Inside Gamergate: A Social History of the Gamer Revolt — Print Edition

A participant’s account of one of the internet’s most fiercely disputed culture wars.

Inside Gamergate records the events of Gamergate from the perspective of someone who participated in the movement and became involved before it had acquired its name.

The book was written to preserve a viewpoint that author James “Grim” Desborough believed was being excluded from the emerging historical record. It is openly presented as a counter-narrative to mainstream accounts rather than as a neutral overview.

Whether you agree with that perspective or not, this is a primary account from inside the dispute.

Gamergate in Context

The book does more than recount the immediate events of 2014 and their aftermath.

Desborough places Gamergate within a longer history of:

• Moral panics surrounding popular culture.

• Conflict between audiences, creators, critics and activists.

• Disputes over ethics in games journalism.

• Online censorship and free expression.

• Political division within gaming culture.

• Harassment, threats and accusations of harassment.

• The growing culture wars of the 2010s.

The author’s stated purpose is to explain what participants believed they were responding to, how the movement developed and why its supporters rejected the description of Gamergate offered by much of the media.

Written from a Declared Position

Inside Gamergate does not conceal its sympathies.

Desborough writes as a supporter and participant, drawing upon his own involvement, observations and experiences. The result is explicitly partisan: a documented argument for how Gamergate should be understood from within rather than another account written exclusively about it from outside.

That makes the book particularly relevant to readers interested in:

• Gamergate itself.

• Internet and gaming history.

• Competing accounts of controversial events.

• Online activism and decentralised movements.

• Games journalism and media criticism.

• Social-media conflict.

• Censorship and anti-censorship campaigns.

• The origins of the wider culture war that followed.

Several readers have specifically valued the book for providing a perspective they had not encountered in mainstream reporting, even while other readers have strongly disputed its interpretation.

It is, appropriately enough, a controversial book about a controversial subject.

Inside the Book

The book is organised into the following sections:

• Introduction

• Inside Baseball

• Context

• Franz Ferdinand

• Gamergate Itself

• Harassment, Violence and Censorship

• Gamergate in Summation

• References

Together, these sections establish the background to the revolt, recount its development, address the most serious accusations surrounding it and present the author’s conclusions.

Read the Other Side of the Record

Gamergate has been described in radically different ways by its supporters, opponents, journalists, academics and those caught in the middle.

Inside Gamergate preserves one of those competing accounts in book form.

It does not ask the reader to pretend that the author is disinterested.

It asks that the perspective of an actual participant be included in the evidence.

Read it critically.

Compare it with opposing accounts.

Then reach your own conclusions.

This listing is for the physical print edition of Inside Gamergate: A Social History of the Gamer Revolt, written by James Desborough. It is a 214-page, black-and-white, perfect-bound pocket paperback measuring approximately 108 × 175 mm. ISBN: 978-0-244-62772-0. Contains discussion of harassment, threats, censorship, political conflict and other contentious subjects.