Indie games developer Zoe Quinn became the subject of major controversy, when her ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni made a blog-post on August 16 2014, revealing -among other things- that she had been romantically involved during the relationship with specific figures in the games industry.
As a result, Quinn was barraged with harassing comments on Twitter, while allegedly her personal information were also posted online; a practice known as "doxxing". The indie scene and a significant number of games journalists declared their support and denounced all harassing behaviour by the gaming community.
The controversy didn't end there, however, as the details of Quinn's indescretions caused concern in the community regarding issues of Conflict of Interest and integrity within Games Journalism. Out of five people Quinn was romantically involved with during her relationship with Gjoni, three of them have been in the position of boosting her career.
These three have been named by Gjoni as her boss Joshua Boggs, Robin Arnot, the IndieCade judge that awarded her game "Depression Quest", as well as freelance writer Nathan Grayson, who writes for Kotaku and Rock Paper Shotgun. Grayson's name received the most attention, as he had written pieces regarding Quinn herself, as well as her game.
It's of note that Quinn has yet to either confirm or deny the relationships, though Nathan Grayson has admitted to having an affair with the developer. Kotaku Editor-In-Chief Stephen Totilo has relayed via Twitter and Kotaku that he investigated the matter and Grayson's coverage of Quinn's work preceded the relationship. The available timeline seems to confirm the statement, while the idea of sexual favours for promotion and publicity have remained unconfirmed by all parties involved.
This was only the beginning of the community's outrage. The most prominent gaming news sites refused to cover the story, dismissing it as a "non-issue", while topics discussing it in forums such as Penny Arcade or Something Awful and Reddit were deleted en masse. Allegdly, Quinn herself had requested for some of these topics to be removed.
This coincided with a false DMCA claim on a Youtube video by MundaneMatt, on the grounds that the video included a screenshot from "Depression Quest". When other popular Youtube personalities, such as TotalBiscuit and JonTron spoke against the DMCA claim, they were met with hostility by the indie developer scene. The claim has since been released.
As the story grew more information came to light, such as a false harassment story that was run on a number of game news sites on December 2013, according to which Quinn had been harassed by the imageboard WizardChan. The new information suggested that the story was ran with insufficient evidence and WizardChan had not engaged in any kind of harassment, instead having become the victims themselves, as many responded to the news with hostility toward them.
When confronted about it, only The Escapist's Greg Tito responded, admitting to the poor fact-checking, but stating that protecting against harassment takes precedence to investigative journalism. The comments were met with disappointment and anger from the community and have since been retracted.
A related reveal led to claims by The Fine Young Capitalists (TFYC) that Quinn had sabotaged their IndieGoGo campaign for admitting more women in video game development. Tweets by Quinn reveal her taking issue with their use of the term "transgendered" and later accidentally, in her own words, DDOSing their page. Allegedly, Quinn's connection to the press kept the project out of media coverage.
More hacking and doxxing attempts have been made since the news broke out. One of Quinn's biggest supporters, "Fez" lead developer Phil Fish reported his company Polytron's site had been doxxed. A little over a day later, the IndieGoGo page for TFYC was taken down as well. Personal data that were revealed by the doxxing of Polytron have been confirmed as true, while IndieGoGo republished TFYC's campaign two days later. The attacks were signed by /V/, a mocking and like an effort at diverting attention to 4chan's /v/ board. The latter denies all responsibility.
Quinn has since posted a response on her personal blog to the harassment, maintaining her position that this is a private matter exposed by a vindictive ex-boyfriend and that is being exploited because of her gender and feminist leanings. Gjoni, on his side, has updated his own blog, claiming that there is a lot of nepotism and clique-mentality between the indie developer scene and games journalism that deeply affects their viability, claiming he wanted to "warn people about Zoe" and get a few discussions started in regards to the industry.
As of the time of writing, the majority of developers and journalists remain loyal to Quinn's position, taking to Twitter or their personal blogs, whereas other game celebrities like Jim Sterling and Totalbiscuit have attempted to maintain a neutral position. Similarly, the community remains faithful to its stance regarding journalistic integrity, which is fueled by revelation, such as the financial backing of Quinn's Game_Jam project by key journalists such as Ben Kuchera and Kirk Hamilton.
The inherently unverifiable nature of the collected evidence leads to the disporportionate split between developers/journalists and the gaming community, as they can neither be confirmed nor effectively disproven. As such, the facts remain truly known only to those involved and caution regarding allegations from all sides is advised.
UPDATE: Kotaku and Polygon have updated their policies regarding their writers and donations or support to game developers, with the former outright banning it, while the latter maintains that the writers need to disclose their related actions.
As a result, Quinn was barraged with harassing comments on Twitter, while allegedly her personal information were also posted online; a practice known as "doxxing". The indie scene and a significant number of games journalists declared their support and denounced all harassing behaviour by the gaming community.
The controversy didn't end there, however, as the details of Quinn's indescretions caused concern in the community regarding issues of Conflict of Interest and integrity within Games Journalism. Out of five people Quinn was romantically involved with during her relationship with Gjoni, three of them have been in the position of boosting her career.
These three have been named by Gjoni as her boss Joshua Boggs, Robin Arnot, the IndieCade judge that awarded her game "Depression Quest", as well as freelance writer Nathan Grayson, who writes for Kotaku and Rock Paper Shotgun. Grayson's name received the most attention, as he had written pieces regarding Quinn herself, as well as her game.
It's of note that Quinn has yet to either confirm or deny the relationships, though Nathan Grayson has admitted to having an affair with the developer. Kotaku Editor-In-Chief Stephen Totilo has relayed via Twitter and Kotaku that he investigated the matter and Grayson's coverage of Quinn's work preceded the relationship. The available timeline seems to confirm the statement, while the idea of sexual favours for promotion and publicity have remained unconfirmed by all parties involved.
This was only the beginning of the community's outrage. The most prominent gaming news sites refused to cover the story, dismissing it as a "non-issue", while topics discussing it in forums such as Penny Arcade or Something Awful and Reddit were deleted en masse. Allegdly, Quinn herself had requested for some of these topics to be removed.
This coincided with a false DMCA claim on a Youtube video by MundaneMatt, on the grounds that the video included a screenshot from "Depression Quest". When other popular Youtube personalities, such as TotalBiscuit and JonTron spoke against the DMCA claim, they were met with hostility by the indie developer scene. The claim has since been released.
As the story grew more information came to light, such as a false harassment story that was run on a number of game news sites on December 2013, according to which Quinn had been harassed by the imageboard WizardChan. The new information suggested that the story was ran with insufficient evidence and WizardChan had not engaged in any kind of harassment, instead having become the victims themselves, as many responded to the news with hostility toward them.
When confronted about it, only The Escapist's Greg Tito responded, admitting to the poor fact-checking, but stating that protecting against harassment takes precedence to investigative journalism. The comments were met with disappointment and anger from the community and have since been retracted.
A related reveal led to claims by The Fine Young Capitalists (TFYC) that Quinn had sabotaged their IndieGoGo campaign for admitting more women in video game development. Tweets by Quinn reveal her taking issue with their use of the term "transgendered" and later accidentally, in her own words, DDOSing their page. Allegedly, Quinn's connection to the press kept the project out of media coverage.
More hacking and doxxing attempts have been made since the news broke out. One of Quinn's biggest supporters, "Fez" lead developer Phil Fish reported his company Polytron's site had been doxxed. A little over a day later, the IndieGoGo page for TFYC was taken down as well. Personal data that were revealed by the doxxing of Polytron have been confirmed as true, while IndieGoGo republished TFYC's campaign two days later. The attacks were signed by /V/, a mocking and like an effort at diverting attention to 4chan's /v/ board. The latter denies all responsibility.
Quinn has since posted a response on her personal blog to the harassment, maintaining her position that this is a private matter exposed by a vindictive ex-boyfriend and that is being exploited because of her gender and feminist leanings. Gjoni, on his side, has updated his own blog, claiming that there is a lot of nepotism and clique-mentality between the indie developer scene and games journalism that deeply affects their viability, claiming he wanted to "warn people about Zoe" and get a few discussions started in regards to the industry.
As of the time of writing, the majority of developers and journalists remain loyal to Quinn's position, taking to Twitter or their personal blogs, whereas other game celebrities like Jim Sterling and Totalbiscuit have attempted to maintain a neutral position. Similarly, the community remains faithful to its stance regarding journalistic integrity, which is fueled by revelation, such as the financial backing of Quinn's Game_Jam project by key journalists such as Ben Kuchera and Kirk Hamilton.
The inherently unverifiable nature of the collected evidence leads to the disporportionate split between developers/journalists and the gaming community, as they can neither be confirmed nor effectively disproven. As such, the facts remain truly known only to those involved and caution regarding allegations from all sides is advised.
UPDATE: Kotaku and Polygon have updated their policies regarding their writers and donations or support to game developers, with the former outright banning it, while the latter maintains that the writers need to disclose their related actions.
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