Kotaku Reported To Exchange Positive Game Coverage For Sex

"The long and short of it is that Zoey Quinn the developer of Depression Quest is being accused of exploiting the nepotism that tends to plague this industry by getting a bunch of favorable coverage from people she has supposedly slept with. In addition to this, videos supposedly critical of these actions have been taken down from Youtube with copyright claims, including a video by a smaller channel called MundaneMatt. It's difficult to tell what is true and what is not."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-51PfwI3M

Link to BF blog post

fucked up and gaming loses even more credibility.

Whatever to exchanging good press for money?

Would hit.

That's not "reported." That's a Youtube video and a blog post.

"Reported" implies, like, a journalistic source.

Also, learn how to embed videos so that we aren't blindly clicking on a link.

Are you saying Danny got some from her? =P

I remember "playing" Depression Quest and thinking t was a good resource.

No doubt the recently fired GS employees were getting randy too.

This is interesting.

Eron seems unbalanced

If this becomes a trend I should consider a career as a game reviewer :P

Whoa? This is f'ed up.

What did Nathan write about the game or her in general anyway.

@deeliman: Then every end of the month you'd be thinking "What's it going to be this month? Am I getting laid or canned?" =P

The crazy thing is most gaming sites are doing EVERYTHING they can to quiet this down. Most gaming sites, including Giantbomb and IGN are deleting posts and topics related to the story.

It's funny how they all speak out against shady practices in gaming.

I am still surprised this is still up on GS. considering they would've been the first one to delete this.

So is the only "evidence" for this her ex's blog? Because you know, people never lie about their ex to make them look bad.

Sleeping around to advance one's career isn't something symptomatic of just the gaming industry, neither is nepotism, they're universal to any industry.

I've known of a dangerous sociopath who does it, he's even slept with other men when it was advantageous to him in advancing his aspirations.

Anyhow, this is at its source started by an ex-boyfriend, so there's his anger at their past relationship to cast doubt on this... then again despite his anger he might be being insightful.

I don't think the author of this article knows what the word nepotism means.

There are screenshots of her confessing to it all.

Screenshots. I believe him, poor guy.

What kind of stuff did Nathan write about the game and her as a developer after the affair

Phil Fish is jeeaalloouuss.

The lack of reporting reminds me very much of Robert Florence getting completely blanked out by practically every major gaming media source after calling out Doritos pope, gifts e.t.c... and loosing his job.

In the end, it was primarily gamers word of mouth that went around and the actual site Dorito Pope worked for (gametrailers) at no point brought it up at all, not on the main page news, not in topic discussion shows, completely blanked it out. Kotaku as well ignored it until they got spammed shitless in every comment.

This is quite shitty if you ask me. I do not think the death threats and people messing with her family is warranted though. 4chan can go too far sometimes.

And here I thought throwing money was bad.

If true, that's horrendous

and Rockstar will be like... " Hah! Copycats...."

Isn't this what feminism is about?

Finally I think I have a grasp of what this is all about, thanks for the links, the video had other links, this is juicy.

It seems there are other "evidences", though I can't tell how reliable they are. Read the links people posted on the youtube video's comments. It seems one of the guys admitted the affair, but said that it happened after the review... not before or during the elaboration of it. There's also something about the wife of one of the guys being glad that now "karma" is turning to her favor now that this is becoming public... and something about that Zoe person herself admitting the facts but saying no one should meddle with that because those are personal concerns of hers, not professional issues. Those are links to blogs, twitter and more youtube videos, so I'd still take everything with a grain of salt...

As far as I can tell from discussions on other websites nobody's bothered to pull up any actual articles he's written, just lots of things that seem awfully coincidental. Her game on steam did get an award from a website chaired by Robin Arnott (one of the other people her ex named), that's a smoking gun as far as some are concerned. Hopefully in a few days' time somebody else will have done some proper research and dragged up evidence of any corruption so I don't have to go looking myself.

Part of that is because people are going to the extremes of saying abusive things about her, and in some cases encouraging distribution of personal information. On that note I'd like to ask that you all be mature if you're going to discuss this. Her personal life and the things she's done aren't any of our business, and abusive posts about her and others don't have a place on Gamespot. However, the wider issue being discussed here is the relationships between journalists and developers in the games industry, which is something we should all be free to talk about. So please be mindful of this.

I've been following some of the threads on /v/ and the rabbit hole goes pretty deep. There's strong evidence that she has close friends at most of the major gaming news sites. Kotaku and RPS we know through her affair with Nathan Grayson, but she almost definitely has friends at Destructoid, Polygon, and The Escapist who are willing to cover for her (there is no proof / evidence she has slept with anyone at the latter three sites, but the story is still developing out so anything is possible). Stephen Totilo and Jason Schrier from Kotaku vehemently deny that anything has happened and insist that the ex boyfriend has fabricated everything, however given that Gawker is a tabloid I would be far more surprised if they were truthful about any misconduct.

Zoe Quinn did not exchange sexual favors in exchange for good press written by Nathan Grayson, since he has not written about her much. However, that does not change the fact that Kotaku's office culture is very tightly knit, and I would be very surprised if they did not have unwritten rules to cover for each other. They don't have what most people would call "journalistic integrity" to begin with, so it's well within their character to lie to the public when one of their friends gets caught with their pants down. Kotaku and the other left-wing gaming publications are a very insular community, and if a Zoe Quinn is in bed with a Nathan Grayson, it's no stretch of the imagination that a Patricia Hernandez would write favorable articles about the Zoe Quinn.

Hell, the editor in chief of The Escapist himself said on the Escapist forums that facts and evidence are not important to him, and that he will by default side with someone whose story pushes his political ideology and narrative because that's more important than making sure the story is true.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.858347-Zoe-Quinn-and-the-surrounding-controversy?page=31#21285187

I would argue that Greg Tito has caused more damnation to the defendants in this case than even Quinn's own ex boyfriend. In his arrogance and panic, he has openly admitted that this club of journalists is self-serving, and that the truth is secondary to getting what they want, and he has no problem with that. THIS IS THE MAN WHO RUNS THE ESCAPIST WEBSITE. I take his post as a confession that nothing that he or any of these other social justice-focused journalists say in their own defense can be trusted, because they openly participate in the spreading of misinformation, and the suppression of the truth. All for the sake of protecting their friends, perks, and political agenda. This does not mean that Greg Tito slept with Zoe Quinn, but it does mean he is looking out for her even if she and her partners are guilty of misconduct. They are his friends and his obligation is to protect them, even if that means openly lying to the game community. All of these people are friends with each other, and they will aggressively attack anyone who threatens the reputation of a member of their social circle.

Someone close to the original source has also implied that there are more bombshells on the way within the next two weeks. This is bigger than DoritoGate and JeffGate combined.

I'd say this story shouldn't just be swept under the rug just because it involves her sex life and that's her business and blah blah. She set out to ruin a game jam charity project of The Fine Young Capitalists. This was a contest that allowed female gamers to pitch their game ideas, and the people running the contest would help them develop concept art so people could vote on their favorite ideas. The top 5 games would be funded and developed by money raised by the organization. All proceeds would go to charity minus 8% royalties would go to the women who made the pitches that won. The organization was doing this for no money, it was a selfless and good natured and in charity. However, Zoe Quinn took offense to this idea, saying that the women were working for no money and that was oppressive. Clearly, this setup for the competition is most beneficial, they didn't even need to develop the game, they only had to pitch an idea, and for that they'd get 8% royalties if they won. But, she took up a Twitter storm and doxxed the people involved, leading to their website shutting down, their Twitter and social networks handles being banned, and the gaming press only listening to one side of things and smearing TFYC organization.

I mean, sure, she (supposedly) fucked around to get ahead, she (supposedly) faked being harassed by Wizardchan to bring attention and sympathy to her and her game. People question she faked a robbery of her apartment to get money from people. She sounds like a horrible person, sure, but is that worth writing about when you can't be certain; no. However, the TFYC scandal is worth writing about, and is worthy of attention.

I really don't know what this story has to do with the gaming industry or this board, but this has been denied by kotaku. Some other parts of the boyfriend story may be false.

http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346

She is a horrible person, and I would say that of her personal sins, what she did to the TFYC Game Jam is chiefest. However, she is still a person of interest in the sex scandal because of the broader implications it has on the arms of the gaming media that are controlled by social justice activists. Everyone's dirty laundry is getting aired out and it turns out that a lot of people stink. I already knew that those websites were all rags and little more than political propaganda peppered with gaming news, but Zoe shows just how incestuous the relationships between all of these hipster douchebags really is. Some of them are journalists, some of them are game designers, and some are youtube E-celebs, but the point is that they are all part of the same club, and they are all capable of calling in favors when it looks like they need information exaggerated or suppressed.

More importantly, these are the people who have appointed themselves as the gatekeepers between the gamers and game makers. It's not our opinions that they want the EAs, Activisions and Ubisofts of the world to hear-- they want them to hear the opinions of Jason Schrier and Anita Sarkeesian, because us good for nuthin' racist gamer scumbags can't be trusted to convey our tastes to the people who make games. They have made sure that the conversation between "gamers" and game creators is being framed by people in their club of special little snowflakes, because the people actually buying the games disgust them and they think that the industry is sexist, racist, capitalist, and every other "ist" you can think of, and thus needs to be changed. All of us generally grew up liking the games we played, and since we enjoyed the old status quote, they see us as an obstacle in the way of social progress.

Beautifully said. I actually don't know who this girl is and don't care, but the SJW crap stuff is spot on.

I really hate the head of The Escapist, but I like Zero Punctuation too much to stop using the site.

Related note; Phil Fish is a one hit wonder bitch.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Stephen Totilo is denying that Zoe and Nathan's relationship had any influence over the way Kotaku has reported about her. The fact remains though that the Kotaku staff is a close knit clubhouse, and if Zoe was in a relationship with Nathan it stands to reason that the rest of the staff would be inclined to post positive coverage of her. All you have to do is type her name in the Kotaku search bar and you'll find a bunch of barely games-related crap fluff pieces about her written by other Kotaku writers like Patricia Hernandez.

Essentially, Kotaku is being accused of lying, and Stephen Totilo is trying to soothe our fears by saying "we don't lie." That doesn't exactly absolve them of everything that is happening, especially given how little many of us trust Kotaku or their ilk to begin with.

This is disgusting. Journalist corruption at it's finest. They all have to be exposed and continue to be exposed for as long as they are in the business. There can't be any mercy for those psychopaths.

All true. And the fact that this discussion was preemptively decreed forbiden shows a lot, especially because the official argument thrown everywhere is that the starting point (which is a fraction of the premises of the whole situation) is a personal issue of hers. But forbiding this personal aspect of the discussion (with which I agree) isn't forbiding the whole discussion and the many factors involved, like the ones you and others mentioned.

From what I've seen and read, the censorship shows that this kind of issue can't be explored further, because it ultimately touches on journalists and how the industry works (at least the indie part of it). The pre-selection of games that happens before our own selection when buying them is not based entirely on the merit of the product (sometimes not at all it seems). When a big publisher announces a new big title... you have an obligation to talk about it. What about the titles made independently by small timers?

It's well known that we live in a world of pre-selected freedom. This is not something restricted to gaming. Let's take literature for example. If you enter a bookstore, there's not enough space for all the books ever released to be on display. Someone has to filter what's going to be placed there, and usually the main criterion is the potential sales of each product (that even affects where the product is going to be placed within the store). This is also valid for online stores, since we simply can't peruse everything available, and if we don't know previously what we're going to buy, we'll have to trust the site's filters, indications and the way it handles our search. Someone had to perform these pre-selections, and we are free to choose between the choices that person (or persons) allowed us to choose from. Of course this is only a limited exemple on how this phenomenom works, but I hope it'll do.

In gaming, especially in what concerns indie gaming, it seems that the pre-selection's criterion is variable and inconsistent, sometimes heavily influenced by personal bias and favors, not only the merit that may or may not translate into more sales of the product. This episode is a symptom of that. Out of curiosity, let me quote this other indie developer that came out in defense of Quinn in the Internet Aristocrat Youtube video (I've took the liberty to partly censor some foul words):

"Lol you MRA's are hilarious. Trying to s_ut shame someone for having a relationship?

Oh hay, wana know something....game devs.....have person lives (holy fu&*!!!).

We date co-workers (oh c_ap!!!)....and even marry them (what?!). We have sex even!! And we even know journalists! (and are friends with them!!!!!).

Holy c*ap. Did i just blow your minds?

And, actually, those relationships....are how the industry works! How you get into meetings to get funding! How you get support for projects! How you get advice! And yes, how journalists even hear about you or cover you (since they go "hay, that guy I met at pax...he was pretty cool, and his game was pretty cool....yea, I guess I'll pass it along to readers").

This is an industry made to create cool stuff around other people passionate about the same stuff (games). Yea, it is a small community...and we know each other (and, again, even sex happens sometimes).

But the outrage here? Did you even look at the "corrupted articles". They mentioned Zoes game in a "50 games released this week" article. And they covered a story about an indie show that blew up (which everyone was covering).

LOL, you think that is corruption? You think that all happened because she "slept her way to the top"?

Sorry, I'm having trouble seeing through the thick fog of your sexist bu*ls_it."

If you read the highlighted, you see that that's basically admitting the backstage nepotism.

I found this interview informative as well. This industry sure looks like it works like something smaller than it really is... I don't know. Of course the definitive proofs are Dan Hsu's blog entry "Editorial Integrity", which is non-existent now (there's not even a cache of the page anymore, at least I didn't find it), and the Gerstmann episode. From time to time, we're allowed glimpses into how the gears are put into play in the market, but for some reason no one wants to talk about it or ask for changes.

Nathan barely wrote anything about Zoe Quinn's profession on Kotaku, besides one article about game jam before they were dating if I recall.All accusations about zoe quinn using these reviewers for more positive coverage has never been proven .The ex- boyfriend did not really focus on any of this stuff in his blog posts. The blog post was just focused on the relationship she had with those guys and not the effect that it would have on her career.I'm not defending the person because I don't like what she did either, but please verify the sources you guys post on this board before you link the source because they may be false.

@super600: Again: would you write anything negative about your co-worker's girlfriend? Kotaku is not a big gloomy office building where a bunch of people hide behind cubicles doing their own thing. It's a clubhouse, and the only way to get a job there is basically if you're friends with one or more of their editors. There is no shortage of fluff pieces about Zoe on Kotaku, and there are pretty much no criticisms of her or her behavior either in the past or present. It is no stretch of the imagination that Nathan Grayson could ask someone like Patricia Hernandez to write something nice about the girl he is sleeping with and to avoid mentioning any accusations being hurled at her, especially since said girl shares the political agenda of pretty much everyone in the office.

A deluge of evidence is mounting on so many different angles. Here's a list of a bunch of it:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/quinnspiracy

In the dank parts of the internet, evidence is irrelevant. If someone is accused of doing something that you disagree with, that's more than enough proof for people.

I mean, I read the knowyourmeme article on it, and so far everything in the article is mere conjecture. There was a dispute between her and some board who made themselves out to be victims of her abuse...and then they apparently retaliated by revealing this affair story. It should all be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Meanwhile, here's a simple reason why actual journalists aren't covering the story - they don't want to be liable for defamation.

Okay, so now that I've read a little more...why are people calling this the Quinnspiracy and not Graysongate?

I mean, disregarding all of the unverifiable scuttlebutt about her sleeping around to get good reviews (which sounds about as accurate as calling her a witch), if she formed a relationship with a Kotaku journalist who then wrote articles about her work without disclosing his conflicted interests, then he would be the one in the wrong, not her.

Couldn't care less about this story. But the people harassing her and her family over this are fucking pathetic.