The most charitable description of GamerGate I can come up with

[elfs]

The most charitable description I can come up with for GamerGate is this:

Over the past several years, games depicting and providing agency and narrative to feminist, queer, minority or disabled characters and players have become much more prevalent in the marketplace. Game review magazines, sensing a new source of attention and income, namely, the women, queers, minorities, and disabled who have been buying games all along, have actively sought out such games in order to review them. Given that reviewers have limited time and money to purchase, play and review games, this rise in the review of such "marginal" gaming must come at the expense of traditional AAA titles. This results in a distortion of the marketplace that some fear will result in the cancellation or scaling back of the expensive blockbuster games that they know and love. Since expensive blockbuster games are perceived as providing the bulk of the funding supporting the pomp and circumstance of events like PAX or E3, the cultural artifacts of traditional gaming are threatened.

Unfortunately, we're not going to have a discussion about whether or not the rise in video game marketing featuring or about someone who is brown, female, gay or disabled actually represents a threat to the gaming industry. I don't think it does, but it would have been a lovely conversation to have.

Comments

[prock.livejournal.com]

PAX and E3 are are critical to gamer culture? I guess this is what happens when you're a lifelong gamer who's first console was an Atari 2600, and who's second console is a Wii that gathers dust on the shelf.

There must be someone I can blame.

I mean besides the "professional victims".

*blech*