There certainly was some actual “ethics in video game journalism” discussion early on that I felt was legitimate, but that got drowned out pretty quickly by the misogynists (which, from what I gather, was the entire point - it seems the misogynists started the whole thing and used the “ethics in game journalism” thing as a front to try to legitimise their agenda).
I think the discussion about the personal relationships game journalists have with developers in general was a reasonable one to have. It unfortunately ended up just laser focusing on Zoe Quinn supposedly trading sex for good reviews, which was untrue, sexist and resulted in nasty personal attacks. But I think it was worth at least examining the fact that game journalists and game developers often have close relationships and move in the same circles, and that game journalism can often be a stepping stone to game development. Those are absolutely things that could influence someone’s reviews or articles, consciously or subconsciously.
And another conversation worth having was the fact that gaming outlets like IGN were/are funded by adverts from gaming companies. It makes sense, of course - the Venn diagram of IGN’s (or other gaming outlets’) readers and gaming companies’ target audience is almost a perfect circle, which makes the ad space valuable to the gaming companies. And because it’s valuable to gaming companies, it’s better for the outlets to sell the ad space to them for more money than to sell it to generic advertising platforms. But it does mean it seems valid to ask whether the outlets giving bad reviews or writing critical articles might cause their advertisers to pull out, and therefore they might avoid being too critical.
Now I don’t think the games industry is corrupt or running on cronyism, personally. And I certainly don’t believe it’s all run by a shadowy cabal of woke libruls who are trying to force black people, women (and worse, gasp black women shudder) into games. But I do feel it was worth asking about the relationships between journalists, developers, publishers and review outlets - and honestly, those are the kinds of things that both game journalists and people who read game journalism should constantly be re-evaluating. It’s always good to be aware of potential biases and influences.
The fact that the whole thing almost immediately got twisted into misogyny, death threats and a general hate campaign was both disappointing and horrifying. And the fact that it led to the alt-right, and that you can trace a line from it to Brexit and to Donald Trump becoming US president, is even worse.
I’m not Canadian and I don’t know the details of the situation, so excuse me if I’m wrong on this, but I think MP pay is a complex issue. It’s easy to say “they get paid way more than the average person, of course they don’t need a pay rise” but I think it’s important to find a balance between that and paying enough that becoming an MP is an appealing option for intelligent, driven people. If they have a choice between an median salary as an MP and 15x the pay in the private sector, the most brilliant people are going to be drawn towards the private sector purely for financial reasons.
It’s also important that they’re given enough financial security that there’s no risk of their finances being used as leverage against them. Some politicians will always just be corrupt and open to bribery or “lobbying”, of course, but you don’t want politicians that don’t have their own money from other sources being put in compromised positions because of their finances. And you don’t want politicians looking for other sources of income rather than focusing on their primary job.
Like I said, I don’t know the details. Maybe Canada has already found a good balance - where it’s already appealing to the best and brightest, and where their no risk of financial issues for MPs - and MP pay rises would be unnecessary. I just thought it was worth mentioning the fact that there can be some nuance to the situation!