Reflecting upon the social environment of video games, Joshua Ostroff of Huffington Post has released a light, but extensive overview of the recent history of the industry. Beginning with the recent public incident known as Gamergate. In a response to numerous critiques of sexism in gaming, Gamergaters threatened various acts of aggression against women who spoke out against misogyny in games. Next he goes into how, by virtue of a majority male work force, games are typically not made nor advertisement with the female target market in mind. This exacerbates the issue of sexism by severely limiting the representativeness of women. The article ends with a discussio of the emotional states of GamerGaters. Quoted from Natalie Walschots, a victim of GamerGate harassment, “Nobody believes they’re a villain. They think that they’re doing the right thing. A lot of GamerGate comes from a sense of feeling profoundly disenfranchised. The average Gater is a pretty sad and lonely human being who sees themselves as marginalized. They perceive something they love being maligned. ” This could imply that GamerGate was a force of cohesion for these individuals with misplaced anger.
Wade McIntyre
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/12/06/gamergate-women-video-games-gender-gaming_n_8722640.html