Banning gamergate was the right move, actually should have been done quicker. What the left needed to do was actually respond with REAL criticism of the gaming industry.
Gamergate was a right wing movement from inception, it was basically born from several things.
1: Really fucking obnoxious idpol clickbait from Kotaku.
2: 2012-2014 was possibly the worst time in the industry for shit like preorder DLC, DRM, carved up games.
3: Zoe Quinn called Jon Tron, at the peak of his popularity, basically a racist Neonazi piece of shit. (this is why she was targeted really)
4: Figures like Phil Fish. (why indie devs were targeted).
5: Holla Forums slowly leaking all over Holla Forums.
6: Bioware going to shit, should have been blamed on EA, but was blamed on Feminists and the left instead.
Gamergate basically exploded from this, but from the beginning, it was never really concerned with "Ethics in journalism". A good indicator of this was their targets. Indie Devs and Zoe Quinn with a time line that made no sense, Cultural Critics (including MrBtongue, Noah Cadwell, Errant Signal etc) and sites like Kotaku.. who honestly were actually probably the least "corrupt" of the major gaming sites.
When those Gamers Were Dead pieces dropped, people went ballistic, even I was like "What the fuck". The thing was, I never actually read the articles though It really did seem like the media was just shitting on us as a community non-stop at that point.
Later on I actually read the Gamers are Dead articles… and agreed with them them entirely. They were actually left wing critiques of the gaming industry and "Gaming identity" that had been crafted as a advertising trick in the 1990s to make video game fans basically worship consumerism.
jacobinmag.com/2014/09/death-to-the-gamer/
Also talking to female gamers around the same time, really snapped me out of gamergate, because the stories of abuse and shit I had heard from them really made me engage in some self critique and look at gaming culture with a critical eye. I'm super fucking good at Red Orchestra (max level, max level all guns, top of the server pretty much every round, continues even in RS2). So I changed my account name, put my female friend on a microphone and got her to command the team.
Just non-stop fucking abuse towards her for being female. It was fucking shocking. As a male, never experienced it, but when she was saying the exact things I was telling her to say all she was getting was "SHUT THE FUCK UP SLUT", "FUCK I'M GOING TO FIND YOU AND RAPE YOU", "YOU FUCKING CUNT SHUT UP".. despite the fact, because I was really playing, we were at the top of the server and I was the number 1 player.
That's when I really did realize the gaming community is sexist as fuck and actually pretty fucked up.
It's pure fucking nostalgia. 4chan at a much better time.