GamerGate

[Othko97]

So, the gaming community is currently riled up about ethics in journalism after what has become known as "gamergate". There is also some concern about biased coverage and censorship. There has been tension for some time between many members of the gaming community and radical feminists. The latter side of the debate have been pointing out that women are underrepresented in games, presenting some valid points, which were then backed up with frankly appalling evidence (i.e. lies and slander). This was pointed out by many people in the gaming community, but their criticisms were repelled, as some members were sexist and offensive in their criticisms, which negated much of what the side was saying.

Tensions were increasing and reached a head when a game by developer Zoe Quinn was greenlighted on steam and received dazzling reviews. It was revealed later that Quinn's relationship with some reviewers was more than professional, if you catch my drift. As a result the debacle was sparked about ethics in journalism, censorship and biased reporting, as it seems that gaming media and media in general were being biased with their reporting.

Some links:
FAQ from GamerGate side: https://github.com/GamerGateOP/GamerGateOP/blob/master/FAQ.md
Know Your Meme page: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate
An article from the other side: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/6/6111065/gamergate-explained-everybody-fighting

Views anyone?

[comrade_general]

[Jubal]

I have a lot more time for the developers than the "GamerGate" crowd. So sure people like Anita Sarkeesian were good at getting on people's nerves. That's not a reason to send her death threats. Most of the GamerGate stuff so far has not been a sensible discussion of industry corruption, it's been mudslinging and has created this idea that Social Justice Warriors are essentially just a bunch of people trying to get a kick out of harassing people when in practice that's a couple of oddballs and the main thrust of that group/community is to draw attention to the very real sidelining of minorities and oppressed groups in gaming. Noting that this exists is hardly off topic for gaming news sites - when indeed they do it, which is still hardly common.

Like the biggest point that keeps being missed is that a social justice agenda is not simply a feminist agenda or even a feminist and LGBT agenda, it incorporates discussion of ableism, racism, class/social status, and so on in games. And there's nothing wrong and a lot right with examining those things and how they make our community feel skewed or closed. I just feel that there's a vast amount of misinformation and ill thought out hatred going on here and whilst some relevant criticisms have been made and acted on as part of this (game sites like Kotaku now forbid their writers from donating to games) that's been massively overshadowed by a bunch of people who are opposed to game journalism covering issues they feel uncomfortable about, have a really old fashioned view of games and gaming, and are happy to abuse journalists and developers who disagree to push them out of the public eye.

[Gen_Glory]

gaming journalism with SJW = I have a liberal arts degree and here is why you cannot have fun

I rarely if ever read gaming articles as most of the time it is pure clickbait nonsense or just a paid advertisement

Thankfully more people are moving towards youtubers as opposed to Kotaku/Rock paper shotgun esque sites

I have no problem with people wanting better representation for women (and other non-binary things) in video gaming but the current manner of doing so is not the way forward. These journalists and feminists use the voice of a minority to criticise and label the majority.
Even 1000 negative comments does not represent the views of the millions of gamers worldwide. There is even some speculation that such claims are fabricated to further the SJW cause.

Anita Sarkeesian took $150,000 and has made minimal content that could of been done with a fraction of the content, how did she get this money? Exploiting the good nature of the internet with claims of abuse from 'internet trolls'.

To be honest I don't really know all that much about the issue but to me it does just seem like people are armadilloting on gaming just for the sake of it, almost as if they don't want gamers to have fun.

I rambled a bit probably doesn't make a lot of sense, some reason I feel passionately about all this when it doesn't really affect me at all.
I dread to think what tumblr would do if they discovered all that you can do in paradox games....

[Jubal]

I've never managed to get anyone to tell me what fun they can't have with more socially aware or diverse gaming? I mean I totally agree that games should generally be fun (or in some cases creepy or whatever the reaction the designer wanted was), but I don't particularly see how SJW stuff is a problem for that in general. If done right, social justice should really improve gaming by making the community more open to groups that feel shut out of it and reducing reliance on really boring armadilloty plot tropes in story based gaming where pointlessly generic characters who should be plot central are just there as window dressing half the time. Obviously a couple of people overdo this, but it feels like lots of people are assuming that everyone who cares about SJ issues is just a clone and all have totally the same views.

[Othko97]

I tried to keep my initial overview unbiased, but the temptation was very strong. I side very much with the Gamergaters. Certainly not the people doxxing, sending death threats and the like, but that seems to be a minority of the side, and the debacle from this side seems to have been trying to be civil. The people who are more vocal in the Gamergate side also denounce the attacks, pointing out that this is not about Quinn or Sarkeesian at its core, and is actually about ethics in journalism and censorship. Basically Jubal's point about the SJW side not being all crazies is true for the other side as well . I would actually go so far as to say that the Gamergate side has been much more civil than the other when it comes to actual debating, as many people on the developer/journalist end have been mocking and insulting gamers, hell even the word "gamer" has negative connotations, and games media have done little but promote this image - some examples are given by Internet Aristocrat in his videos (yes, he does personally insult many people involved, but he does give a concise explanation as to what has happened).

As for the point that social justice fights ableism, racism and so forth, obviously I agree this is a good thing, but the people who are vying for it often have a) selfish interests and b) apparent violent tendencies, if some of the tags on tumblr etc are to be believed. I agree that equality is still not quite here, and some work certainly needs to be done, but punishing and insulting all cis white straight males is not the way to go about this. I have no problem with issues of social justice being brought up, as long as the article doing so provides strong evidence rather than questionable (often fabricated) statistics and "feels". I have seen posts comparing gamers to the taliban, one journalist even saying he sympathises more with ISIS than supporters of Gamergate.

Many critics of the journalist side also point out the blatant hypocrisy of that side - Quinn decried a game jam aimed at women, allowing them to pitch a game idea, providing concept art and free development of the game, with 8% of proceeds going to the designer and the rest to charity. She did this without giving a viable reason, bringing down the event (also doxxing the organisers) and seriously harming what should be her own side. She later set up her own game jam with no start date, judges, or information (she also linked to her personal paypal), and requested that the money for the original one she shut down be given to her. The organisers of this initial event couldn't even get their story out because of the corruption in the journalists, and began an indiegogo to bring funds to keep it running. Quinn DDoSed the indiegogo page - the top contributors to which were 4chan's /v/ board, supporters of the Gamergate side. I have seen much more compassion, maturity and responsibility from the Gamergate crowd than the other side, and also much more attempts to actually change things rather than scam money and write scathing articles about an industry they purport to be passionate about.

I'm not saying that some of the points made aren't valid - there is a serious underrepresentation of women in games, and often those in games are tropes and not particularly strong characters. However journalists are doing nothing to help change this, and are corrupt, which is what the main argument is in the first place.

[Jubal]

I think claiming that SJWs "often" have selfish interests is a gross misrepresentation. I've seen a lot of good indie game devs and bloggers straight up quit in the last bit, not because they had done anything wrong but because they were scared of being the next to be hit by a vocal twitter lynch mob. I've really not seen many corruption cases - it's clear there have been a few issues, and those were being sorted out now as I said above, which is great. But because a couple of prominent SJ people got involved in a minor corruption scandal doesn't make the rest of them all just as bad, any more than every Labour supporter in the UK is a crook because 3 of them got done for expenses claims. So I think we need to consider the corruption and SJ strands much more separately than people have been doing.

So if you want to oppose corruption in games, I totally support that. But it feels like that's being used to degrade and smear an agenda based on targeting a few (pretty literally two) of its more high profile adherents.

Edit: another thing is this. There seems to be this idea that if some people arguing for social justice are bad, we then shouldn't have social justice. And that's obviously armadillo. Quinn shutting down a women friendly game jam isn't an argument against social justice, it's an argument that someone was being an idiot on the internet. There just seems to be a pattern of avoiding this issue - if your problem is with the philosophy, you need to present an argument. If your issues is with how it's being promoted, promote it better yourself. I think that some of what comes out of tumblr is counterproductive for solving these problems in gaming, sure. But I don't sit back and shout at people about that, I do my best to fix it in the games I make, the way I help run this site, and so on. If you think social justic needs doing but can be done better, go out and goddamn do it better.

[Othko97]

Agreed, i should have qualified with "some", but I still see far too many hoping for free cash. I agree that devs quitting is sad, as would pretty much anyone interested in actually playing games. I am not saying that all social justice advocates are as bad as those embroiled in this scandal, but the number is far greater than a "couple". Many mainstream games news sites are now involved in this, and many journalists and developers are involved. Much of games journalism has now been revealed to be unethical, and the censorship on reddit, 4chan and most other sites where discussion was attempted further shows this (the reddit admin shadowbanning was tweeting the developers and journalists in question, while banning).

The campaign is intended to go against corruption in gaming, but a lot of that corruption is intended to push the SJ agenda - which some sites have admitted to. The campaign is not meant to smear the campaign, it just so happens to be the campaign which was being pushed. It also must be said that while most social justice advocates are rational people, there is, like with most agendas, an extremist vocal minority, devoted not to equality, but inequality to the other side. This is why the critics of the movement are so numerous - not because they are against equality, but because they are against the more extreme members and are unaware of the softer side.

[Jubal]

What allegations have there been of corruption intended to push a social justice agenda as opposed to pushing the careers of a couple of game critics and devs who happen to be part of that movement? A lot of the SJ movement is still very much shut out from mainstream gaming and gaming sites. If its the case that the GG types are genuinely unaware that SJ types who are not corrupt or extremist exist, that is surely because the majority of people who want social justice in gaming are not listened to andthe people starting and pushing GG have failed to acknowledge the actual character of the movement they claim to be campaigning against - which is pretty damn close to a smear campaign even if not planned as one.

Games journalism has always been corrupt, I should add, an duntil the last few years was in the pocket of the huge commercial developers. The growth of the indie scene has led to new outlets and it's near inevitable that there will be some corruption cases that will need awareness and resolving. But the idea that developers in general, where no corruption has been proven, should be seen as suspect for feminist or otherwise anti-kyriarchic views is really damaging and frankly makes me feel like throwing in the towel on designing and making games, let alone people who have been receiving abuse for vit. It's not uncommon to see so called "indie devs" hunt for free cash btw regardless of their politics - just for some reason all the conveniently failed kick starter games, etc, that have been made by people other than SJWs have not even been mentioned in this campaign.

A further point is that I object to the idea that people with views more like mine are the "soft side" of social justice - the tiny minority of keyboard crusaders who don't practice what they preach are the ones taking the soft option, many people who suffer racist and sexist abuse on a day to day basis are patiently and painstakingly trying to work on improving the way games work in the face of all this armadillo that doesn't really have anything to do with them, and that is really the tough thing to do.

[comrade_general]

I have no idea what you guys are talking about, I just saw something about women's rights and posted a picture (worth a thousand words even if they are nonsense).

[Clockwork]

I have a lot to say about this. Which will come as no surprise to any of you as I am happy to BS my way through pretty much anything. But this time it's different, I have a wide range of experience with games (literally, I have a metric asston of games, cg can attest to this I think). I get into the ethics debates a lot, though mostly everyone here disagrees with most of my ethical/moral/political viewpoints so I guess I'll come across as an asshole once again . Also on the femenist thing, I have seen both the best and worst of females as gamers, journalists and characters in games within the industry and I'll tackle that first.

Women aren't under represented. Quite the contrary, gaming has more female protagonists/possible female protagonists per title than movies. Do I give two armadillos that men are 'under represented' in books? Hell no. But that could be because I see everyone as people as a whole, and am generally apathetic at best and completely uncaring all other times.

On sexism in video games though: the gaming industry does have much more than its share of male perverts. Anyone here can tell you about armours which cover the barest minimum, how boob physics are always seem to be done by someone who has never owned a pair and how a 'reward' for achieving certain criteria in games such as The Witcher/Duke Nukem is boobs. Although I also argue that that isn't sexism, just designers fantasy. Honestly the real criminals of gaming are the artists.

Journalism!

Gaming journalism has become *so* much less corrupt since the advancement of the internet. You just can't get away with as much any more.

Also, watch extra credits videos. They are highly qualified and intelligent people, even if their science is a little off sometimes, their gaming knowledge and knowledge of the industry is almost perfect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb3HQlFmfds&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5Dy9yvH0V2GVWaKAU0RApph

I'm not going to waste my words arguing how games aren't bad for people.

And also, by the by, there have been more indie devs popping up, in the past 2 years than have even existed before, a huge amount more 'minority targeting' studios and games being made. You don't generally hear about them because they don't do well. Captain America is more popular than Capitan Mexicano because he's better, not because he's caucasian instead of latino (and also because the latter is not a real superhero, just used as a point of humour). People are pushing for change too quickly, it's coming, just give it some time.

Also just to point out a trend and slightly just to rile up Jubal: games companies on a drive for 'equality' in game development such as those in the Uk who have historically done well at creating games make bad sequels with their new team. Crackdown vs 2, TW: Rome2 after Shogun2 from Creative Assembly, Burnout Crash and Need for Speed: Most Wanted from Criterion Games (a re-labelled EA UK). All big names in gaming, all made worse games after a drive to recruit more females. Again, just noticing a trend, not saying women can't produce good games....I just don't know of any.

Jubal, don't take offence to being called soft. The hardliners are the bad, nazi-esque ones, soft side is just another means of saying reasonable. And I'm pretty sure it's the majority of keyboard crusaders who don't do anything about it....Hence the name.

Indie devs also are always out of pocket (although not so much anymore with greenlight, kickstarter and early access). Watch the EC vid on that as well.

[Son of the King]

From skimming this and the things linked in the OP, I have ascertained that some people realised that gaming journalism is corrupt (a bit late to the party on that realisation) and then decided that they should all put on their *ist hats and attack people. Said people then responded by attacks and everyone is riled up over how everyone is riled up. Am I right?

The whole "Social Justice Warrior" term feels wrong by the way, as if social justice is something that it is foolish to represent. And to say that there are "extremist social justice supporters" who want "inequality for the other side" is incorrect, such people do not support or want social justice, by definition.

[TTG4]

Journalists being corrupt? Well that was unexpected...

Gaming in general has had a huge straight male bias for years, I suspect because the majority of gamers and developers were straight males. I have no issue at all with games being more representative of different genders, races, sexualities etc, so long as they're still fun to play.

Though in general on the SJW side there are a few people presenting dubious arguments with terrible evidence and end up making straight, white, cis-males feel like they're being attacked for something that they aren't doing and just by chance have ended up in the group where some members are sexist/racist/transphobic etc.

But also we get so-called MRAs who occassionally present the valid point that we can feel under attack, but then slip into lazy misogyny and sexism.

I find it easier just to stay out of the whole thing as I don't enjoy being attacked for something someone else has said.

[Jubal]

SOTK; pretty close to the mark.

Colossus; representation as it's discussed here isn't really an issue of pure numbers. It's an issue that of that body of female characters, too many are basically nonentities or horribly stereotyped. Hence the exact problem of artists that you recognise, though plot writers do the same thing to the characters' personalities that the artists do to their bodies.

Obviously I agree that gaming is good for people, and I think you're right that long term the trends in terms of representation in gaming and corruption in journalism are improving - I think there is an element of backlash against the former going on though.

As to your Jubal riling special, I just think you've got a correlation to causation fallacy going on there.

[Othko97]

Gaming journalism has become *so* much less corrupt since the advancement of the internet. You just can't get away with as much any more.

This is the exact concern. Gaming journalism has become less corrupt (despite IGN's corporate promos and so on), and this is a trend which is in our best interests to continue. However, if indie game developers are being funded by, having relationships with, and getting cosy with journalists, this doesn't seem likely. The problem isn't just that journalists are corrupt and accepting money off big corporations, it's that there is a clique of journalists and developers furthering their own careers and holding back others if not in said clique.

From skimming this and the things linked in the OP, I have ascertained that some people realised that gaming journalism is corrupt (a bit late to the party on that realisation) and then decided that they should all put on their *ist hats and attack people. Said people then responded by attacks and everyone is riled up over how everyone is riled up. Am I right?

You are kind of correct. Many people, supported by neither major side as far as I can tell, began mudslinging rather than debating, with insults, raiding twitter accounts with offensive images and the like. However, the main point is a call for less corruption in game journalism and stopping the pushing of an agenda in what should be a news site. Yes, all news sites share this issue, and bias is, I understand, difficult to avoid.
The journalists were also scathing, mocking and abusive to the community they are meant to represent, which didn't help their case.

The whole "Social Justice Warrior" term feels wrong by the way, as if social justice is something that it is foolish to represent. And to say that there are "extremist social justice supporters" who want "inequality for the other side" is incorrect, such people do not support or want social justice, by definition.

I was under the impression that this was the term for extremists who take equality too far and back into the realms of inequality. I apologise for any confusion caused. As an aside, of course equality is something essential to represent and push for, saying otherwise is downright bigotry. Over-analysing every little thing is not a way to achieve this, and tends to put us into a nanny state of sorts.

What allegations have there been of corruption intended to push a social justice agenda as opposed to pushing the careers of a couple of game critics and devs who happen to be part of that movement? A lot of the SJ movement is still very much shut out from mainstream gaming and gaming sites. If its the case that the GG types are genuinely unaware that SJ types who are not corrupt or extremist exist, that is surely because the majority of people who want social justice in gaming are not listened to andthe people starting and pushing GG have failed to acknowledge the actual character of the movement they claim to be campaigning against - which is pretty damn close to a smear campaign even if not planned as one.

Here:
"Currently this is about three semi-related subjects: Ethics in journalism, censorship, and biased coverage (both suppressing negative coverage about journalism itself, and pushing an extremist Social Justice Warrior [SJW] agenda)"

"Q: And what about biased coverage?

A: There are two aspects to this. Firstly major gaming sites are suppressing negative coverage about journalism itself (for obvious self-serving reasons). Secondly, they have promoted an extremist SJW version of the narrative. The first problem is self-evident: Currently, you don't see the major gaming sites talking about journalism's mistakes much. Either their own, or those of their colleagues. (To be completely fair, news of this scandal HAS appeared on smaller sites such as gamesnosh.com, gamerheadlines.com, etc). Instead, as mentioned above, they try to divert your attention by focusing on other things, like "social justice". Except that they are apparently not interested in REAL justice, but only in an extremist form of SJW "justice"."

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"
Q: And this relates to biased coverage in journalism?

A: Biased Coverage for the extremist SJW cause takes 2 forms: Firstly they happily report claims made by those on the SJW "side", even when those claims are clearly dubious after some research. Secondly they will not report on those who question or speak out against anybody on the SJW "side", thereby suppressing valid questions and negative coverage. We begin by showing a few examples where they are happy to report SJW claims, but not the counter-claim:

As mentioned above, in Dec 2013, Zoe Quinn claimed to have been the target of harassment by Wizardchan. The gaming press gladly reported this based on her word, and screenshots of 2 posts. Additionally, they reported this allegation as if it were hard fact (but have since backpedaled).

Wizardchan has since made claims of innocence, and have pointed out some plausible indications that the attack was probably a false flag (i.e. made by someone else in their name). Notably, Wizardchan's target audience are socially inept, depressed virgin men who get anxious just being around phones. It is therefore unlikely that THEY made any harassment calls. And as an imageboard with no access control, someone aside from their target audience could have made the posts on Wizardchan which Zoe screenshot. Wizardchan thinks it might be CWCwiki, but really any internet troll could have done it. In other words: reasonable doubt.

None of the major gaming sites have covered this claim of innocence? Why not? If the initial unsubstantiated allegation of harassment was newsworthy, then surely the claim of innocence (with reasonable doubt) by the alleged attacker would be newsworthy as well? This is important, because as a result of the initial allegations (which were ALSO misreported as fact), Wizardchan (a group of socially inept, depressed virgin men, who were already generally miserable) received an outpouring of hate speech from the extremist SJWs. This is the result of the major gaming press NOT researching Wizardchan (whose target audience alone would cast doubt), and NOT reporting their point of view.

http://imgur.com/a/4VOcx

Another example is Phil Fish (another person in the SJW camp). His company website was allegedly hacked by "/V/" of 4chan, and it was reported here:

http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/22/6057317/fez-developer-polytron-hacked-harassment http://www.dailydot.com/geek/4chan-hacks-phil-fish-over-his-defense-of-zoe-quinn/

We would like to point out that (at the time of this writing) neither of these articles have been updated to mention that these alleged hack attacks are most probably false flags (i.e. not done by "/V/" of 4chan). Because /v/ NEVER refers to itself as "/V/" (yes, the capitalization matters). Again, the major gaming sites are NOT doing research, and NOT letting those accused defend themselves. (Although in this case, 4chan is a MUCH harder target than Wizardchan, so any SJW extremist attacks probably will not work nearly as well).

The above highlight how the major gaming press has been happy to report allegations by those on the SJW "side". But what about allegations AGAINST the SJW extremists?

Jayd3Fox: Alleged to have been doxxed, and received harassing phone call from an SJW extremist. The resulting distress has apparently caused her breakdown and withdraw from the public eye. Not reported (warning this video is heartbreaking):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhV4BDjP0-M

Wolf Wozniak: Claims to have been sexually harassed by Zoe Quinn. Not only was this not reported, the poor fool was basically shouted down on twitter.

http://i.imgur.com/5DDiW86.jpg

TotalBiscuit: Wrote a twitlonger on how if the allegation of DMCA abuse against Zoe Quinn is true, it would be very bad, and she should not have done it. (He does NOT say that she is guilty, merely that it would be bad if she is).

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1/?

For daring to even TALK about this subject, he claims (and we shall quote him here): "Those interested in "social justice" today have called me a misogynist thug, a nazi and a variety of interesting lies." He also says "Which is the reason why the internet's idea of "social justice" is something I want no part of. Justice through lies and abuse? Not justice". Except for a minor website, this harassment against what is easily one of the biggest names in youtube gaming, has otherwise gone unreported.

http://gamesnosh.com/the-ugly-side-of-justice-total-biscuit-denounced-over-zoe-quinn-scandal-comments/

The Fine Young Capitalist (TFYC): They have claimed various attacks (doxxing, DDoS, death threats) by extremist SJW supporters against their FEMINIST CHARITY GAME COMPETITION. Although there are still questions over whether Zoe Quinn personally orchestrated these, it should be noted that at the very least, some of these alleged attackers were her associates (which again relates to how she wound up becoming a symbol of this debacle).

We shall quote TFYC here: "An associate of hers (Zoe), posted my Facebook information... The subsequent death threat I received via email was not orchestrated by Zoe. Nor was the DDOSing of our website or the banning of us from Twitter. She was simply the most famous voice in a choir of people that did not understand the project... The fallout from the posting of my info costed me around $10,000 dollars". These doxxing and death threats allegations were not reported by the major gaming sites.

http://i.imgur.com/JbZGSzh.png http://www.thefineyoungcapitalists.com/PeaceTreaty

Zoe herself was apparently quite happy about the DDoS with tweets like: "oops we DDOS'ed something on accident", "I like how a conversation between me and @legobutts resulted in accidentally crashing an exploitative startup's website" and "Lol we blew up the site and it's returning over quota errors HOW portugalING APPROPRIATE". This is an example of the double standards we mentioned above: Harassment is wrong, unless done by us.

http://i.imgur.com/6SVLxB0.png

Credit where it is due, when the TFYC indiegogo charity website was allegedly hacked, that WAS reported, but again, not by the major gaming sites:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/25/indiegogo-campaign-hacked-this-weekend-but-wasnt-part-of-a-widespread-attack/ http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/08/47715-indiegogo-reports-recent-campaign-hack-considered-widespread-attack/ http://nichegamer.net/2014/08/the-quinnspiracy-continues-vivian-james-indiegogo-is-reportedly-hacked/

Are you beginning to see a consistent pattern here?
"

Visiting games news sites, you would often be greeted with a good many articles focused on social justice rather than gaming, as well as clickbait articles.

Games journalism has always been corrupt, I should add, and until the last few years was in the pocket of the huge commercial developers. The growth of the indie scene has led to new outlets and it's near inevitable that there will be some corruption cases that will need awareness and resolving. But the idea that developers in general, where no corruption has been proven, should be seen as suspect for feminist or otherwise anti-kyriarchic views is really damaging and frankly makes me feel like throwing in the towel on designing and making games, let alone people who have been receiving abuse for it. It's not uncommon to see so called "indie devs" hunt for free cash btw regardless of their politics - just for some reason all the conveniently failed kick starter games, etc, that have been made by people other than SJWs have not even been mentioned in this campaign.

The issue is that the corruption this time stems from the indie scene (which is probably a good contributor to the lack of professionalism in handling the critique). I'm pretty sure that nobody seriously concerned about the issue is just shouting out that developers with strong views need to be ousted, just that they have been given biased coverage by gaming news sites. The people threatening and abusing such developers are doing so independently, probably taking things way too far.

A further point is that I object to the idea that people with views more like mine are the "soft side" of social justice - the tiny minority of keyboard crusaders who don't practice what they preach are the ones taking the soft option, many people who suffer racist and sexist abuse on a day to day basis are patiently and painstakingly trying to work on improving the way games work in the face of all this armadillo that doesn't really have anything to do with them, and that is really the tough thing to do.

As Colossus pointed out, I didn't mean soft as in the easy option, I meant soft as in "not insane/psychopathic". Again, sorry for any misunderstanding or offense, I should have been clearer, the mind was fuzzy at that time.

Re-reading what I wrote earlier, I seem to be against social justice. I am not. I am against the hardliners who use social justice as an excuse to bully others and promote themselves.