John "TotalBiscuit" Bain - Salon.com knows nothing about gaming and that should surprise nobody lyrics

As you are probably aware, Salon.com, a website infamous enough to have a popular parody twitter account, has decided to trot out the good old "Gamergate doesn't care about the Shadow of Mordor controversy so they don't care about ethics" remark. Unfortunately, in order for them to make that argument that would require them to actually know what they are talking about. Sadly for them, I do know what I'm talking about. Let's break down the statement they made shall we? "As I wrote last month, there is a serious ethics problem in video game journalism and the industry does need reforms. The latest example of this is the paid branding for the popular “Lord of the Rings” game “Shadow of Mordor,” " Alright so the first problem with that statement is that it has nothing to do with games journalism. This latest controversy centers around 3 key things. Youtubers, who primarily consist of Lets Play-creating entertainers, PR firms, specifically the company Plaid Social and the publisher of the game Warner Bros. I'm not sure why people keep trying to tie this to games journalism. Games journalism is something that barely exists on Youtube and those involved in the Mordor brand deal were certainly not part of games journalism in any way. Trying to claim that Lets Players are journalists is intellectually dishonest, or simply downright ignorant of how Youtube works. It's a problem I've found with traditional media quite frequently, they simply "don't get" Youtube. They don't understand the notion that you can be very popular and very successful on Youtube without providing a single cogent opinion. It is new media after all and old media tends to have a difficult time understanding that. So when one points to the Shadow of Mordor brand deal as an "ethics problem in games journalism", they are factually incorrect. "where the publisher only allowed YouTubers who offered praise for the game to receive early review copies. Giving small-ball independent reviewers free copies of a $60 game if they offered it praise seems like a very clear and serious case of corruption." Here we have another example of the article having no idea what it's talking about. We can ignore the "Small ball" snark, particularly when most of these people are certainly better paid than the writer of this article and we can focus on one word, "reviewer". We see the word "review copy" used. I can forgive that, review copy is common nomenclature referring to any early access copy regardless of purpose for the most part, however I take issue with the idea that the game was given to "independent reviewers". Reviewer is a specific job. For those who do not know here is the commonly accepted definition: "a person who writes critical appraisals of books, plays, movies, etc., for publication. synonyms: critic, commentator, judge, observer, pundit, an*lyst "a restaurant reviewer for the local paper"" There are reviewers on Youtube certainly, but if you go through a list of those involved in the deal, you're not going to find them. A cursory glance at Youtube reveals some of those involved in the deal, as well as my knowledge of internal discussion within the Polaris Skype Group (SICKENING NEPOTISM, oh no wait those are my literal colleagues, we work for the same company, I don't ask my competition for advice or let them influence my business decisions because that's dumb). Pewdiepie - Lets Player/Comedian, Not a reviewer Ohmwrecker - Lets Player, Not a reviewer Cryaotic - Lets Player, Not a reviewer GoldGloveTV - Streamer, not a reviewer. boogie2988 - Commentator and vlogger, Not a reviewer. iijeriichoii - Lets Player, Not a reviewer LevelCapGaming - FPS expert, commentator, Not a reviewer jahovaswitness - Lets Player, Not a reviewer. Ali-A - "Your number one source for Call of Duty News", Not a reviewer Those are the ones I know about off hand. I do not know of a single actual reviewer on Youtube that took this deal and I do know a decent number of them. The only person that I know of that was able to get a video out on that day who is anything close to a reviewer (specifically a critic) was me and I didn't do it by accepting a brand deal. There aren't that many Youtube reviewers of any real standing, it's a difficult scene to break into with any real success. It is certainly possible that it happened but I've yet to find any evidence of it and the most prominent people involved in this campaign were not games reviewers. When you discuss the topic of journalistic ethics within games media, one would imagine that you would want to target people who are actually journalists. I certainly do not accuse Conan O'Brien of corruption when he does his "Clueless Gamer" pieces even though these are obviously sponsored, because he is a talk show host, not a games reviewer. I ask you, what does this have to do with journalistic ethics again? As if that weren't enough. Salon.com again demonstrates it has no idea what it's talking about by claiming that people received free copies in return for positive praise. A free copy of a video-game is nothing to a gaming Youtuber. We are inundated with them, free games are paperwork at this point. If we have to buy them they are tax-writeoffs, it is of no concern to anyone other than the smallest channel. The actual deal was compensated, because that's what brand deals are, advertising. Generally you pay for advertising. The article undermines it's own point by painting the situation as a bunch of small-time clueless kids being bribed with videogames and sweeties, then somehow claiming that is a serious journalistic ethical violation, not realising the absurdity of that scenario. "But there were no organized boycotts or campaigns against the game's producers, Monolith Productions and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The scandal came and went. One YouTube gamer made a satirical video trying to highlight the issue. As of this writing, it has 79 views. Which highlights a core problem with the movement: When a legitimate corruption scandal not involving women, or feminism, or any real misogynist angle arises, it's more or less ignored. It seems to be deemed not exciting enough to raise Gamergate's hackles." And here we come to the core of the matter. Completely inaccurate reporting by Salon.com. The scandal came and went they said. Oh did it? Well if they'd done even a little investigation, they'd have found out the following. 1) The scandal was uncovered and revealed by me, a Youtuber who believes in the core ideals of Gamergate, "I condemn hara**ment, I support women in gaming, I am against biased and corrupt games journalism". 2) After only one or two traditional games media sites showed any interest in covering it, I pa**ed information along to Jim Sterling to set him up to do a Jimquisition on the matter. This included all of the contract terms that I had uncovered in the course of my investigation. In short, I am his source. Why did I do this? Because I unfortunately know how games media works and how oblivious a lot of them seem to be to the Youtube space which has so rapidly grown past them in terms of size and influence. I knew that in order to blow this thing up in traditional games media, I would need a traditional games media person to do it. What better person than Jim? He has one foot in either camp and a lot of experience in the industry. Unsurprisingly, after his Jimquisition went up on the subject, games media sites mysteriously started picking up on it. Imagine that! Kotaku, Forbes, VG247, Cinemablend, Gamerheadlines, MCVUK and so many more. They will listen to the man with the website, naturally. 3) After exposing this deal and putting my own future dealings with Warner Bros PR at risk by doing so, the issue was in fact resolved. I have now seen copies of updated Plaid Social agreements in which the problematic terms have been removed. Why is there no ongoing scandal? Because it got fixed, that's why. Plaid Social were caught in the act, exposed and revised their contracts. This of course, should have been the job of games journalists, but had Youtubers not been transparent, they'd have never even known about it. 4) A minor point. Hilariously, Internet Arisocrat created a video satirising the whole Mordor situation, but since he is a horrible monster according to some, his video was obviously ignored in favour of the 79 view video the writer somehow managed to dig up. Well on the bright side at least that guy gets a few extra views. IAs video has 54,000 views. 5) GAMERGATE DIDNT TALK ABOUT IT. Oh no wait, KotakuInAction was full of posts about it, my bad. It was discussed regardless of it not having anything to really do with games journalism, because hey it turns out that people interested in Gamergate are interested in ethics within the industry, even if they aren't directly linked to games journalism. In conclusion, the scandal did not "come and go". A bunch of us did our jobs like we were supposed to, abided by ethical standards, called out a shady deal that frankly was hurting traditional games press far more than it was Youtubers and got the contract terms changed to make sure it doesn't happen again. This of course you would know, if you had actually asked anyone involved in it or done even the slightest shred of research, but I suppose that's too much to ask of a journalist these days. Let's play hypotheticals for a second (Sponsored by Plaid Social and Dennys), let's a**ume that everything you just said was true. You flagrantly ignored a vital point and that's the idea of disclosure. Youtubers are bound by FTC regulations to disclose sponsored content and they do. When they don't, they are called out by their audiences, their networks and other Youtubers for doing it, because guess what, if you act that way you make everyone look bad. Youtubers who are seen as bought and paid for are abandoned in a highly competitive space where only 1 in every 100,000 people that try even see a shred of revenue. Disclosure is a key demand of those involved with the Gamergate scandal, because it began with a lack of discosure. As a direct result, sites have revamped their ethics codes and prominent disclosures are starting to pop up everywhere. Kotaku retroactively disclosed articles written by Patricia Hernandez, Destructoid retroactively disclosed a Borderlands review after it failed to mention their relationship to ex-staffer Anthony Burch. The Escapist disclosed connections to 2K, Gamespot disclosed connections with Joe Fielder, their former site director now working on the title "The Black Glove". These all happened either as a direct result of or in correlation with the ongoing Gamergate discussion. The retroactive disclosures prove two things: 1) These sites have accepted that they did not properly disclose their relationships in these circumstances 2) If this wasn't about ethics, we wouldn't be seeing updates to ethics policies and widespread disclosure, both retroactive and ongoing. See, Youtubers have been dealing with the disclosure thing for a while now. Every branded contract I have ever seen with the exception of the infamous XB1M13 controversy (which Youtubers widely called out and put far more eyeballs on than any traditional games press did), have specific, explicit clauses that require full compliance with FTC disclosure regulations. Failure to do this results in breach and the possibility of civil action. Long story short, we are a very young industry and yet it seems we have our house in pretty good order. We have some way to go but we're actively working to get there. Even so, most of us aren't journalists, yet we accept the responsibility that we still put the consumer first regardless. When some journalists are for some reason ok with writing about their friends and not at the very least telling their audience about it or better yet, recusing themselves entirely from even writing such an article in the first place, then they are failing the consumer. They are lying by omission. Their writing is naturally coloured and biased, yet they do not publicly disclose that this is the case. That, is the core problem, at least to me. But hey, I'm just one voice with one set of opinions. I guess we could have blamed misogyny and thrown a temper tantrum on our blogs instead. After all, we have learned so much from the PR failures of our aged and progressively less relevant old media counterparts. When Youtubers are accused of ethical violations, regardless of not even being journalists, they respond to their critics and provide transparency. When games media was accused of ethical violations, it circled its wagons and screamed misogyny from the rooftops as if these women who had been unjustly hara**ed and threatened were a shield for them to hide behind. I'd call it craven cowardice but these days I can't tell the difference between that and serial dishonesty, it seems so rife on the internet. Take your pick. I guess if you need a provocative title and incendiary language to get your clicks, you haven't earned the respect of your audience. Now I think I know why. Forgive me, I believe in discourse and dialogue to bring this to an end. However it is clear that certain hack writers have no interest in it and would rather use their platform to peddle lies. I'll continue to engage in constructive dialogue wherever possible, but in this instance I'd just like to call out an inexperienced writer in this field who should have asked a professional what was going on before he put finger to key.