For those of you partial to twitter, you may have seen the hashtag ‘#GamerGate’ for some time now. You may have seen people claiming that ‘games journalism is corrupt’ or that ‘everyone is a misogynist’. As usual with any argument, both sides have their points, but they’re proceeding in a manner of conduct that is childish and inappropriate. In this article I will be discussing my views on the matter and why everyone just needs to calm down.

First we need to go back to how this started, on the 16th August 2014 an article entitled ‘thezoepost’ cropped up on wordpress, detailing alleged sex exploits of indie game developer Zoe Quinn. The article claimed that Zoe Quinn performed sexual favors to garner support for her game through games review and news sites. Instead of being rational and passing it off as an ex-boyfriend going on a tirade, the games community blew up with anger and stated a breach of journalistic ethics was the reason for the new movement. Gamergate really gained traction when celebrity Adam Baldwin tweeted a video about the movement accompanied with the now well know hashtag, #GamerGate.

On the other side of the spectrum we have the games journalists defending their actions, but instantly they jumped for a straw man argument by constantly claiming that members of the GamerGate movement were misogynist. Obviously they didn’t take this very well and the argument has been ongoing since it started. At the time of writing it still shows no sign of stopping and the claims from both sides get more ridiculous every day.

For the members of GamerGate, keep at it, what was a cause I didn’t believe in has slowly become something that’s piqued my interest. However, you have a responsibility to distance yourselves from the poisonous members that give ammunition to the opposite side of the argument, you need to clearly state that the people who are sending death threats and other foul abuse are separate to your cause.

While I’m hopeful that this movement will make a change, I’m very doubtful as games journalism has been corrupt for a long time (See: Jeff Gerstmann and the gamespot incident) and will probably not change. The people attacking the GamerGate movement are deeply entrenched in the ‘victim’ culture that we see today, the idea of turning a legitimate argument around and making yourself look more innocent, but that’s a whole new article.

I’d like to know your thoughts on the matter, if you have any discussion or comments on the matter, please comment