Author’s Note: This is a copy/paste article from my original one posted from our old Disqus channel, so it may be a bit dated in a few parts. It’s the only old article I could salvage before Disqus shuts down all channels by September 1st because the site’s notification wouldn’t allow me to scroll down further to see my older articles. Consider this as me testing out on our new wordpress site before I can brainstorm on either creating new articles or recreating my older ones based on my current knowledge on the situation. So enjoy.
This will be one of my last articles here before Disqus pulls the plug on all channels by September 1st, so might as well cover this topic as soon as possible given that it’s been 5 years since a certain movement began.
On August 11th, 2014, Zoe Quinn released a video game on Steam titled Depression Quest. You take control of a character suffering from depression in a create-your-own adventure style story. It was panned by gamers for not only being not a real video game but also being a misrepresentation of people suffering from depression. It was later revealed by Quinn’s ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni that she slept with 5 game critics to give Depression Quest positive reviews, which has caused outraged among the gaming community. The relationship between gamers and journalists was already rocky to begin with, so this news was what broke the camel’s back and thus started the Gamergate movement.
This event also took place during a heating war between gamers and feminists, so the moment white knights began defending Zoe Quinn from Gamergaters for being a woman, the narrative of the movement being anti-feminist sealed its fate. Not only that, but the movement have also affected what’s considered “localization” and “censorship” for video games, with Nintendo being the unfortunate victim during second half of 2015 and all of 2016 (Xenoblade Chronicles X, Fire Emblem Fates, and Tokyo Mirage Sessions being those among those games) and later on Sony. Our group owner, Titangamecube, formed a conspiracy that the Gamergate movement was fabricated by journalists just to get rid of Nintendo.
As Promised, I will give a theory of mine. Originally, I was gonna make it an article if Shady didn’t do this in time, but he did and so heres my theory. Let it be known that this will piss some people off…but I don’t care, it needs to be said. So @alex9234 this one is for you.
If you all want to know how Gamergate came about, no it was not some random woman doing favors for someone else. None of that crap. Gamergate was way too organized to just be about that. Oh no. I truly believe that Gamergate was a product of the media and industry, both new and old.
We have to go back to how media operates. Back then, it was the newsrooms and the people you see infront of you dominated the national conversation. This is true no matter what side your on. And the industry plays along with them, serving as mouth pieces. That is until the advent of social media, namely Youtube. The personality became the norm and the newsrooms became useless. Now you can say there were beginnings such as the shredding of the fairness doctrine but this didn’t hit its stride until youtube came along. But Im getting a bit ahead. Remember G4? That was the media’s response and their infiltration into gaming until the recession of 08. This not only delayed their plans but ultimately set in motion G4’s demise. So while recession was in full swing, and Xbox and PS3 were the first HD consoles. REALLY bad timing on their part. Meanwhile, the Wii racked up sales. So the industry had to infiltrate in some other means. Sites like IGN, Destructoid, Gametrailers, etc and also infiltrating the Wii with incredibly low budget shovelware, it was ripe for the making. Now I’ll get into Nintendo in a second, and they are an important to this theory. So in a response to this, the media and the industry created the movement known as gamergate. The reason is two fold. One, it allowed the old media to help reassure their dominance over news, and two to wipe out a certain company. And what better way then to prop up some useful idiots. Idiots like The Qaurtering, or Oneangrygamer, or the entireity of the KIA (Kotaku in Action) subreddit. And of course it was useful vehicle to prop up someone else but we are not talking about that. We’re talking about gaming.
Enter Nintendo.
Now let me just preface this but this theory gets tinfoily but the more I look at it, the more true it is. But Im going to continue this section in another comment.
We have to look Nintendo’s history into the gaming world and thankfully Shady provided the necessary materials but I would like to add Nintendo’s perspective. Nintendo HATES the industry and the media but they hold all the keys to the industry. If they go, So does the industry. Before, they were like Sony and Microsoft: thinking Power is what made games. Each console was until the gamecube was the most powerful than the competition. But they slowly realized that Power wasn’t everything. And they knew that if they switched to HD now, they would take a beating because at that point, the media was going to be against them no matter what, so he made what is quite possibly the most popular console ever for specifically gaming purposes. The media lampooned the Wii and praised the PS3 and Xbox…only for both to get swallowed up by the Wii. The media didn’t like that at all but the industry was a little more smart. EA, Ubisoft and Activision dumped all their crappy shovelware on the Wii so they could fund their ventures into HD gaming. And then these companies got into the heads of Nintendo to make an HD console. Big mistake and why its the reason the Wii U wasn’t as successful. Luckily Nintendo had their 3DS but the damage was done to the Wii U…or so I thought. Before the Wii U was released, Nintendo had to get back at the media somehow. Enter the Nintendo Directs. This was Nintendo’s response to the media and the media PANICKED. There was a huge reason why we had anti Wii U articles But the thing was, the Directs were working. So when the Anti Wii U articles started to lose their power, That was when the Gamergate trap was sprung. Now I know what you’re probably thinking: how the heck is Gamergate involved with the Wii U? Remember those anti censorship articles? Gamergate just happened to be anti censorship so they too dumped on Nintendo as well.
And lets not forget the pretendos. They were being useful idiots as well to dump on Nintendo. Remember E3 2015? A lot of us from the site that shall not be named remember too. And that caused the big split. But luckily, most of the pretendo’s involved became irrelevant. But I do want to bring up one person.
This woman goes by the name Allison Rapp. She joined Nintendo a year before Gamergate. I truly believe she was a plant by the media. Why? Again, useful idiots. It was a way for them to project their hatred onto Nintendo as well. A few years later, she had been fired for moonlighting. There is more to that story and I believe this is where Nintendo started to believe gamergate was a product of the industry and the media. How do I know this?
Nintendo of America called Gamergate an “online hate campaign”. Normally a company would try to be apolitical. No, they went for the jugular. They called it like it is and I applaud them for that. Now how does this relate to Allison Rapp’s firing? I believe Allison was a plant by sites like Kotaku so they make a story off these useful idiots. Ever wonder I don’t like people on both sides of gamergate and Anti GG? Because they were working together. They need each other more than they do us. Now they are both trying to drum controversy because they are becoming more irrelevant. Remember when Anita Sarkeesian was a big name? Who cares about her now? Some dredge up gamergators who couldn’t date her? The useful idiots have now outlived their usefulness and they have allowed old media to take control right under their noses, pushing out the new media.
Because of this, they are in a better position to deal with Nintendo so they can push them out. They don’t want Nintendo in this industry because they know they can’t leverage them. That is of course, until Microsoft is sending mixed signals. On one hand, I do like their approach but on the other, its good to skeptical. However, I don’t think they’ll be successful because the directs have proven to be too strong. So now they are trying to leverage stupidity of fanbases in order to divide them so Nintendo can be crushed. Nintendo however is playing it smart and like shady said, The best thing to do is not to play.
Now I want to resposne to Alex’s article seen here
His article gets into the heart of this but I wanted to add the Nintendo perspective. However, I do not agree with his conclusion. He is correct that this is not a left v. right but wrong in that its a gamer vs anti gamer. Its a war between Nintendo and the media, industry, and the fanbases. These 3 want Nintendo and their allies gone so they can hang onto this industry. You’ve noticed the fanbases really want Nintendo to go back to how they were: weakened but its okay, they made great games. I have to say: screw that.
But that is my theory on what gamergate is. You don’t have to believe me but always be skeptical of what people say.
Source: https://disqus.com/home/dis…
To my shock, Titan was onto something because Gamergate was indeed manipulated by journalists, but more specifically by a man named Steve Bannon.
Steven Bannon is the co-founder and former executive chairman of Brietbart, an infamous news site for the alt-right community to which the less I talk about it and his other positions, the better. He first dip his toes into the gaming business with IGE, where he was abusing its working class, and later covered Gamergate from Breitbart to test his theory on “angry male gamers” while also tagging Milo Yiannopulos at his wing to gather them around onto his side (because he knew gamers are stupid enough to follow any form of outrage). In other words, the entire gaming community has fallen into his trap, and their movement is forever tarnished as a hate group.
So there you have it, gaming is now in a far worse position than it was before no thanks to Bannon. If we want to be taken seriously again, then we must admit our own faults as a community, be more forgiving towards each other, and stand up against him to prove that we are not his puppets.
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