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“Gamer” isn’t just a dated demographic label that most people increasingly prefer not to use. Gamers are over. That’s why they’re so mad.
These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers — they are not my audience. They don’t have to be yours. There is no ‘side’ to be on, there is no ‘debate’ to be had.
There is what’s past and there is what’s now. There is the role you choose to play in what’s ahead.
Leigh Alexander said this in her Gamasutra post “‘Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over.”
“They are not my audience. They don’t have to be yours.” It’s a very important thing to know and remember, but major games companies and mainstream video game publications didn’t really take it to heart.
GamerGate has been going on for four months now. The longer it goes on, the fewer members it has, tho the remaining members seem to get all the more active to compensate.
I remember when GamerGate first started, all over Zoe Quinn’s personal life. Why? Because these wailing hyper-consumers, to borrow from Leigh, don’t like a game Zoe made and are so egotistical as to believe that if they don’t like something nobody else really does either.
Everything follows from that. If nobody actually likes Depression Quest, then there has to be an ulterior motive for the praise it received. There has to be something underhanded going on for it to have made it onto Steam. Etc etc etc.
So, based on nothing more than the accusations of a jaded ex-boyfriend and 4chan’s very own game of telephone, where accusations become more and more absurd as nobody bothers to verify anything whatsoever, a movement was formed.
Of course, it was about more than that. It was about people who center their identities around consumerism feeling like something was being taken from them. It was about liberals and conservatives alike whinging about political correctness. It was about an internet culture that holds free speech sacred above all else, while considering any criticism of speech to be censorship.
However, it’s important to remember the start, because that’s where many of us were first let down. In a witch hunt for corruption, an early target was Patreon. Ultimately targeting Patreon was an attempt to deprive those voices without mainstream jobs of all-too-needed financial support.
And to the disappointment of many, Kotaku caved to the hateful mob instantly, placing new restrictions on who their employees could financially support the work of. Stephen Totilo tried to be all nice and claim he wasn’t giving in to the whims of a mob of bigots, but he didn’t fool anyone except, possibly, himself.
In the months that have followed, it’s been letdown after letdown. Websites remaining silent on the issue for months on end, taking rather weak stances when finally pushed to do so, and then returning to their silence.
The harshest critics of GamerGate have all come from outside the gaming press. I want to call it cowardice. Fear to say and do the things necessary. They certainly owe apologies for their permissiveness towards the hate movement. More than that they owe to work harder than ever to clean up their communities, to erase any haven they might be allowing members of this movement.
I’m not sure it’s cowardice tho. I fear I might be giving sites like Kotaku and Giant Bomb too much credit by assuming their behavior is simply because they fear retaliation.
At this point, I think they simply don’t care. Not really. They’re content to leave women in the crosshairs of the movement. It’s easy for them to ignore because it doesn’t affect them. Stephen Totilo can have a friendly conversation with a prominent GamerGate supporter because that’s the privilege afforded him by virtue of his gender and his position.
So, in that context, why would he care? Why would any of these sites care? Care enough to actually act on that, I mean. After all, ignoring it is far, far easier on them.
Frankly, GamerGate is right about video games journalism being a fucking shitheap. They’re wrong about the reasons, they’re wrong in who they target, they’re wrong in their actions, they’re wrong in who they allow to lead their movement. They’re wrong about almost everything, except that video games journalism is a shitheap.
There are people who’ve been working tirelessly to fix that. I don’t mean to detract from the work they’ve done. I’ve seen how much so many women, and others, have put into games journalism and it’s heartbreaking really, because games journalism doesn’t care.
salarta 