Gamergate was always a shakedown. So too is GamerGate2.
What's being plainly exposed with GamerGate2 is just how much of a blatant shakedown 'representation' as it was, 'diversity, inclusion and equity' as it is now, actually was and still is.
The same people, the same entities, the same rhetoric safely framed within the confines of an emotive, and to use the word, 'triggering', victim and abuser narrative, they, million dollar, and multimillion dollar entities, being the victims of gamers abuse.
It's such an easy sell, no one likes abuse, abusers or bullies, most people reflexively turn on anyone accused of it without thinking to ask any questions. The activists know this, so can't necessarily do anything that would expose themselves or what they do, so they obfuscate.
But there is always a pattern, an underlying threat narrative, the never-quite-obviously-stated negative consequences game developers, game studio and game publishers will experience for not doing what 'DIE' activists tell them to do ('to get that sweet, sweet, cheap money'), the whole "nice game you have there, shame it might break if you don't do what we tell you to".
Seems a bit too rhetorically and divisively provocative?
Surely they're not actually saying that?
Perhaps not in so few words, no. But otherwise most definitely yes, as evidenced with a talk scheduled for GDC2024 titled "So You've Been Canceled. Now What?". The summery frankly reads like a serial abuser snidely remarking to their victim after a good beating "what are you crying for, you made me do it" or "this is what you can do to make sure I don't hit you again".
Can someone who has hurt others, even repeatedly, actually change? What comes after the call out? What can someone do if they've been called problematic, but aren't totally sure why? Or, after losing friends, jobs, and networks, how does a person move forward if they want to become someone who won't cause that type of harm, even unintentionally, again?
These are the very same vociferous activists that constantly claim to be victims of abuse from the broader gaming community, edited screenshots of social media posts in hand, and for GamerGate2, these claims come as a consequence of being noticed in relation to their input and influence over, what gamers have been finding, are demonstrably bad games (notwithstanding causation, correlation and all that). And of course when this behaviour is identified, out come the enablers, the apologists, fellow abusers, to pile on their victims from ivory towers and distant corporate shores.
But that's all beside the point; their language, their rhetoric, how they confidently but carefully curate and couch what they say, is every bit the carefully curated and couched language of an abuser. Their victims need to realise this and reject it as they would under any other circumstance.
Footnotes
1. Archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20240320092451/https://schedule.gdconf.com/session/so-youve-been-canceled-now-what/902670. Archive.is https://archive.is/4MwHE.
