In 2014/2015 there was a huge online battle in the culture wars known under the name Gamergate. People usually don't remember what the fight was about, because any discussion of arguments was quickly overshadowed by the abysmal behavior of the right-wing side. The whole thing just became a huge harassment campaign, which in the eyes of most of the audience invalidated any argument the trolls might have had.

Now in the wake of Hogwarts Legacy the same battle in the same culture war is flaring up again. Only that in this second edition Gamergate, it is the left-wing side that is using harassment and mobbing tactics. Outraged that their boycott of Hogwarts Legacy failed completely, and the game is breaking all sorts of sales records, the left-wing activists have started a campaign to harass any streamer on YouTube and Twitch that is covering the game. The targets are mostly completely unpolitical, they are just typical videogame streamers who are playing the game on stream. The streamers aren't doing anything that could remotely be described as "right-wing", they are just streaming a game, which in itself is full of progressive content and a diverse cast. But because the game is remotely connected to the books of J.K. Rowling, and J.K. Rowling is politically active against trans rights in specific instances where those collide with women's rights, the activists feel justified to harass the streamers with very, very nasty comments. I've seen stuff like "I hope you see a loved one die this year" directed at one streamer, and in another stream one of the two streamers casting it broke down in tears as result from the harassment. Some left-wing activists designed a website where you could find "target" streamers that had dared to stream the game for harassment, although that site was later taken down.

You might faintly remember that in the original Gamergate there was a lot of talk about "game journalist integrity". This is the point where the second edition is starting to flare up, because, honestly, there are some pretty shameful examples of "game journalism" surrounding Hogwarts Legacy. Wired had the review for Hogwarts Legacy written by their sex toy reviewer, and gave the game a 1 out of 10, with the whole review being just about J.K. Rowling and not giving any information about the game. Aggregator sites like Metacritic then rightfully refused to add that "review" to the critics review scores. Still the user score is higher than the critic score, because a lot of other reviews deducted political points and added some anti-Rowling disclaimers to their review, in order to stave off the progressive trolls. Other game journalists just fan the flames, and are trying to convert the outrage into more views for their sites. It's all pretty pathetic.

In the end of course nobody will remember any argument about what exactly the role of game journalism is, how political games can or should be, and whether one should separate the opinions of the author from his work. All that will be remembered is the online harassment and bad behavior of the trolls. I believe that this is the sort of "political activism" that hurts your side more than it helps.

- posted by Tobold @ 7:41 AM Permanent Link