Ethical Journalism: GamerGate’s home grown journos taking it to the next level.
So! Let’s discuss ethical journalism and GamerGate, because this is what really, truly, importantly matters.
Let’s ignore everything but Ethical Journalism, and dig in. Let’s start with a snippet from a great new article on ethics in journalism, What Games Journalism Integrity Actually Is and What It Isn’t from Zen of Design. (Their bolding converted to de-italicised, my bolding for emphasis on parts I wish to highlight.)
Think about the New York Times. It’s a very liberal paper, and serves a very liberal audience in NYC. It has some pretty conservative columnists on their editorial board, who get worldwide exposure because of how important the paper is, and I’m sure that most of the population of NYC hates what they have to say. And I’m sure that the liberal colleagues that fill those newsrooms hate those columns too. I’m sure there’s a LOT of tension at times, and that the Christmas party gets a little tense once the eggnog starts flowing. I’m also sure that every one of those liberal newswriters would defend to the death the right of that conservative columnist to print his opinion piece and stand by it, even if the readership rioted and the advertisers pulled out.
Because of motherfucking journalistic integrity. That’s what it means.
Sure, you retract news stories if you get the facts wrong. But retracting opinion pieces because the opinions are unpopular – it’s not in their DNA. You live with the opinions you stated, and every now and then you get your nose rubbed in them if you got it wrong. You don’t go back and pretend you never thought it. It’s hard – I have some stuff I regret here on this blog.
Okay, so. You retract news stories if you get the facts wrong, but opinion pieces, like Leigh Alexander’s ‘‘Gamers’ are over’? That you keep, because it’s opinions, not facts.
So let’s deal with facts.
Let’s deal with the big one. The one that launched this whole crusade, from one of the most respected — and presumably ethical — voices of GamerGate.
Zoe Quinn fucked a guy to get good reviews.
But which guy? And who said that?
Our respected voice of GamerGate? Yup, it’s that Five Guys video again!
Oh, shit, no. I got that wrong again. Dammit.
We mean this video, from Internet Aristocrat, who tweeted:
See? Being a journalist, with integrity, matters deeply to this man. It’s very, very important he doesn’t mislead you, isn’t it?
(For those of you playing at home, @Vahn16 is Nathan Grayson. Personally? I like your writing, Nathan — props to you. Please note that I have now divulged any relationships/opinions I hold — but my opinions do not change the facts.)
Starting at 09:40 in his video:
But you’re a busy person, so, let’s go over a transcript I typed of the part I want to highlight. Afterward we’ll discuss what Internet Aristocrat’s told you.
But really, the biggest fucking issue that we’re looking at right now, is the name right in the middle. Nathan Grayson. Who is Nathan Grayson? And why is it important we talk about his and Zoe’s relationship?
Nathan Grayson is a video game journalist. Nathan Grayson is somebody who has published positive pieces about Zoe’s game, who has given her publicity, and who has marketed her product, while having sex with her and not disclosing it.
Now there’s a word for people when there’s a professional conflict, and they need to step back from what they do as a job because of conflicting things. It’s called recusing oneself. Nathan Grayson not only did not recuse himself from writing the articles that fluffed up her product and promoted her, he went so far as to hide the fact that they had a relationship.
Here you see an example of just two pieces he wrote this year, one on Rock Paper Shotgun and one on Kotaku, talking about her product and her specifically. This starts to show a pattern of behaviour in game journalism. These people have no professional barrier which exists between their relationships. It’s not just that game developers and game journalists have friendships, or that they communicate, or that they cooperate and do things together. They are having illicit sexual relationships which benefit one another. Nathan Grayson’s benefited by able to write an article that will get him clicks, and thereby add revenue. Zoe Quinn is able to get publicity and make money.
It is a disgusting relationship, and it is the opposite of what journalism is meant to be.
Wow! Pretty stern stuff. But a lot of that is an opinion piece, where Internet Aristocrat expresses his opinion that other people shouldn’t get to have sex if they’re in a position he disapproves of. And that’s an opinion, and that’s fine.
Let’s look at the facts claimed.
Nathan Grayson is somebody who has published positive pieces about Zoe’s game, who has given her publicity, and who has marketed her product, while having sex with her and not disclosing it.
&
Nathan Grayson not only did not recuse himself from writing the articles that fluffed up her product and promoted her, he went so far as to hide the fact that they had a relationship.
&
Here you see an example of just two pieces he wrote this year, one on Rock Paper Shotgun and one on Kotaku, talking about her product and her specifically.
So. Let’s look at these positive pieces. Internet Aristocrat gave us an example of just two, using language which CLEARLY implies that he wrote more pieces than that.
But so far as Google knows, he didn’t.
All Nathan Grayson ever wrote about Depression Quest, ever, are the two examples given.
But that’s okay, it’s just a tiny slipup, right? Surely a guy fucking a broad would have had more to say? It’s a conclusion that’s easy to leap to, so it’s okay that Internet Aristocrat spoke about that OPINION as if it were a FACT. That isn’t at ALL ‘ the opposite of what journalism is meant to be.’
So, let’s see how Nathan ‘fluffed up her product and promoted her’ in these two articles which are ‘talking about her product and her specifically.’
Article one, from Rock Paper Shotgun, January 8th 2014:
Every day, approximately 43 billion new indie games spring into existence from mysterious ethers far outside the realm of human comprehension. We approach these portals into The Beyond with great apprehension, then we scuttle away with our bounty, arms and hearts full of excitement and terror. We call this process “game development,” and it will probably bring about the end of the world. Until then, though, someone needs to curate these things, so Valve blasts new finds with its organizational death laser, Steam Greenlight. Yep, that’s exactly how it all works and this is not just me filling space because I’ve written far too many Greenlight posts at all. Anyway, standouts: powerful Twine darling Depression Quest, surrealist Thief usurper Tangiers, and sidescrolling epic Treasure Adventure World.
(List of approximately 43 billion new indie games)
So there you go: 50 games. And hey, Windforge made it. That’s the one about mining sky whales because… yeah! Which games of this batch catch your eye?
Yeah! Goddamnit Nathan, that is unashamedly fluffing up her product as some kind of significant thing! Why are you promoting Zoe Quinn so hard, man?! WHY?! That article was DEFINITELY about her and her product SPECIFICALLY.
Now the other one, from Kotaku’s sub-imprint TMI, March 31st 2014:
The Indie Game Reality TV Show That Went To Hell
A reality TV show about some of the best indie game developers in the business competing Iron-Chef-style to make amazing games? Sounds like a great idea, right? You’d think so, but this story does not, unfortunately, have a happy ending.
According to a report on Indie Statik (and corroborating testimonials from Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn, SoundSelf maestro Robin Arnott, and traveling indie of all the hats Adriel Wallick), GAME_JAM was originally conceived as an attempt to give wider audiences an inside look at what a game jam — that is, a rapid-fire game creation process, usually done over the course of a few days as a creative exercise — is actually like.
Having participated in a few myself, I can add that it’s a stressful and difficult but exhilarating process. And in many ways, game jams really get to the heart of what modern “indie” game development is all about: small teams, off-the-wall ideas, and sloshing gallons of blood, sweat, and tears.
…
So then the competition itself began. Things got off on a strange foot when developers were organized into game-show-style teams with “captains” — in this case Zoe Quinn, Robin Arnott,Perfect Stride creator(s) Arcane Kids, and a group of USC students — each with a surprise YouTuber (among them personalities like JonTron) along for the ride, which is not really what a game development team looks like. There were 16 competitors in total, divided into four teams. They’d have four days to come up with a game idea and prototype it for all the world to see. Strict limits, but — bizarre team structures aside — that’s a game jam for you.
…
Tempers flared as it became apparent that the show wasn’t quite what people were expecting, and Pepsi’s on-site consultant decided to get involved — but not as a calming influence or a mediator. YouTube personality JonTron and Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn butted heads during the Let’s Play challenge, and they decided to resolve their differences with a discussion off-set. Cameras, however, quickly followed.
“The second their feet left the competition floor, however, something happened that I didn’t expect: cameras,” wrote Indie Statik reporter Jared Rosen. “Cameras from every angle and direction, marching in to the discussion as someone started feeding the fight with inflammatory comments, and all of it filmed for what would likely be some of that legal ‘misrepresentation.’ Zoe was horrified.”
“Jon didn’t want that. Zoe definitely didn’t want that. Serrato, Umetani, and the many producers spectating didn’t want that, and it went against everything game jams stood for — but [Pepsi consultant and Protagonist CEO Matti Leshem] pushed the angle. And as the challenge went on we discovered that he had cornered Jon in a room to try and get him to speak poorly of Zoe, the only negative ‘story’ they could muster out of all fifteen contestants.”
That’s it.
Holy ethical catastrophe Batman, that’s extraordinary! In those two pieces Nathan Grayson is absolutely ‘talking about her product and her specifically.’!!!!
Except this gets a little worse than presenting these two articles as proof. Because to find them, Internet Aristocrat would have had to run a web search. He would have had to investigate, and this is the evidence he found.
He deliberately presented this evidence by saying:
Nathan Grayson is somebody who has published positive pieces about Zoe’s game, who has given her publicity, and who has marketed her product, while having sex with her and not disclosing it.
And you know what?
His source for this information are those two articles I just excerpted, and the Zoe Post, which I wish I didn’t have to link to as a source, but I am going to very briefly quote:
There was a typo up for a while that made it seem like Zoe and I were on break between March and June. This has apparently led some people to infer that her infidelity with Nathan Grayson began in early March. I want to clarify that I have no reason to believe or evidence to imply she was sleeping with him prior to late March or early April (though I believe they’d been friends for a while before that). This typo has since been corrected to make it clear we were on break between May and June. To be clear, if there was any conflict of interest between Zoe and Nathan regarding coverage of Depression Quest prior to April, I have no evidence to imply that it was sexual in nature.
The two articles were from January 8th and March 31st. Maybe there’s an argument for that second article which very specifically highlights and promotes Zoe Quinn in relation to this game show. Maybe.
So.
Internet Aristocrat KNEW this, or he could have contacted all the parties involved to ask, but he still published, in his youtube video, the claim that:
Nathan Grayson is somebody who has published positive pieces about Zoe’s game, who has given her publicity, and who has marketed her product, while having sex with her and not disclosing it.
even after either A) Being handed the the sum total of Nathan Grayson’s output in relation to Depression Quest, and making the assumption there was more he wasn’t seeing, or B) Running a search for it and finding it all for himself, then choosing to present it to you like that.
Did Zoe Quinn lie to us all, did she lie to her ex-boyfriend, did she lie to the world, is she a liar?
I have no fucking idea. But I know that Internet Aristocrat’s a liar, based on my interpretation of the facts I have just presented to you, which I fully and clearly admit right now is based on only what I can find in the couple of hours I have between eating dinner and playing vibeogabes wif mah posse.
It is, apparently, a crapton more than Internet Aristocrat found.
Oh, and if you think this ethics thing stops there? It doesn’t.
Favoured website of the GamerGate crew, TechRaptor, recently posted this article:
Anti-Gamergate Publications Blacklist Kingdom Come: Deliverance
A few days ago, Warhorse Studios released a video update on their game Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Gaming blogs all over the world have written about the video, but until now the only site in the US to give the update any press was Cinemablend. The complete silence from most major gaming publications about the title will come as no surprise to some. Daniel Vavra, the game’s director, has been a fairly vocal supporter of Gamergate, a topic which we at Techraptor have written about in abundance. Who knows how many other games have gone unnoticed just because the game developers somehow displeased the wrong journalist?
This of course leaves the creators of the game in a bit of an unfortunate situation; without a lot of press for the game leading up to its release, it will have an uphill battle to climb up Steam’s Top Sellers page. While the supporters of Gamergate are eagerly awaiting the game’s release, only time will tell if that will be enough to give the game a successful launch. Though things seem hopeful, as despite the lack of coverage, the video still managed to be their most popular one yet, and they have hit a new record week in their crowdfunding campaign. Hopefully word of mouth will continue to raise hype for the game over time.
This is absolutely shocking.
Firstly, the only site in the US to give the update any press was Cinemablend. That’s pretty crazy!
I don’t know if Kotaku covered that update, but they’ve covered a lot of other updates, like this one: http://kotaku.com/making-a-medieval-video-game-looks-really-fun-1520233871
and this one: http://kotaku.com/next-gen-rpg-has-no-monsters-magic-or-minotaurs-1485418733
and, oh hell, just run a search for the game’s coverage on Kotaku, which began in 2012.
And Kotaku certainly ISN’T part of Gawker Media based in New York City.
… Wait, what? … Oh…
You know I bet Rock Paper Shotgun hasn’t cover—
Well, fuck.
What about Gamasutra? They definitely wouldn’t let these guys run a devblog on their site would the—
What’s next for Kingdom Come: Deliverance
by Daniel Vavra on 04/02/14 07:47:00 am
What’s next
It’s over a month since our campaign ended and we’ve been keeping a bit quiet. Everyone is probably curious what we’re up to now. So here I am to tell you what our plans are for the upcoming months.
…
Ahem.
So.
Wow, that really is ‘complete silence from most major gaming publications’ isn’t it?
And that’s really okay to print, guys. Because ‘most major gaming publications’ is an issue of OPINION, not FACT, so TechRaptor really doesn’t have to do a follow-up apology piece for misleading you if you were somebody who thought Kotaku, Rock Paper Shotgun, or Gamasutra were ‘major gaming publications’.
Because you know what?
The FACT is they aren’t. If they were, TechRaptor would have included them in its list.
TechRaptor DEFINITELY wasn’t lying to us with stuff that could have been checked up on with Google and thirty seconds of time. No way. Not Internet Aristocrat, either, he certainly didn’t need to read the source documents he threw at you as proof of his claims.
GamerGate’s journalists? Paragons of ethics and integrity.
I shed a tear at the esteem in which GamerGate holds them.
