This is an editorial piece. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of, and should not be attributed to, Niche Gamer as an organization.

With the gaming community collectively asking for corruption in gaming media to end, a blogger named Daniel Golding published a blog post titled “The End of Gamers.” This post is a hyperbolic and completely baseless piece that basically set the grounds for a myriad of big, mainstream gaming websites to content scrape with and spin it to their hearts content.

So now we’ve come full circle with evidence towards actual corruption between the mainstream gaming press and the game developers they cover, and when the gamers ask them for truth and for action, what do these big name journalists do? They write all of these shaming and condemning articles, proclaiming that gamers are dead:

• Kotaku – We Might be Witnessing the ‘Death of an Identity’
• Gamasutra – Gamers don’t have to be your audience. Gamers are over.
• Gamasutra – Opinion: Let’s retire the word ‘gamer’
• Ars Technica – The Death of the Gamers and the Women Who Killed Them
• Polygon – An Awful Week to Care About Video Games

These are just a taste of the ignorant, agenda-charged vitriol that we’ve seen spewed out within the same 24-48 hour period towards the “gamers.” How are these journalists, writers, and critics so beholden to condemning the very hobby and industry that has given them jobs, and a way of life? I’ll tell you why – it’s because they simply don’t care about gaming anymore. Let me elaborate on that – they don’t care about “gaming for the sake of gaming” anymore, or rather, for fun.

I sincerely believe that big gaming media, or at least the ones who aggressively push for moral progressive themes, all inclusiveness, and so on, are going the way of the dodo. These so-called journalists don’t have the best interest of the gamers at heart, they simply want to continue to be relevant when most gamers have moved onto following Youtube let’s players, Twitch streamers, and so on.

These charlatans want gaming to grow up, and become socially conscious – for it to finally become an art form akin to arthouse cinema, progressive and contemporary art, and so on. Here’s the issue – the majority of gamers, especially the ones who frequent our website, simply just want to game. They just want fun, rewarding gameplay experiences – anything more is simply icing on the cake for us.

Having a game that provides the canvas for thought provoking or deeply emotional experiences is wonderful and everything, but why can’t these experiences coexist with the mindless pulp and silliness that many of us love and enjoy? Why must so many flapping heads that call themselves journalists keep screaming for games like Senran Kagura and Criminal Girls (both pictured above) to not exist, while demanding for more games like Gone Home (which we gave a 10/10 by the way)?

I think it’s because instead of having a civil discussion and pledge for more variety in games (something I’ve already been asking for), they condemn things which stand against their own bias and agendas, and they simply can’t/won’t trust that “gamers” can distinguish between fantasy and reality. Crazy, isn’t it? These people think that if you play a game like Senran Kagura, you’ll become a serial rapist, or if you play a game like God of War, you’ll go on a murdering spree.

So I bring you to the topic of #GamerGate, a retaliation by the gamers and games industry at large to fight back against the corruption, the hate, and the sheer lunacy spewed forth by the mainstream gaming press. We’ve been aggressively campaigning for #GamerGate since its beginning, and a recent tip off from a fan of ours (who wishes to remain anonymous) has shown us that ground has been won in the battle for gaming’s soul.

The following is an email exchange between Stack Social, a major advertising company that supports big name gaming websites. The response shown is part of a conversation submitted to Niche Gamer, which came as a response to the tipster’s deep concern for the gaming industry, and by those words, actions, and ethics shown by Kotaku.

Now, I know you’re going to say “but Brandon, that’s a pretty ambiguous statement. The representative didn’t say they pulled ads from Kotaku.” I’ll raise you a step further – we’ve gotten reports from our fans that completely nonsensical (i.e. not gaming or Stack Social) advertisements have appeared on Kotaku’s website, further corroborating the message that adverts are being pulled from Stack Social.

Big gaming journalists looking to bulldoze an agenda through are simply not needed anymore – in fact they were never needed. The problem with gaming journalism is that anyone can do it now – and the ones who have been doing it for eons have now been essentially depreciated. They’ve not only become the old model for how the gamers want their coverage to be, many of them have been involved in racketeering, corruption, and many other allegations.

So not only have we finally gotten real, tangible evidence of real corruption within big gaming media, instead of owning up to it or apologizing – they spit in our faces. They proclaim that we’re dead, and they’re the ones who are saving the gaming industry. I not only disagree, I believe we can all agree this is a completely ludicrous stance, one that some fans of ours have likened to the statements seen from pro-Communism propaganda just before the fall of Soviet Russia.

So please, if you care about the gaming industry – continue speaking out against the parties in charge and either get them to own up to their actions, or collectively blacklist them, because those Alexa ratings are definitely starting to decline! We’ve already begun to make an impact, we’ve made advertisers notice and start taking actions to reprimand these hooligans, and we can only go further from here.

Keep tweeting #GamerGate and #notyourshield hashtags, because the more we bombard them with collective reason, the less they have to use against us as ammunition. They’re looking for threats, baseless accusations, and even condemnation, but we have to fight the good fight if we’re to combat these imbeciles.

As a final note – I have contacted Stack Social for a confirmation that advertisements are either being pulled, or that the company is at least investigating that route as a course of action against Kotaku’s own carelessness.