10 Extreme Moments Where Video Game Fans Took Things Too Far

Alongside fans of cinema, gaming fans are incredibly passionate about their favourite hobby. When they latch onto to a major release, some develop an unhealthy obsession, taking their fandom too far as a result.

Unfortunately, this passion often manifests itself in some incredibly nasty behaviour, and it seems that as the internet's potential for forums has blossomed, this has only worsened over time. A small portion of various communities grow deeply vitriolic, and unleash their fury on those they deem responsible.

On occasion, a game doesn't meet the expectations of a fanbase, or it could be something as measly as a "low" review score.

In recent years, more vocal members of the community have even found themselves bringing changes to their products by putting pressure on studios. Unfortunately, this is often down to anger and outrage, somewhat forcing developers and publishers to make alterations.

In no particular order, these are the times fans went completely overboard in their response to video games. We're not talking about petty console wars, instead it's full-on toxicity, and things that should never happen again.

One of the most vicious arguments in gaming history, GamerGate started when independent game developer Zoe Quinn released Depression Quest in 2013. The text-based title was a far cry from many action games at the time; however, a feud soon sprung up between Quinn and blog writer Eron Gjoni.

In an attack on Kotaku, Gjoni accused them of corrupt practices, believing the publication favoured Depression Quest as one of their writers, Nathan Grayson, was dating Zoe at the time of release. This caused a splinter into two online factions, with one side setting out to heavily target Quinn.

Thus, the horrid attacks began and this soon spread to other women such as Anita Sarkeesian in response to her "Tropes and Women in Video Games" series. The two factions would be at each other's throats throughout most of the year; one taking the side of harassment victims and the other attempting to call out hypocrisy in journalism, creating a violent online culture war across 2014.

Coordinated harassment took place across 4Chan, Reddit and other sites as the victims, most of them women, were doxxed and issued death threats.

To this day, GamerGate is tough to summarise, but what we can all agree on is that it was a deeply hateful shouting match with many anonymous users crossing the line.