[PhasmaFelis]

Eron Gjoni publicly accused his girlfriend Zoe Quinn of cheating on him with several men, whom he named. One of the men was a games journalist who had once written a few sentences about a free game Quinn made, in a larger article. (Several months before he allegedly slept with her, by Gjoni's own admission.)

This, alone, was taken as proof positive that gaming journalism (and the gaming industry in general) was in the pocket of corrupt feminist interests, and founded an entire movement based on rooting out and exposing examples of same.

The story somehow became that Quinn was openly sleeping with half the games journalism industry in exchange for good reviews of her games. Now that the facts are out, the smarter Gamergaters try to downplay the Quinn episode or pretend that it never happened, inventing an alternate, less embarrassing origin story about ethics in games journalism. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to be buying it.