Sarkeesian will be a consultant for the video game, that's fine. I don't think any differently about Mirror's Edge now that Sarkeesian is involved than I did prior to her involvement. The first Mirror's Edge is a good game and I'm hoping the sequel refines the concept to evolve the property into a
great game. She won't have any impact on whether or not the gameplay improves upon the previous game or results in the sequel I'm hoping it will be.
However, my opinion of Sarkeesian has not changed; I like what she stands for but I can't stand her.
I think what makes Sarkeesian so polarizing a figure (beyond simply being a feminist living in an oppressive patriarchy) is because she is fighting the good fight, but fighting it dirty with her toxic personality. She's like James Cameron; a person that gives us something very valuable as an audience, but is an almost insufferable personality. For all her feminist crusading, Sarkeesian is not the bridge we need. She's not going to bring us all together. She's not going to form our ideal future where video games aren't such a one-sided entertainment medium. She's only here to tell us all that there is a problem. And from the equally toxic reaction of the hard core gamer community, that tells you just how far gone some are and how much the cause needs a voice and a face.
My problem with her is that her behaviour encourages the perpetuation of the very toxic reaction she has received from the extremists. Her videos are patronizing, her tone is condescending and her political motives are nauseating. She laughs down the haters with an aloof disgust that I find common in many of the sociopaths currently occupying the 1% of our society. Yes, the disgusting video game fundamentalists that send her death threats deserve scorn; no one else does. My problem is her "message" is indiscriminate. Her behavior continues to marginalize and bully people who are already marginalized and bullied.
At the risk of a little sympathy for the devil, most of the worst hardcore gamers trying to shout down Sarkeesian are doing so for a reason. Like any behaviour, the worst fundamentalists have their reasons regardless of how twisted they may be. Sarkeesian's approach to gamers - condescending and flippant - encourages the worst gamers to remain immature, entitled and extreme.
Some few take refuge in video games; for some, it's all they have. Video games are their escape, a place where they can feel welcomed, liked and loved, where they have all the agency they lack in their own lives. It doesn't matter that the rest of us all know Sarkeesian isn't the bane of video games, that is how she MAKES the fundamentalist gamers feel. To them she is yet another outsider patronizing them and here she comes to take away the last haven in life they feel they have. She might as well be an atheist crusader trying to outlaw religion. I see no surprise that the reaction would be so vile, so hateful and so extreme. These are human beings who feel their sanity - perhaps even their very lives - are at risk. Sarkeesian doesn't care and most of her defenders don't either. To them, the fundamentalists they mentally destroy along the way are acceptable casualties as long as it forces the game playing majority to grow up.
Sarkeesin believes the ends justify the means. I do not.
If Sarkeesian is Malcolm X, then what we need is a Martin Luther King. Someone who can show people that simply including women, gays and minorities in video games makes video games all the better for it and is not the end to anyone's enjoyment of the medium. Until that person appears, I guess I'll just have to continue to ignore Sarkeesian and her cronies
