Zoe Quinn Scandal aka. Killing Gaming Journalism 101

[Mage246]

True, you'd never pass the entrance exams.

 

[Goker]

I don't just mean idiots. I mean harassers. I mean people who actively take it upon themselves to make someone else's life hell because rumours say that someone might have done something that might affect their videogame world and it sure is a good reason to harass someone based on rumours if we can prove that gaming journalism is corrupt, right?

I know that idiots and assholes exist in every group but this is an example of harassment done because people believe rumours claiming that she partook in nepotism whilst having no proof whatsoever. Every woman I have seen that is involved in videogame journalism or development is also in a relationship with a man in videogame journalism or development. People ****. People ****ing doesn't automatically prove nepotism.

I find Zoe Quinn's Twitter handle "@Quinnspiracy" quite fitting.

 

[Anthropoid]

Considering yourself a gamer is hard to do when others who identify themselves as gamers end up giving the name such bad reputation.

Name me one group of people, organized or random, that doesn't have huge idiots in it.

No idiots, stalkers or conspiracy theorists, although there were some misogynists, drunkards, racists and unethical opportunists among them I suppose. Still, you could almost argue that one or two of them were pretty 'close' to ideal human beings . . . sort of . . .

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

Does it count if they went loony afterwards?

 

[Anthropoid]

Does it count if they went loony afterwards?

Depends on the reason I think.

 

[Patchouli Knowledge]

... one of them even being a gaming journalist who later gave a positive review of the "game" she made...

I'd just like to point out that despite the claims that is untrue. Nathan Grayson never reviewed Depression Quest, he simply wrote an article where he mentioned it. He also says he wrote it before entering into relationship with Zoe Quinn.

 

[ColonicAcid]

Which could be true or absolute ****e.

 

[Patchouli Knowledge]

Even if untrue, someone mentioning a person they're in a relationship with in an article isn't exactly the scandal of the century.

 

[TMAN78]

Even if untrue, someone mentioning a person they're in a relationship with in an article isn't exactly the scandal of the century.

That may be true, but the games reviewer has a vested interest in putting in a good review for the game that the person they are sleeping with has made.

 

[Patchouli Knowledge]

Which is irrelevant because Nathan Grayson didn't review her game.

 

[Wellenbrecher]

Nathan Grayson

Who's also amongst the worst thing to ever happen to anything journalism related since... well bugger me, can't think of a funny comparison.
Anyway, he thankfully decided to let everyone know that he's an incompetent charlatan by now properly working for ****aku instead of pretending to do so on a different site.


Assuming that little ****er is in any way related to this makes it way too delicious to ignore for me. Regardless of whoever the **** that Zoe hack is.
Oh and that Fez imbecile raging on Twitter of course and trying to silence people by digitally shouting at them at the top of his lungs. Perfect.

 

[TheFlyingFishy]

Having just watched that video, I can't really say anything on the matter, as there isn't enough information, but the dude who made the video is kind of a ****.

 

[Cookie Eating Huskarl]

On the hackings, number backtraces are essentially showing that the numbers 'listed' are all directed to Hawaii. There was also no passwords revealed in the supposed hack, which defeats the purpose of the hack. There was also no defacing, no calling her a whore during said hacking and she regained control of her account within a record time of 120 seconds. All in all, sounds like she's lighting her own fire under her. That basically invalidates anything she has to say because up to now, she's shown to be very much into the whole victim complex thing and if we're taking her (unsupported) word of mouth, we might as well acknowledge the angry people as well.

Not to mention that people are too fixated on the cheating part and forget about how her game actually failed its first round of greenlighting and managed to passed the second time round because of the controversy generated when she started the whole wizardchan ****. Less unproven nepotism (except for chatlogs from her ex showing the sleeparound) and more actual wrongdoings.

Which is irrelevant because Nathan Grayson didn't review her game.

From memory (and because I actually did read said article at the time) it was a list of games currently in greenlight (and are trending on GL and/or have positive reviews on it already). He used her game out of 50 (I might actually add "49 potentially more aesthetically pleasing") games as the page image (meaning I had to stare at a webpage within a webpage and try to make sense of it ) and I was at the stage where I actually gave a **** about greenlight and I check nearly all 50 of the games listed that sounded remotely like a game and what I found was depression quest was no where near the popularity of the other games listed. Make that as you will, but I remembered feeling puzzled why a game I never heard about, or read positive preview or opinions on at the time was listed there.

Considering yourself a gamer is hard to do when others who identify themselves as gamers end up giving the name such bad reputation.

Two sides of the fence Goker. I consider the SJW movement in gaming as bad as the people who insist on skimpy constumes due to the idea that the SJWs are in many cases, hindering artistic freedom of the medium. Inb4 vidya is no art. Inb4 someone calls Goker an apologist ass.

But seriously though, the point was that the girl slept around with other guys in the industry while dating someone in said industry. It isn't hammering on her private life as much as the guy she ****ed over feels compelled to let out a compendium of what this woman is capable of in private. The rest of the ****storm caught up later on when the internet wasn't allowed to discuss it because it hammered too close to home for some sites.

Edit: Also forgot to include there are substantiated claims that the woman in question has caused one charity game jam to be closed down from completely false bad press and two unconfirmed ones (that I'm not convinced actually happened for the two).

Edit 2: Again I'll like to restate that my interest in this is that I hope this leads to a schism in video gaming media, where people can actually have two sides of an argument instead of slowing descending into total social justice. If that doesn't happen, I guess at some point of time, I'll just have to delegate my hobby to Japanese devs. At least they will call out idiots for being idiots.

 

[Seff]

True, you'd never pass the entrance exams.

I'd have to be like you, which is pretty irrelevant if I don't wanna be like you.

 

[Mage246]

Just like I would never want to be a twat like you, sugarlips. 

 

[Goker]

Considering yourself a gamer is hard to do when others who identify themselves as gamers end up giving the name such bad reputation.

Two sides of the fence Goker. I consider the SJW movement in gaming as bad as the people who insist on skimpy constumes due to the idea that the SJWs are in many cases, hindering artistic freedom of the medium. Inb4 vidya is no art. Inb4 someone calls Goker an apologist ass.

Oh, I call the SJW stupidity out too but this has nothing to do with as we have a woman whose relationships allegedly had things to with the industry but "people interested in the industry" harass her even with the lack of proof because some already disliked her for daring to make a game that they didn't think was a game.

The metacritic of her game now is quite abhorrent, with the total score being 1.5 since some people gave it 10 saying "She'll give blowjobs to those who give good reviews guys!"

 

[Troll]

I might consider having an opinion on this, but... Well, I took an hour or so to try to figure out what the **** this ****storm is all about and all I managed to glean is that the internet is full of stupidity, and that's hardly news.

 

[Cookie Eating Huskarl]

Considering yourself a gamer is hard to do when others who identify themselves as gamers end up giving the name such bad reputation.

Two sides of the fence Goker. I consider the SJW movement in gaming as bad as the people who insist on skimpy constumes due to the idea that the SJWs are in many cases, hindering artistic freedom of the medium. Inb4 vidya is no art. Inb4 someone calls Goker an apologist ass.

Oh, I call the SJW stupidity out too but this has nothing to do with as we have a woman whose relationships allegedly had things to with the industry but "people interested in the industry" harass her even with the lack of proof because some already disliked her for daring to make a game that they didn't think was a game.

The metacritic of her game now is quite abhorrent, with the total score being 1.5 since some people gave it 10 saying "She'll give blowjobs to those who give good reviews guys!"

This is where I have to call you out for sensationalism and bull****.

First point of the case, the woman catapulted her career on the basis of your description of "Female games dev being harassed woe is me" by calling 2 dismissive post from wizardchan (where depressed 30 year old virgins go to roost) a raid and getting people all riled up, with thanks to the complete lack of fact checking on the part of the games journalism industry completely on the basis of SJW doctrine that dismissed the burden of proof on her. Also claimed was random 4-chan esque phone calls and that she had to change numbers, both of which are unproven to be true (seriously woman, how hard is it to fake a call log?). Not to mention that that tito fellow from escapist just made an admission that he doesn't do journalism. He's there to push an 'agenda of kindness', which is basically textbook yellow journalism.

Second point I have pointed out, she shut down an entire game jam designed to uplift women in the games development industry on the basis that said game jam is "oppressive to women". How is that not at all related to the SJW doctrine? If you read the comments after this ****storm started (which you didn't), you'll have noticed that the people taking the piss out of her on this issue are actually... young, female, aspiring game devs. It's not at all "people interested in the industry" as much as "people who are committed to be in and/or are already in the industry" that are upset at her actions. Funniest of all is that the tumblr type feminist, typically the type to commit an all in for a woman who claims harassment, are already distancing themselves from her and condemning her and what she represents for women in the industry.

Thirdly, like you said, idiots will be idiots, and since she's gotten this spotlight shined on her, people are going to flock up the bandwagon and **** up the game reviews where she can't moderate them. But if I were to borrow your opinion, they don't represent any majority, so why are you actually asserting that "People are hating on her for making a non-game and are harassing her"? The narrative has changed a lot since the start of the ****storm. As it stands, people are demanding to know the basis of judgement used whenever gaming journalist media launches their typical tirade of "anti harassment campaigns" on sites that like wizardchan, which probably had nothing to do with any of the claimed scandal until some ****tards on said sites thought they needed to retaliate (out comes the bestiality cartoons). Others are demanding to know why the media blackout and why even the most ****flingiest of ****flinging sites are getting censored. It had moved beyond her long ago, and people are just keeping her around the topic because she hasn't answered for the above points. The point has turned into a consumer base demand for whether they can trust the people and faces who claim to be the authority of the games journalism industry. And the burden of proof is completely on the industry this time to satisfy the consumer. For any sort of claim that anything lacks evidence, as usual the scientist in me replies, "Which part of the claim are you trying to substantiate?"

Her entire career is built up from acknowledging the SJW doctrine and she continues to put down anyone against her using said doctrine. This doesn't smell like 'random internet idiot' to me. That smells like something that was supposed to be an outlier and a non-issue taking over the mainstream. And since SJW isn't a very appealing doctrine, a lot of people would probably be against it being mainstream. And I would probably acknowledge that this is something that is currently happening and not put it down as something mundane people thought up to entertain themselves. Unless I'm so edgy that I just make up my mind with some bull**** on the spot on any sort of issues. But then if I was that edgy, I wouldn't have a stupid job like a scientist.

 

[Troll]

This is where I have to call you out for sensationalism and bull****.

Having spent yet more time looking into the matter, that is literally all I have found.

This woman apparently made a game about depression that received a less than enthusiastic response until she managed to cause enough controversy. She seems to have made a career out of pretending to be a victim of harassment and ****ing over the very feminist 'cause' she loudly pretends to support, managing to somehow convince an a disturbing amount of people with her bull**** - as far as that, it seems fairly clear. It would also seem that she's had sex with a lot of people while in a relationship, while loudly condemning the very same thing. The picture I get is of a compulsive liar with little concern about causing others trouble.

Aside that, there's loads and loads of speculation. She may have received advantages in her career in return for sexual favors - even though the supposed positive review of her game was literally a single line and a picture in something that didn't even resemble a review. The entirety of gaming press might be at her beck and call - in case the apparent 'censorship' isn't just moderation of different sites getting desperate due to the amount of pure stupid being shoved at their laps. She may have used the youtube DMCA system to flag a video and 'stop the truth from getting out' (whatever the 'truth' may be) or it might have been done by literally anyone else, possibly even just to **** with her, because of how inherently flawed in the system is.

I wouldn't know, since I haven't been able to find a single credible piece of journalism on the matter - the attempts at it failing immediately at the step of checking the facts. Hell, the youtube video linked at the OP of this thread that has blown up suddenly (though it's not something I'd call journalism) is full of misinformation that could have been avoided with the slightest bit of effort, followed by the stupid rants about how corrupt the video game journalism is, while himself trying to do fill the gap and failing at even the most basic principles that he no doubt expects from journalism to be credible.

Is the video game journalism actually corrupt? Again, I'd love to know; it's clearly a ****ing mess, that is for whatever reason being polluted by pure stupid by people who apparently don't give a flying **** about video games. That, however, doesn't immediately make random posts on forums and youtube videos valid sources of information. Yeah, there seems to be a problem, but people raving about it are failing miserably at properly exposing it.

 

[Captured Joe]

somehow Quinn has enough power that she has been censoring various sites talking about this scandal, including but not limited to Reddit, Youtube and even ****ing 4chan.

HOW does one even censor Reddit and 4chan?