Many such images exist, I’m quite fond of this one.

There are many different opinions as to why GamerGate started. Is it because of the so called Social Justice Warrior? Is it because of the creeping political agenda in gaming? Is it because of corruption of ideology? Well, it’s all those things really.

But not in the way people think.

They are important, to be sure, and they all need to be handled for those of us who support GamerGate (Though how they should be handled differs between different people). But that’s not really the main underlying issue involved here.

It’s about choice, or rather about the lack of choice the GamerGate people believe they have.

But before I continue, let’s have a quick recap of events.

GamerGate Past, Darkly

This is Vivian James, the 4chan Mascot created for this trouble.

• Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend, Eron Gironi, releases what is known as the Zoepost (The first post was on August the 16^th).
• This was spread to a few notable sites that have since taken the threads down or, in the case of 4chan, have been deleted as is common there as a story of a bitter breakup.
• MundaneMatt got a DMCA against his video requiring him to take it down. The video has since come back up after YouTube judged the video to not be in breach of the DMCA.
• This prompted the first InternetAristrocrat video which is cited, among other things, the fact that the DMCA took place, the fact that Zoey Doxxed or at least helped in the Doxxing and destruction of a pro-feminist group called The Fine Young Capitalists who were going to help 5 females with no programming experience make some games.
• Further allegations came out showing unhealthy relationships between some members of the gaming press and other people in a position to help her.
• This is where the timeline will differ depending on how you want to see it. I make no secret that I support GamerGate, so by all means take that as your warning now. From there we go to the silence/censorship of multiple areas, most notably Reddit for having just under 25,000 comments deleted in a single stroke.
• As the ruckus became larger and larger, people such as Jim Sterling, Boogie and Total Biscuit commented on the issue, of special note is that due to harassment for more or less neutral statements both Boogie and Total Biscuit got harassed. Evidence of the harassment can be found here and here.
• While GamerGate was gaining fuel by searching and finding an ever-increasing amount of support between various indie developers and those that are meant to write about them, including such people as Ben Kuchara and Phil Fish.
• What comes up next is a simultaneous 10 different articles from multiple articles, this perhaps the largest event that kicked off GamerGate as it got many people involved in the facts of the case that weren’t already involved.
• The creation of the tag #NotYourShield was created by Ninouh on twitter with the handle @Ninouh90 out there on the internet. The tweet can be found here. It was created to counter the accusation that all of GamerGate was a bunch of fat neck bearded white male virgins.
• From here, events spiral out. Articles from places like the New Yorker and the BBC show the scope reaching outside of gaming, though the majority of articles generally miss the point of #GamerGate. Some people, including Jenn Frank have left their jobs (Of which many Gamers feel sorry to hear her go, but it was of her own choice (not that it excuses the harassment she got)).
• New codes of conduct for the Escapist and its sister publications were created.

That’s more or less the end of any major events in truth, the tag is continuing to this day (as of the 13/09/14) and more hit pieces come out. This is however just the most basic of time lines, I encourage you to research more if you’re interested as there are so many different events going on involved in the tag it’s hard to keep clear. At present however, things look a bit more optimistic with a few indie devs coming out in support, and showcasing the active presence of blacklists and the like.

Choice and Consequence

Distasteful, irrational, but showing genuine feeling. Such lists are becoming common as thoughts turn to boycotts.

That concludes the portion of this article devoted to the facts, at least how a pro-GamerGate person sees it. Now let’s address the original point, what is the underlying cause of all these issues popping up?

There are multiple arguments, but they range from stating it’s due to corruption in media, a lack of journalistic ethics, improper relationships between developers and those that report on them. They also include such arguments such as removing politics from gaming, getting rid of the so-called Social Justice Warriors and wanting gaming to be about games again.

Another possibility, though I don’t believe it myself, is that it comes from simple misogyny on a grand scale, cribbing off the ethics routine to gain a huge amount of followers to assist in a campaign of harassment and terror.

In truth, it’s not really any of these things. It’s about choice. Both sides are fighting for choice.

See, at the heart of it most GamerGate people aren’t inherently against the concepts espoused by those they see as their enemies, a sad amount of factionalism has come into the debate but that was inevitable in some respects when it was made clear there could be no agreement. This is slightly beside the point however; the point is that GamerGate people aren’t against the concept of equality and fairness.

In truth, how can anyone really be so?

Gaming is honestly the great equaliser, it matters not your position, what matters is skill. The community has shown such things with its disdain for Pay to Win games, even now the Free to Play market is viewed with distrust because of how easy it is to fall into the former.

Gamers do care about fairness they almost always have done so.

However, there are few ideals that a lot of Gamers hold close to their heart as well, and one of them is choice. We’ve got a slight fascination with choice, you can see it in how a lot of RPGs, particularly Western RPGs , focus on giving you choice. Sure, it’s an illusion and we’re all well aware of it but if you ask someone if they want choice or not, they’ll take the choice for themselves.

This is important for GamerGate because choice as I and many others like me perceive, has been taken away from us. I’m not going to lie; I have very little interest in Social Issues. I try to keep up with them when I can, but I’m not going to weep if I don’t keep up with them.

I imagine a lot of Gamers are like me, these issues are relevant to our lives but they don’t directly care about them. They just want to get on with life and they don’t begrudge those that do want to get interested in these issues. That’s their choice.

However what has happened is a narrative has been created, choice has been slowly taken away from Gamers. We have to listen to social issues in gaming, important issues to be sure, but we’re being forced to listen to them.

And a lot of us don’t like that. We don’t want something forced down our throats, especially when the people doing so hold a monopoly on access to the people we want to get information from. Gamers have always chafed at this, before you believe it to be a new issue. It was not uncommon for someone to say, “What does this have to do with gaming?”

The other side of the issue is also about choice, though not that they recognise it for that.

They want to discuss these issues; they want to uplift gaming away from its “Misogynistic” roots. They want to see the Indies take over the Triple A as the places to go for good gaming experiences. More importantly, they want others to care as well; otherwise they won’t be able to get what they want.

And what they want isn’t exactly objectionable. It would be lovely to see a more balanced industry that is less seeped in insults. Except we don’t want to be forced to listen to how they’d do it.

That’s what #GamerGate is; its two group’s choices going up against each other because they both want to inhabit the same space.

Conclusions and Summations

The Dark Portal is Open, Only Time Can Tell if Something Good Will Come From It.

The heart of the problem with GamerGate is not the questions of corruption, although they are themselves crucial to the campaign, nor is it any accusations of Misogyny or sexism. Its two groups choices smashing up against each other violently. The choices are, in their current format, mutually exclusive, which explains why there has been no compromise between either side.

They can’t.

It’s one group’s choice or the other, and at present it’s impossible which vision will come up and win. However, it does not have to be like this, there is, as the old trope goes, a third way.

It’s not even one that’s particularly hard to carry out or even unacceptable to a good majority of those that support GamerGate.  Acknowledge that at the very least a large minority of your consumer base as news sites wants stricter standards. Put aside the ethical issues at hand, put aside the hand waving that isn’t actually terribly good at hand waving the issue and think of it as a purely business move.

A good portion of your readership wants this. It will do very little to affect the portions of your readership, if anything they might even benefit from it unintentionally. There can only be one reason that you don’t wish to acknowledge some form of change, because you personally don’t wish to do so.

Put that aside, for a minute, and think that it’s not hard to accommodate the people who want a focus on social issues and those that want pure gaming news. New websites come up all the time, and with name recognition and staff that clearly already desire to speak more on the issue, you won’t lack for people to hire on this new venture.

Once that is done, merely consent to the more reasonable demands that GamerGate is making of you. Additional transparency, disclosure and clarity won’t kill you. And boom, you’re done.

GamerGate gets some, if not all of what it wants. You get to keep talking about social issues, but now have no reason to consent to the attitude of “It’s just games” within these new publications. Everyone gets what they wanted. And we all go away happy.

The only thing stopping this from working, from stopping the fires from dying, is you.

That’s all. It’s just you. Get over yourselves and realise that the continuing battle does no-one any good. Based off how the traffic has more or less taken a nose dive and we’re still viewing your sites without giving you ad money. Or better yet, using other sites.

I’d say we’ve got less to lose than you. It’s time to realise this.