At the Los Angeles Times, "Gamergate-related controversy reveals ugly side of gaming community":
A startling number of women I know are quitting games writing or considering quitting due to the ongoing torrent of misogyny and harassment.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) September 4, 2014
With every threat I wonder why the hell I keep doing this, but I do it because it’s so much bigger than just games. This is about justice.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) September 4, 2014
This is nothing short of psychological warfare. It is completely unacceptable.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) September 6, 2014
The emotional, mental & physical impacts of being targeted by hateful sociopaths everyday are immeasurable. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) September 6, 2014
This column is usually dedicated to discussing video games, but in the past week and a half, you’d be forgiven for not having the stomach to play one. I haven’t.More.
Infighting, finger-pointing and the airing of dirty laundry have dominated the late summer in video games. For those who have played an online multiplayer game, this may sound like any other day in video games. But it’s not. Now the attacks are so threatening in nature that even the FBI has taken notice.
A long-simmering schism among select, very vocal members of the gaming community and others in the industry has come to the fore over the last two weeks, resulting in unprecedented levels of death threats and harassment directed at game designers and writers — many of them women.
This is not, to be clear, some trash-talking in a “Call of Duty” match. The hateful social media posts, a number of them threatening rape and crippling injury, have been so violent that some intended targets have gone into hiding.
The fury started in mid-August. The exact incident, in which the spurned ex of a female independent game designer reportedly published embarrassing personal details of their relationship and accused her of infidelity, is now beside the point. That moment has become an excuse, an opportunity to rail against designers and writers who are attempting to intellectualize the medium — “social justice warriors,” as they’ve been labeled by their online assailants.
These “social justice warriors” are seen as capable of destroying the very essence of what some players love about video games: violence, fantasy and scantily clad women.
Far from making a point, the ugly reaction has instead exposed the rage and rampant misogyny that lies beneath the surface of an industry that’s still struggling to mature.
Much of the ire has been aimed at Anita Sarkeesian, a respected pop-culture critic whose series of videos under the Feminist Frequency banner analyzes sexism in mainstream video games. On Aug. 26, she posted to Twitter that “some very scary threats have just been made against me and my family. Contacting authorities now.”
Sarkeesian, whose biting, unflinching observations have long made her a punching bag for those who feel she’s attacking the games they love, has been candid on social media in exposing the recent barrage of harassment. “I hope you die” is one of the few tweets slung her way this week that’s actually printable.
Her most recent supposed offense is posting a video that analyzes how top-shelf video games often resort to using women as background decorations, such as a cringe-inducing strip-club setting of the gunfight in “Mafia II: Joe’s Adventures,” in which bullets soar over the body of a dead, barely clothed exotic dancer.
Attempts to reach Sarkeesian this week have thus far been unsuccessful, as have attempts to reach a number of the other women affected. But anonymous message board postings calling for a game designer who’s been outspoken on social issues to receive a “good solid injury to the knees” is not uncommon.
Ed Morrissey has more, at Hot Air, "A few more thoughts on GamerGate."
ADDED: As the necessary caveat, I've gotta add these tweets from Christina Hoff Sommers, via Ed Morrissey's post:
College deans,news editors,politicians--ran for cover when gender hardliners made strident demands.Gamers--male & female--fighting back.
— Christina H. Sommers (@CHSommers) September 5, 2014
The gender warriors made a huge tactical error when they went after the gamers. Wrong group to irritate.
— Christina H. Sommers (@CHSommers) September 5, 2014
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