Did #GamerGate Influence the 2016 Elections?

Usually, I avoid talking about anything not video game related on TGGD, in fact everything on TGGD is video game related in some sense. As I looked farther in on this subject, I found that the elections did have gamers influencing election results, so I couldn’t avoid writing an article about this even if I wanted to. According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the average age  of a gamer is 35, which means many of us are of voting age. Of that, 155 million Americans play video games, so take into account of the average age, and you can make a definitive statement that gamers do affect US elections.

With that said, did #GamerGate actually influence the 2016 elections? Well… it’s more complicated than you think, and we will need to go back to 2005 to really understand what happened. You see, back in 2005 Rock Star Games, with their critically acclaimed, Grand Theft Auto: San Andres, was involved in legal issues regarding a line of code that had been left in. Suffice to say, it was adult content that was taken out but instead of deleting the content, a small line of code was deleted to prevent access instead and the game was shipped out accordingly. It wasn’t until moders figured out a way to unlock the content that got Rock Star Games in legal trouble. Which brings us to Hillary and her involvement.

Hillary Clinton came up with The Family Entertainment Protection Act (FEPA) and co-sponsored by Senators Joe Lieberman, and Evan Bayh. Keep in mind, this was during a time when Jack Thompson was a thing, so you can imagine how unpopular the bill was with gamers. In basic terms the bill called for a federal mandate enforcement of the ESRB ratings system. FEPA’s main proposals were:

1. Prohibition on selling mature and adults only video games to minors
2. Annual analysis of the current rating system
3. Authority for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate misleading ratings
4. Authority to register complaints
5. Annual retailer audit

Fortunately FEPA did not become law and expired at the end of the 109th session of congress. Thus allowing video games to remain out of the US Governments inept little hands and kept the ESRB system to not be turned into a mitigated disaster. This particular bill stuck with many gamers during the election, and we didn’t forget Hillary’s roll in trying to enforce a bill that could directly affect gamers.

Though FEPA wasn’t the actual nail in the Hillary coffin for gamers, it’s more likely, (and I’ve said this multiple times on twitter) that the DNC threw out independent votes during the primary’s for Bernie Sanders. Not only that, but it soon became known that DNC representative’s were directly involved with the Hillary Campaign. That single act, struck a cord with many gamers who happen to be independent voters, many of whom chose Bernie Sanders over Hillary and were enraged that their primary vote held no weight. In America, you have to respect voters, even the ones that didn’t pick the candidate you wanted them to pick, and when the DNC spit on voters, that was the end for Hillary.

I’d like to say that #GamerGate was responsible for Hillary Clinton’s fall from grace, but looking at all the data, I’d have to say that gamers and not #GamerGate, had a huge roll to play in her downfall. Keep in mind, I don’t like Trump, I think he doesn’t know what he’s getting into, but I don’t like Hillary either, I think she has no respect for our political system, you don’t tell independent voters we were wrong in picking Bernie Sanders. That’s just my two cents, love Trump, hate Trump, I’m kinda relieved this is over, lets get back to talking about video games.