Gamergate

It’s called Gamergate. Because every scandal has to evoke Watergate as a shorthand for Something Bad Has Happened. And something bad has happened, only not what the Gamergate people want you to think. Not familiar with this whole Gamergate business? Don’t worry; I’ll fill you in. And I’ll stop saying Gamergate. Because it’s stupid.

You see, “gamers” – some gamers – are really, really upset about the lack of integrity in games journalism. Or that’s what they say, anyway. But mostly, it just looks like they’re mad about vaginas, and they’re not gonna take it anymore. And it’s all because one young woman, Anita Sarkeesian, had the nerve to successfully fund a Kickstarter campaign to produce a series of videos about video game tropes involving women. That’s it. That was the starting point. After that, a female game developer by the name of Zoe Quinn had an angry ex post all sorts of intimate details about their sex life, and about her alleged sex life with games “journalists”. So now her game only got decent reviews because she let game critics stick their joysticks in her squishmitten. Or something. But it’s totally not about being angry at women calling out misogyny in gaming or daring to code when they have boobies. It’s about INTEGRITY!

Except that it isn’t.

Let me explain why this is a whole lot of controversy about nothing. First, there’s no such thing as games journalism, with the possible exception of the excellent work Anita Sarkeesian is doing. Game reviews, previews, developer interviews, sneak peaks, etc…make up roughly 99 + 1 percent of what people call games journalism. It’s fluff. It’s entertainment covering entertainment. Sure, some publications delve a bit deeper, or have reviews that actually examine a game critically, but they’re the exception rather than the rule. Tom Chick and the gang over at Quarter To Three do excellent work, for instance. But IGN? Not so much.

The thing about games “journalism” is that it’s never had integrity. Ever. Flash back to the E3s of the ’90s and you’ll see why. Extravagant booths, lavish parties, enormous bags of swag…and that’s just the public side of things. It’s no secret that everyone thinks publishers buy good reviews by way of paying for advertising, or offering to provide (or threatening to withhold) advance review copies of games, developer access, etc… It happens all the time, and everyone knows it happens. And it’s never been an issue, other than when the Call of Duty bros get mad at Reviewer X because he liked Battlefield 9000 more, so he must be crooked and oooh, doesn’t it just make you so angry!

So why is it an issue all of a sudden? In a word:

And that’s it. Women. Often, very attractive women are not only playing games, but they’re writing about them and creating them and making videos about them. AND IT’S JUST NOT FAIR! The subject of the “fake” nerd girl has been examined at length by all sorts of people smarter than I am, but the long and short of it is that guys don’t think “hot” girls can really be nerds. Because of reasons.

Look, dudes. I get it. I’m a child of the ’80s. I was playing computer and video games way back before they ever had a hope of becoming cool. They were the domain of the extreme nerds like I was (am), and girls just did not play them. (That was the thinking at the time, at any rate.) So it was a boy’s club; but not only that, it was an exclusive club for outcasts. Sure, we might get picked on by the jocks and popular kids at school, and no way would a good looking girl ever so much as talk to us, but at least we had our games. And our little club of fellow rejects. But the problem is, games aren’t like that anymore. Being a nerd isn’t like that anymore. Things are different. We won. Our subculture became mainstream. Hooray!

So why are so many of you pissed about it? Wait, don’t answer. I’ll tell you: resentment. You resent “normal” people just waltzing in and staking a claim in our fruited plains. They’re interlopers and Johnny-come-lately sumbitches! Especially the girls. And especially especially the pretty ones.

They didn’t have to suffer for their love of games. They didn’t get wedgies and stuffed in lockers. They’re the girls that laughed at us in school, so why should they get to join in our reindeer games? I get it. I do. Really. The only problem is, you’re all being stupid and horrible. And wrong. Very, very wrong.

See, one of the by-products of that boy’s-only club of outcasts we grew up in was the echo chamber of wish fulfillment it created. Games empower us to be who we aren’t in the real world, but part of that empowerment has always come at least partly by disempowering others – especially those we desperately wanted to have power over. Or who we at least wanted to like us. Or maybe just not laugh at us so much.

So yeah, women became objects in games. They became the damsels-in-distress of our daydream fantasies, and we’d save them with our mighty swords of +10 swashbuckling and Socks of Furious Wanking. They also became dehumanized objects of our desire for power over them. From the strippers in Duke Nukem to the prostitutes of Grand Theft Auto, the boy’s club empowered men by taking power away from women. That was the whole point. So yeah, I get it.

I also understand what it feels like to hate women. I went through a nasty divorce and spent time as a cuckolded husband several years back, which will do wonders to encourage a guy’s inner bastard. The earlier entries in this blog are a testament to the misogynistic, angry road I was on back then. Fortunately, I got over it. Why can’t you?

Anita Sarkeesian isn’t doing anything more or less than just telling the damn truth, and you know it. You might not like it. You might pick at her nits like that Thunderf00t guy over on YouTube, and try to destroy her credibility by overemphasizing the “misrepresentation” of one of her points about one particular game. But somewhere deep in the dark cockles of your shriveled little hearts, you know she’s right. And that’s what has you pissed off. She’s spilling the beans. She’s pointing out gaming’s dirty little not-so-secrets. And you hate her for it.

And you hate her for being attractive.

And you hate her for being successful.

And you hate her for having a vagina.

And breasts.

And really, seriously manicured eyebrows.

Ok, maybe not so much that last one. But you get the idea. You’re being a bunch of reactionary penises, and you know it. You have to know it. You have to see that all you’re doing to Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn and Jenn Frank and any other smoothleg that dares to come along and tries to enter our little pixelated world, is exactly what you IMAGINE they did to you, back in whatever childhood trauma turned you into a threatened, frightened dickbag. Because they didn’t do shit to you then, and they’re not doing shit to you now. So why are you giving them shit? Why all the Twitter hate? The angry blog posts. The death threats. The doxxing. Or this horrible thing* that lets you play “Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian” (*not a link to the actual, digesting app).

Seriously. Why? It’s not about journalistic integrity. We all know it’s not. Stop trying to come up with clever hashtags (#notyourshield) and rebranding campaigns to try and make your little truther movement into something grander or more noble than it is, which is neither grand nor noble. Stop complaining about so-called Social Justice Warriors, when all anyone is doing is pointing out the truth. No one is saying Rockstar has to stop making video games. Hell, George Broussard can still make games, if he wants. About whatever he wants. No one cares. No one’s stopping him. Or anyone.

I’m sure I’ll get some hate for this post, as the mere idea that I support what Anita is doing is enough to turn the mighty guns of 4chan directly at my braincase, but I don’t care. Tim Schafer wrote one tweet in favor of Anita’s latest video, then spent the rest of the day fielding hate tweets in response. Joss Whedon – a guy who has done a lot more than most in the field of creating female characters that are people rather than props – supports her, and he’s taken heat for it. Hell, I’m pretty sure I’ve even seen Wil Wheaton throw a nod of encouragement her way, and he’s like the King Of Us (nerds). I’m not remotely in the same league as any of those guys, so I probably won’t get as much fallout. But then again, I won’t have as many people ready to jump up and defend me, either. Not that it matters. We’re talking about video games and Internet rage here. Sure, it’s scary Internet rage that has driven Anita from her home out of fear of reprisal from the angry dick community, but I’m not trying to pick a fight with anyone. I’m just trying to get some of you to stop picking fights with women who are not a threat to you. They never have been. They just want to be part of the club. Isn’t it time to take the No Girlz Allowed sign off the treehouse?

After all, the only thing people like Anita are doing is shining a light in the dark little corners of the gaming basement, and the rats are scattering. And biting. And trying to infect everyone they can with their hate on their way back into the shadows. Stop being rats, guys.

Please?