Zaine Bennett

Sheila Fielding

WRTC 103

February 21, 2017

Gamergate, A Community Outraged

During the summer of 2014, an online movement called Gamergate occurred

that caused a split in the gaming community. In the article titled, Gamergate: Is

misogyny widespread in the video game community? published December 19th,

2014 on the infobasedlearning website, the author (whose name I could not find

mentioned in the article) clearly lays out what Gamergate was as well as both sides

of the argument. The author intends to reach out to the men and women of the

gaming world and bring attention to the sexual politics in the gaming world. He or

She is trying to convince people to end the harsh treatment of individuals in the

gaming world, mainly the rising population of females in that ecosystem. By

bringing attention to both sides of the argument and showing the readers the harsh

treatment inflicted upon women in the gaming community such as game developer

Zoe Quinn and YouTube channel operator Anita Sarkeesian the author hopes to end

the unfair treatment of all individuals in the field. I have also included a PSA made

by Zaine Bennett to add depth to the article and further the argument.

Gamergate was the name given to an online movement based on gender and

the sexual politics of the gaming industry. Zoe Quinn, an indie gaming developer,
was attacked by members of the gaming community after it came out that she

possibly traded sexual favors for good reviews on her new game. Members of the

gaming world attacked Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and other women because they

were blamed for starting to influence the content of video games. They received

death threats, hate mail, and other harassment so frequently that they had to

contact the authorities and leave their homes. Those in opposition of gamergate

thought the entire movement was nothing but a misogynistic outburst from the

predominately male based community. Gamergate started the discussion about the

future of video games and the change of the traditional gamer and their culture.

No author is mentioned in the article but they do list numerous sources to

help establish credibility. In one instance in paragraph 40 the author quoted

Guardian gaming critic Keith Stuart stating I have a problem with those gamers

who want to shut out different voices and new forms of design, I have a problem

with gamers who deny that this industry needs to improve its representationin

terms of race, gender and sexuality. Stuart is a well-known video game critic in the

industry with many years of experience under his belt who is very obviously against

the supporters of gamergate. In paragraph 18 a quote by Drew Harwell, a

Washington Post writer. He said For example, a recent version of Tomb Raider

reimagined the game's main heroine, Lara Croft, who, Washington Post writer Drew

Harwell notes, was "transformed from a buxom adventuress in short shorts to a

crafty, fearsome survivor in better-suited outerwear." This is a very credible source

because the journalist is a credible news source, Washington Post. This journalist

argues for the better portrayal, a nonsexist portrayal, of women in video games.

Lastly, in paragraph 34 the author supplies a quote from someone who was affected

by gamergate, Brianna Wu. She said, For 30 years, video games have been
designed by men, marketed to men and sold to men. Since the movement directly

affected her, the testimony is extremely credible. The author does a tremendous job

in establish credibility even considering the author's identity is unknown.

The author introduces graphs into the article to help support his or her facts.

The first graph was introduced in paragraph 15 as a bar graph. The graph depicted

a recent study showing that males and females played video games in roughly

equal numbers, with males outnumbering females in younger age groups and

females outnumbering males in older ones. In paragraph 19 the author supplies us

with a frequency graph about A recent study indicating that males were more likely

than females to play games on the popular video game systems PlayStation 3 and

Xbox 360 multiple times per week. The graph provides us with facts and evidence

so that we can make educated decisions on those facts. In another example, in

paragraph 15 the author includes a statistic from the company called Newzoo, a

company dedicated to market research for companies. That stat was 13 million

females in 2014 play video games more than five days per week, a ten-fold increase

since 2011. Statistics are great for Logos because they provide a general fact

about something. After all, numbers do not tend to lie.

Gamergate was a very emotional time for those involved. The author tries to

encapsulate this and provide depth to the argument. These are appeals that invoke

a reaction from the audience as they read about them. During paragraph 17 the

author says Many of these gaming blockbusters have come under attack not only

for their violent content but also for their portrayal of women. Carolyn Petit, a critic

for the website Gamespot, for example, wrote that Grand Theft Auto V has little

room for women except to portray them as strippers, prostitutes, long-suffering

wives, humorless girlfriends and goofy, new-age feminists that we're meant to laugh
at." This is an appeal to Pathos because it is meant to bring out the emotion of

anger or maybe disgust. People are supposed to be angry at that fact that women

are portrayed that way in a game so widely popular. Another section of the article

that brings the emotion of outrage is in paragraph 21. Later in October, actor

Felicia Day, creator of "The Guild," a web series about gamers, wrote a blog post on

the aggression apparent in Gamergate, revealing that she was afraid to speak out

for fear of getting doxxed. Soon after Day published the post, her personal

information appeared online. This quote brings out the emotion of sympathy. The

populous feel bad for Day for sticking up for what she believes in and getting

doxed because of it. It also sparks outrage at the gaming community for doing

such a thing. One final appeal to pathos is stated in paragraph 34, Brianna Wu

wrote in the Washington Post. Its obvious to anyone outside the industry that

video games have serious issues with the portrayal of women. Its not just

oversexualized examples... Games are still lazily falling on the same outdated

tropes involving women. Princess Peach, of Nintendos Mario games, has been

kidnapped in 12 separate games since 1985. Perhaps the most disturbing of all is

the propensity of games to have women thoughtlessly murdered as a motivation for

the male hero. This is meant to bring out the motion of pity or sadness for women.

Or on the other side, anger that men who create these games perpetually continue

these stereotypes. Wu wants to appeal to the people sympathetic side to get these

types of stereotypes to stop. Gamergate evoked anger and outrage by many people

in the gaming community and the author works to display this anger in the article.
Stop the hate, end the violence. By Zaine Bennett
 The main claim of the PSA, created by Zaine Bennett, is to convince people to

stop the hate and that the gaming industry is changing by the entrance of women.

The PSA is telling the audience to stop all the hate towards females in the gaming

industry like in the article. The intended audience is the WRTC 103 class and its

instructor, Sheila Fielding. The dominant pictures and colors are a picture that says

hate with a slash through it and the colors are red and white to draw attention to

the major points of the PSA.

The author, Zaine Bennett, has read the article analyzed and remembers

clearly Gamergate and the repercussions it had on the gaming community. The only

source used in the PSA is the article Zaine read the essay. The creator uses a very

angry tone to get people to listen. The word choice is appropriate because it is no

over the top or too simple. The PSA is professional, organized, and well done. The

author does link the PSA to a non-profit, Games for Change, to provide credibility.

The claim presented by the PSA is a sensible one. Females are starting to

enter the gaming more industry and it is sparking industrial and social change. It

does contain facts and details but nothing other than that. The ad does not contain

any flaws, it is logical and relevant. In the main body, Zaine uses facts to bring

attention to the issue at hand.

The entire PSA is meant to inspire anger from the populous in order to get

people to stop violence in the industry. The text is used to evoke a response as well

as a graphic. The PSA does contain language that would produce a response like

STOP THE HATE and END THE VIOLENCE. The color red is used because red is the

color of anger and rage. The overall mood is aggression and anger. The creator

wants to make people angry at those who created gamergate. The overall design is
crowded and busy, a lot of material is focused on a little space. The image is large

and also red to draw attention to it.

Throughout the article, the author remained impartial and carefully laid out

and explained both sides of the argument. He or she was effective because they

carefully laid out both sides of the Gamergate issue and explain it in a detailed

manner. They used and cited numerous sources for both sides of the argument so

that the reader can get accurate and credible information on the topic. I did not find

any holes in the authors logic but that might be due to little to no dialogue from the

author themselves. It is almost exclusively information from other sources and

explicit facts on the topic of Gamergate. By using all three rhetorical appeals (Ethos,

Pathos, and Logos) the author tries to convince members of the gaming community,

men and women alike, to think about the repercussions of the gamergate scandal

as well as try to stop anything like this from becoming violent again. In the PSA the

author complements the article but only on the side of the opponents of gamergate.

The PSA is meant to add more depth to the original article. The article is much more

convincing than the PSA.

 Works Cited
"Gamergate: Is misogyny widespread in the video game community?" Issues &
Controversies. Infobased learning, 19 Dec. 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.