I'm getting really sick of 'laid back', 'egalitarian', 'live and let live kinda guys' sitting with their thumbs up their butts while basically everyone who isn't a white male, gets harassed, teased, bullied, and threatened. The 'it's only a game' excuse doesn't fly either, because games don't play themselves. People play games, real, flesh and blood, people, and when you threaten someone online you're not threatening a nebulous avatar or NPC, you're threatening a real person. When you tell someone online to go kill themselves, you are walking up to a stranger you've never met before and telling them to commit suicide. It is getting out of hand, the internet is turning an entire generation of people into spiteful sociopaths who apparently lack the ability to do more than entertain themselves.
This entire thread is an excellent case-and-point. Anita talks about women being mistreated in games, and what happens? Do people actually stop to consider that maybe women ARE mistreated in games? And maybe a better job could be done of both portraying and interacting with them in a digital environment? No, instead a chorus of moans erupt that she won't shut up and just leave 'gamers' to their passively, sometimes actively, misogynistic entertainment. Indeed many of these threads even blame Anita for inciting the death threats, because clearly if you talk about giving women a fair shake you're just asking to be threatened with a brutal beating, dismemberment and murder.