The Gamergate controversy concerns sexism in video game culture. It garnered significant public attention after August 2014, when several women within the video game industry, including game developers Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu and feminist cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, were subjected to a sustained campaign of misogynistic attacks. The campaign was coordinated in the online forums of Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan in an anonymous and amorphous movement that ultimately came to be represented by the Twitter hashtag #gamergate. The harassment included doxing, threats of rape, death threats and the threat of a mass shooting at a university speaking event.

Gamergate has been described as a manifestation of a culture war over gaming culture diversification, artistic recognition and social criticism of video games, and the gamer social identity. Some of the people using the #gamergate hashtag have said their goal is to improve the ethical standards of video game journalism by opposing social criticism in video game reviews, which they say is the result of a conspiracy among feminists, progressives and social critics. Commentators from the Columbia Journalism Review, The Guardian, The Week, Vox, NPR's On the Media, Wired, Der Bund, and Inside Higher Ed, among others, have dismissed the ethical concerns that Gamergate have claimed as their focus as being broadly debunked, calling them trivial, based on conspiracy theories, unfounded in fact, or unrelated to actual issues of ethics in the industry.

History

In February 2013, independent game developer Zoe Quinn released Depression Quest, an interactive fiction browser game. The game met with enthusiastic reviews, but a backlash developed among gamers who believed that it had received undue attention. Quinn began to receive hate mail upon its release, receiving enough harassment to cause her to change her phone number.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} By September 2014, Quinn had been the target of eighteen months of increasing harassment, which had created what The New Yorker characterised as "an ambient hum of menace in her life, albeit one that she [had] mostly been able to ignore".^[6]

In August 2014, Quinn’s former boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, published a 9,425 word blog post constructed out of personal chat logs, emails and text conversations detailing their relationship. The post, described by The New York Times as a "rambling online essay",^[7] included the allegations that Quinn had a relationship with Nathan Grayson, a journalist for the video game news website Kotaku.^[8] According to Quinn, Gjoni posted the blog in a way calculated to damage her professional reputation.^[9] Statements in the post led Gamergate supporters to allege that the relationship had induced Grayson to publish a favorable review of Depression Quest.^{[8][10][11][12][13][14][15]} The claim was quickly investigated and determined to be false; Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo confirmed that Grayson had never reviewed Quinn's games and the only piece Grayson had written concerning her was published before their relationship began.^[11][16]

After the blog post, Quinn and her family were subjected to a virulent and often misogynistic harassment campaign.^[17][8] Commentators both in and outside the video game industry condemned the unfounded attacks against Quinn.^[5][18][19] The attacks included doxing (researching and broadcasting personally identifiable information about an individual) and hacks of her Tumblr, Dropbox, and Skype accounts; and both rape and death threats.^{[2][5][8][18]} One threat, reported in The New Yorker, proposed that "Next time she shows up at a conference we... give her a crippling injury that's never going to fully heal... a good solid injury to the knees. I'd say a brain damage, but we don't want to make it so she ends up too retarded to fear us."^[6]

Quinn sought and received a restraining order against Gjoni,^[9] and was forced from her home out of fear that she would be tracked.^[6][8][20] Quinn told the BBC, "Before [Gamergate] had a name, it was nothing but trying to get me to kill myself, trying to get people to hurt me, going after my family. [...] There is no mention of ethics in journalism at all outside of making the same accusation everybody makes towards any successful woman; that clearly she got to where she is because she had sex with someone."^[21] At another conference Quinn said, "I used to go to game events and feel like I was going home... Now it's just like... are any of the people I'm currently in the room with ones that said they wanted to beat me to death?"^[21] Quinn told The New Yorker that she feels sympathy for her attackers because she believes their behaviour to be rooted in self-loathing. ^[6] In an interview with MSNBC's Ronan Farrow Daily, she said she regards her Gamergate-related detractors as increasingly irrelevant in the industry due to the democratization of game-making tools.^[22]

Gamergate supporters attacked other victims with harassment, doxing, and death threats. Those who came to their defense were labelled by Gamergate supporters as "white knights", or "social justice warriors" (SJW).^[23][24] Heron, Belford and Goker wrote that this was meant to neutralize opposition by questioning the motives of the defenders.^[23] Among those singled out was fellow video game developer Phil Fish, who was hacked and doxed after he defended Quinn and referred to those attacking and harassing her as "ball-less manboobs" and "essentially rapists"; Paste magazine said that these "were fairly common statements from the combative [Fish]".^[25] The attack exposed documents relating to his company, Polytron, as well as many of his personal details.^[26][27] As a result, Fish sold Polytron and left the gaming industry.^[2][28]

Gamergate hashtag

The controversy, originally termed the "quinnspiracy", adopted the Twitter hashtag "Gamergate",^{[19][23][29][30]} which was first used in this context by actor Adam Baldwin.^[30] The hashtag draws on the American custom, dating back to the Watergate scandal, of using -gate as a suffix to denote political scandals.^[31] Baldwin also introduced the language of the American culture war into the discussion.^[32] Others then used the tag to engage in further misogynistic attacks under the pretext of concern for journalistic ethics.^[29] Similar coordinated attacks occurred on image boards and forums like 4chan and Reddit.^[33] Early users of the term "gamergate" accused gaming journalists of an unethical conspiracy to suppress the corrupt behaviour they ascribed to Quinn and Grayson.^[34] Because these discussions often featured harassment of Quinn and others, threatening assault, rape, murder, doxing, and the planning and coordination of such threats, a number websites blocked users, removed posts, and created rules to prevent the discussion of such activities.^[2][5] 4chan's founder, Christopher Poole, banned all discussion of Gamergate on the site as more attacks occurred, leading to Gamergate supporters to use 8chan as their central hub.^[35] Poole's decision was criticized by 4chan users, and along with 4chan's involvement in the 2014 celebrity photo hack, led him to withdraw from the site.^[36]

By September 24, 2014, over one million Twitter messages incorporating the Gamergate hashtag had been sent.^[37] A Newsweek and Brandwatch analysis found more than two million Twitter messages between September and October 2014 with many coming from newly created accounts.^[38] Software developer Andy Baio also produced an analysis of #gamergate tweets showing a discussion that was polarized between pro- and anti-Gamergate factions. One quarter of the tweets sampled were produced by users new to Twitter, most of whom were pro-Gamergate.^[39] While the number of Gamergate supporters is unclear, in October 2014 Deadspin estimated 10,000 supporters based on the number of users discussing Gamergate on Reddit.^[40]

Subsequent harassment

The harassment expanded to include renewed threats against Anita Sarkeesian, who had been a target of previous online harassment in part due to her award-winning series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games which analyzed sexist stereotypes in video games; her attackers took her commentary as unfair and unwarranted, and considered her an interloper, according to Cosmopolitan.^[41][42][43] After a new episode in Tropes vs. Women was released on August 24, 2014 Sarkeesian received rape and death threats, and private information including her home address was leaked;^[44] she was compelled to flee home.^[45] At the XOXO Festival in Portland, Oregon, she said, in regard to the accusations that high-profile women were making up the threats against them, that "one of the most radical things you can do is to actually believe women when they talk about their experiences", and that "the perpetrators do not see themselves as perpetrators at all.... They see themselves as noble warriors."^[46] In an interview on Comedy Central's program The Colbert Report, Sarkeesian said she believes women are being targeted because they are "challenging the status quo of gaming as a male-dominated space".^[47]

Sarkeesian canceled a speaking appearance at Utah State University (USU) after the school received three anonymous threats, the second of which claimed affiliation with Gamergate.^[48] The initial threat alluded to the École Polytechnique massacre, a 1989 mass shooting motivated by antifeminism. Though Sarkeesian had spoken at events that had received similar threats, she cancelled after requests for additional security measures were declined because Utah's open carry laws prohibit colleges from removing weapons from permit holders.^{[7][49][50][51][52]} The New York Times referred to the threat as "the most noxious example of a weeks long campaign to discredit or intimidate outspoken critics of the male-dominated gaming industry and its culture."^[7] The FBI is actively investigating the threat to attack Sarkeesian at USU,^[53] as well as documenting police investigations related to activities related to the #gamergate hashtag.^[54] USU's President and Provost released a joint statement saying that USU, in consultation with state and federal law enforcement agencies, had assessed that there was no credible threat to students, staff or the speaker.^[55]

In mid-October, indie game developer Brianna Wu, who had mocked Gamergate, saw her home address and other identifying information posted on 8chan. Wu then became the target of rape and death threats on Twitter and elsewhere. After contacting police, Wu and her husband fled their home, but said she would not allow the threats to intimidate her into silence.^{[7][56][57][58][59][60]} Wu later announced an US$11,000 reward for any information leading to a conviction for those involved in her harassment, and set up a legal fund to help any other game developers that have been harassed online.^[61]

After actress and gamer Felicia Day made a blog post noting her concerns over Gamergate and how she has avoided discussing it due to fear of the backlash, her address was posted in the comments section. Actor Wil Wheaton and former NFL player Chris Kluwe also posted criticisms of Gamergate, with Kluwe's being noted for its use of creative insults, but neither were doxed.^{[62][63][64][65]} Stephen Colbert questioned why men like Kluwe had not been threatened by Gamergate, stating that "it's almost entirely women being threatened in Gamergate".^[66][67]

Various people, some of whom requested to remain anonymous, have also been harassed for supporting Gamergate.^[68] One said he was instructed to leave his home after he reported threats to police.^[69] Another supporter said that she had experienced repeated harassment, including hacking attempts and threats regarding the security of her windows at home.^[30][69] In an interview with Vice, a supporter going by the username _icze4r, noted the death and rape threats she had received, claiming there was a perceived "free pass" when it came to harassing Gamergate supporters.^[70] YouTube personality Steven "boogie2988" Williams remarked that a comment on one of his videos included his address and a threat to his wife's life.^[70][71] A May 2015 meetup in Washington D.C. for Gamergate supporters arranged by Christina Hoff Sommers and Milo Yiannopoulos was a target of a bomb threat made over Twitter, according to the local police responding to information supplied by the FBI.^[72] The BBC reported that "misogynist abuse—and vitriolic messages in general—is not limited to either 'side' of the argument", noting that Allum Bokhari, a writer for TechCrunch, said a trolling group was trying to provoke both sides.^[73]

There has been considerable debate on the concept of self-policing and on what responsibility, supporters of Gamergate share when the hashtag is used for harassment. In an interview with NPR's Marketplace, voice actress Jennifer Hale called on the gaming community to improve the self-policing of its small and vicious fringe, and said there are still race and gender barriers within the industry.^[74] One concern is that Internet trolls intending to stir up conflict are responsible for many of the threats attributed to Gamergate.^[69][70][73] Writing for Vox, Todd VanDerWerff wrote that the Gamergate supporters' message was lost in the vitriolic harassment, frequently directed at women.^[33]

Long term events

Harassment related to Gamergate continued several months after the onset of the controversy. Two critics of Gamergate have been targets of attempted "swatting"—hoaxed reports to emergency services intended to provoke a SWAT team response at the target's home. The Guardian reported that both swatting attempts were coordinated through the "baphomet" subforum of 8chan.^[35][75][76] Brianna Wu's studio (Giant Spacekat) withdrew from the Expo Hall of PAX East 2015. In a public statement, Wu cited security concerns, lack of confidence in the management and their failure to return calls."^[77][78][79] Some of the many threats received were from a local Massachusetts man calling himself "Jace Connors". The video containing these threats was later discovered to be a hoax from members of the comedy group Million Dollar Extreme. After the video-maker's identity was revealed, one of the members reported receiving threats and harassment himself, after which he stated, "I didn't take this situation seriously, but I see what it means now to be in the other person's shoes."^[80] Gaming-related conventions in 2015, such as a Canadian Games Studies Association meeting and the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015, have seen ongoing harassment from Gamergate hashtag users.^[81][82]

Though prior actions of Gamergate-related harassment has been investigated by police and other agencies, no known arrests or legal action has been made as of May 2015^[update]. The policing of cyber-crimes like the harassment within the Gamergate controversy are considered low priority by authorities and unlikely to yield usable results, according to Tim Ryan, a former FBI supervisory special agent for cybercrimes.^[83] In June 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Elonis v. United States that harassing messages sent online are not necessarily true threats that would be prosectuable under criminal law, which would pose further challenges in policing harassment tied to Gamergate, according to the Pacific Standard.^[84] However, the Court's decision also suggested that if threats made over social media were found to be true threats, they should be treated the same as threats made in other forms of communication.^[85]

Wu has expressed her frustration over how law enforcement agencies have responded to the threats that her and other women in the game industry have received.^[86][87] Following the PAX incident, U.S. Representative Katherine Clark from Massachusetts wrote a letter to the House Appropriations Committee asking it to call on the Justice Department to crack down on the harassment of women on the Internet, saying the campaign of intimidation associated with Gamergate had highlighted the problem.^[88][89] Clark also hosted a Congressional briefing on March 15, 2015 along with the Congressional Victims' Rights Caucus to review issues of cyberstalking and online threats; during the briefing, Quinn spoke to her experience with the Gamergate controversy, which an executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence described during the hearing as "an online hate group ... which was started by an ex-boyfriend to ruin [Quinn's] life".^[90] On May 27, 2015 the United States House of Representatives formally supported Clark's request for increased measures to combat online abuse against women, explicitly pressing for more investigations and prosecutions by the Department of Justice.^[91][92] On June 2, 2015, Rep. Clark introduced H.R. 2602, the "Prioritizing Online Threat Enforcement Act of 2015" to Congress. The bill would allocate more funding for the FBI to employ additional agents to enforce laws against cyberstalking, online criminal harassment, and threats.^[93][94][95]

Social and cultural implications

Observers have generally described Gamergate as part of a long-running culture war against efforts to diversify the traditionally male video gaming community, particularly targeting outspoken women. They cite the movement's frequent harassment of female figures in the gaming industry and its overt hostility toward people involved in social criticism and analysis of video games.^[40][96][97] Vox said that the movement was less interested in criticizing ethical issues than in opposition to social criticism and analysis of video games and in harassment of notable women. Ars Technica quoted early members as saying that they had no interest in videogames and were primarily interested in attacking Quinn.^[29][98] In First Things, Nathaniel Givens described the movement as a reaction to the aggressive promotion of a progressive environment in video game culture,^[97] while Carter Dotson blamed progressives themselves for the blacklash, which he believed to be a reaction to their negative mode of engagement.^[99]

Gamergate has been described as being driven by anti-feminist ideologies.^{[100][101][102][103]} Some supporters have denied this, but acknowledge that there are misogynistic voices within Gamergate.^{[13][69][70][100][104]} Jon Stone, in The Guardian, called it a "swelling of vicious right-wing sentiment" and compared it to the men's rights movement.^[101] Cathy Young, writing for Reason, described Gamergate supporters as leaning left-libertarian, but said that it has been supported by right-wing voices.^[30] Commentators such as Jon Stone, Liana Kerzner, Ryan Cooper, and Erik Kain have said that the controversy is being exploited by these right-wing voices and by conservative pundits who had little interest in gaming.^{[101][105][106][107]}

Gamer identity

The notion of a gamer identity emerged in the early years of the video game industry. The emergence of the industry also gave rise to publications specializing in video games and catering to the interests of a predominantly young male audience. These publications were seen by industry leaders as a means of promoting their products, and the close relationship between gaming journalists and major gaming companies drew criticism.^[108][109] The growing popularity of games among consumers, thanks to more accessible technologies such as the Nintendo Wii and smartphones, expanded the audience for the industry to include many who did not fit the stereotype of the traditional gamer. As games came to be seen as an art form, games which featured meaningful artistic and cultural themes grew in popularity and prompted gaming publications to engage cultural criticism of the games. Independent video game development also made these games more common.^{[33][110][111][112][113]}

The growth of the gaming audience increased the representation of female gamers, which resulted in a diversification of the male-oriented gamer identity; a 2014 annual survey by the Entertainment Software Association showed a nearly equal number of women playing video games (48%) compared to men.^[114] This broader audience began to question some assumptions and tropes that were historically used by game developers. Critics became increasingly interested in discussing issues of gender representation and identity in video games.^[33][111] One prominent feminist critic of the representation of women in gaming is Anita Sarkeesian, whose Tropes vs. Women in Video Games project is devoted to criticism of female stereotypes in games. Her fund-raising campaign and subsequent videos were met with hostile commentary and harassment from gamers who view her discourse as threatening. Further incidents, such as those concerning Jennifer Hepler, raised concerns about sexual harassment in video gaming.^{[33][111][115]} Prior to August 2014, concerns about escalating harassment prompted the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) to provide support groups for harassed developers, and to begin discussions with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation to help investigate online harassment of game developers.^[115]

In late August 2014, shortly after the initial accusations regarding Quinn, several gaming sites published op-eds on the controversy, mostly focused on the growing diversity of gaming and the mainstreaming of the medium. A number of these articles and essays were heavily critical of sexism within gamer culture.^[116][117] The timing and number of articles, all of which were posted on or around August 28, were seen by Gamergate supporters as evidence of a conspiracy.^[118] These concerns over timing were echoed to some extent by writers such as Slate's David Auerbach ^[119] and The Sentinel's David Elks, who believed these articles were alienating their publications' audience.^[120] Writing for Paste, L. Rhodes described the antagonism arising from the Gamergate controversy as a result of the industry seeking to reach a wider range of demographics in the gamer community instead of focusing on core gamers, which Rhodes says "is precisely what videogames needed. But the process is not without hazards."^[121]

Misogyny and sexism

The hashtag has been associated with criticism of both feminism and those labelled as "social justice warriors." According to Sarah Kaplan of The Washington Post, "sexism in gaming is a long-documented, much-debated but seemingly intractable problem," and became the crux of the Gamergate controversy.^[8] Writing in The Week, Ryan Cooper called the harassment campaign "an online form of terrorism" intended to reverse a trend in gaming culture toward increasing acceptance of women, and stated that social media platforms need to tighten their policies and protections against threats and abuse.^[122] Speaking on Iowa Public Radio, academic Cindy Tekobbe said the harassment campaign was intended to drive women from public spaces and intimidate them into silence.^[123] Jaime Weinman writing in Macleans said, "[w]hether it was supposed to be or not, GamerGate is largely about women."^[124] On her ESPN blog, Jane McManus wrote in response to Gamergate that "It turns out the misogyny women in the gaming industry are experiencing is way beyond what women in sports, as a group, experience."^[125]

Sexism and misogyny had been identified as problems in the video game industry and community prior to the events of Gamergate.^[126] Wu stated in a November 2014 interview with Develop that the game industry "has been a boys’ club for 30 years", claiming that the common portrayal of women as "sex symbols and damsels in distress" in video games has led to the players taking the same attitudes.^[127] Brendan Sinclair writing for GamesIndustry.biz stated that though the events of the Gamergate controversy were "reprehensible and saddening", the situation "has made abundantly clear is that this industry has some profound issues in the way it treats women".^[128] Quinn said the campaign had "roped well-meaning people who cared about ethics and transparency into a pre-existing hate mob",^[129] and urged industry publishers and developers to condemn the hashtag.^[73] She further asked those Gamergate supporters who had any earnest discussion about ethics to move away from the "Gamergate" tag.^[73] Alex Goldman from On the Media wrote that the movement's involvement in harassment had caused it to lose mainstream credibility, and advised its supporters to adopt a self-identifier other than gamer as a way of distancing themselves from their worst representatives.^[10] The Washington Post described Gamergate supporters as claiming they were making efforts to reject harassment and quickly report threatening or hateful comments to help keep the conversation respectful.^[69]

Many commentators have said that the harassment associated with the movement tapped into this existing well of deep-seated misogyny, and that it was merely brought to the fore by the anonymity of the Internet. Regarding the false allegations against Quinn, Amanda Marcotte in an article for The Daily Beast accused the video game world of being "thick with misogynists who are aching to swarm" with hate on any "random woman held up for them to hate, no matter what the pretext". She related these attacks to harassment sent to a woman who criticized a Teen Titans cover and to a community manager of the Mighty No. 9 game because she drew a feminine Mega Man, and virtual rapes committed against women's player avatars in Grand Theft Auto V and DayZ.^[18] In March 2014, game designer Cliff Bleszinski wrote a blog post commenting on the "latent racism, homophobia and misogyny" that existed within the online gaming community.^[130] Developer Peter Molyneux considered that the Internet's instant accessibility of social media allows for people to express of-the-moment opinions without thinking about their consequences, leading to a "whole Pandora’s Box" of both good and bad issues that society must consider in terms of freedom of speech.^[127]

Targets of Gamergate supporters have overwhelmingly been women, even when the actions of men might have been expected to draw Gamergate’s ire. Writing in The New Yorker, Simon Parkin observed that Quinn was attacked while the male journalist who was also falsely accused largely escaped, revealing the campaign as "a pretense to make further harassment of women in the industry permissible".^[6] In an opinion piece for The New York Times, Chris Suellentrop noted that a petition sought to have a female colleague fired for criticizing the portrayal of women in Grand Theft Auto V, while many male critics (including himself) raised similar concerns but did not face similar reprisals.^[130]

Academic researchers at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University described the Gamergate movement as a "vitriolic campaign against Quinn that quickly morph[ed] into a broader crusade against alleged corruption in games journalism" that "involves considerable abuse and harassment—including rape and death threats—of female developers and game critics."^[131]

In Der Bund, Jan Rothenberger wrote that a majority of gamers were distancing themselves from the hate campaigns, and that some supporters were seeking a new banner because "Gamergate" is now indelibly associated with such campaigns.^[132] Nathaniel Givens said that, regardless of their actions, Gamergate supporters were "painted as vicious thugs" and now the term was "toxic".^[97]

Debate over ethics allegations

Gamergate supporters contend that their actions are driven by concern for ethics in videogame journalism, arguing that the close relationships between journalists and developers are evidence of an unethical conspiracy among reviewers to focus on progressive social issues.^{[2][4][13][40][133][134]} These purported concerns have been rejected by media critics and commentators as ill-founded and unsupported. Columbia Journalism Review, The Guardian, The Week, Vox, NPR's On the Media, Wired, Der Bund, and Inside Higher Ed, among others, stated that discussion of gender equality, sexism or other social issues in game reviews present no ethical issue.^{[40][98][135][136]} A number of commentators have argued that the Gamergate hashtag had the potential to raise important issues in gaming journalism, but that the wave of misogynistic harassment and abuse associated with the hashtag had poisoned the well, making it impossible to separate honest criticism from sexist trolling.^{[8][10][23][33]} Writing in Time, Leigh Alexander, then editor-at-large of Gamasutra, described the ethics concerns as deeply sincere but based on conspiracy theories, saying that there is nothing unethical about journalists being acquainted with those they cover and that meaningful reporting requires journalists to develop professional relationships with sources.^[111] Writing in Vox, Todd VanDerWerff said "Every single question of journalistic ethics Gamergate has brought up has either been debunked or dealt with."^[98] Dr. Kathleen Bartzen Culver, a professor and media ethics expert at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, wrote that while Gamergate supporters claimed to be interested in journalism ethics, their "misogynistic and threatening" behavior belied this claim: "Much of the conversation—if I can even call it that—has been a toxic sludge of rumor, invective and gender bias. The irony comes from people who claim to be challenging the ethics of game journalists through patently unethical behavior."^[137]

Numerous journalists who have attempted to understand Gamergate’s motivations have come to the conclusion that, rather than relating to ethics, they are part of a culture war to try and suppress views that Gamergate supporters disagree with. The Verge's Chris Plante wrote that under the guise of ethics concerns, Gamergate supporters repeatedly attacked him for criticizing mainstream video games from the point of view of his social convictions.^[133] Columbia Journalism Review writer Chris Ip said "many criticisms of press coverage by people who identify with Gamergate ... have been debunked" and concluded that "at core, the movement is a classic culture war."^[40] Alyssa Rosenberg of The Washington Post said that some of the movement's ostensible ethics concerns about video game reviews are actually rooted in Gamergate supporters' belief that video games are appliances rather than art and should be reviewed based on feature checklists rather than traditional artistic criteria.^[138] Chris Suellentrop of The New York Times brought up the desire of Gamergate to shift focus away from innovative uses of the gaming medium. Suellentrop criticized the movement's belief that increased coverage and praise of artistic games like Gone Home would negatively affect blockbuster games such as Grand Theft Auto V.^[130] After analyzing a sample of tweets related to GamerGate, Newsweek concluded that it was primarily about harassment rather than ethics, stating that the sample "suggests that...contrary to its stated goal, GamerGate spends more time tweeting negatively at game developers than at game journalists."^[38]

Similarly, the movement has been criticized for focusing primarily on women, especially female developers, and for ignoring many large-scale journalistic ethics issues. Alex Goldman of NPR's On the Media criticized Gamergate for targeting female indie developers rather than AAA games publishers, and said the movement's claims of unethical behavior by Quinn and Sarkeesian were unfounded.^[10] In Wired, Laura Hudson found it telling that Gamergate supporters concentrated on impoverished independent creators and critics, and nearly exclusively women, rather than the large game companies whose work they enjoyed.^[139] Vox writer Todd VanDerWerff highlighted an essay written by game developer David Hill, who said that corruption, nepotism, and excessive commercialism existed in the gaming industry, but that Gamergate was not addressing those issues.^[112] Adi Robertson, of The Verge, noted the long-standing ethical issues gaming journalism has dealt with, but that most Gamergate supporters didn't seem interested in "addressing problems that don't directly relate to feminist criticism or the tiny indie games scene."^[140]

In mid-September 2014, Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart published leaked discussions from a mailing list for gaming journalists called GameJournoPros, which included discussion events related to Gamergate. Yiannopoulos and Gamergate supporters saw the mailing list as evidence of collusion between journalists.^[69][141] The list's founder acknowledged suggesting that journalists write an open letter of support repudiating harassment linked to Gamergate, but said other members of the list had rejected his suggestion and helped him understand why his idea was inappropriate.^[142][143] Most commentators that evaluated the list did not consider it collusion, rather a standard practice across most professions to have an informal venue to discuss matters relating to their profession.^{[40][107][144][145]} Following the leak, the mailing list was closed.^[143]

Some Gamergate supporters alleged that the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), a non-profit group that coordinates academic research on video games, was working with journalists to advance a feminist agenda. Inside Higher Ed described the argument as a conspiracy theory.^[146] Efforts were made to connect the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to DiGRA, and uncover DiGRA tax records.^[118] The Executive Board of DiGRA has publicly condemned the targeting of DiGRA research coordinated by Gamergate as harassment and bullying.^[147] Prof. Mia Consalvo, president of DiGRA, said that the effort to discredit its members' research demonstrates hostility to feminism and a failure to understand academic research.^[146]

Gamergate activities

Following the accusations against Quinn, proponents of Gamergate began to use the "KotakuInAction" subreddit and boards on 8chan to discuss and organize. Because of its anonymous membership, lack of organization and leaderless nature, sources differ as to the goals or mission of Gamergate and, with no person or group able to speak for the Gamergate, defining it has been difficult.^[13] As the threats expanded, international media focused on Gamergate's violent, misogynistic element and its inability to present a coherent message. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Bob Stuart reported that "GamerGate has since swelled into an unwieldy movement with no apparent leaders, mission statement, or aims beyond calling out 'social justice warriors'. ... When members of the games industry are being driven from their houses and jobs, threatened, or abused, it makes GamerGate’s claim that it is engaged in an ethical campaign appear laughable."^[12] Reporting on Gamergate has also been made difficult by the critical and charged responses that some researchers have gotten when using the Gamergate hashtag, with some organizations asking members to not use the term to avoid attracting undue attention. In one case, Natalie Walschots, a Ph.D. student at Concordia University studying on the Gamergate situation, opted to refer to Gamergaters as Death Eaters for a presentation on Gamergate that she gave, which later brought on harassment once the implication was discovered.^[81]

Jesse Singal, writing for New York based on a post he made to Reddit, stated that he had spoken to several Gamergate supporters to try to understand their concerns, but found conflicting ideals and incoherent messages. Singal observed that despite being told by supporters that Gamergate was not about misogyny, he saw Gamergate supporters making a constant series of attacks on Quinn, Sarkeesian, and other women.^[13] The Columbia Journalism Review's Chris Ip said any legitimate message from Gamergate supporters regarding ethics in journalism was being lost in the noise created by harassment, sexism, and misogyny. With anyone able to tweet under the hashtag and no single person willing or able to represent the hashtag and take responsibility for its actions, Ip said it is not possible for journalists to neatly separate abusers from those seeking reasonable debate.^[40] Singal was critical of the movement's lack of organization and leadership commenting on their "refus[al] to appoint a leader or write up a platform".^[13]

Oxford University research fellow Anders Sandberg argued that Gamergate's failure to connect with a broader audience and the "train wreck" of a debate it generated is a function of its origins in imageboard subculture, which values anonymity, promotes chaotic discourse and fosters a hostile, abusive atmosphere within its own sphere. Noting that those rules are "radically different" from most other cultures, he said the result was that "when the Chan culture touches other cultures of discourse there will be fundamental misunderstandings about the very nature of what a discourse is supposed to be."^[148]

Ryan Cooper of The Week highlighted an analysis written by writer Jon Stone: "[Gamergate] readjusts and reinvents itself in response to attempts to disarm and disperse its noxiousness, subsuming disaffected voices in an act of continual regeneration, cycling through targets, pretexts, manifestoes and moralisms."^[107] Christopher Grant, editor-in-chief of Polygon, said that Gamergate has remained an amorphous and leaderless movement so that the harassment can be conducted without any culpability.^[149] Grant said that meant that "ultimately Gamergate will be defined—I think has been defined—by some of its basest elements."^[40]

Efforts to impact public perceptions

Early in the controversy, posters on 4chan focused on donating to a self-described radical feminist group called The Fine Young Capitalists who had been embroiled in a dispute with Zoe Quinn over a female-only game jam they had organised. Advocating donations to help TFYC create the game jam, posters on 4chan's politics board argued that such donations would make them "look really good".^{[100][150][151]}

To respond to widespread criticism of their movement as misogynistic, Gamergate supporters adopted a second Twitter hashtag, #NotYourShield, intended to show that some women and minorities in the gaming community were supportive of #gamergate and critical of Quinn and Sarkeesian. In the 4chan post that Ars Technica said may have invented the hashtag, this was framed as a way to "demand the SJWs stop using you as a shield to deflect genuine criticism".^{[8][20][29][152]}

Ars Technica and The Daily Dot reported that a series of logs from 4chan chat rooms and discussion boards indicated that the #NotYourShield hashtag was manufactured on 4chan, and that many of those posting under #NotYourShield were sockpuppet accounts impersonating women and minorities. ArsTechnica noted that many of the avatars for accounts used to tweet the tag seemed to have been copied from elsewhere on the internet, and compared the hashtag to #EndFathersDay, a hoax manufactured on 4chan using similar methods.^[29][153] Quinn said that in light of Gamergate's exclusive targeting of women or those who stood up for women, "#notyourshield was, ironically, solely designed to be a shield for this campaign once people started calling it misogynistic." Arthur Chu wrote that the hashtag was an attempt to leverage white guilt and to prevent allies from supporting the people being attacked by Gamergate.^[154] Members of 4chan have said that most of the information was taken out of context or misrepresented.^[155]

Targeting advertisers

Gamergate supporters were critical of the wave of articles calling for diversity that followed the initial outbreak of the controversy; interpreting them as an attack on games and gamer culture. Gamergaters responded with a coordinated email campaign that demanded advertisers drop several involved publications. Intel reacted to this by withdrawing an ad campaign from Gamasutra in October 2014. After a number of game developers criticized Intel for this, arguing that it could have a chilling effect on free speech and that it amounted to supporting harassment, Intel apologized for appearing to take sides in the controversy^[156][157] and resumed advertising on Gamasutra in mid-November.^[158]

In mid-October 2014, Sam Biddle, an editor for the Gawker affiliate Valleywag, made a series of derisive tweets that stated "Ultimately #GamerGate is reaffirming what we've known to be true for decades: nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission" and to "Bring Back Bullying".^[159] In response, Mercedes-Benz temporarily pulled advertising from Gawker and Adobe Systems requested that Gawker remove its logo from Gawker's advertising page while stating that it "stands against bullying".^{[160][161][162]} Adobe later clarified that it had never been a Gawker advertiser and explicitly disowned Gamergate.^{[162][163][164][165]} Gawker reported losing thousands of dollars as a result.^[162][166] Biddle later stated that the tweets were jokes, and apologized for them.^{[159][160][167]} Commenting on the actions of Intel and Adobe and the public response, trade publication Advertising Age warned advertisers that responding to Gamergate was a "lose-lose situation", and that brands "not responding are in better shape than those who have".^[168]

Gawker Media affiliate Kotaku was at the center of the initial allegations that started Gamergate. To renew focus upon Gawker some Gamergate supporters initiated "Operation Baby Seal" in late October. The name is based on a Wondermark webcomic created shortly after the onset of the controversy.^[169] This campaign aimed at removing Google's AdSense and Amazon's Associates advertising platforms from Gawker by mass-reporting apparent violations of the ad agencies' terms of service in Gawker's published content. Vox's VanDerWerff identified that while efforts to convince advertisers to pull ads is not new in the history of journalism, this new tactic of targeting the ad providers is on a grander scale and has the potential, if successful, to financially harm Gawker. He said that with the campaign Gamergate seemed less interested in exposing ethical lapses, and more concerned with shuttering sites it doesn't agree with.^[170]

Other actions by Gamergate supporters have been the practice of using archive sites that remove advertisements to attempt to divert advertising revenue from specific websites while still using those sites for information. This practice attracted criticism from Jason Koebler, writing for Vice's website Motherboard, who argued that it was a violation of copyright laws.^[171]

Gaming industry response

The harassment of Quinn, Sarkeesian, Wu, and others led some industry professionals to speak out against Gamergate, condemning the attacks as damaging for the video gaming community. Independent game developer Andreas Zecher wrote an open letter calling upon the community to take a stand against the attacks, attracting the signatures of more than two thousand professionals within the gaming industry.^[96][110] Many in the industry saw the signatures added to the letter as proof that those involved in the attacks targeting Quinn and Sarkeesian were not representative of the video game industry as a whole.^[24] Writing for The Guardian, Jenn Frank described the tactics used in the harassment campaign and the climate of fear it generated through its attacks on women and their allies, concluding that this alienating and abusive environment would harm not only women but also the industry as a whole. Frank subsequently received harassment on a false pretext related to disclosure in this article, and left games journalism.^{[33][119][172]} Games designer Damion Schubert said that Gamergate was "an unprecedented catastrof**k," and that silencing critiques of games harms games developers by depriving them of feedback.^[173]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation characterized Gamergate as a "magnet for harassment," and notes the possible financial risk for companies dealing with it on social media platforms.^[174] The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) issued a statement condemning the harassment, stating that "[t]here is no place in the video game community — or our society — for personal attacks and threats."^[175] At BlizzCon 2014, Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder Mike Morhaime denounced recent harassment; blaming a "small group of people [who] have been doing really awful things" and "tarnishing our reputation" as gamers. He called on attendees to treat each other with kindness and demonstrate to the world that the community rejects harassment. His statements were widely interpreted as referring to Gamergate.^{[176][177][178][179]} When asked about the controversy, Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO Shawn Layden called harassment and bullying "completely unacceptable," but said that there isn't "one statement or one position on it, or one answer to whatever this very broadly-defined #GamerGate really means."^[180][181] The Swedish Games Industry issued a statement denouncing the harassment and sexism from Gamergate supporters.^[182]

Twitter itself was criticised for its inability to respond quickly and prevent harassment over the service. Brianna Wu, shortly after becoming a target of harassment, stated that Twitter facilitated harassment by the ease with which anyone could make a new account even after having an earlier account blocked, and she challenged the service to improve the speed of responsiveness to complaints.^[183] Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic said Gamergate is an "identity crisis" for Twitter, as, by not dealing with harassing users as Facebook has, the platform is failing to protect victims and losing readers.^[184] In November 2014, Twitter announced a collaboration with the non-profit group "Women, Action & the Media" (WAM), in which users of Twitter can report harassment to a tool monitored by WAM members, who would forward affirmed issues to Twitter within 24 hours. The move, while in the wake of the Gamergate harassment, was due to general issues of the harassment of women on the Internet and the data will be studied for further discussion.^[185][186]

In January 2015, Quinn and Alex Lifschitz created the Crash Override Network, a private group of experts to help support and counsel those that have been harassed online, including as a result of Gamergate, and to work with law authorities and social media sites in response to such threats.^[187][188] The Crash Override Network has aligned its activities with the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, a non-profit organization started by software developer Randi Harper, that also seeks to provide aid those those harassed online.^[189]

Responses to Gamergate have encouraged the video game industry to review its treatment of women and minorities, and to make changes to support them.^{[190][191][192]} Intel, following its accidental involvement in Gamergate, pledged more than $300 million to help support a "Diversity in Technology" program with partners including Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency organization and the IGDA, aimed at increasing the number of women and minorities in the industry. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich stated in announcing the program that "it's not good enough to say we value diversity, and then have our industry not fully represent."^{[193][194][195]} In response to perceived conflicts of interest between game developers and journalists, Kotaku and Polygon adopted policies of prohibiting, or disclosing Patreon contributions to game developers respectively.^[196][197] The Escapist and parent company Defy Media updated their ethics policies in reaction to the controversy.^[198]

Responses outside gaming industry

"Intimidation Game", an episode of the American crime drama television series Law & Order: SVU, first broadcast on February 11, 2015, portrays a fictionalized version of the Gamergate controversy, including a character modeled after Sarkeesian and based on multiple women involved in the controversy.^{[199][200][201][202]} Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency Twitter account called the episode "sickening" and stated that "they trivialized and exploited real life abuse of women in gaming for entertainment."^[203]

Anita Sarkeesian was named as one of Time magazine's list of the 30 most influential people on the Internet in March 2015, and later in the magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People of 2015, citing her role in highlighting sexism in the video game community in the wake of the Gamergate controversy.^[204][205] She was also highlighted as one of Cosmopolitan's fifty "Internet's Most Fascinating" in a 2015 list due to her efforts to curb online harassment.^[43]

Coordinated groups, including a Gamergate affiliated group led by Vox Day, were able to fill most of the 2015 Hugo Award categories with their own nominees. The protest slate sought to counteract the diversity of nominees and winners of the awards.^[206][207]

The 2015 documentary film GTFO analysed issues of sexism and harassment in video gaming. Already in production prior to the events of Gamergate the film's director, Shannon Sun-Higginson, addressed the controversy in a post-script to the film. Sun-Higginson, stated Gamergate was "a terrible, terrible thing, but it’s actually symptomatic of a wider, cultural, systemic problem."^{[208][209][210]}

See also

References