[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