Sadly, Sarkeesian has long been the target of sexist attacks\u2014ever since she first launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 to support the series. \u201cThe threats against Ms. Sarkeesian are the most noxious example of a weeks-long campaign to discredit or intimidate outspoken critics of the male-dominated gaming industry and its culture,\u201d Wingfield wrote.<\/p>\n
Even former avowed Gamergaters have hung up their trilbies and abandoned their positions as everything became more extreme and untenable\u2014or they suddenly found themselves on the opposing side of the harassment campaign. Those within the industry openly made statements against Gamergate, including: gaming companies such as Blizzard and the Entertainment Software Association (commonly know as the ESA and gaming\u2019s top trade group); publications like Game Informer, Polygon, and Giant Bomb; and creative luminaries such as Tim Schafer and Damion Schubert.<\/p>\n
And yet\u2014and yet\u2014it is still happening. On January 11, Zoe Quinn charted her struggles to get the legal system to do something about the avalanche of hate spewing her way. She talked about how demolished her life was and continued to be by the campaign. She wrote, in full: \u201cThe same wheels of abuse are still turning, five months later. I\u2019ve been coming to terms that this is a part of my life now, trying to figure out what to do about it, and how to move forward with so many people trying to wrap themselves around my ankles. It\u2019s been hard to accept that my old life is gone and that I can never get back to it. But I\u2019ve found purpose in the trauma, in trying to stop it from happening again, to use my experience to show how these things are allowed to happen, and to further a dialog on how to actually stop it. If I can\u2019t go home, maybe I can at least get out of this elevator shaft. Maybe I can help end August. Maybe you can, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the games publication Giant Bomb\u2019s discussion forums, game developer and tech writer Brianna Wu wrote \u201cI was talking to Zoe Quinn this week, who told me about a folder on her computer called, \u2018The ones we lost.\u2019 And it was young girls that wrote her saying they were too scared to become game developers.<\/p>\n
For every visible woman who has stepped away from their platform, how many less vocal or less well-known participants have we lost? In the wake of Gamergate, for instance, Kathy Sierra, a tech writer who was once the target of hacker and horrible person weev, walked away from the online persona she\u2019d built as Serious Pony to insulate herself from further violence.\u00a0 How many women stopped participating in online communities and massively multiplayer online and co-op games? How can we possibly know the real numbers of the ones we lost.<\/p>\n
Natalie Zina Walshots writes:\u00a0 Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist critic best known for her YouTube series \u201cTropes vs. Women in Video Games,\u201d cancelled an appearance at Utah State University after she received an anonymous threat of a shooting massacre were the … Continue reading ![\"Gaming](\"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Gaming-Industry-Women-204x300.jpg\")
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