Polygon's attempt to win back gamers' support fails

On February 14, 2018, a mass shooting incident occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The incident resulted in the deaths of 14 students and 3 staff members.

President Donald Trump, as well as many politicians who are eager to deflect scrutiny and steer the topic away from gun violence, fall back to using the common tactic of exaggerating the effects of violent video games and movies and made suggestions to reinforce the already existing rating system. This statement was met with lots of criticism, even from Trump supporters. Erik Kain published an article on Forbes debunking Trump's claim and Trump's theory is rejected by both researchers and the Supreme Court.

Ben Kuchera, senior editor of the gaming website mh:crappygames:Polygon, has posted an article titled I can't believe we're still blaming video games in 2018 as well as several other articles bashing Trump for his anti-game statements, other Polygon writers, as well as other outlets began to follow suit by hyping Trump's remarks out of proportions in an attempt to get gamers to rally behind their seemingly "just" cause.

Little do the journalists know that the days of mh:crappygames:Jack Thompson are over and their image has already been smeared and remains so today.

Many readers never bought their tactics and accused Polygon of hypocrisy. Ian Miles Cheong retorted that Polygon never hesitated to stand with Anita Sarkeesian when she proposed "censoring violent and "misogynistic" video games." and that Trump's statements are "mild" and "a far cry" compared to the trots of Sarkeesian and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Best Mom Eva also made several tweets pointing out Ben Kuchera's and Polygon's double-standards:"'I would like to remind Kuchera of how frequently his own publication has blamed video games, either by implying that games cause harm or by uncritically repeating alarmist media. I would like to remind Kuchera that his own writers have, within recent memory, done nothing short of directly blame video games for shootings.'""'If you think that you are going to rally gamers around the banner of Games Journalism and lead them in a charge against scapegoating politicians, you're in for a surprise. This isn't 2006. This is 2018, post-GamerGate. You are just as loathsome to gamers as the politicians are.'"Over at the KotakuInAction subreddit, a post was made reminding people not to fall for the journalists' antics, and that many of those same outlets and journalists have "played a major role in cultivating this present situation" by lying and spreading anti-gamer propaganda for years, and that they are continuing to do so today. The main reason that the journalists are "defending gaming" by bashing Donald Trump is because he is Donald Trump and he's doing what most politicians will do.