Pro GamerGate

Liz is a well respected voice within GamerGate. Here’s her interview.

1) What is GameGate to you?

Gamergate is, very plainly, a call for transparency and fairness in journalism. It should be required in every facet of journalism, yet you will see it is enforced less the farther away from main stream media you get. It is impossible to be an unbiased journalist. We don’t expect someone to be unbiased – we are all human, capable of independent thought. We do expect people in positions of influence to put their bias aside in the interest of covering an issue fairly. In the event there is a personal or financial conflict of interest which could call the ability to cover something fairly into question, that should be disclosed.

2) What started GamerGate, in your view?

This is where people tend to get confused. Gamergate did in fact begin with the Zoe Post. A game developer’s ex boyfriend wrote a blog post detailing the end of his relationship, which had indications of being emotionally and mentally abusive. He outlined the infidelity of his girlfriend throughout the course of their relationship. Several of the names included in the post drew attention to a potential conflict of interest in gaming journalism. The issue here, is many people feel this was a reaction to a female developer having sex. In reality, the developer was a character backstory, and we were interested in the plot of the film.

When this was brought to light, two other undisclosed conflicts of interest were exposed at essentially the same point in time (Kotaku’s Patricia Hernandez and Polygon’s Ben Kuchera)

When we, as consumers, began questioning these conflicts, over a dozen articles declaring the “death of gamers” were published within 48 hours of one another, from competing sites, some more vitriolic than others.

Gamergate was described as misogynistic white men, and with the creation of Not Your Shield, sock puppets, by the people we were demanding answers from. What do you do when someone accuses you of something bad? You either admit you were wrong and fix it, or you accuse them of something worse.

3) What does GamerGate want to achieve, in your view?

Very simply, we want to see an ethics policy put into effect, similar to what we’ve seen recently from the Escapist. An article was written a little while ago, and it outlines everything so simply. How do you kill gamergate? 1. Adopt an ethics policy. 2. Adhere to it. I personally would add in 3. Don’t attack your consumers, but that’s just me personally.

4) Do you feel any part of GamerGate is about misogyny or anti-feminism?

I don’t believe the two to be similar. I personal identify as an egalitarian, not a feminist. The thing with Gamergate is you see feminists and non-feminists side by side, demanding ethical changes. What people don’t understand, is “feminism” is not synonymous with “women.” “Non-feminist” is not synonymous with “anti-woman.” Misogyny has become a grossly overused word. Disagreeing with a few women does not mean you hate or stereotype all women.

You will see bad apples in any group, especially one as large as Gamergate. However, the idea that Gamergate as a whole is a misogynistic ,movement is especially absurd, considering we helped to raise more than $70,000 for a feminist group, to aid women entering the gaming industry. The overwhelming majority of us are anti harassment. We call out all ugliness we see, and have reported plenty of “our own” simply because they have no place with us.

5) Do you feel any part of GamerGate promotes abusive behavior such as trolling and death threats?

We have been seeing many graphic threats aimed at both sides, and I suspect third parties of using the tension as a smokescreen for ugliness and hate. Every time I have seen a threat against either side, I report it, inform others, and they do the same.

For example, a gamergate supporter traced a recent threat against Anita Sarkeesian to a Brazilian blogger, and informed the authorities of his findings. Several nights ago, an anonymous party attempted to release a doxx (private information) of Zoe Quinn on 8chan. Hundreds of Gamergaters spammed the boards on 8chan (which recycle after a certain amount of posts) for hours in the middle of the night, preventing it from happening, until a moderator woke up.

The problem with anonymity on the internet, is anyone can post anything with a hashtag. Anyone can post on an anonymous board and claim to be whatever they choose. I don’t assume my death threats to be from someone anti-gamergate. I assume it to be from sick and twisted individuals.

6) What’s your opinion on the recent articles on gaming sites like Polygon about GamerGate?

I take issue with journalists relaying only one side of a story. Real journalistic integrity is not reporting some facts that support your bias, rather reporting all facts in spite of your bias. I do not want articles that are strictly from the gamergate point of view. I want balanced articles that fairly represent the facts, and interpretations of said facts, on both sides.

7) What else could the articles have mentioned?

I feel this is the same as above. The articles have all represented a single side of a conversation. I don’t like only reading my own opinions thrown back at me. I like reading balanced – and rational – points from all sides.

8) Are there any misconceptions Anti-GamerGate has about GamerGate?

Oh boy, yes! Mainly, that we’re all men, or “sockpuppets.” I’ve had to spend a large amount of time proving I even exist, only to be told I have “internalized misogyny.” I’m not going to lie, I’ve had death threats and vicious harassment, yet that probably hurts the most. I value diversity in opinions above all else – it’s how all great discoveries come to be – and yet I’ve constantly been told my voice is irrelevant because I dare to have an opinion opposite of what others think I should have. The same goes for all the women supporting gamergate. (Although, I’m not going to lie, it makes me a little sad that being male is enough of a reason for people to discount another person’s opinions)

9) Is there any chance of forgiving each other and moving on? We need more love in the world. Can’t we just hug it out?

I wish! While we will continue to fight for ethics in journalism, it would sure be nice to cut out all the rest of the drama. It’s not helping anyone. I value opposing opinions in life. I like being made to think about things in a different light. That can be done without assassinating anyone’s character.

And hugs are nice!

10) If Anti-GamerGate is willing to compromise, what would it take to bring about a resolution?

Changes to ethics policies, and adherence to these policies from the journalists. That’s really it!

I have no issue whatsoever with people who oppose gamergate who are not journalists. I respect and value their opinions, and their rights to freely express these opinions. But not if it involves unfairly attacking another person’s character. That’s not a productive environment for discussion.

11) What’s your message to Anti-GamerGate?

Talk to me. Talk to us. Keep an open mind. I’m not what you think I am. None of us are. You don’t have to agree with us, but you also don’t have to make assumptions about us. We really aren’t as different as you think.

12) If you had a chance to play any game with Anti-GamerGaters, what game would it be and why?

Street Fighter! I have no good or witty reason for this, other than Street Fighter being one of my favorite games.

Liz F – Twitter: @lizzyf620

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Anti-GamerGate

Rex is outspokenly against GamerGate. Here’s his interview.

1) What is GamerGate to you?

An angry mob of paranoid reactionaries lashing out at a world they refuse to understand or sympathize with.

2) What started GamerGate, in your view?

The inciting incident for the explosion of anger culminates around Eron Gjoni’s blogpost about Zoe Quinn, and grew largely because the people who wanted to “discuss” the matter (read: calling her a whore predicated on baseless charges) felt disenfranchised when many websites, out of fear of contributing to a harassment campaign based on a singular rambling blogpost, refused to legitimize their desire to attack her.

This feeling of being put down by a nefarious force demanded, as paranoia does, a defined enemy, and so they reasoned themselves as the oppressed victims of “Social Justice Warriors,” for whom they all shared anger, and against whom they all banded together to wage war upon, and naturally, when you feel yourselves threatened on a battlefield, that’s where any behavior, no matter how viscious, becomes permissable. And from there, things sort of spiraled out into madness, particularly with Anita Sarkeesian’s “Tropes vs Women” video which came out shortly thereafter.

This sense of disenfranchisement further carries into the infamous “Gamers are Dead” articles (which, read correctly, are about dismantling the myth that all gamers fit a singular narrow stereotype) and the feeling that now they are not only under attack by the evil Feminazis, but by games journalism itself, and from here the conflic has only escalated.

As a footnote, it is commonly stated amongst Gamergaters, in the insistence that they can re-write their own unpleasant history a-la the Streisand Effect, that the articles are more of the initial incident than the Zoe Quinn debacle, which is why it bears acknowledging that the hashtag was created by movement hero Adam Baldwin in order to share the Internet Aristocrat’s video about Zoe Quinn, and appeared days before those articles were published.

3) What does GamerGate want to achieve, in your view?

Well, certainly there’s a more-than-insignificant contingent of it who seeks to legitimize an anti-woman agenda and cover for harassment of prominent women in Gaming such as Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, Leigh Alexander, and the list goes on. Such people will claim Gamergate was never “about” these people (comically dehumanizing by referring to them as Literally Who #1-9, at last count) while still attacking them, not just with death threats as in the more notorious cases, but with insane accusations such as Zoe Quinn being guilty of murder, for instance. And this portion of Gamergate, it must tragically be acknowledged, has been the one actually getting things done.

However, being more charitable than Gamergate frankly deserves, what they say they’re about is ethics in Games Journalism, which, being concerned with myself, I can sympathize with the desire to discuss. The debate of how to pursue ethical practice in enthusiast media has been ever-ongoing, and in games media in particular for decades. The central question of how to balance necessity of access to games developers who would be incentivized to be more favorable to press outlets who reciprocated favors in kind is a pressing and pertinent one. What levels of disclosure are necessary to ensure fair and accurate reporting and review, what is and isn’t expected to be fair game for commentary, these are all relevant and worthy of discussion. That is why the discussion has existed as long as it has.

Gamergate, however, has demonstrated that they don’t want to participate in this discussion, they want to manipulate the terms of it. This isn’t about wanting games media to be “ethical,” it’s about wanting them under their control. They don’t see their preferred topics/viewpoints being given deference in modern games media (eg, Why is nobody reporting on Zoe Quinn’s sex life? Why aren’t they automatically doubting Anita Sarkeesian’s death threats? Why aren’t they all talking about how wonderful we are for starting a charity to combat the mountain of bad press we’ve gotten ourselves? CORRUPTION!) and through harassment of themselves and advertisers, have been using threats, both to life and revenue, to attempt to coerce games media to bow to their desires, all while never explicitly making clear what their desires are, or demonstrating an understanding of modern games media beyond declaring it evil.

Ignoring the abuse to come out of GG, ignoring the misogyny, ignoring the false claims of victimhood, the falsely invented scandals, and the literal nazis in their membership, this point is plain and bears repeating: Their idea of “ethical” journalism, is a model that caters to them out of fear. They don’t want non-biased, they want them-biased.

4) Do you feel GamerGate, or any part of it is about misogyny or anti-feminism?

This becomes a nebulous point of bickering. Attitudes towards feminism they by and large promulgate are what I would consider “anti-feminist” but, since they enjoy themselves to exclusively legitimize “equity feminism” as defined by Christina Hoff Sommers, they consider themselves more feminist than other feminists do. Appropriation of labels in a fight like this isn’t particularly helpful to either side, but suffice to say that I feel they stand in the way of what I would call positive feminist progress.

As far as misogyny, again you get this bizarre hair splitting of definitions where people can say they “love women” while still having views of their place in society that many, myself included, would consider regressive, so once again labels are difficult to apply meaningfully. Davis Aurini for instance was one of the major “heroes” of all this in the early days, largely for attacking Anita Sarkeesian. And for all that you can say he don’t hate women, when you declare “women in our culture have become the most decadent sluts since the fall of Rome,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq5vRKiQlUQ) it becomes difficult to see that mindset, and the people who actively promote it, as anything but misogynistic.

5) Do you feel GamerGate or any part of it promotes abusive behavior such as trolling and death threats?

The fact that they had to migrate from 4chan to 8chan speaks for itself. When your base of operations actively encourages doxxing and laughs about rape jokes, it becomes inevitable that someone will jokingly say, for instance, “Someone should rape that Anita bitch!” after which someone else will say to themselves, in all seriousness, “You know, maybe someone should.”

There’s also the fact that, as a vaguely defined movement, they’re more concerned with what I’ve heard themselves describe as “burning it all down” with regards to the current state of games journalism, and very very little about building it up. By their rhetoric and tactics they seem themselves more interested in destructive action rather than constructive, in declaring War against enemies on all sides rather than trying to find peace with a single one. And this kind of emotional battlefield can easily be the birthing ground of the violent paranoid reactionary.

I have no doubt there are many within GamerGate legitimately aghast at the abuse Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu, etc. have been subject too, but when they actively pursue a home base where that kind of abuse is a natural byproduct, and a mindset where all they wish to do is cause suffering (physical or financial) to those who have wronged them, to declare themselves separate from the abuse they’re responsible for creating charitably reads as insincere.

6) What’s your opinion on the recent articles on gaming sites like Polygon about GamerGate?

I feel that on the one hand, it’s about damnable time major games media, developers, and organizations like the ESA began actively speaking out against the mess that GamerGate has become, and on the other, it’s easy to see their reticence for two months as tacit endorsement of the harassment that’s been carried out thus far. In a sense I’m inclined to be sympathetic to their desire not to get involved, not just for fear of their own personal safety and becoming a target of Gamergate, but perhaps out of that misguided, never-really-true rule of the schoolyard, “If you ignore the bullies, they’ll stop.” But in another it’s easy to perceive that as being cowed into silence and, ultimately, choosing to permit the harassment of Gamergate’s various victimized targets.

In the end, however, the saying holds true that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.” And in speaking out they’ve at least made their stand, however unfortunately belated it might be, and is ultimately a net positive.

7) What else could the articles have mentioned?

Many articles still are trying to have it both ways by declaring themselves above the fray entirely, and that’s frustrating. To make the lazy statement of any argument that “both sides have valid concerns but are drowned out by viciousness” does nothing to help aleviate the conflict, and only serves to permit such a commenter a feeling of superiority to an issue they can choose to be dismissive of, when others have their lives and livelihoods threatened. And condescension to victims of harassment as well as the sincerely involved and passionate is frankly stupid and insulting.

8) Are there any misconceptions GamerGate has about Anti-GamerGate?

I could list things I’ve been called which just don’t even make logical sense, like being told I’m “anti-ethics” and “pro-bullying” as though those are positions that any human actually identifies with, but I suspect the people levying such insults are doing so insincerely at any rate to “win” what passes for argument on twitter and internet forums.

I think the main misconception is that they’re fighting an organized enemy dedicated to destroying them and their worldview, when the simple fact is there isn’t any, nor should there be. People are fighting back because they’ve been attacked, or see themselves as targets of Gamergate. There is no organized, deliberate attempt to destroy them because, frankly, there doesn’t need to be one.

Honestly, I’m here ostensibly “representing the anti-Gamergate” side but there isn’t a singular side that they’re fighting against. They have no grand enemies, there is no war, and for their own good they need to quit with tilting at the windmills.

9) Is there any chance of forgiving each other and moving on? We need more love in the world. Can’t we just hug it out?

For many, no. Regrettably I have to say that of all the people within Gamergate with whom I have tried to engage honestly, I have only ended up disappointed to find, almost without exception, anger and hostility so deeply ingrained that I cannot imagine, in the current climate, human compassion overriding a need to attack declared enemies perceived as wicked beyond all redemption.

To those few others, I would love to be able to engage with as equals and have the discussions that need to be had. I would love to be able to debate whether, for example, Anita Sarkeesian is correct in how she’s pursuing her view of what modern feminism should be, whether the tropes she describes are inherently hurtful or merely are so by extension, and whether videos listing negative trope examples, while valid and important, are as useful to her cause as discussing positive examples might be. And regrettably, for as long as Gamergate continues, we cannot have that discussion, because we must instead treat as valid a debate on the merits of whether she deserves to be murdered.

10) If GamerGate is willing to compromise, what would it take to bring about a resolution?

Humility on their part. Their enemies have given them ground over and over again (Kotaku and Polygon revising ethics policies, The Escapist outright pandering to them, etc.), and their response has only been to become increasingly agitated and hostile as their sense of entitlement grows. They need to step back and see that, at the end of the day, game developers, games journalists, and all the other gamers they pretend themselves to speak for, all of us want a better games media, and hopefully to engage with the everlasting debate of how best to pursue that, rather than to try and dictate it.

11) What’s your message to GamerGate?

To those only ever truly interested in discussing games media ethics and can bring themselves to acknowledge and denounce the evil to have come out of Gamergate: Please see the truth for what it is, that games journalists can err without being villainous, and that there is no attempt to persecute you, and come, join in the continuing discussion without needing to bend it to your will.

To those actively engaged in continuing the mindset of insularity and outward hostility to critical and opposing viewpoints: You are only creating more problems than you are solving, and until you become aware of that the world will only continue to become a darker and less pleasant place for you moreso than you’re making it such for your targets.

To those using journalistic ethics as a cover for continuing to harass people who have committed no crime but demonstrating the irrelevancy of your worldview: Kindly seek psychological counseling for your impotent rage issues made manifest before you commit literal violence against someone.

12) If you had a chance to play any game with GamerGaters, what game would it be and why?

One Finger Death Punch. I just happen to like it and would like to share it’s praises with the world.

Rex Mundane – Twitter: @RexMundane

Disclaimer: Mangotron.com possesses a neutral stance. It is neither pro nor anti GamerGate.