I currently work in a support role at an inclusive, public College in County Durham, England that is in the Top 20 bracket of Sixth Form in the country (Quite an achievement since most in the top 20 are rich private colleges) and I have performed the same role for other schools and Universities for nearly 20 years.

Gaming is a hobby of mine outside of my work. It is not my only hobby but it would be accurate to say it is my primary one.

My political affiliations are, well, none. That is to say that I am very distrustful of both the Left and the Right and I find that political parties to be nothing more than legalised Mafia organisations. I have been labelled an Anarchist as a result, however that would be inaccurate as I am agreeable with most of the structure of the British Government (House of Lords should be replaced with something else though!), I simply prefer to vote for a non-party individual to be my representative and hope one day that the House of Commons is filled with nothing but non-party representatives, although I'm willing to concede that it won’t be likely to happen within my lifetime.

I have also been likened to Conspiracy Theorists types that believe in the Illuminate and the New World Order (Not the Pro Wrestling faction) and that 9/11 was an inside job. In reality I have taken on their incredulity so much they think I am a C.I.A. “Psy Op“. An MI5 operative would be more believable since I am British but it goes to show how moronic they can be!

Anyway, that is enough introductions. I have a challenge to issue.

For the past year the Twitter hashtag GamerGate has been a significant talking point within the gaming world, if not necessarily aloud within the development and publishing part of the industry. Over 8 million tweets have been posted in the hashtag that was declared by its detractors that it would be over in a week, then a month and then it became just wishful thinking as they buried their heads in the sand, or at least they started to use blockbots!

Why the hashtag started is merely down to consumers being unable to raise their concerns about the unethical state of the industry’s media. When revelations came to light in the summer of 2014 that there was a conflict of interest between a reporter at Kotaku promoting a game without first, disclosing his financial support towards the game he was promoting (This earned his name being listed in the game’s credits), secondly not disclosing their close personal relationship, consumers had decided after years of suspicion of unethical behaviour in the gaming media that questions finally needed to be answered. They were instead met with censorship. Comment sections were being suppressed and forum threads deleted on a massive scale.

Consumers were left to turn to Twitter, YouTube and Chan Boards (Ones that would allow GamerGate discussions) to raise their questions and concerns. The actor Adam Baldwin was the first to use #GamerGate on Twitter while linking to one of the many videos being made at the time, talking about the gaming media’s unwillingness to tackle the accusations levelled at itself. While personally, I would have preferred a different name rather than using the clichéd suffix of having “Gate“ at the end of a scandal, you work with what you get and everyone else in the hashtag took to using it.

Rather than deal with the accusations and the evidence presented to them, the games media instead attempted the head in the sand technique by releasing the many “Gamers are Dead“ articles on the hope that they could emerge from the sand and be surrounded only by like-minded ideologues within a purpose made bubble, housing only the worthy (translated: privileged) few and keeping out the unclean “misogynists“ (translated: working class).

Over the following twelve months the narrative from the gaming media, which would infect the mainstream media, was that GamerGate was nothing more than an organised harassment campaign against women and other minorities trying to get into the male, patriarchal dominated video games industry simply because they were women and minorities. Unlike the significant number, if not the majority in the video game world of women and minorities that have already been in the industry, with great successes for the past 25 years that gamers have had no issues with at all!

What I have always found to be fascinating was the effort made to keep the narrative about GamerGate being a hate movement for this length of time. Proponents of Homeopathy and Geocentricism (Theory that the Earth is the absolute center of the Universe) are rightly mocked in academia and the media for their claims, largely in part because they are unwilling to offer evidence for their assertions or claims. Even if they do offer something they claim to be evidence, it is so faulty that it only serves to prove how spurious their claims are.

With opponents of GamerGate however, they have managed to go a whole year without ever being seriously held to account and prove the validity of their claims, albeit not that surprising given that they have the privilege of controlling the mechanisms for pushing the narrative. Disturbingly some on the Anti GamerGate side say without any irony that “Evidence is a patriarchal construct“ which does not help any attempts they might make to dissuade observers that their “Listen and Believe“ mantra is very much cult-like.

So here is where I finally put the challenge to opponents of GamerGate. Many will right now be shocked or “triggered“ to realise that a GamerGate sympathiser is in fact not stuck in a basement (They don’t really exist much here in the UK) but is in fact working in an educational establishment supporting the learning experience of young adults which I'm sure they find “problematic“.

Now as keen as they will be to call my employer and claim that I am every evil under the sun and demand I be fired ala Tim Hunt, I suggest they don’t for two reasons. First, I have already had two meetings with management over my support of GamerGate, they are supportive of my views.

This was done in preparation for meeting my constituent MP in July as I figured those who were Anti GamerGate then might try and harm my livelihood and yes you read correctly, I spoke to my MP about the demonisation of GamerGate supporters in the media after seeing two supporters of GamerGate claim on social media that they were going to attempt to take their own lives. The Anti side do not have exclusive access to Left Leaning, Female Politicians.

If the Anti side attempt to sully my name to my employers, the claims will either be ignored because they already know it is not true, or they will pass the complaint onto me in case I wish to invoke those infamous UK Defamation laws, or if the college believes their name is in danger of being besmirched they will make inquires on the same said laws or even possibly the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

Secondly, there will be no need to risk jail time in your attempt to destroy my livelihood because I am in fact going to gift you an open goal with my challenge if you can complete it. Based on Chris von Csefalvay’s statistical analysis, the best educated hypothesis is that GamerGate supporter’s numbers are rounded to be 100,000 people. For the Anti Gamergate statement to be true, that the majority of the hashtag for this whole year is nothing but harassing and doxing women, then 51,000 accounts on Twitter will have to be identified as doing nothing but harassing and doxing.

For perspective, Chris von Csefalvay came to a conclusion of 0.2% he believed was harassment only. That would be 200 accounts needed to be found to match that percentage, which of course is nowhere near the majority and I am sure that the opposition do not want to be likened to the sort of bigotry that says “Because this one Radical Islamist blew up a train, all Muslims are terrorists“!

However, if they can produced verifiable evidence of 51,000 Twitter accounts that have done nothing but harass and doxx, I will offer my resignation to my employer stating that I cannot realistically continue to be trusted to safeguard our students and for bringing down the reputation of the establishment as a result of supporting a hate group for a year.

There are some requirements to meet the 51,000 mark however. First, don’t just give me a list of account names from a Block Bot. That doesn't show me anything other than a list someone has decided to generate to help people with more burying heads in the sand. Plus considering that at one point Kentucky Fried Chicken ended up on a block list, without any reference to GamerGate made, that list’s trustworthiness is about zero!

For every name that you are putting on the list has to come with evidence of a section of tweets proving that the account is a GamerGate supporter and that they are mostly harassing or doxing people. Sorry, despite what may have been said recently at a UN Women’s conference, criticising someone making hypocritical statements, logical fallacies, lacking or refusing to provide evidence or citations for arguments or mocking statement/arguments made using sarcasm, parody or memes does not count as harassment in rationality let alone the law. Threats of physical harm counts as harassment.

Second, an account on the list will be disqualified if found that the account is in fact the common problem of a third party troll and I am referring the true definition of a troll here which is someone saying anything to rile up anyone and everyone, not someone who questions your assertions. If the account is only 6 months old maximum with less than 500 tweets, zero following count, low favourite numbers, that is a troll account made just to troll. If an account is found attacking both anti and pro GamerGate and anything else that is trending, that is also deemed a troll account and won’t count.

So there you have it Anti GamerGate, here is your chance to not only prove that the majority of GamerGate is actually harassment but you also get the chance to end the career of a supporter. Since I am what you call working to lower middle class, losing my job would mean I would become homeless and destitute within a month or two, which seems like a fitting punishment for someone promoting a hate group does it not?

Oh, you feel uncomfortable possibly making someone working class drop into poverty? Well if it makes you feel any better, you have never had any conscience or cared about that before! That is the point of all this though. I am willing to put my head on the block of the guillotine and I am daring you Anti GamerGate, Social (Media) Justice Warriors to pull the string. Because then you might finally realise and come to terms with what you are and the rest of the world can finally get to see who you really are.

Although I am sure that some of you will be quite content to do that while telling the rest of the “peasants“ watching that they can eat cake.

That was the beginning paragraph of the editorial called "Pound of Flesh" in issue 53 of Amiga Power magazine, just shy over 20 years ago in September 1995. It would be accurate to say that this editorial is only infamous for gamers in the UK save for a handful of Amiga enthusiasts overseas. Even then it will only be known for those of us that were in households that either chose to have an Amiga 500/600/1200 as their gaming machine, or in the case of myself, a household that couldn't make enough money to get into the console craze that Nintendo or Sega were offering at the time and had to settle for the option of getting a cheap Commodore machine where budget games could be bought for as little as £2.

However for those few of us old gaming fogies who were avid Amiga Power readers, their commentary in September 1995 has been coming back to our memories at this time , probably more so given that we are now over year of GamerGate happening.

The two page spread (Which you can view a scan of here) took a sarcastic tone to the subject of collusion and conflicts of interest, not as a way of dismissing the notion that there were issues between news outlets and publishers but simply because everything Amiga Power did was with a mocking tone. It was what made them popular with readers. They were rebels without a cause and openly, brazenly in fact, mocked and jabbed at everyone else in the Amiga community even their big sister publication Amiga Format, which was under the same publishing arm of Future Publications.

While reading a quote from the piece "after the meal, Binary Magician Interactive's PR guy Gary let me drive his Testarossa to the office. He's great, and we played the game for an hour while chatting about getting hammered together that night" it is obvious that the line was made for comedic effect and not to be taken too seriously as an actual example of what went on with reviews. With hindsight of the last 20 years with what we have since learnt about some the practices that have gone on between reviewers and publishers, there is an element of truth to AP's comedic statement.

In fact if you take selected moments of the article two decades on, you can match them with incidents that have been reported or at least speculated within the last decade.

This still remains one of the main talking points and concerns with consumers. How much influence is exerted on reporters and reviewers as a result of being "wined and dined" by publishers? William Usher talked about this three years ago in an article for Cinema Blend. John Walker wrote a blog about this subject in October 2012

If the words of former editor of Official Australian PlayStation 2 Magazine Richie Young are to be believed, one does not need to have to become close to a developer that an affair can happen. If you want sex in exchange for positive coverage, publishers have allegedly been willing to go that route!

"And it shall pass that the reviewer can't get off level one. And he shall not care for the game, or want to play it for more than 20 minutes. But lo, he shall be fearful of the software company dropping advertising and missing him off the free create of beer list at Christmas, and he shall tremble and quake mightily as all rival mags have given it a high score. So he shall give it a score low enough to dissuade potential buyers, yet high enough to pacify the software people. And that score shall be the NUMBER OF THE BEAST, and it shall be 73%."

The scoring of games has become such a messy debate that it is surprising that not many review magazines and websites have abandoned scoring games altogether. Putting aside the asinine reaction of the small set of readers who are offended that a game they place all their hopes and dreams on only getting 7 out 10 and not 9, the lack of trust in publications giving scores without any influence from game publishers has been greatly noticeable for a number of years now. Not to mention the inadvertently created horror that is Metacritic which has shown the complete disconnect between reviewers and consumers and much worse, led to the culture of developers struggling to gain employment because companies demand that they have a profile of games that score 90 or above on the website.

The most famous incident of impropriety between publishers and reviewers over the score of a game is still Jeff Gerstmann losing his job at Gamespot in 2007 following his review and average score awarded to Kane & Lynch Dead Men while Eidos was paying for game to be heavily advertised on Gamespots? website.

" These graphics would be remarkable enough on a PC 486DX, so they're truly astounding on a CD32' is a euphemism for The Amiga version's still three months away from completion, so we've played the PC version on a 486DX, even though it features texture mapping and gourard shading far beyond the capabilities of the Amiga and therefore gives a completely false impression of the game. But hey, we've got the much vaunted and meaningless exclusive" And you think we're making this up.

For the moment I would say that it would only be speculation that this still happens today. I have yet to see a review of a multi-platform game that did not disclose which version was used to review the game. I had some notes of allegations of this happening more recently on websites but those links turned up as smoke however do not construe that as me dismissing that it would ever happen. If anyone does have examples to offer, please post them in the comments section below, I will be happy to edit later.

Take more quotes from the article and you can likely think of a similar incident that has been reported or alleged within the last five to ten years. I would be easy to argue that it is cliched to use the phrase "The more that changes, the more things stay the same", however given what we have seen in the twenty years since AP's editorial is that it can't be considered cliched, if in fact it is proven to be true and accurate to say about the state of the gaming press.

The fact that we can look back two decades ago at this article and say today that the same things have been happening in the industry, solidifies the argument that GamerGate was not a sudden explosion from one moment of impropriety. It was the straw that broke the camel's back from twenty years or more of abuse by the media that was suppose to be advising and protecting the consumers. Amiga Power might have been able to find humour in it back in 1995. Today with the industry worth an estimated $80 Billion, consumers do not find it funny anymore.]]> 55LJJjRD4V7 Thu, 08 Oct 2015 09:02:00 +0000 https://novogamer.com/articles/special-comment-schrodingers-hate-group-the-pathetic-flailing-of-gamergates-opponents-5kP00jDgxL2 “Facts count. Conspiracy theories, usually the refuge of the bitter or dis-empowered, range from factually challenged to wildly hallucinogenic. Conspiracy theories are not harmless entertainment, or a laudable facet of the freedom of speech. Conspiracy theories do both overt and tacit harm. Dangerous when they deal with public health issues, at a minimum, almost all are insults to the integrity of thousands of hard-working and honest people. In the extreme, conspiracy theories slander entire races, nations, or cultures.“

Quote from K. Lee Lerner’s Social Issues Primary Sources Collection

In years of internet mud-slinging (because using the word “debate“ would be insulting to everyone’s intelligence) that I have taken part in, I now believe that out of all the cults that think cognitive dissonance is a positive trait, the opponents of the hashtag GamerGate (Anti GamerGate) are now at the top of the league.

Having had the displeasure of being had at by 9/11 Truthers, Creationists, Flat Earthers, Geocentrists, Homeopathy pushers, Anti Vaxers and others, I have been well versed in how much level of ignorance people are prepared to instill in themselves in order to protect their world view from being challenged. Like the others Anti GamerGate and by extension radical Third Wave Feminists and Social (Media) Justice Warrior types will not be swayed by evidence or proof that their assertions are without merit.

As Chuck Klosterman wrote in “I wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains“,

“And this, of course, is the central problem with conspiracy theorists√¢‚Ǩ≈†√¢‚Ǩ‚√¢‚Ǩ≈†once you inflexibly accept that something is a conspiracy, any contrary evidence has the paradoxical effect of making your case stronger. Every contradiction deepens the conspiracy.“

What sets Anti GamerGate apart from the rest however is that other proponents of conspiracy theories will at least make the effort to provide what they consider evidence to prove their hypothesis. Of course what they offer is usually terrible and does not stand up to any form of scrutiny, but at least they try and make the effort. Anti GamerGaters however have the unique standing of demanding to be taken seriously and with respect by not offering any evidence at all to prove their assertions. Their mantra of “Listen and Believe“ is more than a catchy saying on a presentation screen.

Some will try and offer what they call evidence by linking a “peer reviewed study“ (Usually not reviewed outside of the circles of the discredited subjects) or an online article from The Guardian (Which is usually just commentary with near infinite click loops to other commentary, not actual objective news) but is presented in a way that is no different than using the argument “The Bible exists, therefore it’s true!“.

That is a rare occurrence for Anti GamerGate though. Normally it is blasphemous to question Anti GamerGate to give evidence for their claims. In fact just even allowing anyone sympathetic to GamerGate’s concerns about journalism in the industry to discuss it at conventions has the opposition cry “Heresy!“

It won’t come as a surprise to me that some of Anti Gamergate will immediately see this and shout “LOL! Irony!“ and claim that #GamerGate itself is just a paranoid conspiracy theorist group. Granted you can find a handful that take the Frankfurt School Boogeyman far too seriously, but let’s take a moment to point out some basic truths.

Fact: Nathan Grayson did give positive coverage to Zoe Quinn’s Depression Quest game without disclosing that he funded the game to the point that he is named in the credits. Anti GamerGate like to use the word “review“ as a way to try and discredit GamerGate since there isn’t one but it is the Anti side that uses the word deceptively, while a handful on the GamerGate side occasionally uses the word mistakenly. Nathen and Zoe’s later affair is only relevant in that the revelation from Eron Gjoni’s Zoe Post was the led to ethical problems being found.

Fact: Collusion between journalists of different publications did take place via the GameJournoPros e-mail list and discussed matters such as blacklisting former Destructoid writer Allister Pinsof in 2013 and how to limit the discussions consumers were trying to have about the industry’s press following the Grayson revelations in August 2014.

Fact: GamerGate wasn’t a sudden flash reaction because of one woman. Concerns with gaming press practices were raised over the years, from the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle, the Jeff Gerstmann/Kane and Lynch incident, and as I covered in a retrospective, it was a point of discussion in Amiga Power 20 years ago. GamerGate was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back following the press’s unwillingness to discuss the concerns of consumers by scrubbing threads and banning users, forcing those concerned about the lack of standards in the gaming media to use a Twitter hashtag as their only forum for a while.

Fact: No arrests let alone charges have been made against anyone using the GamerGate hashtag or being a vocal supporter. For all the scare stories that GameGate is nothing but harassment and a hate group likened to ISIS, there has been no indication of any arrest made due to harassing messages made to anyone that bares the words GamerGate in the message. The only time the FBI has actively done anything publicly known is telling local Washington D.C. police to treat the bomb threat against GamerGate supporters at their meetup in May 2015 was credible and should be treated seriously.

Fact: While it cannot be questioned that prominent names that are opposed to GamerGate have received disgraceful and outright threatening messages, what has never been proven is that GamerGate is responsible for the majority of it let alone any of it. My first Special Comment here on NovoGamer was a challenge to Anti GamerGate to finally show the numbers needed to prove their assertions true. Considering all that has been written over a year of GamerGate existing, it should have been easy for them and I would right now be unemployed. I have not received data close to 200 accounts which would meet Chris von Csefalvay 0.2%. I have not even had data passed to me come to a double digit figure!

However whether it is hubris that prevents them from admitting they got the whole story of GamerGate wrong or they are ideologically driven to smear the movement because their faith demands it, GamerGate’s opposition will come up with some pathetic reasoning to highlight the “dangerous threat“ that is the hate group that never was.

Take Arthur Chu’s article on the Daily Beast claiming that GamerGate was responsible for the Veerender Jubbal photo-shopped image that made the rounds on social media following the 13th November Paris attacks. Cathy Young’s excellent piece counters the false narrative by highlighting the evidence internet diggers found after the weekend showing that the image was originally created in August and that both the creator of the image and the one spamming it were third party trolls.

Days after this was common knowledge however, Rich Stanton of Vice brazenly came out with a piece that doubled down on the notion that the shopped image was perpetrated by Gamergate as a whole because of one person that was clearly a GamerGate supporter based on the conspiracy theorist favorite trick of quote mining, while conveniently ignoring the evidence that other quotes would make the one spamming the image appear to be an Anti GamerGate supporter which would only confirm that it was likely third party trolls responsible for the whole situation.

Arthur Chu would then follow up with an article claiming that the recently successful Netfix show Jessica Jones was written specifically with GamerGate in mind and to highlight the terrible threat they are. The suggestion is made absurd given that as we have established no one has offered any credible evidence that GamerGate is as evil as they say, but in this specific case it is also rendered laughable given that the Marvel character that the show is based off was originally created back in 2001, 14 years before GamerGate began. This level of cretinous thinking gave rise to the GamerGate in jokes of supporters owning TARDISes.

There is irony here that can’t be overlooked. For all the articles from The Daily Beast, mostly from Arthur Chu, that claim that GamerGate has been responsible for doxxing innocent people without any shred of evidence, the site was recently condemned for putting out the personal information of someone that was falsely attributed to the recent San Bernardino shootings. As for Rich Stanton, unlike GamerGate, he has been found to use social media to issue threats of physical violence. Although I am sure he will probably take the cowardly defense of saying he was only joking around.

Huffington Post Canada recently posted a clear click-bait op ed “Women will save the gaming industry. Hear that GamerGate?“ Again no substance offered to back up the assertions that GamerGate is a women hating group other than simply “Because we say it is!“ A choice quote from Natalie Zina Walschots in the piece,

"The average Gater is a pretty sad and lonely human being who sees themselves as marginalized. They perceive something they love being maligned.“

This is an ideal example of the humorous projection that is exhibited by the Anti GamerGate crowd. This is where the claim that they have put on a big screen about whoever they are opposing is actually coming from their own flawed character. When you look into those on the Anti Gamergate side, with a few exceptions, they are mostly white, upper middle class if not so wealthy they enter the upper class level, living in selective areas of San Francisco, Seattle, Uptown New York, or Metropolitan London. The gap between their level of privilege and the oppression they claim to be stifled under is so wide you could build a bridge over the Grand Canyon with their intellectual dishonesty and still have enough road left to reach past the Arizona border.

Those complaining about the gaming industry’s and culture's “diversity problem“ should take a moment to finally do some self-reflection. Take a look at who you will find at a “Progressive“ gaming conference and compare to the crowd at a fighting game tournament held anywhere in world. Much like Winston Churchill warned of those that claimed to be Anti-Fascist turning out to be actually Fascist, those that claim to be Anti Exclusionary appear to be quite Exclusionary.

If you want a further example, take a look at a recent exchange on Twitter where Rhianna Pratchett who co-wrote the successful reboot of Tomb Raider and is a veteran of the games industry for over 10 years now, who has previously stated that those complaining about diversity are making mountains out of mole hills. So naturally a moronic Anti GamerGate male Social Media Justice Warrior who has no ties to the industry knows more than what Rhianna Pratchett does. The fact that he refers to her as an “Uncle Tom“ does not leave much room to wide interpretation.

Because actually it’s all about being supportive and inclusive of women in the industry!

The final bit of cognitive wackery displayed by an opponent of GamerGate I will highlight is another recent article by Alyssa Rosenberg at the Washington Post titled “Donald Trump is the Gamergate of Republican politics“

We are already at Stretch Armstrong levels of stretching here linking Donald Trump with a discussion about the ethical failings of gaming journalists. Keep in mind that the default auto speak of Anti #GamerGate is to say that GamerGaters are right wing. Not entirely surprising given that Anti #GamerGate for the most part are so far off to the (authoritarian or regressive) left that anyone else not with them comes across as right wing. Survey after survey that has been done however shows that the overwhelming majority of GamerGate are left libertarian.

It should not be dismissed that there are right wing libertarians within the movement and a number of them are pulling for Trump in the Republican race. Given his recent comments about wanting to suppress Internet Speech however, that small support that is there will be in danger of disappearing given GamerGate strongly promoting free speech and unrestricted internet. Most in GamerGate of course will be pulling for the Democrats with Bernie Sanders seeing significant support and some bemoaning the fact that Elizabeth Warren is not running in place of Hillary Clinton.

This thought is a very American-centric discussion and one of the aspects of GamerGate that its opponents continue to be ignorant about is the international support the movement has given that gaming is the biggest international entertainment industry at this time. So quite frankly suggesting that all of GamerGate is pulling for Trump is ludicrous not just because both entities do not align up on the political spectrum but also that a lot of Gamergate have no horse in the race, therefore don’t care much in the race because the race is in an entirely different nation.

While I can’t claim to speak for every British or European citizen I would take an educated guess that Trump will be getting little support first due to us Brits still not forgiving Trump for almost destroying a part of Scottish countryside to make a Golf Course, and secondly that whoever wins the US Presidency is meaningless. The message from us to them will be the same. Stop snooping in allied countries business!

Back to Alyssa Rosenberg’s article though. Again the names of noted Anti GamerGate personalities are name dropped as victims without any evidence provided that the majority of GamerGate was responsible. The kicker though comes with the “evidence“ presented of why GamerGate and Donald Trump are linked. She shows a Tweet of Trump giving a message of support to an account identified as a GamerGater supporter. That’s all. One Tweet, one account. Just one.

I’ll remind you of the numbers involved in GamerGate. Chris von Csefalvay’s analysis came up with 100,000 to 150,000 accounts supporting GamerGate and by the time the hashtag got to it’s first birthday it got to around 7.5 million Tweets posted. Alyssa gave one tweet to one account as evidence. Purveyors of religion at least make the effort to cite more than one passage from their alleged holy texts when trying to make an argument.

In closing I will say that it is entirely possible that those who have wrote denouncing GamerGate may not actually believe what they write but they do so only because of the belief it garners attention and clicks. However as I have suggested before, given that GamerGate supporters are big users of Ad Blockers and Internet Archives, the reality is that click bait articles will receive diminishing returns.

For those of the faithful that truly believe the existence of the GamerGate Devil spawn however, their pathetic arm flailing from ether being found with their hand in the cookie jar or simply crying at their increasing irrelevancy as alternative news sites and streaming media outlets increase in popularity simply highlights their hilarious ridiculous public spewings which of course leaves them open to nothing but abject mockery, which I’m sure they will continue and try to call it “targeted harassment“.

This is purely anecdotal, but having shown what GamerGate is about to various contacts from my near 20 years in the education sector who have been curious about the story, their reaction has been that they do not care too much about GamerGate’s grievances since it pertains to video games. However they have ether found the antics of Anti GamerGate to be a source of side splitting amusement and some suggesting that they would use some of their preposterous moments in Critical Thinking classes to show students what not to do as they progress further into their education, to some being concerned that for all Anti Gamergate’s incredulous ranting they are being taken seriously by some sections of the gaming industry and beyond.

It may still take a few years but like all tin foil hat wearers such as the 9/11 Truthers and the Anti Vaxers and all other groups who are based on weak foundations, Anti GamerGate types will fade into obscurity due to being unable to stand against the scrutiny of the Internet because for all the dark mess that is out there, it still does not diminish the bright ideal that the Internet is where religion and bad ideas go to die.

If you will indulge me for one more quote since we are in the midst of a new McCarthy era on steroids, from Edward R. Murrow,

“The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.“

\r

Good Night and Good Luck.

Transcript:

Good\r evening from County Durham in England, I’m Jodis Welch for\r NovoGamer.com and as promised, a special comment following the\r statements made by some in the gaming press in relation to the\r horrific massacre that took place in Orlando, Florida on Sunday 12th\r June.

I\r have held off for a week to do this first because of constant\r re-writing but also because I am of the depleting number of people\r that say that people should avoid politicising tragedies and that\r care should be used before speaking as shock that inevitably comes\r with terrible moments in our lives can make us do or say things that\r are out of character, or ill timed, or just flat out wrong.

However\r the decision on whether or not to respond had in the end been made\r for me because in the majority of cases we do not live in a world\r where people are able to contain themselves in times of crisis and do\r not have the mindfulness, or the empathy, to think before they blurt\r out nonsense either because their lives are shaped by their ideology\r and their ideology demands everything and everyone change to suit\r that specific ideology, or worse still, just doing it for the sake of\r getting as many damned clicks for that damned ad-sense revenue.

While\r I hope that I respond aware of the trappings of shock which I\r experienced not only in the shootings in Orlando but here in the UK\r later that week with the murder of Member of Parliament Jo Cox and a\r personal shock with news of the passing of a former work colleague in\r what appears to be a suicide, I trust myself that I am responding in\r good conscious since I can’t trust anyone else to respond,\r especially without injecting their own political leanings in order to\r try score points against their opposite number and I am certainly not\r doing this for financial incentives.

I’ve\r never been interested in betting on any horse in the ridiculous\r contests between Left and Right and I currently do not get paid for\r what is a side activity on Novogamer. If you happen to see an ad on\r Novogamer or hear one on Soundcloud, I have no control or say over\r that and I do not receive any money from them.

I\r respond this evening because the ideas of Jack Thompson, that we\r thought ceased following his disbarment in 2007, that not only\r threatened to remove harmless material from law abiding citizens but\r threatened the livelihood of game development staff is very much\r alive and well.

Mr.\r Thompson of course was not the first to demonise an entertainment\r medium as being responsible for evil perpetrated in the world. You\r can go back far in human history to find Puritans lamenting the mass\r public reading certain books. It is common knowledge that before he\r could entertain the audience with performances at The Globe Theater,\r the writings of William Shakespeare had to be vetted by authorities\r lest it contained content that could damage or disparage The Crown or\r more ridiculously, The Faith.

However\r it was the crusading antics of Fredric Wertham that started the trend\r of decades being associated with entertainment mediums being used as\r evidence of corrupting the populace, in particular, its youth. With\r Wertham and others in the 1950’s the blame was on comic books. In\r the 70’s music was attacked. The 80’s saw violent movies labeled\r as video nasties as well as the emerging popularity of table-top role\r playing games like Dungeons and Dragons erroneously touted as\r inspiring Satanism.

Video games however have bucked the trend as their demonisation has been\r rolling along for over two decades now. The claims that violent video\r games lead to acts of real life violence began in the early 90’s\r just as gaming was starting to become a mainstream hobby. This\r carried on until around the beginning of this current decade which\r then seamlessly morphed from the religious right positing that gaming\r causes violence to the equally zelotus left claiming gaming caused\r sexism and racism and as if the intention was to validate The\r Horseshoe Theory, they have now come full circle and have embraced\r the long since discredited notions of Jack Thompson and Keith Vaz\r here in the UK and others that violence with guns is perpetuated\r because shooting games exist.

It\r is no small irony that the gaming journalists and commentators that\r promote this theory have in recent years spent significant time and\r in one case, produced a monotone song of all things, to deny that\r they are anything like Mr. Thompson. Just as the irony is not lost\r that the same press, that did do it’s job of joining game\r developers and players in the debate against Mr. Thompson and Mr. Vaz\r and Joe Lieberman and Leland Yee are now attacking developers for\r creating such content and players enjoying said content.

The\r pearl clutching on Monday was first noticed with an indie developer.\r The creator of Braid, Jonathan Blow tweeted saying “The lesson from\r E3: Game studios are working very hard to build fantasies about how\r cool it is to be a mass murderer“. He would then invoke what I\r jokingly refer as Welch’s Law, complaining that after espousing his\r questionable statement on a public forum that the public responded\r using said platform to highlight that his statement was questionable.

To\r you Mr. Blow my question is, what are you credentials in psychology or\r sociology? Your academic history shows studies in Computer Science\r and Creative Writing which is more than relevant and suitable for\r your profession as a game developer. But where, sir, can you show\r superiority over the likes of Dr. Cheryl Olson or Dr. Lawrence Kutner\r or Professor Tanya Byron? Academics and researchers who have said,\r with the validation of their peers that there is no plausible,\r scientific link between violent video games and real life violence,\r that correlation still does not equate causation, 100% guaranteed\r every time.

And\r why should these same academics and other educators or just the\r public at large take you seriously when you act online, like a\r wailing child flailing their arms about because they aren’t getting\r their own way, because the majority are not interested in\r contemplating your quote, unquote question? It is true that academia\r and scientists are always open for questions being asked, for\r theories to be challenged on the premise that there could be a\r mistake in their interpretation or that new data needs to be tested\r and possibly integrated into a theory. However you would think there\r would be some level of understanding that the same academics and\r scientists find it annoying and tiresome that time and energy is\r wasted by ideologues drugging up old theories and notions that have\r long since been debunked.

Then\r came the headline editorials and the tweeting from the news arm of\r the industry. “It’s uncomfortable to be at E3 with all this gun\r championing following Orlando“

“How\r can EA and E3 sell violence after this tragedy?“ as if E3\r organisers, game publishers or developers were directly profiting\r from or were responsible for anything that happened in Orlando, or\r responsible for the attacks at Charlie Hebdo and wider Paris in 2015,\r or the Virginia Tech massacre, or the Columbine Shootings which saw\r Mr. Thompson’s rhetoric reach it’s peak in the early 2000’s..

Rather\r than repeat the previous question, as it is also relevant to these\r alleged journalists my next question is, Where in any product\r released by game companies give suggestions to players that being\r LBGT is a sin worthy of execution? Or that random people should be\r killed because of race, religion or sexual orientation? Can you\r really, with a straight face, point to a specific game or games that\r influence explicitly the exact insane justification multiple shooters\r come up with for carrying out their atrocities?

It\r is as if I really need to point it out, is a rhetorical question\r because no game exists that suggests to players that they should, for\r any reason kill, maim or rape other people in real life. Violent\r characters and situations have been created in all works of fiction\r for centries. It can be poorly written just as much as it could be\r brilliantly executed but in either case the vast majority of people\r that buy these stories know that it is merely fiction and that\r fiction is a completely different entity to reality.

You\r are aware of the difference between fiction and reality are you not?\r As I said the majority of people do and that is why to us the concept\r that by engaging in fiction we will act out the same in reality is\r ridiculous. I do know that some actually say with great certainty\r that you can not possibly separate fiction from reality and frankly\r it goes against any notion of sanity to the point where I have to\r suggest, without cynicism but sincerity seek professional help.

For\r some reason mental health is never brought up by the left or the\r right in these debates, save for a few exceptions. Maybe that is\r where the focus should be. Forget the scapegoating and forget trying\r to change the world and instead to use the effort to help the\r individual out of empathy, not fear. Help before harm. I accept that\r you cannot fully eradicate these event from ever happening but surely\r focusing on troubled individuals before their mind is too far gone to\r save them and others, is more productive than banning nasty material\r from the world around them.

\r Next\r question, why are you ignoring the obvious fact that gaming culture\r is not contained within a vacuum that covers the United States?\r Ignorantly the same shooters that you lament for apparently fueling\r gun culture in the US are also very popular internationally, because\r video games have been a global hobby for quite some time now, even in\r countries that have the gun laws that you wish the US would copy.

I\r can’t possibly speak for every gamer in the UK, let alone Europe\r but I can say with all likelihood of being accurate that European\r gamers are not en masse demanding legislators change our laws to\r match the US Constitution's second amendment because we just love\r Doom, Halo, Call of Duty, and Gears of War so much!

And\r please resist the urge to find a handful of gamers that do identify\r as right wing and do say that Europe should copy US gun laws and then\r claim they speak for all gamers. It’s a flawed method of argument\r that you have been guilty of for the last few years now and it only\r serves to highlight your incredulity and hubris as well as your\r hypocrisy since you, correctly have highlighted your opponents doing\r this in the past.

My\r next question is this, what were you expecting E3 and EA and everyone\r else to do exactly?

Were\r you expecting E3 to cancel Monday and demand everyone else in the\r country cancel other events planned and join in an impromptu national\r day of mourning and apologise for having events even planned? The\r truth is E3 organisers and publishers had obviously no way of\r foreseeing the massacre in Orlando occurring. EA didn’t\r intentionally pick out their shooters to display on Monday because\r “Well a shooting happened yesterday so seems like an ideal time to\r promote them!“ The games in question are already in development\r and are due out within the next year so they would have planned to\r show these games months in advance of E3 happening.

And\r really, no one would have canceled for two reasons. First doing so\r would only give credence to this asinine suggestion that game\r publishers are culpable in all these shootings or that it was somehow\r bad taste to show shooting games following Sunday. If EA was showing\r a game like Hatred, which specifically puts you in the role of a\r psychopathic killer committing mass murder on as many innocents as\r possible, then arguably the outrage would be justified and I think\r enough of us would agree in saying, “We don’t need to see this\r right now“, but that wasn’t the case of course. The games EA\r showed off involving guns was in battle situations where two sides\r were able to shoot back at each other. The situation in Orlando,\r horrifyingly, can’t be anywhere close to being equated the same.

Secondly,\r E3, EA and everyone else carried on as planned on Monday because it\r was the right thing to do! It’s not like the events of Orlando were\r ignored, the flags around E3 were flown at half mast and presenters\r on stages and on streams acknowledge the tragedy and paid tribute and\r then carried on, not out of cold hearted malice and not to pretend\r that the shooting didn’t happen but because getting on with the\r daily routine helps coping with one’s own shock and sadness along\r with with everyone else around you that very likely needs that help\r to cope too.

\r There\r is also the reason of not letting the perpetrators of these crimes\r achieve their goals. It is well established nowadays that acts of\r violence is only part of the sickening plans of those that enact\r terror, attempting to shock the rest of the populous enough that they\r stop doing what they do everyday to exacerbate that terror. Whether\r it is to hold everyone in fear of possible follow up attacks or to\r hurt the country economically or simply just out of the self centeredness of keeping the focus on the killer and what they have\r done. It is only a small victory by not allowing these killers the\r satisfaction of crawling into balls of fear but in terrible moments\r like this where there is very little in the way of victory to be\r found, you take what you can get.

The\r only acceptable reason to shut down E3 on Monday was if authorities\r claimed that they had enough credible intelligence that a similar or\r worse attack was likely to happen at the convention. No one would\r care about time, money or energy lost, making sure that they and\r their fellow humans were safe would be the only thing on anyone’s\r mind.

I\r suspect in the case of these supposed journalists however that they\r would be only thinking about saving their own skin because what\r should be considered from the comedy of errors articles last week is\r that the only reason these people are doing this, is to quench the\r thirst of their narcissism, their own ego. They couldn’t give a\r damn about about the victims in Florida, or those directly affected,\r or everyone trying to deal with the shock, it’s all about them.

“I\r don’t feel right about this, I demand this stops, why aren't you\r doing what I say? You disagree with me? How dare you, show some\r empathy, I’m right and you're wrong, can’t you see I’m trying\r to help you?“

I\r am grateful that E3 organisers and publishers did not give a moment’s\r thought to this megalomaniacal noise. As I’m sure many of you know\r even if you foolishly give in to the demands of these wailing\r children, it is never enough. You can imagine what the follow up\r editorials would be even if the industry had caved in and canceled\r all events on Monday.

“E3\r have canceled today’s events but let me tell why they should still\r hang their heads in shame for even thinking of going ahead with this.\r Forget panels and talks about upcoming games and how to get into the\r industry, put me and my friends on the panels and let us lecture you\r all on how removing all themes of violence will cause all real world\r violence to disappear and how you can financially contribute to my\r program which allows me to tell you how you can be a better person\r like I am!“

There\r would have been much bragging how they managed to stick it to those\r nasty capitalist board of directors and investors and sure, a\r cancellation of E3 on that Monday would have likely caused some stock\r values to drop noticeably but I doubt it would have been enough to\r really make those at the top feel it.

What\r about those that aren't at the top board or investor level? Did you\r ever think about how this might have affected the developers, writers\r and artists. We are in an era where the assumption is developers are\r underpaid for the amount of time they give in order to meet deadlines\r and to meet bonus pay which may go someway to compensate the overtime\r given in a games development. Sure the big publishers could probably\r re-arrange an event to promote their new catalogue of games but the\r developers, already worried about reaching the targets set to obtain\r those bonuses wouldn’t want that worry to be amplified.

However\r that’s developers involved with major publishers. What about the\r indie developers? Those who might have only scraped enough capital to\r be seen on one day at E3, desperate to get the level of exposure E3\r can offer and gain enough sales just to break even. Unable to\r reschedule for another day and missing that potential coverage could\r be fatal to a small company.

Then\r there are the fellow journalists, at least the ones that want to be\r at E3, who have a passion for gaming and wish to share that with\r readers or viewers but perhaps work on one of the smaller sites.\r Those that only got to E3 though the kind donations of the supporters\r of their website even if compared to big publishing backed\r organisations, are small in number. The need to get viewership,\r especially given how volatile and precarious online news media is in\r the current climate, that could obtained from the biggest show in the\r gaming calendar, hindered if they have nothing to talk about.

Then\r there are those at E3 that aren’t part of the industry and take\r whatever minimum wage job they can get that is on offer for a few\r days. Those handing out leaflets, pointing out directions. Whatever\r that role may be for a few days and then hoping they can get another\r few days elsewhere in Los Angeles because they need to earn whatever\r they can to pay this month’s bills.

If\r you had the chance to ask any of these phony moral crusaders if they\r for a moment gave a thought to those who could potentially lose out\r on E3 not running for a day over an argument and charge that is\r obviously a non sequitur. In all likelihood most would not and\r probably would say that they are irrelevant to the quote unquote real\r world saving cause. Afterall reality is very different from the tiny\r narrow world they usually occupy by themselves. To them, that’s a\r problem.

Which\r takes us back to how they are no different to Jack Thompson, because\r it is not just simply due to those in the gaming press using the same\r arguments as Mr. Thompson. It is the fact that they, like Mr. Thompson\r delusionally think they are saving people.

When\r Mr Thompson ran against video games in his mind he was saving\r children from the horrors of mass shootings or becoming the mass\r shooter. Even though the data from academic research or scientific\r testing, or just observable common sense in reality, proved him wrong that those argued against him were, in his mind, morally repugnant.\r Afterall why would anyone prevent him from saving children?

After\r losing what would turn out to be the last suit against a game\r publisher he brought to court, Mr. Thompson would give the judge a\r letter about how they had potential child’s blood on their hands\r for allowing violent games to continue to made available and possibly\r played by children. The Florida Bar decided they were going to nip\r that nonsense in the bud and with his disbarment, we thought we saw\r the end of this crusade against gaming.

We\r haven’t of course and we now see it within gaming itself which to\r some, they might find perplexing but given that most of these\r Thompson-like crusaders have in recent years shown utter disdain for\r games and gaming culture it really should not be surprising at all.\r Just as Mr. Thompson did they crow about how they are just trying to\r save people and anyone that disagrees with them is, if not morally\r repugnant, at least morally questionable.

Yet\r again for failing to understand that gaming is an escapist medium,\r not for people to bury their heads in the sand and ignore all the\r problems in the world but just a chance to step away from the\r troubles for a few fleeting hours, not to mention ignoring the old\r adage of “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat\r it“ these puritans, who are already quickly becoming irrelevant\r with the rise of new media alternatives, will make that irrelevancy\r become absolute.

Which\r leads to my final question. How many more times are we going to go\r through this? It is as pointless as it is monotonous but people still\r insist in raising this debate. Whether you look at the 20 years\r gaming has been attacked for spurious reasons or entertainment in\r general from the 50’s onwards being smacked around as the cause for\r the ills of the world, gamers, academics and commentators are tired\r of this claptrap.

If\r it isn’t the existing studies that have already said that there is\r no link in violent games to real life violence then the sheer numbers\r of gamers who continue to pay for and play violent games will\r ultimately win the argument. I know that has me entering Argumentum\r Ad Populum however the numbers don’t lie. If somehow these moral\r crusaders convinced a company that violence or fun should not feature\r in future titles, gamers will simply take their money to another\r company that won’t cave in to puritan demands, so all that would be\r achieved is a significant number of developers will be out of a job\r and the gaming websites responsible fading into the abyss.

Don’t\r believe me? What happened with developer Tale of Tales? Or how about\r the “megaphone“ who claimed to be the epitome of Games\r Journalism?

So\r why continue to go down this road? History shows that this is a\r fool's errand with the only outcome being academics and scientists\r refusing to take you seriously, becoming the laughing stock and meme\r fodder for gamers and eventually being almost forced to fade into\r obscurity.

If\r you don’t want that to happen, rethink this debate. Leave gaming\r out of it and instead concentrate on something that is more relevant\r to the problem. If you do not want to be likend to Jack Thompson and\r all the trapping that entails, I cannot put this any more succinctly.

Stop\r being Jack Thompson!

Good\r night, and good luck.