GUEST EDITORIAL by Marcus Lawshe’

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity.” ~ Hunter S. Thompson

My enemy fears me because I do not fear them.

Nor do I hate them. Because to me, they are simply lost lemmings being herded by ideologies that seem and sound intelligent, but in the end are espoused by dimwits and hateful extremists. Five months ago, I looked at these “professional” games journalists with worrying eyes, shaking my head as they gnashed their teeth and shook a fist at their own audience. Men and women alike who had lost a purpose; men and women alike who had forgotten their profession. This insular, “victimized” horde; this obtuse, near-cultish, incestuous society. They had lost their way.

You see a journalist, for lack of a better term, is a civil servant. By their very nature, they serve the interests of the people and that tenable truth to find, well, truth above their own. I remember the words of my professor, one that has stuck with me over the years, past names I can no longer remember, and memories that no longer cross my thoughts; “A good journalist, no matter what, is a seeker of truth. They break it down, distill it for their audience, but in the end, they respect its harshness. They respect its facts. Always remember; ours is never to judge. Only to report.”

These once-impressionable people have lost sight of that. They’ve allowed themselves to be tainted by the greediest, most negative aspects of this profession. Pride. Is it wrong to be proud of your work? Of course not. But when you let it dictate your actions, when you let it insulate you against genuine discourse and opinion, then you let it control you. You let it lead you down a questionable path. A path that sheds you of certain obligations not only to the people, but to yourself. To be as objective and as unbiased as you can be in reporting.

“A key purpose of journalism is to provide an adversarial check on those who wield the greatest power by shining a light on what they do in the dark, and informing the public about those acts.” ~ Glenn Greenwald

That is one of the reasons why they hate us, you see. Deep in the barrows of the underdark, as calloused hands pitch coal into the forges and steely men and women work the bellows, we are showing them up. We common rabble, we “amateur” folk. And so they desperately try to make us out to be monsters. Subhuman. Morlockian chattel beholden to their “wisdom,” grateful for their “enlightenment.” To them, we are peasants in the Kingdom of Truth. And to question even one ounce of their opinion “bristles their quills”, so to speak. ‘How dare you,’ they scream. And so they push, they bully, they threaten the masses to fall back in line. But it’s a telling thing now, that people have stomped their feet, dug in their heels…. and started pushing back.

“Pride, envy, avarice – these are the sparks that have set on fire the souls of many men.” ~ Dante Alighieri

We’ve exposed dark secrets about a cabal intent on maintaining the status quo; this caste system where the sacred feminine is beyond reproach or questionable integrity. Insular. Hypocritical. Unemployed.

So to all my fellow gamers; to those channers and fearless men and steely women out there: Stay the course. Keep women in gaming. Defy the censorship. And thumb your noses at these beggar prince and princesses who fleece the poor to make “games.”

Leave them to their broken thrones and their empty halls. Leave them to their shattered lies and their falsehoods. Leave them to their ivory towers that crack and splinter under the weight of their own egos. Leave them to their false martyrs and their poisoned pens. Leave them to their hate. Coal the forges. Fire the bellows. Stand your ground, down here deep in the underdark, my fellow gamers. Let truth be your shield. Let humility be your armor. Let honesty be your sword. Because we have something they do not. Integrity. And that is why they hate us. That is why they fear us.

And that is why I do not fear my enemy. That is why I do hate them.

I simply pity them.