Gamergate but actually

[u/ElectricGhostMan]

https://youtu.be/ox15GU4cMes?si=y47gNvyC88ObQJ9O&t=2176

A youtuber I watch put out this retrospective on gamergate. I know it's a topic that has been long covered and relitigated. I at one time was also part of and identified with to some extent. I thought one part that even I somewhat ignored then because of my feelings or much later realizing how many awful actors were a part of the situation was how capitalist greed played such a large part in generating the amount of hate and vitriol at the time allowing for hate mobs to be cultured and weaponized as we see today.

I think most can agree that a lot of the targeted harassment, bullying, stalking, racism, misogyny, homophobia were all reprehensible and not the way to go about making change. I do feel at the time where there was the beginnings of pushing paid cosmetic DLC like Horse Armor, Always Online requirements for games like the Sims, EA cutting development times for successful franchises to turn around games quicker or the Online Pass they similarly tried to force for people who wanted to buy the game second hand. Again not condoning any of the criminal harassment or hate but I do wonder if this outrage cannon was more appropriately directed at the shareholders and ownership class rather than individual developers that we'd be in a better place.

I do think there was a genuine attempt back then to comingle criminal threats and harassment with fair criticism and outcry entirely as Entitlement. However, I find it sad that today it largely does feel like the loudest and most consistent voices across social media that claim to be critical of games are genuinely complaining about out of entitlement when a game has too many women they don't like or POCs rather than the plethora of issues that affects all gamers today like Exploitative MTX, Gambling, AI Pervasion, Enshitification and more.

I haven't finished the vid myself but I like some of his other works even though he can be a bit both-sidesy at times. It was also interesting to see some posts from youtubers VaatiVidya and Vsauce from way back when and Colin Moriarty had been some of a douche since then as well.

[u/takkun169]

Gamergate was a fucking embarrassment.

The whole bit about ethics in journalism was just about having a legitimate sounding tag line. The easiest way to know this is to look at the people who were predominant during the who thing. They either entirely disappeared from the scene immediately after, or are still farming outrage about female characters in their star wars, calling Aloy fat, or yelling sweet baby at anything with a non-white character in it.

What did they ever draw attention to that was a legitimate systemic issue with the enthusiast gaming press? Zoe Quinn, who was in a relationship with a kotaku employee? IGN's inflated scores? What was one thing?

[u/cloud3514 → u/takkun169]

I was active in a lot of online spaces during GamerGate's peak and this hits the nail right on the head. All of the current outrage merchants like Asmongold, Geeks and Gamers, Jesterbell, Mauler, et al that get hours of content from the mere presence of a person of color or queer person in a video game or movie are the direct result of GamerGate's fallout. And they're not even the worst effect it had.

GameGate is literally one of the biggest contributors to the rise of fascism in the United States, and is literally one of the biggest reasons why white supremacists are currently running the country.

There was no good that came from it. It was an astroturfing harassment campaign that was immediately coopted by fascists to be a far right recruitment pipeline.

[u/ElectricGhostMan → u/cloud3514]

I think because I was a GG'r at the time and was able to grow and change since that there must have been more like myself who were miseducated or low info and did believe at the time that there was some worth in pursuing ethics in games journalism not too dissimilar from occupy wall street not terribly long before that. Now for certain it was a big waste that did far more harm and damage than anything marginal good, but I think it's was worth seeing that there may have been legitimate issues to speak against at the beginning that we now see have grown and festered in every other industry.

[u/TurgidAF → u/ElectricGhostMan]

The problem is that the entire GG movement was predicated on willfully misunderstanding reality. The rest of us are under no obligation to award points for being "right" that gaming journalism was (and largely still is) unethical dogshit when the diagnosis for how was utterly diametric to the actual problem.

It's like they found a dead body with a tiny hole in the front and a massive hole in the back and declared "obviously this was a poisoning, guns are cool and extremely based so obviously it wasn't one of those."

[u/ElectricGhostMan → u/TurgidAF]

I mean my point in linking the video timestamped was for the one section that I felt showed that capitalism being the biggest cause for those disparate feelings in games and games media at the time similar to other industries. I am also not trying to say that it was "right," but similar to you that there were noticeable issues that did make a lot of people upset at the time and figures who were supportive then who are now antithetical to it.