I'm going to preface this by saying that I hope women/gay/transgender persons obtain a richer and more adequate representation in games and I'm happy for Anita Sarkeesian for winning an award at GDC.

This being said. I think much of the gaming press, community and developers have been mislabeling agenda as a catchall for specifically punditry that is going on in games. Anita Sarkeesian does have an agenda. She's set fourth to accomplish a clear goal of exposing inadequacies she see's in games. What specifically seems to be the issue with Anita Sarkeesian and our very own @patrickklepek is their use of punditry. That is what many seem to mean when they say that have an agenda.

Now pundits deploy a wide array of tactics to successfully build a following. In modern times, they've been known to serve as both a great source of support for political action and inaction on a broad set of issues. They've also been known to serve alternatively as a great source of entertainment, where both sides of an issue can feed off of festering resentment for the other side spurred by the pundits.

A men's rights activist threatening Anita or mocking @patrickklepek for having an agenda is finding the same sort of enjoyment the other side has for mocking him for saying they have an agenda. Bill O'Reilly is arguably the most successful pundit on modern television. He's had an entire show dedicated to mocking him for almost a decade and has only seen his viewership & worldview grow in that time. The technique of presenting opinions as bullet-points while the pundit talks is the primary means of arming their viewership with talking points. This is Anita's primary means of disseminating repeatable opinions but as media evolves Patrick can use twitter to blast his repeatable opinion to his followers. This is their right and I see no problem with them using their right. What I fear is the building of an opposition from those who are engaged in games that are on the fence.

Being rude about your political views is fun, but could we not just accomplish the same goals without holding hatred for the other side or mocking them, even if they continue to mock or hold hatred for us?

I hope I have not misused any word usage. I tried using the GLAAD Media Reference Guide when writing out this post and presenting my own opinion respectfully way. I hope in the future, those within the gaming press, community and developers may use their platforms in ways that create less conflict and more listening leading to conversation. Thank you for taking the time to reading to this point in the post and I hope you have a great day.