Leigh Alexander had a chat with a GamerGater at a recent talk, got to the heart of the matter:
The idea that someone can be objective when they’re talking about an emotional creative medium is fallacious.
(if you have to, there’s no shame in looking up the definition of fallacious)
You can’t offer an opinion about something without basing that opinion on something, and that something is one’s experience and beliefs. Many a woman’s experience is that they’ve been deliberately excluded from the industry and treated as sex objects. Turns out humanity has a nasty history of excluding each other from things, whether it was last week’s party, the right to vote, or the ability to not be a slave and live as a human being. Maybe there’s something to what they’re saying.
Women want to play games with us, feel as empowered as we do, and have a great time. That sounds pretty awesome, hey? More people to play with and everyone gets to have a good time.
If you are genuinely not here to harass women into shutting up or killing themselves, if you’re actually here for “ethics in video game journalism” but you want opinions and “agenda” and politics out of video games, you have two options:
- Find the details section on Wikipedia that explains the game’s name, plot, system requirements, and number co-op players, then stop after that. There’s your objectivity devoid of such burdensome things like ‘opinions’ and ‘politics’.
- Find publications that write about the things you care about. Realize it’s ok that there are people who care about different things, and there’s plenty of this pie to go around.