Integrity in Games Journalism: The Protest Nobody Attended

This weekend at PAX, a protest was supposed to happen.

The “Integrity in Game Journalism” movement wanted to raise awareness of what they believed to be systemic issues in video game journalism. Some would protest outside, whereas those inside the show would wear yellow shirts to raise awareness.

PAX arrived and nobody was protesting.

WIRED contributor Laura Hudson confirmed as much on Twitter while attending PAX, although there has been little commentary on how many people were wearing yellow at the event. One of the reasons the protest might not have been popular is because not enough people were informed. The Tumblr page for Integrity in Game Journalism was taken down shortly after it went live (although a cached version of the page exists here).

Walked by the “Integrity in Games Journalism” Protest that was supposed to happen at PAX. Nada pic.twitter.com/YKFa7x3Gfm

— Laura Hudson (@laura_hudson) August 30, 2014

Will the Vocal Minority Ever Mobilize For IRL Demonstrations?

Perhaps the lack of protest was because the movement just that wasn’t actually that popular in the first place. Material discussing the protests is scarce. No major video game websites have been reporting on it, and outside a few tweets and the cached Tumblr page, the only sources are forum threads discussing the movement and its issues, or articles discussing the issues surrounding the protests.

#GamerGate was a somewhat popular hashtag over Labor Day weekend and attempted to call attention to similar alleged issues, but this is a coincidence if anything. Actor Adam Baldwin is credited with starting the hashtag, and his affiliation with Integrity in Game Journalism is uncertain.