[The Terror]

So the Gamergate affair seems to be escalating, it's now getting mentioned in the Guardian and the BBC news website.

Anybody picked a side?

[Ghost of V]

I think it's stupid. We've known that video game journalism has been rigged for years. I don't understand why it's becoming such an issue now.

People need to stop basing their game purchases on someone else's opinion and do the research on games they are interested in themselves. Seems like that would solve a lot of problems.

[Saddam Hussein]

I think it's stupid. We've known that video game journalism has been rigged for years. I don't understand why it's becoming such an issue now.

People need to stop basing their game purchases on someone else's opinion and do the research on games they are interested in themselves. Seems like that would solve a lot of problems.

That has nothing to do with it.  Like, at all.

[Ghost of V]

I think it's stupid. We've known that video game journalism has been rigged for years. I don't understand why it's becoming such an issue now.

People need to stop basing their game purchases on someone else's opinion and do the research on games they are interested in themselves. Seems like that would solve a lot of problems.

That has nothing to do with it.  Like, at all.

Yes, it does. It's the crux of the issue. The Zoe Quinn thing just pushed it to the forefront. She had a game greenlit on Steam and then slept with a bunch of journalists to get good press for her game. Happens in the business world a lot. She just so happened to cheat on her boyfriend with 5 guys, so that of course is going to be everyone's biggest focus... but the real focus is rigged journalism. The issue has a lot of people talking about rigged journalism, and gamergate is relevant to that topic completely.

What did you think this was about? 

[The Terror]

Gamergate is about many things.

This is the great flame war of our time.

[Saddam Hussein]

I think it's stupid. We've known that video game journalism has been rigged for years. I don't understand why it's becoming such an issue now.

People need to stop basing their game purchases on someone else's opinion and do the research on games they are interested in themselves. Seems like that would solve a lot of problems.

That has nothing to do with it.  Like, at all.

Yes, it does. It's the crux of the issue. The Zoe Quinn thing just pushed it to the forefront. She had a game greenlit on Steam and then slept with a bunch of journalists to get good press for her game. Happens in the business world a lot. She just so happened to cheat on her boyfriend with 5 guys, so that of course is going to be everyone's biggest focus... but the real focus is rigged journalism. The issue has a lot of people talking about rigged journalism, and gamergate is relevant to that topic completely.

What did you think this was about? 

No, it's not about that.  It's kind of a shame that it's not about that, because, as you said, rigging game scores has been going on for a very long time and definitely deserves some attention, but it really seems to be about arguments over gender and social justice issues and how they should or shouldn't be discussed in video game journalism.  From the gamers' perspective, video game websites have been censoring discussion of the Quinn incident out of fear that it's really all down to slut-shaming and they don't want to seem sexist.  The media is countering that it really is about slut-shaming and sexism and gamers need to take off their fedoras and stop being such douchebags about women and minorities.  Then the gamers object and say, hey, that's not what this is about, look at these tweets from women and respectful men showing their support for gamergate, and then the media shows other tweets that are indeed from sexist asshats, and blah blah blah.

They're both right and they're both wrong.  A lot of video game journalism sites are incredibly sensitive when it comes to talking about gender and social justice and will oftentimes ban commentators and censor discussions rather than let people talk about subjects that even tangentially relate to those issues.  However, there is a very nasty undercurrent of misogyny in the gaming culture that raises its ugly head almost any time women have anything to say about video games.  It's there, it's not going away, and it needs to be dealt with.

[Ghost of V]

I don't think this is about misogyny either. I think that's what the journalists want you to think. The fact is: this women fucked up. She slept with people to promote her game. The misogyny charge is ridiculous, because there are several groups of people who want more female game developers. I even read that a group called The Fine Young Capitalists started a campaign awhile ago to help promote female developers, and 95% of the donations came from men. No one is against females in gaming here. Zoe Quinn did a bad thing; calling her out on it does not make anyone a misogynist. She is giving female developers a bad name. I think journalists are screaming misogyny here to cover their corrupt asses. If women cared so much about game development then become a damn video game developer. If you're going to bitch about it, why not try to change things? And no, changing things does not involve sleeping with people to promote your games.


This issue seems to be about a lot of things, but to say that it's not about journalism is just wrong. This is all about journalism, and a few other things... but it all stems from video game journalism. I didn't want to mention Zoe Quinn because I think it is irrelevant. I don't want to sit here typing about females in gaming. It's childish. I'd rather focus on the fact that a lot of video game journalism is corrupt. And really, who cares? I rarely give reviews time of day to begin with, those who do need to learn how to formulate their own opinions and interests instead of getting corrupt journalists to tell them what to do.

[The Terror]

It's understandable that websites have been censoring discussions regarding Zoe Quinn's personal life. But the harassment campaign (with which Quinn is implicated) against the Fine Young Capitalists charity has gone totally unreported by most gaming websites, even though it shares many similarities with the widely reported campaigns against Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. It does seem that there's some kind of cover up going on.

[Ghost of V]

It's understandable that websites have been censoring discussions regarding Zoe Quinn's personal life. But the harassment campaign (with which Quinn is implicated) against the Fine Young Capitalists charity has gone totally unreported by most gaming websites, even though it shares many similarities with the widely reported campaigns against Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. It does seem that there's some kind of cover up going on.

What Gamergate is about has been made so vague by video game websites/journalists that I find it hard to believe there isn't a conspiracy going on. You don't shadowban & censor without some sort of ulterior motive.

The only thing I hope this scandal achieves is showing more people how corrupt video game journalism (or maybe all journalism) is.

[Saddam Hussein]

With regards to the Quinn thing, it looks like there was only one video game journalist that she had an affair with, a guy from Kotaku.  And he didn't even review her game.

And here's something from TFYC about her:

http://www.thefineyoungcapitalists.com/PeaceTreaty

[Ghost of V]

With regards to the Quinn thing, it looks like there was only one video game journalist that she had an affair with, a guy from Kotaku.  And he didn't even review her game.

And here's something from TFYC about her:

http://www.thefineyoungcapitalists.com/PeaceTreaty

I've heard mixed things about her, all of them being rumors and speculation. I believe the original claim was 5 different journalists. If that is untrue then I take back all my statements about her.


Actually, no. I take that back. She started this shit storm. I don't believe that the claim was "she slept with the reviewer who then gave her game good reviews" but it was more so that "she slept with a journalist who promoted her game unfairly because of their relationship". Kotaku & Quinn have publicly stated that this was a personal matter, but the issue was related to them to begin with so take that with a grain of salt or whatever.

It's not like there's no evidence supporting these theories. There is a plethora of unearthed data supporting this. There is a popular video on youtube that details the evidence very well, but I won't post that here.

[Lord Dave]

This is the first I'm hearing about this.

So some woman slept with someone and cheated on her BF and she was a developer?

How is this news worthy?

[Ghost of V]

How is this news worthy?

Salt required.

[Saddam Hussein]

How is this news worthy?

Salt required.

What's funny is that this article fits what the mainstream video game journalism have supposedly been stereotyping the gamer community as perfectly.  It glosses right over the issue of objectivity in reviews (which at least is a genuine concern) and gets straight to the slut-shaming and passing judgment on Quinn's personal life.

[Ghost of V]

How is this news worthy?

Salt required.

What's funny is that this article fits what the mainstream video game journalism have supposedly been stereotyping the gamer community as perfectly.  It glosses right over the issue of objectivity in reviews (which at least is a genuine concern) and gets straight to the slut-shaming and passing judgment on Quinn's personal life.

No it doesn't.

I guess you missed this part:

"Update: as some Twitter followers have pointed out, the affairs haven’t technically been proven to have taken place – although Grayson has confirmed his part, Quinn has not yet commented on them. Thus the article has been updated to clarify that the scenario is still an alleged one, not a confirmed one."

The article addresses the concerns of the situation, but also makes it clear that this is conjecture and it could possibly be incorrect. And it never really slams her as a slut, it just addresses the alleged affairs with the information that has been released. There is no slut slamming, these are the kind of conclusions that the gaming journalists came to as well... and those conclusions are part of the problem. You're lampshading the issue here by claiming misogyny.

[Ghost of V]

I just watched (skipped through) a Let's Play of Depression Quest and.... Wtf? How is this even a game? It's text with links to more text. I'm sorry, but that is not a game and Zoe Quinn is not a game developer. Very surprising that many sites have given this "game" a thumbs up.

From my understanding, a game is "a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck". Depression Quest is a webpage with links. It involves none of these things.

[Saddam Hussein]

Yeah, there's really nothing much to it.  And in a normal world, you'd never have heard of it or her.  It's almost as if 4chan and reddit turned this all into a big issue, isn't it?

[Ghost of V]

Yeah, there's really nothing much to it.  And in a normal world, you'd never have heard of it or her.  It's almost as if 4chan and reddit turned this all into a big issue, isn't it?

Yeah, this is stupid.

[Vindictus]

This is the first I'm hearing about this.

So some woman slept with someone and cheated on her BF and she was a developer?

How is this news worthy?

What's it like to live under a rock?

[Rushy]

I haven't heard of this either and I basically live on the interwebs.