Comment Re:I don't get the rage (Score 1) 239
In the grander scheme of things, it's not that important, it is what got the ball rolling though. Again, people were generally suspicious about the nepotism and cronyism, but there never was any solid proof. Even the firing of Jeff Gerstmann, people knew that it was probably due to pressure for the bad review, but there wasn't proof of anything, and certainly no names to attach to it, just two very large companies.
This time, it's different. There's names, there's evidence, there's clear indications that from some, they've been participating in some very dubious ethical practice. There's clear examples of a general antipathy from game 'journalists' towards their readers (many 'gamers are dead' articles in a few hours). The point is, to deny that Quinn did anything wrong, would basically admit that GamerGate is a beat up over nothing. It became a lot bigger than Quinn, but don't forget, it wasn't just the relationships she had, she also concocted that there was a harassment campaign against her last year, after her game didn't get greenlit. Because it followed the narrative many of these 'journalists' want to hear, they didn't do any basic fact checking, just took her word for it, and she reaped massive publicity for it.
I don't think it's character assassination, but if you do, you should have a look at what happened to Max Tempkin and Brad Wardell. They were accused of rape, and the 'journalists' had a field day defaming and character assassinating them without a shred of evidence, just an allegation. Now, they've all found their morals when one of their own (i.e. self styled social justice warrior [yes Quinn called herself that iirc]) got some unwanted attention that was very damaging to the movement because of the incestuous relationships in the industry. The logs from the gamejournopros list proved that they had absolutely no intention of covering it. They didn't, they banned discussion, banned people who mentioned anything. Certainly haven't apologised when they defamed others though, they just went back and tried to quietly sanitise their articles. That's why GamerGate is all about journalistic integrity and ethics; the 'journalists' have clearly demonstrated that they are unrepentant and unapologetic about not having any.