Great write up Jeff.
It's a great summary of how I have felt about the whole thing.
If you have serious questions about games journalism/criticism you should not only distance yourself from GamerGate, but actively fight against it.
For two main reasons.
1. Nobody deserves to be treated like that.
2. I have found it hard enough to try and get the games media to actually discuss topics. I find a whole hell of a lot of preaching to the choir with it all. Most of them seem to agree on everything social justice (or activism, inclusiveness, or whatever you want to call it) and the only people they have to discuss it with is us. Often developers/publishers can't really share their opinions because of PR. And I think a lot of them don't have the greatest opinion of their readers (read all the "don't read the comments" tweets you see). And GamerGate is not helping that AT ALL. It's pretty damn hard to want to talk to anyone civilly when you are being harassed day in and day out. And even if you aren't the one doing it, the subject itself is going to be a sore topic just to bring up. You want to be on Zoe and Anita's side with this. Even if you don't like Zoe's games or Anita's videos or anyone else's work who has been attacked. You can't just give passing lip service to "not supporting" harassment and then do right on grilling them about ethics, they are not going to want to hear it. No one would. Seriously would you honestly give a crap about review scores on video games while people were sending death threats to your family?
For whatever my hangups with the games media, developers, publishers, critics, etc. are I think they honestly would talk to us about this given the chance. We need to show them that it's not black and white with everything. We can question some of the practices of the games industry without needing to attempt to threaten it into submission.
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