> The overwhelming majority of their coverage consists solely of reprinting verbatim the anecdotal and often unverified accounts from controversial figures who directly profit from being considered targets of harassment — Zoe Quinn being a good example.
> Often described as an indie developer, Quinn has produced very little aside from the low-effort, unpolished free text adventure Depression Quest. More notable about Quinn was the disproportionate attention she got from the gaming press despite her limited accomplishments, from journalists such as her financial backer Ben Kuchera of Polygon and her friend Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku.
> Hernandez has also promoted two Kickstarters by GaymerX while being on friendly terms with the organization's president Toni Rocca and some of the other GaymerX staff. She has also given positive press, without disclosure, to her friends David Gallant and Zoe Quinn.
> Positive coverage of Zoe Quinn in three articles, without disclosing their friendship and eventual affair. Later covered Quinn again, disclosing they "dated briefly", but not that he had previously financially supported her.
> One of the first things that seems quite possibly true about Zoe Quinn is the fact that she plays heavily into self-victimization. Now I will concede that I am not entirely knowledgeable about the psychology behind self-victimization, but what it is defined as makes it fairly easy to identify.
> The most high profile example of this was Zoe Quinn’s claim that Wizardchan raided and doxxed (acquired and revealed personal info) her. That whole affair is best summed up here. Basically, the takeaway from that is that her accusations hold little if any merit at all. What is consistently seen throughout that is how easily she puts herself forward as a victim and asks for consolation from a variety of personalities and sites. Even if you only read the text surrounding the images of her tweets and other communications, you can see this.
This is supposed to be an example of a site that doesn't promote and continue harassment? I can see why people think gamergate advocates are the worst kind of fucking scumbag.
Wait, what? Did you click through any of the links on those pages you cite? In the very fist example you mention, every bit of that is substantiated via an archive link. Quinn's game is unpolished garbage as revied, Kuchera did contribute financially to her, and Hernandez is friends with her and did write about her without disclosing that.
Those are not lies, or even misleading in the least. They are all trivially verifiable facts. All the sources are right there.
I'll go through the others if you wish, but I'd ask you to examine the evidence and point out problems with it before just dismissing it as lies. Heck, I might learn something here.
The fact some gamergaters don't like Quinn's game doesn't make it "garbage". It's not a traditional game. That doesn't mean that rating it highly is somehow a violation of ethics.
The idea that Quinn somehow used personal connections to get literally tens of thousands of people to highly rate her game violates Occam's razor.
Tens of thousands, involved in a scheme? No, of course not, and I have no doubt that a lot of people liked it. That was a subjective judgement on my part - I think it's low effort nonsense.
Here's the thing - would those tens of thousands of people have seen it in the first place if Hernandez hadn't talked up her friend on Kotaku? Would that niche of a title have wound up on the site at all if not for the personal connection between those two?
I suspect the answers to both those questions are "no".
Have you ever actually made a video game yourself, or written a piece of literature? Do you appreciate the effort this actually takes?
> Here's the thing - would those tens of thousands of people have seen it in the first place if Hernandez hadn't talked up her friend on Kotaku?
Sure. For one thing, Quinn had at least that many Twitter followers. It's a game, also, that covers mental illness, which isn't a frequent topic. On that novelty alone, it was likely to get some attention regardless of who Quinn's friends were.
> Would that niche of a title have wound up on the site at all if not for the personal connection between those two?
There's a good chance it would. Depression Quest was novel. Kotaku likes showcasing novel and interesting things.
When she does it she's a dirty whore, cheating on her partner and exploiting and manipulating men. (and whether actually did this or not is irrelevant, we're going to keep saying she did and supporting that with total bullshit).
If your definition of "networking and growth hacking" means writing positive coverage for people you are friends with and/or financially contribute to while not telling people that, your definitions are broken.
It's not okay. It might even be against FTC rules. Full stop, end of story.
By the way, why are we talking about whether if you do it is okay or not when just one post ago you were calling the (sourced, verified) accusations outright lies?
As to who Zoe did or did not sleep with- kind of irrelevant in the long run, but if you're going to bring up any mention of it as perpetuating a lie, I'm obligated to address that.
Eron, her ex, posted a ton of chatlogs on the original post that started this whole thing (including that stupid "five guys burgers" meme).
It doesn't look like a lie to me. If is, it's the most exhaustively fabricated and backed plot I've seen this side of a crazy soap opera.
I'm not asking you to agree with me, here. I'm asking you to exercise the same dispassionate, critical analysis you'd use on any other topic.
This is an example of a gamergate supporter (you) continuing a pattern of harrassment (perpetuating the copiously debunked lies about Quinn). Repeating the libel is the harrassment.
By the way: HN Notify got to your snarky comment before you did.
The links you gave were interesting, so thanks for that, but I don't appreciate your implication that I was "lying" because you misunderstand a conversation's thread.
http://deepfreeze.it (exhaustively sourced list of complaints against game journalists and information on the movement as a whole)
http://techraptor.com (games news site, spawned in the wake of gamergate)
http://escapistmagazine.com (games news site, updated ethics policies after initial complaints, allows open discussion on the forums)