Actually, It's About Ethics in Game Journalism

The gaming community has been in what might be seen as the precursory rumblings to the gaming equivalent of a Civil War. The debate has to do with opinions concerning gaming and have made practically everybody touching the subjects involved look bad in the process. Gamergate is at the center of these debates as of right now. I do not mean to suggest those that support Gamergate are better or worse than anybody else, but elements from all sides have done wrong over the course of the past few months and the topic of Gamergate is featured heavily in those discussions right now.

For those unfamiliar with Gamergate, my understanding as someone with limited interaction is that Gamergate consists of a myriad of groups and individuals who had different goals originally, but found they could get more done in advancing their various causes by working together. The actual history is longer and more detailed than I feel I can properly cover in a single blog post, but that is my basic understanding of how Gamergate came to be in a single sentence. Anybody can claim to be a member of Gamergate and there is no clear guiding force. That is not to say that there has not been a guiding hand at times, but the movement has reached a point where nobody will find it easy to take a leadership position even if it is on a temporary basis. Gamergate might get nudges from individuals or small groups from time to time, but I feel it has grown into a form where it would take an unrealistically charismatic person to take direct control.

I first learned of Gamergate by hearing about threats of violence directed toward females involved with gaming in a professional capacity. Sometimes it was game developers. Other times it might be a journalist or someone on the edge of gaming. Men would be targeted too, but not at the same frequency or to the same extent. There was harassment out of both sides, but it was uneven so for some involved they either did not pick a side or went with whichever side they felt was the lesser evil. This first impression has coloured my opinion greatly. Gamergate had a serious problem early on with people whom held grudges both on a personal and impersonal level having influence over how the group operated. At that time certain individuals with goals of their own had more of a direct hand in the direction of Gamergate.

Gamergate has cleaned up a lot since then. I do not know if they had managed to cut out some of the disruptive influences within their ranks or if they had subdued somewhat as I am not a part of Gamergate. I know that they had settled on a centralized goal the various facets can focus on together which I think has helped some. That goal is Ethics in Game Journalism.

I like the idea of ethics in game journalism. Hell, I like the idea of ethics in journalism. Actually, strike that. I like the idea of ethics. That might be unrealistic of me and I have trouble living that myself, but it is something I would like to work toward.

From talking to some Gamergate supporters I know at least some consider a lack of bias in articles on the part of the journalist as part of journalistic ethics. I personally do not. I actually prefer game reviews to have some bias. It is not enough for me to know a reviewer liked or disliked a game. I want to know why so I can see if their reasons line up with my own. A review that does not expose the reviewer's bias is near useless to me as a consumer. Then again, bias gets reflected in the score.

Gaming has some problems, and all people have their own perspective on what those problems might be along with possible solutions and root causes. That does not necessarily mean some opinions are right while others are wrong. It means we are all standing at different points and looking at the same thing from different angles or possibly looking at different things entirely.

While I do not agree with those elements of the gaming community that feel bias is part of ethics, I do feel there are definitely issues with gaming journalism. There are many symptoms, but I believe the core issues are game scores and the importance of being the first to publish a review.

Seeing game scores as a primary issue might seem silly to some. My reason for including it as a primary cause is that so much stems out from scores. The score is at the center of the Consumer, Publisher, and Media Venn diagram. The words of a review do not matter as much as the score. All scores are aggregated at Metacritic which uses a different algorithm than is used for collecting the scores of other fields such as movies. Developers depend on those scores for their bonuses. Publishers push to get the scores as high as possible to boost sales. Consumers want the scores as early as possible. Media is at the mercy of producers for how much time they have with a product while trying to meet the demand of consumers for immediate reviews.

If the score is too low, then publishers might provide less time with a future demo copy, no copy before release, or withdraw other possible benefits of appeasing a few of the less savory publishers. If the score is too high then consumers are out on money. If the review comes too late then media is out on money. The score is the be-all end-all of gaming. Between the influence of publishers, the time demands of consumers, and in rare cases greed on the part of media, some media has found themselves compromised.

This brings us back to Gamergate. I do not currently support Gamergate. I am not exactly against Gamergate since they have been cleaning up their act. There is definite change there, at least from the outside. They are not where they started. I have yet to see them do anything that was effective toward their stated goal however. I am not saying they have not. I merely have not seen it for myself yet. There has been some fund raising, but I do not know what all for nor do I know how it compares to fund raising by the various groups before their amalgamation into Gamergate. The information gleaned in the early days concerning personal connections of some of their early targets could have been discovered quite easily without causing distress. That information comes across as a byproduct of the horribleness of what was occurring at that time rather than what was originally intended. The pull out of sponsors against outlets that spoke against Gamergate was temporary and short-sighted.

Gamergate has potential. They are not making full use of that potential. I am uncertain if that is a good thing or not. If Gamergate continues improving on an ethical level then I might find myself seeing what I can do to help. If they slide back into their original methods then I will most definitely be opposed.

I just stated Gamergate is ineffective in their current methods while speaking against their previous methods. How can I still see potential if I feel this way? For that, we need to look at the who of Gamergate, not the what.

Gamergate is composed primarily of consumers. There may be some publishers in there, and I know there is some media presence, but it is still primarily consumers. Gamergate is a large group of consumers that have shown they can coordinate their efforts even without direct guidance. I believe Gamergate does not require guidance in order to be effective. They need goals to work toward beyond working against those that are placed directly in their path.

As a thought exercise, here are three things I would consider adopting if I were Gamergate. Now, keep in mind these are ideas to address what I see as core concerns of gaming media. They may or may not work as I do not know Gamergate from the inside. I also do not know if they care about the same issues I care about as I rarely see scores and timing of reviews come up in discussion as most discussion seems to be about the symptoms or breaks down into personal attacks from both sides.

The first thing I would nudge Gamergate to do is stop preordering games. Gamergate as a whole is large enough to make an impact here, and they also know other gamers to slowly spread this to. The reason to stop preordering games or buying them on day one is it lowers the importance of a review releasing first. Reviewers need time to do a proper review. They also need to depend less on the publisher's mercy to give them that time. Allowing reviewers time after release also obliterates the effectiveness of review embargoes. For the truly corrupt, it also makes it so publishers that provide gifts and advance copies to only a select few do not see a return on their investment. Wait a week, or possibly even two for reviews from sources you can trust. The hype train matters much less when trusted reviewers get the time they need to fully explore the game.

There will be no immediate reward from doing this. It's a long play to change the industry. There is not going to be an instantaneous moment where you will feel like high fiving by going this route, but if you stick with it you stand to make some lasting change.

The second is to direct traffic. Share links to media you trust. Do not visit or link to sites you do not want to receive more traffic. This holds especially true if you want to dispute what is written there. Many personalities in other fields of journalism intentionally say things they know people will want to argue with them over which helps their ratings. Gaming media is no different. Cutting a sponsor is ineffective not because the sponsor might change their mind, but the news of a public withdraw due to a campaign by a third party helps raise traffic for the site which the site owner may show other potential sponsors. They lose funds in the short term, but they more than make up for it the following month when they can renegotiate a contract with a returning sponsor while signing on new sponsors. Don't drive traffic to sites you do not support and increase traffic for the sites you do. Make certain the reviewers that take their time to write good reviews are the ones with the large number of unique visitors so taking the time to write a decent review is profitable and the pay for having the first review is less than it is now.

Third, it's about ethics. In a fight over ethics, we have to hold ourselves to either the same or higher standards we expect from others. This is something that Gamergate has already been working on. It needs to keep going if there is ever going to be any chance at winning a fight concerning ethics. I care less about where Gamergate has been than I do where it is going. Some will not let go of that past. There has been a lot of hurt inflicted from all sides that might not ever be mended. There will be times that it will seem impossible because you hold yourself to a higher standard than the actions of other suggest they hold themselves. If anybody wants to win on ethics then they have to live by the standards they expect of others no matter what the other person does. The means never justify the ends in a battle over ethics.

Over the course of this article I have shifted from using the term journalists to media. The reason being is there are very few actual journalists in gaming media. We look to non-journalists for the majority of gaming news and reviews. A sizable portion of game media enjoys the benefits of being journalists without having the responsibilities of journalists. Many people are fine with having two sets of standards. I am not one of those gamers, but I also do not hold journalists to the same standards as some people I know. I am fine with journalists attending parties held by game publishers after hours at conventions for instance. I am not fine with journalists or youtubers receiving special compensation and being one of a handful of people in the world to receive a review copy of a game on top of whatever extras the publisher decided to give them in order to ensure the first few reviews come from those few people the publisher selected. There are youtubers right now that uploading one video of an indy game on their channel will cost the developer $3K US in advance, and the price goes up from there. I know people that are fine with this as youtubers are not journalists even if they are slowly filling the role of journalists. This is not most youtube personalities, but most youtube reviewers/let's players/first lookers don't have time on their schedule for games that did not already catch their interest before the developer contacted them unless they know the game will generate views because people are already aware of it and want to see it in action. As for the sites many gamers hold to a higher standard, they are little more than well-funded blogs with multiple contributors where they might have one, possibly two actual journalists that contribute if they have any at all. There should be one standard because media is close to replacing journalism when it comes to gaming.

I wrote this blog post not knowing if I would share it or not. I wanted to see my thoughts outside of my head. The reason I would not share it is I have friends at various points on the Gamergate/anti-Gamergate issue. There are a lot of people in the middle as well. Sharing my opinion may lose me some friends from both sides. Something I would like people to keep in mind if anything is that these are opinions. They are not hard facts and they are not chiseled in stone. It is fine by me if friends disagree with me. Discussion is the primary method by which I gain new information. My opinions adapt as the information I have access to is updated and changed. For some this is the very definition of flip-flopping. I see it as taking information into consideration as it comes to hand.