Abstract
This chapter is intended to provide a detailed, chronological outline of how the Gamergate movement unfolded, including the events and discourse that preceded it. To begin, it discusses existing gender discourse within the gaming community, including harassment in online gaming, the representation of women in games, and the masculine nature of videogames and technology. It then recounts key events from within the games community that led up to and informed Gamergate, before moving on to an overview of the harassment and discourse that characterised Gamergate itself. This chapter explains how, despite a carefully constructed narrative to the contrary, Gamergate was intentionally orchestrated as a front to attack women within the games community. Rather than being a quest for ‘ethics in games journalism’ as asserted, Gamergate instead seemed to stem from anxieties that women and minorities were being ‘pandered to’ by the games industry, the result of which was (or would be) the ruination of videogames.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, in ‘beat ‘em up’ games the player selects one character to fight against another, who is played by either another player or by the computer/games console. Because of this core gameplay mechanic, the female characters have to be strong enough to feasibly best their male counterparts.
- 2.
‘Available’ is perhaps a dubious choice of term in this context; though it is certainly possible in a myriad of games for the female characters to be ‘attained’ (notably in roleplaying games with a dating sim or romantic element, or in pornographic Hentai/Eroge games), this is not the case in all games. Regardless, female characters in other games do not (generally) pose a direct rejection, which maintains the fantasy of availability to the desiring player.
- 3.
The name Fat, Ugly or Slutty? refers to some of the common insults levied towards female gamers, similar to the use of ‘slut’ in ‘SlutWalk’.
- 4.
As with any media effects study, potential additional factors should be considered; for instance, that men prone to harassment may actively seek out games that objectify women.
- 5.
There is no obligation for a woman to create a female avatar (nor a man to create a male avatar), instead they may choose to select a male avatar, or if it is available, a non-gendered avatar (e.g. an animal or a robot).
- 6.
“While we thought this was a fun, harmless comment poking fun at the fact that hack-a-thons are typically male-dominated, others were offended. That was not our intention and thus we changed it” (source since removed, quote derived from personal copy).
- 7.
This was not the first time the Hitman franchise utilised sexualised images of brutalised women in its marketing; the advertising for the 2006 Hitman: Blood Money included a poster of a beautiful woman in lingerie, with a bullet-wound to her forehead. The tagline for the poster was ‘beautifully executed’.
- 8.
As Kazemi noted in his tweet on the subject, his tenure on the board was due to expire in three days, making his retirement more of a symbolic gesture (Kazemi 2013).
- 9.
It should be noted that, although far less common, this manner of vitriolic response is not exclusively directed towards women in the games industry; a month prior to Hepler’s resignation, design director David Vonderhaar received death threats for minor mechanical changes to Call of Duty: Black Ops II. In terms of gender, the attacks towards Hepler and Vonderhaar can primarily be distinguished by their use of language, the manner of the attacks, and the relative difference in threshold to instigate such a response (Game Central 2013b).
- 10.
Steam is a popular digital distribution platform. Indie developers are able to add their games to the platform through the ‘Greenlight’ service, where they submit their games for approval, and those garnering enough user votes are added.
- 11.
Sarkeesian’s award seemingly opened the floodgate for more female winners; the following year, the award was given to Brenda Romero; the year after, to experimental game designer and professor Tracy Fullerton; and three years later, to Kate Edwards, executive director of ‘Global Game Jam’.
- 12.
In the final version of the game, all faces appeared the same.
- 13.
An ‘idle animation’ refers to the pose/action a character adopts or undertakes when the player has not moved them for a set period of time.
- 14.
- 15.
Much as how feminism took on negative connotations due to the backlash against it (Mendes 2015), ‘SJW’ (Social Justice Warrior) has also been reconfigured as an insult towards people who argue against sexism/racism/homophobia and so forth. By presenting ‘feminist’ and ‘SJW’ as negative labels, the intent is to discourage people from choosing to identify as such.
- 16.
Although the games industry certainly suffers from issues of journalistic ethics (e.g. games companies ‘blacklisting’ critics who negatively review their games), the majority of the discourse did not pertain to these issues. Instead, for example, ‘censorship by SJWs’ was presented as a more pressing issue.
- 17.
4chan has a multitude of distinct message boards and IRC (internet relay chat) channels/chatrooms. The majority of the discussion that Quinn collated came from the videogaming board (/v/) and from several chatrooms specifically set up to discuss Gamergate/The Zoe Post/Quinn.
- 18.
Gjoni’s posts were seemingly a springboard for this, rather than being part of a grand plan. Gjoni was, however, shown to have participated in some of 4chan’s discussions after Gamergate began.
- 19.
Although Gjoni stated that he did not condone the harassment towards Quinn, he also said that if given the opportunity to change the past, he would still make the post, because it was “for the best” (Bernstein 2014).
- 20.
Cernovich had previously written many pro-Gamergate tweets, expressed outrage that Gjoni lost the initial case, and stated that he intended to have Quinn investigated by a private investigator (Cernovich 2014).
- 21.
Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan is a prominent FeMRA, primarily known for her YouTube channel and her membership to the ‘Honey Badger Brigade’, a FeMRA group who were removed from Calgary Expo (a comic and entertainment convention) for selling MRA and pro-Gamergate merchandise (counter to what they told the expo they would be selling). Following their ejection from the event, Straughan raised $30,000 in donations towards suing Calgary Expo for their removal. In 2018, a judge ruled in favour of Calgary Expo.
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O’Donnell, J. (2022). Gamers and Gamergate. In: Gamergate and Anti-Feminism in the Digital Age. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14057-0_3
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