Yet Another Developer Leaves Their Home Following Harassment

I have a simple mantra that guides me through life. DON'T BE A DICK. I don't find it very demanding, and I am constantly baffled by people who feel the need to be dicks.

This stuff is just wrong. I strongly disagree with Sarkeesian on many of her points (I honestly don't really know Wu nor do I have interest in Quinn), but this is just disgusting.

You can disagree with someone and still have a civil discussion or (even better sometimes) ignore each other. This screams untreated psychosis to me. I hope this guy gets cought and punished accordingly.

I can't speak for movements but.. anyone who thinks talking to another person like that is in anyway excusable needs to meet criminal consequence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29411031 - Does the US have anything like this?

Guy in the UK just a few weeks ago was jailed for nearly four months because of twitter threats to an MP.

There have already been reports on why sites arent covering it more - the biggest one seems to be fear.

This is the world GamerGate has created, and it is horrible. GamerGate is using terror as a weapon to silence people, and for those with families and children it's hard to say "speak out anyway" because while 99% of these threats are only words, what if that 1% comes true?

I really wish Twitter would start taking abuse seriously, and work with law enforcement to show that you can't just hurl death threats at someone without consequence.

The internet has become a fucking awful place in the last two months. October is supposed to be about horror, but the kind you watch on a screen, not experience in real life.

Good going. This gamergate shitshow has got to stop, or at least be pushed back against from big sites. I don't have a lot of faith in that happening consistently, but this is a good contribution. Ignoring it will do nothing.

Nice of you to (not) mention that multiple people pro-GG are threatened and or doxxed as well (including YouTube personality Boogie2988 or the journalist Milo Yiannopoulos or 8chan disabled creator Fred "Hotwheels" Brannon [http://vimeo.com/91583460]), but I guess they're not important because they're not female.

I personally think it's bs that gb or any other site would be called out for not covering,unless you were looking for publicity. GB and Patrick especially have done so much to shed light on the shit show that's going on out there. Believe in that!

I don't intend to speak for Patrick, but I can assure you that this article was in the works well before she appeared on MSNBC.

Why do people insist on calling out Giant Bomb as if they are somehow responsible for behavior that isn't new and likely isn't going to change? This stuff is reprehensible, but the staff has repeatedly made it known that they find it disgusting. This community is one of the more reasonable I have seen when it comes to gaming sites.

What exactly are they supposed to do?

I wonder what can be done about this problem, people should not have to go through this kind of stuff.

Was happy to see you address this Patrick, lots of people asking on twitter for comments and proper condemnation from the big sites.

Disgusting.

Glad that GB is acknowledging GamerGate.

Thanks for posting this, Patrick. I was starting to feel a bit down on the site for not reporting on this, I'm glad that this has changed.

Thanks Patrick. Stay strong, you'll probably get a lot of shit for writing about this but know that I and lot of others are happy you did.

Oh my God! I quite frankly never looked into the uproar against women in game development since I used to date a video game programmer and would usually hear a lot of feminist outrage and dismiss the claims as "oversensitive" - but, holy shit! I did not realize just how poisonous and scary the threats to these women were! This is fucking disgusting and really, I don't understand why such absolute hatred for these women. There is just a lot of hatred on the internet.

Yet when the shady Shadow of mordor Youtuber coverage contract got leaked, they did nothing. Apparently its only corruption when female indie game devs DO NOTHING WRONG. Millionaire studios and PR firms? meh

Please don't get mad at Brianna for calling GB out on TV. I'm sure Patrick and everyone else on staff would probably agree that it's fair criticism. I've followed Brianna on Twitter for a few months and she's never been anything but highly professional.

Anyway, thanks Patrick for writing this. GamerGate is (and, let's face it, always has been) completely irredeemable. I don't think this is a "both sides" issue. I don't care if you felt insulted by Leigh Alexander's article. None of that, NONE of that comes close to this. And if you're angry about the "death of gamers" stuff but you like Giant Bomb, consider that Jeff Gerstmann has been criticizing the "gamer" identity for YEARS.

Yes everything that happend is disgusting and extremely sad, but the barbarism i see in some of the comments makes me even more sad and lose faith in humanity and communication on the internet. Because what some people are asking for and the forms of retribution they find acceptable is in no way civilized. You might be "on the right side of history" but that does not gives you a free pass to stop thinking and acting like a civilized human being. You might not realise it, but some of you have not a whole more decency than the people you condem.

The middle ages are over people. an eye for an eye is no longer a valid form of punishment. Wishing bad things on bad people doesn't erase the fact you wish bad things on people. If you think you are part of the good guys/girls, act like it.

In the lead up to this it seemed like she was actively attempting to draw gamergate supporters ire through various means including making sockpuppet twitter accounts to troll them. Obviously she's free to do what the hell she wants in a public forum but the article glosses over this and makes it sound like this is a roving game dev hit squad, targeting her apropos of nothing. If you think this isn't important to the context of the story I'll withdraw my comment.

Patrick, people who support GamerGate have been sent death threats too. These threats are not isolated to either side, please don't group a whole movement of people who want a positive change in the industry with one bad person.

Not to take anything away from this particular incident, but this kind of thing isn't isolated to just the games industry. There are a lot of mentally ill people out there that get off on harassing people like this. I suppose this is one of the ills society will have to deal with when every crazy person is given a microphone and a direct line to someone to harass.

Also I feel this kind of thing a matter for police and such since they have the power to do more than any gaming website. Raising awareness that things are fucked up isn't going to change the fact that they are fucked up.

I kind of agree that scumbags like that deserve to get hounded to the ends of the earth. I really, really do. But that kind of backlash would only make the entire situation a WHOLE lot worse for everyone involved.

Glad to see this on GB. You guys carry a lot of weight in this field and I'm glad you've finally taken a public stance. Thank you.

I've seen #gamersgate people suggesting GB be boycotted for its coverage of #gamersgate

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Facts are facts and people can overlook or be ignorant of them, or willfully ignore them, but they do speak for themselves.

Let's see here.

Victim blaming? Check.

If You Just Ignore Them They Will Go Away? Check.

Implying this is just someone being "a dick"? Check.

NotAllGamerGaters? Check.

I feel really bad about this. No one deserves to go through that.

I really wish they wouldn't even converse with the gamergate people. The kotaku article said that before the threat,Wu was going at it with someone. I am not saying she caused it, but its just not worth it to argue with those types. Look what happened.

Also calling out giant bomb really bugs me. Besides Patrick doing a great job covering what he can and trying not to stir the pot, all a giant announcement would do is start more controversy and cause even more threats. What Giant Bomb has done so far has been great and the right way. It takes time for change and all the little articles add up over time.

Also the way the community is run and structured by staff and mods speaks volumes about what Giant Bomb stands for. Everyone has done a great job and to me that is what stands out the most

These disgusting people should be locked up.

@patrickklepek, you and @alex spoke a bit about this on today's morning show, but do you ever get....I don't know if "bothered" is the right word, but there are certain games people who have taken it upon themselves to take Giant Bomb and other gaming sites to task for not publicly denouncing GamerGate, or this entire situation. I personally feel like anyone who consumes any amount of Giant Bomb content would know that the site and its staff are very clearly against harassment of any sort. Hell, at PAX Prime, one of the most quoted parts across the parts of the internet where I frequent was Jeff talking about his issues with people who get upset about obsessively labelling themselves as "gamers" when it's ultimately bullshit anyway. And Jeff would be the expert in people not obsessing over games, seeing as he clearly has devoted his adult life to games as a medium.

So I guess it all leads back to the idea of "What do you want me to do?". When people constantly drag GB and your own names through the mud because you guys "won't say anything", I get incredibly confused: I feel like you, Patrick and Alex, are probably some of the most vocal people when it comes to denouncing harassment. If not on here (though again, I feel like you do plenty of talk about it on the morning shows) then on Twitter.

Note: this is the same person who recently and repeatedly denounced GB for not having any women at their E3 show, but then admitted that they had only just watched a few seconds of a stream, saw no women, and turned it off so they could tweet about how angry and dismissive they were. I know, it's all about "trying harder and doing better" but that just struck me as generally misinformed. Shawn Alexander just RT'd a tweet about how everyone complains about Bayonetta but no one praises Amanda Ripley, and how everyone demands more inclusion but no one ever acknowledges when they get it.

I wish people would stop acting as if Giant Bomb's staff hasn't been commenting on this stuff for weeks now.

Weird that people care about video game sites taking a stance on this stuff. Did you think they were pro-harassment or something? Obviously it's wrong and there continues to be nothing they can do about threats on twitter.

How could Giant Bomb have prevented any of this ? Gerstmann and crew don't have any superpowers to clean the Internet of bad people.

Indeed. I'm not a fan of all the noise on Twitter especially. But just because it happens to others too doesn't make this any less disgusting.

Maybe she had NoPat turned on.

Ugh, this is messed up, how can some people justify acting like that to themselves?

*refers to them as female*

Please, get out, and think about what you're saying. Gamergate is a loosely organised movement, anti-gg are just a bunch of people who realise they're a bunch of crybabies and there's no one group you can claim are responsible for that.

This is a classic statement of "WHAT ABOUT THE MENNNSSS???????"

Seriously. The label/Hashtag Gamergate is toxic. IF the real and true Gamergaters that want to talk about ethics in video games then step away from that name, for two reasons. 1) It's toxic as hell and you will have to do damage control all the time 2) It's a stupid name for a movement that want to be taken seriously.

Also....stop using that damn word; agenda. Really, it's so played out. Patrick, Leigh and all the others have an opinion driven by who they are and what they believe in. An agenda is practically an opinion. They are writers and write opinion pieces. It sounds so damn stupid when people use the word agenda as if it's some kind of mass conspiracy but yeah.... I forget these people just LOVE conpiracys. It's so much fun to play Internet detective and it's even better when it's for the reason to forward your own AGENDA, your opposing opinion.

Also...I really starting to hate the rhetoric used by Gamergaters and the vile people that made Intel drop advertisement from Gamasutra. I like Polygon, Giantbomb, Gamespot and a bunch of other sites! You say that you want to direct us to a better alternative....then do that, don't destroy the options by extreme measures. You don't want to give us better options, you want to force them on us. You want us all to think and act just like you. The whole movement is so up it's own ass and VERY selfish.

Yeah... that's that. I really needed to get that off my chest and Giantbomb felt like the right place to do it because you guys are awesome people! <3

he addressed this on bombin and on a premium Q and A at one point, he doesnt deny there is some people that actually have something meaningful to say, but stuff like this really overshadows and colors the whole thing that it makes it hard to listen to what those people are trying to say.

sadly though, it seems there are others that are willing to generalize a whole movement based on the actions of a few lunatics.

Ultimately, this entire movement was built on the back of the mass disclosure of someone's sex life. That is unavoidable. This wouldn't exist without a 10,000-word screed about Zoe Quinn and her sex life. You cannot support GamerGate without acknowledging this fact.

Can you buy an IOS game without owning an IOS device?

@sephirm87: I would agree with finding out who these people are, and then reporting them to the authorities. However, what you suggest goes beyond that and is terrible. Hopefully a mod deletes it as it promotes a crime in the name of vengeance.

@patrickklepek: Apparently, Giantbomb is part of the problem. You might want to get in touch with Brianna or MSNBC to get them to change their story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATloKy52bVY

I can't see an end to this and Gamergate, a movement which is the summation of years of cynical people that have been mad/disapointed in how modern games didn't turn out exactly like they wanted, and how people in a privilaged seat of influence didn't share their interest in videogames.