I’ve been in the dark about all of these #Gamergate going ons, so my apologies for not having written about what’s been going on.
What is Gamergate?
I don’t want to get into the specific individuals involved of the controversy, as I don’t know how fruitful it is to continuously bring up the individuals Gamergate was founded on, but it’s important to talk about how it came about. Gamergate is an ongoing controversy in which gamers are lashing back against the lack of journalistic standards in the gaming media and corruption in competitive gaming and gaming media. It arose out of a scandal involving a developer of an indie game who was allegedly having relationships with noteworthy individuals in the gaming media that may have led to cases of favoritism and bias in coverage of her game. Details about the female developer were leaked to the internet and gamers have responded via the hashtag on twitter #Gamergate. Since then, it has involved to include issues of feminist theory polarizing indie developers and fans and, as well, the backlash against equality in the gaming industry.
That’s an incredibly basic and unexplored synopsis of what’s been going on. It’s an extremely complicated issue that has seen poor acts on both sides on the issue. At its heart is a legitimate issue: the lack of standards in video game journalism. However, it has lost sight of that issue in many circumstances.
I don’t want to say much more about it, other than it was a issue that was a long time coming and that it will hopefully lead to changes in the industry and video game community. It’s a chance for gamers to take a stand on what they’re willing and not willing to put up, which should certainly be fair standards and absolutely no use of harassment, regardless of if you’re in the community or in the media.
Resources that I recommend for a fair representation of the issue:
Leigh Alexander’s “Gamers are over” article: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2…s_are_over.php
David Auerbach’s response “Gaming Journalism is Over”: http://www.slate.com/articles/techno…_but_they.html
L. Rhodes’s article “To fair-minded proponents of #GamerGate”: https://medium.com/@upstreamism/to-f…e-7f3ce77301bb
The Sociology of Videogames 