Oh Gamergate, why are you so entertainingly funny? The fact that comments aren’t enabled on that story is a crime, because the CNN comments section makes the Massively comments section look like a Mensa meeting.
I’m not going to fully dive into this little media-created bruhaha because lets be honest, it’s really a story about nothing. Someone getting death threats because they did something someone else didn’t like on the internet? Yea that’s never happened before. An entire group being labeled by another group based on a few outliers that people run with? Are talking about the perception of PvP MMOs again? This is a debate about the SNES vs Genesis, right?
I think my favorite part though is this idea that ‘core gamers’ don’t matter anymore. I mean, I guess if you pretend CoD, LoL, CoC, Battlefield, GTA, FIFA, etc don’t exist, and that Farmville is still a thing, then sure, you might have a point. It’s like when fools state that PvP-based games drive more people away than they attract. Again, if you want to create a fantasy-land and run with it, go nuts, but until the top-seller list ISN’T filled with the exact type of game you claim isn’t popular, I’ll just keep laughing at your stupidity.
Which isn’t to say that the gaming market overall hasn’t expanded, because it has, and that’s a good thing for everyone, but to suggest that people are honestly concerned that the next CoD won’t be made because Barbie Princess Time (get it?) is getting made instead? Please.
PS: Nice of the guy in the video to wait until 3 minutes to throw out the race card. Was really expecting it much sooner. Also would it have killed him to prepare for maybe a minute here? Was he trying to maintain the whole ‘gamers can’t handle public situations because lulz basement’ thing, because if so A+ work. Guy should kill himself after that performance.
Hardcore Casual 
I’ll give Sarkeesian et al this: they know their audience. How many other people could make internet flamers into a career opportunity?
What I don’t get is why people are completely losing their minds over sarkeesian’s videos because they are just telling people what they already knew (games are sexist, yo) in the mildest terms possible.
Like, what are they like when something actually upsetting happens?
Posting on 4Chan advertising the kickstarter was something more than an attempt to capture internet flames?
I don’t know shit about this whole deal and I’m kind of glad I don’t because the few pieces I have picked up here and there seem really fuckin dumb. This is one of the problems people will create when you pay them to write stuff about games on a schedule, no news = make up some dumb fuckin news.
I started out thinking the gamergate people were a bunch of tin foil hat nutjobs, but then I read the “gamejournopros” email list that they exposed. It was a nice remindner that there’s no such thing as a video games journalist in the post magazine era, just a bunch of shithead bloggers pretending to be journalists.
The worst part is how we get a new “female in video game industry nearly killed by gamergate mob” post daily from all these blogs in a ridiculously transparent attempt to discredit people who are discrediting them. Meanwhile I’ve seen none acknowledge the ridiculous amount of incest uncovered between these “publications.” It’s so deep that you’ve got editors from one blog determining which forum threads should be allowed to stay open on another. It’s all gross.
No, they are a bunch of tinfoil nutjobs.
Like syncaine says, there is ZERO chance any dev is going to stop making games for one of their largest and most successful markets. Journalists have been tied to PR since just about forever — that’s not new and its very very well known. Industry mailing lists is also not something to lose your mind about, every industry does that.
And maybe the reason stories about women being threatened by nutjobs keep coming out is because it’s actually a thing. The less obvious response is ‘oo news I don’t like, it must be a conspiracy cos no gamer ever would send horrid death threats out’.
But to be fair, I’m sure more than a few male game devs have gotten death threats as well (hence the title of this post), so that aspect isn’t anything new either; its just media-whoring (zing) at it’s worst.
No one (including people covering it) looks good here because the entire issue is a joke. Do women sleep with guys in positions of power to get ahead? Yup. Men do too. Will a company make a less-tasteful product if it sells more? Yup. Is the 18-35 male demographic the largest when it comes to sales? Yup. Are there plenty of counter-examples for all of the above? Sure. Do they matter as much as GTA? Nope.
Because at the end of the day, all but the largest of nutjobs would LOVE to be a major contributor to GTA, male or female, so lets not pretend otherwise while ranting off some fictional soapbox.
I missed the bit where someone slept with someone else to get ahead? In the real world, some indie developer slept with some journo who didn’t even write about her game. Not really seeing this as the apotheosis of the casting couch.
So why were people so angry? Why was the anger so totally out of proportion? I’m going with they were angry anyway and some trolls harnessed the anger at the latest target of the week. The GG people look terrible here, everyone else is just reacting to them.
It sure as heck is not a war.
People aren’t angry, they are laughing at a few people on both sides whoring for attention and clicks over this.
Think about it, how often do people get death threats on the internet? Yet here, someone who directly benefits from media whoring, makes a giant deal about it (going to the police and making sure everyone knows about it), including leaving her home (which accomplishes nothing but being a cheap ‘look at poor little me’ move) just to grab more attention, all while fake-crying over not wanting the attention.
Someone who actually cares about a cause, whatever that cause might be, wouldn’t discredit the cause with such actions. This isn’t the case here, no matter how often a few people pretend it is.
Extremely transparent attempt to discredit their enemies.
“Industry mailing lists is also not something to lose your mind about, every industry does that.”
Loling so hard at your ignorance. Do you even know what the name “gamejournopros” is a play on?
I’ll wait for you to google it and then pretend that you did, and that somehow it’s different.
Couldn’t be bothered to look past the first page of links and no luck there. So tell me why I should care, why is this the big illuminati level conspiracy to rival Edward Snowdon?
Thanks for the heads up on this issue. I watched the Anita Sarkeesian video last week. Although I could somewhat agree with her overall premise there was not enough evidence to validate her argument that there is a problem with the game industry as a whole. In fact I kind of had a hard time finishing the video because it got repetitive and a bit boring.
On a related note I must say I am proud of Adam Baldwin for not devolving his tweets into name calling.
Because it happened today, file this under example one billion and one as to why some feminists are impossible to take serious;
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/opinion/drexler-amal-clooney-alamuddin/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
I can honestly say that I have never wanted to kill someone over a balance change, and I don’t really understand people who do. (When I went to EVE Fanfest this past year, someone asked me to assault Fozzie over the Freighter changes. I didn’t.)
Also, the guy behind GamerGate is a piece of work:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-man-who-sparked-gamergate-regrets-the-harassment-but-say#2oeexke
I maintain that this whole thing is two people who both have shitty relationship skills having it out in public, with an extra megaphone of being niche media people. Everything else is a side effect.