The problem is that gamers picked a fight with SJWs, which are effectively their own mirror image - the same obsessiveness and mean-spirited put-downs and in-group high-fives. I mean, the fact that the SJWs are right is almost immaterial - in the words of The Big Lebowski: "You're not wrong, Walter, you're just an asshole". Online social justice groups have a knack for utterly alienating and insulting everyone they could ever hope to convince, even those who broadly agree with them.
Combine that with Gawker media's spectacular ability to stir the pot, and a few prominent right-wing culture-war bloggers feeding the gamer-gaters' persecution complex, and we're seeing outright radicalization.
You isolate and insult a guy and then give him an online culture of like-minded outcasts and they start encouraging each other to do drastic things. There are obvious parallels to other movements of angry young men...
It's a perfect storm, and it's only going to get worse before it gets better since anybody who's trying to talk the gamergaters down from the ledge has to have infinite patience for their monomaniacal rationalizations. They see themselves as the defenders of rationality surrounded by SJWs who fling glib insults... and gaming is founded on endlessly grinding against a pointless task for fun.
It's profoundly sad to see so many gamers rally behind that gamergate banner. To see harassment and threats and ruining women's lives become the public image of core gamer culture.
I'm really worried that this is going to get worse before it gets better. The "us vs. them" mentality of the hardcore gamer world is too old and well-established, and everybody else involved is either feeding into it or is drowned out by the din.
I realize it's tangential to your point, but I'm curious how would you define or describe a SJW?
Essentially, radical social justice viewpoints taken to absurd extremes. Sometimes to the point of expressing highly racist, homophobic, or transphobic views in the course of supporting some other group they feel is even more persecuted than those groups.
Now, the term is being thrown around by some people to describe those who are left leaning and support a viewpoint they disagree with.
So-called "Social Justice Warriors" are indeed an actual and rather ridiculous (yet amusing) group on the Internet, mostly centered around Tumblr, but their overall population density is pretty low compared to progressives and feminists in general.
Some examples of the second group might include the people who flagkilled half of my comments in this thread. Man, I know political threads on Reddit News are a steaming pile, but y'all could at least pretend to be capable of talking to people you don't agree with and downvote me into oblivion instead.
For example, I consider myself both liberal and a feminist, but I take serious umbrage with many of the "radical feminists" and very far left leaning voices that have emerged out of these debates. Those same people would simply be considered just plain old feminists or liberals by some others, though.
At it's most extreme point, it can be parodied to something like "You have no right to complain about a problem in your privileged life because people are starving in $COUNTRY"
In all it's forms, it's a sort of ridicule directed towards people trying to make their lives better. I believe people have the right to complain about, and try to improve, any and every element of their lives- right down to asking for better/healthier free lunches from their employers.
Working for ethics in video game journalism and to reduce nasty sex related comments towards women stands to reform a genuinely nasty cesspool in modern society
And, to be frank, that ridiculous level of hysteria makes it clear that it's not really about ethics in video game journalism. No-one is dead or has been maimed by it. Lives aren't destroyed by it. Basically, it's a good example of dog whistle politics, using a term that is more palatable to push a less palatable agenda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
So I'm not commenting as an outsider when I say that gamers, as a demographic, are the most self-entitled bunch of whiners I've ever seen. I've worked in tech support, in medicine, in retail, with children... and nothing holds a candle to the gaming community when they feel wronged. Every issue is blown way out of proportion. And they need to be called on it, because otherwise they keep on doing it. I'm so tired of this manufactured outrage. I see less passion in the comments when there's an article about child sexual abuse on a newspaper website, and that's a crime that raises pretty much everyone's hackles.
So, speaking as a lifelong heavy gamer, this GamerGate bullshit has little to do with ethics in gaming journalism - a field that is so tangential to the important things in the human experience. Note also that I never said it was nothing to be concerned about or no right to complain; I said that the levels of hysterical concern were ridiculous and overblown.
But of course, if you were actually interested in integrity, you wouldn't have characterised my comments of 'ridiculous levels of hysteria' as 'expecting complete calm', as if that's the only other possible option. A classic strawman fallacy. Perhaps you should show some of this integrity that you demand of others?
Perhaps I should put it a different way: Issues with the supply of your entertainment are never worth a death threat.
I have the same feelings but about other online communities, for example certain sports fan communities. It also applies to serious political issues, such as the hatred of certain politicians or viewpoints -- arguably these issues legitimately would get strong responses but really we all know what most of it is, as you said very well:
Manufactured outrage.
I've seen otherwise intelligent people I know get swept up in it. It's a danger to our society and I don't think I'm exaggerating. The same online brush-fire that rages against women in gaming today will rage for war, ethnic hatred, or other catastrophes tomorrow. Cynical leaders will manipulate it (and these people are easily manipulated).
It also ruins people's lives. Every victim of it that I've seen talk about it in retrospect, even public figures or those who played it cool at the time, has talked about how traumatizing it was.
EDIT: You might be taking downvotes too personally.
How are people supposed to get anything done?
While some of the concerns of the whole gamergate mess were perhaps reasonable at some point in time, the whole thing has disappeared under a huge number of people who see their any supposed righteousness as license to indulge in the pettiest of attacks that aligns them with segments of society I'd foolishly thought we'd largely left behind.
Seriously, if you're looking for some injustices in the world to help make your life meaningful, you can do a hell of a lot better than "ethics in video game journalism", vitriolic element or no.