For years, gamers on the internet have suspected and tried to end corruption inside gaming journalism. Sites like Kotaku, IGN, and many others have been accused of receiving bribes and other favors in return for positive press towards developers' games.

Well, in the past few weeks, there has been a huge scandal surrounding Zoe Quinn, (the developer of the free Steam game "Depression Quest") when her ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni published a wordpress blog called "The Zoe Post," featuring text messages, pictures, and screenshots providing evidence that she cheated on him with five different men. Why is this important you ask? because one of the men was her boss, Joshua Boggs, and another of the men was Kotaku and Rock, Paper, Shotgun writer Nathan Grayson, who was one of the journalists most supportive of Zoe's game.

The following can do a much better job of explaining this than I can, so feel free to read and enjoy:

The Zoe Post





TL;DR: Game developer Zoe Quinn had romantic relationships with game journalists, and then just happened to get extremely positive press about her game just days later from those same journalists. This has opened up the floodgates for gamers to fight back against corrupt journalism, while journalism sites continue to ignore the issue, and say that this is merely a sexist attack on Quinn.

Who?

It's not about Zoe Quinn, she was just the catalyst. What's important is that big name people at sites like Kotaku are having relationships and accepting favors from developers and other journalists in exchange for positive press.