I'm not going to beat around the bush, this blog is sort of a response blog to the "No more Gamergate articles on N4G" blog posted by Admin Christopher, which you can read here.
http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
I'm not going to go in-depth about the blog so here's the gist of it. Gamergate articles aren't going to be allowed because some have the opinion that it's not about games anymore.
Here's the thing, Gamergate has never specifically been about games. It's always been about gaming culture. When you go to the About section of this site, you'll see the following.
"N4G is a social game news site that is part of the NewsBoiler network."
A social game news site. That in and of itself can mean a lot of things. It could, like Chris has said, strictly mean news about video games; or it could also mean any news relating to gaming at all. I actually have evidence to back the second interpretation up in the form of a screen cap.
http://imgur.com/grriaoF
That is a screenshot of the submission page for News on N4G. Notice the Channels section and notice the selected channel "Culture/Offbeat"
What does this say? Well this says that N4G has provided a channel for members to submit news about gaming culture or other offbeat/non-specific news that is not directly tied to a game/games, developers, announcements, etc...
Why is this important? Well it goes back to Chris' blog. Gamergate is definitely not about a game, it's not about game announcements, it's not about shows like E3, but it IS about gaming culture.
Think what you want about Gamergate as a whole, but the movement will always say that it's about ridding gaming media of corruption/nepotism/cronyism, and ridding game development of ideologies and agendas pushed for via shaming tactics and other methods of coercion.
What is gaming culture? Tough to really define of course, but in my opinion gaming culture is anything that gamers and the gaming demographic would be interested in as it relates to the development, sales, and enjoyment of video games. It would then stand to reason that if news about a gaming journalist, especially a veteran who works for a well-known site, commits unethical acts, gamers would want to know about it.
Why would gamers want to know about it? I'm glad you asked.
It has become increasingly well-known, and even documented, that reviewers hold a lot of power in the gaming industry. They will not admit it, and they will emphatically claim that their jobs are difficult ones where they are underpaid, harassed, and don't have any real sway. Then you read a story like this...
http://n4g.com/news/1656061...
"Uncharted 4 dev lost thousands of dollars..."
That story tells of a Naughty Dog developer who, due to what appears to be an unfavourable metacritic average, lost out on substantial bonus money. This is a common problem in game development. Publishers create clauses in contracts relating specifically to metacritic averages dictating whether or not developers will receive a bonus for their work. Think of the kind of power reviewers have over developers in that sense. Metacritic merely averages a number of reviews together, the actual scores these reviewers give are what count.
What kind of faith would you have in a reviewer who is in a relationship with a developer and is in a position to tip the bonus scales in said developers favour? How about the opposite, where the reviewer detests a certain developer and tips the scales towards no bonus? Do you think these relationships will be willingly pointed out by all involved? PC Gamer has proven that that won't happen until movements like Gamergate force it to happen.
News broken specifically under the banner, and for the sake of, Gamergate has revealed a lot of information about how gaming journalism operates behind the scenes. There is nothing to suggest that this news couldn't be revealed without Gamergate, but there is a lot to suggest that Gamergate expedites this kind of information becoming available to the general public.
As gamers that visit gaming news sites, do you or do you not want to know if you can trust the words of developers and the gaming media that's supposed to cover them?
What I do agree with when it comes to Gamergate news and Chris' blog is not allowing ridiculous stories like where some pseudo-developer is sleeping tonight, or the proceedings of a personal court case. That has nothing to do with gaming. A developer's personal life doesn't belong on gaming news sites unless it is specifically referencing some game they are making.
What I can't agree with, for whatever that's worth (nothing), is the idea that a site claiming to be a social site about gaming news, that has a channel labeled "Culture/Offbeat" won't allow articles that discuss aspects of gaming culture. Information that gamers would want to know about.
Gaming culture encompasses vast areas and is anything from the release of action figures, to video game related cosplay, to fan projects, and yes news about the people who are supposed to be reporting about the industry and culture in good faith. It's a nearly impossible task to assign some arbitrary definition of what is and is not legitimate gaming news, and I don't think it's a task anyone should attempt to undertake.
This isn't me trying to undermine the very valid observations and points made in the blog I'm responding to, this is me trying to talk about how gaming culture is important, and news about gaming culture is just as important as whining about early access and gamers being even more entitled today than they were yesterday.
And that folks is my ¢.02
(Unrelated aside: Did any of you notice that the word gamers is not recognized by spellchecker as a word? How offensive)
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Well you've not comprehended the information in the blog, the key part is "Rarely do these topics actually have anything to do with video games but to do with the people who battle a war of opinions that stretches beyond video game news and into the arena of social culture on the Internet."
So gamergate pieces can be submitted, but it actually needs to be about gaming.
I agree with you completely DragonKnight :)
IMO what Christopher is doing is censorship plain and simple, as DragonKnight has shown there is a culture section that all GG articles would easily fall in to.
Obviously it was only a matter of time before the truth came out. We've seen it before on N4G that articles have been removed, due to someone on the site not agreeing with it. Something i've also wondered about is people being buddies with certain higher ups on the site.
Great points, the GamerGate movement it's also about to protect gaming of corrupt people who push their agenda and political views, trying to censor games. It's important to know about the corruption of gaming journalism and share it, that's about our hobby as well.