If there is one thing that the Internet doesn't need, it is the fanning of flame wars.
What it does need, however, is perspective.
That is what I want this blog to achieve.
There seem to be two Internets, two gaming cultures: the always-online community who can bring down multi-billion dollar companies in a flurry of Tweets, and those who browse or lurk their favorite sites or might hear from their friends about what is going on in gaming currently.
The internet can often seem like it is only comprised of the former group. But is that because the former group is merely the loudest? In that dialogue, or what is perhaps more often an echo-chamber, what ideas, beliefs, or values then become part of the wider discourse of the wider Internet and gaming communities?
And when that former group decides that there are some things off-limits, that there are some things that are taboo, is the wider gaming community served by this self-imposed silence?
I haven't been able to follow the industry or culture of gaming recently. From my perspective of someone who finds themselves in the latter group, I was surprised to learn of the furor that apparently has been going on in many gaming communities over developer Zoe Quinn and questions of journalistic ethics and creator ethics.
To summarize it for anyone else who isn't aware, apparently Zoe Quinn, a developer for a video game, traded various sexual favors for coverage of her title. Many gaming outlets have either not talked about this, or have decided to critique the "outrage culture" of gaming.There have been those saying that those who do approach the topic have been banned on many gaming sites.
I don't know if that is true of GIO, but I do know that a quick search of the blogs and of the front page articles reveals no blogs or articles on the topic.
I also don't know the truth behind the Zoe Quinn story.
So I'm not here to talk about that, or her.
What I want to discuss is the nature of our gaming culture itself. Of our gaming communities. As a scholar, I am all too familiar with those who proclaim to be lovers of knowledge and debate yet are the first to seek to reprimand those who approach certain topics or question various dogmatic beliefs.
One of the pratfalls of the discourse that is the hallmark of our democracy is that it can be unruly. It can be intense.
It can, yes, even sometimes be cynical, confrontational, and crude.
But should all debate, all dialogue, be precluded because of what a few may say or write?
Conversely, should all debate, all dialogue, be precluded because of what a few gatekeepers of the culture believe to be unsuitable topics of discourse?
There are many who say that those who inquire about the Zoe Quinn debacle are hateful or afraid of women, of a changing culture in gaming, and of many other causes or beliefs.
If there are people like that, I would tell them they shouldn't be afraid of Zoe Quinn or what she has to say.
But I also think that we as a culture and as a community shouldn't be afraid to inquire about those who create the products, industry, culture, and reporting of this hobby we all so enjoy and invest so much in, either.