#Gamergate: Ethics or Harrasment? Part 2
In Part one I posted a general timeline of events leading up to GamerGate. If you didn't read Part One, it's definitely worth looking at, mainly to understand the pre-ZoePost issues that caused GamerGate to explode the way it did. In Part Two, we'll be starting with The ZoePost and covering a variety of key players, on both sides, and the criticisms of everyone. It's going to be a longer post than Part One, so buckle up and get ready for a bit of a long read.
The ZoePost and Following Aftermath
The ZoePost was published on August 16, 2014 by Eron Gjoni that outlines his breakup with Zoe Quinn and made claims that, as others pointed out, fit a general pattern of abuse. The post also makes the claim that Zoe Quinn had affairs with several prominent individuals in the gaming industry. Nathan Grayson, a journalist with Kotaku, was on of these individuals. Nathan Grayson has written two articles concerning Zoe Quinn, while working at Kotaku, and Depression Quest, while working at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and interviewed Zoe Quinn as part of a video blog while working for Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Eron Gjoni originally posted this information onto somethingawful.com and Penny Arcade forums, and finally to Wordpress after the two other websites had deleted the post. Around the time Eron Gjoni is posting The ZoePost, a somethingawful forum poster alerts Zoe Quinn on Twitter concerning the deleted post about her. During this time the earlier posts were being discussed on 4chan (the archived versions of these 4chan discussions have been removed, if you can find them please post a link to the archives of pictures in the comment or send me an email). The threads were all deleted from 4chan. On the same day, MundaneMatt posts a video discussing the ZoePost, using the video to highlight the hypocrisy of video game journalists, and questions the ethics and integrity of some in the game industry.
On August 17, 2014 MundaneMatt's video is removed by Youtube due to DMCA claim being made, allegedly made by Zoe Quinn for the use of a screenshot from Depression Quest being used (the DMCA order is later released allowing the original video to be viewed again). On the Escapist Magazine forums threads begin to appear discussing the controversy, but is subjected to heavy moderation. Game designer Phil Fish (Fez, The Golden Compass as level designer and Open Season as level designer) goes on Twitter to defend Zoe Quinn and attack gamers who were investigating any claims made against her. Game Designer Wolf Wozniak (VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action, Dungeon Hearts DX, Ditsummit 2015, Gyossait, SilverQuest: Gaiden, Magic Planet Snack, and SilverQuest) goes on Twitter and claims he was sexually assaulted by Zoe Quinn, and is quickly lambasted by others, including Phil Fish. Wolf Wozniak backs down, and deletes his previous tweets. The Fine Young Capitalists (TFYC) claim their feminist production was doxxed and harassed by Zoe Quinn in a Reddit thread discussing Zoe Quinn's earlier allegations of harassment concerning Wizardchan. A female game developer going by KC Video Rants, publishes a Tumblr post accusing Zoe Quinn of hypocrisy, setting women in gaming back, and creating a "negative image for all current and future female game devs".
August 18, 2014, InternetAristocrat posts a video on Youtube discussing the fallout of the ZoePost, the implication for the state of game journalism, and the suppression of The Fine Young Capitalist scandal. #BurgersandFries public IRC chatroom is created for the discussion of the emerging events. Female game developer KC Video Rants posts another tumblr post concerning the scandal and the censorship of the scandal. Prominent Youtube video game critic and commentator TotalBiscuit creates a Twitlong post discussing the Quinn scandal, criticizing the use of DMCA requests to take down critical work, the confusion and debate surrounding the scandal and mentions that "Games journalism as a whole has a massive nepotism problem, encouraged by the publishers and developers and actively partaken in by many outlets." August 19, 2014, UK based website GamesNosh is one of the first sites to post an article concerning the controversy around the scandal. Their webhost later blocks the article and asks GamesNosh to remove the article entirely, it was later restored. Zoe Quinn also requested the contact information on Twitter, in order to request the article be removed from archives for, according to her, publicly posting her phone number. On Reddit, TotalBiscuit's Twitlong post is submitted to the /r/gaming subreddit. Moderators later delete up to 25,000 comments on the thread. One /r/gaming moderator is later revealed to have been in contact with Zoe Quinn, the same moderator later claimed the comments were deleted in order to prevent doxxing. Gamers feeling censored in /r/gaming begin to flood other subreddits, such as /r/games, which also ends up also deleting comments. XavierMendel, the moderator of /r/games is later removed from his position due to resisting the extensive censorship taking place on reddit. He later provides an audio interview regarding his removal, as well as posting two written accounts detailing the heavy censorship regarding the scandal between August 18 and August 22. Major gaming sites, such as NeoGAF and GameSpot, heavily moderate, edit, delete, and censor any discussion surrounding the scandal. 4chan /v/ mods allegedly delete and censor threads surrounding the scandal. The Escapist continues to be one of few websites not censoring discussion. Zoe Quinn's tumblr and Twitter are allegedly hacked and her information is doxxed by "4CHAN.NET/V/". Members of the 4chan /v/ board, as well as others, are immediately skeptical of the claims. A later investigation shows that the information posted about Zoe Quinn to be entirely unrelated. Steam users also claim to be banned from the Depression Quest forums after critiquing the game, the claim is that the bans were due to abuse.
On August 20, 2014, TechRaptor publishes an article about the scandal, the implications for game industry practices, and the censorship of gamers trying to discuss the scandal. Stephen Totilo, Editor of Kotaku, states in an article for the site that neither he nor the leadership team found any compelling evidence that Nathan Grayson had traded sex for positive coverage concerning Zoe Quinn. The article confirmed that the relationship had happened, but that no breach of ethics had taken place and that no further action needed to be taken. Stephen Totilo had earlier made a series of tweets regarding this event. TotalBiscuit claims to have been called a misogynist and nazi for his earlier statements. Youtube comedian and game critic JonTron tweets about meeting Zoe Quinn during the failed GameJam, the current state of game journalism, and behavior of social justice proponents. After posting a link to a NSFW comic concerning the scandal, featuring him and Phil Fish, and received a barrage of criticism. Robin Arnott, on of the men Zoe Quinn is accused of having an affair in the ZoePost, is the curator of IndieCade's Night Game event when Zoe Quinn's Depression Quest was revealed to be one of the selections for the event. NeoGAF forum owner Tyler Malka creates a thread mocking the emails he's received complaining about the censorship on the NeoGAF forums.
On August 21, 2014 independent gaming website Niche Gamer publishes an article covering the scandal, corruption and hypocrisy of game journalists, heavy censorship of gamers, and the damage done to gaming due to nepotism and agenda pushing. The Fine Young Capitalists posts a video claiming that Zoe Quinn had tried to shut down their project, and that one of her associates doxxed one their members which almost shut down their project entirely. 4chan boards /pol/ and /v/ propose donating to TFYC's feminist gamejam, leading to 4chan raising more than $23,000 for TFYC. Phil Fish's website, Polytron, is hacked and the front page is defaced by someone claiming to be "the head mod over at /V/ and leader of 4chan.org and Anonymous" and a link to a large data file dump containing Polytron data is placed on it. Phil Fish announces all of this in a series of tweets and declares that he is leaving video game development and is putting Polytron and Fez 2 up for sale. Adam Sessler, former game journalist and co-host of X-Play as well as a person who claims to have the right to doxx people that say things he doesn't like, takes pictures he claims to be of the hacker while at a bar with Zoe Quinn. 4chan /v/ posters are again skeptical of the hacks, due to the uncharactorized use of capitalized /V/ and after some analysis of Polytron's cloudfare server being difficult to hack as well as analysis of linked data suggesting it had been created on a portable drive almost five hours prior to the attack on Polytron.
On August 22, 2014, TFYC post a video at the request of 4chan charting the career of Roberta Williams, the Sierra developer behind Mystery House and King's Quest. 4chan donates enough money to TFYC allowing them to create a character for TFYC's upcoming game that was named Vivian James. The character was also used in major memes concerning GamerGate. A female game developer, using the pen name Gabriela Knight, published an anonymous account of the climate of intolerance and cronyism surrounding the indie game and journalist industry. Youtuber Karen Straughan appears on the Honey Badger Radio video to discuss the censorship and ongoing scandal. InternetAristocrat releases a second video discussing earlier game journalist frenzies concerning Max Temkin and David Jaffe, as well as journalists that had donated to Zoe Quinn on Patreon, and the Polaris GameJam controversy. August 23, 2014 shadowbanning and censorship continues to be a problem on reddit. Ben Kuchera, Editor with Polygon, is revealed to have been making donations to Zoe Quinn since January 2014. Ben Kuchera also wrote a positive article about Depression Quest on March 19, 2014. On August 24, 2014, TFYC indiegogo gamejam page is hacked and is made to appear that the campaign is closed. TFYC later restore their page and announce that no money was lost due to the hack. Wolf Wozniak, the game developer that had earlier accused Zoe Quinn of sexual harassment, has trouble getting a PAX pass or finding a place to stay during PAX. Eron Gjoni, writer of the ZoePost, writes a long blog post about the events of the previous week and is interviewed in the #burgersandfries IRC channel. Subreddit Kotakuinaction is created to avoid the censorship of the gaming subreddits. Despite the editor's statements, Kotaku is revealed to be breaking their own ethics policy. Kotaku journalist Patricia Hernandez had written multiple articles about a game developer and close friend. Nathan Grayson is revealed to be friends with Robbin Arnott, and had written positive reviews about Arnott's game Soundself, and often promoted Arnott's work several times throughout 2014 while working for Kotaku. Danielle Riendeau, Polygon game journalist, appeared with Gone Home score composer and good friend Chris Remo appear on an IdleThumbs podcast a week before giving Gone Home a positive review (10/10) on Polygon. There are other examples of conflicts of interest and developer promotion. On August 25, 2014, Devin Faraci, journalist with Badass Digest, tweets that he has more respect for ISIS than "Anti-Quinn people", and is only the beginning of his attacks against gamers. During the scandal Anita Sarkeesian releases another part of her Tropes vs. Women series making the claim that many popular video games sexually objectify women, and even promote necrophilia. Over selected clips, the video claims that the games use exotic dancer, prostitutes, and even "mutilated eroticized female bodies", to "sexually arouse straight male viewers". The video claims that several games "capitalize on scenes of sexual violence [..] gleefully". Many people responded to the video by claiming the original video took the clips out of context and completely misrepresented the the games shown. Despite this criticism gaming news outlets such as Kotaku and Polygon praised the new video. On August 26, 2014, after the issues with writers donating to patreon accounts of people they've written for and after showing clear ethical breaches, Kotaku releases an article stating that journalists will no longer be able to write about people they've made patreon contribution to as it was a conflict of interest. Polygon wrote a similar article but instead stated that writers would have to disclose if they made patreon contributions concerning who they're writing about, and that they would retroactively update previous articles to note previous contributions. Joss Whedon, who had previously stated not being interested in gaming, praises Anita Sarkeesian's recent video on Twitter. A new blog begins to contrast Anita Sarkeesian to Jack Thompson.