You'll never guess what misogynistic gamebros did to these two women in gaming! (HINT: Drove them out.)

Long time lurker and gaming forum expat here.

It’s about as bad, if not worse then you’d think on the gaming forum I frequented. Virtually everyone (myself included) in the topic about this was a guy, and most were far more concerned about how it effected their games and their (already nonexistent) trust in the gaming industry. Constant yelling about how “discriminated against” gamers are is common, with one poster even comparing #Gamergate to Ferguson, of all things. Even the more “rational” people are infected by this bizarre case of David Broder-esque “both sides do it” thinking that makes them side with the gamerbros anyway (Actual line of thought from one poster: Yes, there have been death threats and rape threats towards Sarkeesian, but she used a snarky Willy Wonka image to respond to people on twitter about #Gamegate, therefor both sides are to blame, continue circling the wagons.)

They really are convinced that the game industry and gaming journalists are out to get them and make them look bad. The reality? The worse you can accuse the journalists of here is giving gamerbros enough rope to hang themselves on. These people are circling the wagons around their community, fearful of any change and hyped up on a victim complex worthy of a Republican campaign speech, thinking that all the “end of gamer” writing is a personal attack on them. And many of them have used “Not All Gamers” without a hint of irony or knowledge of what the term has been used for in the past.

Oh yes, it is a toxic culture of people who want to build an exclusive little clubhouse for themselves. And it needs to change whether they want it to or not. Hell, especially because they don’t want it to.

@Julie:

… yes? Not all bad behavior stems from mental illness, but calling anyone who behaves badly “psychopathic” without an actual diagnosis implies that it does.

Julie: well sorta. We don’t know they’re pyschopaths. We do know they are raging assholes.

Congrats, asshole dudebros! You’ve won! How you call your awful behavior a win, I don’t know.

Has this been posted here before? I dunno, but this seems like a good thread for it.

For brain bleach and for hope! It’s a super cute and super inclusive game (the opposite of what the asshole gamer dudebros want made).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/749023221/pumpkin-online-a-farming-dating-sim-mmoprg

I’ll seriously have a sad if they don’t meet their Kickstarter goal.

“Pumpkin-Online is a farming/dating sim MMORPG, wildly different than any other out there. Instead of level grinding with battle and combat, Pumpkin-Online is a relaxed game. You can role-play a profession, craft items, customize your own private farm, go on quests, have fun with NPCs, and more, all with friends!

You can form relationships with nearly every NPC, regardless of gender. Form lasting friendships, or pursue a relationship with any single NPC of your choice through interactive and rewarding questlines! “

Of course these snotballs feel like they “won”. They get pleasure from making women suffer and putting them “in their place”. This thread of glee at women’s suffering runs all through the manosphere and the guys in the gaming and tech communities sympathetic to it.

It’s there in Paul Elam’s “activist” advice to men that they should beat the shit out of any woman who puts a hand on them and make the woman clean up the blood. It’s there in Elam’s claim that the thought of “fucking feminists’ shit up” gives him an erection. It’s there in Reddit’s Red Pillers consoling each other that all those mean nasty women who didn’t give them the sex they feel they’re entitled to will face their comeuppance when the woman “hits the wall”, turns 30, and no guy will ever want them again and the women will die all alone in a house full of 500 cats. It’s there in the endless MGTOW posts about how by choosing not to date/get married, MGTOWs will cause society to collapse (MGTOWs being integral to the proper functioning of society, apparently, because reasons), and women will be forced to become MGTOW sex slaves just in order to survive. And of course, in it’s more extreme form, the “I want women to suffer” thread is there in the words of men like Elliot Rodgers and George Sodini, who thought that women not having sex with them was a crime punishable by death.

These guys could care less about what they’re actually accomplishing. As long as some woman somewhere gets hurt, it’s a “win” for them.

Yes. I think there’s a not insignificant portion of the harassers that aren’t even interested in games at all. Some of them are just misogynists who see an opportunity to stick it to some uppity women.

You know. Out of all the consoles Nintendo is considered to be the most “family friendly” and doesn’t often produce a fps in the style of cod or battlefield (correct me if I’m wrong), which is where the misogynists usually congregate. If the gamebros do successfully alienate women from platforms like X box and playstation, wouldn’t it be in Nintendo’s interest to pick up the wayward female gamers? We’re talking about fucking half the gaming demographic here. They could take on the female designers, programmers, audience and hold most of the gaming market, since there are many guys with no objection to women in gaming. They could make a killing!

ARE YOU READING THIS, IWATA?

@slivarth, No I disagree. There’s virtually no evidence that violence in video games causes violence in real life. There are some studies that find a correlation and some that don’t. Overall though, correlation does not equal causation. Yes, I agree that there are some assholes in gaming but the majority of gamers are not assholes nor are they violent, myself included.

Sorry, I’m not buying that a large portion of the harassers are just trolls who aren’t even into games. There are too many reports of women being harassed while gaming and sexual harassment within the industry. There’s probably a few joining in for the good old fashioned misogyny alone but let’s not pretend it’s the source of the problem.

I….. don’t think anyone has claimed gamers are violent. I’m sure you’re not. Most aren’t.

It’s the accepted normal that is lazy misogyny in gaming I have a problem with. I don’t think gamers are likely to physically assault me. I do think shite attitudes towards women are likely to be displayed in passing by many of them though.

I expect a disproportionate degree of abuse from gamers due to being female and the fact I say things they find disagreeable like “Primarily portraying women as in distress and helpless or the victims of violent crime is gross”. I don’t think ALL GAMERS ARE LIKE THAT though or most gamers are violent (I’d guess gamers are less violent due to the extent they socialise from behind computer screens) or I should really take their rape and death threats seriously.

It’s still super duper fucked up the degree to which that behaviour appears to be prevalent and acceptable amongst gamers and it’s never something I’m going to tell people to grow a thicker skin about because the people who do it are responsible for it and they shouldn’t be behaving the way they do. This is on them, not anyone who’s is freaked the fuck out by angry gamers constantly calling them a cunt and waxing lyrical about them being assaulted or murdered.

None of this would happen if it weren’t acceptable amongst gamers to a significant extent and the attitudes and behaviours of the perfectly decent gamers were reflective of gaming culture. They aren’t though and the policing going on within gaming communities is not discouraging sexism and/or threats of violence to a large enough extent.

There I go being disagreeable again. Looking forward to today’s assortment of “I hope you get raped and die of AIDS”.

@weirwoodtreehugger, If you’re replying to my comment, I never said that the harassers were just trolls. They are a subset of male gamers who are also misogynists. All I said was that in reply to a previous comment, that they are not the majority of even male gamers. What I was disputing was that violent video games cause people to become violent.

My first comment to this article even acknowledges that the harassers spoken about in the article are often the same people who harass female gamers who play online games and I find it despicable.

I wonder if their mommies know what they are doing? Sounds silly, I know, but I would wager that a goodly number of these brave and honorable souls still live at home or, at least, have their moms do their laundry for them. Can you imagine what these women might say if, by some magical miracle, the actions and words of their precious boys got back to them?

Most men who behave in hateful ways go to great lengths to keep their mothers from noticing. For the first time in my life I wish I was a hacker and could get the info from their accounts and send it on to their moms. If I found out, positively, that one of my sons was behaving in this manner, I would tear the hide right off of him…and my sons range from 30 to 40 years of age. Shame on these “men.”