As a gamer I need to speak out against the hate group known as Gamergate

[Bjorn Against]

9. To. be clear, I have not been silent about sexism in games

What I had been mostly silent about was Gamergate specifically, I did not want them to get attention as I knew attention could only cause their numbers to grow. There comes a point however when it becomes clear that the group is creating a truly toxic environment and that toxic environment is not going to go away if we ignore it.

As far as sexism in games goes, that has bothered me for a long time. Going all the way back to the games that came out in the 80's and 90's when if the game did contain female characters those characters were very weak and basically useless. I do think developers have been getting better about that in recent years and we do see better female characters now than we ever have in the past, but the industry still does have a long ways to go.

This Gamergate thing is unlike anything I have seen in gaming before however, while there has always been sexism in games it never rose to the level that you could label any developers as hate groups. Gamergate is the first actual hate group that I have ever been aware of within the gaming community, and I think much of the gaming community is having a difficult time knowing how to respond to it.