How did all of this start?
The #gamergate has an odd history that many have mistaken its start with misoygny and sexism in the industry, while others have attributed the start of the movement with The Zoe Post scandal; but many of the core problems came from various previous events have foraged a small path to the current movement.
In the hopes of answering this question, here is a detailed timeline of events, as far back as 2007, up until the start of the hashtag.
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In 2007, game reviewer and editorial director Jeff Gerstmann is fired from his position at GameSpot following a negative review he wrote about the Eidos Interactive game Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. It is speculated that because of heavy advertising of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men on GameSpot at the time, Gerstmann was fired due to giving the game a poor review than what Eidos Interactive paid for.
Gerstmann would talk about the situation on On the Spot in 2012. There, he would confirm that his termination was directly tied to the negative review of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. He also mentions that publishers threatening to pull advertising in response to disappointing game review scores is a common occurrence in the game journalism industry.
In October 2012 Rab Florence writes an article titled Lost Humanity 18: A Table of Doritos on eurogamer.net. The article talked about the close relationships between game journalists and devlopers, and how he believed that video game journalism was influenced by advertisement revenue. Florance would cite his personal experiences with the Games Media Awards in 2012; game journalists winning free PS3s by advertising over twitter.
An image circulated around the internet, depicting gaming journalist Geoff Keighley, sitting by a table of Mountain Dew and Doritos. Following a complaint made from Lauren Wainwright—a game journalist that Florence quoted in his article—Eurogamer removes parts of his publication. Florence resigned from Eurogamer the following a threat of legal action.
Gamers in response to the backlash against Florence and his damning article, the situation is referred to as “Doritogate,” in reference to an image that circulated of gaming journalist Geoff Keighley sitting by a table of Mountain Dew and Doritos that was featured in Florence’s article.
Lauren Wainwright, however, was found to have several conflicts of interest. The key example was her covering and reviewing Square Enix games while also engaging in consultant work for them. Criticism would follow her, but some critics of her would be accused of abusive behaviors, such as online harassment, cyber bullying, and use of misogyny, sexist, and rape jokes.
A contributing blogger to N4G.com under the handle “dedicatedtogamers” writes an article called EXPOSED: Kotaku’s manipulation in which he details the editorial concentration on Kotaku.com (a video game blog). Specifically, its editorial focus about, misogyny, sexism, and other issues. [3] This was written in response to an article written by Kotaku writer Patricia Hernandez on how she told a gamer online the she “raped him” in an online multiplayer game, and attacks the gaming community about the trash talk used in multiplayer games. [4]
On August 15, 2013, Fulbright releases Gone Home, a first-person interactive adventure story. Gone Home recives rave reviews from GameSpot, Kotaku, Polygon, Gamasutra and Metacritic; however, the public gaming community critizizes the game for its mediocre plot and gameplay. Others would say that the games play time did not justify its sale price.
In December 2013, YouTube personality and commentator, The Internet Aristocrat releaces a video titled Mighty Number Nope. In the video he talks about the Kickstrter backed video game Mighty No. 9, and how the english community manager, Dina Abou Karam, and how her social justice politics were changing the games development. He also brought up how nepotism, cronyism, and censorship were issues in the independent developer community. [5]
Nathan Grayson, a gaming journalist writes an article for Rock Paper Shotgun called Admission Quest: Valve Greenlights 50 More Games, which is published on January 8, 2014. The article is about various independent games that had been accepted to Steam (an online game distribution service). The article make numerous of mentions to one game, Depression Quest, created by Zoe Quinn. Examples include the homage in the articles title, the graphic in the article is a screenshot from the game, it is described as a “standouts: powerful Twine darling”, use of meta-tags which specifically say Depression Quest and not other titles mentioned in the article. There is no disclosure of the nature of his involvement with the game or of his relationship with the developer. [6]
On February 28, The Fine Young Capitalists , or the TFYC, a feminist production support company which provides resources and opportunities in media production for under-represented demographics, is holding a game development contest for women. Zoe Quinn and Maya Kramer and several followers take issue with TFYC, believing that it excludes transgender people and the women were being asked to work for free for six months. Jonathan Ross, a Former Destructoid writer doxxes the contest organizer by sharing private posts from his Facebook page. After the website crashes due to heavy traffic, Quinn and Kramer laud over this on twitter. [8]
On March 31, Nathan Grayson writes an article in Kotaku about a reality television show project Game Jam and how the show ended after one day of shooting. Amoung the sources quoted in the article are “Depression Quest creator” Zoe Quinn. The concluding paragraphs of the article are about Zoe Quinn’s aspirations to run a game jam of her own. Again, there is no disclosure of the nature of Nathan Grayson’s involvement with the game or of his relationship with the developer. [9]
The next day, The domain name RebelGameJam.com is registered by Yavanna Kramer. Kramer is also registers MayaKramer.com. The latter directly links to a twitter for the Cuties Killing Video Games line of fashion items as seen worn by Zoe Quinn.
August 16, 2014 was the spark that lit the fire to the current situation.
Eron Gjoni, an independent programer published a six-part expose blog called The Zoe Post. In the posts, Gjoni details his relationship and break-up with Zoe Quinn. Gjoni outlines a pattern of abuse against him. And other actions in contrast with her public persona as a social activist in the indie game development scene. The post also reveals that, throughout their relationship, Quinn had had affairs with five different individuals in the games industry. Proof was shown by various pictures and screenshots. It would be revealed that four of these men worked in different areas of the video game industry and one was a journalist that worked for various video game journalism sites. Nathan Grayson. [10]
The next day, YouTube commentator and personality MundaneMatt, published a video about Gjoni’s post, highlighting the hypocrisy in games media and journalism, and questions the ethics in the games journalism industry and games industry. [11]
In the video, a static image appears in the background from Quinn’s game Depression Quest. The same image that was used in Graysons Admission Quest article, and was a promoted screen shot on Steam and the official games website. Quinn issues a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice on the video, alleging copyright infringement due to the use of a static screenshot. The video is taken down by Google and YouTube. [12]
KC Vidya Rants, a female game developer posts on her tumblr about the scandal. In it she accuses Quinn of hypocricy, creating a negative image for all current and future female game developers “with her actions”, and of having set back women in gaming. [13] KC Vidya would post this through her Disqus account on VICE, but is misidentified as male, and has her Disqus account deleted by VICE. [14]
Threads about The Zoe Post appear on various gaming related websites, but many are deleted or subject to heavy moderation.
On August 18 Internet Aristocrat releases a video titled Quinnspiracy Theory: The Five Guys Saga, the first of a series of “Quinnspiracy Theory” videos. The video discusses the ongoing scandal from The Zoe Post, the current state of video game journalism, and the suppression of the TFYC scandal on game news sites. [15]
KC Vidya Rants publishes another Tumblr post on the scandal and the ongoing censorship. [16]
Youtube commentator and video game critic John Bain aka Total Biscuit, makes a twitlonger post discussing The Zoe Post scandal. In it, he criticizes the use of DMCA requests to take down work that shows important issues, notes the confusion and already intense debate surrounding the scandal, and states “Games journalism as a whole has a massive nepotism problem, encouraged by the publishers and developers and actively partaken in by many outlets.” [17]
TotalBiscuit would later reveal that he had been called by various people online a “misogynist” and “nazi” for his statements [18]
On Auguest 19, GamesNosh, a UK based gaming website, is one of the first websites to publish an article on the scandal. The article, titled Depression Quest Dev (Zoe Quinn) Scandal; Exploiting Games Press for Coverage, mentions The Zoe Post, Total Biscuit’s twitlonger post, and Internet Aristrocrat’s Quinnspiracy Theory video. [19] Their web-host, however, blocks the article and asks them to retract the article. [20] People who were interested in reading the article, are only able to view it on The Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine, is a digital archive of websites that even hold the information of sites that have been lost or deleted. Zoe Quinn asks for contact information of The Wayback Machine and asks them to remove it from the archives. [21] The page is deleted, but the he article is later restored on GamesNosh.
TotalBiscuit’s twitlonger post is submitted to reddit.com on the /r/gaming subreddit. Moderators of /r/gaming end up deleting almost 25,000 comments in the thread to prevent discussion. [22] One of the /r/Gaming moderators stated that the mass deletions were to prevent “doxxing”. [23] The same moderator was revealed to have been in contact with Quinn. [24] Reddit users that were unable to speak in /r/gaming, go into related gaming subreddits such as /r/games, but moderaters would also delete comments relating to the scandal.
One moderator of /r/Games, XavierMendel, was removed from their position for protesting the censorship taking place on Reddit. XavierMendel gave an audio interview, and wrote two accounts, detailing the censorship on the /r/games subreddit between Aug 18 to the 22. XavierMendel also included a manual and automatic deletions, and mentioned the shadowbanning of users. [25]
Major gaming websites such as Gamespot, and NeoGAF begin to heavily moderate, edit, delete, and/or censor the subject of the controversy. [26] The Escapist remains one of the few gaming websites allowing open discussion on the controversy, only censoring the doxxing of personal information.
Reports of moderators on 4chan are also deleting threads related to the controversy, but the discussion is still quasi-permitted on the video games, or “/v/” board. [27]
Zoe Quinn’s social media accounts are allegedly hacked and her information doxxed by “4CHAN.ORG/V/”. Members on 4chan’s /v/ board and elseware are skeptical due to the use of a capitalized /V/ to describe the board. Investigation shows the posted information to be inaccurate and unrelated to Quinn. [28] 4chan archives the incident. [29]
Users on Steam are reportedly being banned from the Depression Quest forums after critiquing the game and Quinn. Steam cites the reason for the bans were given for abuse. [30]
On August 20, TechRaptor, a technology website, publishes the article Zoe Quinn and the Unfortunate State of the Gaming Industry. The article reports on the scandal, the practices in the games industry, and the censorship of people and gamers trying to discuss these issues online. [31]
Stephen Totilo, the editor-in-chief of Kotaku, issues a statement saying that the editorial board has found no evidence that Nathan Grayson was trading sex with Zoe Quinn for favorable coverage, but, also confirming that a romantic relationship had occurred between them. It was also stated that they believed no breaches of ethics occurred and no further action need be taken. [32]
Jon Jafari, also known as JonTron, a YouTube personality and game critic —tweets about his encounter with Quinn during the failed Polaris GAME_JAM, the current concerns about journalism, and the behavior of social justice proponents. [33] After JonTron links to a NSFW satirical comic on the scandal, Jontron receives a barrage of criticism. [34]
Depression Quest is revealed to be one of the selections for IndieCade’s Night Games event. [35] The Main Curator chair of IndieCade’s event is Robin Arnott, one of the people Gjoni and The Zoe Post alleges Quinn had an affair with. [36]
On August 21, Niche Gamer, a independent gaming website, publishes an article titled The Schism of Gaming – Zoe Quinn, Nepotism, and White Knight Journalism. The article covers the controversy, the corruption and hypocrisy among gaming journalists, the censorship at large, and the damage being done by pushing agendas. [37]
TFYC posts an interview video describing how Quinn tried to have their project shut down, and how one of her associates doxxed one of their members, which almost lead to their project getting completely shut down. [38]
In response, two boards on 4chan (/pol/ a politics board and /v/) propose donating to help fund TFYC’s GameJam. 4chan would help raise more than $23,000 for TFYC in under 4 days. [39] Because 4chan helped donate enough money, they unlocked an award to allow the creation of an original character for use in their game. The character is a female gamer character named Vivian James, who would also be an associated meme and quasi-mascot for #gamergate. [40]
TFYC also publishes a 4chan requested video on female video game developers. The video is about Roberta Williams, of Sierra games and the developer behind the games Mystery House and King’s Quest. [41]
On August 22, InternetAristocrat releases his second “Quinnspiracy Theory” video titled Quinnspiracy Theory: In-N-Out Edition. The video mentions how the controversy had a Streisand Effect due to the censorship, Kotaku and Rock Paper Shotgun’s bias during sex scandals, and discusses the Patreon donations made by various journalists to Quinn. [42]
The next day, Ben Kuchera, an editor for Polygon, is revealed to have been actively donating to Zoe Quinn’s Patreon fund since January 2014. [43] Kuchera also wrote a positive article in Polygon in May about Quinn based on her alleged online harassment in Dec 2013, which lead to her game being green-lighted on Steam. [44]
On August 24, The Fine Young Capitalists indiegogo crowed-funding page is hacked and changed to appear as if the campaign has been closed, and defaced with a video calling donaters “idiots”. TFYC restored their page and stated that no money was lost as a result of the hacking. [45]
On reddit.com, a new subreddit is created called KotakuInAction. It is made to avoid the ongoing censorship in other gaming subreddits.
It is also revealed that a slew of ethical breaches in gameing journalism sites have been discovered.
Despite Totilo’s and Kotaku’s previous statements, it is revealed that they have broken their own ethics policy. Patricia Hernandez had written multiple stories[ about Anna Anthropy, a video game developer of Drink andThe Hunt for Gay Planet and close friend of Hernandez. She does not disclose this to her editors durring her writings and publications. [46] Nathan Grayson is revealed to be friends with Robin Arnott. the game developer of Soundself. Grayson gave Soundself a favorable review, promoted Arnott’s work multiple times on Kotaku, and did not disclose his friendship with Arnott to his editors. [47]
Danielle Riendeau, a game journalist for Polygon is revealed to have appeared with Gone Home music composer Chris Remo on the IdleThumbs podcast, one week before Riendaeu gave Gone Home a 10/10 review on Polygon. It is also revealed that they are good friends. None of this is disclosed to the editors of Polygon. [48]
On August 25, Canadian feminist and blogger Anita Sarkeesian, and Feminist Frequency release their latest Tropes vs Women in Video Games episode. The episode claims that some video games sexually objectify women, and even promote necrophilia. In the clips used in the episode, it is stated that games use exotic dancer, and prostitutes to gain arousal of straight male gamers. The episode also claims that some games “capitalize on scenes of sexual violence… gleefully”. [49]
Viewers and gamers note that almost all the game clips in the episode were taken out of context. Videos are also made in response to show that the episode completely misrepresented the games shown. [50]
Many major video game news sites praise the new video, while censoring discussion of the video on forums, preventing any discussion on the episode. [51]
On August 26, Polygon editor in chief Chris Grant releases a statement, saying they have asked all staff to disclose any Patreon contribution they have made to developers. Polygon did not state that it found such donations constituted a conflict of interest. [52]
Stephen Totilo releases a similar statement on their stance towards Patreon donations from writers to Developers. Kotaku now regards this as a conflict of interest. [53]
On August 27, Anita Sarkeesian receives death threats on twitter from the twitter user “@kdobbsz”. [54] Sarkeesian tweets that she has received them on the Feminist Frequency twitter account, that she has notified authorities, and is leaving her home. [55]
Polygon’s sister site The Verge, reports on the threats, and ties the threats to the controversy with gaming journalism, despite no relation to it. [56]
A 4chan post is made proposing the idea of starting a mass consumer email campaign to advertising sponsors of journalism websites that have breached their ethics. [57]
Adam Baldwin, a film and television actor known for his roll as Jayne Cobb from Firefly and Serenity, posts links to the first two parts of Internet Aristocrat’s Quinnspiracy Theory videos on his twitter. He coins the hashtag “gamergate”.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GagFPnSG0j4
[2] http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-10-24-lost-humanity-18-a-table-of-doritos
[3] https://archive.is/F97fo#selection-1441.88-1441.106
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZWHUnFqPhg
[9] https://archive.is/0KhZv#selection-3447.206-3456.0
[10] https://thezoepost.wordpress.com
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5CXOafuTXM
[12] http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/815/645/df0.jpg
[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4bILqkO7DY
[17] http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1/
[18] https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/502127322942537728
[19] http://gamesnosh.com/zoe-quinn-scandal/
[20] https://twitter.com/GamesNosh/status/501743426111827969
[22] http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Timeline#cite_note-47
[23] http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2dzrlv/on_zoe_quinn_censorship_doxxing_and_general/
[24] http://i.imgur.com/0ZAaahT.png
[27] https://archive.moe/v/thread/258585323/
[28] https://i.imgur.com/pY1vpV2.jpg
[29] https://archive.moe/v/thread/258634035/#258646075
[30] http://i.imgur.com/VwHDs2Z.jpg
[31] http://techraptor.net/content/zoe-quinn-unfortunate-state-gaming-industry
[33] https://twitter.com/JonTronShow/status/502114636771373056 , https://twitter.com/JonTronShow/status/502116148713127936 , https://twitter.com/JonTronShow/status/502129398074839041
[34] https://twitter.com/JonTronShow/status/502259332206305280 , https://twitter.com/JonTronShow/status/502282187312353280
[35] http://www.indiecade.com/2013/festival_nightgames/
[36] http://www.indiecade.com/2013/festival_cochairs/
[37] http://nichegamer.com/2014/08/the-schism-of-gaming-zoe-quinn-nepotism-and-white-knight-journalism/
[38] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d6Q3VpqXyk
[39] http://gamesnosh.com/fine-young-capitalists-funded-4chans-aid/
[40] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/vivian-james
[41] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn7Q4XbWqvQ&list=UUhwoDCOjliin3x0Y_ShiGGw
[42] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgRo0Lyyd6Q
[44] http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/2ejs7v/gaming_journalists_patricia_hernandez_of_kotaku/
[46] http://talkingship.com/wp/2014/08/26/patricia-hernandez-anna-anthropy-kotaku-controversy/
[48] http://i.imgur.com/sDOjHhM.jpg
[49] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i_RPr9DwMA
