[falcolas]

Going by memory here, since most of the search results about the topic are very... polarized.

The genesis of the problem, as with so many problems, is that two people were in a short term sexual relationship. The issue with that is the woman made video games, and the man reviewed video games. His review of her video game "Depression Quest" was glowing - a sentiment most people who played the game didn't feel was warranted. The relationship was uncovered, accusations started flying, and a mob was formed on both sides. Those mobs proceeded to do what mobs do - attack each other.

The biggest impact I saw was that people in the industry were not allowed to be neutral, so they just didn't comment. Why interact with the crowd when you're just going to be pilloried in a highly visible fashion by one side or the other?

[jdlshore]

GamerGate was orchestrated by misogynistic racists on 4chan's /pol/ board. They used "ethics in journalism" as a deliberate excuse to rile people up, and tricked a large crowd of gamers into buying that excuse and thus providing them with cover and additional power. Ultimately it was a disgusting and successful attack against women and people of color.

By repeating the excuse (that it was about a game review, when in fact it was an orchestrated attack, and the supposed review does not exist), you're perpetuating a mistake (providing cover to a small group of misogynistic racists) that caused a lot of harm. I doubt you did this intentionally, so I suggest you do some more research.

There is a fantastic YouTube series that goes into detail, including investigating the public record of the people behind GamerGate, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y8XgGhXkTQ

If you can't watch the whole thing (although it's worth it), this part goes into the origins of GamerGate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6TrKkkVEhs .

[falcolas]

Hmm. Seems you're correct regarding the review. I must have mistaken the Giant bomb review I read for it. The journalistic impropriety did not include a review, just positive press.

Whomever stirred the pot, honestly, doesn't matter in this context. In the end, both sides used the mobs to their own ends. Both sides were contemptible in the end. It wasn't the mysogynists who attacked Total Biscuit (not to mention his wife and children) over his commentary about the journalistic impropriety angle, who sent him death threats.

[jdlshore]

Your response here bothered me, and it took me a while to figure out why. Ultimately, I think it's the false equivalency ("both 'sides' did terrible things, so they're both equally at fault") and the lack of regret for your mistake.

If you don't see the problem here, I don't think I can convince you otherwise, but I couldn't let this stand unchallenged. It is not okay to blow off a deliberate, well-planned, devastating attack against women and minorities. You spread misinformation that benefited the attackers. That was an understandable mistake. But then you doubled down on that mistake. The original mistake is understandable. The doubling down is not.

People suffered real harm as a result of this. We all have a responsibility as caring humans to do our part to prevent it from happening again. I'm not asking you to go out and volunteer, or send money, or anything hard. Just don't spread misinformation, and don't engage in false equivalencies that benefit aggressors.

[ManuelKiessling]

Your summary basically reflects my understanding of the whole mess. However, the reason for my initial question here is that I was surprised to learn that it also affected people in the industry in general - and not only women/poc - so much, to the point where it sounds like making games is no more fun now (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16130003).

[jdlshore]

I think you've got cause and effect reversed—GamerGate worked because gamers were already prone to this sort of behavior. See "This is Phil Fish," [1] a video (by the same person who did the GamerGate video) about Phil Fish, the creator of the acclaimed indie game "Fez." He was driven off the Internet (or at least out of public participation) by similar toxic behavior.

Phil Fish is a white male.

I don't know how long this has been going on, and it does seem to be getting steadily worse, but I don't think GamerGate was a turning point. Just a particularly visible example of how bad things have gotten.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmTUW-owa2w

[esyir]

The argument made was about positive publicity, though that was also turned into "positive reviews" via the wonders of the internet telephone game.

GamerGate was a far more complex scenario than you're simplifying it to.