Gamers Are Going to Have to Step Up

I really hate launching battlecries like this… I really do… but at this point, I believe honestly and completely it is within the best interest of gamers in general that we we take as much direct control of the games we get our hands on as we can. The reason for this is we are officially dealing with a blocklist run by the I.nternational G.ame D.eveloper A.association, of which there is serious concern will be used as a black-list, as previously threatened by their founder, for what game devs will not get any coverage, leaving their games unknown and their livelihoods threatened. This is obviously preventing people within the industry from feeling safe to speak their minds on the issue. Simply put this situation in unacceptable, and it’s time we detooth it.

As you know, I am personally a supporter of #Gamergate, and I have stated in a previous article exactly why I took this position. My stance has not only remained the same since I wrote that article, but I still believe this is a battle that can only be won. At it’s core it’s not the online twitter-fighting that makes up this conflict, but the direct contact with the advertisers of these websites who declared their core audience dead and the willingness to prove them right since the dead don’t click.

But over this core, something far more ugly and slandering has been in full steam over the past few months. I couldn’t tell you if certain people smelled opportunity to play the victim and their followers rallied or if certain personalities who wrote the “gamers are dead” articles were simply among the right crowd, but #Gamergate has, as I’m sure many of you know, been accused continuously of being a hate-group who’s whole goal is to keep women out of gaming. This accusation flies in the face of literally every piece of evidence I have personally seen as a lurker in the the hashtag since this blew up… but it changes nothing. The S.ocial J.ustice W.arriors of the web have decided that if you support #Gamergate, you hate women.

I suppose at this point we should all be saying “yeah, so?” I mean after all, this mindset has been pouring out of activists who think they are doing amazing things but only pissing off everyone for about the last decade (the last really public time being the collapse of Occupy Wall Street, which agree or dissagree with it, you can not deny it imploded when what mattered wasn’t the goals but who was most oppressed so they could speak the most). But that said, they have pushed their way to be the main opposition in the public argument around #Gamergate and trying to make the discussion about them instead. This has largely only divided the gaming community into two polarized groups: one focused on getting the media coverage they want to happen in gaming while the other continually pushes the argument that women are being oppressed and the fact that this is about gaming journalism instead of women makes you sexist. (Yes, I have personally had that very argument… it ended quickly as… let’s just say I know how hijacking a thread works thanks to a few people I know, and I wasn’t letting it happen.)

But with this as the backdrop that has now existed for a few months on it’s own, we have something new going on. The SJWs have finally gotten fed up and are advertising a master blocklist as their answer, in essence giving themselves an echo chamber through which to win the argument on their own AND BRAGGING ABOUT THE FACT THAT THEY CAN ONLY WIN WHEN THE OTHER SIDE HAS NO SAY. I’m ok with this as it means less of the assholes who’s total arguing still is to yell louder to deal with myself. BUT game developers who have in the past had to rely on game journalists (who are included in those bragging often enough) have been getting nervous that this list and others like it will become black-lists if they dare show support for clarity in the reporting their games get, and with no other real ways to get word about their games out, this directly put’s their job and ability to put food on the table at risk.

And today on the Gamergate forum thread of Gametrailers, I was made aware of a blocklist (possibly the mast one) setup by the I.nternational G.ame D.evelopers A.ssociation in which their own chairman was marked as a “harasser to be blocked.” While hilarious, it shows how overzealous these people are since the the twitter posts he was blocked for are as follows:

@Geordie_Tait I just heard you say in the @Kingofpol interview that everybody who are pro #GamerGate should be sent to Nazi gas chambers.

@Geordie_Tait I don’t take a public stance regarding #Gamergate but as chairman of @IDGA_PuertoRico I have to denouce what you just said.

It appears the reason he was added was the name @Kingofpol, as people are arguing that even LISTENING TO HIM as a gamergate supporter is valid enough to add him to the list, despite the fact that they do not know what was said. I, however, was listening live and that was not an exaggerated description of Georgie’s stance. In fact it was so bad my jaw was literally hung open while listening LIVE at my desk at work. If you don’t believe me and have a few hours to kill, the entire interview is stored here. Click to see the sheer hate Mr. Rosario was speaking up against for yourself in it’s entire several hour length. If you want to see the rant that sparked this on facebook, you can see that here as well. Suffice it to say, I support Mr. Rosario’s decision.

But to bring this back to the original point, if the guys keeping this list are serious and insane enough to block one of the top guys in their organization for CONDEMMING THE OK OF GASSING EVERYONE WHO DISSAGREES WITH THEM, they may just be serious and insane enough to make it a future blacklist for the devs who are pro-gamergate, and frankly we need to stop that.

But how? Well on PC we have a few very awesome tools to do just that. It may be time for Gamergate to return en-mass to Steam’s Greenlight pages and I encourage EVERYONE to do that. Please note, this is not a “they are pro-gamergate, show interest in everything they do” request. It isn’t, as thay would destroy the point of Greenlight. What I’m asking is for you PC Gamers out there be more active in greenlight and outright IGNORE the dev’s possition in this mess. If everyone in the movement took a full list of 10 games maybe once a week, we could put a massive dent in that blacklist’s power as we, the gamers, took over in what gets released on arguably the biggest PC distributor and what does not. Add this to using the curator tools to the fullest and this would be a major step in the right direction. We should also contact other distributors we use and enjoy about games we find this way and genuinely like, as well as write to ask if others could try to follow Steam’s example. Yes, this is opening the door for trolls, but we have to take that risk. When the major ways we are shown new and upcoming games are ready to create blacklists and add people to them based on speaking up to CONDEMN the endorsement of gassing everyone on the opposite side of an internet argument, we need an alternate answer.

I would also recommend our console gamer friends email the big three console makers to ask for a similar window. True, the big publishers like EA and Activision do not need this kind of support, but with the consoles moving into the indie scene, such a window would be useful there as well.

Sources:

• Gametrailers forum: The ‘'Gamergate” thread.
• Geordie Tait’s facebook page
• Silorator’s Twitter page
• KingOfPol’s Hitbox interview with Geordie Tait