This morning I saw a hilarious and admittedly roundly dismissed Reddit post in which the poster was trying to arrange to have a barrage of questions asked of the participants in an upcoming panel featuring members of the GameSpot Australia editorial team. The poster, in saying that he’d gotten those dreaded “SJW vibes” off of one member of the team, cited as evidence of her social justice warrior affiliation that she is “a fan of Gone Home.” I joked with a friend that the paranoia among some of these people is so deep that to them, Gone Home, which asserts that stories about queer women have as much of a place in games as stories about anyone else, is the equivalent of communist literature during the McCarthy era, as if people say to each other in hushed voices, “Did you hear that so-and-so liked Gone Home?!” It made for an amusing start to my day.
The panel is entitled “The Changing Face of Games Journalism.” I don’t know what they’re going to say about it and I wish them all the best with the panel. What I have to say about it is that, among the most established mainstream sites, games journalism is becoming increasingly video-oriented, and that this is something of a problem. Already, games journalism has always been dominated by—not exclusively made up of, but disproportionately dominated by—straight white men. If GamerGate were actually concerned with ethics, they might rightly question why the makeup of gaming sites favors this group so heavily, why voices of people of color, queer folks, and women are underrepresented. But actually, this is part of what GamerGate is working against, because to them, such diversity, and the deeper, broader cultural analysis that would come along with it, represents an “agenda,” while leaving games journalism in the hands of those particular straight white men and others who feel no inclination to engage with the sociopolitical meanings of games, is the sought-after ideal of supposedly apolitical, unbiased, agenda-free games coverage. I honestly think many of them don’t understand how deeply political their position is.
The shift toward video as the primary form of game coverage is also not remotely apolitical. If gaming media’s long-cultivated core audience of entitled straight men is hostile to a minority voice like mine when I’m a writer (and it is, as the comments on many of my stories will attest), it’s far more hostile to a voice like mine on video (as the comments on just about any GameSpot video in which I appear on camera will make abundantly clear). And this becomes an issue that can get factored into an individual’s employment, or lack thereof. I could have the winningest on-camera personality in the world and a certain segment of the straight male audience that so many gaming sites have cultivated and catered to for so long would still vocally object to seeing someone like me on video. As long as gaming sites continue to cater so heavily to that same audience, not wanting to do anything to alienate or offend such readers and viewers, the shift to video means that gaming media is only likely to become less diverse, and that those women who do hope to find a place in it may also have to be deemed attractive and appealing to a straight male audience, rather than landing positions in that world on the strength of their knowledge and perspective alone. In other words, the increased emphasis on video means that for many, there will only be more obstacles to having their voices heard, so long as gaming sites cater to that audience the way they have for so long.
But the reality is that it’s well past time for gaming sites to stop catering to that audience exclusively, and GamerGate is the wake-up call. This is a monster that gaming culture has created, and it is time to un-create that monster by asserting in no uncertain terms that games and gaming sites are for everyone. In GamerGate, we are seeing the ugliness that rises to the surface when a group that has been catered to for too long at the expense of other groups is finally made to glimpse a world in which they have to share their domain with others. You see it in ways that are almost comically absurd—like the suspicion and vitriol that is leveled at Gone Home and its fans because of the game’s subject matter—and in ways that are truly horrifying, like the harassment of outspoken women who call for and represent a more diverse and inclusive gaming culture. The vile harassment of women coming out of GamerGate is something that all major sites should report on critically and should condemn. And if you’re afraid to do so, then you are part of the problem, because to stay silent is to lend those people your tacit approval. Your audience can be those straight male gamers who feel like games and gaming sites should cater to them above all others, or your audience can be those people who feel like games and gaming sites should be representative of and welcoming to people of all genders, sexual orientations, races and cultural backgrounds. It cannot be both.
Notes
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“fan of gone home” such a weirdly phrased euphemism. Evoked thoughts of this for me immediately. Time to turn “fan of...
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it’s a long post but well worth the read.
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