If it wasn't obvious by now, I will make it very clear that I will personally do my best to not provide coverage or an audience to products and services created, endorsed, or promoted by those who actively support GamerGate. This includes products and games from Stardock, a company run by Brad Wardell, due to his eager endorsements of Gamergate and all that they stand for. The main tenets of GamerGate that continue to include, but are not limited to, the continued harassment of women, men, and transgendered people both within the gaming industry and outside of it.

Why mention Wardell specifically? Because I reiterated last night how I will not support his company so long as he continues to be in charge of it.

That is based on my personal sense of morality. I do not agree with him. I do not agree with GamerGate and I do not have to compromise my beliefs to provide them with an audience if I do not want to. This spurred a flurry of retweets and mentions from Wardell and GamerGate stating that I and my statement are everything that is wrong with "ethics in games journalism." The fact that they keep trying to say GamerGate is about "ethics in games journalism" is still laughable at best, but I digress.

Ethics is nothing more than a set of moral principles that dictate behavior. By choosing not to provide an audience to hate groups such as GamerGate, I am actually displaying "ethics in games journalism." However in the mind of GamerGate, there is only "ethics in games journalism" when an outlet or publication broadly provides content, including content manufactured by GamerGate, without a thought or care. That isn't ethical, especially not as it's actually defined. It's sterile. It's lifeless. It's boring. It's not really "ethics in games journalism" outside of their own definition of the phrase. There are plenty of sites like that out there but this is not currently one of them. However, let's take the clarification of my personal stances and sense of morality a step further.

I will make it just as clear that even if you do not support GamerGate, but are still a shitty person, I will still not help to give you an audience. This is, if you will, a very ethical stance to take and does not specifically single out one group, one company, or one individual. I have not banned the discussion of GamerGate on this site. However, as I am the only one posting news on Total Gaming Network, it certainly seems as though this is a site wide policy. Sure, you are more than welcome to say that since this is a one man show, my personal beliefs are those of the entire site and staff. It wouldn't technically be incorrect to say that.

However, the argument becomes muddied when and if additional staff are brought on with different beliefs or different aspects of morality. Even if no additional staff has been brought on, I still have not prevented any of the regular visitors here from talking about GamerGate in any capacity. What I will not tolerate are people coming here with the sole purpose of spreading propaganda or with the sole purpose of shit posting. Of course, those are hypothetical scenarios which have also not yet come to pass. I would like to believe this is because the visitors to TGN have a good sense about them and a solid head on their shoulders.

That is my choice based off of my ethical stances and my sense of morality. I do believe that those that align themselves with GamerGate lack a firm grasp of what a decent human being should be. I do believe that those who support GamerGate have no clue what ethics is, let alone "ethics in games journalism." I also believe that those who support GamerGate lack a sense of morality and human decency that most others possess in spades.

I also cannot even feign concern over GamerGate supporters that laugh and say how my morals will lead to a decrease in traffic to Total Gaming Network. Since I first started to speak out against GamerGate months ago, I have seen no decrease in visitor counts or views on posted news. Let's face it, those who have said that they are going to avoid this site have probably never even visited TGN in the first place. It's quite difficult to be upset over losing something that never actually existed. I will not compromise my morals or sense of ethics to pander to persons or a group that has spent months harassing and threatening people just for the miniscule possibility of an extra page hit or two.