Escapist: How Do We Finally Talk About Ethics?

[Protome]

Yeah, this article feels like either a straight up dogwhistle to let gaters know The Escapist is still for them or just clickbait to let people know The Escapist somehow exists still.

I have to admit, I really don't understand Gamer Gate. I only became interested in the 'industry' and not just games in 2013 and it's still super difficult to find solid (non-biased) info on the subject.

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The Wikipedia page is heavily moderated and unbiased. As are most sources on the issue but to sum it up simply it is/was a harrassment campaign primarily initially targeting a developer called Zoe Quinn because her ex made some false accusations about her. It then evolved to target more women, minorities and in particular the LGBT community in the games industry. At some point they tried to claim they were actually complaining about ethics in games journalism and invented some conspiracy theories that they claimed supported this notion. These had no basis in reality and were just another cover for people harassing women and minorities in the industry.

 

[BearPawB]

Russ Pitts is an awful, hateful dude.

 

[Hailinel]

Proven wrong by the post directly beneath you. That's gotta suck.

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Not really. Moviebob made his bed with the new Escapist. Whether he's guilty of supporting GG directly or by association, he set himself up for this when he made explicit the fact he had no qualms working for Russ's vision of the site.

If he feels differently or feels that he was duped, he can always be clear about that and cut his ties. Regardless, working with Russ at The Escapist is not a good look whether he's a GG supporter or not.

 

[Alex840]

Yeah, this article feels like either a straight up dogwhistle to let gaters know The Escapist is still for them or just clickbait to let people know The Escapist somehow exists still.


The Wikipedia page is heavily moderated and unbiased. As are most sources on the issue but to sum it up simply it is/was a harrassment campaign primarily initially targeting a developer called Zoe Quinn because her ex made some false accusations about her. It then evolved to target more women, minorities and in particular the LGBT community in the games industry. At some point they tried to claim they were actually complaining about ethics in games journalism and invented some conspiracy theories that they claimed supported this notion. These had no basis in reality and were just another cover for people harassing women and minorities in the industry.

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So why is it a big controversy? I feel as though if it happened today, we'd all ignore the pieces of shot and they wouldn't get the time of day.

 

[Captain of Outer Space]

So much for the "No Politics" focus for The Escapist and Russ Pitts. Maybe don't frame articles about ethics in gaming journalism around an inherently political movement like GamerGate whose focus was anything but ethics.

 

[Deleted member 10629]

So why is it a big controversy? I feel as though if it happened today, we'd all ignore the pieces of shot and they wouldn't get the time of day.

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The guy said that Zoe Quinn slept with some dude at Kotaku in exchange of a good review for her game 'Depression Quest', which was debunked by several sources.

But folks used that excuse under the banner of 'ethics in journalism' to attack her, the dude at Kotaku, Anita Sarkeesian and other people who are/were critical of the state of gaming.

Zoe Quinn and her family had to relocate from their homes due to repeated threaths of death, rape, and the like. So yeah, it fucking sucked.

 

[Hailinel]

So why is it a big controversy? I feel as though if it happened today, we'd all ignore the pieces of shot and they wouldn't get the time of day.

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Because this shit was literally everywhere in social media and women were being harassed out of their homes, unable to feel safe.

 

[Alex840]

Because this shit was literally everywhere in social media and women were being harassed out of their homes, unable to feel safe.

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Urgh, the 'gaming was a mistake' meme is becoming clearer to me now.

 

[Deleted member 23046]

via Imgflip Meme Generator

 

[Deleted member 46922]

Urgh, the 'gaming was a mistake' meme is becoming clearer to me now.

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No, some idiots that are always on social media promoting their sad little world views and being negative all the time are the mistake.
Not the people who are gamers and just enjoy playing games and sometimes talking about games.

 

[hibikase]

They really should have relaunched The Escapist under a different name. The brand is tained forever, it's always going to be remembered as "that pro-GG site" and articles like this sure as hell aren't helping.

 

[Lashley]

Hard Pass.

Terrible site.

 

[Mr. Tibbs]

x

 

[nillansan]

Well, surprise.

 

[affeinvasion]

The hand-wringing over the subject from the author is pretty telling. The way you start talking about ethics is to just do it. You don't go "we're now going to start talking about ethics" you just write articles that are about subjects which are important to the industry. Just do journalism.

 

[Icy]

So why is it a big controversy? I feel as though if it happened today, we'd all ignore the pieces of shot and they wouldn't get the time of day.

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Because it hasn't gone away. The same culture, the same type of rhetoric, the same shitbags were here before GG and continue to be here after GG. Its effects are still felt regularly, because there's more of a concrete playbook for them to follow when something upsets them or something doesn't go their way. It has become an example for shitheads to use. GG was a big, terrible moment because all that exploded in such a way that was finally noticeable to everyone who closely followed the industry and media.

"we'd all ignore the pieces of shot [sic] and they wouldn't get the time of day" just isn't doable when people are victims of targeted harassment and death threats, when games are reviewbombed because "SJWs" or whatever, etc. And you know, the fact that GG became a very attractive tool for white nationalism and the alt-right.

No, some idiots that are always on social media promoting their sad little world views and being negative all the time are the mistake.
Not the people who are gamers and just enjoy playing games and sometimes talking about games.

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Okay, obviously when they say that, they don't actually mean that games and all the people who play them were a mistake and don't deserve to exist. Don't "not all men" this.

 

[Necromanti]

That went from fairly transparent to...something much more nefarious as I read through the thread. The combination of his past tweets, his book, and his current tweets to Zoe pretty much complete the context of the article.

 

[krazen]

No, some idiots that are always on social media promoting their sad little world views and being negative all the time are the mistake.
Not the people who are gamers and just enjoy playing games and sometimes talking about games.

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Honestly? Problem is many of those gamers are part of the problem. Its not as if the bigots had a hard time (and considering the superman level logic leaps here, they should have) making doxxing and harassing a group of people they don't like = saving gaming.

There's a strong argument that by letting the early toxicity fly as 'guy talk' when we were younger was us planting the seeds for the straight up virulent incel/nazi hatred we've seen now. Enough that in 2019 a popular defense when a streamer gets caught using a slur its, "gamer talk".

The community set that tone from decades ago

 

[Armaros]

And lets not mention that the first and probably only non-gaming media org that went with GG is Breitbart, the Alt-Right news org, lead by Steve Bannon, who told Milo to embrace GG to get gamers on board with alt-right ideals.

and GG lead to the rest of the alt-right presence on the internet.

 

[Caz]

So from all the heavily reactionary takes on this, should I assume that we also think Bob Chipman is a GGer, too, since he was heavily involved in this Escapist revamp? Cuz it seems like we're tar-and-feathering the whole lot of them ITT because of a single bad take.

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Aside from the fact that the main reason Bob was originally fired was because they called Gamergate what it was (harassment campaign), they do not appear to be happy about Pitts ongoing trainwreck of a response to the Escapist's dogwhistle, going by this subtweet.

 

[krazen]

That went from fairly transparent to...something much more nefarious as I read through the thread. The combination of his past tweets, his book, and his current tweets to Zoe pretty much complete the context of the article.

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It was a fascinating transition from, "Hey, there MIGHT be something to salvage even though those dudes were fucked up, treating women like lessers is wrong" to "Shut the fuck up bitch, grown men are talking, stop making it about you".

Its why in online communication im always looking for subtext in between the sentences because most of the nefarious shit is hidden; there's a reason why gaslighting is such a popular term in online circles. Throwing stones and hiding hands is Internet Discussion Judo 101.

 

[jakoo]

The hand-wringing over the subject from the author is pretty telling. The way you start talking about ethics is to just do it. You don't go "we're now going to start talking about ethics" you just write articles that are about subjects which are important to the industry. Just do journalism.

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This is kind of what I'm thinking. It seems like the author has a narrative in his head that is based on his feeling but not really an objective reality.

The data-driven way to do this article would be to come up with a list of ten or so "Best Practices" (e.g, not accepting review codes, paying your own way to press junkets, writing articles criticizing business practices), and then investigate the Top Ten gaming outlets by web traffic and investigating if they adhere to these standards. It might not make you popular by any means, but it would actually shine a light on what companies are actually adhering to a defined ethical code or not and drive a productive discussion on where sites can improve.

That would require some actual journalism, though. Writing about your general feelings and tying it to the spectre of Gamergate just kind of feels...lazy?

 

[Deleted member 46922]

Okay, obviously when they say that, they don't actually mean that games and all the people who play them were a mistake and don't deserve to exist. Don't "not all men" this.

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Don't put words in my mouth please. :)

It's men AND women who are so privileged that they think that the social media garbage they put out there on an almost daily basis is the reality.
Most people are actually pretty decent and if there is a discussion to be had, these people really need to shut their big mouths for a while.
If they want a normal discussion, they can write an artical or blog, and see how it lands, without going against each other about things their audience can't possibly know about. The arrogance is bewildering.

A lot of them know each other and take a lot of personal things into the public domain, and nobody needs that.
It always devides and never ignites a normal civil healthy discussion. Doing the same thing over and over again, and still expecting different results. :)

 

[Deleted member 17207]

I honestly still have no idea what this is all about, and don't really care to find out. From where I stand it was a group of weird people who spent too much time thinking about "ethics in games journalism" (seriously, pick something more important in the world to protest or get angry about) and eventually turned into a group of people who harass female social media personalities or something?

Just play some video games and move on.

 

[Deleted member 28076]

Man this Russ Pitts stuff sure is... the pits! Haha. Ha. Ha. Ban gaters from the industry.

 

[cakely]

GG and The Escapist are forever permanently associated in my mind.

So, any discussions about "ethics in games journalism" from those guys is an absolute non-starter.

 

[krazen]

Don't put words in my mouth please. :)

It's men AND women who are so privileged that they think that the social media garbage they put out there on a almost daily basis is the reality.
Most people are actually pretty decent and if there is a discussion to be had, these people really need to shut their big mouths for a while.
If they want a normal discussion, they can write an artical or blog, and see how it lands, without going against each other about things their audience can't possibly know about. The arrogance is bewildering.

A lot of them know each other and take a lot of personal things into the public domain, and nobody needs that.
It always devides and never ignites a normal civil healthy discussion. Do the same thing over and over again, and still expecting different results. :)

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Problem here is that your take is also very easily a "stick head in sand, hope it goes away" take which lead to many problems. Also i dunno if being covered by the regular media like nytimes and having several well regarded publications calling it the ground zero for popularizing mass online hate campaigns in recent years 'not reality'.

Just because you can buy the latest copy of COD unbothered doesn't mean there are implications that have, and will in the future, effect your hobby. Its also doubly weird since this is a gaming enthusiast forum, so we arent supposed to be talking about what you feel is "insider baseball"

 

[nillansan]

I honestly still have no idea what this is all about, and don't really care to find out. From where I stand it was a group of weird people who spent too much time thinking about "ethics in games journalism" (seriously, pick something more important in the world to protest or get angry about) and eventually turned into a group of people who harass female social media personalities or something?

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It was never about ethics, it was a harassment campaign from the get go.

 

[Fid]

This exchange is pretty telling about his sincerity.

"Aw shuck guys I'm sorry, I sure am a piece of shit, huh? Not that I'm going to do anything about it but aw gee whiz im terrible!"

 

[Hailinel]

Aside from the fact that the main reason Bob was originally fired was because they called Gamergate what it was (harassment campaign), they do not appear to be happy about Pitts ongoing trainwreck of a response to the Escapist's dogwhistle, going by this subtweet.

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Yeah, this is about how I figured he'd feel. Russ is digging himself a hole and isn't doing anyone working for him any favors.

 

[Megasoum]

Good thread from Austin Walker

 

[cakely]

Holy shit that tweet.

"I genuinely thought you'd probably be over this being all about you."

I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a worse response. Crawl back under that rock, fucko.

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

it's dead fucking simple. Zoe Quinn's ex was mad about their breakup so he started a harassment campaign to hurt her.

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Which then spiraled out of control because a bunch of spoiled brats with no perspective or context for the media industry made huge leaps in logic to paint a tin foil hat conspiracy that all game journalism is corrupt and untrustworthy

That was then propped up by the people behind the wheel as a convenient smokescreen for more targeted harassment

Like, as I recall, a couple years after the fact, Quinn's ex wrote a blog explicitly stating most of this with absolute clarity. The whole "GamerGate isn't about anything" or "GamerGate is confusing and undirected" was all just a way for people to use it as a means to focus hatred and harassment against people they don't like, mostly women, or so-called "SJWs." And largely because they were afraid somebody might hold them accountable for being king size pieces of shit

 

[Crossing Eden]

So why is it a big controversy?

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Part of being a capital G gamer is having an explicit hatred of women.

Honestly? Problem is many of those gamers are part of the problem. Its not as if the bigots had a hard time (and considering the superman level logic leaps here, they should have) making doxxing and harassing a group of people they don't like = saving gaming.

There's a strong argument that by letting the early toxicity fly as 'guy talk' when we were younger was us planting the seeds for the straight up virulent incel/nazi hatred we've seen now. Enough that in 2019 a popular defense when a streamer gets caught using a slur its, "gamer talk".

The community set that tone from decades ago

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^^^^

 

[crienne]

Which then spiraled out of control because a bunch of spoiled brats with no perspective or context for the media industry made huge leaps in logic to paint a tin foil hat conspiracy that all game journalism is corrupt and untrustworthy

That was then propped up by the people behind the wheel as a convenient smokescreen for more targeted harassment

Like, as I recall, a couple years after the fact, Quinn's ex wrote a blog explicitly stating most of this with absolute clarity. The whole "GamerGate isn't about anything" or "GamerGate is confusing and undirected" was all just a way for people to use it as a means to focus hatred and harassment against people they don't like, mostly women, or so-called "SJWs." And largely because they were afraid somebody might hold them accountable for being king size pieces of shit

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And never forget that the term "GamerGate" came from a celebrity, and one known around nerd circles at that.

Seeing shit like this INSTANTLY legitimizes the campaign and makes it incalculably more dangerous. It also has not gone away, regardless of what some people may want to believe.

 

[Vimes]

If he feels differently or feels that he was duped, he can always be clear about that and cut his ties. Regardless, working with Russ at The Escapist is not a good look whether he's a GG supporter or not.

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Aside from the fact that the main reason Bob was originally fired was because they called Gamergate what it was (harassment campaign), they do not appear to be happy about Pitts ongoing trainwreck of a response to the Escapist's dogwhistle, going by this subtweet.

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If Bob leaves the Escapist again because of this, it'll be interesting to see if I can find it in me to trust him again. He was incredibly patronizing to all the people who were justifiably squeamish about him coming back on board. And now look: they were right and he was wrong. Shocking.

I met Pitts at GDC too, during a bunch of mental health related panels. I trusted both these guys and I feel pretty betrayed by how this all has gone down. Russ in particular is behaving monstrously and shouldn't have any business in the industry from this day on. Seriously how could he not have known that he was painting a target on Quinn yet again? Then had the sheer temerity to make it out like she's the asshole.

 

[Deleted member 2620]

Ooooof, and he's not backing down in the slightest.

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russ shitts

 

[nemoral]

It's a myth that people weren't already talking about ethics in video game journalism. GAF had covered the issue extensively before GG came along. GG was started by vicious, misogynistic scumbags who didn't really care about ethics. No conversation about video game journalism or ethics that includes GG is ever going to get off the ground. There is nothing stopping anyone from talking about ethics and games journalism, and people have continued to do so, outside of the scope of anything involving GG.

Also, Russ Pitts has literally stirred up more harassment of GG victims with this article and his responses to it. Escapist is still garbage, and Pitts fits there.

 

[danm999]

It was said at the time and I'll say it now, if GG was ever about ethical journalism it would have gone after the male journalists accused of ethical breaches and not the women they were allegedly sleeping with.

Now in 2019, the only example of an actual ethical breach in that article is the Filip Miucin stuff from last year and does anyone want to take a crack at an argument IGN didn't act 100% correctly and fire him and take his shit down and give credit to the people he plagiarised?

 

[Deleted member 46922]

Problem here is that your take is also very easily a "stick head in sand, hope it goes away" take which lead to many problems. Also i dunno if being covered by the regular media like nytimes and having several well regarded publications calling it the ground zero for popularizing mass online hate campaigns in recent years 'not reality'.

Just because you can buy the latest copy of COD unbothered doesn't mean there are implications that have, and will in the future, effect your hobby. Its also doubly weird since this is a gaming enthusiast forum, so we arent supposed to be talking about what you feel is "insider baseball"

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Nothing you say here is even remotely related to my post, so I can't give you a decent response. Sorry.

 

[Deleted member 18944]

The issue is that GG started out as harassment campaign, had a message that said "we are about ethics in gaming journalism," and some people got completely duped into thinking it was actually about ethics in games journalism.

We can totally talk about ethics in games journalism. That's fine. I've got plenty of issues to bring up.

But that's not what gamergate was about. If you want to talk about ethics, don't include gamergate, because then everything you say is invalidated.

 

[cakely]

It looks like that slimebag deleted his tweet.

 

[Narpas Sword0]

So why is it a big controversy? I feel as though if it happened today, we'd all ignore the pieces of shot and they wouldn't get the time of day.

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The State of the Union was on every network yesterday

I honestly still have no idea what this is all about, and don't really care to find out. From where I stand it was a group of weird people who spent too much time thinking about "ethics in games journalism" (seriously, pick something more important in the world to protest or get angry about) and eventually turned into a group of people who harass female social media personalities or something?

Just play some video games and move on.

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Wrong about the movement, and wrong about the solution. Maybe if you don't give a shit you should keep it to yourself.

 

[DrDarkStryfe]

Russ is so using his production company to film stuff without putting a disclaimer that he owns the company on the content.

 

[krazen]

If Bob leaves the Escapist again because of this, it'll be interesting to see if I can find it in me to trust him again. He was incredibly patronizing to all the people who were justifiably squeamish about him coming back on board. And now look: they were right and he was wrong. Shocking.

I met Pitts at GDC too, during a bunch of mental health related panels. I trusted both these guys and I feel pretty betrayed by how this all has gone down. Russ in particular is behaving monstrously and shouldn't have any business in the industry from this day on. Seriously how could he not have known that he was painting a target on Quinn yet again? Then had the sheer temerity to make it out like she's the asshole.

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But that's the issue right? Ill ride by the takes that Russ is well intentioned...the fact he feels he can just throw it out there, without really taking stock of his part in it, putting a weird middle of the line article that doesnt discuss real gaming ethics...is how the sites and people who run the forums let them get steam in the first place and Escapist found itself where it did.

Like if we keeping it 100% about journalism how would you write even an opinion piece about an incident that happened years ago that was fucked up and traumatic for someone, and be so clueless that they might want to have been consulted, and when they mention it you're the one that feels attacked! lol. Like you willfully tap danced into the landmines, hows you really didnt grasp how big a deal it was

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

This exchange is pretty telling about his sincerity.

"Aw shuck guys I'm sorry, I sure am a piece of shit, huh? Not that I'm going to do anything about it but aw gee whiz im terrible!"

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Amazing.

"Fix your website
You tell me how I do that
Like this
No, find another way to do my job"

A-fucking-mazing

 

[Deleted member 8561]

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

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I thought The Escapist rebranded as being non-existent

 

[Driggonny]

I'm seeing multiple deleted tweets in this thread which can't possibly be a good sign for what he said

 

[LudicrousSpeed]

Which then spiraled out of control because a bunch of spoiled brats with no perspective or context for the media industry made huge leaps in logic to paint a tin foil hat conspiracy that all game journalism is corrupt and untrustworthy

That was then propped up by the people behind the wheel as a convenient smokescreen for more targeted harassment

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This isn't really right. The "ethics" angle was always a smokescreen created by the harassers from the get-go. It wasn't those harassers seeing some idiots who could happen to give them cover, but explicitly the harassers creating the "ethics" angle so they could position themselves as crusaders for a righteous cause.

There are actual IRC logs of this discussion occurring before the GG name had been devised, back when it was referred to as Quinnspiracy or Five Guys.

 

[Fid]

I'm seeing multiple deleted tweets in this thread which can't possibly be a good sign for what he said

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Yeah, there's a reason I opted for images when I posted that exchange. He's been deleting shit since he came back to Escapist