Of GamerGate, Draft Posts, and Moving Forward...

When I started this blog, I had two things in mind. 1) I wanted to cover topics relating to skepticism and video games, and intertwine them as often as possible. 2) I had no idea how the hell I would accomplish such a thing. Looking back, however, I think I did it, whatever "it" was meant to be. I was able to exercise my skeptic muscles, and present a personal yet overly objective analysis of various topics. I'm proud of my work, but recent events have led me to take things down a different path.

Continue on if you must, but it's mostly ranting, with less objectivity than previous posts, and completely self-serving. There's a tl;dr at the bottom if you're into that sort of thing. I'll give you a brief rundown of what I've learned about all that's involved with GamerGate, but if you want more, you'll have to go Google it yourself. To say the waters are muddied is to say the Ganges might have a bit of fecal matter in it.

GamerGate

I've been following the various controversies in the games industry, or rather, gaming community, for a long time. There have been many things to make me shake my head, roll my eyes, wail and gnash my teeth, but few things have filled me with such loathing and contempt as the recent GamerGate movement. Hear me out, because there are likely to be few people who aren't complicit in this... well, it can really only be described as rampant idiocy and hypocrisy.

Zoe Quinn, who developed Depression Quest, was recently called out by an ex-boyfriend, who claimed she had been cheating on him with several games journalists to get better publicity of her game. I'm not sure his evidence is entirely convincing, and her response was to say she wouldn't respond (which could be damning or dismissive depending on who you ask), but that's irrelevant at this point. In what has become known as the "Quinnspiracy" (ugh), Social Justice Warriors have seen this as yet another defamatory attack by the Men's Rights Activists against a poor, defenseless woman, and have responded accordingly. Responses to the SJWs have come in the form of "there they go again" on up to anti-feminist and misogynistic rhetoric. So, the other side also responded accordingly, given how these things usually go.

I'm not entirely clear on how it wound up at this point - though I'm guessing games journalism sites felt personally attacked given the accusations - but there was a sudden slew of articles about the "death of the gamer identity". They posited that this is the loudest cry yet from the dwindling hordes of neckbearded straight-white-males, who had grown accustomed to being treated special because they were gamers. Software and hardware publishers alike would dangle pretty, shiny objects in front of these gamers to garner their favor, turning twisted wars of fanboyism into profits, as all sides pledged loyalty by dumping massive amounts of money into the same few companies. These gamers, the journalism sites say, don't want to share their feelings of entitlement with an ever-diversifying gamer community. The identity of a "gamer", they snort, is just such a selfish person, and their very existence threatens progress itself.

Interestingly, a fourth faction arose in response to this. Waving the banner of "#gamergate" on Twitter and other social media, these masses cried foul at the injustice of generalizing and marginalizing gamers. They proudly related their diversity, people from all walks of life, who clearly and unashamedly identified as "gamers". "We agree that not everyone who plays video games is a cisgendered, straight, white male between the ages of 18 and 28," they said. "We are those people who are different, and we will be heard!" See, they liked calling themselves gamers. They found community in gaming, friends and support that they couldn't find elsewhere. At the least, they found people with similar interests to share a passion with. In addition as well as retaliation, they demanded transparency and journalistic integrity where they saw only nepotism and favoritism.

Sadly, a popular movement that is not careful can become hijacked by a more sinister movement. So it seems to have happened here, with the anti-feminists uniting under the same banner and twisting it to meet their own objectives. Whether this happened before or after when the SJWs called out #GamerGate supporters as misogynist-et ceteras is impossible to determine. What has resulted is a collection of shit-slinging, he/she/xe-said moments, and other nonsense that has roped in Internet "celebrities", game developers, and even people who are entirely unattached from the games industry, as evidenced by some of the tweets I've seen from the entomologists I follow. Each and every person I've seen involved has made a complete ass of themselves over this; exceptions being the aforementioned entomologists, and TotalBiscuit, whose ethical and moral stances that I've been able to witness have greatly impressed me in the past as they do now. (Though I regretfully decline to say I stand with him. It's nothing personal, just that as an independent thinker, at this point I fear even he may say something I will want to distance myself from. This mess has left nearly no-one unscathed.)

To try to summarize, here are some of the things I've seen leveraged against dissenting opinions:

• SJWs calling someone "cis-scum" because they didn't like a reasonable counter-argument from what can only be assumed to be a straight, white male. Or at least a straight male. Or just a male. Men are terrible, you know?
• MRAs calling someone a "bitch" or whatever other insult you can think of that is specifically against women, even if the intended target isn't actually a woman. Because whoever isn't with us men is against us, am I right?
• Either of the above tagging #GamerGate or some other appropriated hashtagged banner, because who cares what side we're all really on after all. The point is to belittle and demean your opponent, not seek resolution through common ground and understanding.
• People claiming to stand with one side or another, or a neutral position, and doing complete discredit to each.
• Censorship of anyone with a dissenting opinion. Even dictators are like "holy crap, that's harsh".
• People saying completely out-of-touch and idiotic statements like "this is just how things are". Add your own context to that phrase, because it's ridiculous no matter what.
• Internet "celebrities", actual celebrities, and game developers of both the AAA and indie variety making COMPLETE UTTER ASSES OF THEMSELVES SERIOUSLY SHUT THE HELL UP IF YOU HAVE ANY HOPE OF HAVING ANY FANS LEFT AT THE END OF ALL THIS

And finally, since starting to follow this thing, I've seen three people even begin to propose that none of the people involved in this really understands what equality means. Three, and that's not an exaggeration.

What are my thoughts on this? Good god, there are greater numbers of morons on the Internet than I had ever imagined. Let me explain this as simply as I can: "equality" means equal rights for everyone. What's an example of an "equal right"? Something as basic as treating another human being with respect, and recognizing that just because they're a different person from who you believe yourself to be doesn't mean they are beneath you in some aspect. Who you believe yourself to be isn't even likely who you actually are, and I believe you can only really understand that when you take a long, hard look at how you treat those other people around you. When I see an SJW call for the death of all men because men have treated them unfairly in the past, all I see is a fascist wearing a red armband with a strange symbol on it. It doesn't even matter what gender that person is, who or how many people have treated them wrong, it's sick and wrong and hypocritical. You can even replace "men" with "women" or "Jews" or "whites" or anything that can be used to describe another human being. If you can't hate someone on a specifically personal level, you are a bigot, and to say I have contempt for you doesn't begin to cover it. I've been told that humanists are the type to ask "Can't we all just get along?" and not follow through due to their own wimpiness and ineptitude, but that is not correct. That's more dismissive generalizing bullshit, and I know plenty of humanists, myself among them, who would gladly make you eat those words if you spoke them.

I agree that "gamers" get a bad rap. Gamers have been getting a bad rap for ages, and that's how they even began to become known by an encompassing identity to begin with. Are there neckbearded, straight-white-males who are pissing and moaning over their inability to get with the times? Absolutely. Are there corporations that continue to target these outdated demographics because they believe (rightly so, sadly) that they'll still make them money? You betcha. Do game publishers and developers still mandate using dead women as artistic background flair, and cast minorities in secondary roles, and continue to spectacularly fail to connect with "social outliers"? Regretfully, yes. Are these issues that need fixing? You goddamn better believe it. Should we belittle and bully and threaten people who disagree with us, and censor them under false guises of trolling, to make sure our super-ultra-can't-be-wrong-pure-as-the-driven-snow-and-totes-objective-you-guys opinions heard? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NOT. 

Concluding my thoughts on gamers, I only have this to say: If you play video games, and you enjoy the activity enough to seek out others with the same passion, even to the point where you feel a sense of community, you are a Gamer. Yes, a capital "G", because if you want to use that as an identity, why the hell not. You find it easier to relate to others, and you're not hurting anyone, so enjoy yourself. If you play video games because they're a fun distraction or time-waster, and otherwise have little to no interest in seeking out others who do the same, you're a gamer. Yes, a lower-case "g", because you don't care, and who the hell are we to tell you how you define yourself? So you're not a "Gamer" or a "gamer" unless you want to be. Be an awesome person that's awesome to other people and that's all that really matters.

Via Zelda Williams' Tumblr

Sub-TL;DR

(I told you I had no idea what I was doing with this blog stuff. The real TL;DR is still further down.)

So with all of that being said, I've decided to take my blog in a different direction. Skepticism and the inner and outer workings of the games industry still interests me a great deal, but situations like this seem to occur with greater frequency, and it's becoming a bit much. My personal nature goads me to respond, to point out where people are incorrect, or debate them on a given position. Knowing to pick my battles leads me instead to do a general summary of my thoughts on an issue, which are reflected here in blog posts. The amount of effort I put into a post to strengthen my position while making sure I don't fall into the same pitfalls as others (with the added bonus of sometimes discovering that I don't fully understand the nuances of a given subject and may actually have the wrong idea entirely!) is exhausting. While I often feel a bit better about being able to get my thoughts down in a more elaborate and consistent manner, I feel I get little reward out of the endeavor. This entire fiasco has led me to step back and re-evaluate, and I've decided that unless something really pisses me off, I'm going to refrain from the opinion pieces. At least for the time being.

Drafted Posts

Rather than leave my dear readers hanging (all three of you), however, I've decided to relate what I've had in the works for the past few weeks. (Months. Years?) I was working on a post about "gamer culture", which relates to the whole GamerGate thing specifically, because even before all of that, I could see what a morass of insanity it all is. For a taste of topics I wanted to discuss, I had written down...

• "Your game should be free." Gamer entitlement in the post-F2P world, including useless petitions to sway a developer or publisher's decision.
• Developer harassment. This would focus on "major" controversies like Phil Fish being driven from the Internet (temporarily), and the Call of Duty developers being threatened for changing stats on virtual firearms. There would also be a focus on sites like Popular Science removing their comment sections to combat widespread vitriol.
• Player harassment. This section would be more about how gamers treat each other, primarily in an at-least semi-anonymous setting. Examples and references would include the XBox One's policy changes regarding harassment, what Jenny Haniver of Not in the Kitchen Anymore has had to endure, and a trend where adults intentionally grief younger players in games like Minecraft for YouTube views.
• Finally, I would look at anonymity as a whole, and how it seemingly enables the worst in people while contrarily emboldening others to continue to speak out when knowledge of their identity would put them in harm's way.

I also had a post about the "death of the used games industry", but since Gamestop has been an undead chain for almost as long as FYE now, I don't really see the point. I'm seeing more and more used video game stores, and while they tend to pop in and out of existence more often than the Higgs-Boson particle, I don't see them going away entirely. I'm one of those "support your local business" types, and since you can get any obscure title you want from the Internet these days, I don't see as much of an issue in chains like Gamestop disappearing as I used to. I was also going to focus on how console manufacturers seem to be taking on ill-fated concepts like single-registrant game titles, but even that has changed since I first drafted that post.

I had another post about how religion, gun culture, and gaming are intertwined here in America (something that was going to be my magnum opus of sorts), but I just don't have the motivation. I guess I could summarize it, but it's too complicated an issue. Besides pointing out that gun lobbies have too much say in our politics, and that "patriots" have a completely stupid view of what the 2nd Amendment means (and fail to realize that Amendments are meant to be amended), I wanted to talk about how game publishers are getting too chummy with gun manufacturers. While I believe there is effectively zero evidence that playing violent video games causes one to become violent themselves when they otherwise would not be, I still believe that endorsing companies that make firearms sets a dangerous precedent and reflects very badly on the games industry.

Here, have the links I collected while doing research. Note that there is no context associated with these, as many I collected for interesting side-notes or to remind me to research other related topics as much as anything.

• The Epidemiology Of Gun Violence: Race, Region And Policy
• Some Gun Control Opponents Cite Fear Of Government Tyranny
• The 4 Most Meaningless Arguments Against Gun Control (Yes, I link to Cracked articles. Judge me all you want, but I don't cite them as gospel.)
• 5 Mind-Blowing Facts Nobody Told You About Guns
• The Truth About Guns and Video Games
• The School Shooting That Didn’t Change My Liberal, Pro-Gun Childhood
• Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner
• In Defense of Violent Video Games
• Research: Frequent Exposure to Violent Games May Have 'Desensitizing Effect'
• Opinion: Battlefield 4 totally eclipses the heart
• Hotline Miami Devs Reconsidering Sexual Assault Scene
• On Self Defense, by Jason Rohrer
• Wikipedia: Jason Rohrer
• On Why I Will Never Play The Castle Doctrine
• The strange, sad anxiety of Jason Rohrer's The Castle Doctrine
• I read a fascinating/disturbing article on Kotaku recently...
• Ed -- A Petition For Stronger Gun Laws

TL;DR

Recent despicable trends in the gaming community at large have turned me off to pursuing my original direction for this blog. In addition, since "Google it" will often lead you to people who are much better at articulating complex subjects than I am these days, I feel little compunction to carry on as I have. Skepticism and video games, and combining the two, will always interest me. I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had to express myself, particularly when partnering with Gamers Against Bigotry. But objectivity and critical thinking are even less appreciated now than when the Internet was young, and there is so much unnecessary drama intertwined with anything relating to video games these days, to the point that I am entirely sapped of motivation for tossing in my meager two cents.

I've even taken my personal aspirations a different direction. You may know that I consider myself an indie developer, and while I've primarily kept my projects to myself, I did desire to become known for my work. Given how many of the indie developers I had previously looked to for inspiration have reacted to the GamerGate debacle, I've decided to keep my game development work to myself. I've been told before that being a known person is going to make you a target for harassment, especially in games development, and that I should just deal with it, but I've never agreed with that; but when I see the people who I thought could become a support network when facing such harassment turn into equally horrid beasts, I lose my appetite. Who am I in the games industry? Less than a nobody, I imagine. So I shall remain.

Instead, I will focus my writing energies on my greatest passion: entomology. I'll continue posting video game related content, like reviews, but future posts will largely cover interesting six-or-more-legged creatures I find or learn about. There's little drama there, only science and wonder, and that suits me fine. I'll never stop calling out bullshit (homeopathy, faith healing, "quantum" whatever, hypocrisy, myths, etc.) when I see it, so I may post about such things in the future, but for now I'm going to give it a rest.