You clearly put a lot of time and thought in your responses to Jason Schreier. So many slanted articles about threats and #GamerGate get published all the time. What about the bomb threat article compelled you to respond?
The amount of editorializing, leaving out relevant facts, and blatant factual errors was staggering even for Schreier's standards. A lot of people read Kotaku, so a lot of people read this sort of crap and get angry. A lot of people are hurt and angry in games right now and some outlets, such as Kotaku, are reveling in it. In this instance, it blew up in Schreier's face as Polygon, TechRaptor, and GamesPolitics reported fairly and accurately, by comparison making Schreier look like a fool.
I don't really care about "slandering GamerGate" but I do care about calming the debate around gender politics, censorship, and ethic policies. These are things that key members of the community can discuss in a calm, organized fashion. Instead, we have sites like Kotaku feeding into the hate and chaos by inaccurately and unfairly reporting while moderating comments in such a way that it leaves opposing critics powerless while appealing to a select group that revel in this.
All of this creates unrest that builds and builds. Blacklists have damaged peoples' careers, harassment mobs have taken away the privacy and safety of some, and the game industry has been dragged through the mud so much that the mainstream honestly believe that the game industry is a toxic, misogynistic place, despite there being decades of positive discussions, women in influential roles, and great artistic achievements.
At so many key points, Kotaku could have hosted an open discussion with the community, addressed its ethical breaches instead of hid them, and at least attempted to scrutinize and investigate the public figures GamerGaters suspect are guilty, possibly debunking the conspiracies.
I always hated Kotaku. Almost any journalist does. Before Schreier joined Kotaku, he was one of its most public critics as well! They are a site that will sink so low as to have Sony sponsored blogs, clickbait articles that trivialize rape, and exploit non-game tragedies like the Boston bombing for attention. They put out some great articles and host some wonderful freelance work but that doesn't excuse the harm they have done to the industry at large by lowering values and attacking its critics with cheap tactics. Their motto always seems to be "well that mistake is behind us" yet here they are messing up again and making the climate surrounding games far uglier for it.
What games are you currently working on and what games have you made?
It's pretty stupid to make a game by yourself, so it'd be detrimentally stupid to make games (plural) by yourself. I'm no genius but I realized that much. I dedicated the majority of 2014 to developing my first game: SkyChop. I'm a bit paranoid about giving details on it since its a unique concept and ideas are so easy to replicate these days with the tools that exist.
I've made various test games for myself, mostly off the back of Unity tutorials and experiments. I wasted a lot of time learning things like how to make a grid-based RPG or FPS even though I never plan to make those types of games.
After moving in late 2014, I hit the reset button on SkyChop. The combination of Unity upgrading and spending time away from development has made me reconsider some aspects of the game. I think my next goal will be to take part in a game jam and see if the core concepts of SkyChop still speak to me after trying other things out.
It's been a long battle between putting out dirty and quick clones or making something of the highest quality that means something to me. I've met enough opportunists in NY meetups who done the former, convincing me (despite claims of easy money) that I've made the right decision for me, personally.
