#Gamergate

While I didn’t know anything about #gamergate before reading this week’s articles, I was surprised to learn what a big deal it was in the gamer community. Having never really played video games other than the occasional Sega game as a kid, the world of gamers is totally foreign to me. It seems that this whole thing started by male gamers attacking certain female gamers over the idea that women are misrepresented in video games. One article sums up #gamergate here:

#GamerGate, a hashtag that became a breeding ground for all kinds of conspiracy theories surrounding the "corrupt" systems that allowed Quinn and Sarkeesian to figure in the industry as they do. As the hashtag spread, spectators got increasingly drawn into arguments about the ethics governing relationships between game developers and the gaming press.

 I think this issue does introduce legitimate ethical concerns because it really brought out the ugly side of some people. The whole thing seemed to have grown way out of proportion to the extent that certain female gamers like Zoe Quinn were forced to leave her home from fear of death threats. Quinn, also known as a ‘social justice warrior’, was interested in opening the medium to audiences including women and others. It seems that these people who were against her wanted to drive her away while still maintaining the issue was about corruption. I think there is a case to be made for women like Quinn and Sarkeesian who only want women to be more included in the gaming world. Just because some “traditional male gamers” don’t agree doesn’t mean they need to post private information online and prevent people from staying in their own homes. If we were to look at this in terms of one of our philosophers, I think Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance would be useful here. Rawl asks decision makers to examine the situation objectively from all points of view and essentially says ‘do unto others’. Would these male gamers want their addresses and information posted online for all to see? I think not.

http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/ladjef/gamergate

 I think this situation of doxing is very unethical and really quite frightening. While there is no way to monitor what these gamers post online, I think it’s shocking that it went far enough that people were threatening Quinn’s life. This is all over video games? I think this situation is a bit different from that of Jackie because Jackie wasn’t receiving death threats saying people wanted to kill her, while Quinn did.

I do think it’s a bit unethical to create false social media profiles to inflate the size of the movement. It’s one thing to agree with the movement and claim there is a lack of female support, but falsely creating profiles seems like it’s taking it to another level. I think Kant’s categorical imperative could be used here as it focuses on the action. The action itself does not seem to be very ethical since it is in itself, a lie.

This brings us to the issue with Intel, who decided to pull its ads from Gamasutra. I don’t think this was entirely unethical as Intel is a huge corporation and didn’t want to be involved with something messy like #gamergate. While this has happened before with other corporations, I don’t find it as troubling here since Intel didn’t want to get caught up between two sides. They say” "We recognize that our action inadvertently created a perception that we are somehow taking sides in an increasingly bitter debate in the gaming community," Intel wrote. "That was not our intent, and that is not the case. When it comes to our support of equality and women, we want to be very clear: Intel believes men and women should be treated the same” (http://www.polygon.com/2014/10/4/6906909/intel-gamergate-advertising-gamasutra).

I think Intel employed the ideas of rationality versus emotion in this respect because they wanted to do what was right for the company. I guess we could also say they were only looking out for themselves (like Aristotle’s Golden Mean) but it seems like it was the right call to make. It wasn’t a sneaky move like creating false profiles, and it wasn’t a cruel move like posting death threats online. It was merely a smart business decision.

This whole #gamergate issue seems a bit troubling. I don’t know if there is a way to resolve this, but I guess the one positive is that something like this brings more light to the situation of anti-feminism in video gaming. Although I am a woman, it’s hard for me to relate to this as I am so completely out of this gaming world. It just seems so unnecessary to hack into someone’s account, post their address online, and threaten their life, all because you don’t agree with something they did or said.