thisiseric

Quite a few people in the press were giving money to developers through Patreon while covering them in their writing, without disclosure. After it surfaced, a few outlets changed their ethics policy to put a stop to it.

That's why I said this isn't a police investigation. It doesn't matter if somebody went into Goldman Sachs during the crisis and shot up the place, that isn't reason to stop discussion from happening.

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

Question: Was any of the YouTuber/Twitch games coverage attacked in GamerGate? Stuff like Yogscast with its targeted coverage, or Day9 covering Kingdoms of Amalur (not sure if that was paid). Wondering since I honestly haven't kept up with a lot of it, and I know some of the YTers do make direct profits from the developer for their coverage.

Yes, they are. Money flowing from press to developers is a discussion worth having. It is irrelevant to Eron airing his dirty laundry. You shouldn't look at this like a police investigation having started illegally. Erroneous beginnings should not stop further discussions from happening.

The foundation shouldn't have any impact on issues brought up independently.

@beyondstrange: " That is the foundation of GamerGate: a personal issue that no one should be concerned with." I disagree with this statement. It stops being a personal issue and becomes a public issue when you have a developer have a sexual relationship with several journalists who then write favorable articles and reviews. Then she slandered people and tried to cover up the truth which ended up getting out anyway. That is corrupt and wrong. In what universe is that an acceptable thing to do?

This incident is what caused "gamergate" to spring up. It was supposed to be about a lot of angry gamers upset with certain elements of the games press. A lot of people with too much time on their hands had their worst paranoid suspicions concerned. It had nothing to do with harassment or keeping women out of the industry or any of those things. At first the media was silent until about a week in there was mass slander over the place. It was an attack on "gamersgate" to destroy their credibility and destroy the message and intent that they had. Even Patrick Klepek who seems like a level headed cool dude was sending out vicious tweets directed at those folks, like they were all a bunch of misogynistic animals. I dont think that is fair for the most part. Now some of this was justified considering some crazies latched onto it and used it as an excuse to harass. Horrible exchanges happened on both sides. There was nothing initially negative about gamersgate at all. Whats wrong with shedding light on ethical issues? The end result is you get some more objectivity and more transparency about things. Doesn't seem so terrible does it? The problem is that the media controls the message and since this was damaging to them they buried the entire movement under a wave of nonsense and misdirection. Most people even think this is some sort of social or political movement which is absurd.

The games industry has a deep seated issue with transparency and "inbreeding" between developers, press and publishers. Its worse than any other media industry and worse than its ever been. Consider that in order to get a pre release copy of shadows or mordor you had to agree to a vast list of bullshit including "not mentioning lord of the rings" "only positive things about the game" etc. So to get a copy to show the game on release or before you basically had to become a shill. I want to hear a persons opinion on a game not watch an advertisement for the publisher. This is the kind of stuff gamersgate is about or should be about. The fact that zoe quinn is female does not excuse her or make any criticism of her harassment. Please don't point your finger at me collective internet media. For the record I thought depression quest was brilliant despite not being much of a game and I have no problem with opinion related content and subjective critical reviewing. The aspects of social or political content in the media seems like a different issue to me. But maybe to people who are actually involved with any of this gamersgate stuff that has become an aspect of the movement. But i'm pretty sure when it began it was not about that stuff.

I like that giantbomb has been open about how they do things. This site is an example of how to do things the right way.