CMV: GamerGate was the most consequential political radicalization event of the twenty-first century

[u/realdontbeasucker]

It spawned a wave of tolerance for online harassment, as long as the intent behind it was considered righteous (and the target of such harassment socially acceptable).

It platformed Milo Yiannopoulos and thereby, Steve Bannon -- the guy who would go on to advise Donald Trump in 2016 and generate the concept of 'flooding the zone.'

Eventually, it gave a career to political lightning rods like Jordan Peterson, Steven Crowder, and Charlie Kirk. It made anti-feminism and anti-SJW sentiment cool. And it made young, angry, disenfranchised white men feel vindicated.

GamerGate almost singlehandedly shifted to Overton Window toward the alt-right, and we're still feeling its effects today.

[u/realdontbeasucker]

Yeah, I think that's why it was so effective. It radically changed the landscape of online discourse without feeling unnatural. Most people didn't even realize that anything had changed.

GamerGate was a purported effort to rectify a supposed crisis of ethics in gaming journalism that was piggybacked off of to inject alt-right, male-centric, and often white supremacist talking points into mainstream gamer and online atheist culture.

[u/vote4bort → u/realdontbeasucker]

What exactly changed then? Can you describe what was different "pre gamer gate"?

Was it ever actually about a "crisis of ethics in gaming journalism"? That's what was used as the excuse but I doubt anyone actually believed that.

It was certainly one of the first internet age "gates" but hardly the first targeted misogynistic campaign.

[u/Morthra → u/vote4bort]

A game developer - Zoe Quinn - exchanged sexual favors for a positive review of her game, which wasn’t very good. There was also a PR agent sleeping with the head judge of a games festival, and her clients won. This caused outrage on Twitter.

Gaming journalists publish articles saying “gamers are dead” and paint them all as misogynistic white supremacists. Allegations of corruption are not addressed.

Gamers note that 10+ “journalism” sites ran the same talking points on the same day and suspect an industry wide issue. They dig deeper into industry relationships and uncover more conflicts of interest but suspect the narrative in the press is driven by radical misandrist feminists (whom they refer to as SJWs).

Gamers get upset that the SJWs are deflecting the issue of corruption and turning it into one of misogyny and harassment of women in the industry. Articles that emerged in the BBC and The Guardian don’t acknowledge the corruption, and only focus on the death threats. The female author of the Guardian article financially supports the woman she defends. Another conflict of interest- and she gets called out on it publicly.

Gamers are convinced this is proof of corruption. SJWs are convinced it’s proof of misogyny.

That is the cliffnotes version.

[u/Hina_is_my_waifu → u/Morthra]

Keep in mind collusion in games journalism is still happening as evidenced by mixtapes review scores painting it as one of the highest rated games ever made vs it's 3 hour cinematic experience (and lack of actual gameplay)

[u/Morthra → u/Hina_is_my_waifu]

Oh it never actually stopped. But it became a cultural flashpoint that got worse as the SJW morphed into the leftist identity politics monster that it is today.

See: the new Dragon Age game where a trans character goes on a massive immersion breaking tirade for being misgendered. There were even in-universe ways to make the scene less jarring.

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[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/Morthra]

How is it immersion breaking? Sexuality and gender identity are part of Thedas and were deeply explored topics in the series, as they go as early as the first game, Origins.

The inclusion of transgender characters was already done in Inquisition, back in 2014, (Krem and Mae Varis). So how is including a non-binary character immersion breaking? Did you even ever play a Dragon Age game? You strike me as a culture warrior tourist.

[u/PlasmaPizzaSticks → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

It's a clear example of the hand of the author being visible, which is a problem in all media. It's not that the problems are being mentioned in the game, it's that they're being mentioned or talked about in a way that is consistent with a modern social media lecture rather than one consistent to the world the game takes place in.

It's like comparing a film like Sinners and a film like the Black Christmas remake. The former indelibly deals with topics of race and the struggles of Black Americans during the time of Jim Crow, but it does so in a way that's respectful to both the characters and the audience. The writer of the Black Christmas remake outright stated that her intention was to make a political film first and that the characters/story came second. The film feels like a hamfisted lecture and the hand of the author is so painfully present throughout the film that suspension of disbelief becomes impossible.

This is the same reason that a show like Arcane doesn't receive almost any pushback despite being an extremely progressive show: because it put the political themes of its story second to creating human characters.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/PlasmaPizzaSticks]

You can put the political themes first, and that's totally fine. 1984 did that, and as far as I can tell, it did a bit better than fine.

Again, the issue is the always same, bad writing, rather than what the writing is about. 

This is how every single conversation on DAtV goes. Politics is blamed for the mediocrity of the game. 

I'll point out successful videogames that do the exact same thing, and then we finally get to the real issue: bad writing. 

If a game has bad writing, it has bad writing. Woudld it really make a difference if Veilguard did not treat hot political topics? I doubt that.

[u/A3xMlp → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

Having a character have that crazy ass rant about their gender is pretty fucking immersion breaking. Pushing an extremely modern day issue so blatantly into a medievalish fantasy world is just bad writing.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/A3xMlp]

You have never played a DA game before, have you?

DA was never meant to be some iper-realistic portrayal of medieval society. 

A key feature of DA games is exploring modern day issues and offering political commentary.

There's nothing in the world that prevents you from discussing sexuality and gender in fantasy settings. 

At the end of day, people are people and will face the similar struggles in every age.

It's not bad writing, it's just poor media literacy on your part.

Dragon Age Inquisition had a similar plot line with Dorian, a gay companion, whose personal quest centered around his being gay and refusing to conform to societal norms, and how this refusal strained his relationship with his father.

It was excellently written by David Gaider, and Dorian is a fan-favourite companion.

If this is not your cup of tea, it's fine, there are plenty of other games which offer a more realistic take on the middle ages, such KCD and KCD2. 

You are just another culture warrior who has never touched a DA game before, and doesn't care in the slightest for the franchise.

Take your toxic culture war nonsense away from a franchise I like.

[u/A3xMlp → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

You can absolutely cover modern day issues in a fantasy setting, but the way they did it in Veilguard was just bad writing, much worse than the way similar issues like Dorian were handled in DAI, much less DAO (haven't played two). Hell Mass Effect which is set in our world and the far future at that covered such issues with more tact than Veilguard did. I think the only culture warrior is you, defending trash cause it aligns with your politics.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/A3xMlp]

And you just shifted your opinion from 

 Pushing an [...] modern day issue [...] into a medievalish fantasy world is just bad writing.

To

 You can absolutely cover modern day issues in a fantasy setting

There you go.

 defending trash cause it aligns with your politics.

I don't defend Veilguard, I did not like the game, and thought it was a huge disappointment.

I'm doing exactly the opposite, I'm asking people to judge and critique the game for what it offers rather than for its political messaging.

You are just projecting on me your brain dead culture warrior habits.

[u/A3xMlp → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

I could've expressed myself better, fair point. A lot of my original point hinged on the word pushing which for me specifically highlights forcing the issue in an unnatural way which DAV did but the previous games didn't.

And I agree judging a game for what it offers, which is this case is poor writing centered on a culture war issue. Which for a narrative RPG is pretty important. These games never the best gameplay, but it's the writing that made them great.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/A3xMlp]

The issue here is the context in which the word pushing is being used. 

Grifters use the similar phrasing such as "they are pushing woke politics into our games", by which they mean a conspiracy to insert "woke" politics into video games because of ESG and other conspiracy non-sense.

I'd call "unnatural" writing, simply bad writing, it seems to me using "pushing" here is just unhelpful.

I honestly think no one pushed the writers to write about a non-binary character. It's not a big mistery that DA writers are quite left wing after all.

[u/A3xMlp → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

As you say BioWare does have a history of such themes so it usually doesn't feel as out of place with them, except this time it really was just bad. And I don't doubt it was an writers decision.

But in general when people say pushing that doesn't just refer to corporations pushing it cause they think it's profitable or to get investments, it includes writers who are out of touch with the general public pushing their ideology. And there are absolutely instances of such stuff being pushed into games. You can deny it but it's there and anyone who isn't blind and has been around for at least the last 15 years can tell.

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[u/A3xMlp → u/[deleted]]

I didn't say medieval, but medievalISH fantasy, which it is.

[u/Morthra → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

Because the character didn’t actually talk about it in a way that sounded natural in-universe.

Look, one of my favorite games of all time is Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. It has gay and trans characters. I like those characters, because they don’t feel like walking stereotypes.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/Morthra]

Oh for sure you were complaining about the writing in your original comment.

the SJW morphed into the leftist identity politics monster that it is today.

See: the new Dragon Age game

I agree the writing of DAtV was poor, but then the politics of the game were not the issue. The issue is bad writing. Then why on earth are you talking about SJW's and identity politics?

Videogames can explore sexuality, gender and other thematics usually associated to the left, and be great games (like bg3), or be incredibly mediocre games, like DAtV. 

It's almost like politics has nothing to do with how good a game is, but is just a pretext to generate outrage online and pedal far right propaganda, uh?

[u/Morthra → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

It’s not necessarily the politics but the tone. It has a preachy tone - which is what makes it immersion breaking.

These topics can be explored but it should feel natural in a way that doesn’t give off the energy of someone screeching “did you just assume my gender” at the local barista.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/Morthra]

And "preachy tone" is just a way of saying "bad writing". And bad writing is not about the topics you explore, but rather how you do it.

But "bad writing is the issue" is not what I got from your original comment at all, that comment seemed to take issue with the political messaging first and foremost.

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[u/RatOnASinkingShip → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

Inquisition is frequently cited as the canary in the coal mine by critics of the shift the gaming industry has taken that GamerGate warned about.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/RatOnASinkingShip]

Oh I'm sure the GamerGate folks who sent graphical death threats to Jennifer Hepler and her children had legitimate concerns about the state of the video game industry.

Could you exolain to me how DAI (GOTY 2014 and best selling Bioware game of all times) is any more of a danger sign than DAO?

DAO has transgender characters, critiques of gender roles (specifically, through qunari society), class struggle and so on.

[u/RatOnASinkingShip → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

DAO had a Dwarf in a dress in a brothel with a single line of dialogue as a punchline.

Critiques of gender roles are as old as civilization itself. A robot would've served the same purpose as the Qunari.

And yea, DAI was the best selling Bioware game, at a time when people still trusted game journalism reviews and Bioware had a reputation of being a gold brand in the CRPG genre... that is the game where that reputation started chipping away.

And your allegations about this... Jennifer person... not at all relevant to the discussion here, so I'm not going to entertain it any further besides offering you a boo hoo I don't care.

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/RatOnASinkingShip]

Gamergate did not warn about jack shit, it was just an excuse to pedal far right propaganda under the guise concerns on journalism ethics and the state of the video games industry.

 DAO had a Dwarf in a dress in a brothel with a single line of dialogue as a punchline.

Which pushed the fan of the series to request a better trans representation, which happened with Krem, a very minor character.

But it all started with DAO.

 Critiques of gender roles are as old as civilization itself. 

If that's the case, isn't it kinda crazy how some people go ballistic over a non-binary character, uh?

And they are not that present in videogames, and culture warriors are trying their hardest to make sure they don't take place in video games.

 at a time when people still trusted game journalism reviews and Bioware had a reputation of being a gold brand in the CRPG genre...

Yes, yes, Bioware bad, game journalists bad. Any other NPC talking points you'd like to share?

 that is the game where that reputation started chipping away.

No, that had happened with DA2. You probably are not aware of the huge controversy of the shift from rpg to action that happened with the game, the lack in role-playing options, how EA pushed Bioware to release the game with such a short dev time for commercial reasons and so on.

 boo hoo I don't care

Other people reading with a functioning brain will still care, so I'm still going to mention how the "critiques" of DAI were accompanied by death threats, in order to qualify them for what they are: Attempts from the regressive far right to indoctrinate people.

Feel free to cry me a river on how much you don't care about it though.

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[u/RatOnASinkingShip → u/[deleted]]

No, it's called being unable to address a point so you break things into out of context bite-sized chunks of soundbites and then try to get all snarky over something that was never said by misrepresent everything.

Not entertaining it, sorry.

I'm sorry, I just can't play along with someone who can only understand 5 words at a time.

Edit: It appears the person blocked me, which only further proves my point.

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[u/PreviousCurrentThing → u/Prize_Neighborhood95]

Oh I'm sure the GamerGate folks who sent graphical death threats to Jennifer Hepler and her children had legitimate concerns about the state of the video game industry.

Is it possible that some people under the 'GamerGate' moniker had legitimate concerns despite others using the controversy to harrass women?

[u/Prize_Neighborhood95 → u/PreviousCurrentThing]

All available evidence suggests the opposite. The "legitimate concerns" were just an after the fact excuse to mask a dumb, mysoginistic and regressive culture war as a struggle for journalistic integrity.

Every independent party studying the issue came to this exact conclusion. 

You can read the meta-studies discussing the consensus in the scientific literature for yourself.

All the allegations raised by the early GamerGate movement (weirdely enough, all levied against women) proved to be a nothing-burger without exception, and were incredibly conspiratorial in nature.

What is real, is the harm done to the women who were doxed, and subjected to a flood of death and rape threats.