I am just old enough to remember when gaming didn't exist. I remember Pong, I remember the Sega Wars, but mostly I remember being on the sidelines, because those consoles were expensive, addictive and the boys I ran with didn't like sharing.
Back then, we girlfriends were largely ornamental: bringers of refreshments, tidiers of rat-trap student housing, targets of awkward advances and someone to regale with stories of heroic pixel pummeling...but not someone you shared a controller with.
I found it boring and frustrating, but then, so were most of the games. I'd hang around long enough to establish I wasn't going to get a turn then go back to practicing guitar, listening to The Wall and Olias of Sunhillo through my headphones. Still, I was a gamer. A player of D&D and GURPS, an avid collector of Dragon Magazine and a regular at the local comic book/game store.
I was a gamer, but didn't get to play VIDEO games until the dawn of the MMPORPG era, when I bought my own computer. I enjoyed running around with my little pixel girls. Sure, most other female players I met were actually dudes playing a female avatar, but that just sort of leveled things out--enough gender-swapping went on that we were all treated as players, not as intrusions or trophies. There certainly was a lot of testosterone but I don't recall a lot of misogyny.
Then gaming as an industry really took off and the PVP (player versus player) crowd rose in power. These players were NOT into role-playing, they were weaned on first-person shooters--just them and their good buddies shooting up a playing field of pixel people. This type of player didn't bother with spending months building up their characters, they'd buy their competitive edge by paying someone to level up for them, by exploiting glitches and hacking cheat codes. Some of this had always gone on, but this new kind of player did it so they could pillage at will, with no feeling or sympathy for the very real people behind the pixels they attacked. And they loathed role players, calling us weak, girly and deserving of destruction.
Now, I have no doubt many of them were very pleasant in person, but in-game, they RAWKED SUXXORZ. This new kind of gamer was more mainstream, less escapist. They were ruthless strategists: super-aggressive, take-no-prisoners, "it's just a game, suck it and die" bro-holes. Some, no doubt, were young, ignorant (and probably 12) but some of them reeeeaaally hated women and took joy in picking on the weak.
Incomprehensibly, that bully element became the demographic the market catered to. It wasn't fun anymore and there were plenty of men with that mentality in my real life. So I got out of gaming.
I still consider myself to be a gamer at heart-- I keep up with the trade news, read the reviews and hang out with my kid as he plays on his Xbox 360 (not online). I don't play any more myself.
I miss when gaming was fun. When I didn't feel that being a girl was going to be an issue.
Which brings me back to #GamerGate. What is it and what do they want? I confess, I haven't been aware of them very long but from what I've read, they are an online/gaming chatgroup cum guerrilla/hacker organization devoted to exposing and destroying any developer, public speaker or, indeed, any person in the gaming world who does not adhere to their concept of what "true gaming" should be and who should belong in it.
They primarily target women who are in the business, or who study the gaming community. Their weapons of choice are threats, harassment, and cyber-bullying that truly reaches criminal levels. They are organized, they are merciless and they are righteous.
Kinda sounds like ISIS, doesn't it? At least one sociologist has already labeled them as a hate group.
Why are they getting so much attention? Who are their members? What is their problem, anyway?
Gawker.com has a whole slew of articles on the subject. Totally worth reading so I won't go too far into it here, but for you slackers who don't feel like reading, here is what the consensus seems to feel is the particular bee in the members of #GamerGate's bonnet : "traditional gamers" have had their 15 minutes but aren't ready to fade back to being a fringe culture.
I find that reasoning far too simplistic and as an old-school geek-girl, more than little insulting. I can see how the withdrawal of that tide of mainstream acceptance has left a few of the sadder cases of socially awkward gamer flopping impotently on the shore. But the #GamerGate people don't come across as socially awkward. On the contrary, they are media-savvy and well-versed in the use and abuse of political mind control. What they lack is empathy.
They remind me of the PVPers I used to have to deal with.
Here's what I think: These guys just get off on being cruel. They get a rush from spreading fear and destruction without accountability. It's just a game to them, a flag to rally around, something to relieve the boredom. And that detachment from real consequences, that lack of empathy, illustrates why this group is such a problem.
This is NOT just a game. Nobody should have fear for their safety, their families safety, their jobs, etc. Gaming is NOT a religious cause. Even if it were, there would still be no justification for this bully-mob to embrace the destruction of real human beings as if they were just another pixel avatar.
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So, Revelers, what do you think? Are we on the eve of a new Culture War? Is #GamerGate made up guerilla freedom fighters? Are they a bunch of bitter, misogynist trolls trying to extend their moment in the sun? Or are they the latest manifestation of a more sinister, entrenched attitude?
Weigh in!
--Gabz
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