GamerGate Scandal Debate Thread

Wow, after reading that account, to quote George Carlin "I wouldn't fuck her with a stolen dick." Even if that story is only half true, Quinn is unhinged and needs lots of help.

 

Most SJWs and people like her do.

 

SJWs are trash and con artists.

 

Spreading the word

 

I used to be involved in a publishing company many years ago and one of our titles was a video game magazine. I had game publishers offer me all sorts of favors and freebies to secure covers, one even sent me to their European dev studios in hope of getting their latest AAA title on the cover. They didn't. I had a publishing background but none of my writers did and only one of the editorial staff had any interest in journalism, the rest were just there to play games and few of them could see the conflict of interest, let alone care. Contra deals for favorable coverage are far from the exclusive domain of video game media, it happened all the time in our music mags, surf mags, car mags, even the boring it ones - pretty much any hobby or subject matter that involves the publishing of subjective opinions was open to commercial inducement.

Anyway from where I sit now gamergate looks like a bunch of nerds rising up in fury that women are being recognized as part of the scene and being catered to. "How dare that game developer make a game aimed at girls, they should be making Bloodstorm VII for boys like me!" is the underlying sentiment I get. Nerds are at the bottom of the ladder of white male supremacy so women are fair game in their eyes and thus they are lashing out like the spoilt brats they are, no doubt emboldened by the 'macho' rape culture perpetuated by all those non-nerd white men (you know, the ones who nerds resent for 'getting the girls'). Quite pathetic really.

I've not read too much detail of the specifics of the individuals involved, suffice to say that they all seem to be quite reprehensible to some degree. I think this option piece by Charlie Brooker (Gameswipe) sums it up quite well: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/20/gamergate-internet-toughest-game-woman-enemies

 

The Guardian is one of the mainstream media that's biased and against GamerGate, they haven't even done proper research at all. GamerGate isn't just white male misogynistic "nerds", they also have women and female devs at their side.

Look up Jennie Bharaj on Google and specifically look at the Huffington Post interview she gave.

 

Maybe it's not the fact that she's a woman, it's the fact is get more attention because she's a woman.. I think it stems really from her ethics as a person... that in itself would not be surprising. But because she;s a woman, which tends to be more of a rarity, it gathers more attention.
Questionable ethics of a male indie developer? Yeah, and...?
Questionable ethics of a female indie developer? Ooo, tell me more! And of course sex sells. Everyone loves to here sordid details. There was sexual favors? Tell me more! And more attention is given.

So the scandal is nothing if she wasn't a woman. I still don't agree with her ways, but I'd say the same if a man did it. But we never hear about them (maybe not sexual favors but bribing or something) so we don't comment on what we don't see.

 

I wouldn't say Brooker is representative of mainstream media, even if he is high profile and gets published in the Guardian. And despite his opinion piece being a somewhat simplistic look at it, I can't help but agree with his sentiments insofar as whatever happened has been eclipsed by the level of bile being spewed from certain quarters and which has nothing to do with the root cause.

Anyway I'm not really interested in the sordid details, the 'he said / she said' arguments are kinda beside the point now. I think Williow is quite correct in saying that were the gender roles reversed it would have been a non-issue. And while there may be people of all demographics on both sides, I still can't help but seeing this as being driven by a certain segment of the population petulantly raging against loss of control - something that is not confined to the gaming community.

 

the funny thing about the modern information age and social media is that it's really easy to find followers. In the case of gaming journalism and the industry some stuff being revealed about bribes, graft, allegations of racketeering and tax evasion and fraud instead of the companies cleaning up their acts it's so much easier to start a social media shit storm so that anyone who even brings up the subject of "gamergate" is immediately attacked regardless of what their views on the issue actually are.