Hey everyone, a few weeks ago I wrote an editorial for my College Composition II class about why GamerGate is important. Please let me know what you guys think:
Here's the full text: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1snqmvj
>The video game community and industry was once a joyous and united place. People worked together to build communities, make custom modifications and create copious amounts of fan content. All was well, or so it seemed, but lurking beneath the surface there was a raging problem. This problem was authoritarian corruption.
>While one would be hard-pressed to argue that video game journalism was transparent and honest prior to August 2014, it became an undeniable fact after that fateful August. What initially started as gamers raising concerns about a single journalist promoting his friend’s game without disclosure, quickly transformed into an inferno consuming almost the entire gaming community and industry.
>Rather than responding to their critics, once-respected gaming publication Kotaku had doubled down and insisted that “everything was fine.” While some may have taken Kotaku at their word, it didn’t take long for evidence to come forth showing that not only had their writer (Nathan Grayson) given positive coverage to his friend’s game, but that another one of their writers (Patricia Hernandez) was doing the same thing. The discovery of these two ethical breaches led many to take critical looks at other gaming publications.
>The public outcry about these various ethical breaches likely would have almost certainly subsided within a couple of weeks. Yet rather than admitting that mistakes were made and apologizing, many publications decided to claim that they were “under attack” by malcontents. Over the course of a few days over a dozen articles across various gaming publications had claimed that gamers were “off the hinges” and many of them even went so far as to claim that gamers and the gaming community were “racist” or “sexist.”
>The accusations of racism and sexism came as a shock to many, especially given that so many publications said almost the exact same thing in such a short period of time. Many gamers felt betrayed by their own press, who they had already been skeptical of over dishonest articles and reviews. While certainly there may be some racists, sexists and homophobes in the gaming community, they are a minority and do not represent the core gaming culture. To make matters worse, it was revealed that there was a secret email list for games journalists and members of the group had no problem openly discussing agenda-pushing. It quickly became clear that anyone who dared to suggest that these publications adopt ethical policies and act more transparently would be labeled a racist, sexist, homophobe, harasser or in some cases even a terrorist.
>A cursory look at gaming journalism over the past several years indicates that these negative attitudes against gamers were hardly new among the gaming press. Articles dating back half a decade indicate that some gaming journalists felt a sense of superiority over their audience and were more interested in pushing their personal political ideology, rather than discussing gaming with the plebeians. These gaming journalists are entitled to their opinion and are free to review games from a political perspective, but they absolutely should not be above criticism, nor should their political views give them a free pass to mislead consumers.
Continued in reply.