It was the right kind of game, made by the right kind of person, to hold up as evidence of the broadly correct and generally appealing notion that games and gamers are diversifying in new and increasingly unexpected directions, and so Depression Quest was lauded by several outlets as a brave and personal piece of work. Released in early 2013, Depression Quest is a choose-your-own-adventure-style game about managing life with depression, released independent of the big gaming studios and promoted as a boutique product. (A necessary disclosure: Kotaku is Deadspin's sister site. The grievances intensify, and the discussions of them on Twitter are increasingly unified under the hashtag #gamergate. Somehow, this is read to mean that these sites now think gamers are bad. These pieces are, in essence, celebrations of the success of gaming, arguing that it is now enjoyed by so many people of such diverse backgrounds and with such varied interests that the idea of the gamer-a person whose identity is formed around a universally enjoyed leisure activity-now seems as quaint as the idea of the moviegoer.

In response, several sites publish think pieces about the death of the gamer identity. The developer's personal information is distributed widely across the internet, and she and a feminist gaming activist receive graphic, detailed threats, forcing the activist to contact the police and flee her home.

This clearly isn't true, but a group of gamers becomes convinced there is a conspiracy to not cover this story. Among his many accusations, he claims she slept with a gaming journalist in return for favorable coverage. The simplest version of the story goes something like this: In August, the ex-boyfriend of an obscure game developer writes a long, extensively documented, literally self-dramatizing, and profoundly deranged blog post about the dissolution of their relationship.

Alex chen gawker gamergate