Slightly off-topic: What do you all think will be the state of gaming when all is said and done? I'm hoping that everyone can find some common ground but that seems very unlikely at this point.
It really depends on how much damage gets caused to Gawker. If Gamergate ultimately does wind up finishing it off (and it might; look at what Flush Rush did to Limbaugh for an analogy), it'd be a win for pretty much everyone involved, and there's equal chance that Gamergate could dissipate thereafter or continue to fight for consumer advocacy.
Even if Gawker doesn't go the way of Clear Channel, the damage done to it and its brand, by the time Gamergate runs out of steam (and it has no sign of stopping) will be enough to humble even the mightiest. The ultimate win of course, is gamers themselves; marginalized and ostracized for decades, they have already proven that they are not to be fucked with. Sponsors know they don't
need a Gawker to advertise to if they're going to cause more harm to their brand and good. Gamers will be willing to vote with their wallets.
There's bigger sociological repercussions, too. Gamers will no longer be silent when accused of being responsible for all of civilization's ills, like they were in the 80s and 90s. There
will be repercussions from now on when someone accuses us, Jack Thompson style, of being the cause of the Virginia Tech shooting or Sandy Hook. And the big devs are taking note as we speak - no longer can they simply throw money at good PR and expect to walk off clean afterwards (that worked so well for
Destiny,
Colonial Marines, etc, amirite).
The net results will be better games, better games journalism, and perhaps most notably, a bit more respect for gamerkind writ large. And that, for me, is worth this months-long siege.
NPR AFTERMATH SEGMENT:
My favorite moment of the NPR thing actually came right after Milo. For the entire duration of the thing, Milo used nothing but cold, hard facts. When Chu went up, he immediately began the rhetoric and Milo called him out on it.
Chu then said
he didn't need facts.
Moments later, Remi from NYS made him look like an even bigger asshole. It was
glorious. Chu kept insisting, even after the initial beat-down, that #NotYouShield is the most offensive thing
ever, worse than #GamerGate, and, in fact,
worse than any real or imagined death threats. The guy came across as fucking deranged.
If you want to see it,
check it out here. Warning, there's a lot of Anti-GG Sperging on display before based Milo shows up.
