Granted it was during a bleak period of my life when I was so reactionary. But my god, to think these goobers are still around today, still doing racism and sexism, just moving from target to target to take out the impotent rage on.
Just reminded of it today with the “discourse” of Yasuke being in Ass Creed and G*mers changing any woman not white and waifish with AI.
Okay, so, I’m old, and I was around when you’d ask your parents to buy Nintendo magazine so you could look for the cheat codes in the back. And here’s the thing about industry journalism. Not just gaming journalism, but all industry journalism; It’s propaganda. There’s never been any “ethics in gaming journalism” because it’s not journalism. It’s a captive propaganda program.
It was the most obivous tell that GG was always reactionary misogyny. People were upset about something that didn’t exist and never had, and they were brutalizing Zoe and Anita and countless others in a ruthless, misogynist, racist, reactionary mob attack.
If you’re accepting free copies of games, free travel, free accomodations, free hardware, gifts, swag bags, perks, bennies, bribes, you have no integrity as a journalist. You’re compromised. journalism is oppositional and antagonistic. Journalists are supposed to tear down the lies of the powerful and reveal the truth.
“games journalism” has always been industry boosting with no credibility. When that fucking asshole wrote a whole misogynist screed attacking his ex, when he set off this massive years long witch hunt, he wasn’t critiquing journalism. He just gave a huge amount of violent reactionaries a paper-thin excuse for engaging in misogynistic mob violence.