Gamer Gate

[J T]

7K, I don't think you are a half-wit. Nevertheless, I don't understand why you, or anyone, cares so much about this though. Depression Quest is a free game. All this outrage that someone got more promotion for her game... that she gives away for free.

Seriously, you can download it now and it won't cost you anything:


I guess this about the integrity of video game journalism? I don't expect the same degree of ethics from my video game journalists that I do from news journalists. It would be nice if they could rate games on something other than a scale of 6-10, but that won't happen.

[the7k]

7K, I don't think you are a half-wit. Nevertheless, I don't understand why you, or anyone, cares so much about this though. Depression Quest is a free game. All this outrage that someone got more promotion for her game... that she gives away for free.

Seriously, you can download it now and it won't cost you anything:


I guess this about the integrity of video game journalism? I don't expect the same degree of ethics from my video game journalists that I do from news journalists. It would be nice if they could rate games on something other than a scale of 6-10, but that won't happen.

Regardless of whether you exempt me from that statement, you should be careful about making sweeping generalizations. It does nothing but further the divide between the two sides.

DQ was not released as free, she only made it free after Robin Williams' death. She's also still making money off of Patreon, and a remarkable number of the people donating to her are games journalists. Enough of Quinn, though. I'd really like to steer the convo as far away from her as possible.

Yes, it is about ethics, at the very least that's part of it. It's also about transparency and censorship. Video games have been around for half a century now. There's no reason it should still be in the same state it was during the days of cartridges.

This scandal, and ones like it such as Gerstgate and Doritosgate, are very reminiscent of what killed Gaming magazines back in the day. While internet hurt them due to news getting out quicker, what really hurt them was the conflicts of interest. The all-expense paid trips, the lavish hotels, the high-class food, and other obvious bribes. I used to read those magazines because I valued their opinion on a game, but after that was revealed, how could you value their opinion? It was now being tainted by something other than the game itself.

Same shit, different medium. The main reason this is popping off much more than Gerstgate and Doritosgate is because it affects a lot more people. I dropped GameSpot after Gerstgate, cold turkey. I never went back. With this, though... literally all the sites I visited for news outside of the sites that only reported on specific genres are involved in this mess.

Accepting the status quo, accepting that games journalism will never change, is exactly how you make sure games journalism will never change. We do not exist because of them, they exist because of us.

[Erik_Twice]

examples you've cited like OMG pressing devs to make Tomb Raider less rapey (!) is certainly not "something people should be outraged about"

C'mon Dave, how it is not something to be "outraged" about? Pushing for the censorship of art before it's even released is disgusting and doubly so if pushed by an art critic.

I do not want a bunch of people decide what's acceptable for art and what isn't. And if there's someone who should, they surely aren't a bunch of Americans who think tackling rape in gaming is verbotten while praising blowing up a guy's testicles as one of the best scenes in modern gaming.

Seriously Dave, this is the banning of Coonskin taken to gaming. Or Rule of Rose. After all, making a game less "pedophilic" is certainly not "something people should be outraged about", right?

I guess this about the integrity of video game journalism? I don't expect the same degree of ethics from my video game journalists that I do from news journalists.

If gaming is important enough to write about it, I think it's important enough to have some basic reporting ethics.

I don't think you should write about your friends or people you are supporting economically. I don't think critics should accept free tablets or expensive headphones from the people that make the game you are reviewing. And you absolutely should not go to PR parties and be wined and dined.

I mean, some of the sites themselves are accepting that. This whole mess has made Kotaku put policies into place for Patreon and Kickstarter and Polygon will force disclosure.

[ZeroAX]

If you want ethical writers, pay for real writers. 99% of gaming journalists (statistic pulled out of my ass) are amateurs who have never studied game design and just started reviewing games.

But even if publications/sites paid for good writers, nobody would read their articles. Gamers have a tabloid reader mentality: "Give me the opinion I WANT to hear, and a bunch of rumors for filler".

And about this woman: you do realize that the game publishers who we buy games from have done waaaaaay more unethical stuff (like overworking their employees, not paying them, restricting our consumer rights by trying to change games into a service, and of course BRIBING THE SHIT out of gaming journalists and sites) right?

A lot of the gaming community's sexism/misogyny does come out as "I don't get laid so I hate girls :'( ". On the other hand, so does the community's "white knightism" ("Let me protect women's rights so I might increase my chances of scoring....what's that about Saudi Arabia stoning a woman? Nah, who cares, it happened outside the first world, not my problem").

lol, I googled the word misogyny to see how's it spelled and this article was the first result:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens ... games.html (yes it has a feminist bias, get over it) ...(actually after reading all of it, just read the parts of what she had to experience, the rest of the article is pretty shit)

But the real issue for me here is once again online bullying. People think there are no real life repercussions for what they say online. Probably only 0.01%, or maybe even 0% of the threats she received are real, but for the person having to experience it it must ruin their lives. Why would people do this? It's the fault of the state, we need legislation against this.

[the7k]

Everybody receives death threats, male or female, left or right, black or white, whatever. The more visible you are to the public, the more likely you are to get them.

There's nothing you can really do about online bullying other than to block them. It's not that hard. The only time it becomes a real issue is when you get doxxed.



Then it gets real.

Just to point out, I'm not trying to excuse online harassment. There's just not really anything you can do to stop it aside from stepping out of the public light altogether. Just use those block tools that services give you. I no longer put my personal email address out there on the net for that very reason.

[alienjesus]

This thread title should be changed to 'read this thread to figure out whose opinion you should continue to ignore from this point on'

I mean, some of the sites themselves are accepting that. This whole mess has made Kotaku put policies into place for Patreon and Kickstarter and Polygon will force disclosure.

This is just such a fuckign stupid argument I have to comment. In these situations the JOURNALISTS are giving money to the DEVELOPERS. In this situation, if anything, I'd expect journalists to be more critical of whether their investment has been worth it.

Banning Kickstarter and Patreon is fucking stupid when such sites are still accepting all sorts of bonuses, PR gifts, flights to events, advance previews etc from major publishers. Banning Kickstarter and Patreon is punching down - it's depriving support to small teams who may otherwise not get noticed and favouring the massive gaming corporations instead.

[dsheinem]

examples you've cited like OMG pressing devs to make Tomb Raider less rapey (!) is certainly not "something people should be outraged about"

C'mon Dave, how it is not something to be "outraged" about? Pushing for the censorship of art before it's even released is disgusting and doubly so if pushed by an art critic.

I do not want a bunch of people decide what's acceptable for art and what isn't. And if there's someone who should, they surely aren't a bunch of Americans who think tackling rape in gaming is verbotten while praising blowing up a guy's testicles as one of the best scenes in modern gaming.

No one is forcing anyone to do anything, but I don't see a problem AT ALL with letting a developer (or director, or author, etc.) know what you would like to see in the material they publish. The official Square Enix site Tomb Raider site, for example, has an entire section devoted to "community" where people can jump in and leave comments for the people working on the game. Entertainment websites and magazine have always covered things like "what we do or don't want to see in upcoming film/book/album X". That's just simply not censorship.

I also think you'd have hard time demonstrating that the people asking for less rape-related content in TR are the same that praise blowing up testicles. The point is that everyone should be welcome to voice their concerns and what not before or after a game comes out. There's nothing scandalous here.

Phil Fish

Zoe Q

Journalists from all over

This set of examples seems like people trying to string together three unrelated things, none of which by themselves or together are evidence of some giant problem of corruption in games or games journalism.

I don't think you should write about your friends or people you are supporting economically.

When you cover something long enough, you become friendly with the people you cover. It's almost a necessity to do your job well in many contexts.

I don't think critics should accept free tablets or expensive headphones from the people that make the game you are reviewing. And you absolutely should not go to PR parties and be wined and dined. I mean, some of the sites themselves are accepting that. This whole mess has made Kotaku put policies into place for Patreon and Kickstarter and Polygon will force disclosure.

For a long time reputable websites like Kotaku and Polygon have had policies in place that already do these things or embrace them in spirit. Those policies were written prior to stuff like Kickstarter or Patreon existing and I concur that the rewritten ethics polices in light of crowdfunding are probably a good idea. But there's no evidence that there's this widespread problem of direct or indirect bribery for coverage, coverage based on economic gain, etc.

And, again, every type of journalism has events that bring together the reporters and their industry/area. The ESPYs, the White House Correspondence dinner, the Golden Globes, etc. Lots of wining and dining, mingling and friendliness. Probably some sex. Big whoop.

[Erik_Twice]

I don't think you should write about your friends or people you are supporting economically.

When you cover something long enough, you become friendly with the people you cover. It's almost a necessity to do your job well in many contexts.

That's bollocks, it's one thing to have profesional yet amicable relationships with the people you cover, it's another to cover your friends or the people you are supporting economically.

C'mon it's the simplest kind of conflict of interest. I'm not exactly arguing for some kind of ludicrous standard here, Dave.

No one is forcing anyone to do anything

I don't think it's very different from the religous lobbying and the pidgeonholding of PG-13 movies specially in sexual matters. It's simply less powerful.

And still, arguing for censorship of games you haven't even played is still a shitty thing to do even if you are not actually forcing anyone to do anyone.

For a long time reputable websites like Kotaku and Polygon have had policies in place that already do these things or embrace them in spirit.[/quote+
I meant they added policies concerning Patreon, not that they just created a whole new set of ethical guidelines because they didn't have any before now.

I actually like Polygon's ethic guidelines a fair bit and while I may have some problems with them I know Kotaku tries to shy away from free swag.

And, again, every type of journalism has events that bring together the reporters and their industry/area. The ESPYs, the White House Correspondence dinner, the Golden Globes, etc. Lots of wining and dining, mingling and friendliness. Probably some sex. Big whoop.

"Everyone does it" is not good enough for me. And it saddens me to see you defend wines and dines, I thought everyone could agree on that crossing the line.

[dsheinem]

And still, arguing for censorship of games you haven't even played is still a shitty thing to do even if you are not actually forcing anyone to do anyone.

It isn't "arguing for censorship", it is arguing for the devs to be more considerate of the audience based on some early information about a game. Censorship would be the blocking/removal of something that already exists...

"Everyone does it" is not good enough for me. And it saddens me to see you defend wines and dines, I thought everyone could agree on that crossing the line.

E3 and PAX are giant wines and dines with both the press and the public on a certain level ("here, come meet us and play our game, hang out, get a tchotchke, etc."). That's all fine, and doesn't in and of itself count as a quid pro quo or corruption.

That said, I don't think that it is ethical for companies to fly a bunch of journalists to a resort to play their game or to ship their review copy on a nice new iPad, etc....but a certain level of schmoozing and PR grubbing is inevitable IN EVERY INDUSTRY EVER, and especially in an industry that publishes entertainment products. Smart readers understand this, and smart journalists are cognizant of it when they write.

In my experience as someone who has for years now talked to, worked with, and/or been classified as one of the various interested "parties" in "Gamer Gate", I am pretty confident in the fact that the VAST OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of people in both the games industry and the games press aren't looking to give or take formal or informal bribes and there is a mutual respect for the job each party has to do. Likewise, the vast majority of gamers also understand all of this and won't let this recent nonsense dramatically change their view of the broader games/game culture landscape. I have no doubts that there are bad apples in all these contexts, but they aren't some menacing "tip of the iceberg" that proves widespread problems, they are just a small portion of knuckleheads.

[Flake]

I'm going to come down on the side of "It'd be nice if games journalism was held to a higher degree of integrity but it isn't going to happen". Games journalism, like any other endeavor, requires people's time. People's time = money. Guess what people don't do anymore? Buy video game magazines. Who here has a paid subscription to any non-niche video game news websites? So that money has to come from somewhere.

Now this does not excuse a game's journalist or developer from being a horrible person or doing bad things. A conflict of interest is still a conflict of interest - but let's not pretend that games journalism websites owe us anything approaching journalistic integrity or transparency. You lost that back when your subscription to EGM expired.