Redditors discuss Lia Thomas getting booed at the NCAA Women's Championship

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[–]LyingSpirit472 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I agree with you there, but the big difference is:

This is all kind of a moot point anyway since Zoe Quinn's game was free and the people who she supposedly "fucked for free publicity" would just have likely featured and written on it had they never met her.

No, they wouldn't have done it- because there's so many indie games out there that if there wasn't this controversy, pretty much no one would have heard of the game or the developer. It's a little different than real examples of the lack of ethics, like, for example- Gamespot firing people for giving Kane and Lynch a 6.8 because they were advertising it on their page at the time which are blatant.

This doesn't even hide the problem that incel logic was there as well, since the casting couch is a thing in all forms of entertainment. A person (and the person can be male or female here) trading their body to get ahead in their form of entertainment- be it featured acting roles, be it for a record deal or for airplays, be it for a patron for their artwork, what have you, is as old as there's been entertainment. If Quinn really did this, then the only difference is she'd be the first to do it to get a push in video games.

[–]alladd 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don't recall all the details but from what I remember didn't she have some personal connections to those game journalists already? So they were probably inclined to feature her if she was a friend.

But again it's kind of moot because it's a free game so it's like...I dunno, fighting like crabs in a bucket to get noticed is kind of just part and parcel of that level of game marketing. I don't fault anyone for fighting like hell to get some exposure as an indie when major studios buy up all the advertising and good will. Not that I think people should fuck for publicity, but I don't think she did that. I think she probably just leaned on them a bit and they went along with it because at that level ethics are extremely fuzzy. And it's the same in other industries. Patti Smith would review and promote bands she was personal friends with in major magazines and that's kinda why Television blew up. When you're broke there's no rules.

If anything, Quinn's success, to whatever extent she had any, is actually contradictory to the larger compromised media narrative Gamergaters were pushing. She definitely should have been ignored in favor of yet another AAA title if game companies had their way.

[–]LyingSpirit472 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Exactly, but ultimately that ties to the whole scandal as a whole- whether you use the incel viewpoint of "Quinn traded sex for good reviews for her game", or the more reasonable viewpoint you're saying of "Quinn had some game reviewer friends of hers review her game (and presumably give her good reviews because they're her friends)" - either way that is still a big conflict of interest and in any other form of journalism, the reviewer would absolutely have to disclose their personal relationship with someone if there is one in the review or before the review happened [and in many cases, the reviewer would be taken off reviewing the product if they have a personal connection to it.]

The only difference that makes Gamergate more important is- if it was as simple as realizing that, then it would have been a short issue, and it'd be forgotten about by now if it was just left as that. It was solely the same reviewers spinning it as "okay, got it, you hate women."- and it working- that led to the whole thing bombing.