My Two Cents on #Gamergate

I actually didn’t want to write about this subject on the blog. But there’s a saying that the evil ones can only prevail if the good guys do nothing. And since I consider myself one of the good guys let me share my thoughts on what currently happens in the larger gaming community.

For the longest time I have tried to avoid the whole affair. I’ve spoken out against ferocious attacks against members of the gaming community before and got a lot of flak for it. It’s also a very complicated issue and even if you have the best intentions not to step on other people’s toes, it’s hard to avoid when things get heated. Oh boy, things are heated, right now.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: the personal attacks against people like Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu, Felicia Day, and others are NOT OK. Constant harassment, rape threats, death threats, false accusations, releasing other people’s personal info on the internet without their consent, etc. is NOT OK. Under NO circumstance these methods are a valid form of discussion. These are things you just don’t do. The people employing these tactics to silence their opposition are the worst of the worst of the gamer community and still way too numerous.

And don’t try to sell me this bullshit about journalistic ethics. This whole #gamergate thing is about harrassing women. Why there is so much hate in the gaming community against women is beyond me. I have the impression that things are a little better in the roleplaying games community than in the video games community, but I might be wrong. Personally I was always glad to have female players at the game table, and I always tried to make them as comfortable as the male gamers. If you want to live out your immature male sexual power fantasies, please do it elsewhere, there’s no place for such rubbish at my game table.

Is there sexism and misogyny in games? Yes. Is it as bad as some people claim? I don’t think so. But I am open for discussion. Are some – mostly male – members of the gamer community downplaying the actual issue? Yes. There is a real issue here. An issue we should openly discuss. Alas at this moment we’re probably beyond that. The lines are drawn, the trenches are dug, and the term gamer is probably forever tainted with a whiff of misogyny. And we are not really closer to tackling the real issue here.
My sympathies go out to everyone who had to suffer from massive attacks from the #gamergate mob.

One last thing: some people will probably try to attack me because someone I defended in the past has thrown in his lot with the #gamergate movement. I still stand to what I’ve said back then. The accusations against this person have been totally unfounded and he has been subject to very much the same attacks women like Anita Sarkeesian are suffering from right now. I think he’s in the wrong now if he sides with #gamergate, but that doesn’t invalidate anything I’ve said in this post or before.