I don't think there's any question that people on the internet are assholes, and I'll even accept the notion that women get it somewhat worse than men. But this is pretty bog standard stuff, and it's by no means specific to gaming. Anyone who does anything remotely controversial on the internet is going to get this. And it's never going to stop because it's not a "gamers are misogynists" problem, it's a "people are more likely to behave like dickheads when they don't have to actually look another person in the face" problem.

The fact is that there is not one thing that has happened to Anita Sarkeesian did not also happen to Jack Thompson. It's just that nobody cared when it happened to Thompson because he was a man on a politically unfashionable crusade against video game violence rather than a woman on a very fashionable crusade against video game violence... against women. Fashionable and profitable. I mean, if I did a $200,000 Kickstarter every time some Greek guy sent me death threats just because we got disconnect from Tekken 6, I'd have like... $400,000. Hmmm... to the Kickstarter mobile!

Spot on.

So many people don't even bother to watch her videos (in which she, for example, explains how violence against women is often different from violence against men, and how misogyny in games or movies can have negative impacts in real life) and rather just believe in lies that got spread on the internet. 

I can somewhat agree with your guys on this. There are a lot of guys who don't even know that they are exploding because they feel threatened.

The sex scandal opened the door for a lot of shady shit that Anita, friends(reviewers) and her clients(she is a publicist for certain indy devs) had been doing. Rigging indy game awards(ones you had to pay to enter), friends giving perfect scores for friends games and so on. You are correct in Zoe not having relations with the person who reviewed her at that site and Zoe was out of the gamergate picture within 2 weeks of its inception. The whole gamergate thing opened to an anti corruption in journalism issue. Anita, doing what publicists do, deflected the real issue(corruption) with a made up one(mysogany) that put her at the forefront of the headlines. Multiple gaming sites came out in support of killing the "gamer" the mysoganistic, rape fantasizing, slut shaming person that she portrayed gamers as. This whole time gamergate was calling out these same websites for an array of poor journalism practices. Their response, staying the course was to stick with the story that people were mad that their sites supported Anita and Zoe over the facist opressive manosphere that wanted more rape fantasy games, rather than respond to accusations of corruption. This whole time Anita was taking in the free publicity, growing her brand(and earnings), which is the reason I believe she is involved in "feminism." I would be shocked if she gives a shit about any of the topics she talks about, unless they effect her earnings.

Anita Sarkeesian went to school focusing on two degrees revolving around social relations. I believe her thesis was on female character tropes in pop culture. This is a quick response and i'll get the specifics in a little bit.

I agree with a lot of what she says. But that whole branch of the feminist movement (sometimes known as SJWs), when you observe their behaviour, are just manipulative opportunists without an inch of intellectual honesty or decency about them.
Look at how they treat the feminists who disagree with their positions to get a sense of their actual character. It's hideous. They're just bullies and they use the fear of very politically correct industries to pressure anyone who disagrees with them into silence.

The issue of women in gaming is generally a good one though. It should also be pointed out, that female representations in gaming had already improved hugely, without anyone calling an entire subculture sexist and evil, and they will continue to improve as more and more people have realised that maybe a damsel in distress is a bit of a lazy trope that doesn't make your game look very good. And we've all got a bit bored of playing as Nathan Drake-clone lead characters.

The inconvenient part being that she doesn't offer any evidence for any of her claims. She just asserts them. And anyone who's made this criticism has been hit with a storm of hate.

When you look at the actual criminal data, both violence in general AND sexual assault of various kinds have both fallen hugely over the last 30 years (the time when ALL of gaming happened). This is problematic for her entire body of work.

Sounds like you are the one who hasn't watched her videos. She blatantly misrepresents games, cherry picks to the nth degree and I would say that she lies at times.

Take her discussion of Hitman for instance:

What she says - In Hitman, you as the player are encouraged to murder innocent females and get perverse pleasure out of watching the ragdoll physics as you move their body around. This is proof that the game encourages the sexual repression of women and encourages violence against women

What actually happens - In 2/7ths of 1/20 missions, you have the capability to kill innocent females, as you would be able to do with any innocent male character in the game. In no way does the game encourage players to kill or even interact with these women, and in fact, it actively discourages this behaviour by inflicting rather strict point penalties if you were to kill them. The goal of the level in question is to sneak by them without being noticed, and it is even possible to go a completely different route and never encounter this situation in the first place.

Additionally, it is worth noting that there is virtually no reputable evidence that proves that actions in video games are tied to actions in real life. This was a large debate a few years back (the whole "video game violence causes real world violence") and the overall conclusion by the scientific community is that these accusation hold little to no water. 

People like you are the worst kind of people on earth, there is no excuse for the kind of response she is recieving, wether you agree or not doesn't entitle you and the likes of you to treat anyone like this.

You and your little friends are a disgrace to gaming and humanity at large.

User was moderated for this post.

--Veknoid_Outcast

Don't be absurd. Nearly everyone in the public eye gets that exact kind of dismissing criticism. The rest of them just take it and get on with things, instead of equating it to harassment. Which it isn't.

Telling someone you think they're a joke and their work is awful is just a fundamentally different phenomena from sending a death threat. To conflate them is beyond dishonest.