I'm not sure which of those you think is wrong, that excerpt seems pretty accurate to me.
This, alone, was taken as proof positive that gaming journalism (and the gaming industry in general) was in the pocket of corrupt feminist interests, and founded an entire movement based on rooting out and exposing examples of same.
The story somehow became that Quinn was openly sleeping with half the games journalism industry in exchange for good reviews of her games. Now that the facts are out, the smarter Gamergaters try to downplay the Quinn episode or pretend that it never happened, inventing an alternate, less embarrassing origin story about ethics in games journalism. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to be buying it.
(Originally it started about "ethics in video game journalism", but it took about two minutes for them to pivot to attacking women.)
The response of the games industry to the fact of more women games is a cultural choice on their part, not some forced physical reaction to the mere fact. Hence the distinction between "women in gaming" and the "industry response to more women in gaming".
It's entirely possible to like that more women are involved with gaming while not liking how industry leaders have chosen to respond to that fact. I find it strange that so many people don't seem to get the distinction, and suspect that it's willful on their part, because they agree with those cultural choices and don't want to have to defend them.
This isn't just about women in gaming, it's about making gaming more accessible in general. Shooter games where all you do is blast things in the face can be fun, and I loved the hell out of the most recent DOOM, but even given that I do enjoy other kinds of games. There's a need for variety.
When everything is "shoot monsters/zombies/Nazis" in the face then gaming becomes boring and tired. It's like a world where the only kind of film was zombie/horror. It would suck.
Gaming as a medium is easily as capable as telling a story and conveying emotion as film, and that games aren't as emotionally diverse as film is a huge problem.
Representation in gaming is important and when done right it's not even an issue, it's not even obvious. The last instalment of Wolfenstein, a game not exactly known for depth of story, had multiple women characters, one of which had a physical disability, plus a character with a severe mental disability.
Maybe they were trying to tick all the boxes, I don't know, but it felt more believable and authentic than the usual Gears of War style bunch-of-generic-burly-dudes-plus-token-(sexy)-woman. This was an underground organization in the middle of World War II and you can't be picky about who you get. Their talents aren't necessarily physical.
So maybe you can explain more about their "response" because I'm not sure I understand your take at all.
> This isn't just about women in gaming, it's about making gaming more accessible in general. Shooter games where all you do is blast things in the face can be fun, and I loved the hell out of the most recent DOOM, but even given that I do enjoy other kinds of games. There's a need for variety.
I think we can agree on that: the topic of GamerGate is industry behavior, which wasn't just responding to women in the market, but trying in a broader sense to present the medium as more mature (ie, actually being art) and accessible (ie, more segments of the general population are involved). The women joining are just one of the most visible new segments (...because of the traditionally low number of women...) that industry executives are trying to entice to join in. (Let me know if we don't agree here, but I think we at least both agree on those facts.)
The GamerGate response is that the people traditionally associated with gaming are reacting to feeling "unhomed", from industry actions like that many major studios have publicly denounced what they like about gaming (...the unrealism of character portrayal and experience...) and called them sexist for their preferences, when just as many women seem to prefer unrealistic guys as guys prefer unrealistic women, ie, that the preference speaks to a widespread, deeper human escapism and lust for fantasy, rather than how they view the other gender. Given that a lot of gamers are traditionally from social groups which are bullied by other social groups, they're particularly sensitive to being called names just for engaging in a widespread, very normal fantasy.
The GamerGate response is really the underlying fear of having their culture appropriated and no longer receiving things that cater to their tastes because mainstream culture became involved, and forced everything to conform to their mainstream value signaling and norms. (Such as no more sexy women in unrealistic armor, even though no one is complaining about unrealistically muscled men in unrealistic armor being main characters.)
I'm personally sympathetic to both sides: opening the medium to a wider audience, having more sophisticated, mature games made, and exploring the medium as a form of art is very, very, VERY good for gaming and culture at large, but we should acknowledge that the gaming subculture was previously a refuge for traditionally low status, relatively powerless people, and should take care not to annihilate their subculture and safe space in the process. I think in many ways, both sides have refused to acknowledge that the other side has a valid point, and that what's really needed is a compromise. We can advance the medium without having to erase the more unrealistic, fantasy driven parts of it.
Drawing seems to do fine as art even though there's drawn, highly unrealistic porn. Video games can similarly advance as a medium without having to erase the "undesirable" content.