MikiSayaka33 at 19:25, 7 July 2017

2017-07-07T19:25:43Z

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{{Person Infobox
| name = Nathan Grayson
| image = Nathangraysonheadshot.jpg
| aliases = [https://twitter.com/Vahn16 @Vahn16]
| occupation = Video game journalist
| affiliations = [[Kotaku]], [[Rock Paper Shotgun]]
}}

'''Nathan Grayson''' is a former contributor<ref>[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/15/um-oops-could-everyone-welcome-nathan-grayson/ Rock Paper Shotgun Welcomes Nathan Grayson]</ref><ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock,_Paper,_Shotgun#Contributors Wikipedia]</ref> for [[Rock Paper Shotgun]] and current contributor for [[Kotaku]]. In [[Timeline/August#16 Aug 2014|August 2014]] he became embroiled in a controversy regarding allegations of journalistic impropriety when it was revealed that he had entered into an undisclosed romantic relationship<ref>[http://wiki.gamergate.me/images/e/ec/Discussion_about_nathan.jpg Zoe Quinn describing breaking up with Nathan Grayson on Facebook]</ref> with the subject of his coverage, independent game developer, [[Zoe Quinn]].

== Notable Works ==

Grayson is most notable for his coverage of [[GAME JAM]], a sponsored "indie" game jam event, which he detailed in an article entitled "[https://archive.today/qErD0 The Indie Game Reality TV Show that Went to Hell]". This coverage, which primarily focuses on personal conflicts and arguments that derailed the project, focuses heavily on [[Zoe Quinn]], to the point of casting her as the protagonist of the struggle of the "indie developers" against the corporate machinations of the sponsors and their hired producer.

== Overall Themes and Criticism ==
Grayson primarily tends to focus on issues of sexism in gaming, or content and media that he perceives to be sexist in nature. This is often attributed to a conversion in viewpoint developed while working at [[Rock Paper Shotgun]]:

{{quote|Being here taught me to care about new things, too. I never thought myself openly sexist or racist or homophobic or anything like that before, but I also didn't understand how systemically ingrained many of those mentalities are. Writing about them helped me learn how to be less shitty, helped me become better at caring about other people no matter how different we are. And (sic)anyway, we’re all human.|Nathan Grayson, "I Love You All"<ref>[https://archive.today/whmC1 "I Love You All", Nathan Grayson, Rock Paper Shotgun]</ref>}}

In the same letter, Grayson goes on to acknowledge [[Jenn Frank]], [[Mattie Brice]], [[Cara Ellison]] and the site [[Critical Distance]] for their contributions to his development as a writer.

A frequent criticism of Grayson is that he applies standards of sexism, or sexist content in a haphazard way, as illustrated by side by side comparison of his coverage. For example, his widely criticized coverage of DOTA,<ref>[https://archive.today/4vyxL Blizzard On Heroes Of The Storm, Female Designs In MOBAs]</ref> where he asks Blizzard game director, Dustin Browder several loaded questions including, this infamous one:

{{quote|You have some interesting alternate outfits for heroes. Roller Derby Nova, especially, caught my eye. On its own, that’s totally fine – just a silly, goofy thing. A one-off. But it got me thinking about how often MOBAs tend to hyper-sexualize female characters to a generally preposterous degree – that is to say, make it the norm, not a one-off at all – and StarCraft’s own, um, interesting focus choices as of late. How are you planning to approach all of that in Heroes? |Nathan Grayson, Blizzard On Heroes Of The Storm, Female Designs In MOBAs}}

Prominent Youtube personality [[John Bain|TotalBiscuit]] criticized the above question, as well as other aspects of the games media in a video entitled ''I Will Now Ramble About Games Media For Just Under 30 Minutes''.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e78JRIHRjC0 "I will now ramble about games media for just under 30 minutes"] TotalBiscuit, </ref> Pointing out that very premise that "MOBAs" as a genre "tend to hyper-sexualize female characters" is not a widely held view or accepted as fact, and instead Grayson was engaging in a form of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question Begging the question] in order to state his own belief as fact.

The above article and subsequent criticism can be contrasted with Graysons coverage of another Blizzard product, Overwatch.<ref>[https://archive.today/tPq3e With Overwatch, Blizzard is trying to do Women Characters Better] Nathan Grayson of [[Kotaku]]</ref> Which instead reads directly like a press release touting Blizzards devotion to de-sexualizing female video game avatars despite admissions from Blizzard designer Chris Metzen that they are actually still sexualized:

{{quote|However, even in the context of Overwatch, which represents a good number of different races, nationalities, and sexes, Metzen admitted that "there's a lot of room for growth." And to be fair, Overwatch's women are mostly super slim and clad in cat suits, so... yeah. (That's not to say they aren't great characters, nor that a game shouldn't have some sexy characters. I just agree with Metzen: there's room to grow.)

For Blizzard, that's definitely a focus going forward. Metzen added:

"Specifically for Overwatch over the past year we've been really cognizant of that, trying not to oversexualize the female characters. I don't know if we oversexualize the male characters. But it's something we're very sensitive to. We want that to be part of who we are, what our brand is. I think [Blizzard president] Mike [Morhaime] talked in a roundabout way to that in his speech [at the start of BlizzCon]. It's something we're very cognizant of. We want girls to feel kick-butt. Equally represented."| Nathan Grayson, With Overwatch, Blizzard is trying to do Women Characters Better}}

Many readers have blogged speculation about if the overall change in tone shows favortism to Metzen as opposed to Browder, or if Grayson was deliberately trying to moderate his reporting after the outcry following his DOTA interview.

== Other Industry Work ==
Nathan has been a quality assurance tester or play tester on some minor video games<ref>[http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,188248/ Mobygames Bio for Nathan Grayson]</ref> such as "Arcade America", "Disney's Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games", "Peter and the Wolf" and [[Zoe Quinn]]'s "Depression Quest".<ref>[http://wiki.gamergate.me/images/e/ee/Quinn-greyson-tester.jpg Twitter Status, Zoe Quinn]</ref>

== Conflicts of Interest ==

=== Dierdra Kiai ===
Nathan Grayson published an article about a GaymerX convention on 25 July 2014.<ref>[https://archive.today/7SuPj#selection-5285.1-5311.1 Kotaku Article, Nathan Grayson: The Best Games Convention I've Been To May Soon Be No More]</ref> In the article, he admits he having a friendship with game developer Dierdra Kiai, and links to Kiai's website on which her website can be purchased. Grayson wrote another article on 1 April 2014, in which he interviews Kiai.<ref>[https://archive.today/uoaiK "Making Games Is Easy. Belonging Is Hard"]</ref> Grayson delivers a glowing profile of Kiai as well as providing a direct link to the product storefront for Kiai game "Dominique Pamplemousse". On 17 July 2014, Nathan Grayson publishes an article about a video interview with a many indie developers from GaymerX, in which Kiai takes part as well .<ref>[https://archive.today/qVmC3#selection-435.55-439.32 The RPS Ultra Super Perfectly Coifed GaymerX Chat Show]</ref>
No mention of Grayson's relationship to Kiai or any sort of disclaimer is given in either of the two articles.'''

=== GaymerX ===
Grayson wrote two favourable articles on GaymerX on 25 July 2014<ref>https://archive.today/CKNVA</ref> and 25 August 2014.<ref>https://archive.today/J4feU</ref> A number of tweets show the President of GaymerX, Toni Rocca, and Grayson planning to meet up with each other, indicating a close personal relationship <ref>http://pastebin.com/3h9ApqSF ([https://archive.is/vU5Dq archived version])</ref> Grayson failed to disclose this conflict of interest in both articles.

=== Nina Freeman and Porpentine ===
In Grayson's "Top Ten Games of 2014"<ref>https://archive.today/GLvl7</ref>, he plugs Porpentine's game "With Those We Love Alive", who was a co-worker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun while he was there.<ref>https://archive.is/f01AK</ref><ref>https://archive.is/DCKqD</ref> In the same article, he also plugs Nina Freeman's ''How Do You Do It'', who he has a close personal relationship with, as evident in a collection of tweets.<ref>http://pastebin.com/aGQhBPNf ([https://archive.is/Zqk1c archived version])</ref> Neither of the two conflicts of interest were disclosed in the article.

=== Riot Games ===
Between 17 October 2013 and 15 July 2014, Grayson published four articles on RPS about ''League of Legends'', a game developed by Riot Games.<ref>http://pastebin.com/WJfh2X25 ([https://archive.is/sVAoY archived version])</ref> Three more articles were published on Kotaku on 2 February, 3 February and 23 February 2015. Numerous tweets show Grayson to have personal relationships with at least Riot Games employees, which Grayson failed to disclose in any of the seven articles.

=== Robert Yang ===
A favourable article about ''Stick Shift'' was published on 6 April 2015 by Grayson on Kotaku.<ref>https://archive.is/Cvyag</ref>
The developer of the game, Robert Yang, wrote numerous articles for Rock, Paper, Shotgun in 2013, during the same period Grayson was an employee.<ref>https://archive.is/EZLbW</ref> No mention of this professional relationship was made in the article.

=== Robin Arnott ===
Nathan Grayson mentioned Robin Arnott and his game ''SoundSelf'' six times in a three month period between March 31 and July 9, 2014,<ref>[https://archive.today/xRKSP The Indie Game Reality TV Show That Went To Hell]</ref><ref>[https://archive.today/8jyrP I Nearly Passed Out In Public Playing A Video Game, And It Was Amazing]</ref><ref>[https://archive.today/0FHi3 Kinect Failed, But That Doesn't Mean Cool Game Controllers Are Dying]</ref><ref>[https://archive.today/sPyBM Does E3 Still Matter?]</ref> including two conspicuous name drops in articles having nothing to do with Arnott or his game.<ref>[https://archive.today/IttMb The Best Violent Moments In Video Games]</ref><ref>[https://archive.today/DZ6E3 The Best Non-Violent Moments In Video Games]</ref> Based on Arnott's facebook profile, he's been friends with Grayson since as early as March 2013.<ref>[https://archive.today/YnnmY Nathan Grayson Facebook friends list]</ref> In the articles, Grayson either profiled Arnott or his work in a positive light, or used him as a quote and plugged his products, even including links to his products. None of the six articles contained any disclosure about their friendship.

=== White Whale Games ===

Grayson wrote a favourable article on 2 October 2014 about ''Monstrocards'', a game developed by White Whale Games. <ref>https://archive.is/5wWn9</ref>
A link to the Kickstarter page of the game was put at the bottom of the article, one day before the deadline of 3 October 2014. Moreover, Grayson failed to disclose a personal relationship with two White Whale Games employees, as evident in tweets detailing plans to meet up with each other.<ref>http://pastebin.com/YvYvSKe0 ([https://archive.is/lLq7K archived version])</ref>

=== Zoe Quinn ===
Grayson wrote several articles mentionining game Developer [[Zoe Quinn]], which were published on [[Rock, Paper, Shotgun]] and [[Kotaku]]. As will be seen below, Grayson failed to disclose important information regarding his relationship with Quinn in several of those articles.

Grayson first wrote a favourable article about game developer Zoe Quinn on 5 September 2012, which highlights her games and includes a link to her products.<ref>[https://archive.is/WtK25 Green For Greenlight: Valve Now Charging $100 Fee]</ref> By time the article was written Grayson and Quinn appear to have become very friendly with each other. The two have known each other since at least as early as June 14th, 2012,<ref>[https://archive.is/h4uGj Twitter status Mattie Brice]</ref>, had met each other several times and have exchanged compliments and otherwise had friendly conversations on on twitter several times before Grayson wrote his first article on Quinn.<ref>[https://archive.is/IuWql Twitter status Nathan Grayson]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/gULNe Twitter status Nathan Grayson]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/mR0M2 Twitter status Nathan Grayson]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/4Ywkw Twitter status Nathan Grayson]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/mxwfA Twitter status Zoe Quinn] and the [https://archive.is/5ZpR7 picture linked in said twitter status]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/zbWbx Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/So3f0 Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/B4nxB Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/VSWKM Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref>

Grayson and Quinn continued to maintan friendly contact with each other after the September 2012 article was published. On 12 November 2012, Quinn tweeted about her plans to create a game about social anxiety. Grayson in response volunteered himself to be a consultant on the game.<ref>[https://archive.is/mgg8r Twitter status Nathan Grayson]</ref> On 27 March, 2013, Grayson attended the 1ReasonToBe panel at GDC.<ref>For more information about the panel, seen the [https://archive.is/ELUg3 following link].</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/gVllo Twitter status Nathan Grayson]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/WN23R Twitter status Andrew]</ref> Quinn, who was also among the panel's audience, contacted Grayson and asked him to hang out with her after the talk would be over, a request to which Grayson happily complied.<ref>[https://archive.is/BI2C4 Twitter status Nathan Grayson]</ref> By November-December 2013 Quinn and Grayson have clearly become very fond of each other, as was evidenced by them exchanging compliments and expressing affection toward each other on twitter. At one point Quinn even expressed a desire to hang out with Grayson.<ref>[https://archive.is/ZUimF Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/X2efl Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/NyfXd Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/hrQyP Twitter status Nathan Grayson]</ref>

It would also appear that Grayson was somehow involved in the making of Quinn's game Depression Quest, as he was credited in the game's closing credits. By checking the game's data, [[Ethan Ralph]] of ''The Ralph Retort'' has deduced that Grayson's name was included in the clsoing credits since February 2013.<ref>[http://theralphretort.com/zoe-quinn-couldnt-have-made-depression-quest-without-grayson/ Zoe Quinn: “Depression Quest Dead in the Water Without Grayson”] ([https://archive.is/8uL8H archived version])</ref> When Quinn was asked why Grayson was thanked in DQ's credits, she replied that he was "[one of] the testers"<ref>[https://archive.is/LGb3f Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref> and that Grayson and others "[made] sure [the game] didnt crash and explode when other people played it".<ref>[https://archive.is/GuxF6 Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref> Likewise, Zoe referred to Grayson's work on the game as "bug testing".<ref>[https://archive.is/6QJGk Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref> Seeing that Depression Quest was released on February 2013,<ref>[https://archive.is/xGYm6 'Depression Quest' Now Available on Steam]</ref> we must assume that the work Grayson did on an unifinished of the game happened prior to that date.

Quinn's comments gave the impression that Grayson worked on the game as a beta tester, but Grayson denied it. He still admitted however that he provided creative input for DQ, meaning he was still involved in the making of the game:

{{quote|"I offered [Quinn] a couple lines of feedback. They basically amounted to, "This is a neat idea, but when I went through this these sorts of things happened." I battled depression for a pretty significant chunk of my life, so I felt like that input was warranted.

As a result of that, Zoe decided to mention me, along with dozens of other people, in the game's credits. I was honestly surprised to find out about this, because I don't feel like I actually did anything worth being thanked for. But hey, it happened."|[[Nathan Grayson]]<ref>[https://archive.is/BrtTm#selection-491.41-480.14 About that Depression Quest credits thing]</ref>}}

Grayson failed to dislcose his relationship with Quinn and his involvement with making of Depression Quest when he wrote about those subjects for RPS on 8 January 2014.<ref>[https://archive.today/NeJis "Admission Quest: Valve Greenlights 50 More Games"]</ref> He also demonstrated his closeness to Quinn just a day after the article was published, saying that he would burn the video game industry if Quinn were to retire from it.<ref>[https://archive.is/V8NHp Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref>

Signs of friendship between Grayson and Quinn can also be seen in the tweets posted by the two on January and March 2014. On 30 Janaury, 2014, Quinn directed a tweet at Grayson and another person saying that she misses them. Grayson replied that GDC is will come soon, suggesting that he was planning to meet Quinn there. Quinn was delighted by Grayson's response.<ref>[https://archive.is/yzoM3 Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref> Between 17-23 March Quinn and Grayson have hung out with each other on several different times.<ref>[https://archive.is/WnFGz Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref name="Karaoke1">[https://archive.is/PbKWf Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref name="Karaoke2">[https://archive.is/Rg4XD Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/SKWQj Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/TNBQ0 Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref><ref>[https://archive.is/J6VGp Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref>

On 30 March, 2014, Quinn twitted about her plans to go to a trip with Las Vegas along with Grayson and others.<ref>[https://archive.is/45to9 Twitter status Zoe Quinn]</ref> Just a day afterwards Grayson published an article on Kotaku, in which Quinn is the central protagonist of the article, which also includes a link to her game. <ref>[https://archive.today/tUlkm "The Indie Game Reality TV Show That Went To Hell"]</ref> Just like in the previous articles, Grayson failed to disclose his personal relationship with Quinn and his involvement in the making of DQ. [[Eron Gjoni]], Quinn's former boyfriend, belives that Quinn and Grayson were friends "for a while" prior to late March/early April 2014<ref>[https://thezoepost.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/tldr-2/ Thezoepost - TL;DR] ([https://archive.is/59zEb#selection-255.104-255.407 archived version])</ref> i.e the time in which Grayson wrote about Quinn for Kotaku.

It should be noted that in an article Grayson wrote about Christine Love on March 19, 2015, he provided full disclosure of the fact he once sang karaoke with her.<ref>[https://archive.is/W7g8T#selection-877.553-877.560 A Better Take On Video Game Sex]</ref> Based on this standard for providing full disclosure, he should have provided full disclosure in the article he wrote about Quinn on March 31, 2014, as he had sang karaoke with her prior to that date.<ref name="Karaoke1" /><ref name="Karaoke2" />

Grayson also mentioned Quinn in a Kotaku article published on 13 March 2015, detailing the events of GDC 2015.<ref>https://archive.is/haXDE#selection-3957.110-3957.247</ref> Leaked emails show Grayson to have paid Quinn a total of $800 in early August, which was confirmed by Grayson himself:<ref>[http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/kotaku-writer-paid-800-to-dev-he-was-sleeping-with-without-disclosure/ Kotaku Writer Paid $800 To Dev He Was Sleeping With, Without Disclosure]</ref>

{{quote|"This concerns something that happened then–nothing even *remotely* work-related. Given that it’s a personal matter, I’d prefer not to say any more."|}}

Although he admitted to dating Quinn briefly "last year", no disclosure was made about the financial conflict of interest in the article.

== Allegations of Plagiarism ==

On 29 July 2014 Grayson published an article entitled [https://archive.today/XCsQY#selection-2615.0-2621.41 "Your Favorite Elder Scrolls Character Probably Died A Horrible Death"] that was primarily sourced from an Imgur post<ref>[https://archive.today/2k16g Imgur, Recurring characters in The Elder Scrolls series]</ref> by a user "St41n3dCl4ss". While in the article Grayson wrote, "St41n3dCl4ss" was cited as a source, that source in turn was actually an English translation of a French article by Corentin Lamy.<ref>[http://archive.today/WeXKY Twitter Status, Corentin Lamy]</ref><ref>[http://archive.today/yLyGA "Elder Scrolls et personnages récurrents : le retour des zéros", WALOU]</ref> However, despite the citation, which was attributed incorrectly, the article itself is primarily a verbatim copy with some minor reformatting. This type of quotation in the long form, while an increasingly common part of [[Kotaku]]'s coverage, is considered plagarism<ref>[http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/ What is Plagarism? ]</ref> due to the lack of additional original work in the piece.

== Kotaku Investigates Allegations and Reforms Internal Policy ==
On 20 August 2014, [[Kotaku]] Editor in Chief [[Stephen Totilo]] released a public statement<ref>[https://archive.today/rMBXA Statement from EiC Stephen Totilo]</ref> addressing the controversy around Grayson's alleged journalistic lapses. Within it he address only the allegations about the romantic, or sexual relationship on behalf of his reporter. It is also worth noting that despite it being obvious that Nathan Grayson has never reviewed "Depression Quest" this allegation makes it into the official statement, as such:

{{quote|Nathan has been accused of in some way trading positive coverage of a developer for the opportunity to sleep with her, of failing to disclose that he was in a romantic relationship with a developer he had written about, and that he'd given said developer's game a favorable review.|Stephen Totilo}}

Despite Totilo not addressing the impropriety of one of his reporters not recusing themselves from a situation where they have an obvious conflict of interest due to long standing friendships, such as the coverage Nathan did of the "[[GAME JAM]]" event, Stephen then goes on to state the following:

{{quote|Given the information available to us both from Nathan and all sources presented online, I have no reason to believe any further action need be taken. The situation is fraught for all involved, including our readers, whose trust is paramount; inquiry is always welcome.|Stephen Totilo}}

Several days later on 26 August 2014, Totilo releases another statement<ref>[https://archive.today/PQ9EM Statement from EiC Stephen Totilo]</ref> where he outlines a minor change in the policy regarding his reporters providing money to their subjects in the form of [[Patreon]] contributions and states:

{{quote|The last week has been, if nothing else, a good warning to all of us about the pitfalls of cliquishness in the indie dev scene and among the reporters who cover it. We've absorbed those lessons and assure you that, moving ahead, we'll err on the side of consistent transparency on that front, too.| Stephen Totilo}}

It is worth noting that despite no formal ethics policy being forthcoming, several disclosure statements were added to articles on the site around this time.

== See Also ==
[[Zoe Quinn]]

[[GameJournoPros]]

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Video game journalists]]

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	Aliases [https://twitter.com/Vahn16 @Vahn16]<br />		Aliases [https://twitter.com/Vahn16 @Vahn16]<br />

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