Zoe Quinn: Why the Quinnspiracy is questionable
Zoe Quinn in person.
Note: I want to be extremely clear. This post is in no way an attack on Zoe Quinn on a personal level. We don’t represet misogyny, or repressive organizatons. What this post represents is an affront upon her ethics as a Game developer, and a public figure. Her responsibility as someone who cares about her position on gaming, and her relationships that have helped her to get to where she is now.
For the past week, I’ve read, and seen coverage on Zoe Quinn. If you don’t know who she is, I’ll fill you in on the spark notes version of her. Zoe Quinn is a indie game developer, who’s sparked a lot of controversy in the gaming community recently due to her relationships with certain people in the industry. These alleged relationships, have helped to boost her publicity, and helped to make her game Depression Quest sell very well on Steam.
The truth is, Zoe Quinn is a feminist, and due to her being backed in the feminist community by fellow journalists such as Anita Sarkeesian, and several others including Dina from Mighty no. 9, she’s been able to garner attention to her cause by destroying her opposition’s reputations and credibility. The worst part about this controversy is that she believes that her crusade isn’t endangering anyone, or their rights protected by the laws governing the freedom of speech, or the press.
Zoe Quinn´s game "Depression Quest".
But there’s an underlying issue that we have to face as Journalists, and gaming enthusiasts. In the last 10 years, corruption of the press, news media, and the printed news, have become the standard. Popular publications we all know and love, give games high praise, and ratings in return for ad revenue, and continued support of their efforts. But that’s not all we’re talking about today. Let’s get into what makes the Quinnspiracy so controversial, and how her ethics have smeared our belief in justice, and journalistic freedom.
The entire controversy started over her relationship with Nathan Grayson, who is a writer at Rockpapershotgun, and Kotauk. The relationship was exposed by her ex-boyfriend, in his blog dedicated to her infidelity, and desperation to cling to the fact that as a female game developer, she deserved respect and a sense of accomplishment for doing nothing at all. In fact Rock paper shotgun, and Kotaku came to her aid when she was being harassed by people in the social media communities.
When her relationship with Nathan Grayson was finally exposed, the two sheepishly admitted it, however Stephen Totilo, Kotaku’s Editor in Chief refused to comment about the situation until after he was off of a 3 week vacation. When he finally did address the situation he had this to say:
”On March 31, Nathan published the only Kotaku article he's written involving Zoe Quinn. It was about Game Jam, a failed reality show that Zoe and other developers were upset about being on. At the time, Nathan and Zoe were professional acquaintances. He quoted blog posts written by Zoe and others involved in the show. Shortly after that, in early April, Nathan and Zoe began a romantic relationship. He has not written about her since. Nathan never reviewed Zoe Quinn's game Depression Quest, let alone gave it a favorable review. Given the information available to us both from Nathan and all sources presented online, I have no reason to believe any further action need be taken. The situation is fraught for all involved, including our readers, whose trust is paramount; inquiry is always welcome.”
So much for the "fair and balanced" reviews...
Now to be fair, as an Editor in Chief you are the boss. If you have an employee who is misconducting themselves professionally around an associate of your online publication, it can cause problems. But why weren’t there any hard actions taken place to discourage this type of behavior among his other employees, especially after he talked about the “Information made available by BOTH Nathan, and all sources presented online.”
All one would have to do is take a look at Zoe, and Nathan’s social media pages to discover how they felt about the situation, and furthermore feel about their readers, and fans.
This shows us that Stephen Totilo is ok with Nathan Grayson, and Zoe Quinns relationship, which was going on longer than what was told. The reason why he’s ok with it, is that this controversy boosts visitors, and increases clicks per article, which increases revenue share. Zoe Quinn receives a publicity boost, and an ally to find a new job as a game developer.
When 6 internet communities (which normally hate each other) agree that there´s something rotten in the video game industry (read "Gaming journalism"). Then it's dead serious.
The biggest reason people are up in arms about their relationship is because Nathan Grayson didn’t recuse himself when they began to explore an acquaintance, or a romantic relationship. This would have put our doubts to rest on the issue of their intentions for our views, and reactions to the revelation.
What makes us question her ethics the most is the fact that her indie project "Rebel Jam" shares her personal Paypal account with her Paetron. How does she separate which funds are for what? She doesn’t, and that means she’s stealing from those who are supporters of her belief of a new project that will “eventually” happen. It wouldn’t be so bad if people weren’t being shunned into early retirement like Phil fish, who recently announced he was leaving the gaming world for personal reasons, and the safety of his family.
Phil Fish, another piece of the "Gaming scandal" puzzle?
The journalism world needs to take a step back, and explain itself. Why is it that we—the people have to listen to this constant dribble in politics, news media, and now even on the fifth estate?! I’ve seen some compare this situation to the Nixon Watergate scandal, and while I’ll say it’s not that dire, can we truly believe that there’s hope for the future of gaming and journalism? If there is, we need to start holding people accountable for their actions just as we do with murder, and some politicians.
In closing I will say this, if Zoe Quinn wants to earn true appreciation for her work she needs to do the following:
Stop being the victim of nothing
What I mean is that lots of people are discredited for their efforts, but they don’t stop. If women did this all over the world we’d have never seen their introduction to the military, or politics. The French revolution helped to re-invision what women’s roles were, and how important they were to the public, and the crown.
Now im not a mysoginist, in any way. But I will say this, when a woman screams she’s a victim especially in the workplace she receives attention, justice, and most of the time money. When a man does it, he gets a pat on the back, and an “It’ll get better” speech. In fact many men are afraid to report sexual assaults by women due to fear of embarrassment. However by her own definition in The Zoe Post, she sexually assaulted her ex-boyfriend, and doesn’t regret it.
Create something people want
I don’t even have to say it out loud, who would want to play Depression Quest?! For namesake alone, it doesn’t sound appealing, nor does it make sense to “raise awareness,” for suicide victims. If she really wanted to raise awareness to a cause such as depression, she could have created a story arch for the game, or even a cutscene with a real phone number. Or gone the old fashioned way, and simply donated to the cause itself.
Make love not war
After this scandal exposed almost a week ago, Zoe has launched a crusade, against anyone who tries to debunk her claims about her victimization. She’s caused people who have social media pages to become banned, reddit visitors comments to be whited out, and even had them fired from their jobs for talking about the situation.
For someone who doesn’t want to make waves, it sure does look as if a tsunami is crashing toward anyone who has an opinion of this situation. The goal of this post wasn’t to launch a social attack on Zoe Quinn, but to expose her for what she truly is: a misjudged game developer, who made bad choices for her career.
If she intends to continue this trend, only ruin will result, and she won’t be able to establish relationships that will be lucrative, and promotional to her growth within the industry. In essence she’ll become lost to the sea until a new fish is caught upon the hook of a gaming studio.
