Oh God, I can't believe I'm doing this (and I can't believe we're relitigating gamergate in 2023) but you're both wrong. I... I really cannot believe I'm doing this but I'm actually going to defend Kotaku for a moment. Wait! Don't leave! Just hear me out... I'm going to try to prove that the whole 'ethics in game journalism' thing was kinda bullshit from the beginning. Just... bear with me for a bit.
Gamergate started when it was revealed that a game journalist (Nathan Grayson) who was working for Kotaku at the time had slept with an indie game developer (Zoe Quinn) who had previously written about. This then lead to a lot of accusations being thrown about that there had either been 'sex for a good review' or 'sex for coverage.' As far as 'sex for a good review' goes, there is no review. Grayson never wrote a review of Depression Quest in any publication anywhere. However as far as 'sex for coverage' goes he had written about her, multiple times. The problem is that if you actually lay out all the evidence properly and in chronological order it's a lot less damning than it might appear. As far as coverage of her game went he had written it in passing, giving only giving it a few sentences, in one or two articles
(one of which is here if you want to check it for yourself,) which had been written before he have 100% proof that the two of them boned (we have
an official statement from Kotaku's Editor-in-Chief, Stephen Totilo himself, confirming that the "romantic relationship" began in "early April" and all articles about Quinn and her game were written before then,) all of which had been published on
Rock Paper Shotgun, Grayson's previous employer,
not Kotaku the site everyone was mad at. And that's not even mentioning that the game in question is a no-budget text adventure and is available for free.
Now, I'm well aware that I'm completely avoiding discussion of all the 4chan/Zoe Quinn/harassment/doxing stuff. That was happening, and began, at the same time as all of this and is... it's own can of worms. What I'm saying is that as far as the specific original allegations that began gamergate went (not any of the other allegations that were made later) Kotaku were actually innocent. And while it is still a pretty bad look for Grayson, it's not quite a fireable or even boycott-worthy offence. I mean he did seemingly stop writing about Quinn or her game after he slept with her. It's still incredibly embarrassing, makes him look really sleazy and hurts his own credibility as a journalist. But it's really not something worth setting the entire internet on fire over.
So, as far as the original scandal went, Kotaku were innocent. Unfortunately Kotaku is staffed, written for and run by a gaggle of inept muppets who wouldn't be able to find their way out of a paper bag with a map and as a result they somehow managed to implicate themselves in the scandal anyway despite being innocent. All of their PR came off very
'Kotaku has investigated Kotaku and found Kotaku dindu nothing wrong... and you're all sexist for even thinking that,' which is just so Kotaku. As a result almost all average, ordinary onlookers came to the conclusion that Kotaku had to be guilty of... something... anything.
Which nicely leads into the other obvious issue with gamergate, other than the Zoe Quinn/harassment mess. In order to think Kotaku had lost its credibility you had to think that Kotaku had any credibility in the first place. Like, was no one else actually reading Kotaku at the time? Does no one else remember the time their future Editor-in-Chief, Stephen Totilo, played the original Doom for the first time, got lost in E1M1 and had to find a map on the internet (clearly not realizing that Doom has an in-game map) before getting killed by the first few enemies in E1M2 and then declaring that he has now played and gets Doom.
Yes, that happened and it's even worse when you read the full thing. And that was from 2010, 4 whole years before the gamergate nonsense. Kotaku have been a joke for a long-ass time.
And that's just debunking the first sentence that both of you wrote.
