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I can't make a judgement on all the members of gamergate. My experience with Adam Baldwin is that he enjoys playing the cigar chomping Reaganite and he's addicted to arguing, and serious gamergaters should probably regret his involvement because he's a big shitehawke.
I don't think Anita's videos are very good. I thought her original youtube series was interesting enough and I was curious to see what money could to do them. I was pretty disappointed with the results there.
Anyway, the real problem with GG is that a)with the best will in the world, it will never be able to separate itself from the Zoe Quinn stuff, b)it's a breeding ground for shitehawkes on both sides and c)as I say, I think talking about objectivity and journalistic ethics just has no place in something that is enthusiast press, and I really cannot shake the feeling that the core arguments about this really are a disproportionate response to radical feminism. Tumblrites and these 'SJW' people, if I must, do often have a shocking lack of perspective and are probably contributing a fair amount of shit.
If all things are equal, and nobody commited any wrongdoing, I would still be against the aims of gamergate. Trying to place this at the feet of the press, now, doesn't make any sense. Gaming press had a power over the industry and a position to abuse it in the 90s. This was in reponse to their relevance at the time. Gaming press is now less and less relevant and any consumer is in a position to completely bypass them, not only from the wide range of opinions out there, but also the opportunity to instantly watch masses of streamed footage of a game, which probably gives the best impression on it's quality without any editorial interference.
To then complain to care about a lower review score because of a personal quabble that a reviewer has:
a)tries to deny the inherent personal subjective experience of engaging these things, which you'll never be able to successfully do and so it's better to meet it head on than try to repress it
b)implies that there's some sort of dishonesty from the perspective of the reviewer
c)tries to paint the notion of the 'core' gamer being the true voice, when that's a self defeating perspective as it is
d)plays into the hands of, as I said, people putting boobs in games because it takes money out of your pocket
I say let everyone have their say. I love reading reviews of things that hate what I love. I love reading reviews that love what I hate. Let my opinion change. I go back to things I played or watched or read years ago and I look at it in a whole new light, with my experience and age. I would crumple up those old reviews I wrote. We're young and dumb.
Aside from the logical fallacy fencing and freedom of speech and what not, GamerGate is just too embroiled in the origins of attacks against women, regarding an industry that has historically been a young boys club, and that's something I've always been conscious of. Once it got onto twitter and forums, it's too hard to pin it down to anything after that. The root of it is still that it too often gets away from what it pretends to be about, and I think what it claims to be about isn't good either. It doesn't make sense. Games journalism is already defanged. It's future is to be as subjective as possible. My favourite reviewer is Tim Rogers. His reviews are about 50,000 words long and usually end up mostly talking about what he was doing in the mid 90s or how the game reminds him of playing Mario 3. He is also absurdly game intelligent and is able to dissect the experience in a way that cuts right to the core. Objectivity means nothing to a Tim Rogers review.
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