Linus Larsson: Feminism in the world of video games has had violent consequences

This week saw the trailer for perhaps the world’s most talked about video game, “Grand theft auto 6”. It shows a bikini-dominated city reminiscent of Miami. There is twerking on car roofs and convenience stores are robbed at gunpoint. Someone catches a crocodile, another dances half-naked in a mud puddle.

It’s probably an excellent game, in its own way.

Almost exactly ten years have passed since the release of the predecessor, version 5 of GTA. It became one of the world’s best selling games and like most GTA games it is an amoral violence fest. Or at least could be. The principle is an open world, where the player can interact with most things and kill most people. “You don’t have to kill prostitutes to play GTA”, the fans usually defend themselves, and they are right. (But you can!)

When GTA 5 was released in 2013, the gaming world was entering its biggest culture war. Some had started to relate to games much like one relates to works in other cultural spheres. Discussions about gender representation, stereotypes, about who is visible, how the industry is governed and what the games really stand for broke out.

Some pointed out that games traditionally focus a lot on rescuing princesses or killing prostitutes (you don’t have to!), and pointed to sexism in the industry. This caused boys’ room radicals to completely lose their minds.

What followed came to be known as Gamergate. A feminist-hating, somewhat right-wing harassment campaign against female game developers and critics.

Bomb threats were directed at lectures. People had private information leaked, some were forced to leave their homes. Gamergate activists persuaded advertisers to stop buying ads on sites that wrote negatively about their crusade.

Too many felt it probably just like a crusade, a fight to be a geek like you had always been, without a lot of feminists joining in. For others it was the beginning of a radicalization.

I’ve chainsawed enough zombies myself to not worry about that spilling over into real life

There has been much speculation about the role Gamergate played in the rise of the far-right movement that in the US is usually called the alt-right or the alternative right. In any case, it is clear that people who were more right-wing extremists than gamers jumped on it. They suddenly pretended to be extremely concerned about how video game criticism was written, while also seeing a chance to drag parts of the subculture into their own fold.

Steve Bannon, who helped Trump to power, belonged there. He described it as an army to bring to life “They find their way in through Gamergate and later to politics and Trump,” he has said.

One of those who were radicalized at that time was Daniel Depape. Last year, he broke into top politician Nancy Pelosi’s home in San Francisco. When he couldn’t get hold of her, an object of hatred among right-wing radicals in the US, he instead smashed the skull of her 82-year-old husband with a hammer.

Daniel Depape has been described as blinded by conspiracy theories. And he probably was. But it all started with Gamergate. He searched for YouTube videos with tips on how to beat difficult game bosses, the algorithm recommended a clip attacking a feminist game critic. So it continued. Further and further down the rabbit hole of hate and madness. He has told about it himself. “How did I end up here,” he wrote in a blog. “Gamergate, it was gamergate.”

The other week he was sentenced for the attack. He now awaits his sentence. Lifetime, possibly.

That video games make people violent is an old, time-tested theme of moral panic. I’ve chainsawed enough zombies myself to not worry about that spilling over into real life. Gamergate, on the other hand, grew like a tumor out of the world of video games and had dire consequences.

Gaming culture can certainly create violence. Just not the way the moralists thought.

Read more texts by Linus Larssonfor example about what happened Elon Musk’s promised freedom of speech.