Any thoughts on the recent Phil Fish Zoe Quinn debacle?

TBH at this point i don't really care what happened or is gonna happen.
This whole situation is clear indicator that industy is becoming toxicly mainstream, Phil and Zoe are basically Paris Hilton/Kardashians of gaming industry.
They are more famous for who they fucked and what they said and not that much for their games or industry expirience.
IMO their fame as "developers" is undeserved.

 

Not anyones business who these people F***/don't F*** with. It's their private (sex)life and this doesn't have any impact on their credibility and competence as developers.
I didn't play Depression Quest yet, but I did play FEZ and I do think it's okay to call Fish a developer for creating this great (imo) game.

 

Well... When they F*** "game journalists" for positive rewiews and "getting ahead" it will raise few eyebrows.
About Phil, i meant that he got more famous than he should have because of his online behaviour and opinions.

 

Is the game good/bad, just because the press says yes it is/no it isn't?
Sleeping with game journalists doesn't say anything about their competence as an actual developer, it's only once again a proof that game-journalism is as corrupt as every other industry.

 

Who are those people?

I develop games, rather than reading gossip sites like Kotaku...

 

They didn't get famous for their competance, they got famous because of the drama and that's the part that i don't personally like and i would't want that to become a trend. That's what i mean by their fame being undeserved IMO.

 

And yet you're posting in a subforum called "Unity Gossip."

 

I've been waiting for exact that clever remark

But still give a crap about Phil Someone, or Zoe blah. Why care about the lives of some attention whores?

 

I've heard about Phil. But who is Zoe?

 

I think you are confusing the cause and effect a little bit. You're acting like these developers use drama to make themselves famous, where in actuality they are just outspoken people who happen to cause controversy. If you really think these developers want to be famous because of the drama, just ask yourself if you'd rather swap places with Zoe or Phil at this point.

The reason why these people are famous is not a concerted effort on their part, but rather because of people like you who want to talk about them because of their "controversial" actions or words. So, if you really don't want these people to be famous, then just stop talking about them.

This is a good video on the subject that might help clear things up a bit:

 

My biggest worry with the whole Zoe scandal is that it looks very much like there's a clique where if you are part of the clique then you will get coverage of your game. If you are not then it becomes much more difficult to get coverage.

I was amazed to see who knows who. Game developers and game journalists being friends and hanging out and that the game developers who know the right people get their games mentioned even if it happens to be a choose your own adventure text game. I mean Zoe's game is basically a glorified text website and yet she managed to get her "game" on Steam.

The publicity has also done wonders for her. If you look at her Patreon page she has gained a lot of support and with that a lot of money.

It's unrealistic to think that game developers and journalists won't be friends but from the outside it makes it look a bit more difficult to get your game talked about on the major websites if you aren't friends with the right people. Am I wrong in thinking that?

 

This, so much. Also, I'm not sure games "journalism" is the right word. There are a handful that are truly doing some great journalism, but mostly its just subjective opinions. Like, how many actually have journalism degrees? And with the huge number of reviews and coverage out there, how much weight do 5 "swayed" journalists have to the success of a game?

I absolutely love games journalism, but I've always equated it to like listening to a buddy talk about a game.

 

When the whole scandal broke we where applauded with what people do for money. Then we started thinking about how we are developing our game (we live stream everything) and when we start adding more developers we are going to keep this setup where we will combine the feeds to make one live stream showing what everyone is doing. We did this for many different reasons. One to let our players know what is going on with the development every step of the way, and let them get to know the developers. Two, when we start adding more developers it will keep everyone on the same page and keep goofing off to a minimum. Three and most important get feedback from the players while we are working on the game (we all ready gotten some great ideas from this).

We already informed all of the people that work on our game that even if we have a hint of someone doing this they would be removed from working on Tectuma.com and we would have nothing more to do with them. We did this publicly and will back it up like a rabbit pit bull on crack.

But then with Tectuma.com we are not worried about turning a profit or have any investors we have to please. We have personally backed our project for 3yr now without making a dime and can keep going this way for a long, long, long time if needed. Our goals are a little different than most deployment we are not in it to make money (would be nice but not our primary goal), we focus on learning and building a community and making friends to that goal we are a huge success! And we do not plan on changing this.

 

Maybe if there was some reliable info about what happened, useful opinions could be formed about it. But there is none, and there isn't going to be.

Don't harass people.

 

Meh, I'd blame Quinn as well as the journalists. Assuming she slept with them with the intention of getting positive coverage for her game.
It takes two to tango. For example, if someone was selling stolen goods and the buyer knew it, both the buyer and seller would be in the wrong legally and ethically--likewise with an illegal drug transaction.

 

"Game Journalism" is pretty much an oxymoron these days, and I don't care for twitter drama. Phil Fish could sleep with the entire staff of IGN, and I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

What does bother me is the backlash. And not just over this, but the amount of abuse and vitriol that gets generated towards game devs these days (or really, anyone that bothers to have an opinion on the internet). It's really made me question if I want to bother trying to sell my games at all. Yeah, I won't be saying anything on twitter, and probably wouldn't be making anything popular enough for people to care...but still, are these hateful, misogynistic man-babies an audience I want to put any effort into entertaining? I know it's probably a vocal minority, and I'm overreacting to things a bit, but the whole market seems incredibly toxic at this point.

 

Exactly. I have yet to see any of this anger directed at the 5 male journalists, who's names are rarely even mentioned. Had this been a male developer and female journalists, I feel we would see the female journalists harassed, along with the ex-girlfriend of the developer.

Quinn earned her coverage for her unique game, simply for bringing up the topic of depression. I hope to see more games from Quinn, and more games dealing with mental health issues.

 

Good points, and maybe Quinn didn't act quite as unethically as the journalists because of their responsibility to readers. But she still did bribe the journalists for favorable coverage and bribing is, in my opinion, dishonest behavior for both parties. Dinners and friendly emails is lobbying. Gifts of cash, vacations, luxury items, sexual favors, etc. is bribery.

 

So yeah, Quinn did some things that were not really nice.

But 8.000 posts and about a gazillion banned users over at the Escapist seem to me like the whole thing might be blown just a tad out of proportion. At this point, it's like a whole bunch of people with pitchforks and torches. And that's not really nice, either.

My opinion is I don't care and neither should anybody else.

(Also, I think Depression Quest is really neat and it's nice to see classic interactive fiction in the spotlight again.)

 

How do you know this? "Hey I'll sleep with you if you cover my game".

Can you link to this favorable coverage?

 

I think there are alot more deserving devs then these guys, they are the khardashians of the inide dev world.

 

Am I out of touch for thinking it's perfectly OK to sleep with journalists? I mean, consensual sex, last I checked is OK. If you want a favour in return for that, and both parties agree, that's OK too. It's also none of my business.

If a journalist can be bribed, I think that's OK too, it's a big world, full of grown ups. Journalism is subject to the same flaws as any industry in the world. It's not exactly as important as say, parliament. Oh wait.

 

Well if your a review site and you want people to value your unbiased opinion then yes it is a big deal.

The journalist should say i had sex with that indie dev -- so my opinion might be biased

 

I

I have no idea if or how it happened. I said in my first post in this thread "Assuming she slept with them with the intention of getting positive coverage for her game." I didn't add that to the second post but I guess I should have as I was still speaking hypothetically.

My stance: Bribery, in my opinion, is dishonest behavior regardless of whether it's the status quo. Hypothetically, If she did bribe them both her and the journalists are dishonest.
Having said that, I don't think she deserved the witch hunt--regardless of whether the allegations are true or not--but unfortunately because of the sex angle and her being a girl the story was bound to blow up. People love a good scandal to get up in arms about, especially when it involves sex.

 

Sexual relationships with the subjects of your work are basically universally ethically condemned in pretty much any field that has ethics. A psychologist can't sleep with his patients, neither can a doctor, and journalists generally can't sleep with their subjects. If you're a journalist and want to sleep with someone, that's fine - but ethically, you're obligated to either stop covering them or at the very least disclose the relationship in your coverage. If you're a doctor or psychologist and begin a relationship with a patient, you basically have two options: recuse yourself from the care of that patient, or lose your medical license.

I'm not even suggesting that it should be illegal, but I think the public should immediately stop taking any journalist seriously if it's discovered that they have slept with their subject. It destroys the trust in that journalist's objectivity and basically makes it impossible to know if any of their future stories are reliable.

 

The sad thing is she didnt bribe anyone for positive coverage, there's no evidence of it at all. One journalist briefly mentioned her game not in a positive or negative, just in a within a list of games, and that was before the affair, they've never mentioned that game again. The cheated boyfriend didnt even make that claim. He just wanted to destroy her over the affairs. But the internet(certain seeming misogynistic persons) put two and two together and came up with five, and the evidence that it wanted.

Its an ugly, ugly mess(that isnt really of anyones concern except those directly involved), a witch burning, so the pitch fork carrying folk can feel as if they are justified in whatever nastiness they espouse and illegal, unethical actions they take.

I dont know if its just a damnation of gaming and the nastiness of that community or the internet in general.

 

Since i see that not all of you are filled in on the story...

There may be evidence that "doxxing" may in fact have been a false-flag operation.

Let's not forget that these people are not proffesionals, professionals don't "troll the trolls" and "act like whores".
Zoe Quinn was nobody before the whole "harrasment" started, oh and look at the third post here https://forum.encyclopediadramatica...using-whore-tactics-to-silence-dissent.18342/

Phil Fish brought the bulk of it on himself by stooping to the level of harrasers, but let's not forget that he has Andy Kaufman as his profile pic, which could indicate that he may in fact be "trolling".

 

Good God! Please put a NSFW or NSWWIA before posting links like that. Good thing I got good reflexes and closed my browser before anyone noticed.
lol

 

Get a life and let other people live theirs. What Zoe Quinn does is her business, it doesn't make her any less of a human being and deserving of the same kind of respect from others as you would expect for yourself. Her game did not get on Steam because of this toxic BS. Have you seen the crap that is on steam nowadays? The flood gates are open and all the sewerage is pouring in.

Maybe if you spent the hour and a half it took to watch that rubbish you posted above actually making a game it might further your own personal goals.

 

Actually there may be some evidence supporting the theory that he doxxed himself, it's explained in the third video.
Time will only tell if it's true.

 

My wife is a journalist. Unfortunately not a game journalist.

In my opinion sleeping with someone to get something in return is unethical. Well except if it's prostitution and it's legal in the country being done in. The same goes for bribery. We may all be grownups but ethics play a role here.

The same goes for what the people did to Zoe and Mark. Two wrongs don't make a right.

What concerns me is whether Zoe's game Depression Quest would have been noticed, or even made Steam or the Indiecade list if it wasn't for whom she knew. In my opinion it isn't even a game. It's interactive fiction of which there are a lot out there, some of which are much better than Depression Quest.

It concerns me that game journalists may give preference to games based on who you know. Not on the game's face value. Which is life I suppose. It's all about connections. It did open my eyes with regards to the industry though.

 

If the issue is corruption with game journalism, why are we focusing so much on the developers? How is who got hacked or doxxed relevant to any of this?

I still have yet to see these corrupt reviews.

 

Because i don't confirm your bias?
Or because you watched the video, analysed/considered the proposed evidence and made a conclusion?

 

It wasn't reviews. It was the publicity that she got that was making people angry. It's exceptionally difficult to get your game mentioned on Rock Paper Shotgun for instance. But what if you slept with one of the journalists? Or even if you are in the same friends circle as the journalists?

I think that is what made a lot of people angry. Some of the videos that were posted earlier explains it all quite well. Unfortunately I have to go to bed now. I look forward to reading the conversation here tomorrow though. Since the Zoe scandal does affect us game developers and maybe it's a good thing that it's talked about here.

 

You have a right to be angry, but shouldn't that anger be equally directed at the journalists?

 

Dramatica wasn't citing source, i just wanted to show nude pics

Besides like it's already explained(in the third video), the accused group(4chan's /v/ board) denied the attack, if you read the tweet you would know that there is no such thing as "head mod" and no one would ever reffer to boards with capital letter /V/ as used in the tweet and also the we do not forgive rethoric is not used by /v/ board. And not mentioning that CloudFlare has tight security system, most of "attacks" that /v/ board does is spam gore and petty stuff like that so it makes it unlikley that they pulled it off.

But like i said in the beginning, truth will come out in time, since from what i herd there is already investigation over at CloudFlare.

IMO there just doesn't look like there's a clear and undeniable truth to this.

 

For who though?

1. it's none of our business if their site/rag goes down the pan. It's really not our business to protect them from evil or police them. If they suck, don't read it.

2. That's their problem.

3. Being a grown up means knowing your boundaries. You don't have to meddle, interfere and constantly be a bigger pain in the ass than the people who made the mistake, and that's exactly what's happening these days.

Being aware of something is one thing. That's fine. Using it as a pedestal to harp on about morality, right and wrong, and world peace is just bizarre. All it is is (allegedly) someone slept with someone else for a favour. Big deal.

 

I think the unfortunate thing is that it mostly turned into a personal attack/harassment of the individual/s. Rather than about the implications the allegations possibly reveal about a key part of the industry I'm interested in and hope to one day make a full time career in.

I'm not trying to be self-righteous when I posted about bribery being dishonest/unethical. If all the most-read game publications are little more than paid articles influenced by bribes (whatever form they may be in) represented as authentic and honest journalism, well, that sucks in my opinion for both game developers and consumers. Call it another (possibly) ugly underside of the game industry I guess.

I get it, it's the way of world and all that and I'm certainly not losing sleep over this topic--but I don't have to like it.

 

This is all retarded, if you don't like it(which you have valid reason not to), then vote with your money.

Boycott all the journalists, the developers, and move the hell on.

No need to leak nudes onto the Internet and then try to preach about immorality. Seriously.

 

Who knows, with regards to Zoe Quinn, it could be that those "journalists" who wrote about Zoe Quinn's game wanted to have sex with her. Guys will do just about anything to get laid.

 

Steam needs to be boycotted too. Doesn't Valve have a functioning quality assurance department? They're indirectly encouraging this silliness and unnecessary 3rd party drama and nonsense by green lighting just about every weird and incomplete/unplayable thing under the sun. Even by 1990's standards, many of the games, especially the paid ones, would've been deemed unacceptable for the desktop.

 

I think you've hit the nail on head with this observation.

 

Ok, so I watched the videos. Accusations of misogyny are going to get thrown around because of the current atmosphere everywhere. Even if these accusations are true the fact that it is being framed in this manner does more damage to the real non-issue here. People should put some thought into this stuff. Crappy journalism all over. Remove the accusations of immorality and ask questions such as why did Zoe Quinn suppress the attempt by a group of women to support a game? Why did she lie about the supposed 4chan user group, if indeed she did? Did she take money for a game jam that has no judges and no date? Why were posts on reddit and various other groups being deleted more or less as they were posted? People should have been allowed to draw their own conclusions. Not like anyone is unaware that one hand washes the other. Besides all the muck this rakes up is too complex an issue to discuss on forums like this. There's a lot of interesting relevant stuff here but it starts with a disgruntled ex-boyfriend's whiny blog post and it goes down from there. All the relevant issues have been muddied by framing the entire thing as a woman sleeping around to get publicity, as if that was ever going to bring in a lot of money or build a career where there is no ability? And please don't start adding stupid comments like 'women have done that for aeons' because that is just biased dumb misogyny.

 

That's all cool and dandy (sic), but a boycott is only effective if enough people get on board. Simply not handing your money over is not enough.
The nudes weren't personal, she had professional photos, made for profit. Not to mention that the photos and actual sex isn't what should be the focus, it's the behavior that paints character (cheating and manipulating) that is important.