One of the big problems in today’s media circles for the gaming industry is that there are too few individuals with sway over the industry who actually put consumers first. It’s baffling how the individuals who are the gatekeepers between publishers and consumers have such a hard time defending the gamers who keep the industry alive by putting their money into it.

The ethics debate has raged on for years, but you won’t find any changes coming from the regular outlets that stand front and center of gaming culture. In fact, it was Breitbart who managed to force apologies out of some industry professionals after writing about Ben Kuchera’s sloppy approach to covering the Brad Wardell case. For those who don’t remember, Wardell was on the receiving end of a witch-hunt by games journalists to paint him as a sexual harasser, even though they had no idea what was really going on.

The defamatory post from Kuchera never prompted the former Ars Technica editor and current Polygon editor from publishing a public apology, even after the Breitbart piece went public. Only Game Politics managing editor James Fudge and former BioWare developer Damien Schubert opted to apologize publicly. Kuchera refuses to acknowledge his failure in ethics, and continues to refuse acknowledging his long history of disdainful behavior toward peers and consumers.

There was also the issue of editor-in-chief at The Escapist, Greg Tito, improperly reporting on Zoe Quinn’s harassment at the hands of a group called Wizardchan. Only, it turns out that they didn’t harass her the way it was being reported. Only after damaging the reputation of Wizardchan and failing to do even the most basic of fact checking in order to push a social agenda (or because a grave exercise in ineptitude), the article was later amended to reflect the fact that the basic foundation of the information was formed from one side and a lack of evidence.

How can large websites and major media outlets be allowed to culturally damage and defame entire communities based on a lack of checking facts?

Kotaku was one of the bigger culprits of jumping on the hearsay of rape allegations in relation to someone who wasn’t even in the gaming industry named Max Temkin. They managed to publish an article around the ridiculousness of it all instead of trying to find any ounce of truth to the claims. It’s hilarious because they refused to write about The Fine Young Capitalists despite all the facts being laid bare and the group willing to talk to journalists about the fallout surrounding their doxxing and multiple crowd-funding attacks.

What’s more is that there’s an entire archive of slip-ups, silliness and incompetence documented and commented on by Ben Paddon on a Game Journos tumblr. It’s sort of like the articles from the Game Journo Pros tag on this site, but shorter and easier to parse through.

One really interesting case is a confession spotted by Kotaku in Action from Gamasutra’s editor-at-large, Leigh Alexander. She noted in a post from mid-February, 2014 that she had information about the eventual dissolution of Irrational Studios following the release of BioShock Infinite, but decided to sit on the information instead of corroborating the details…



“Speculating is really all I can do. I'm not trying to kid anyone that I'm capable of any more than that. I thought a lot about whether I could have done better, as a journalist. What was my role, our role? Based on all the headlines I chronologically assembled here, and the things People In The Industry told me in private, when exhausted, when frustrated, when worried about their future, should I have seen this coming? Probably. What should I have done? Dug around in the wound? Would it have helped?“



Now, opposite of some of the other cases above, Alexander actually did right by not running with hearsay. According to an update at the bottom of the article, some of the information may have been incorrect. However, there was no reason not to pursue corroboration. Why is protecting the companies within the industry more important than protecting the consumers that keep that industry alive? Why not just become an official press rep if protecting the interests of publishers is that important?

People can rag on Allistair Pinsof all they want for making a “harmful” decision in outing the identity of someone behind a fraudulent crowd-funding campaign, but making people well aware of the details and the fact that it was fraudulent was the legally responsible thing to do. It was responsible of him do to what he did for the people who donated; it was responsible for the integrity of the crowd-funding service; and it was responsible for the sake of keeping consumers informed.

If the gatekeepers of information are not there to properly inform, educate and protect consumers, then what other purpose do they serve?

Had the journalists who are attempting to destroy the integrity of the games industry done their jobs in the first place then things like #GamerGate wouldn’t exist. Their lack of seeking, pursuing and adhering to the truth is why the video game journalism sector is in shambles. Their lack of dedication to any sort of ethics is why 40,000 people had their information stolen. Their lack of dedication to ethics is why those with no moral compass are protected by tawdry outlets when it’s discovered that impropriety was committed. Their lack of dedication to pursuing the truth is why publishers have been allowed to get away with what they do without any sort of reproach from any sort of governing body. Their lack of ethics is why boycotts, blacklisting and collusion are all acceptable forms of behavior within their clique.

All the problems in today’s AAA industry between customers and publishers are a result of the decrepit state of games journalism. Had those who are unqualified and poorly adept in their ability to convey information opted to do their jobs right in the first place, we – the consumers, the fans, the gamers – wouldn’t be the last to know about shady things like disc-locked content, or have to rally on forums when the media circle the wagons when a studio truncates a promised ending, or use a hashtag to relay information to one another because honest discussion is censored in order to protect the corruption running rampant within the industry.

Protecting friends over protecting consumers is why events like #GamerGate exist. It’s funny that Alexander foreshadowed this fallout by saying…

“The people whom it affects most – the employees of that studio – already know. Why drag their business out into the open, lathe the already-raw patches of their morale, risk their future investments, risk the health of their already-troubled project with a big, ugly news story so that We The Fans, We The Gamers, can get their hungrily-desired "full story"?

“I dunno. That never seemed worth it to me. This is a volatile entertainment business, not fucking Watergate.”



#GamerGate says “Hi”.

[Disclosure: I was a former member of the Game Journo Pros e-mail group]