The Escapist on the Zoey Quinn 'Quinnspiracy'

There's been a lot of controversy in the world of video games in the past few weeks.

Mass censorships, a press trying their hardest to control a story, and indie devs scrambling to protect each other over twitter.

I'm absolutely convinced that there is nothing to this story at all.

Now, that being said, Yahtzee himself has actually been rather quiet on the subject of the controversy. No one seems to have approached him and asked for his opinion on the subject, and I can't seem to find one. Personally, I think Yahtzee is waiting to make a statement on the matter. It's a real mess of a situation right now, and picking the wrong side could be absolutely devastating to his career and reputation.

That has not, however, stopped The Escapist itself from taking a hardline stance against Zoey Quinn's detractors, and I can't say I'm surprised by that. Like most other sites, they've composed a narrative of a charming young lady being harassed by cruel, heartless soldiers of the patriarchy.

I don't know enough about The Escapist as a site to make an accurate call on why they need to support Quinn, but I imagine it's for reasons similar to Kotaku's. Short, quick, indie games that discuss social issues are easy fodder to write entire articles over. In a world where sites need to keep gathering new information every day to keep their user base coming back... well, let's just say that people like Quinn, who are much more talk than actual talent, are a huge boon.

So in short, The Escapist is protecting their bottom line. They'll throw Quinn under the bus if they absolutely have to, but they'll just brush her aside and find someone else to talk about. Yahtzee doesn't really consider himself a 'journalist' so he's not really under fire for the allegations surrounding Quinn. Getting involved, for now, would probably not end well for him. That terrible Tomodachi Life video he made is a pretty good example of him sitting out controversies, and then trying to profit off of them after people had cooled down.

I'm not even sure who Jim Sterling is, really, except that he's The Escapist's other Cash Cow and that he supports Quinn. That's enough reason to dislike him, I guess. I think he may have been the guy behind the AVGN roast, and if he was... he really, really needs to apologize to James.

I can't watch the video right now from where I am, I'm afraid, so I'll have to hold out on explaining why he's wrong about Quinn. I may edit in later, but I'll likely forget.

Now, what I do have access to is articles 'explaining' why Anita Sarkeesian had to vacate her home. Apparently, following the fall out from the GamerGate scandal, Sarkeeisan received very frightening threats on her and her family.

Of course, we figured out that she faked it herself almost immediately, but you would never have known that if you had gotten your news from these people.

I also like how they outright say that games are not immune from criticism, and then immediately go ahead and delete every comment disagreeing with all of Sarkeesian's nonsense, regardless of how well thought out they were.

Women in the industry, real developers, get lots of respect from fans. People like Quinn get slammed for more concrete reasons. Like being a terrible person, for example. Shutting down charities, promoting games through illicit methods, even the Five Guys incident. And on top of that, she's not even a real developer! Gone Home was pretty bad, but at least it could imitate being a real game!

Sites like Kotaku and The Escapist are attempting to push this idea that women are being downtrodden and abused in industry, when we know that isn't the case. Samus Aran is a beloved video game heroine. Tell me... who makes the most sexist comments about her? The gamers who love her and aspire to be as brave as she is, or the journalists who whine every time she comes out of the suit?