I've never managed to understand gamergate, and after reading this post, I still don't. It's like a soap opera, but lots of people's lives are like soap operas. Why would a lady probably exchanging sex for a good review of her game redpill people? Does anyone suppose that that kind of thing doesn't happen?
A little context might help, as gaming journalism did make some small improvements in the transparency department for a while, although at this point, I think letsplayers have more or less replaced journalists as the way I get news about new video games, so I maybe things have backslid since then.
This may get a bit tl;dr, but bear with me.
Also, keeping in line with the theme of ethics and transparency, I've been an observer of the gamergate movement rather than an active participant, and I missed the original mess, so take that into account.
But gaming journalism had a problem with getting a little too cozy with devs for a long time. I used to have access to some EGM* issues from the nineties, and one of the things that sticks out in my mind is how many games got positive or neutral reviews when the games were actually "meh" or garbage. It was actually rare for a game to get less than a neutral rating unless it was from some obscure studio you never heard of. This didn't change in the 2000s, but got worse. An example of the stuff happening behind the scenes is that devs and publishers would offer journalists "sneak peeks" or early access to a game in development or about to be released with the understanding that the journalist couldn't say anything negative about the game in their review. I'm sure there are other examples, but you get the idea.
Frustration with gaming-related press was pretty high around the time that the "zoe post" came out, and it acted like a lightning rod for that frustration. Some of that frustration came out in ways that was harmful to the end goal of gamergate, but the reaction from kotaku, a leading gaming press company, pretty much pissed everybody off, even the more sane gamers at the time.
They wrote about a dozen articles across nearly every website they had, denouncing gamers as "dead" or saying that we "didn't have to be" gamedevs' "customers anymore."
That's when people started to get really pissed, and the short version is gaming press outlets started posting their ethical standards front and center. Meanwhile, kotaku lost all credibility among gamers, and it's parent organization has been passed from owner to owner for the past 5(10?) years.
I've never managed to understand gamergate, and after reading this post, I still don't. It's like a soap opera, but lots of people's lives are like soap operas. Why would a lady probably exchanging sex for a good review of her game redpill people? Does anyone suppose that that kind of thing doesn't happen?
A little context might help, as gaming journalism did make some small improvements in the transparency department for a while, although at this point, I think letsplayers have more or less replaced journalists as the way I get news about new video games, so I maybe things have backslid since then.
This may get a bit tl;dr, but bear with me.
Also, keeping in line with the theme of ethics and transparency, I've been an observer of the gamergate movement rather than an active participant, and I missed the original mess, so take that into account.
But gaming journalism had a problem with getting a little too cozy with devs for a long time. I used to have access to some EGM* issues from the nineties, and one of the things that sticks out in my mind is how many games got positive or neutral reviews when the games were actually "meh" or garbage. It was actually rare for a game to get less than a neutral rating unless it was from some obscure studio you never heard of. This didn't change in the 2000s, but got worse. An example of the stuff happening behind the scenes is that devs and publishers would offer journalists "sneak peeks" or early access to a game in development or about to be released with the understanding that the journalist couldn't say anything negative about the game in their review. I'm sure there are other examples, but you get the idea.
Frustration with gaming-related press was pretty high around the time that the "zoe post" came out, and it acted like a lightning rod for that frustration. Some of that frustration came out in ways that was harmful to the end goal of gamergate, but the reaction from kotaku, a leading gaming press company, pretty much pissed everybody off, even the more sane gamers at the time.
They wrote about a dozen articles across nearly every website they had, denouncing gamers as "dead" or saying that we "didn't have to be" gamedevs' "customers anymore."
That's when people started to get really pissed, and the short version is gaming press outlets started posting their ethical standards front and center. Meanwhile, kotaku lost all credibility among gamers, and it's parent organization has been passed from owner to owner for the past 5(10?) years.