It’s quite disheartening having watched the #GamerGate campaign unfold , as someone who is a self-proclaimed gamer who has logged endless hours on her multiple Nintendo gaming systems, either in Lumiose City battling Team Flare (Pokemon Y) or rummaging about in Hyrule after being tricked by Ganandorf trying to make everything right again (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time). The gamer community was supposed to be a niche that welcomed those interested in the complex map work of a new indie first player, or someone who just wanted to cause havoc in a virtual city, because well, there are some serious repercussions for doing so in our physical reality. The #GamerGate movement, however, I think caught a majority of true gamers off-guard. The (so-called) initial motif behind the campaign was for ethical concerns for journalism and writing in the gaming community, which being that this concern seemed to be targeted at one woman in particular (Zoe Quinn) seemed kind of odd if you ask me. Truth be told, this campaign was the result of Quinn’s ex-boyfriend ranting in a blogpost about her having slept around while they were together with five guys, one of which was a gaming journalist from Kotaku, Nathan Grayson. Subsequently, this journalist ended up writing a review about Quinn’s game “Depression Quest”, which was the ACTUAL cause of rioting within the gaming community. For this angry few, it seemed as if sex meant a good review, and women had no place in the “gamer” identity (read more here).

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Zoe Quinn |
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Anita Sarkeesian |

This is what makes the internet such a complex, scary and amazing place. You can find or hack your way into getting information about anybody your desire, you don’t even have to use your identity, create a fake one, never be seen. When the #GamerGate community decide to host a chat on ways to torment Quinn, as well as those who actually sent her hate mail and death threats, their access to anonymity on the Internet made their lives easy, but made it incredibly hard to Quinn to get to the bottom of who was attacking her. It can definitely be seen as a cause for concern for the #GamerGate community to use the anonymity of the Internet for their movement because it left no one responsible for the actions they played out. Think of it this way, if everyone could be anonymous in our real world, getting away with awful crimes and no one ever being able to find out who did what, we would pretty much be screwed. Clearly, if you have to found behind anonymous identities and social accounts, you’re well aware that you’re taking part in less than admirable behavior and don’t want to be found out.
Moving a bit back into the #GamerGate discussion, when Intel pulled ads from Gamasutra amid the #GamerGate conversation it made Intel look like a supporter of the misogynistic conversation. Was it ethical? Well, I don’t believe Intel would be the type of organization to support that kind of behavior, plus they issued a public apology to those who may have had the impression that they did support such behavior. I feel amid the conversation, it was something that Intel didn’t want their brand to be pulled in to, so in the midst of trying to erase their presence, ever vigilant eyes saw and had a different perspective.
Who knew the world of gaming could be so controversial?