GNamer Personality Profile!

The piece that started off the whole GamerGate thing, attacking Zoe Quinn and that, makes explicit mention to the chain.  Apparently Zoe had cheated on her boyfriend with five guys, which made him think of the chain, and name his essay after it.

You know how gaming, in its infancy, was considered by the mainstream as something nerdy white boys do? As I'm sure you noticed, some people started to treat that like a badge of honour. People wear "nerd" t-shirts and proudly boast about the fact they've completed more JRPGs than they've kissed girls.

Well, for at least the past decade, the idea that gaming is exclusively a white, male hobby has simply not been the case. That said, some absolute dorks don't really have a personality beyond "I play videogames and watch anime", so seeing women and functional humans coming into that space felt like an attack on their "identity".

Then, last year an indie developer named Zoe Quinn was named in a post written by an ex boyfriend accusing her of having, shock horror, consensual sex with some men. The implication was that she's slept with men who then judged her game in a contest it won. This was a) never proven and b) not even the men who judged her game, but it was enough to get the ball rolling. All the misogyny, racism and pent-up, impotent rage these neckbearded virgins had been feeling came to the fore.

Things developed like a ball of shit rolling down a turd mountain, and a faceless mob of cunts began attacking anyone who dared to suggest for a second "hey, maybe videogames should be made by and feature somebody other than straight, white males with stubble." This was all conducted under a veil of being about "ethics in games journalism." Most of these idiots would be trying to say with one account that the issue was games companies accepting bribes or having an agenda, while simultaneously really unsubtly showing their true colours; they treated any attempt to move the industry forwards, or even discuss these issues, as an attack and hundreds of women, people of colour or just anyone willing to speak up have been harassed online and off, some to the point of leaving their homes.

The irony is, even on the rare occasion some misguided fool still thinks it is about "ethics", they miss the real issues, like games companies holding review sites to ludicrous embargo dates or the fact that big sites like IGN are almost entirely funded by the very publishers they exist to critique and complain about something nonsensical, like people funded by Patreon having the audacity to spend the money on food and rent rather than making their content. Its almost as if all these people are manchildren who have never held down jobs.

Right, that was meant to be a brief summary, wasn't it? TL/DR: Pathetic white boys launch misogyny at every female in the games industry while barely even bothering to pretend its about "ethics in games journalism".

...And also to show that whilst the sexist pigs attacking women in gaming were absolutely abhorrent with their actions, the gaming media was doing its fair share of shit-slinging by posting tripe like "Gamers are Dead" or attacking those (in a similar manner to your /v/ posters hounding female journalists and devs) who had the AUDACITY to take issue in a reasonable way with these ethical issues in gaming.

See, unlike Drunka, I think there was a debate to be had about full disclosure in gaming journalism, and whilst the baying hordes of sexist fucks did use this as a crutch, there were those who were ostracised for actually attempting to have a discussion about this. I'd personally find it hard to hold any credence in a review if the author or website had revealed to have had a close relationship with a developer, be they huge AAA dev or one-man indie team, and I'd question the reasoning behind the coverage a game received because of said relationship. That's bugger all to do with the dev, but with the journalists. Considering the journalists had the power to add fuel to the fire in this big shitstorm, anyone questioning them prompted useless articles disparaging those who dared to be passionate and care about their hobby. I don't think it's any coincidence that those "gamers are dead" articles all went up around the same time - it seemed like a concerted effort to silence any proper discussion.

However, any chance for a proper discussion about that is long gone because a divide was drawn, and people split off into pro and anti GamerGate camps, and shit was slung en masse, be it via disgustingly abusive tweets and posts or ludicrously one-sided, factually inaccurate articles. There were certainly intelligent voices on either side of the debate, but it was nigh-on fucking impossible to hear them over the bellowing, stupid masses.

tl;dr misogynist scum abuse women in gaming, some reasonable folks raise actual questions, gaming media explodes with rage making inaccurate blanket statements, we didn't start the fire it was always burning so resume the shitstorm.