Best Geek Ever!: A Gate for Gamers

As you may have heard, this last month we've seen a bit of trouble here in videogame liking land. That problem has been given the name Gamergate, and a few accompanying hashtag warcries tag along it now.

I dread to recap it, because it's the kind of topic everyone's already settled their minds upon, and any deviation from their version will probably end up in accusations of bias, missinformation, missoginy, and many more things. So let's break this down.

Some lady I don't know, and also a lady I kind of know, claim to have been targets of harassment by lowlives that happen to also like games. This leads many game sites to simultaneously claim that gamers are over/dead/unnecessary. This leads to some more backlash from gamers, who are now angry with the media for being full on the side of these ladies. They claim these ladies manufactured their own threats, and also screwerized actual profemale gamejams. I think I got most of it. Now put it in there in the comments that Bestgeekever is biased against someone, because it is, and it's called EVERYONE.

I've always believed that most of the times, when we're looking for the truth in extremes, we're off the mark. So basically you're all wrong in my eyes.

Gamergate partidarians, I acknowledge that your sides accusations of media bias towards Whatever's side should have been acknowledged. And that's exactly the problem with begging everything with massive harassment. Even if Ms Whatever was the conniving succubus you claim her to be, no one likes to see a lady get attacked. I learned this in school, when I teased a girl who had teased me everyday, and some random kid punched me in the gut. "Not fair?" Fuck fairness, play to win with the rules that are in place!

It's natural that claims of harassment will be heard over claims of "having em' rolled around her little finger". Why wouldn't they? Even if they aren't biased, as far as they know that's just the harassers falling into self defense! That's what I would believe!

And you media? How dare you? For shame! "Gamer's are dead now"? "Game's culture is a shame?" Weren't you at E3 just a few months ago, sorrounded by those famous "adults in mushroom hats" you so now loath, telling about all the future upcoming products we were going to buy? And all of a sudden, because a few bad eggs did something, you want to disolve the whole thing? Kotaku ain't got no love for Gamers and Cosplay and Death Row?

And really, it is just a few bad eggs. Don't make this about Gamers. SOME ASSHOLES sent harrassing messages to those people, just like some assholes might yell insults at the players during a basketball game. You don't see Sports Illustrated going "We don't need B-Ball fans anymore, they're stupid." Because yes they do. Who's gonna buy the tickets and merchandise if not the fans? Who is going to convince others to get into it if not the fans? Do you think if they all leave some new type of fan will materialize itself, as if fandom was a naturally occurring phenomenom?

Some of us have been into gaming a while, is all. We have injokes. We remember certain things. We don't just play games every odd moon, we try to know about them. We don't hate people who don't play videogames as much as us. I knew this one family of like, 8 kids that all they had was baseball games (and also my Smash Bros cartridge that they never gave back...) That's okay too. But some of us like games in a more intimate levels.

And finally, to all you who want to see the games industry get some more variety overall, this I agree with. But, as I told one of said ladies once, the point is not to nag the industry into compliance. The point is to create a niche, from where different kinds of games can grow. Prove that such different experiences have a market to them, and you will sow the seeds of change.

And finally, to all I say: disagree as much as you want. Democracy is made of people arguing until one argument is agreed more than the other. But remember that, just like using the Game Gennie on a single player game, you only cheat yourself if your arguments aren't truthful and fair.