[Note: The below was emailed to many people in media, including Jim Spanfeller, Stephen Totilo’s boss.]
Mr. Spanfeller, in 2015 a writer who now works for you, Nathan Grayson, wrote a piece in which he complained about the bad user reviews a documentary called GameLoading was receiving on the video game digital storefront called Steam: https://kotaku.com/steam-review-bombing-is-a-problem-1701088582
What Grayson completely failed to mention was that he personally took part in the making of GameLoading in May 2014, as he was filmed during production when the makers were shooting footage in San Francisco, as mentioned here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studiobento/gameloading-rise-of-the-indies/posts/920791 (“After Toronto we headed to San Francisco where we further filmed Depression Quest developer Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson as they work-shopped their next game.”)The Kickstarter post links to Facebook photos that were taken during the San Francisco filming, and in this one here, https://www.facebook.com/gameloadingtv/photos/a.599326956854355/599328353520882, you can indeed see Nathan Grayson sitting to the left of his then-girlfriend Zoe Quinn, and Cam Matheson, the camera operator during the San Francisco filming.
Now, that right there ought to be enough to spell GameOver for Grayson’s career(a decade ago it would have been). But it gets better.
Grayson’s then and current editor, Stephen Totilo, said Grayon and Quinn began a relationship in early April 2014(https://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346). Grayson later that year denied any involvement in Quinn’s game Depression Quest, (http://archive.ph/Shasc: “also, re: the weird notion that I was a “beta tester,” I was not. tried a tiny, super early build of dq once. never worked on the game”), despite the reference to the two of them work shopping a game in the Kickstarter post above. Depression Quest was released by Quinn in August of 2014, after the Game Loading filming of her and Grayson’s collaboration in May 2014. (GameLoading’s Twitter account helped me pin down the date of the San Francisco filming of Grayson and Quinn, which occurred around 05/23/2014: see http://archive.is/QFEon, http://archive.is/MKctL, and http://archive.is/icR1d. The filming was embarrassing to Grayson even at the time: http://archive.is/KP1WJ).
Now Grayson has always presented himself as a Member of the Press who reports on The Video Game Industry and maintains Professional Distance from Game Developers, as he did here: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sdbke3. In May of 2014 he was still writing full time for another website called RockPaperShotgun while writing part time for Kotaku, becoming a full time Gawker employee at Kotaku in July 2014(https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/07/23/love-you-all/; “While working at RPS, I’ve had relationships end catastrophically…”).
A “Reporter”(Grayson’s official title) does not moonlight in the industry he covers, not with his girlfriend, not with anyone. Full fucking stop.
It might seem stupid for Grayson to write anything about GameLoading, ever, after his relationship with Quinn was made public in August 2014, but keep in mind the GameLoading makers have fucking film footage that’s incriminating for Grayson. So it would seem prudent for Grayson in 2015 to stay on their good side. The GameLoading Twitter account retweeted and liked a tweet saying not to trust Steam reviews(https://twitter.com/indiegamemag/status/591194939964395520, http://archive.is/PbNZa#selection-7979.0-7979.85) six days before Grayson’s article, so you can bet that they were asking for his help. And as Lester Francois, the documentary director himself says in Grayson’s article, GameLoading needed all the exposure it could get(“We are working with a tiny budget and to have that kind of exposure is priceless.” Said Kotaku article also conveniently fails to mention that a Steam user must own and use the digital product in question to write a review, making it no worse than any other user review system: http://archive.is/31Gii. At the time of the article, there was no refund policy. ) If you were to suffer through GameLoading, you would find that all footage of Grayson has been scrubbed, so needless to say he and the filmmakers have some kind of understanding.
But they still have the footage, which means they have kompromat on a writer at Kotaku, Nathan Grayson. Worse, Grayson has been in charge of all Kotaku coverage of Steam, a section called Steamed. For the past five years he has waged a campaign against Steam and the private company that runs it, Valve, like a loyal attack poodle(https://kotaku.com/the-state-of-pc-gaming-in-2019-1840241716). Wailing about the refund policy, demanding Valve ban indie games that aren’t part of the GameLoading clique from Steam, railing against Steam user reviews(the same ones that gave GameLoading a drubbing, and still give drubbings to games made by developers the GameLoading makers are friends with), and promoting a rival digital storefront called the Epic Games Store.
The GameLoading folks were already doing PR for indie game developers with their unwatchable documentary, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve become the go-to people for getting your game mentioned on Kotaku. Especially if Totilo is aware of the footage, and also doesn’t want it becoming public. If you were to check GameLoading’s Twitter account, you would see every game they promoted has also been plugged on Kotaku. (Evidence of GameLoading’s involvement with Kotaku and the indie game scene: http://archive.is/aFu1j and http://archive.is/owPeG. Former Kotaku writer Kirk Hamilton has admitted that he’s asked other Kotaku staff to write articles about his friends’ games, so clearly indie developers who know Kotaku writers are the ones who get coverage: http://archive.is/m00nY#selection-2549.0-2549.558. Imagine if you had leverage on one of them.)
And to use a more au courant phase than the now dated kompromat, Grayson interaction with the GameLoading filmmakers in the first place reeks of quid pro quo. I.E. getting his then-girlfriend Zoe Quinn more footage in the film (if not all her footage), via a promise to give GameLoading free publicity by mentioning it in video game media like Kotaku. Which it was. By Nathan Grayson. The year after Grayson and Quinn were filmed during the making of GameLoading. Cui bono?
Kotaku is supposed to be a serious journalistic enterprise(it isn’t, but bear with me here), and when you factor in how many in the mainstream press have run defence for Grayson, and how long he’s gotten away with his deception, you have a case of journalistic fraud easily dwarfing that of even Glass, Blair, Lehrer, Claas Relotius, Laura Foreman, or Ali Watkins.
For bonus hypocrisy, I should point out that the Kotaku staff has become increasingly extreme over the years. If it were not their website that was implicated, they would argue that Quinn could not consent to Grayon’s advances, because he could theoretically retaliate against her as a member of the games media, and hence Grayson is a sexual harasser or rapist or what have you. I don’t endorse this crap, I’m simply pointing out their beliefs, see https://kotaku.com/polygon-parts-ways-with-nick-robinson-following-twitter-1797735272. However, it is fair game to point out that if Grayson really did sleep with her just days after writing about her for Kotaku, as Totilo claims, it’s safe to assume the he used his Kotaku article as part of his courtship strategy. In other words, “Access Journalism”. In fact, he wrote about her in 2012, being sure to slip in “especially smart (and attractive)” adjectives(https://archive.is/WtK25#selection-421.354-421.387). Smooth.
[An aside to Nathan Grayson here. Nathan, I tracked down Cam Matheson, the Aussie gun for hire who did the actual filming of you for GameLoading. Remember him? His website is [Redacted] and his email is [Redacted] . Cam is not part of your clique, he’s just a friend of your friends, the GameLoading makers. Plus he’s a working photojournalist. I don’t think he’d be willing to risk his professional reputation by lying to protect you. If your editor was worth a damn, he’d get in touch with Matheson, and he’d compare your story about your involvement with GameLoading to his. Cam probably even keeps copies of all the footage he shoots, timecodes and everything, for his own reference and education. And again, if your editor was worth a damn, he’d ask to see the GameLoading footage of you, and find out exactly why you didn’t want it coming to light. But your editor is Stephen Totilo, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.
But since you were so stung by the bad user reviews of GameLoading from people who had the gall to not like what they paid money for, I’ll tell you this: If you can convince your friends to release a director’s cut of GameLoading with the footage of you and Quinn included, the footage you thought your bosses would never find out about, I’ll give that shit a glowing review on Steam.
Also on Twitter you once exclaimed “also, google ‘nathan grayson depression quest review.’ if you find anything, congratulations, you live in an alternate dimension”(https://twitter.com/vahn16/status/501650041736396801). Well, that KickStarter post for GameLoading includes all five of those terms, so congratulations, you dropped the dime on yourself Mr. Ace Reporter. But thanks for the tip off ace.
Speaking of not so bright things you’ve said on Twitter, you tweeted that “zoe and I hardly knew each other back then”(https://twitter.com/Vahn16/status/501779165117300736) in reference to an article written in January of 2014. I’d love to hear your explanation for all your tweets listed here: http://archive.is/RjrqC. Like the one in which you tweeted to Zoe that you would burn down the gaming industry for her, the day after you wrote an article mentioning her game. Or the one from 2012 where you tweeted at her saying “So, after a fantastic chat with @ZoeQuinnzel, I find out she’s leaving the city tonight. GOOD JOB, SAN FRANCISCO. I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY”. Or the one from 2013 in which you tweeted “In other news, I’ve become a “listen to @ZoeQuinnzel because she’s saying important shit” Twitter bot. So yeah. Bleep motherfucking bloop”(https://twitter.com/Vahn16/status/411239139183300608).
Or most interesting of all, the one in which you offered to be a consultant on a game about social anxiety Quinn was pondering(http://archive.ph/bZ3Fk). Because the 2014 Kickstarter post that kicked off this email mentions “Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson as they work-shopped their next game”, which to me sounds like you two had been collaborating for some time, even prior to your article from March 31st, 2014 that featured her prominently. Quinn hadn’t declared that her personal pronouns were “they/them” yet, so I think the “they” in that sentence refers to the two of you. And you sure as shit already had plans to go to Vegas with Quinn prior to your 03/31/14 article(http://archive.is/7V9OH, http://archive.is/LpUuY, and already making plans to collaborate on a “gonzo game zine” too). You two were obviously getting lovey dovey with each other prior to your 03/31/14 article about her(http://archive.is/DgC9f, http://archive.is/t56H4, http://archive.is/6uznU).
You also called Quinn “A very good friend of mine”(http://archive.is/h24XB#selection-2437.412-2437.644) in the comments of another Kotaku post, two days after you wrote about her for your Game Jam article.
In the 04/02/14 post itself you wrote: “…my hope is totell you more or less everything that happens to me in this bizarre, oftentimes dysfunctional industry. And I really do mean everything — not just the stuff that drips out in press releases or gets spoonfed to journos by publishers at events. My aim is to read between the lines of those things, to break down all the weirdconflicts of interest, probably implicate myself in the process (no one is perfect; definitely not me) … If you want the pretty version of the gaming industry, probably go elsewhere.” (http://archive.is/h24XB#selection-917.0-921.458).
The title of that post is “TMI”. You’ve certainly implicated yourself, but we haven’t gotten too much information from you, just a lot of lies. But if you want to come clean and tell us about all your conflicts of interest, and Kotaku’s, and all of gaming media’s, we’re all ears. I think we’re entitled to some answers. For example, how was Quinn already so familiar with your sleeping habits, two days after you wrote about her(http://archive.is/6uznU#selection-6691.1-6691.19)?]
So Jim, now that I’m done with Grayson, let me turn to his editor, Stephen Totilo. Months before Grayson wrote about GameLoading, Totilo issued a statement(http://archive.is/PQ9EM) in which he said “We’ve long been wary of the potential undue influence of corporate gaming on games reporting, and we’ve taken many actions to guard against it. The last week has been, if nothing else, a good warning to all of us about the pitfalls of cliquishness in the indie dev scene[by the way the subtitle of GameLoading is “Rise of the Indies”] and among the reporters who cover it. We’ve absorbed those lessons and assure you that, moving ahead, we’ll err on the side of consistent transparency on that front, too.”
In a rather opaque, non-transparent manner, Totilo didn’t explain what caused his supposed Come to Jesus moment in his statement about transparency, so I’ll have to do it for him. He issued that statement because another one of his writers, Patricia Hernandez, was caught writing about the games of people she knew personally on Kotaku. See https://medium.com/@Jasperge107/a-profile-of-patricia-hernandez-e4043fb4ed2d. It was so bad, Patricia had to do a “sweep” of all her articles to add disclosures(https://archive.is/3Hg1Z#selection-3935.2-3935.102). By the way, Patricia did exactly what everyone loves to proclaim Grayson didn’t do, namely giving publicity to games made by her sexual partners/housemates(see https://archive.is/oOli9 and https://archive.is/iazOv). And as Kirk Hamilton noted, there are thousands of competitors to the games Patricia gave free publicity to, so her and her editor’s argument for coincidence is horseshit.
Totilo’s statement about Patricia came after he already said, with respect to Grayson and Quinn: “My standard has long been this: reporters who are in any way close to people they might report on should recuse themselves from reporting about those with whom their close. If they must report about them, disclosure is mandatory. Readers deserve that.” (https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/501817475097702402 and https://twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/501817735509471232). So he’s a shit editor who can’t explain his supposed standards to his underlings.
As for Kotaku’s standards, and Totilo’s claim that “We’ve long been wary of the potential undue influence of corporate gaming on games reporting”: Totilo is the guy who, in 2012, just utterly fucking annihilated the trolls who think video game reporting is corrupt with an article defiantly titled “The Contemptible Games Journalist: Why So Many People Don’t Trust The Gaming Press (And Why They’re Sometimes Wrong)”: https://kotaku.com/the-contemptible-games-journalist-why-so-many-people-d-5957810. Another choice quote from that article: “A games reporter who hasn’t at some point in their career reported about some sort of games journalism fiasco — some moment of suspect behavior by their peers — is like a reporter in Anchorage who hasn’t found an opportunity yet to mention the snow.”
In his weak defence of game journalism, Totilo claims that gifts from video game publishers are turned down at Kotaku. Someone forgot to tell Totilo’s predecessor Brian Crecente: https://kotaku.com/505336686(“Nintendo DSi XL Delivery Comes With a Five-Foot Surprise”). And Totilo was already Deputy Editor of Kotaku when crap like that was being posted, and he didn’t have a problem with it (“The note said something about sharing with friends and colleagues, but when it comes to over-sized subs I have neither. Besides, Totilo is off today and Mike and Mike are on opposites of the continent.”).
[As an aside about Brian Crecente, can someone at the Washington Post explain to me why he’s getting published there? Or at any “prestige” publication? He hasn’t reformed in the slightest, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G_qt4W2JDs, https://archive.is/x2VuX, and a now deleted tweet archived at http://archive.is/VZaNw.
And why was Jim Sterling quoted for a Post article about an Electronic Arts game(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2017/11/18/how-a-star-wars-video-game-faced-charges-that-it-was-promoting-gambling/)? Sterling is the fraud who showed off the free food he gets from the same company, Electronic Arts, on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXtnKE-98Ik&t=39.
Sterling was also mentioned in an article with the subtitle “adventures in game writer bribery”, https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/09/scared-to-open-the-package-adventures-in-game-writer-bribery/2/, in which he showed off another lavish gift he received from a games publisher: “I am fully aware that by posting this, I am essentially opening up any positive review of Darksiders (released this week) to accusations of pay-offs and bias. However, I don’t really care, because I just received a GIANT MASSIVE DARKSIDERS SWORD!” (Sterling did in fact review the game Darksiders, He gave it a 9 out of 10.)
Sterling has always been a class act(see https://imgur.com/a/XCumF) so I fully expect to see his byline in the WaPo any day now. Sterling’s contact page also includes a PO box and his Amazon wishlist: http://web.archive.org/web/20191114055522/https://www.thejimquisition.com/copy-of-about. Jim doesn’t advertise his PO box because he loves the old fashioned feel of opening fan mail. Like I said, a class act.
Oh, and the embarrassing profile of Geoff Keighley. I remember when Keighley was considered a disgrace back in 2012(http://archive.is/nTkIa). Never would I have dreamed back then that the WaPo would debase itself with a glowing article about him. Though Geoff sort of is a 21st century Dick Clark, considering Clark’s implication in the original payola scandal, not that I expect an idiot like Gene Park to know about that.]
And about that article on “Adventures in game writer bribery”(https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/09/scared-to-open-the-package-adventures-in-game-writer-bribery/), the first page mentions Mike Fahey, “Senior Reporter” at Kotaku. In an article that’s since been deleted from Kotaku, Fahey described an all expenses paid trip he received from Richard Garriot and the company that employed Garriot at the time, NCSoft: https://archive.is/XXdxn(“I’m going to treasure the photo forever, and the duffel bag and complimentary flight suit are sure nice, but as I stated earlier…they are nothing compared to the once-in-a-lifetime experience I just went through. I cannot thank Garriott and crew enough for making this childhood dream come true.”) Well Fahey did find a way to thank Garriot, along with NCSoft, by giving them plenty of coverage over the years: http://kotaku.com/richard-garriotts-blood-pulled-from-ebay-probably-beca-1783400017.
Fahey is also the guy who once wrote a Kotaku article about Jade Raymond entitled “Jade Smells Pretty At London Games Fest”: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2007/10/jade_smells_pretty_at_london_g/(“I’m personally hoping she announces a new game where you just move the camera around a 3D model of her person for hours at a time. I’d pay a hundred dollars.”).
And on the second page of the bribery article(https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/09/scared-to-open-the-package-adventures-in-game-writer-bribery/2/), you can also see the cake Chris Kohler gets from Nintendo. Kohler is the features editor of Kotaku, and he oversees a lot of coverage of… Nintendo.
Kotaku editor Jason Schreier has claimed that Kotaku throws out swag(https://archive.md/u4F8G), which is pretty funny considering that Mike Fahey has written on Kotaku that he will never sell his “swag” again, let alone throw it out: https://kotaku.com/why-i-will-never-sell-my-gaming-swag-again-5053097. In fact, Kotaku has a “swag” tag for its articles: https://kotaku.com/tag/swag. Those are some great articles, like Mike Fahey showing off the free wine and cupcakes he gets(https://kotaku.com/dream-day-wedding-sends-wine-by-mail-5620704 and https://kotaku.com/a-delicious-reminder-that-free-realms-comes-to-the-play-30822762), or Crecente showing off the free shoes he got from Electronic Arts(https://kotaku.com/crysis-2-shoes-want-you-to-be-fast-452568751). That was the same year that those edgy motherfuckers at Deadspin went after a guy at ESPN for accepting swag(https://deadspin.com/espns-corporate-blog-finds-rock-bottom-somewhere-in-thi-5789851), so Gawker verticals have seemingly always operated with a lack of self awareness. (How far we’ve come in ten years: http://gawker.com/5421854/tradition-of-reporters-sleeping-with-sources-still-alive-and-well-at-the-new-york-times.)
Schreier is also the guy who got into a spat with Zoe Quinn on Twitter in May 2018, an argument that made clear that he’s friends with her and on a first name basis. After groveling to Quinn on Twitter, Jason later wrote about abuse allegations she made this year. At some point he tried to conceal his relationship with Quinn by specifically deleting all of his tweets to her from May of 2018, not realizing that they had been archived(see http://archive.is/9NAlN). He didn’t even bother to blow away his whole timeline to cover his tracks, the rest of his tweets from 05/01/2018 through 05/10/2018 are still there.
Quinn’s allegations have been challenged (https://www.thepostmillennial.com/exclusive-zoe-quinns-allegations-are-falling-apart/) and she’s been accused before of malicious lying before by a female photographer named Cole Nasrallah(see https://archive.is/on9nS and http://archive.is/V3ABs). The nude photo shoot described by Nasrallah brings up another point: Quinn has claimed that nude photos of her were leaked, without mentioning that’s she done nude modeling that she doubtlessly signed releases for(by her own admission: http://archive.is/d8g8D). Nude photos you signed releases for cannot be “leaked”. And Alex Holowka called Quinn a pathological liar too back in 2013(http://archive.is/0vkCz). On that note, Quinn claimed to have been mugged in February 2014 and solicited Paypal donations, but never filed a police report, and claims to have kept all her rent money in her wallet(https://archive.is/l6Snp) So, having a close friend who’s eager to get back in Quinn’s good graces(Jason Schreier) writing coverage of her serious allegations is not cool.
Alec Holowka has also contradicted Schreier’s shitty reporting in the past: http://archive.is/wqLXo. Said shitty reporting tried to cover up corruption at the Independent Games Festival(https://archive.is/TeQo1). By way of contrast to Schreier, David Auerbach claimed the IGF awards were corrupt and accurately predicted three people involved would be stepping down: https://twitter.com/AuerbachKeller/status/588774106029543424. A few months before Brandon Boyer stepped down from the IGF, Schreier tried to exonerate him by quoting the wife of Steph Thirion, the indie developer Boyer was accused of engaging in nepotism with(now that’s an impartial source!), and by letting Boyer claim that the award he gave to Thirion was a joke. This was laughable, because A) Boyer left a trail on social media showing he’s friends with Thirion(deleted tweet: http://archive.is/MvzvL, deleted Flickr photo: http://archive.is/VWcZF, and more tweets at http://archive.is/ZSeXW ) and B) Thirion was more than happy to cite Boyer’s award on his website, and has won multiple awards from contests that involved Boyer: http://archive.is/8IcLZ#selection-659.36-683.69. (Boyer has always been massively corrupt, for example giving positive coverage to his friends on Boing Boing: http://archive.is/EJ7Kb.)
Auerbach’s tweet cited Ed McMillen, developer and former IGF participant who accused Brian Crecente(Kotaku and Polygon founder) and others involved in the IGF of nepotism(http://archive.is/8IcLZ#selection-659.36-683.69, for archaeological purposes the interview with McMillen is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3FPH0T9Whv_eUNlWXVodDBudjQ. McMillen does not have a high opinion of the industry: https://youtu.be/WzT4qcrUVp4?t=50 ). Unlike Schreier’s article, that tweet on the IGF holds up.
On that same note, Auerbach pointed out in 2014 that one Tyler Malka made a forum post bragging about grabbing a woman’s rear end in Spain: http://archive.is/BUyBB#selection-2819.2-2823.39, suggesting it was time for Malka to go. Schreier and Kotaku on the other hand were still friendly with Malka(see http://archive.is/GObvC#selection-2761.0-2761.34 and http://archive.is/eOUHo) until 2017, when Schreier suddenly expressed shock at the post’s existence. I’ll let you decide who you’re better off attending to.
[Aside to Jason here: Jason, I took the liberty of archiving all of your tweets from early May 2018, so you don’t need to bother with another mass deletion of your timeline. And since you said a Nichegamer interviewer telling a Japanese developer how much he loves his games was bad journalism(http://archive.is/C9OCa) back in June, I’d love to hear your explanation about you writing about Quinn’s allegations after you had begged her for forgiveness on Twitter. Hello McFly, anyone home?
You have said that Kotaku staff fucked up by not disclosing their personal connections to indie developers, remember?(https://archive.is/Y9Brc#selection-8885.560-8885.789) It looks to me that you were trying to win favor with Quinn and her clique with that article, and you made a half assed attempt at covering your tracks on Twitter vis-à-vis your relationship with Quinn. You might as well have assigned Grayson to write the article.]
Another Kotaku employee, Cecilia D’Anastasio, falsely accused a gaming personality of calling someone a faggot: http://archive.is/bPHiQ, prompting her editor to make an apology on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/stephentotilo/status/1027142297752936449. This was easily debunkable(see https://compete.kotaku.com/overwatch-pro-called-an-opponent-a-fucking-faggot-es-1823502413). Rather than being promptly fired, Cecilia was still treated like a star reporter, and will start writing for the flaming garbage scow that is Wired in January.
With articles like this, it’s no wonder the top UrbanDictionary entry for Kotaku, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Kotaku, reads “The place where journalistic integrity goes to die.” (From the second entry: ‘…has hard hitting articles such as “Don’t be homophobic” and “Look at the gifts Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft sent me” and “Look at this porn I found of Final Fantasy characters” and “Who wants to yiff with me in Second Life?” ‘).
And that lame apologia from Totilo in 2012 was not some attempt to make Kotaku look better by slandering everyone else in video game media. “Contemptible” is most apt for describing video game “journalism”. The LA Times and Washington Post have both run articles on this dubious profession, “Gamers’ Perks, or ‘Playola’?” (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-apr-08-mn-36775-story.html) and “An Inside Play To Sway Video Gamers” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/02/AR2007070201743.html).
I know, it’s the WaPo and LA Times. Fortunately, I have corroboration. For instance, “The true story of most review events”: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1qijni/the_true_story_of_most_review_events/.
“Farewell, says PR. They hand you some swag. A shirt, a messenger bag, a $250 pair of headphones, a PS4 with everything? Newbies freak out like it’s Christmas. Old hands jam it into bags and pray it travels safely. It’s always enough to be notable. Not enough to be taxable. Not enough to be bribery.”
You’ll have to figure out that “not enough to be bribery” part for yourself, that made me scratch my head. But Dan Stapleton of IGN is in the comments for that post, and he doesn’t deny anything. A Kotaku writer who attended one of these review events(Michael McWhertor, now an editor at Polygon) says they’re “Increasingly Prominent”: https://kotaku.com/reviewing-a-game-on-their-terms-the-increasingly-promi-5416788.
And in July 2014, writer Joe Martin, a journalist who has appeared on BBC, said this about game writers being gifted Nexus tablets at a review event in Paris(http://archive.ph/73ELj): “Baffles me how some downplay this stuff. I wasn’t in the job six months before a publisher offered embargo-drop if the score was high enough [quid pro quo in which a games website is given the chance to publish the first review of a game, netting more traffic, in exchange for promising a higher score to the game’s publisher ]. That journos accepted free Nexus 7s at a Watchdogs event is worth remembering next time everyone says there’s no real bribery in this biz.” Martin’s old LinkedIn page can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20160116005806/https://www.linkedin.com/in/joemartinwords, he’s scrubbed his work for gaming websites like RockPaperShotgun from his current LinkedIn page, and nuked his Twitter account(I wonder why). Martin made his comment two months before Gamergate started. Gaming websites must have really cleaned up their act in those two months. Or rather, as Totilo said, “This stuff is perpetual…”.
Speaking of RockPaperShotgun, the website that gave Grayson and Hernandez their start, one of the founders, John Walker, wrote a blog post titled “Games Journalists, And The Perception Of Corruption”(https://botherer.org/2012/10/24/games-journalists-and-the-perception-of-corruption/). After some throat clearing from Walker, we learn why there’s a “perception” of corruption:
“Games journalism has always had its problems. When I started in 1999, I was told stories of antics in the early 90s. Later I learned of antics in the late 90s.
…
I remember spending one day going to Universal Studios in LA. It was an absolutely brilliant day, not least because it was so far removed from what a press trip would usually try to do. At the time, the theme park was like something out of a Scooby Doo episode, run down and depressing, and I was with a group of hilarious writers — we had the best day laughing at the dilapidated ruin of a 1980s hangover, and then got to go down the road where Buffy lived. I couldn’t tell you what game it was for, and I can assure you that it didn’t influence whatever I wrote about whichever game it was when I got back. But if you want to criticise me, I absolutely got given entry to Universal Studios by a PR.
…
One time I was sent to London for a preview event for the game Auto Assault. What I didn’t know was that I’d spend the day riding on quad bikes and hovercraft. I had a great day, by coincidence with a few good friends, and at the end of it we were shown the average-looking game. That I’d wasted a day pratting around on bikes didn’t make me want to like the game more — if anything it puts the mediocrity of a game in perspective — and the game went on to be a disastrous flop that few journalists sought to defend because they’d had a nice day going on a quad bike. But that day is definitely deserving of criticism — it had nothing to do with the game, and had no purpose other than to try to entertain us. And the publishers had no reason to want to entertain us other than to have us like their game more. It didn’t work, it’s damned stupid. But I was a part of it, and you’d be right to criticise it. (Although at least I didn’t write about the day for any press — I’m concerned to see today people on some jaunt in Paris where Microsoft pay for a bunch of journos to race cars, who are then writing about it.)”
(A comment on Walker’s post backs up Joe Martin’s claim about higher scores being traded for exclusive reviews, and details other shenanigans: “I remember going on a press trip to Italy where one very experienced writer happily boasted that he’d reviewed several games without even installing the product.” http://archive.is/m00nY#selection-1589.167-1589.329.)
We also have Ben Kuchera, who got his start on the Ars Technica message boards writing comments like “Rape is funny”(https://archive.ph/Vmowh#selection-3261.0-3265.10) and other gems(http://archive.is/j2U4V#selection-1419.0-1439.1 and http://archive.is/GOWDb), before becoming a writer for the site. There he wrote great articles like the “adventures in game writer bribery” one referenced above, before winding up at Polygon, where he tweets things like: “If you ask an outlet to review your game without any information about why your game is worth the time…”(hint, hint): https://archive.md/vlzXb.
And to get in to even more blatant corruption, there is the practice of “mock reviews”, in which notoriously low scorers are to paid to consult on a game, so they’ll recuse themselves from reviewing the game and tanking the Metacritic score(discussed by Schreier here: http://archive.ph/GRjN1). Games journalist Lauren Wainwright was caught doing consulting for Square Enix, while also writing articles about their games(http://archive.is/5fjM3). One article is for IGN, one of the biggest gaming websites, others are for The Sun tabloid and a marginal games site called VG 24/7. The Wainwright pieces for IGN and VG 24/7 are still there, with no disclosure. While John Walker called this episode “An Utter Disgrace”(https://botherer.org/2012/10/25/an-utter-disgrace/, Kuchera criticized it as well: https://imgur.com/a/yNYHB ), Colin Campbell, who along with Patricia Hernandez now works at Polygon, attacked those who questioned Wainwright.
Dan “Shoe” Hsu said consultations for game companies can pay ten times the freelancer rate(http://archive.is/4Eymf#selection-3015.221-3015.306). Hsu has also claimed coverage at gaming publications is linked to ad buys(https://archive.is/r1hcF), an allegation that was later leveled at IGN(https://www.zeldadungeon.net/former-ign-employee-admits-review-scores-are-skewed-due-to-public-relations/) and others(http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Gaming-Sites-Charge-Review-Scores-Get-Outed-46316.html).
Rich Stanton is mentioned in the Zelda Informer post. Stanton, who has written for The Guardian, used to work for Future Plc game outlets. Stanton claimed on Twitter that coverage in Future game outlets is controlled by game publishers(see http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Future-Publishing-Writer-Outs-Shady-Publishers-Paid-Review-Scores-More-47988.html and https://www.neogaf.com/threads/future-publishing-edge-pc-gamer-etc-freelance-writer-says-they-alter-reviews-more.495020/), referencing debacles like Driv3rgate. In which a notoriously buggy, unfinished game was given high marks by Future magazines in exchange for exclusive reviews(https://crappygames.miraheze.org/wiki/Driv3rgate). Stanton did not work for Future outlets after that(https://bootofjustice.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/apologyandretraction/). While Stanton tried to walk back his accusations against Future, our friend Joe Martin corroborates them(http://archive.is/hnzBM#selection-9711.0-9711.333).
That Martin comment is from a post discussing quid pro quo between an IGN editor and a PR representative(http://archive.is/hnzBM), wherein the editor pressured Tom McNamara for a higher score for a game he had not even begun to play, in order for IGN to get an exclusive review. The editor’s response to this accusation does not inspire confidence(http://archive.is/0IplV): “There was not wrongdoing, no ethical misconduct, no big conspiracy. The matter was simple. 2K’s PR team wanted to determine a score to decide whether they should give us, or a competitor, an exclusive;”. Jeff Grubb, currently at VentureBeat, said in the comments that it was “a bit of a squeamish situation”. (BTW, Tom McNamara was last seen at CNET, in case someone like, say, CNET editor Ian Sherr wants to hear Tom’s side of the story. Or more likely, threaten Tom into keeping quiet.)
While we we’re on the subject of IGN… You’ll be taken care of even after you quit being a games journalist, unless you fuck up as bad as former Nintendo editor for IGN, Filip Miucin, who was fired for plagiarism. Miucin’s three predecessors from the Nintendo editor position at IGN however all went to work at … wait for it… Nintendo(http://archive.ph/CmLWC). Of course, mainstream journalists can’t call foul there, because many of them went to work in the Obama admin(https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/rick-stengel-least-24-journalist-go-work-obama-administration/310928/). It is touching though to see that Nintendo / The Obama Administration didn’t have any hard feelings about all the adversarial journalism done by IGN / The Prestige Media. And not the slightest worry that their hires from the press ranks would be passing juicy gossip back to their old colleagues.
Segueing to game journalists who go into the game industry, Dan Hsu’s the former editor of VentureBeat’s gaming vertical. Hsu is the guy who wrote: “If you can be bought off, you will get plenty of opportunities.”(http://archive.ph/hFh3x), accused his former editor Ed Semrad of backroom dealing with video game companies(http://archive.ph/xtsuF and http://archive.is/vs1zV), made further allegations of racketeering between publishers and game websites(http://archive.ph/iVnJi), admitted to accepting UFC tickets and other expensive gifts from video game companies(http://archive.ph/psqZ3), and accused others of accepting Super Bowl tickets and thousands of dollars worth of female companionship from publishers(http://archive.is/29ZnR).
Jeff Green, a veteran game magazine editor(http://archive.is/Zns52#selection-1303.18-1303.41) who Totilo quoted, was a bit more blunt when commenting on Hsu’s claims: “The truth is that the system is broken and corrupt and embarrassing, and pretty much everyone bears some responsibility for it.”(http://archive.is/xaFFw#selection-11993.112-11993.239). Heather Chaplin, a journalist who now writes for “prestige media” outlets(i.e. those that don’t cover video games) has also commented on Hsu’s claims, saying the level of corruption she saw in games writing exceeded the usual corruption in journalism(http://archive.is/cEkkC#selection-3093.0-3093.15) and claiming that she once got gifts in the mail almost every day(http://archive.is/SwWAi#selection-12935.214-12935.370).
Hsu left VentureBeat in October 2014 for the game industry, two months after Gamergate began, getting out while the getting was good. (Someone should track down Ed Semrad, he is some OG corruption: http://archive.ph/jU5hd).
Of course Jim, none of this might surprise you all that much, because an indie game developer claims he was contacted by your company and was offered the exciting opportunity to quote a Kotaku review for just $1500(http://archive.is/T7kpr). And you have worked at Ziff Davis.
Let’s come full circle here and go back to Kotaku. Totilo once employed Patrick “Just shove it up her ASS” Klepek: http://archive.is/BTjpo(more great images here, like the top one entitled “RAPE TIME, BIOTCH!”: https://web.archive.org/web/20180817012950/https://imgur.com/a/t0TxjOd. The NYT just found a new employee.). While working at Kotaku, Klepek did an article about problems with the Windows version of a multi-million dollar Batman game from Warner Bros., without mentioning he’s close friends with the guy who’s studio was contracted to develop the Windows version of the game: http://archive.is/AVDvm. Unsurprisingly, Klepek’s article tries to lay all the blame on Warner Bros. and not Iron Galaxy, the studio his friend Dave Lang was in charge of at the time.
So Jim, now you know even more than you wanted to about what you inherited from Gawker. And in case you hadn’t noticed, the journalist clique already hates you because of what happened at Deadspin. If you want to try and protect Grayson and all the staff at Kotaku, know that there will be no reward for doing so. I actually have more on Grayson and friends, but frankly it’s exhausting to go through this embarrassment of riches and decide what to highlight. But I’ve got more in case you want to try and ride this out. I guess that makes this a “Do you feel lucky punk?” type situation.
P.S. I’d like to remind folks that Stephen Totilo confirmed the relationship between Grayson and Quinn. Please direct all complaints to stephentotilo@kotaku.com. Likewise, Patricia Hernandez wrote “I’ll be the first to admit that I messed up in not initially disclosing some of my relationships with certain people.”(https://archive.is/3Hg1Z#selection-4047.92-4047.209), so she should have no problem with her fuck ups being revisited, although she was strangely silent when everyone in media was decrying accusations against Kotaku as baseless. As an olive branch to Patricia, I will say I enjoyed her article mocking people offended by images of sexy women(https://kotaku.com/gta-girl-shows-too-much-skin-fixed-1449709761), we need more of that.
P.P.S. Some of this stuff might might be what journalists call “a bad fact” to those who ran interference for Grayson and Kotaku, like Anna Merlan. Anna, you might be tempted to use your media friends to threaten Cam Matheson’s career through back channels(I know you love to threaten people: https://archive.md/ftIgA). Don’t. And Mr. Matheson could be anywhere in the world right now, by the time you reach him Grayson will have had to decide on what story he’s going to tell, assuming anyone bothers to ask. There’s no enforcing Omertà on this one, you don’t have the time or the skill.
P.P.P.S. I also wanted to say something to Nick Wingfield, who greatly assisted in the cover up of Grayson and Kotaku’s corruption in the pages of the NYT. Nick, I noticed you’re an editor now. I sincerely hope two of the journalists you edit get caught pulling the same stunt as Grayson and Hernandez. Because that is the acid test brother, the one that dissolves all your bullshit.
But maybe you still think all of the above is just “disinformation”, as the WaPo and NYT like to call it. If so, here’s my challenge: give Nathan Grayson a job. I am completely serious. I don’t mean you have to hire him personally, just put in a positive word through the gool ol’ boy network, and make sure Nathan lands on his feet after the dust settles at G/O Media. Doing a cover up of Grayson’s corruption in the NTY was cowardice, but helping his career? That would be putting your money where your mouth is. That would take balls.
And I hear there’s a real tight labor market in journalism right now, so one of your friends is going to have to hire him to fill an open position anyways. Because Grayson getting a job at a more upscale publication that Kotaku? That’d be the greatest “fuck you” you could ever give me. Of course, Grayson might fuck up even more at a more visible outlet, and then’ll you have ended up doing me a favor.
But then maybe not. It depends on your worldview. Do you believe that the truth always catches up with the wicked and corrupt Nick? I don’t. And people like you are the reason. But don’t say this was all for nothing, no less a titan of American journalism than Stephen Totilo has said that he and Kotaku absorbed lessons from all this: http://archive.is/PQ9EM#selection-2575.309-2575.337. And when Totilo says he’s learned the error of his ways, you can take that to the bank. Because as Totilo wrote after explicit pornography was posted to a Kotaku article this year: “we strive to own our mistakes at Kotaku. While we do not remove articles[the Kotaku article about Fahey receiving an all expenses paid zero-G trip was certainly removed, sometime after 09/14/12, when Totilo had become already become Kotaku EIC], we update them, as we have with Tuesday’s piece, in the interest of transparency.”, (http://archive.is/Fup13#selection-1293.28-1299.116).
I don’t know if you ever saw that 08/26/14 statement from Totilo, but as reminder, when writing about a controversy involving a media outlet, official statements by the outlet’s EIC are incredibly fucking germane to the story. You wouldn’t expect an article about the latest Facebook brouhaha to completely avoid official statements by Zuckerberg, for instance. But regardless of what happens to Grayson; When it comes to hiring for The Information, Nick, it’s still advisable to exercise more due diligence than you ever did as a reporter.
P.P.P.P.S. Thanks to all the angry Deadspin fans who shared the emails of G/O management and encouraged folks to write emails. Nathan Grayson and Stephen Totilo always decry that type of stuff as a harassment campaign and a call for violence, and a dog whistle, but you did it anyway. Not sure if this email is what you were expecting.
“The press pack for EA’s Godfather 2 included a few surprises, including a cigar, some matches, a thin wire for choking fools… and, of course, brass knuckles.” — Ben “Rape is funny” Kuchera, Ars Technica
“Senator, we’re both part of the same hypocrisy.” — Michael Corleone, The Godfather: Part II
Bleep Throat 