Zoë Quinn: Gamergate Must Be Condemned
October 29, 2014
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GamerGate,
2014,
Manosphere
“When people that are prominent in the industry can stand up and say 'I'm part of games, I love games, this hate mob doesn't speak for me, this is not welcome in games', it has the two-fold effect of making it less damaging to those that this can hurt, and it does something repair this horrible misrepresentation of this medium that so many of us love.”
Games publishers and industry figures must "stand-up and condemn" the movement referred to as "Gamergate", developer Zoe Quinn has told the BBC.
Ms Quinn has been at the centre of a furore which some argue is about ethics in journalism, but others consider to be a largely misogynist hate campaign. The 27-year-old was forced to leave her home after receiving death threats. She said publishers must "say GamerGate, and what it's been doing, is wrong".
In a highly-emotional interview, Ms Quinn told the BBC how her life had "completely changed" after she had become embroiled in the row. In August, an ex-boyfriend of Ms Quinn published a blog post, that ran to thousands of words, detailing intimate details about their relationship. The posts detailed that Ms Quinn had had a relationship with a journalist at prominent games site Kotaku - prompting accusations from others she had done so in an attempt to get positive reviews for her game, Depression Quest.
While the relationship happened, the review did not. The debate continued, however, and is now approaching its third month. Ms Quinn, who has not returned home since the initial threats, had been speaking at the annual Gamecity event in Nottingham - despite a previous threat she would suffer a "crippling injury" the next time she went to a games conference.
"I used to go to games events and feel like I was going home," Ms Quinn said. "Now it's just like... are any of the people I'm currently in the room with ones that said they wanted to beat me to death?" "It's terrifying. It sucks to not have any privacy. This has all been so public. It's more scrutiny than a politician faces - it's living with constant fear in a place I called home.
