#gameethics

So if you start by searching gamergate, you are probably going to start with this article. Not a primary text, but a primer, shall we say?

Yeah. it’s so blatantly obvious they are weaving a narrative to fit a “US vs. THOSE FUCKERS” paradigm.

And it’s either owed to something deliberately done (see: lets ignore their concerns and just keep broadly panning them and hoisting up examples which support our side), which fits a loose and hard to really believe conspiracy theory or something more similar to the tragedy of the commons where because of how ideologically similar people are in media mostly are (insert argument for cronyism and buddy buddy gamejournopro groupthink here), they act largely independent of eachother but by circumstance of their relationships with eachother, post the same shit.

I also wonder if intimidation has a bit to play, as in people fear losing work or losing connections or getting cast out by all their friends if they either stay silent on it or raise an objection to the popular media narrative. Evidently most people in games are friends or a degree separated from eachother (see: twitter, patreon, etc), so it isn’t too hard to ponder the possibility of peer pressure among journalists to follow the most outspoken opinion of the more well known game journos, just to stay relevant and in good kinship. Not many people in media seem willing to show their benefit of the doubt or give platform for clearer heads to prevail. Additionally, the only person who really reached out to me who does work in the game journalism industry stated that he regrets being my friend because of my opinions on this, which is such a wildly unnecessary statement to make when debating me that it too has me thinking alot about how intimidation and peer pressure fits into the picture. If a journalist made a moderate statement on Gamergate, would it then be too far of a stretch to belief that they too would have friends in the industry come forward and tell them they regret being friends with them for their opinions?

I don’t think when journalism ethics refers to maintaining separation from subject and author, it means to say clear cut that all journalists (gawkerbloggers) who are friends with subjects (developers) will give favours to eachother, but that emotional investment and personal relationship across the whole board will carry with it the risk of peer pressure and subconsciously manipulating the way you write about things and how you present topics.

Journalists who dont know or tweet at their subjects, support their patreons or chat with other journalists in industry mailing lists will mostly ponder “i hope im conveying the truth here” whereas journalists who do will mostly ponder “I hope I dont upset my friends”

What Colbert did wasn't lame because "boohoo he mocked GamerGate!!!" but because he mocked actual harassment victims and discarded accusations of death threats, doxxing and people getting knives and syringes in the mail as, basically, "male tears" (even though pro-GG women were on the receiving end of the harassment too).

"He doesn't really care about this stuff, he just wanted to make some jokes and he didn't know GGers were legitimately harassed!" - not an excuse. Thoughtless propagation is how wrongful ideas are spread. "It's a COMEDY show!" isn't an excuse either because sociopolitical satire is used to make an earnest point. He just instantly bought the claim that 'harassment is only coming from the "enemy" side and that is definitely worth criticizing.

That is the exact reason why I still have a vested interest in GG

If only because on mere whispers of accusations of sexual harassment, Brad Wardell and Max Temkin were within the past year hung infront of a violent angry mob by game media (IE Gawker), received a stream of harassment and death threats, and were even pilloried for not soapboxing about how bad rape culture is when they rightfully defended themselves against fallse allegations. The game media addressed their proven innocence with a footnote to the accusatory articles.

Yet the same happens to Zoe Quinn and game media remains mum on it. Phil Fish jumps in to victim blame and intimidate Ouren into silence, and the game media is silent. Even Robin Arnott, one of the “five guys” favourites that tweet intimidating Ouren. Phil Fish then turns around and states that that the outrage toward zoe is effectively “rape.” Game media is silent. A month later, an anonymous member of a large secret mailing list of journalists representing game media of all kinds titled “GameJournoPros” leaks a conversation where all the journalists are discussing how to spin the narrative and support Zoe.

If that isn’t an indication of game media being outrageously corrupt, biased, agenda driven and guilty of protecting certain individuals from scrutiny and outrage, while giving the opposite treatment to people they don’t favour, then I don’t know what is. Regardless of whether or not Zoe is guilty of anything, the blatantly corrupt actions of media is self evident. And it doesn’t matter if you view game media as insignificant because it still has great power and influence to create and spin narrative. Look at how the mainstream media interpreted the scandal. Large publications like Newsweek and Huffington Post merely took their narrative of the GG scandal from what the game media spun it as since larger media  functions more as information aggregates than bastions of investigative journalism. If we don’t stand against this corruption in game media now, then it will proliferate.

Some fool in a gamergate stream decided to call Zoe Quinn to harass her; gets laughed at by a room full of people including Zoe

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It isn't any surprise to anyone outside of Gamergate that GG harbours misogynists and people who are decidedly anti-woman in the game industry. There are people inside of it who are aware of it also, as modest efforts to confront it show. This call exemplifies that.

To those within GG, recognize this and continue to try your damnest to gas them out from within your ranks. This isn't a "false flag" or a 3rd party but someone who admits they are inside a stream chatroom with 450 other people "all shitting on [Zoe Quinn]"

That's a staggering and disgusting admission. It's disgusting enough that someone decided to call her directly to begin with (i wonder how they got that phone number, HmMM?). This behaviour validates the focus on harassment of women in the videogame industry and the belief that gamergate is an extension of that. People who claim that that focus is unfounded are ignorant because there are no shortages in examples that validate that focus.

It's awesome that GG people tracked the Anita shooting threat to a game journalist in brazil trying to bring attention to himself (allegedly) but it would be good strategy to intensify the public hunting down and making examples of these fuckers.