What was Gamergate – and why are we still talking about it?

It's now been a decade since "Gamergate" unleashed a widespread harassment campaign directed at women in gaming and demonstrated the real-life ramifications of hate speech online. A loosely organised movement initially targeting prominent feminist gamers, developers, and journalists, it became a rallying point for broader anti-feminist, socially conservative and even white nationalist activism.

Commentators say Gamergate ultimately helped set the stage for radical right-wing violence, such as the 2021 attack on the US Capitol, that first found support on social media and internet forums. Ten years later, there are lessons to be learned and problems to be addressed from this movement, whose origins can be traced back to the "Zoe Post", a blog entry uploaded in August 2014.

How did Gamergate start?

In August 2014, 24-year-old American Eron Gjoni published a lengthy blog post accusing his ex-partner, video game developer Zoe Quinn, of using a sexual relationship with a video game reviewer to win a positive review of their game, "Depression Quest". (Never mind that the journalist in question hadn't even reviewed Quinn's game.)

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Gjoni's post, which others described as a "manifesto", quickly gained attention on the 4chan internet messaging board, which harnessed its user base to harass anyone who stepped up to support Quinn. "Soon, an army of internet dwellers had seized on this opportunity to police a woman's sexual behaviour under the guise of promoting 'ethics in games journalism'," said The Guardian. Mixed in was a broader nostalgia for a time "when games were designed with teenage boys in mind", and a corresponding hostility towards progressive and inclusive trends in media more generally.

Quinn and others faced sustained misogynistic and sexual harassment, enduring everything from doxxing (exposing a user's real identity and location online) to death threats. This subculture row grew on anonymous sites like Reddit and 4chan, but made its way off the internet, ultimately laying the groundwork for later far-right movements that mirror its beginnings.

What was Gamergate's impact?

Gamergate did not change the gaming industry in the way its participants envisioned. In fact, companies like Intel and EA actually vowed to commit more effort to diversity, in an attempt to distance themselves from the movement. But the row also created a space in which those with extremist beliefs could share those thoughts and proselytise without fear.

The FBI and other US law enforcement agencies investigated some of those involved in Gamergate, but were unable to track down many of the worst offenders. For others, the FBI simply chose not to press charges, said The Verge at the time.

Some say the fact that law enforcement agencies still don't have the tools or training to address the root causes of online hate has real-life consequences, from mass shootings to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. 

"Gamergate was arguably a watershed moment and learning experience for many future Trump supporters," said Aja Romano in Vox, as it demonstrated the power of "systematised online harassment and increased ideological polarisation".

The lesson of Gamergate "we feel reverberating throughout our politics every day", wrote Charlie Warzel in The New York Times in 2019, is that "there's a sinister power afforded to those brazen enough to construct their own false realities and foist them on others".

Why are we still talking about it?

As recently as this year, there has been right-wing backlash against developers who choose to make their games more inclusive by adding female and non-binary characters, and portraying a wider range of complexions and body types.

The newest harassment campaign, dubbed Gamergate 2.0, has targeted Sweet Baby Inc., a game development company founded to make the industry more welcoming to women and marginalised groups. This time round, there's not even "the false banner of 'ethics in journalism'",  said The Verge: in 2024, the target is simply "wokeism".

Well beyond the video game industry, online disinformation and hate speech has resulted in real-world harm. Violent riots that erupted in the UK this week have focused on the identity of the 17-year-old arrested after a mass stabbing in Southport that left three young children dead. Right-wing activists on social media falsely labelled the perpetrator an undocumented immigrant. 

At a press conference last week, Keir Starmer highlighted the online roots of the violent scenes: "Let me also say to large social media companies, and those who run them, violent disorder clearly whipped up online: that is also a crime. It's happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere".