I'd like to take this opportunity to address what I view as slander from James Portnow of Extra Credits at his MAGfest panel. During his panel he was questioned about Gamergate, during which he made some statements which were questionable and one in particular that is flat out factually false. I would like to exercise my right of reply and make sure that people know the truth. This is not the first time Extra Credits has tripped up due to lack of research, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and a**ume ignorance rather than malice.
During his panel, James stated that I was a "leader of Gamergate". I would like to know exactly what constitutes this. Does a leader set an agenda for a group? One imagines they have to be involved in that group, perhaps the hashtag, they have to give out orders and objectives. Can you prove that I have done any of these things? Indeed if I recall correctly I have used the hashtag twice, once in a Thunderclap and once in a purely descriptive context regarding Blizzcon. At no point have I ever engaged with the hashtag or had conversations within it, not that that's a sin in any way even if I had. Have I declared myself a leader of this, thing.. whatever it might be? Absolutely not, indeed I've stated in several occasions that it appears leaderless by necessity, due to the very attempts at character a**a**ination that we see levied at any and all with any prominence that would dare speak up for the people (yes, a reminder that these are people not subhumans you get to bully) involved and suggest that maybe, they actually have a point and you should engage them like adults while freezing out trolls and 3rd party bad actors. So the claim that I am a leader of anything other than my own channel is spurious at best, you can quibble over it but I have never declared it, nor ever attempted to mobilize this hashtag or this movement in any way for any specific goal.
The very idea that I am a leader of a movement that I go out of my way to avoid mentioning at every possible opportunity is ridiculous. He talks of deflection and yet that's exactly what I see, the attempt to deflect the legitimate discussion of ethical concerns in this industry, a discussion I've been having since at LEAST 2011 and focus on the actions of bad actors and 3rd party trolls instead. It is a fruitless completely unconstructive notion and I reject it's validity.
Now we go onto the actual falsehood. James makes the outrageous claim that I was paid $20,000 to endorse the game Guns of Icarus. He sources for this an article on Gamasutra written by Howard Tsao of Muse games which can be found here.
Unfortunately, nowhere in this article is a dollar amount for this promotional deal ever mentioned, so this number is literally pulled from thin air. The $ amounts, none of which are the number James gave out, are for total sales, sales over a specific 2 week period and sales after one video. This number is a lie. It is grossly exaggerated vs what those involved in the deal were actually paid and I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he didn't do it to try and make us look bad by picking a huge number to shock the audience. I imagine some people would do that but I'd like to think James is a better person.
Now onto the "endorsement" claim. At no point was any endorsement given to Guns of Icarus by myself. The deal was simple, be involved in a "celebrity d**hmatch" style tournament which would be shot from multiple angles, the purpose of which was to raise awareness of the title. This is native advertising, clearly disclosed native advertising in which Youtubers are compensated for their time to play a game. Opinions are not stated about the game at any point, it is live gameplay which for the most point involved shouting at our teammates and little more than that. Does that constitute endorsement? To me, endorsement requires opinion, a specific statement of support. This was never given. Indeed the first Guns of Icarus brand deal took place after my independent a**essment of the title. We were asked to play in their tournament only after we'd already come to a conclusion about the game, where no money was ever involved. A weak claim can be made that it is endorsement by a**ociation, but as we've seen over the last 6 months, "by a**ociation" has become synonymous with "I can't actually criticise you for anything valid so I'm going to tie you to someone else and claim you are responsible for their actions". I reject this as fallacy.
I will however admit some fault in that our disclosure of this deal was initially inconsistent and in the wrong places. Disclosure on Youtube has vastly improved this year, after the discussion in early 2014 which I not only fully cooperated with but admitted I could have done much better and enhanced my disclosure to be absolutely unavoidable as a result. Previously disclosure was given on things like twitter, podcasts and to be found in potentially missable annotations and in the description of the video. As it stands all the promotional videos on our channel are unavoidably disclosed, its impossible to miss. Our hub channel Polaris also suffered a similar issue and has since enhanced disclosure, not that I have any control over what they do.
If James honestly thinks that a disclosed Youtuber tournament is a far larger ethical concern than the various conflicts of interests and distinct lack of disclosure in several proven instances then while he is entitled to his opinion I am also entitled to call it grossly misguided. James shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the roles of Youtubers, the number of hats we where, the fact that we are not traditional journalists (though that certainly does not stop us abiding by the disclosure rules that so many sites seem to conveniently forget every now and again). While traditional outlets claim to have a wall between editorial and advertisement wings, Youtubers are often solo operators. Games sites promote titles constantly with huge site skins and ads. Sites like PCGamer have and continue to write advertorial content (disclosed). Sites such as Kotaku frequently use affiliate links for which they receive a small kickback for each game sold, which naturally includes games that have either been reviewed on the site or advertising on the pages themselves. These are all fine, if properly disclosed. What Youtubers are doing with advertorial is no different, it just happens to be a much newer, more innovative form which conveniently, at least in the case of these tournaments which I've been involved in, avoids the need to state any opinion or give any endorsement to the title and produces enjoyable content for our viewers. It's a win/win, it's ethical (when properly disclosed) and it works, which is why some companies are choosing to do it.
I am extremely disappointed in James' poorly researched argument. I expect better of him and the Extra Creditz team. It's another knife in the back from a person that we a**isted and promoted in the past and at this point thats ceasing to become a surprise every time it happens.