By: Anonymous

Anonymous
Wed, 05 Nov 2014 07:43:53 +0000

Misleading is the kindest word I can find to describe your article, Brandon. Your attempt to characterize the entire #GamerGate movement as consisting of misogynistic white males and even terrorists is ridiculous and reprehensible. Deliberately or not, you have omitted facts crucial to a broader understanding of the situation and attributed anonymous death threats and harassment directly to GG with zero evidence.

Utah State University Police coordinating with state authorities determined the threats made to Anita Sarkeesian to be non-credible and recommended that the university continue with the event. She backed out. Furthermore, folks in the pro-GG camp have actually traced several independent death threats made toward her as being from the same source: A Brazilian journalist who sent the threats from multiple anonymous Twitter accounts and then wrote click-bait articles about those same threats. Sarkeesian was approached and informed that the FBI would only share information with Brazilian authorities if she reported the threats directly. She responded by ignoring and blocking the pro-GG activists who identified her harassers. Need I say more?

A conflict as large as #GamerGate has certainly attracted anonymous third-party trolls and baiters. A cursory glance through popular imageboards or even YouTube comments reveals that trolls who claim to hate everyone involved are sending death threats under false pretenses for no other reason than twisted fun. Anyone can claim to be associated with GG, and guilt by association is fallacious. Forums and imageboards dedicated to GG discussion explicitly ban harassment, the posting of personal information, and “raiding.”

It’s hard to escape the feeling that GG can’t win. First, they are accused of being misogynists attempting to keep women out of the industry. These same supposed misogynists raised over $70,000 for The Fine Young Capitalists, a project promoting women getting involved in game development. These same supposed bullies raised money for anti-bullying campaigns in reaction to incendiary pro-bullying tweets by anti-GG Gawker writer Sam Biddle. And in response? #GamerGate was accused of “weaponizing charity.” This is a direct quote from the most popular anti-GG subreddit.

Accusations of harassment are a smokescreen from games journalists to distract from the very real issues of nepotism and corruption in their own backyard. The GameJournoPro leaks, Grayson’s relationship, Patricia Hernandez giving positive coverage to a close friend, a Polygon writer giving a glowing review of a game that her friend worked on as a sound designer, the blacklisting of Alistair Pinsof, Anthony Burch using his influence with Destructiod to get Borderlands 2 a better score… I could go on. And to those who say “It’s just video games, what does it matter? Gamers never took gaming journalism seriously anyway,” I retort simply: If the public can’t fight petty corruption here, how are we going to fight it anywhere else?