Games Media Has Failed Us
Forward: this essay was informed and inspired by the writing of numerous insightful critics, especially Grace In The Machine’s similar essay from a few weeks ago. Please read it along with those by Nathalie Lawhead and Marina Kittaka, who have said much of the same thing I am about to more eloquently.
On September 11 2020 Merrit K appeared as a guest on episode 277 of the Giant Beastcast. The normal crew was on vacation leave so Abby Russel had invited Merrit (along with two other guests) to fill out the cast. I was excited to see a non-male lineup for the show, and while I’ve never interacted with Merrit I’ve followed them for several years and had always enjoyed their appearances on different shows.
As the show was airing viewers began voicing their disappointment that Merrit had been invited, resurfacing allegations of abuse which had been floating around for years. These weren’t addressed in the episode itself but after publication Abby added a note to the episode’s description stating they had not been aware of the allegations, which they elaborated on in the follow up episode.
For what it’s worth I believe Abby. These allegations came as a huge shock to me, so it’s entirely believable that Abby wouldn’t have known as well. Merrit is well liked within the games community. They have an outsized role at Fanbyte and a huge number of influential games folx follow and support their work. I would never have expected these allegations, and am hugely disappointed to learn that they are not new and not individual. I stand with these survivors and believe their accusations.
This is a broad issue within games and games media. Stories of abuse have been coming out rapidly over the last few years but have amounted to very little actual change. This year should have been Ubisoft’s reckoning, but aside from a few articles and mentions on podcasts, everyone is still excited to play the new Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs. Nathalie Lawhead has been calling every day for Kotaku to apologize and make amends for how they misused and abused her trust with no resolution in sight. Nick Robinson and ProJared are both still making bank on Youtube and Patreon despite sexual abuse and solicitation of child porn. When everything exists on Twitter or a one-off article it’s easy to bury abuse, especially when those being accused often have vastly more resources at their disposal.
Learning about Merrit K (and Anna Anthropy) abusing their positions of marginal fame hits with a different unpleasantess. We’ve come to expect white “nice guys” to secretly be predators. That those within already marginalized communities would also be doing the same thing comes like a slap in the face. This was supposed to be the new games industry. It was going to be diverse, hold itself accountable, and make stuff that isn’t being seen by AAA studios. But the same problems pop up again and again, and the only people who seem to come out unscathed are the abusers themselves. Those who have ingratiated themselves enough within the established games media to survive getting called out on Twitter. Like all abusers they surround themselves with patently good people and use them as cover when shit starts bubbling over. There are so many people I hold huge respect for that still support Merrit and I have seen no evidence that’s changing from this resent controversy.
But I think the problem is bigger than just the abusers being able to sidestep repercussions for their actions. Games media as it exists today is entirely incapable of healing itself. It exists as a half dozen atomized outlets, each an appendage to a larger media company, reliant on platforms and technologies far outside their control. Games media is in an eternal suspended animation, its budget always getting cut, staff perpetually in line for the chopping block, access and resources held over writers by studios and media empires. It is capitalism in microcosm. The holes will never be patched, the sense of impending doom is baked into the fabric that holds these outlets (momentarily) together.
So we end up with outlets unable or unwilling to rock the boat. Everyone looks at Deadspin and knows that could be them, so they play it safe. They might poke Ubisoft for enabling systemic abuse across decades, but they’re still gonna cover their games. Games media is toothless. It has no capacity to even consider growing teeth. The entire apparatus is dependent on satisfying advertisers, managers, whoever currently owns Giant Bomb, and that can’t coexist with writing that calls out and deplatforms abusers and companies.
Which I think is part of how you end up with Merrit continuing to be a notable presence in games media. I think there is a genuine desire from many within games media to do better, and part of that involves looking for people who aren’t cis white men and giving them space to speak. Merrit is trans, they are aggressive, they have a decidedly different flavor than that of the corporate white boys overwhelmingly cover games. But the industry can only support one or two of these people, so instead of many trans voices, voices of color, voices from places that aren’t the US or Canada, we get one or two people again and again. And when it turns out they’re an abuser we are left with the same white dudes who have been around since games media began, with entirely no idea how to handle these developments.
I don’t think any of this can change within the current media landscape. Waypoint tried to create a new kind of games criticism that melded consumer coverage with deeper readings and it fell apart. Giant Bomb is never going to stop covering Ubisoft games and start trawling through Itch. Kotaku is riddled with labor issues and has yet to make right by Lawhead and however many others were hurt by their reporting. Corporate media won’t allow an inclusive, equitable, safe environment to write about games. It is entirely incompatible with the highly capitalist models that fund these sites.
But what’s the alternative? Honestly, I don’t know. As much as there exists an alternative games press at places like Deep Hell / No Escape / Bullet Points Monthly, few of them are able to sustain a full time staff. So much writing across all industries is now reliant on freelancers and that extends into games and especially non-traditional forms of games writing. I want this stuff to exist. I need it to. But the attention economy isn’t there and the money even less so.
I’m glad some are able to survive off Patreon but those margins are brutal, and for anyone without existing social capital it can take years to build something sustainable (if it ever gets to that point). I should be clear, I’m not saying existing outlets do not have an ethical imperative to do better. To stand by victims and not abusers, highlight labor issues, and be more critical about the games they cover. But I have stopped expecting them to do much more than pay lip service to issues fundamental to their platform’s continued existence.
What I’m trying to get at is I’m exhausted. Exhausted by abusers continuing to be given opportunities. Exhausted by the apathy of games media. Exhausted from watching so many incredible voices fade as they leave to less precarious and hostile industries. There are no means currently to make rent with games writing that doesn’t cater to its colonial, capitalist overlords, doesn’t look the other way when abuse is made public, doesn’t lap up the latest AAA game while ignoring the conditions under which it was made. Games media has failed us, and it’s failed itself most of all.