Gamergate (harassment campaign)
Gamergate or GamerGate (GG)[1] was a loosely organized misogynistic online harassment campaign and a right-wing backlash against feminism, diversity, and progressivism in video game culture.[2][3][4] It was conducted using the hashtag "#Gamergate" primarily in 2014 and 2015.[1][5][6][7] Gamergate targeted women in the video game industry, most notably feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian and video game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu.[8][9][10][11][12]
"GamerGate" redirects here. For other uses, see Gamergate (disambiguation).Gamergate
August 2014 – 2015
Online harassment campaign
Zoë Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and others
Internet trolls, particularly from 4chan, Internet Relay Chat, and 8chan
FBI investigation
Gamergate began with an August 2014 blog entry called "The Zoe Post" by Quinn's ex-boyfriend, which falsely insinuated that Quinn had received a favorable review because of their sexual relationship with a games journalist.[13] The blog post was spread to 4chan, where many users had previously disparaged Quinn's work. This led to a campaign of harassment against Quinn, coordinated through anonymous message boards such as 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit.[14][15] The harassment campaign expanded to target Sarkeesian, Wu, and others who defended Quinn, and included doxing, rape threats, and death threats.[16][17][18]
Gamergate proponents ("Gamergaters") claimed to be promoting ethics in video game journalism and protecting the "gamer" identity in opposition to "political correctness"[19][20][21][22] and the perceived influence of feminism and so-called "social justice warriors" on video game culture.[3][23] Proponents alleged there was a conspiracy between journalists and video game developers to focus on progressive social issues such as gender equality and sexism.[24][25][26] Such claims have been widely dismissed as trivial, baseless, or unrelated to actual issues of ethics in gaming and journalism.[27][28][29] Several commentators in the mass media dismissed the ethics complaints as a deliberate cover for the ongoing harassment of Quinn and other women.[30][31] Gamergaters frequently denied any such harassment took place, falsely claiming it to be manufactured by the victims.[32][33]
Gamergate has been described as a culture war over cultural diversification, artistic recognition, feminism in video games, social criticism in video games, and the social identity of gamers.[27][34][35][36] Supporters stated that it was a social movement. However, as a movement Gamergate had no clearly defined goals, coherent message, or official leaders, making it difficult to define.[37][38][24] Gamergate led figures both inside and outside the gaming industry to focus on methods of addressing online harassment, ways to minimize harm, and prevent similar events.[39][40][41][42] Gamergate has been viewed as contributing to the alt-right and other right-wing movements.[43][44]
History
Zoë Quinn and Depression Quest
In 2013, Zoë Quinn, an independent game developer, released Depression Quest, a text-focused game designed to convey the experience of depression through a series of fictional scenarios,[45][19] based in part on Quinn's own experience with the illness.[46][47] The game received positive reviews in the gaming media and from mental health professionals, but faced backlash online from gamers who disliked its departure from typical game formats emphasizing violence and skill[20][48][49] and who opposed "political" intrusions into gamer culture.[48] Quinn was subjected to several months of harassment after its release,[16][25][17][50] including rape and death threats.[19][20] Quinn documented the harassment they[a] received and spoke openly to the media about it, which led to more pronounced abuse against them such as the posting of their home address online.[9] They cancelled future public appearances and ultimately fled their house out of fear for their safety.[47][52][53][54]
Demographics
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.[27]
Katherine Cross, a sociologist, game critic and target of harassment from Gamergate, noted that "For a long time, Gamergate adamantly resisted that [far right] characterization", adding that "They said that notions that they were conservatives were slander and dismissed them. They posted straw polls that they've taken in KiA that demonstrate this. I've said time and time again that that largely means nothing."[43] Vice News noted that "The obvious problem here is that th[ese are] unscientific internet poll[s], which can be easily gamed by a community that often games polls." and that "the threads on [r/KotakuinAction] tell a different story. On February 8, for example, all the off-topic threads had a clear, far-right bent, claiming that Facebook is censoring crimes committed by immigrants, complaining about college professors who criticize Trump, and more. In the eyes of Gamergaters fighting against 'political correctness' doesn't necessarily conflict with liberal politics, but I also couldn't find any threads that could be construed as liberal."[43] Vice News also noted that "while the majority of Gamergaters resent the affiliation [of alt-right], many of the movement's leading figures, who were right wing pundits before Gamergate, have graduated from rallying against political correctness in games to supporting Trump and the alt-right.", including Mike Cernovich and Milo Yiannopoulos.[43]
Purpose and goals
The most active Gamergate supporters or "Gamergaters"[21][158] said that Gamergate was a movement for ethics in games journalism, for protecting the "gamer" identity, and for opposing "political correctness" in video games and that any harassment of women was done by others not affiliated with Gamergate.[19][20][21][22] They argued that the close relationships between journalists and developers demonstrated a conspiracy among reviewers to focus on progressive social issues.[25][24][26] These conspiracy theories particularly focused on the positive reception to games such as Depression Quest and Gone Home, which feature unconventional gameplay and stories with social implications.[159][160][161]
Observers in the media have largely rejected these claims as baseless and malicious. Chris Ip of the Columbia Journalism Review wrote that "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".[27] Writing in Vox, Emily VanDerWerff said that "[e]very single question of journalistic ethics Gamergate has brought up has either been debunked or dealt with".[28] According to Leigh Alexander, then editor-at-large of Game Developer, the ethics concerns were a conspiracy theory, albeit a sincere one; Alexander writes 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.[29] Ars Technica, Vox, and Wired, among others, stated that discussions of gender equality, sexism and other social issues in game reviews present no ethical conflict.[73][115][119][28][162][163]
Several writers who attempted to understand Gamergate's motivations concluded that, rather than relating to purported issues with gaming journalism ethics, Gamergate represented an effort to suppress opposing views.[27][164][165][166] Salter writes that "mass media had a decisive role in evaluating the competing claims of Gamergate and its critics, and ultimately dismissing Gamergate as a misogynist abuse campaign".[167] Screenshots of 4chan boards, collected and published by Quinn, suggested that complaints about ethics in games journalism were invented post hoc by Gamergaters to distract critics from their ongoing abuse of Quinn.[168][73] Jay Hathaway wrote at Gawker that this strategy emerged once Gamergaters found that harassing Quinn about their sexual history was unlikely to win the campaign support; according to Hathaway, IRC chat logs showed that "the [Gamergate] movement was focused on destroying Zoë Quinn first, reforming games reporting second".[169]
Other commentators argued that Gamergate had the potential to raise significant 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.[32][170][171] Visible support for Gamergate in the form of tweets, online videos, and blogs seldom involved discussion of ethics, but often featured misogynistic and/or racist commentary.[19] The targets were mainly female game developers, academics, and writers.[172]
Researchers at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University described Gamergate as a "vitriolic campaign against Quinn that quickly morph[ed] into a broader crusade against alleged corruption in games journalism" which involved considerable abuse and harassment of female developers and game critics.[166] Concerns have also been raised when juxtaposing the behavior of Gamergate supporters with their claimed message. 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."[163]
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".[119] Casey Johnston wrote for Ars Technica that, based on logs from the 4chan users who initially pushed Gamergate into the spotlight, the goal behind the hashtag campaign was to "perpetuate misogynistic attacks by wrapping them in a debate about ethics".[73] An academic analysis of a week's worth of public posts tagged with #Gamergate found that the issue publics involved were not "only or even primarily" concerned with ethics in gaming journalism.[173][174]
In an interview with Anita Sarkeesian in The Guardian, Jessica Valenti said that "the movement's much-mocked mantra, 'It's about ethics in journalism'" was seen by others as "a natural extension of sexist harassment and the fear of female encroachment on a traditionally male space". Sarkeesian asked, "if this 'movement' was about journalism, why wasn't it journalists who had to deal with a barrage of rape and death threats?".[175] Wu told The Boston Globe that the ethics claims were "a pretext" and described Gamergate as "an actual hate group ... they're upset and threatened by women who are being very outspoken about feminism".[176][177]
Gamergate has been criticized for focusing on women, especially female developers, while ignoring many large-scale journalistic ethics issues. Alex Goldman of NPR's On the Media criticized Gamergate for targeting female independent ("indie") developers rather than AAA games publishers, and said claims of unethical behavior by Quinn and Sarkeesian were unfounded.[170] 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.[162] Vox writer Emily 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.[178] Adi Robertson, of The Verge, commented on the long-standing ethical issues gaming journalism has dealt with, but that most Gamergate supporters did not seem interested in "addressing problems that don't directly relate to feminist criticism or the tiny indie games scene".[179]
Feminist Media Studies described Gamergate as "a convenient way for a loose coalition of frustrated geeks, misogynists, alt-righters, and trolls to coalesce around a common idea—that popular culture was 'overly concerned' with a particular kind of identity politics—even if their tactics and actual motivations for participating were varied."[180]
Gaming industry response
The harassment of Quinn, Sarkeesian, Wu, and others led prominent industry professionals to condemn the Gamergate attacks for damaging the video gaming community and the public perception of the industry.[235][236] Vanity Fair's Laura Parker stated that the Gamergate situation led those outside of the video game industry to be "flooded with evidence of the video-game community as a poisonous and unwelcoming place", furthering any negative views they may have had of video games.[237] 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.[34][192] Many in the industry saw the signatures "as proof that the people sending vicious attacks at Quinn and Sarkeesian weren't representative of the video game industry overall".[238] 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.[239] Frank herself received significant harassment for writing this article, and announced an intention to quit games journalism as a result.[171] Games designer Damion Schubert wrote that Gamergate was "an unprecedented catastrof**k [sic]", and that silencing critiques of games harms games developers by depriving them of feedback.[240] Several video game developers, journalists, and gamers from across various gender, racial, and social backgrounds adopted new Twitter hashtags, such as #INeedDiverseGames, #StopGamergate2014 and #GamersAgainstGamergate, to show solidarity with the people targeted by the harassment and their opposition to the reactionary messages from Gamergate supporters.[241][242]
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.[243] 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".[244] ESA president Mike Gallagher, speaking at the June 2015 Electronic Entertainment Expo, clarified that the ESA did not become more involved as they felt it was an argument that was outside their industry and their involvement would have been disruptive, but praised the efforts to counter harassment that will benefit the industry in the future.[245] 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.[246][247][248] CEOs of both the American and European branches of Sony Computer Entertainment, Shawn Layden and Jim Ryan respectively, said the harassment and bullying were absolutely horrific and that such inappropriate behavior would not be tolerated at Sony.[249][250] The Swedish Games Industry issued a statement denouncing the harassment and sexism from Gamergate supporters.[251] In 2016, Nintendo of America denounced Gamergate, calling it "an online hate campaign" and that "Nintendo firmly rejects the harassment of individuals in any way".[252]
Responses to Gamergate have encouraged the video game industry to review its treatment of women and minorities, and to make changes to support them.[253][254][255][256] 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".[257][258][259] Electronic Arts (EA) COO Peter Moore said the controversy made EA pay more attention to diversity and inclusion, telling Fortune "[i]f there's been any benefit to Gamergate, ... I think it just makes us think twice at times".[260] Speaking about Gamergate harassment to the Seattle Times, IGDA executive director Kate Edwards said, "Gaming culture has been pretty misogynistic for a long time now. There's ample evidence of that over and over again ... What we're finally seeing is that it became so egregious that now companies are starting to wake up and say, "We need to stop this. This has got to change."[261]
The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2015 included markedly more female protagonists in these new games, as well as more visible presence by women at the event. Some commentators characterized this as a response to Gamergate and a rejection of the misogynistic Gamergate harassment.[262][263]
The game Batman: Arkham Knight, released in 2015, references Gamergate with the hashtag #CrusaderGate, which the Riddler uses to unsuccessfully try to rally the Internet against Batman; bemoaning its failure, the Riddler describes those who use the hashtag as "idiotic and easily roused rabble".[264]
Representation in media
"Intimidation Game", an episode of the crime television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, portrays a fictionalized version of Gamergate, including a character whom some observers said resembled Sarkeesian and whose story seemed based on those of women subject to the harassment campaign.[265][266] The 2015 documentary film GTFO analyzed issues of sexism and harassment in video gaming. The film's director, Shannon Sun-Higginson, stated Gamergate was "a terrible, terrible thing, but it's actually symptomatic of a wider, cultural, systemic problem".[267][268] The Gamergate situation was covered as part of a larger topic of online harassment of women in the June 21, 2015, episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.[269] The impact of the Gamergate controversy on Brianna Wu was the subject of the March 16, 2016, episode of The Internet Ruined My Life.[270]
In October 2021, Mind Riot Entertainment announced that a fictional series based on Gamergate co-created and co-written by Wu and J. Brad Wilke was in production. The series will focus on the origins of the controversy through the lens of multiple, fictional people in the game industry such as executives, journalists, and indie developers and their subsequent reactions.[271][272] On March 8, 2022, it was announced that Norman Lear and Brent Miller will be executive producers.[273]
Reducing online harassment
In January 2015, Quinn and Alex Lifschitz created the Crash Override Network, a private group of experts who provide free support and counsel to 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.[39][40] Software developer Randi Harper founded a similar group, the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative, a non-profit organization that also seeks to provide aid to those harassed online.[274]
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, in recognition of her role in highlighting sexism in the video game community in the wake of the Gamergate controversy.[223][275][276] 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.[277]
An online abuse panel (itself the subject of controversy) at the 2016 SXSW festival said that there was no technological solution to the problem of harassment given human nature;[278] although policy changes have been made, the larger issue is more societal than platform-specific.[41][42] Referring to the discussion at SXSW in a speech for Women's History Month, then-U.S. President Barack Obama said that "We know that women gamers face harassment and stalking and threats of violence from other players. When they speak out about their experiences, they're attacked on Twitter and other social media outlets, even threatened in their homes."[279] Obama urged targets of harassment to speak out, praising the courage of those who had resisted online harassment. "And what's brought these issues to light is that there are a lot of women out there, especially young women, who are speaking out bravely about their experiences, even when they know they'll be attacked for it".[279][280]