196

I was attracted by it in the beginning because they were talking about things I was interested in: somebody who had personal relationships with game journalists was given good reviews for their shitty game, certain sanctioned video game sites appeared to be forming anti-competition cartels to eliminate up-and-comers, publishers were clearly trying to capture/recuperate the consumer reporting industry with review embargoes and sponsored reviews, etc. To me, the big looming questions were stuff like "can journalism ethically report on the industry they sell ad space to?" and "was it an isolated instance that Jeff Gerstmann got fired from Gamespot over his review of Kane & Lynch, or was it a symptom of a widespread culture of bought-and-paid-for review scores?".

And then I checked out what other people were worried about, and it was brain-meltingly stupid. And I don't just mean the eternal dogpiling on Zoe Quinn long after it had become apparent that she was a relatively minor player in amuch larger game. They became obsessed with nobodies like Anita Sarkisian and other agitprop "internet personalities" on both sides, all of whom seemed exclusively concerned with clout chasing. It became a massive glut of creepy stalking, neofascism, and eventually flopped around till it landed on Red Pill shit.

It all accomplished nothing except poisoning the phrase "ethics in gaming journalism", when industry and special-interest capture of journalism is a threat in all sectors, not even just entertainment. And that's not even mentioning the anti-competitive practices in the industry itself—imagine if a film rewiewer got blackballed from every major publication in their entire industry because they gave an Avengers movie 2 stars. Now bringing that up associates you with neo-nazis. Thanks gamergaters, thanks for the mulitple times I've been accused of being alt-right for saying Kotaku sucks.