the bigger person.

 

[OHjaysimpsan]

I still till this day don't know what gamergate is.

This

 

[Adnor]

This

You should read the entire thread before posting then, not just the first post, people have explained what Gamergate is dozens of times now.

 

[dity]

Good.

 

[Alex_Mexico]

I still till this day don't know what gamergate is.

How come in other niche (for neogaf) non videogame topics like the Ramadan OT, Cricket World Cup OT or the friggin Hobonichi Techo threads they can coexist without people going in just to post "I don't know what Hobonichi Techo is" and yet in every Gamergate thread, which is intrinsically more gaming related, we can't go a full page without at least someone coming in just to post how they don't know what it is despite the at least dozen times it's already been explained in this very topic?

It's difficult to not sometimes feel a bit suspicious because I can't shake he feeling some light be going out of their way to post this kind of messages.

 

[dity]

How come in other niche (for neogaf) non videogame topics like the Ramadan OT, Cricket World Cup OT or the friggin Hobonichi Techo threads they can coexist without people going in just to post "I don't know what Hobonichi Techo is" and yet in every Gamergate thread, which is intrinsically more gaming related, we can't go a full page without at least someone coming in just to post how they don't know what it is despite the at least dozen times it's already been explained in this very topic?

It's difficult to not sometimes feel a bit suspicious because I can't shake he feeling some light be going out of their way to post this kind of messages.

I'm fairly sure "act like you don't know what GG is and start a discussion that way" is a legit strategy of theirs. Deliberate misdirect to encourage positive speculation of GG under the guise of being ignorant.

 

[Moff]

I never understood gamergate

a developer was accused to sleep with a journalist, but it turned out immediately that he never even wrote anything about the game after they hooked up. what is gamergate still about? how could it blow up like that? why harrass her? I just don't understand it even or especially after the summaries in this thread.

the sad thing is, even if it was true I don't understand why anyone would harrass or even blame her, I'd rather blame the journalist. but I wouldn't care about that either, the corruption of videogame journalism is huge anyway since the publishers keep the websites/magazine alive with their ads. journalists are literally depending on the people who's products they are supposed to judge, that's the reason why I don't read any reviews anymore, who cares about gamergate? what a sad joke.

 

[Henkka]

That's why we have forty pages of people discussing the second Ghostbusters trailer. Because there's only one valid opinion.



Fly my pretty, fly away...

Yeah. I often disagree with the kind of far-left, "social justice" stuff that these people are up in arms about, and I've yet to banned for it. The problem with gators is that they take all this nonsense a little too seriously, and have a massive persecution complex. Just defend your point of view, without this kind of "I know I'll probably get banned for this because GAF is a liberal hivemind, but..." bullshit.

 

[Speely]

Make Game Journalism Ethical Again!

 

[Ucchedavāda]

I never understood gamergate

a developer was accused to sleep with a journalist, but it turned out immediately that he never even wrote anything about the game after they hooked up. what is gamergate still about? how could it blow up like that? why harrass her? I just don't understand it even or especially after the summaries in this thread.

the sad thing is, even if it was true I don't understand why anyone would harrass or even blame her, I'd rather blame the journalist. but I wouldn't care about that either, the corruption of videogame journalism is huge anyway since the publishers keep the websites/magazine alive with their ads. journalists are literally depending on the people who's products they are supposed to judge, that's the reason why I don't read any reviews anymore, who cares about gamergate? what a sad joke.

A consistent theme in GamerGate's history has been their going after people who don't really have anything to do with games journalism. Starting with Zoe Quinn, as opposed to Nathan Grayson, the actual journalist in that case; Anita Sarkissian, who is a critic that only has to do with journalism insofar that she comments on it; and Brianna Wu, an indie developer who at one point tweeted jokes about GamerGate / dude-bro gamers and became a target because of that.

These are the same people that GG ended up nicknaming "Literally Who"s, or in the case of Wu, "Literally Wu", in an attempt to show GamerGate wasn't actually completely obsessing over them, that they really didn't matter. Needless to say, that did not work as intended, since GamerGate kept obsessing over their every word and deed, but now just referred to them using these ridiculous nicknames.

The latest example would perhaps be Alison Rapp, a PR person for Nintendo's American division, who was initially accused of (somehow) censoring localized games.

One of the few cases that actually involved a journalist would be Veerender Jubbal, a freelance journalist critical of GamerGate, and a Sikh. In response, and on top of existing harassment that had been directed towards him, somebody decided that it was a good idea to photoshop one of Jubbal's selfies to make him look like a terrorist, and tricked one newspaper into sharing that photo in connection the attacks in Paris at that time. The moderators at KIA, one of the major GamerGate hubs, subsequently deleted the posts made by the photoshopper to obscure his connection to GamerGate.

 

[PKrockin]

I'm fairly sure "act like you don't know what GG is and start a discussion that way" is a legit strategy of theirs. Deliberate misdirect to encourage positive speculation of GG under the guise of being ignorant.

I'm pretty sure it's just people wanting to brag about how "above the drama" they are.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

It's a group of manchildren who like the status quo and harras women.

these answers are why people like me and the two people you are responding to say things like

'i still have no idea what gamergate is'

 

[Moff]

A consistent theme in GamerGate's history has been their going after people who don't really have anything to do with games journalism. Starting with Zoe Quinn, as opposed to Nathan Grayson, the actual journalist in that case; Anita Sarkissian, who is a critic that only has to do with journalism insofar that she comments on it; and Brianna Wu, an indie developer who at one point tweeted jokes about GamerGate / dude-bro gamers and became a target because of that.

These are the same people that GG ended up nicknaming "Literally Who"s, or in the case of Wu, "Literally Wu", in an attempt to show GamerGate wasn't actually completely obsessing over them, that they really didn't matter. Needless to say, that did not work as intended, since GamerGate kept obsessing over their every word and deed, but now just referred to them using these ridiculous nicknames.

The latest example would perhaps be Alison Rapp, a PR person for Nintendo's American division, who was initially accused of (somehow) censoring localized games.

One of the few cases that actually involved a journalist would be Veerender Jubbal, a freelance journalist critical of GamerGate, and a Sikh. In response, and on top of existing harassment that had been directed towards him, somebody decided that it was a good idea to photoshop one of Jubbal's selfies to make him look like a terrorist, and tricked one newspaper into sharing that photo in connection the attacks in Paris at that time. The moderators at KIA, one of the major GamerGate hubs, subsequently deleted the posts made by the photoshopper to obscure his connection to GamerGate.

but that's WHAT they did, I don't understand the why. I just don't get it. how could this blow up so big if the initial incident proved to be false so soon? I just feel like I'm missing something.

 

[Chichikov]

these answers are why people like me and the two people you are responding to say things like

'i still have no idea what gamergate is'

Enough.
There are plenty of very good detailed explanations in this thread, also, you have fucking google, at the point your ignorance is your choice (unless of course you are feigning it).
If you refuse to rectify it or refuse to even read the thread, don't participate in it.

 

[dity]

I'm pretty sure it's just people wanting to brag about how "above the drama" they are.

It's a real thing. They had a name for it on their reddit and everything. Why else do you think you always see it from low post count juniors all the time?

 

[Fraeon]

I thought she dropped the charges? Not that it matters, it's excellent that something is finally done in the judicial system about this.

 

[family_guy]

I just came to say I hate the term GamerGate. It's not nearly descriptive enough about what the issue is. The "gate" terms usually refer to scandals but what will people use when the next gaming related scandal happens? GamerGate 2?

 

[Speely]

I just came to say I hate the term GamerGate. It's not nearly descriptive enough about what the issue is. The "gate" terms usually refer to scandals but what will people use when the next gaming related scandal happens? GamerGate 2?

The next scandal will probably involve the same usual suspects, so there won't be a reason to change the name at all.

 

[PKrockin]

It's a real thing. They had a name for it on their reddit and everything. Why else do you think you always see it from low post count juniors all the time?

I'm talking about people waltzing in just to say "I don't know or care about this topic" as if that's not against the forum rules, not the "Gee guys I haven't really followed this but didn't that Anita Sarkeesian person fabricate death threats? Just asking questions!" posts.

 

[dity]

I'm talking about people waltzing in just to say "I don't know or care about this topic" as if that's not against the forum rules, not the "Gee guys I haven't really followed this but didn't that Anita Sarkeesian person fabricate death threats? Just asking questions!" posts.

Oh, those people. Yeah. I agree with you about those types.

 

[Adnor]

these answers are why people like me and the two people you are responding to say things like

'i still have no idea what gamergate is'

Yeah it wasn't the best response and I'm sorry, but at the same time there have been a lot of threads about the matter and it's super easy to find information about it so it's just tiresome to see that kind of post in every thread.

 

[Ucchedavāda]

but that's WHAT they did, I don't understand the why. I just don't get it. how could this blow up so big if the initial incident proved to be false so soon? I just feel like I'm missing something.

There is no simple answer to that, since GamerGate is and always has been a mismash of different groups with widely different motivations:

• There were already people who had it in for Zoe Quinn before GamerGate, before the "Quinnspiracy", and who helped coordinate it and kick it off in the early days;
• there are people who genuinely believe(d) that this was about unethical dealings in game journalism, though a lot of those seem to have become disillusioned by now, as the movement increasingly focused its attention on Feminists and "SJWs";
• there are people who think that games and / or gamers are under attack in some form, and must be protected (see e.g. the response to the misnamed "Gamers are dead" collection of articles);
• there are people who simply use this to justify or to get away with inexcusable behavior, including for example the people of the "kiwifarm" forums and on chans;
• there's the related groups of 'free speech means that I have a right to be terrible to people', which has people protest getting blocked by somebody on twitter as were it an affront to free speech, and which at one point resulted in an influx of people mainly concerned about shaming and harassing overweight people into the 'KokatuInAction' subreddit, after the aptly named 'FatPeopleHate' subreddit was banned from Reddit;
• there are outright anti-feminist / MRA factions among gamers, which is reflected in the choice of targets by GamerGate, and in the current focus of the 'KokatuInAction' subreddit;
• there are the outsiders who saw this as a means to self-promote, or to promote pet causes that are frequently also anti-feminist / MRA; see e.g. Thunderf00t, Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Hoff Sommers, and the Reign of Kings website;
• there are those who saw this as means to milk the GamerGate crowd for money, e.g. the HoneyBadgers and the duo behind the "Sarkessian Effect" movie;

And I am probably forgetting some, on top of all the weird overlaps and cross-pollination between these groups.

 

[Humdinger]

Well, I'm glad she succeeded. It can be hard to do that, with the way the laws are set up. Good for her. I'm sure it's a relief.

 

[teeejay]

My understanding: It's about someone who used her influence with multiple men to get positive game reviews, then hid behind feminist flags when people called her on it.

Can someone explain why the user was banned for this post? Or point me in the right direction.

 

[Camjo-Z]

Can someone explain why the user was banned for this post? Or point me in the right direction.

The information he posted was false.

 

[FreedomFrisbee]

but that's WHAT they did, I don't understand the why. I just don't get it. how could this blow up so big if the initial incident proved to be false so soon? I just feel like I'm missing something.

The reason it blew up to be as big as it was, and I'm surprised people forget, is multiple websites actively censored discussions of it. 4chan and Reddit were both deleting and banning left and right to prevent it. Neogaf at the time also wasn't letting it be talked about but gaf obviously isn't as large as the other two. This caused a Streisand effect. Everyone needed to know. Theres a lot of dumb additive things, but if the convo hadn't been censored I really think nobody would have cared.

 

[SerTapTap]

There is no simple answer to that, since GamerGate is and always has been a mismash of different groups with widely different motivations:

• There were already people who had it in for Zoe Quinn before GamerGate, before the "Quinnspiracy", and who helped coordinate it and kick it off in the early days;
• there are people who genuinely believe(d) that this was about unethical dealings in game journalism, though a lot of those seem to have become disillusioned by now, as the movement increasingly focused its attention on Feminists and "SJWs";
• there are people who think that games and / or gamers are under attack in some form, and must be protected (see e.g. the response to the misnamed "Gamers are dead" collection of articles);
  
  And I am probably forgetting some, on top of all the weird overlaps and cross-pollination between these groups.

• 
  
  Yeah, I think in the early days the "movement" gained much of its traction from people with no idea what the (presently obvious) intent was. If you weren't familiar with the group they were pretty good at misleading and presenting themselves as something reasonable--they don't seem to bother with that anymore since they have enough traction just being loud assholes blatantly hating women at this point.
  
  For a month or two it was pretty possible to be legitimately confused but imo were well past that point. But not everyone is well informed. I follow tons of game devs on Twitter so I still have to hear about this constantly no matter how much I wish I didn't have to.
  
  It also sucks they made a meme out of "ethics in games journalism" as it's now very difficult to discuss a real issue that was significant many times before these idiots came on the scene.

 

[ironmang]

Gamergate had massive implications outside gaming. It has been an ongoing news topic -- as in, mainstream news, political news -- for a long time.

Get out of your bubbles.

What massive implications? Not trying to pick a fight just curious as to what I've missed. I know I've heard the harassment against Anita and Zoe brought up by major news but didn't know gamergate resulted in something outside of the industry other than just being reported on.

(I realize your post was from a few days ago so question goes out to anybody who can answer)

 

[AzureRonin]

How do these people reconcile their "movement" being born from an abusive worm? Really pathetic all around, unbelievable that they are still around.

What massive implications? Not trying to pick a fight just curious as to what I've missed. I know I've heard the harassment against Anita and Zoe brought up by major news but didn't know gamergate resulted in something outside of the industry other than just being reported on.

I don't know about massive but it's very disconcerting that their threats obstructed justice in Zoe Quinn's case, and also affects Anita's life with zero consequences.

 

[jstripes]

I never understood gamergate

a developer was accused to sleep with a journalist, but it turned out immediately that he never even wrote anything about the game after they hooked up. what is gamergate still about? how could it blow up like that? why harrass her? I just don't understand it even or especially after the summaries in this thread.

the sad thing is, even if it was true I don't understand why anyone would harrass or even blame her, I'd rather blame the journalist. but I wouldn't care about that either, the corruption of videogame journalism is huge anyway since the publishers keep the websites/magazine alive with their ads. journalists are literally depending on the people who's products they are supposed to judge, that's the reason why I don't read any reviews anymore, who cares about gamergate? what a sad joke.

Because they don't like her, they don't think the game she made is a "game", they don't like her politics, and they view her as a threat to video games, an industry they think belongs to them. Plus, she had sex, and how dare she when women are rejecting them.

 

[Crossing Eden]

How do these people reconcile their "movement" being born from an abusive worm? Really pathetic all around, unbelievable that they are still around.



I don't know about massive but it's very disconcerting that their threats obstructed justice in Zoe Quinn's case, and also affects Anita's life with zero consequences.

Gamergaters are sociopaths with no self awareness. So they can't see the huge amount of hypocrisy, idiocy, and straight up delusional shit that comes from their "movement." I actually met one in real life recently, one of the most god awful human beings i've ever met, dude quite clearly never showers and that probably applies to the majority of them, and he spouted the same rhetoric over and over that I got fed up with explaining and just told him to shut the fuck up and leave.

What massive implications? Not trying to pick a fight just curious as to what I've missed. I know I've heard the harassment against Anita and Zoe brought up by major news but didn't know gamergate resulted in something outside of the industry other than just being reported on.

(I realize your post was from a few days ago so question goes out to anybody who can answer)

Basically we went back to square one, games=boy only club with women getting shafted because "women dun plai gamez." Followed by repeated harassment of any woman who spoke out against this shit. Thankfully the industry is changing if e3 2015 was any indication.

 

[Mman235]

The reason it blew up to be as big as it was, and I'm surprised people forget, is multiple websites actively censored discussions of it. 4chan and Reddit were both deleting and banning left and right to prevent it. Neogaf at the time also wasn't letting it be talked about but gaf obviously isn't as large as the other two. This caused a Streisand effect. Everyone needed to know. Theres a lot of dumb additive things, but if the convo hadn't been censored I really think nobody would have cared.

It got "censored" because it was a mess of people openly doxing people on top of posting libel.

 

[Myggen]

Congrats to Zoe. Sounds like her ex is planning on appealing the decision though, so this shit is never ending.

And yeah, Gamergate is garbage. It has always been ironic to me that they`re the movement that has by far done the most damage to the term gamer and frankly to the image of our hobby, when that`s what they say they`re trying to protect.

 

[Myggen]

The reason it blew up to be as big as it was, and I'm surprised people forget, is multiple websites actively censored discussions of it. 4chan and Reddit were both deleting and banning left and right to prevent it. Neogaf at the time also wasn't letting it be talked about but gaf obviously isn't as large as the other two. This caused a Streisand effect. Everyone needed to know. Theres a lot of dumb additive things, but if the convo hadn't been censored I really think nobody would have cared.

It got `censored` because of all the doxxing going on, among other things. When even 4chan bans a topic you know it`s some toxic shit.

 

[plagiarize]

There is no simple answer to that, since GamerGate is and always has been a mismash of different groups with widely different motivations:

• There were already people who had it in for Zoe Quinn before GamerGate, before the "Quinnspiracy", and who helped coordinate it and kick it off in the early days;
• there are people who genuinely believe(d) that this was about unethical dealings in game journalism, though a lot of those seem to have become disillusioned by now, as the movement increasingly focused its attention on Feminists and "SJWs";
• there are people who think that games and / or gamers are under attack in some form, and must be protected (see e.g. the response to the misnamed "Gamers are dead" collection of articles);
• there are people who simply use this to justify or to get away with inexcusable behavior, including for example the people of the "kiwifarm" forums and on chans;
• there's the related groups of 'free speech means that I have a right to be terrible to people', which has people protest getting blocked by somebody on twitter as were it an affront to free speech, and which at one point resulted in an influx of people mainly concerned about shaming and harassing overweight people into the 'KokatuInAction' subreddit, after the aptly named 'FatPeopleHate' subreddit was banned from Reddit;
• there are outright anti-feminist / MRA factions among gamers, which is reflected in the choice of targets by GamerGate, and in the current focus of the 'KokatuInAction' subreddit;
• there are the outsiders who saw this as a means to self-promote, or to promote pet causes that are frequently also anti-feminist / MRA; see e.g. Thunderf00t, Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Hoff Sommers, and the Reign of Kings website;
• there are those who saw this as means to milk the GamerGate crowd for money, e.g. the HoneyBadgers and the duo behind the "Sarkessian Effect" movie;

And I am probably forgetting some, on top of all the weird overlaps and cross-pollination between these groups.

That's a brilliant summary.

 

[Beartruck]

And yeah, Gamergate is garbage. It has always been ironic to me that they`re the movement that has by far done the most damage to the term gamer and frankly to the image of our hobby, when that`s what they say they`re trying to protect.

They're not trying to protect the hobby, they're trying to protect their idea of what the hobby should be, which was never a good thing to begin with.

There are people like this in every community. Tabletop gamers deal with them too, they're just called grognards by them.

 

[plagiarize]

They're not trying to protect the hobby, they're trying to protect their idea of what the hobby should be, which was never a good thing to begin with.

They're the members at a golf club afraid that their golf club will be ruined if they let women start joining. They point at the female barmaid they hired because she was hot and say 'Look, we let women into the club house already.'

 

[Myggen]

They're not trying to protect the hobby, they're trying to protect their idea of what the hobby should be, which was never a good thing to begin with.

There are people like this in every community. Tabletop gamers deal with them too, they're just called grognards by them.

I am aware, I`m just saying that for them that distinction doesn`t exist which means that they`re just destroying it for everyone else.