We posted this to our website, and then to Twitter. Our website then went down, so well re post the text here. There comes a time when a person just has to stand back, take a long hard look and say Enough! to all the bullshit they see. Thankfully, thats exactly what has been happening over the last couple of months, as Gamers the world over are making their voices heard and standing up to the, frankly disgusting, behaviour of an industry thats supposed to have their best interests at heart. Being on inside of said industry (often at the center of some controversy ourselves), we at RWS have been witness to bias, misinformation and corruption in the mainstream gaming press for many years now. Its a difficult industry to be working in. Trying to create a video game, that people would enjoy, is challenging enough; trying to get that video game noticed by the rest of the world, in such a vast market, is whole nother story. Those of us who are in it for the love of the game choose to simply make the games that we want to make, and then let their quality and merit determine their success in the market - we let our games stand on their own. However there are always those who are strictly in it for personal attention and profit, willing to resort to dirty, underhanded tactics to achieve results, and there are always those on the other end of the industry - more than happy to lend a helping hand for personal gain. Its a billion dollar industry - billions of dollars being spent by gamers (casual and hardcore alike) who are just looking for some entertainment - and everybody wants a slice of the billion-dollar pie, whether theyve earned it or not. Its quite heartbreaking to watch truly great games, that are obviously made with a lot of heart and passion, go unnoticed and left behind in favour of shoddy games that dont seem nearly as deserving of the attention. Journalists wield a lot of power when it comes to advertising the value of a game, or game company, to the world. Its through news coverage, updates, previews and reviews, that many consumers in this industry gather information on the different games that are out there and which of these games would be worth their time and money. Now obviously a game review is subjective to the reviewer, and is not a report of the objective quality of the game, but even those have value in providing gamers with understanding of the mechanical and technical aspects of the games, and help make us consider whether wed like to try them or not. This is what their job entails, and typically we would like to think that they do this for our benefit - to keep us informed. And a lot of the time, they do. So, whats happening? Why are so many of the biggest names in games journalism suddenly denouncing, shaming and outright insulting their own audience - the people whose interests they are supposed to be protecting? Why are they suddenly turning on us, and telling us that our culture, our identity is dead and that this culture that weve invested so much of our lives into, is not for us anymore? Why are they preaching tolerance and inclusiveness, while simultaneously excluding, attacking and shaming anyone who they dont like, or who doesnt fall in line with their ideologies? Corruption and bribery have been frequently encountered in the video game industry, as they have been in any other entertainment industry - people exchanging money and favours under the table, to help each other reap the benefits - but rarely, in entertainment, have these causes taken on the mask of political ideologies and caused direct attacks on their own audience. In the last two months, information has come to the public eye, showing complete disregard of ethical standards among these journalists and some of the indie developers working with them. They engage in close, personal and romantic relationships with each other, while giving each other positive press and coverage. They financially back and support people they are supposed to report on, and remain impartial to. They give positive press and awards to games they themselves are financially tied to. They actively conspire among themselves on how to shape public opinion and divert attention away from themselves, by actively misinforming and directly lying to their own supporters. They attempt to silence and discredit opposing voices, that might threaten to reveal the true nature of their, or their friends wrongdoings. They collectively participate in smear-campaigns against their (supposed) target demographic. And so, gamers have finally collectively had enough, and using the hashtag #GamerGate they are actively campaigning against and investigating the journalists who have turned against them. And rightly so - it’s good they now have to answer for their actions. Its impressive to see the kind of results gamers can achieve - such as informing the sponsors and advertisers of these journalism websites of recent events and having them cut their ties to them (recently Intel pulled their advertising off of Gamasutra). With more and more people becoming involved, more and more results are achieved. Public outrage has resulted in journalism websites having to address and change their ethical policies. Real journalists, such as Milo Yiannopoulos getting involved has resulted in some fine reporting, such as the smoking gun reveal that many of these game journalists belonging to a common mailing list, where they actively discuss how to coordinate their actions and which games to give coverage to. All this information coming to light is forcing those who have done wrong to finally become accountable for their actions. Gamers are fighting back, and make no mistake - they are directly changing things. Of course not all game journalists are corrupt, and we dont mean to imply they are - far from it. There are still many journalists and press outlets that provide solid and fair coverage, or they have at least stood above their peers in how theyve handled this scandal. The Escapist deserves praise for not only addressing gamers concerns by adjusting their ethics policies, but for also providing an open forum of discussion that allowed opinions from both sides of the issue to be expressed, despite being pressured to censor it. TechRaptor.net deserves cheers for being one of the earliest outlets to actually provide coverage for this issue (and taking a lot of heat for it). And then theres sites like GoodGamers.us that were formed specifically to provide an alternative to all the corrupt and biased sites involved in #GamerGate. We can only hope their kind outlasts the dishonest favor seekers, money grubbers, liars and cheats. The industry has suffered a lot of injury in these months and we know it will take a lot of time to regain the trust of the gamers. But we also know there are still good people in the industry. We have always believed in the power of our fans and real gamers, to be vary of which sources they choose to receive their information from, to seek out the truth and to share their knowledge with the rest of their gaming family. Gaming is not a solitary activity - It links people and places worldwide and lets their voices be heard by everyone. The next time anyone is tempted to get together in a deceitful group, trying to fight against gamers and their culture, the events of these months might just cause them to think twice and consider that honesty, transparency, accountability and integrity is the right path to take. The fallout from this event, no matter how it ends, will be very long-lasting - it will be a long time before any of us will forget what has happened here. Fool us once: shame on you. Fool us twice: it will be shame on you again. Further reading and viewing: #GamerGate in 60 Seconds https://youtube/watch?v=ipcWm4B3EU4 We are Gamers. We are Alive https://youtube/watch?v=Q2v_Anr5cbs Critical Kelly’s open letter to Gaming Journalists https://storify/CriticalKelly/dear-gaming-journalists# And a fun alternative to ALL your gaming journalism needs: p4rgaming/
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 00:35:42 +0000
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