It seems to not even occur to so many in games media. The idea that devs and journos "rub shoulders" all the time. Heck there are entire forums who proudly trumpet the ability to do that as if that wouldn't be a huge blurring of the lines between journalist and subject. The idea that we are such a small industry that it's unvoidable, so we should treat the idea that journalists and developers are friends as something that isn't a problem and shouldn't be disclosed. Heck most sites don't even disclose that they received review copies for games, which unless I'm misunderstanding FTC regulations is a requirement. It's not been long since we had people fired for calling out the conflicts of interest within games media, or pointing out that maybe you shouldn't as a journalist be tweeting ads for Playstation in order to win a free Playstation, or that you shouldn't take Nexus tablets from Ubisoft at prerelease events, or the very notion that there is a games media awards ceremony which journalists attend that is sponsored by the companies they cover. We recently had our own scandal on Youtube with the Shadow of Mordor coverage deals and yet even though the people involved are not journalists or reviewers, on the whole they still did a better job handling disclosure and discussing the ethics of the deals (heck the only reason you know about it is because a Youtuber blew the whistle on it). Everyone has room to improve. When you say "nope, nothing to see here", close ranks then start writing about the death of an identity, you cannot be surprised when that blows up in your face. Allying with mainstream media hackjobs to dodge bullets is little more than cowardice. You can condemn harassment in this industry without cynically using it to dodge responsibility for problems that games media has and needs to work on fixing. You can condemn it without flagrantly mislabelling millions of people, or perpetrating harassment of your own under the guise of "justice". When I look at these sites I don't see brave crusaders fighting for what's right, I see people trying to save their own skins and using whatever means they have to in order to do it and that makes me very sad. Has Games Media improved since Gerstmanngate? I'd like to think so, but it has a long way to go. The consumer should always come first. When you take to condemning innocent consumers over the actions of a few, closing ranks around developers whose games you will somehow have to try and review fairly in the future, I feel like you've truly lost your way.