The Me Too movement has ousted many (allegedly) known people who’ve committed some sort of sexual assault. Most notably, this was sparked off with story after story of how Harvey Weinstein (allegedly) sexually assaulted countless women, many of them up-and-coming actresses seeking roles to forge their paths ahead in Hollywood. Whether this leads to actual changes remains to be seen, especially considering how insulated Hollywood has always been. But, the movement would slowly seep far past Hollywood. It encouraged women to come forth no matter their profession, reaching as far as someone who works a normal 9-5, to sports, and whether it was intended or a coincidence, gaming.
Video games, along with pretty much every other form of entertainment get a knock for being heavily male dominated, and rightfully so. While some might believe that this is simply to do with the secondary education degrees each gender looks to pursue, that seems like a cop out for the industry as a whole not doing enough to be more inclusive. That is especially damning when report after report comes out showing that women make up at least 50{3a19833c997fa52158a43c449fe089ff048ac0506a335cac10721cfa396ff282} of the gaming population. There are various places gamers congregate to discuss any and all things gaming, and there was no larger place than NeoGAF. From CBOAT to E3 Hype Trains to systems leaks days before reveals, NeoGAF provided some hilarious and exciting times across the gaming hemisphere. But what was NeoGAF appears to be no more, even though it is starting to slowly come back online.
Over the past week, NeoGAF’s founder Tyler (Evilore) Malka was accused of sexual misconduct.  A former intimate friend of Malka’s (film director Ima Leupp KOTAKU) alleges that he sexually assaulted her while on a trip in New Orleans. You can view the contents of the Facebook post below.
Malka’s statement can be seen here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1452075
It’s unclear if or when the legal matter will be resolved between the two. It’s actually unclear if she is indeed pressing charges. The only certainty is that the (alleged) despicable acts of one person have completely fractured one of the more active gaming communities on the internet. Since GAF has slowly begun to come back online, it has proven that it will only be a shell of its former self for some time to come. Various well-known posters have committed account suicide, literally creating threads asking for permanent bans or simply stating that they will be bowing out moving forward. The threads are in complete chaos, assumingly because up to 10 mods left in the days following the allegations. And, GAF’s Off-Topic section has been forever altered with the removal of PoliGAF along with other hot topic sections. While Malka is attempting to pull together the quickly unraveling community, various community members are looking to create a new forum, ResetERA. Their only statement has been that it will be a place to discuss gaming that will be completely disassociated from NeoGAF.
Malka has quite a shaky past, particularly damning was a Reddit AMA conducted with Kotaku’s Jason Schreier (amongst others from Kotaku) where he allegedly admits to sexually assaulting a women in Spain. Detailed allegations from that AMA and much, much more have been compiled here by Kotaku In Action:
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/77z6wg/the_demise_of_neogaf_megathread/
Sexual assault has been put under the spotlight, and it is about damn time this has happened. It’s a shame that it has taken so long to begin to tug at the threads that have been seen by so many prominent people in the media. Looking the other way at worst, and being oblivious at best has put us in a place where we failed a large portion of society. Malka’s story has yet to completely unfold, to the extent that Weinstein’s has anyway, but surely, we will soon find out the truth and feel the reverberations across gaming culture for years to come. Â
