A female game developer was harassed to the point of changing her phone number. Why? Because she dared to write a video game while being a woman.
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Trigger Warning: Some pretty disgusting sexist comments.
There is something rotten in geek culture. I’ve posted about it before. That post was about the soft sexism of “gatekeepers”. I wanted to start a conversation. This post is different. This time, I’m trying to start a fight.
Zoe Quinn, a video game developer, posted her game “Depression Quest” to a service called Greenlight with the hopes that it would become popular enough to be sold on Steam. She was harassed by males (not men) until she took the game down. Recently, she put it back up and the animosity grew to a staggering lows.
One poster on a forum called Wizardchan had this to say:
“All females are sluts and have no right to be depressed. They can just go out onto the street, lie down with their hole open and have any man come and solve all their problems. But they would still be depressed because they’re all stupid whores.”
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Another said,
“The whole ‘game’ is without substance and is nothing more than an exercise in attention whoring…Feel free to contact the author here [redacted] and tell her what you think of the game.”
They posted her phone number. I don’t know how they got it, but they did. And they thought that the only thing to do with it was to call this woman and harass her. They called her at all hours, masturbating into the phone, and threatening her.
I usually try to understand things I disagree with, so that I can debate them more effectively. Well, I’m telling you right now that I don’t give a damn about understanding these animals. I’ve read a few stories about this and what is striking me and angering me is the lack of support. Where are the men? Where are the men in this world of game developers? Does no one on ‘Wizardchan’ have a spine? Because if they think they’re men, then we don’t use the word the same way.
Comments from guys on these stories look something like this:
“Instead of replying to them and giving them attention (which is what they want) why not just ignore them? Trying to make a big deal out of it only makes it worse.”
Sit down and shut up? Close your eyes and cover your ears and maybe they’ll go away? What kind of talk is that?
One final comment:
“We’re bitter because a young, pretty woman with lots of friends who’s depressed gets lots of empathy and shoulders to cry on, while us, as anonymous friendless, kissles [sic] virgins, we get called evil and sexist assholes. We don’t think someone like Zoe can understand how it feels to be us and she herself has been verbally abusing on her twitter.”
This is reality. This is a problem. I’m sure you’re wondering, after 500 words, what do you want me to do? Well, hold your nose because here comes the cold water: I don’t know. I don’t know what we’re supposed to besides calling it out whenever we see it— telling the perpetrators that this is completely unacceptable and listening to the voices of those who are hurt. As men, we need to be holding our fellow males accountable for their behavior; it’s not the responsibility of this game developer to fix her chosen field. It is the responsibility of every person to act like a decent human being.
When I say “telling the perpetrators that this is completely unacceptable”, I don’t mean telling them politely. Remember: I’m trying to start a fight.
Photo— Flickr/ Rebecca Pollard
Further Reading: Nerds as Gatekeepers
Nerds
Absolutely despicable. But I don’t really see how there’s a way out of this situation. You literally cannot attack trolls by shaming them. They dig for whatever they can find to get a way to harass you–they may not give a damn about girls or rape or raping children or whatever other nonsense, and would be in real life be far too cowardly to even consider it. But the internet is anonymous. And also–the same anonymity means that there’s no guarantee that whoever is doing the trolling is male. Working in IT, some of the–admittedly rare–girls have admitted to trolling… Read more »
What i think when i read the first WizardChan comment is pure hatred. A type of hatred that i’m sure s/he spreads outside of the gamer community and calling him/her out on it will change nothing. Not that the silent treatment works either. This is the kind of disgusting individual that is so far out of the social conscious that anyone, regardless of gender, will get attacked if they disagree or call out the behavior. Nothing can fix it, only deleting the comments will prevent further damage. However WizardChan seems to thrive on this kind of negative commentary (opinion completely).… Read more »
Hi Christian Strangely enough, Scandinavian female journalist, and politicians in newspapers and television get exactly the same treatment. And as usual they attack her sexuality and tell how she needs to be fucked to death with baseball bats…they know where she live and where her children go to kindergarden. They threaten to raper the the children,and describe in gruesome details how they will rape the kids and the mother. The women publish it now. But some women can not take it and withdraw and find another occupation. Women in media and in political leaders and activist have power, and are… Read more »
if you look back at the developers comments to those that gave critiques of her game you will see how this all started. Once she received a few negative comments about her game SHE lashed out calling the posters names and saying some derogatory remarks about them. They replied int he same, and now we have everyone running to her defense. After that a tit-for-tat comment storm started with BOTH sides being unprofessional.
This is another fiasco like “Mighty 9” and the Anita saga.
I was kind of wondering about that when I read this comment “and she herself has been verbally abusing on her twitter.”” I don’t think comments on a game should be limited to only supportive comments nor do I feel that being a woman should be sufficient defense for producing a substandard product or for bad behavior.
I should add, that Ideally, Valve should have a code of conduct, and have a ‘report comment’ button, and then ban the perpetrators from the service. If they are not doing this, then shame on them. I hope they aren’t another of these companies that won’t ban a customer until it becomes a PR issue for the company.
Anonymity + anger + desire to stir shit + a large number of people on steam are 8-15 year old boys posting anonymously from around the world. Valve should be setting codes of conduct and banning those boys from the service immediately. No-one else can do anything other than other support for the developer. “Instead of replying to them and giving them attention (which is what they want) why not just ignore them? Trying to make a big deal out of it only makes it worse.” it’s worth noting that you can just delete comments on Steam Greenlight. Replying to… Read more »
Ignoring it is OK until they start calling your phone and threatening you. Then we really need to look into criminal prosecution. I’m not sure that this would be a tenable response so Christian may be right and people may need to call these guys out. I’m not sure I would specifically single out men as having sole responsibility for that though.
A lot of trolls online. I’ve had people threaten me with rape, say they’ll kill me, call me a fat virgin basement dweller and then go on to say I fuck guys (so I wouldn’t be a virgin then, but hey logic isn’t necessary online).
Anonymity + anger or a desire to stir shit can be a major problem online. The doxxing that goes on is the next step since there is a lot more access to information these days.
Horrible behavior. Simply horrible.
Completely unaceptable behavior, I wish some of these jerks would go back under their rocks and not come out again. I have been in IT for more than 15 years as a software developer and unfortunatley I still see these morons in our industry no matter how much I would have hoped they would grow out of it. I like developing, I like most of my collegues, I like the skills and ideas that women bring to the table and frankly I wish there were more women in IT. I have a much friendlier and open working relationship with the… Read more »
This is one of the most disturbing articles I’ve read in a while. As a geek/nerd, I’m disgusted by the a**holes who did this. Even ignoring the repellent “slut” comments, posting the phone number of a game developer (who worked hard on his or her product) and harassing him or her is pathetic. If you don’t like a game, don’t download/buy/pay attention to it – why the heck are you attacking this person? That they chose to degrade her and make such bullcr*p statements about her gender… Well, that takes it beyond pathetic into another realm. Women in gaming, whether… Read more »
Here Here Zoe