GamerGate, strictly speaking, began with an accusation that Zoe Quinn slept with Nathan Grayson to get a positive review for their game, Depression Quest.
In reality, the two of them had dated but all Grayson had done was list Quinn's game among some other indie games. There was no "review," per se. Certainly nothing high profile.
But this specific little accusation quickly spiraled into "video game journalism is corrupt, vagina-havers are sleeping their way to good reviews."
The misogynist angle is important because you have to understand that GamerGate is, first and foremost, misogyny. It's also become racism and all kinds of other bigoted nonsense. I just don't want anyone to get the impression there was ever a grain of truth to the whole "ethics in video game journalism" thing. It was never about that, it was always about going after anyone who wasn't a cishet white man who dared to participate in the world of video games.
Anita Sarkeesian happened to be getting into video game critique from a feminist perspective around the same time and of course she took a huge brunt of shit for it, too. I think she's done OK, though? I recall she had promised a lot of things when crowdfunding and they did not all materialize but that's hardly unusual for crowdfunding efforts.
Anyway, this whole mentality never went away and has essentially taken over Gamers, as a group. (Anyone who isn't like that is "not a real gamer," you see.)
In reality, the two of them had dated but all Grayson had done was list Quinn's game among some other indie games. There was no "review," per se. Certainly nothing high profile.
But this specific little accusation quickly spiraled into "video game journalism is corrupt, vagina-havers are sleeping their way to good reviews."
The misogynist angle is important because you have to understand that GamerGate is, first and foremost, misogyny. It's also become racism and all kinds of other bigoted nonsense. I just don't want anyone to get the impression there was ever a grain of truth to the whole "ethics in video game journalism" thing. It was never about that, it was always about going after anyone who wasn't a cishet white man who dared to participate in the world of video games.
Anita Sarkeesian happened to be getting into video game critique from a feminist perspective around the same time and of course she took a huge brunt of shit for it, too. I think she's done OK, though? I recall she had promised a lot of things when crowdfunding and they did not all materialize but that's hardly unusual for crowdfunding efforts.
Anyway, this whole mentality never went away and has essentially taken over Gamers, as a group. (Anyone who isn't like that is "not a real gamer," you see.)
the horrors persist, but so do we
(aka large mozz)
(aka large mozz)