Escapist: How Do We Finally Talk About Ethics?

Giolon · Feb 5, 2019

I thought this was an excellent article by Russ Pitts, once and again Editor-in-Chief at the Escapist (and one of the founders of Polygon).

Yes, it addresses the elephant in the room up front: GamerGate

The memes about what GamerGate was "really about" are too numerous to count, but the most well-known is probably the image of It's Pennywise the Clown whispering up from the storm drain that "It's about ethics."
[...]
Most of the people I talked to about GamerGate at the time it was happening were journalists or developers who experienced a movement that had nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with hurting women. People were doxxed, bullied, harassed, threatened, actually assaulted, SWATTed, forced to relocate or change jobs, and flat out terrorized during GamerGate. Pretending an enormous, motivated group that relished in making other people hurt didn't exist, or was exaggerated, not only insults its victims, but is simply unreasonable and illogical. It requires a willful ignorance not worthy of debating.
[...]
To those who willfully enabled and enacted this terrorism, I say this: Fuck you. You are pathetic. And we don't need you.

Beyond that, it posits that there really is a set of very important conversations that need to be had not just about ethics in game journalism, but in game development as well, and that all parties involved (consumers, developers, and journalists) deserve that conversation be had in order to create better environment for all involved.

For Consumers:

There are good ways and bad ways to ask customers to pay more. Publishers owe it to their customers to keep an open dialogue about why they're adding tricks and gimmicks, how they're being implemented, and what, ultimately, they're asking us to pay for when we purchase a game. So long as we don't have a unified voice on this issue, we continue to lose time and money on doomed-to-fail experiments conducted with highly anticipated games. Star Wars: Battlefront II, I'm looking at you.
[...]
That is the role the press can, and should, serve. You have a right to expect transparency in that process.

For Journalists:

Given the pressures and instability, it's frankly a wonder anyone is working in this business. Much like the business of making games, most of us are here because we love the industry and genuinely enjoy what we do. But some of us (and sometimes all of us) are willing to take a shortcut, improperly source a quote, give a higher review score to a friend, or outright copy a review from someone else. It's inexcusable. But it happens. And readers deserve to expect better precisely because journalism is so important to the industry, not in spite of it.
[...]
In order to hold the industry accountable for bad practices (against workers and players) we have to have established the credibility that we will always strive to do the right thing, acknowledge when we fail, and work with readers to maintain that trust. I used to tell a publisher I once worked for that integrity is an egg. Once it's broken, it's gone, and you can't put it back together. And I still believe this to this day.

As journalists, in order to regain the public trust, we have to have not broken it in the first place. And if we do, we have to act swiftly to correct that error in full view of the public we serve.

For Developers:

The canaries in the coal mine here are the line-level game makers themselves, and we've already seen the impacts of rampant crunch, death marching, and endless development cycles. The average age of game makers continues to creep downwards, the average time in the industry continues to hover at around five years, and the number of developers voicing their concerns, being driven out of the industry, or suffering severe medical complications related to their treatment at the hands of their employers continues to increase.
[...]
Applying pressure on the industry from the bottom up, starting with the audience, forces developers and publishers to reevaluate their practices. And a lot of times, those practices are contributing to rising costs just as much as uncontrollable market forces. A person working a job at one studio might not be able to find a similar job at another studio, or that job might not even exist.
[...]
Game makers deserve better, too. Separating uneducated griping about why a hat isn't a different shade of blue from frustration about the systemic abuse of selling hats is also part of the job of the press. And you deserve to know that when we're holding game makers to account, we're not only picking on publishers who aren't our friends.

So, if these are actually important conversations to have, and given that merely approaching the topic itself has its own baggage and history of paint and problems, how do we have those conversations without letting the past repeat itself?

I tried to pick out interesting parts from each point, but the article really is worth a full read and can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/2019020...19/02/05/how-do-we-finally-talk-about-ethics/

Edit: Link to article replaced with archived version since the original has been taken down and replaced with an apology (see Threadmark)

Deleted member 1413 · Feb 5, 2019

GG was never about that.
In any case, traditional journalism for major publications doesn't really have an issue that needs addressing. Some sites may slip up, but they usually try to rectify it quickly (like Filip Mucin's plagiarism)

It's also important to note that the consumer isn't the only important aspect of this industry. That level of pro-consumerism/cater to me mentality is what leads to these types of feakouts when someone feels like they're not being exclusively tailored to

gdt · Feb 5, 2019

Hard pass my guy

Lant_War · Feb 5, 2019

Something I never understood is that even assuming everything about GG was true and those women were really sleeping with people to get better reviews or whatever, does that justify all the harassment? Of course not.

anyprophet · Feb 5, 2019

what does any of this have to do with ethics? what a fucking transparent way to start an article. it's fucking garbage and russ pitts is a dumbass. this is from a publication that directly catered to gamergate. they can fuck of forever.

Keldroc · Feb 5, 2019

Then GamerGate happened and a lot of other folks said "Oh wait … maybe something might actually, in fact, be wrong with games journalism." Then a lot of people did a lot of stupid, hateful things.

As usual Russ Pitts doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Gamergate was the stupid, hateful thing. That was the point. That was all it was.

Jessie · Feb 5, 2019

Let's stop giving games review scores. Not because of some hokey "paid reviews" conspiracy theory, but because they're pointless and get people riled up for no reason.

Deleted member 52988 · Feb 5, 2019

Given the pressures and instability, it's frankly a wonder anyone is working in this business

Oh spare me.

Deleted member 10629 · Feb 5, 2019

Put simply: someone involved with GamerGate may have cared about ethics, but the movement was about hurting people.

GG was about harassing women from day 1. No one gave shit about 'ethics' or 'journalism'. It originated by the allegations of a salty ex boyfriend, ffs.

Buzzman · Feb 5, 2019

Maybe Russ should also address how and why the Escapist was pro-gamergate when talking about how terrible it was.

Icy · Feb 5, 2019

Then GamerGate happened and a lot of other folks said "Oh wait … maybe something might actually, in fact, be wrong with games journalism." Then a lot of people did a lot of stupid, hateful things.

It depicts those who supported GamerGate as evil clowns, telling a lie about "ethics" to lure innocents to their … doom, I guess? And as a snapshot of what most people on the press or industry side think of GamerGate, it's right on the money.

Put simply: someone involved with GamerGate may have cared about ethics, but the movement was about hurting people.

This and then all these words to end up with a bunch of absolute nothing.

And so where does that leave us?

To be honest, I don't know. The last time we all tried to have this conversation it … didn't go well. But the industry, the media, and you all deserve more, and the only way we'll get there is if we can try again.

At the risk of sounding clickbaity, tell us what you think?

Pitts, can we not do this?

Zips · Feb 5, 2019

So uh... this is the very same Escapist that happily allowed those GG assholes to use their forums/discussions?

And the same Escapist that had staff happily voicing their support of GG?

The same Escapist that was so entrenched in the GG culture that it pushed people like Jim Sterling to leave because he at least had some moral decency?

The same Escapist who had an employee at Defy Media wanting to push pro-GG and pro-conservative views?

The same Escapist that hired pro-GG figurehead PressFarttoContinue?

The same Escapist that... oh fuck it, and fuck them. They amount of shit they did is just too damn long to repeat here even if it's layered with some heavy sarcasm.

Fuck them. That's a stain that is going to stick with them for a long damn time.

SirKai · Feb 5, 2019

Am I misremembering, or wasn't The Escapist going to relaunch with not "getting into" politics? Regardless, this is shit anyway.

Deleted member 10629 · Feb 5, 2019

Also, don't read the comment section, per usual.

Silex · Feb 5, 2019

Like, you guys know Russ Pitts wasn't in charge of The Escapist when they swerved to cater to GG and specifically came back to take control of the site in order to move it away from GG, right?

Antrax · Feb 5, 2019

Isn't this the dude trying to take politics out of their site? Fuck off with that.

I guess it's fair to say some shady stuff happens (like the plagiarism guy) but that was dealt with, so I'm not really sure what the point is in bringing it up. "Guys, we need to have a very serious conversation about some deep stuff" isn't really that convincing an argument if the big recent example was dealt with basically exactly how it should've been. This feels like a stealth GG article. The guy wants to circle back to the conversation so that when people in, say, 5 years look up the "ethics in video game journalism" people, they can point to this dude and say "oh we meant this the whole time."

Cartridge Games said:
That level of pro-consumerism/cater to me mentality is what leads to these types of feakouts when someone feels like they're not being exclusively tailored to

I agree with this. Too often, I read posts raging about some game not being good in some kinda way (EG people raging at Bethesda for "dumbing down" systems compared to previous entries) and like, the whole point of a market is that if someone offers to sell you something* for more than you think it's worth, you don't buy it and take your money elsewhere. People need to exercise that option a lot more instead of blaming some nebulous entity for a game taking out the Athletics skill you liked before.

*of course this refers to a fair market for a want, instead of fraud, withheld needs like medicine, etc... Video games though seem pretty fair. I know what a game is like when it's pitched to me, and I know what the price gets me. I also don't need games to live, so if I just walk away, that's fine too.

Deleted member 15440 · Feb 5, 2019

Silex said:
Like, you guys know Russ Pitts wasn't in charge of The Escapist when they swerved to cater to GG and specifically came back to take control of the site in order to move it away from GG, right?

hmm i wonder how their awful reactionary readership is going to take this

ThatPersonGuy · Feb 5, 2019

This is honestly by far my biggest annoyance with GG. Like, there are actual grave injustices within the industry, but y'all decide to focus on harassing feminists because... ??? On some level I'd have to say it was one of the best things to happen to AAA publishers in that era, because not only did it distract attention from their own awfulness, it also provided an easy shield to any criticism of shitty business practices in the industry. Just look at how quickly this thread is veering towards "debating" the objectively godawful GG fiasco and away from popping the question of "is it possible to incite positive change in the gaming industry when large parts of the community don't even know what the actual problems are".

Giolon · Feb 5, 2019

Buzzman said:
Maybe Russ should also address how and why the Escapist was pro-gamergate when talking about how terrible it was.

Zips said:
So uh... this is the very same Escapist that happily allowed those GG assholes to use their forums/discussions?

And the same Escapist that had staff happily voicing their support of GG?

The same Escapist that was so entrenched in the GG culture that it pushed people like Jim Sterling to leave because he at least had some moral decency?

The same Escapist who had an employee at Defy Media wanting to push pro-GG and pro-conservative views?

The same Escapist that... oh fuck it, and fuck them. They amount of shit they did is just too damn long to repeat here even if it's layered with some heavy sarcasm.

Fuck them. That's a stain that is going to stick with them for a long damn time.

Russ left Escapist Magazine in 2012 to help found Polygon. All of that stuff happened while Escapist was under other leadership (GamerGate started in 2014). Russ came back to re-launch Escapist in 2018 after Defy Media had spent years gutting the place (similar to what they did to their YouTube creators more recently).

treasureyez · Feb 5, 2019

All of the most ridiculous parts of this have already been quoted by others in this thread, so I'll just say that after reading it I actually have no clue what it's supposed to be about or what point the author is trying to make.

Silex · Feb 5, 2019

aeolist said:
hmm i wonder how their awful reactionary readership is going to take this

People here seemed to have completely missed the context of Russ' 'moving away from politics' statement but he was essentially saying 'We're not going to cater to alt-right assholes'.

Deleted member 10629 · Feb 5, 2019

ThatPersonGuy said:
This is honestly by far my biggest annoyance with GG. Like, there are actual grave injustices within the industry, but y'all decide to focus on harassing feminists because... ??? On some level I'd have to say it was one of the best things to happen to AAA publishers in that era, because not only did it distract attention from their own awfulness, it also provided an easy shield to any criticism of shitty business practices in the industry. Just look at how quickly this thread is veering towards "debating" the objectively godawful GG fiasco and away from popping the question of "is it possible to incite positive change in the gaming industry when large parts of the community don't even know what the actual problems are".

The RDR 2 crunch issue was well documented and investigated, and no manager at Rockstar that we know of was penalized or reprimanded. Nor the company publicly announced changes to their corporate culture.

But a woman had the audacity of disregarding and scoffing a tweet and she was harassed out of her position at her job in less than three days.

entremet · Feb 5, 2019

anyprophet said:
what does any of this have to do with ethics? what a fucking transparent way to start an article. it's fucking garbage and russ pitts is a dumbass. this is from a publication that directly catered to gamergate. they can fuck of forever.

Different EIC. It's essentially a different publication entirely.

Deleted member 15440 · Feb 5, 2019

Silex said:
People here seemed to have completely missed the context of Russ' 'moving away from politics' statement but he was essentially saying 'We're not going to cater to alt-right assholes'.

"moving away from politics" is the most blatant and worn out right wing dogwhistle he could have done, there is no context in which he could possibly mean that

Antrax · Feb 5, 2019

ThatPersonGuy said:
This is honestly by far my biggest annoyance with GG. Like, there are actual grave injustices within the industry, but y'all decide to focus on harassing feminists because... ??? On some level I'd have to say it was one of the best things to happen to AAA publishers in that era, because not only did it distract attention from their own awfulness, it also provided an easy shield to any criticism of shitty business practices in the industry. Just look at how quickly this thread is veering towards "debating" the objectively godawful GG fiasco and away from popping the question of "is it possible to incite positive change in the gaming industry when large parts of the community don't even know what the actual problems are".

The problem is that the conversation he claims to want (and I'm taking a huge fucking leap in giving him the benefit of the doubt here) is impossible on his site. The grave injustices in gaming are that the workers have no rights and get treated like shit. You fix that by *gasp* voting for your country's Labour/Dems/Socialists/etc... and calling your representatives and all that. But he explicitly wants his site to "not get political" so I guess the only way to fix labor rights violations in gaming is to....get a Reddit post trending? I'm not really sure what his plan is.

Village · Feb 5, 2019

aeolist said:
"moving away from politics" is the most blatant and worn out right wing dogwhistle he could have done, there is no context in which he could possibly mean that

He literally told alt right shit heads to fuck off IIRC

Icy · Feb 5, 2019

Silex said:
People here seemed to have completely missed the context of Russ' 'moving away from politics' statement but he was essentially saying 'We're not going to cater to alt-right assholes'.

You're giving him way too much credit with that one.

We're leaving politics at the door. Most of us have thoughts about politics. Just like most of you. And, because we're creators, those thoughts might show up in our work. Avoiding that would be unnatural. That said, I can promise you no one here will share their politics in an attempt to convince you yours are wrong. And your worth will not be calculated based on whether you're on the left or on the right. Politics are everywhere, but they don't have to be everything. We're going to focus on what's fun, and we hope you'll join us in that.

That's not about "we're not going to cater to the alt-right", that's "things don't have to be political! Games are about fun! We're not like those other publications!"

Village said:
He literally told alt right shit heads to fuck off IIRC

You can say "x is bad" and still say stupid things.

Deleted member 15440 · Feb 5, 2019

Village said:
He literally told alt right shit heads to fuck off IIRC

is that like richard spencer saying he's not a neo-nazi?

Buzzman · Feb 5, 2019

Silex said:
Like, you guys know Russ Pitts wasn't in charge of The Escapist when they swerved to cater to GG and specifically came back to take control of the site in order to move it away from GG, right?

Giolon said:
Russ left Escapist Magazine in 2012 to help found Polygon. All of that stuff happened while Escapist was under other leadership. Russ came back to re-launch Escapist in 2018 after Defy Media had spent years gutting the place (similar to what they did to their YouTube creators more recently).

Yes I understand that. But talking about how terrible a hate movement is, while staying silent about how THE ORGANIZATION THAT YOU NOW RUN WAS PART OF IT, is pretty fucking gross. Almost like he's trying to sweep it under the rug.

imbarkus · Feb 5, 2019

Those with any real, informed concerns about ethics in game journalism (i.e. Mostly other game journalists) knew to avoid the culture-war-bait hashtag. There was no money at stake; no major AAA screw-job; NO ACTUAL SLANTED REVIEW. It was always only ever a way to pervert ethics concerns into the distorted culture war argument about freeze peach, anime tiddies, and hating on women developers. And it was coopted by a foreign government to insert a fucking mole at the top of the US government while convincing NSA-paranoid manbabies with nothing in this world to hide except their porn and 4chan racism that he was their Deep State savior.

That said clearly, the GameJournoPros private discussion group seemed like an obvious and needless opening for an accusation of an ethical breach to me, and everyone using it helped allow Breitbart to garner the attention it did in breaking that story.

What a fucking mess.

EDIT: No clear ethical breaches here, sorry!

Deleted member 51539 · Feb 5, 2019

Hey, wasn't the Escapist rebranding to be "free of politics"?

Toxi · Feb 5, 2019

From the fucking Escapist? Yeah sure.

Silex · Feb 5, 2019

aeolist said:
"moving away from politics" is the most blatant and worn out right wing dogwhistle he could have done, there is no context in which he could possibly mean that

You're basically ignoring the fact that The Escapist, leading up to Russ taking back control, was already a site catering to GG and that Pitts himself is someone who had opposed GG from the start. That is your context.

treasureyez · Feb 5, 2019

imbarkus said:
That said clearly, the GameJournoPros private discussion group seemed like a clear ethical breach to me, and everyone using it helped allow Breitbart to garner the attention it did in breaking that story.

Can you explain what about it constitutes a "clear ethical breach"? There are plenty of private forums for professionals across many industries.

Village · Feb 5, 2019

I mean the ethics conversation is one that needs to be had with lawmakers. You stop the predatory business practices and fucked up work conditions there.

aeolist said:
is that like richard spencer saying he's not a neo-nazi?

No? Because as far as I know? He was never associated with any of that.

Zips · Feb 5, 2019

Giolon said:
Russ left Escapist Magazine in 2012 to help found Polygon. All of that stuff happened while Escapist was under other leadership (GamerGate started in 2014). Russ came back to re-launch Escapist in 2018 after Defy Media had spent years gutting the place (similar to what they did to their YouTube creators more recently).

I will reiterate my last line:

That's a stain that is going to stick with them for a long damn time.

imbarkus · Feb 5, 2019

brad-t said:
Can you explain what about it constitutes a "clear ethical breach"? There are plenty of private forums for professionals across many industries.

At best it presented an avenue for questioning and controversy that had been already modeled when the JournoList group closed amid right-wing furor in 2010.

In reality it fostered the perception of coordination of facts, findings, and conclusion in reporting, real or imagined. If real, I would consider such a thing a breach in that it discourages independent reporting, verification of facts, and reasoning.

I don't know, though, that it happened... or that it didn't. I should have been clear about that. But I found it hinky. I certainly don't think it was a factor after GG happened and so many journalists simultaneously became disgusted with any sort of identity as "gamer."

Weltall Zero · Feb 5, 2019

GamerGate has managed to accomplish for "ethics in games journalism" what Jack Thompson did for "violence in videogames": making it impossible for anyone take it seriously as a legitimate topic, probably for decades to come.

In the case of Jack Thompson it's kind of a shame, because I do think there should be a conversation about violence in videogames. Game journalist ethics on the other hand, even taken as a legitimate topic, feels quite low in the list of things to wring hands about.

Acorn · Feb 5, 2019

Didn't the escapist back gg?

saenima · Feb 5, 2019

I used to tell a publisher I once worked for that integrity is an egg. Once it's broken, it's gone, and you can't put it back together. And I still believe this to this day.

The irony of writing this while at The Escapist.

Tfritz · Feb 5, 2019

imbarkus said:
That said clearly, the GameJournoPros private discussion group seemed like a clear ethical breach to me,.

people within the same industry interacting with one another isn't actually unethical

johnnydork · Feb 5, 2019

If we don't have ethics in videogames journalism society falls apart. Simple as.

BlazeHedgehog · Feb 5, 2019

Jessie said:
Let's stop giving games review scores. Not because of some hokey "paid reviews" conspiracy theory, but because they're pointless and get people riled up for no reason.

That's ridiculous, though. Movie reviews have scores. Lots of reviews have grading metrics! It's supposed to be an easy shorthand so you can get as much information as you want in as much time as you're willing to spare. You either look at the score, read the blurb, or read the full length review.

I wrote for a site that didn't have review scores for its first four or five years of operation and all it really lead to was a bunch of comments from our readers to the effect of "So did you like it or not?" And, well, gosh, on a mediocre game... DID I like it? It's harder to give a clear answer than you'd think. And if I say that I like it, isn't THAT a form of score anyway?

So now we have a ten point review scale (5 stars, with half stars) and confusion is all but eliminated.

People get riled up about review scores because of spoiled fans forming unchecked cult-like cliques in the dark corners of the internet and shouting down any opinion that doesn't align with their group's values. Attack the root, don't just trim random branches.

zashga · Feb 5, 2019

I gotta say, this Escapist reboot is off to a remarkably awful start. It started with a "we'll leave politics at the door" dog whistle, and now they've issued what appears to be a call to reboot gamergate itself.

How about acknowledging that The Escapist was a pro-gamergate pigsty? How about recognizing that the entire movement was kickstarted by Zoe Quinn's ex to attack her personally? No one in that movement ever harbored a sincere concern for the integrity of games journalism; lamenting the lost cause of gamergate is disgusting.

SatelliteOfLove · Feb 5, 2019

People forget what was learned.

People don't learn.

Kinda frightening what an endless barrage from a dedicated, financially lubricated endeavor can will away from existance huh?

Now ponder, were notes being taken, or was it a trial run for what's happening now?

hey it's that dog · Feb 5, 2019

I think all you have to do to talk about ethics is to talk about ethics. If you aren't saying stupid shit about women, minorities, and sjw hordes ruining your video games, then no one is going to be able to credibly assert you are a gamergater or other form of bad actor.

treasureyez · Feb 5, 2019

imbarkus said:
At best it presented an avenue for questioning and controversy that had been already modeled when the JournoList group closed amid right-wing furor in 2010.

In reality it fostered the perception of coordination of facts, findings, and conclusion in reporting, real or imagined. If real, I would consider such a thing a breach in that it discourages independent reporting, verification of facts, and reasoning.

I don't know, though, that it happened... or that it didn't. I should have been clear about that. But I found it hinky. I certainly don't think it was a factor after GG happened and so many journalists simultaneously became disgusted with any sort of identity as "gamer."

This doesn't seem like a "clear ethical breach" to me.

imbarkus · Feb 5, 2019

Tfritz said:
people within the same industry interacting with one another isn't actually unethical

You know, all this shit went down five years ago. It's not like I never considered all the readily available defenses. That everything was innocent and it was all just chitchat and sharing CMS tips. It probably was. But to me, with journalism, it goes against the spirit a bit.

Anyway, look what it did: it was hidden, and secret, and its reveal was disastrous and helped cement the rise of a shitty alt-right propaganda outlet in the minds of gamerz. At this point, with two controversies I can name, seems like a practice that is ethically hinky for the profession just based on potential risk and liability to reputation, for little gain. Collaborate in the open and call support for CMS tips. DM the personal stuff. Spies probably don't chat industry tips in Google Groups either: information and perception are both sensitive when they're your job.

brad-t said:
This doesn't seem like a "clear ethical breach" to me.

Eh okay you're right I'll edit. Needs clarification.

Deleted member 34618 · Feb 5, 2019

GamerGate was never about "ethics" it was a recruitment tool for far right "Mens Rights" Activists, other sexists, and Neonazis. Anyone who was involved for the sake of "video game ethics" was either kidding themselves to avoid confronting their own bigoted beliefs or an utterly clueless moron who just happened to suddenly start caring about the issue when GamerGate blew up and was unaware of all the other people who had been been talking about actual anti-consumer practices and journalistic corruption for years before and since.

treasureyez · Feb 5, 2019

imbarkus said:
Eh okay you're right I'll edit. Needs clarification.

Referring to a private industry forum as "obvious and needless opening for an accusation of an ethical breach" is equally unfounded, and is exactly the type of outcome that scare tactics like GamerGate hope to achieve. It only looks like that to people who were looking for ammunition in the first place.

Escapist: How Do We Finally Talk About Ethics?

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