Some people questioned my decision to appear as a guest on a recent Gamergate stream which was hosted by personalities that some people find objectionable. Internet Aristocrat is known, for instance, for having created videos which are very "anti-tumblr", a series called "tumblrisms" which take shots at some aspects of "tumblr culture", whatever that is. Tumblr is a puzzling place and some of its habits certainly deserve criticism, however he also created several videos at the start of this whole thing which were not wholely accurate, regarding Zoe Quinn. Sargon of Akkad has created videos critical of 3rd wave feminism. He has created videos titled "The war on men hits the mainstream media" and seems to be of the belief that a culture of oppression is being pushed by certain people for their own personal benefit. The idea of the "professional victim" is something he touts a lot and recently has put a great deal of time into researching possible links between the recent "Gamers are Dead" narrative and studies several years ago done by a group called DIGRA. It seems at first glance a bit tin-foil hat to be honest, however, I accept that I have not done anywhere near enough research into that topic to make an educated remark on the subject. Roguestargames is implicated in incendiary rabble-rousing in an IRC channel at the start of this whole thing and has been aggressive throughout.
Do I agree with all of the actions of these people? No, I don't. As usual when dealing with people, this idea of black and white, good and evil does not exist. You can agree with something someone says without that being a tacit or express endorsement of everything they've said. If you asked me how much I agree with on the site Brietbart, the answer would be "well I can count the number of articles on the fingers of one hand". This is something that many people including the media seem to have forgotten and indeed, some of my critics too. They believe that by appealing for calm and supporting the following expressly stated ideals "I condemn hara**ment, I support women in gaming, I am against biased and corrupt games journalism", that I am a part of a movement of hara**ment and misogyny. I have repeatedly called for dialogue. I have used my influence to attempt to get prominent people to the table to talk about ethics in this industry. I put out an open call to host a panel on my channel about this. Not a single mainstream gaming journalist would agree to participate. The only people who have ever been willing to talk to me publicly about this issue are firmly on the "Gamergate" side and yes unfortunately some of them have done and said unpleasant things.
Why am I doing all of this? Because I firmly believe that focusing on the minority perpetrating hara**ment and abuse will perpetuate more of it and give them the power and attention they so crave. The media, either mainstream or gaming does not seem to agree with me on that one and keeps hammering out article after article after article on hara**ment. Does it help? Has it done anything what-so-ever to slow down the #Gamergate hashtag? Has it done anything to reduce online abuse? If it has I've seen no evidence of any of those things. Gamergate a**ociated boards and subreddits continue to grow, the hashtag continues to go strong long after futile slacktivist efforts to k** it such as #stopgamergate2014 have imploded and gone away. Why you might ask? We wrote so many articles condemning hara**ment, why isn't Gamergate going away? Because you are peddling a one-sided narrative. If you want this to end you MUST address the moderate majority who want to talk about ethics.
A recent statistical an*lysis by Newsweek attempted to prove that Gamergate supporters are by and large using the hashtag to hara** women, yet their an*lysis was clearly flawed. They attempted to create the link by showing that Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu were the individuals that received the most tweets which also contained the #gamergate hashtag, however, their an*lysis also showed that the vast majority of these tweets were neutral in nature and contained neither positive nor negative tone. Now unless we are claiming that "tweeting at this person = hara**ment" which is in itself ridiculous, I find it hard to take this as proof that the majority of people participating in this thing want to hara** women. Indeed what we see is that the two people who have most actively engaged with #gamergate in a negative fashion, throwing constant accusations at it over Twitter are the ones who have received the most feedback. This is entirely logical. Those who have not actively done so, have received less direct engagement.
It is this kind of deliberate twisting of the facts that I find deeply concerning. Newsweek doesn't care about the treatment of women in gaming, MSNBC doesn't care, these people are writing about a hot bu*ton issue and will vanish into the night as soon as it gets boring and they feel it won't garner them anymore clicks. Meanwhile, those of us who want gaming media to improve will still be here and perhaps gaming media will continue to scratch their heads and wonder why things haven't died down. Maybe it's because any and all efforts by supporters to try and prove a negative (futile I know, but they try anyway), that they are not engaging in the hara**ment of women, are spun and misrepresented. I have been attacked for supporting an anti-bullying charity. People have threatened to contact said charity and try to force them not to take the money. Think about that for a second. There are people actively trying to stop a charity from receiving funding. That blows my mind. Same thing happened when I raised $70,000 for charity water. Some supporters of one of my rivals in the competition to earn some of that money, attempted to contact the charity and lie about my motivations. I have a very dim view of people like that. We're talking about people who would rather have people in 3rd world countries die, than maybe just maybe admit that their view is a little too one-sided. Forgive me if I find your moral stance to be on shaky ground if you engage in such behavior.
I think at this point there is only one thing for it and that's to actively speak on the subject of ethics in games media, to shift the narrative away from hara**ment and focus on the positive improvement of this industry. You do not k** trolls by feeding them. They continue to gain prominence and relevance the more you write about them. You gave them the mainstream media on a silver platter, you failed to learn the cla**ic lesson about the internet, that you do NOT feed the trolls. I condemn hara**ment in all its forms and in whatever name it is perpetrated. I don't believe condemning it does anything, but I'll do it anyway just to reaffirm my stance, which by the way should be a**umed as being the default position of a reasonable human-being. Any and all in games media are welcome to join me in a discussion, just as they always have been. I doubt they will, but they're welcome to.
If you believe in guilt by a**ociation, if you believe that by a**ociating in any way with Gamergate that I am irredeemably tainted, or as people on NeoGAF seem to believe "on the wrong side of history", then you are of course more than welcome to exercise your right as a consumer and stop consuming my media. However before you do that, I'd like to ask you this, particularly if you've followed my content for a while. Have I ever done or said anything that has not been consumer-first? Ask yourselves a question. If I believe that good can come from this, I must have a solid set of reasons for putting myself in the line of fire, yes? Am I the sort of person that hara**es women? Do I have a long-standing axe to grind with minorities? Am I a racist? If the answer to any of those questions is yes then that's unfortunate, you don't seem to know me very well at all.
I've wanted one thing from this since the day it started, for cooler heads to prevail. When I appealed for calm I was threatened with the DMCA by a prominent indie developer, called a nazi, an a**clown, a "gross nerd", all by people within this very industry and that's not to mention the myriad of lies and threats sent by those outside of it. These people it would seem have a very binary view of right and wrong. I reject the "with us or against us" attitude and call for understanding, discourse and firmly believe in the nuance of opinion.
Games media have an opportunity to end this. They have since the very start, by talking about their own ethical concerns. While Kotaku has taken strides to improve its ethical policies, I call on them to acknowledge the appearance of impropriety when Nathan Grayson wrote about someone who he had a friendly and then shortly after, romantic relationship with.
I call on them to acknowledge that Patricia Hernandez writing positive articles about people she lived with is a conflict of interest and should be apologised for.
I call on Polygon to acknowledge the very real appearance of impropriety when Danielle gave a perfect 10 to a game whose sound designer she has been friends with for several years.
I call on Destructoid to apologise for its lack of proper disclosure when dealing with Borderlands 2 and their past relationship with ex-staffer Anthony Burch, which it retroactively disclaimed after it was found out.
I call on games journalists to have a serious discussion about whether or not "funding the lives" of developers via Patreon would be grounds enough for recusal or whether indeed you should be doing it to begin with. Kotaku by the way, now believes they should not and good on them for that.
I also call on Youtubers to fully accept their responsibility to their audience and abide by FTC regulations calling for clear, unavoidable disclosure on advertorial content.
I call on everyone to have a real discussion about Metacritic and the obtuse and outdated practice of scoring games and how the site could potentially be harming our growth as an industry.
I call for a real investigation into the blacklisting of Allistair Pinsof.
I call for games critics, when presented with the critiques of Anita Sarkeesian to instead of promoting them without comment, take a look and provide counter-arguments where applicable.
I call on those that wrote articles regarding the "d**h of gamers" and used incendiary language while doing so to acknowledge the possibility that they harmed others by doing so, real, vulnerable individuals whose identities are closely tied to this medium.
I call on games media to firmly reject pro-bullying stances, rather than excusing them as "just jokes".
I call on games media and prominent personalities in this industry to use social media and their large followings more responsibly, rather than as means to dogpile people they believe to be "in the wrong" and yes, I firmly accept responsibility for doing so in the past and apologise to everyone affected by it. I am no angel.
I call for games media to criticise other elements of games media, rather than hanging around in Google Groups. You are supposed to be in competition and competition breeds excellence. All I see is a group of people who are altogether too damn chummy.
I call for Gamespot to discuss whether or not it believes it is appropriate to send its personalities to MC at promotional events for Blizzard games.
I call for an industry-wide investigation into the apparently disturbing number of games media personalities who are involved in romantic relationships with staff at games PR firms. This and so, so much more.
I call on those who identify as part of Gamergate to focus on ethical issues. All too many threads on forums seem to consist of "Look at what Anita did this time!" This has nothing to do with journalistic ethics. I understand the desire to defend yourself against a barrage of media that is portraying you as evil. Games media of all people should understand that desire, they have told us to "hold our ground" against similar media criticism over the past 20 years. However, if you are constantly on the defensive you will get nothing done. I am aware it is the job of journalists to investigate these ethical concerns but some of them are implicated in them and there is an unwillingness to do so and thus the job falls to you. Is this about ethics? Then talk about ethics.
I call on them to reject false and misleading labels such as "SJW". The concept of social justice is ridiculously complex and it seems that people have wildly differing opinions and interpretations on its very meaning. Do not engage in hypocritical behavior. If you do not wish to be labeled, then do not label. Argue points, concepts, ideas, do not argue against the "SJW" strawperson. I'm not going to tell you to condemn hara**ment because I read your boards and I know you already do, but if you see it, report it. The Gamergate Hara**ment Patrol effort has already had success with ma**-reporting burner accounts being used for hara**ment, keep it up.
If this was never about ethics, then The Escapist, Polygon and Kotaku would not have updated their ethical policies in the wake of it. Even if you truly believe this whole thing is about "hara**ment", you have an opportunity to prove it by engaging with the ethical concerns. If once you have addressed these concerns hara**ment continues, then I promise you will have my full support in stamping out whatever toxicity remains. As it stands though, you have merely given it all the fuel it needs to grow and spread and I am thoroughly disappointed in that.
Thank you for reading and know that the only "side" I am on is that of making this industry better for everyone.