OK, enough about internal drama and Sarkeesian Fraud Watch posts. We’ll go back to cracking on the scumbags soon, I can assure you. In fact, Arthur Chu seems to be doing his best to outdo Jonathan McIntosh since 2015 started, now that scum has come up. But that’s for another time. Today, I want to talk about the huge scandal that’s been the talk of GamerGate since last night. The only reason I haven’t written about it already, is because I had to go to sleep after the stream and article write-up this morning. But, I’m wide-the-fuck awake now, and ready to talk about a writer for PC Gamer getting his dick wet in exchange for selling out his credibility. This is a familiar tale, to say the least.
The story involves Tyler Wilde and his work for PC Gamer. As it turns out, he’s also laying pipe to a Ubisoft “communications associate.” Normally, there’s not an issue with that, so long as you disclose your relationship. I don’t have a problem with him writing about Ubisoft products, so long as that’s out there. I get paid by Google, for fuck’s sake. If they somehow got involved in GamerGate, or something I was writing about, I would disclose it, and then give my opinions accordingly. It’s up to the reader to decide. This guy wasn’t getting paid by Ubisoft, but the conflict of interest is still there. He stands to benefit from their success, and the reader wasn’t notified of this. That’s a critical failure on the part of the PC Gamer editorial staff. And instead of owning up to it, the corrupt bastards are trying to sweep it under the rug.
That's why you have to disclose your damn relationships, I don't know what you've written that I can even trust now.
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) January 15, 2015
which of these do you think is happening? 1) PCGamer stepping up and admitting their fault with an apology 2) Deleting all evidence
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) January 15, 2015
"Why is our market share being gobbled up by Youtubers?" Well I can think of a few reasons…
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) January 15, 2015
The depth of the failure is staggering. It wasn’t just one instance. This went on time and time again and no one said a thing. The same shit for brains who said the “PC Master Race” meme was driving hate and based on Nazism, has no problems carrying on a longstanding relationship with a Ubisoft staffer without smartening up his readers. What kind of person thinks they can get away with this? Does they really think so little of their customers? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. We’ve seen it too many times to come to any other conclusion.
Late this afternoon, we also have word that Wilde might be in even deeper than we thought. It looks like he used to have extremely close ties to a Capcom employee. Credit goes to FartToContinue for this, and the original discoveries:
https://twitter.com/TheFartRises/status/555821965211353088
How many unethical relationships does this guy have? I guess only time will tell. But we don’t need a watch to tell us that the gaming media is broken. We take gains where we get them, like with IGN ethics change (and their staunch defense of free speech), but the other big outlets are trash. They’re anti-gamer, and they don’t represent our interests. This is just the latest example. Add it to your emails and outreach materials. This is exactly what GamerGate has been talking about for months. It really is about ethics.
