The extreme nutshell version is that a female indie game developer supposedly slept with a male video game journalist, and this supposedly let to favorable coverage for her game that would not have happened otherwise.
The surface phenomenon is that a lot of people united under the banner of #gamergate to protest this breach of journalistic ethics. The dark side is that it seems like it's really just a bunch of people who want to see someone's life ruined, and they are wildly overreacting.
I think the underlying phenomenon is similar to what happened to Brendan Eich, even though the ostensible cause and the people involved are completely different.
It's worth noting no such review was ever written for Zoe Quinn's game.
GamerGate has now doxxed and threatened a number of women in the gaming world (developers, critics, actresses) and Phil Fish the creator of Fez. They publicly organize to drive advertisers away from publications which disagree with them or call Gamergate out as misogynistic or threatening.
The thing that confuses me (as a non-"Gamer" netizen) is that I am constantly bombarded with the "meta' arguing and hand-wringing about "GamerGate" on HN etc, but have yet to see anything actually from the core activity of the "movement" or whatever.
Intel pulled advertising from Gamasutra under pressure from these people, some women independent game developers have "ragequit"(read: harassed beyond belief so did the only logical thing) from twitter and the like. It's violent if you follow the independent games scene
These are also the same group of people who forced Phil Fish off the internet, basically.
I'll reply here because apparently I can't reply to your response. "Because everything that is written on the internet is true". Let's think a little: Intel pulled their ads because they got intimidated by a handful of trolls, yet they didn't returned after it was shown to them that they are supporting misogynists by pulling the ads. Explain to me how a few trolls are more powerful than the media?
You seem to believe that Intel can be intimidated by internet trolls.
It also seems that you don't know nothing about Phil Fish and that almost (if not all) the awards that Fez won were from the investors of Fez themselves. [don't get me wrong, I actually loved Fez]
(let the downvotes pour)
The accusations about Phil Fish, Fez, Polytron's investors, and the IGF judging process are blatantly false. It's a conspiracy theory that's mostly based on misinformation about the IGF voting process and misinterpretation of dates.
The issue is about IGF lying and you give me a link to an IGF article to prove your point. They have their right to defend themselves, but that doesn't mean that whatever they say in their defense is actually true. Everything should be taken with a grain of salt, and more than one independent report should be taken into consideration when forming an opinion, especially on controversial topics.
Well, there's the small matter that the backers weren't actually on the 2012 jury. [1] And the fact that Fez got its first win before IndieFund existed. [2] And the video that made the original accusation against Phil Fish was taken down, probably because it was a combination of libel and evidence of the illegal hacking. So it's become a source-less accusation that gets trotted out with no evidence to support it, as it was here.
Intel pulled advertising from Gamasutra because they directly insulted a customer group that is very important to their brand. Intel didn't cave under pressure, they simply acted rationally to a media outlet committing brand suicide.
Phil Fish forced himself off the internet by being a contemptible jackass with an ego to rival that of Kanye West who fights with his coworkers, publicly shat on an aspiring Japanese game dev during a Q&A panel that asked him a polite question regarding his thoughts on their country's games, says that gamers are "the worst fucking people," tells people to "suck his dick, choke on it" then claims to be a feminist without a hint of irony, completely and utterly lacks self awareness, and just generally can't go a fucking day without throwing a tantrum on twitter.
EDIT: Oh neat, my other post in this thread, a collection of links from an opposing perspective, was flagkilled. Way to flag/downvote for disagreement, redd-I mean Hacker News.
I didn't know about that, and I agree, no one deserves to be "doxed." By "forced off the internet," I thought the GP was referring to Phil Fish's regular practice of throwing temper tantrums and "cancelling Fez 2" or "leaving the industry" every other week.
I think the vast majority of GamerGate supporters would agree with me about that; I check up on GG threads every day, and it's pretty clear that no one supports harming people. In fact, almost no one ever brings doxing up. On the rare occasion someone does, they're called an idiot, accused of "false flagging" (ie someone anti-GG pretending to support GG with threats of violence to make the movement look bad. yes, this has happened, people have been caught making violent comments just to take a screenshot that "proves" how evil GG is), and their posts are deleted pretty quickly. 99% of the focus now is on contacting advertisers and showing people all of the horrible things that the "journalists" in question say and do (like "nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission. bring back bullying"). When someone actually does get doxed, the overwhelming reaction is not "fuck yeah, patriarchy" but "what the hell are you doing, idiot?"
The current suspicion is that GNAA (you know, the people that were in the news semi-recently for harassing Kathy Sierra) is behind most of the death threats and doxing. It's like a "double troll" for wackjobs like them: They get an excuse to harass people while another group takes all the flak for it. Everyone's mad!
But hey, that's just my two cents. You can bring on the downvotes now, echo chamber.
Here's the thing. Even if GNAA is trolling everyone, GamerGate is a terrible excuse for letting them continue a reign of terror.
Even if there were corruption in game journalism, video game journalism is so meaninglessly inconsequential that it wouldn't countenance the death threats, doxxing and harassment that is being done under it's aegis.
Do you know anybody who makes purchasing decisions based on how high a score a game reviewer gives it? Do you? It just seems unfathomable to me in a world where we have Steam, Twitch, Project Greenlight, Humble Bundle & indie games galore that video game journalism matters enough that it should be destroyed.
It just seems like Gamergate is bullshit from top to bottom, and it's completely mystifying to me why anyone who loves games should want to identify with it.
>Do you know anybody who makes purchasing decisions based on how high a score a game reviewer gives it?
Not personally, but the stories that the press chooses to report absolutely has an effect on purchasing decisions in the aggregate. I'm not cool with people like Zoe Quinn using their incestuous relationships with the press to get a leg up on other, more deserving indies. You know, people that make good games instead of harassing suicidally depressed people, intimidating photographers, attacking other feminist organizations for competing with her charity, getting "The Most Expensive Game Jam in History" canceled over personal drama, attempting to censor controversy with DMCA takedown notices, and just in general being a professional victim.
Corruption should not be tolerated anywhere, so I'm happy some people actually give a shit and are taking a stand for once instead of forgetting about controversies the next day as usual. I can see people here being upset that others are putting more effort into GamerGate than they do into much more deserving causes like fighting NSA surveillance, but you don't get to choose what people care about.
As for why others care, I guess it's part being tired of being one of the internet's punching bags, part being tired of Silicon Valley yuppies and trustafarians complaining about the "privilege" of a bunch of roughly lower-middle class youth, part seizing a chance to strike out at the loathsome "clickbait" media that everyone else on HN would be condemning in any other scenario, part not wanting to see video games become yet another medium neutered by the cultural marxist PC police, part spite, and part breaking out the popcorn as they watch the other side make complete asses of themselves on blogs and twitter. The last reason is my favorite, it's absolutely hilarious how vile and hypocritical some of these people are.
EDIT: As I've alluded to, I think GamerGate is the start of something akin to the Occupy movements for the left, or the Tea Party movement for the older right. They begin with a frenetic spark, and it can be hard to discern what "they're about," and sometimes people do bad things in their name, but you have to look past the surface to see there is a meaningful sentiment being expressed. Give them time to find their voice and remember that many positive movements had a rocky start.
That's because it's largely a tempest in a teacup happening in a smaller corner of online culture, but various people who overlap between the two are trying to play up its importance for various political reasons.
If you ask Google to define "supposedly" it says: "according to what is generally assumed or believed (often used to indicate that the speaker doubts the truth of the statement)."
I hate these sort of semantic arguments. In case my sentence was not clear, I don't support the things that have been done to people under the guise of "Gamergate", I don't think she slept with anyone (nor do I care nor see why it is relevant), I don't think Kotaku gave the game good press because of the "alleged" romantic relationship, I honestly I don't give a shit about any of it, and I feel like I lost "the game" by even attempting to casually engage with this dumb fucking topic in any way.
Hey man, i'm not criticizing you. You're making a good point. I want to make that point even stronger.
It's not semantics in the sense that we're quibbling over the definition of words. Your point can be even more definitive. Gamergaters are claiming something that is not true.
It doesn't matter if Gamergaters believe it to be true. It's not. <3
The essential issue, omitted by the summary above, is the aggressive harassment of women and of those who speak out about this problem. Three women (that I know of) have left their homes, fearing for their safety. Many others have had their personal information, such as their addresses, published online. That is what many people object to.
