#Gamergate

[killamch89]

I'm for one, not really sure who this even started back in 2014 but I remembered the whole thing turned into a voice of outrage against Corruption in gaming journalism and the demand for ethics reform. In response to the outrage, the journalists at the heart of the issue starts claiming that gamers were "Cis white male misogynists". In response to this, minority gamers came out and made it known that it was never a race thing and it basically turned into one big WWE slugfest in a nutshell of gamers vs corrupt gaming journalists and media. Ever since that whole incident, the media has been constantly trying to paint us gamers as toxic because we the gamers called them out on their BS. Do you guys remember this whole incident?

[Crazycrab]

I remember it, I thought it was a total farce in which, if we're being honest, both sides were mostly full of crap.  Yes, there is corruption in game journalism but it's also true that there are a lot of gamers out there that are bullying, misogynic, white privlige dicks.  The #Gamergate "movement" (notice that I use the term very loosely) made a lot of noise but nothing productive got done which is why I personally refused to have any part of it then and certainly not now, there's more important things in life.

[m76]

I don't remember the incident because it completely passed me by. I only heard about gamergate when it had been going on for years. And even then it was only this intangible concept to me. I had no idea what it was really about, and whenever someone attempted to explain it, it only become more confusing. And reading your take on it makes it even more murky.

I thought it was about the industry being infiltrated by non-gamers, who saw an opportunity to use it as a platform only. Both within game developers and in games journalism.

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by m76

[Withywarlock]

11 hours ago, Crazycrab said:

I remember it, I thought it was a total farce in which, if we're being honest, both sides were mostly full of crap.  Yes, there is corruption in game journalism but it's also true that there are a lot of gamers out there that are bullying, misogynic, white privlige dicks.  The #Gamergate "movement" (notice that I use the term very loosely) made a lot of noise but nothing productive got done which is why I personally refused to have any part of it then and certainly not now, there's more important things in life.

This is essentially the best roundup I've seen so far, and am likely going to see. Nobody won from this; journalists involved call today a post-Gamergate industry implying we've moved on, and Kotaku-In-Action (ironically abbreviated to KIA) is struggling to come up with new accomplishments to add to its questionable list.

For all the talk of ethics in journalism, it has been since its inception unethical because its inception was advertisement by the makers of video games. It still is whether or not you believe Gamergate is still alive and kicking. Most journalism that goes on is second-hand reporting on leaks or press releases, essentially anything a developer/publisher wants people to know. Jason Schreir's reporting is unique because it's actual journalism, not just parroting what developers come out with. Even when I write for HubPages I'm still guilty of it, it's just that I add a cynical spin.

To improve the ethics in journalism you have to either be a journalist who can regulate themself, an editor who can regulate their staff, or someone with the legislative pull to regulate the industry at large (the lattermost is especially difficult, because those with said pull can't be at all blogs/magazines/papers at once). While I will give credit to Gamergate for highlighting the lack of ethics in games journalism, the movement has also encouraged a lot of piss poor behaviour from people who, ironically, don't make the investigative leaps to find out what games journalism is like.

[m76]

1 hour ago, Withywarlock said:

Jason Schreir's reporting is unique because it's actual journalism, not just parroting what developers come out with.

No he is parrotting what disgruntled employees come out with. Usually the same employees who are not in it for their love of videogames, but for other nefarious reasons.
The only difference between him and most other journalists enthralled to the industry is that he is spinning a different kind of lie.  If Jason Schrier had done an ounce of actual journalism he would conclude that crunch and overtime is a part of all competitive industries not just game development. And is generally business as usual for free market capitalism.

[The Blackangel]

This is the first time I have ever heard of it. What the hell happened? From what @killamch89 said in his post, some bigoted journalist said that only white misogynists play games or something? Uh, hello, woman here. Been playing all my life. While I am white, explain to me how I'm a misogynist. I eagerly await that explanation.

Here, plug this controller into my brain, hold down the turbo button, and get the hell out of the way if you don't want to get hurt. They don't use dynamite in demolition anymore. They just give me a phone call.

[Shagger]

I remember whoal thing started with a woman named Zoe Quinn. She was an activist (mostly for woman's rights and other often pretty extreme left wing principles) working in the game industry in some form, then decided to make her own game.

 

It was a completely free, text based story focused game with choices. Think it as something like Life is Strange or a Telltale Game expect no graphics or voice overs. I haven't tried it, but from what I hear it was sub-par even for what it was with nonsensical plot lines, the choices didn't really affect anything and it was prechy. So, a bit of an unimportant, low quality but fairly harmless indie "game" created on a miniscule scale that was never going to leave much impact.

 

However, despite not even meeting the low bar the game had set itself, a number of influecial journalists from the games industry gave it glowing reviews. All of them men, several of them knew Zoe Quinn personality and even had "relations" with her. I'm going to make one thing perfectly clear here, I am not accusing Zoe of "offering favours" in exchange for this good coverage of her game, but normal people could see there was something wrong with this picture as the game clearly wasn't worthy of these positive reviews. Whether she did "offer favours" or not, it was clear her connection to these journalists was what led to these reviews, not the game itself. So, corruption in games journalism seemed to be the only thing that made sense. The rise against that corruption, was #gamergate. 

 

Zoe and her friends in both in games journalism and in femist activist groups were not going to take this lying down, though, and fired back at gamers citing the misogyny and prejudices that sadly were (and at least to some extent, still are) rife amongst gamers against them in what, I personally think this was an attempt to burry the talk of corruption. However, far too many idiots on the pre-gamer gate side were all to eager to project and express this stereotype and the tru purpose of #gamergate states to loose traction.

 

Yes, the sexisum, homophobia, misogyny and online bullying that game's journalists were trying to associate with #gamergate instead of the discussion on ethics in games journalism were real things and something gaming culture needed called out on, but this was the game's journalists doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. We could have had game's journalists start to hold themselves to a higher standard to (at leat partiality) eliminate corruption from game journalism and we could have a positive message spread among gamers to be more accepting and and take steps to end misogyny and other deep rooted prejudices within gamer culture, but in the end both these possitve ideas got drowned out by a massive shit flinging contest feed by lies, exaggerations and preconceptions from both sides. Such a shame. 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Shagger

[killamch89]

AH Yes, I found a summary for those who are out of the loop. I think this Reddit post gives a good summary of the events:

 

5 hours ago, Shagger said:

Yes, the sexisum, homophobia, misogyny and online bullying that game's journalists were trying to associate with #gamergate instead of the discussion on ethics in games journalism were real things and something gaming culture needed called out on, but this was the game's journalists doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. We could have had game's journalists start to hold themselves to a higher standard to (at leat partiality) eliminate corruption from game journalism and we could have a positive message spread among gamers to be more accepting and and take steps to end misogyny and other deep rooted prejudices within gamer culture, but in the end both these possitve ideas got drowned out by a massive shit flinging contest feed by lies, exaggerations and preconceptions from both sides. Such a shame. 

The funny thing is years later, the gaming journalists are still trying to associate most of the isolated incidents of toxicity that has happened recently to gamergate instead of what they really are. From what I've seen of gaming media in general, they still haven't moved past the incident while most gamers weren't even aware something like this took place. I totally agree with you that this was a missed opportunity for the gaming industry as a whole and it probably would've resolved most of the issues in the gaming industry. Instead, the whole situation is still festering in the background and I wouldn't be surprised if this happens again in the future. Having said that, it reminded me of a regular WWE wrestling match turning into an all-out brawl with wrestlers coming from everywhere.

[Heatman]

On 3/15/2021 at 9:02 PM, killamch89 said:

I'm for one, not really sure who this even started back in 2014 but I remembered the whole thing turned into a voice of outrage against Corruption in gaming journalism and the demand for ethics reform. In response to the outrage, the journalists at the heart of the issue starts claiming that gamers were "Cis white male misogynists". In response to this, minority gamers came out and made it known that it was never a race thing and it basically turned into one big WWE slugfest in a nutshell of gamers vs corrupt gaming journalists and media. Ever since that whole incident, the media has been constantly trying to paint us gamers as toxic because we the gamers called them out on their BS. Do you guys remember this whole incident?

Seriously who wouldn't be able to still remember what happened then if he or she had started playing games then and followed everything that happens in the gaming world. The fact was that I wasn't surprised by what the media kept trying to do because they will always behave like the media. 

[killamch89]

1 hour ago, Heatman said:

Seriously who wouldn't be able to still remember what happened then if he or she had started playing games then and followed everything that happens in the gaming world. The fact was that I wasn't surprised by what the media kept trying to do because they will always behave like the media. 

Media nowadays is so heavily biased that you have to take everything with a pinch of salt and do your own research to verify their claims.

[Heatman]

20 hours ago, killamch89 said:

Media nowadays is so heavily biased that you have to take everything with a pinch of salt and do your own research to verify their claims.

They actually make their money from such disposition of bias. It makes them sell more peppers and trend more.