Just read Zoe Quinn's book Crash Override. I didn't know much about Gamergate, so I didn't realise how much she went through. It really makes me disgusted with the gaming community- I guess just another one of those things that show you how dark the internet can be.

Agreed. She was the biggest target during Gamergate. I heard she had to move homes as well after death and rape threats too? She was staying at friends couches and hotels because of it all. Apparently there were people online bragging about putting dead animals in her mail, and someone even hired a private investigator to stalk her.

And all this fuss is because she went against what people saw as a 'true' gamer. Which is ironic, because she's spoken about how she's been gaming since she was 12, and the games she's made were based on her own experiences. Just because it doesn't involve shooting people or whatever they wanted from her, she got targeted. Her game 'Depression Quest' was made to help people struggling with mental illness, but as soon as it was posted the hate came in almost immediately. Her emails were being flooded messages such as "I saw your game on Greenlight, I hope you kill yourself". If you ask me, if a guy made the same game he would have never gotten hate for it.

There's another really interesting case of a woman that got targeted during Gamergate. Her name was Anita Sarkeesian, and she released an online video installment about female tropes in video games, focusing on the objectification of women in games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Hitman. These 'Gamergaters' went crazy over it- hacking her webpages and social media, doxing her, making art of her getting raped by video game characters????!! Someone even made a game called 'Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian', where the motive was to bloody a picture of her by repeatedly clicking a mouse button. And when another female, Stephanie Guthrie, critised this game, she too started recieving death and rape threats. The thing is, this harrassment was impacting Anita's daily life. When she was supposed in recieve an award at the 2014 Game Developer Choice Awards, it was revealed that the organisers had recieved a bomb threat.

These people that targeted her don't realise that they were proving her point about misogyny in the gaming commuunity. Or maybe they did realise, and felt so personally attacked that they felt the need to lash out. Unfortunately with the internet, when people in your communities are behaving in a certain way, you tend to adopt a herd mentality and go along with it for the laughs.

It's very disconcerting to me that the people who were harrassing these women will never be caught because of the nature of anonymity online. I can only image the trauma and psychological damage they must be facing...