Heard of GamerGate? Adam Baldwin coined it to characterize the corruption in the video game industry and video gaming “journalism”. Yes, that Adam Baldwin.
Basically, the scandal got started when a video journalist publicly known as Zoe Quinn was caught cheating on her now ex-boyfriend with five other guys. While this could have just been another case where a loser Gamma male allowed a slightly more attractive female to walk all over him, it was who she fucked that made the scandal.
Zoe Quinn, you see, had made a very simple game called “Depression Quest” and managed to get it posted on Steam, the go-to service to downloading video games for your computer as well as win some awards. Now, I have not played the game, but from the sound of it, it isn’t exactly a video game. Basically it’s a choose your own adventure book in digital format, except without alien vampires or dinosaurs (God, that takes me back).
Not to knock Quinn’s idea. She probably beat Amazon’s own choose your own adventure eBooks by a few years, so props to her. But honestly, nobody wants to be depressed when they play video games. We usually play them to avoid the depressing world around us with its civilizational collapse, Ebola, and that asshole who drives slowly in the left lane.
What made Quinn’s game get those awards was the fact that she fucked the right people. And this has many avid video gamers up in arms (digital guns, but guns nonetheless). More than that, it has exposed just how corrupt video gaming journalism is and that it is really just another arm of marketing for major video game publishers.
This isn’t a new thing. From its inception, video game journalism has been nothing but a giant marketing organization. It’s kind of lot like regular journalism these days as many modern journalism merely reprint what the government officials tell them to.
Since Quinn’s alleged indiscretions have come to light, the scandal has only expanded from there. Anita Sarkeesian is another prominent figure in fighting against how women are portrayed in video games, a form of entertainment dominated by men. The backlash against Quinn has ignited a lot of other backlashes that were boiling just under the surface.
And the list goes on from there. I don’t have time to really go into all of it really. But the crux of it is that there is a large group of Social Justice Warriors who are hell bent on changing the video game industry as we know it. And I doubt it will be for the better.
This is because SJWs fight with a passion that was ignited by envy, not from noble intentions or any true form of injustice. And because these yahoos think that the average video gamer is a nerdy pushover who will cower before the might of female sexuality.
Unfortunately, that is only true of video game journalists, not video gamers.
One final note, I know I bashed Quinn’s game as not a real video game and I stand by it. But understand that I don’t consider many “Quicktime” games like Hard Rain to be actual video games either. Those games are nothing more than interactive movies. And while I am not knocking people who play them, understand that they are video games.