I was very interested in GamerGate when it first popped up. I... well, not "enjoyed" Depression Quest, given the subject matter, but I did find it to be a very powerful story, even if it's not perfect, and I was a little taken aback by the fury directed at Zoe Quinn. Saying that I was one of her defenders is probably incorrect, since I haven't really posted anything on this topic before, but if I were picking sides, it would be that one.
Nowadays my attitude is part bemusement and part exasperation. I don't know how or why people can justify defending that particular banner anymore, given how nobody has really found anything significantly corrupt about Quinn and any game journalism outlet, and watching them try to find more post hoc rationalizations is frankly rather irritating. Even if they do manage to come up with some potentially problematic issues to worry about. Especially if they try to justify the crap that was originally directed at people like Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian by pointing to legitimate problems.
Of course, even if I don't care enough to follow the whole issue closely anymore, I still happen upon references from time to time (and that usually spawns a bit of a tab explosion as I start clicking through to other new references). Such as this analogy I found on Memebase.
It did make me stop and think for a moment, even if I don't agree with the point of this particular post. So I thought I'd share what I came up with.
Mostly, that has to do with the comparison between the past's concerns about satanic messages, and the present's concern with sexism, racism, or homophobia. How the present concern is portrayed, though, is at best incomplete, and at worst deceptive. I think there's a difference between active discrimination and poor representation, and that most of the problem we have is with the latter. The former is fixed by eliminating discriminatory stereotypes; the latter is fixed by adding more stories about different kinds of people to the ones we're already telling.
Basically, I'm not trying to argue that modern games are all sexist. I do think they reflect society's prejudices (as does almost every other form of media; video games are by far not the only medium struggling with this issue right now) and that we should try and tell more stories than just "prince (or plumber) saves princess"... but that doesn't mean we'll never tell that one again.
That doesn't mean we have no problem at all with discrimination; there are still some tropes that need to go away and never be heard from again. And just because we can still tell stories about the princes of the world is no reason to make every princess in those stories a complete idiot (which is really just me restating the discrimination point more dramatically). Nor do I expect the defenders of the current status quo to be placated by the fact that many people are more interested in expanding the scope of gaming and gamers than they are with limiting what we currently have.
But it's worth pointing out that GamerGate's detractors don't really want to destroy video games or denounce everything we currently have as unacceptable. We really just want to make room for everyone here.
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