Conspiracies are nothing new in arena of video game industry journalism. The Gamergate controversy erupted largely because of a cabal of woke video game journalists who planned a coordinated public propaganda offensive to demonize and marginalize male gamers.
Since most journalists are radical progressives and neo-Marxists, they naturally protect their own. Rising star and outspoken darling of the woke video game industry, globe-trotting, part-time anarchist Jennifer Scheurle is one of them. Why is is that only a few websites like Techraptor, NewMusicExpress and GameIndustryBiz, are they only ones to report on the Jennifer Scheurle and IGDA abuse scandal?
The major offenders in this conspiracy of silence are Kotaku, Polygon, and Forbes author/reporter Jason Schreier — the smug self-appointed arbiter of diversity, inclusion, feminism, ethics, and morality in the video game industry. Not one of them has mentioned or reported on this scandal and some of above-mentioned entities were instrumental and complicit in the Gamergate controversy/conspiracy and relentlessly attacked anyone that challenged their false narrative.
Jason and the E-Astronauts
To be fair, perhaps Jason doesn’t have the time to report on this story. Maybe he’s extremely busy running from imaginary Nazis who are out to get him. Recently, Jason came out of hiding and miraculously found the time to mock black female rapper Nicky Minaj on Twitter but he didn’t have the time to Tweet about Blackbird Interactive developer Scheurle/IGDA scandal?
Here’s Jason trying his hand at standup comedy on Twitter:
Cowardly video game journalists have avoided the Jennifer Scheurle IGDA scandal like the plague, but their intellectual sloth and journalistic malfeasance will not stop the truth from coming out.
Why Doesn’t the Woke Left Believe these Brave Women?
Since Noni Och revealed Scheurle’s alleged pattern of abuse, coercion and gaslighting which the IGDA was fully made aware of with 120 plus pages of evidence, other game developers who were victims of Scheurle’s behavior have come out of the shadows to make their voices heard.
In Australia where she was teaching game design in and around 2015, a Twitter user alleged she publicly humiliated a classmate:
How did a nobody “game designer” get a VISA to teach game design in Australia with no real experience making video games? Asking for a friend.
Polygon is Protecting Their Own
Like Kotaku, Polygon is a notoriously woke gaming website full of millennial schoolmarms that constantly agonize over video games that are rife with transphobia and other invented thought crimes.
One of the reasons that Polygon is refusing to cover this scandal is that Jennifer Scheurle is one of their authors and she’s family. So far she’s written 5 articles for them:
Valheim’s biggest secret? Trusting the player
Dear Player: I love You, Let’s Talk
Difficulty is about trust and communication, not ‘hard’ vs. ‘easy’
Games aren’t always fair, the magic lies in making you think they are
Why the combat in Anthem feels so damn good
The Mary Sue Protects Other Mary Sue’s like Scheurle
Just a few days after the story broke, my Google alert came back with only one story — just one — an article featuring Jennifer Scheurle from The Mary Sue which is a clickbait website targeted toward leftist female geeks:
I figured that since the Mary Sue was all about female empowerment that they would be coming to the defense of Scheurle’s alleged victims. Boy, was I wrong. Instead they published a throwaway slow news day article about Halloween Skeletons featuring a tweet by Scheurle. Even after Scheurle’s scandal, her accomplices in the media were hard at work promoting her inflated e-persona.
Suddenly Jennifer Scheurle is a home interior expert whose tweets are worthy of being reported in the media? Maybe she’s got an upcoming home improvement reality TV show on HGTV that we don’t know about. It should be called: Home Decorating Tips from an Anarchist Astronaut.
It’s not surprising that The Mary Sue could not even be bothered to cover the scandal. With her 41K followers on Twitter, the precious well-connected Scheurle is off limits to a website that purports to care about the welfare of women. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Why on Earth did Blackbird Interactive CEO Rob Cunningham Hire Scheurle?
When Scheurle was “laid off” from ArenaNet in 2020, there were many red flags that Blackbird Interactive could have easily seen. I believe they knew full well about her radicalism during the BLM/ANTIFA riots and the time she accused a black man of being a mass murderer and white supremacist but they hired her anyways.
They hired her because she would fit in perfectly with the ultra-woke cosmopolitan culture of Vancouver which by the way, is considered the San Francisco of Canada. Both ArenaNet and Blackbird hired her because she was considered a trophy hire with NASA credentials and they desperately wanted a piece of her e-celebrity.
Apparently, Scheurle’s bad behavior goes back many years. Opaque Space, ArenaNet, and Blackbird Interactive are all complicit in feeding Scheurle’s ego. I believe when Scheurle caused enough collateral damage at one studio, she would leave and move on to the next studio. Each studio was probably embarrassed at their bad judgment and eager to dispose of her as fast as possible. What she wasn’t counting on was that one of her victims would find the courage to speak out.
The Problem of Biased Journalism
Real journalism should be free from bias and naturally real journalists should strive to be objective. Sadly, this is no longer the case with most of them.
Bias in journalism generally exhibits itself in two ways:
- overt bias within the content and lack of objectivity of their news reporting
- covert bias created by the news stories that news organizations choose to ignore and the ones they chose to cover
If a progressive does something good, the press reports it and amplifies it; if a progressive does something bad, they ignore it. Conversely, if a conservative does something good, they ignore it; if they do something bad, they report it and amplify it. This is the world we live in.
Thanks to the left’s long march into all the institutions, objective agenda-free journalism and viewpoint diversity is pretty much dead in the West. Journalism has morphed into thinly veiled leftist activism and unapologetic advocacy. There is no disputing that the mainstream media and Big Tech are the propaganda wing of the Democratic party here in America.
If a male game developer had done the same things as accusers have alleged against Scheurle, the bloodthirsty cancel culture mob and woke video game journalists would be on the war path and the story would be getting 24/7 coverage from thousands of news sites. But since it’s an America hating, revolutionary, radical feminist who utters all the right things and holds the correct opinions, the story has been flushed down the toilet. Nothing to see here folks.
I believe the reason the established gaming press have avoided this story is because German national Scheurle is a sacred cow who has the same politics as them and they feel she must be protected at all costs — no matter who she has hurt on her meteoric climb to the top. In the same way that Greta Van Thunberg is the poster child for the ruse of climate change, Scheurle is the poster girl for female empowerment in the video game industry.
Protecting their sacred cows is standard procedure for the left. Big tech protected Hunter Biden and his crooked father from his various scandals in an effort to influence the U.S. presidential election. Thinks have gotten so crazy in America that The Atlantic magazine (owned by Steve Jobs’s woke wife) considers this crackhead, sexual deviant an emerging artist.
Journalists are supposed to be objective, and they are supposed to follow the story wherever it takes them. Instead, they are orchestrating a coordinated coverup to protect one of their precious rising stars.
Instead of being impartial reporters of news, journalists now pick the winners and the losers. They wield immense and ubiquitous Orwellian power in our society. If the public cannot get the truth and get the entire story, they will be unable to come to accurate conclusions. Therefore, it is vitally important to ensure that we hold them to account when they exhibit bias.
Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards Future Class Organization Knew about the Allegations and Did Nothing
As I remarked in my previous article, The Game Awards Future Class is the ultimate participation trophy for millenials. Using the same logic that the Nobel committee awarded newly elected President Obama a coveted Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishing nothing, likewise Keighley’s Game Awards recognizes people not for their achievements but for their potential.
From their site:
The Game Awards Future Class is a diverse group of builders, thinkers, and dreamers who’s voices elevate and diversity our artform. It recognizes individuals around the world who represent the bright, bold and inclusive future of video games.
According to a report from Techraptor, the Game Awards “Future Class” organization knew about the allegations but failed to act. Scheurle was named a member of the prestigious Future Class.
From their article:
News about these accusations has already resulted in repercussions for Jennifer Scheurle. Game Designer Elaine Gómez asked Future Class and The Game Awards to pull Jennifer from the initiative, and her request was accepted. However, another user known as Calliope Ryder claims that Future Class was told about the allegations before and ultimately didn’t take action. “It’s mind blowing that organizations this big still have to wait for public momentum,” she remarks.
It turns out that the Game Awards doesn’t really care about the marginalized people that it claims to champion. It’s all woke posturing and virtue signaling.
Conclusion
In the end, it’s all about the shaping, promoting, and protecting the narrative. The current narrative is that the video game industry is full of toxic white males who by their very existence are oppressing trans people, minorities, and female developers. Since the allegations against “award winning” Jennifer Scheurle don’t fit their woke/progressive narrative, they are conveniently dismissed and ignored.
If they are failing to report on the Scheurle scandal for political reasons, what other stories are they failing to report on?
You might notice that all the woke CEOs and developers that rushed to Twitter to clutch their pearls and condemn Blizzard and Alex Afrasiabi and anyone else who set foot in the infamous Cosby Suite are completely silent on this. All of them are invertebrate cowards. They obediently slither out from the woodwork to join the bandwagon only when the Twitter outrage mob gives them permission.
Despite the woke press blackout on the story, more victims and witnesses to Scheurle’s antics have come forward.
Noni Och is absolutely right.
An apology from the sanctimonious Scheurle — who was also partly responsible for cancelling video game legend Nolan Bushnell — is not enough. She and her supporters in the IGDA — who knew what was going on for the last two years but did nothing — need to be held fully accountable for the harm they have caused innocent and vulnerable people.
In retrospect, putting Jennifer Scheurle in charge of the IGDA Women’s Initiative is about as ridiculous as putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. She didn’t get there by herself. Scheurle got there because she was protected by powerful friends and allies in the industry. Every woke organization like Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards, game developers, and journalists who enabled this manipulative monster, looked the other way, and bestowed her with undeserved fame and power, needs to be held responsible for their role in this fiasco.
There are quite a lot of mini Jennifers, most of them of the Community Manager kind. Supposedly hip and en vogue these days, though for the players a disaster. It’s all about pretense and looking good and righteous. The perfect role for unqualified pretenders.
Culture is upstream from politics, you said it already in your previous article. While many involved are just sheep and hangers-on, this grab for leading positions which works due to pretense and supporters is a textbook example oft extreme left-wing, outright socialist propaganda and activism. Television is the present but is becoming the past, influencers and streamers on various platforms and video entertainment are the future for propagandists and activists.
Supporting Riot Kitchen and similar actions alone should mean the loss of any visa and end in immediate deportation.
The role of the community manager is the vector point for entrance into the video game industry. You don’t have to have any qualifications to do this job. Many designers today, such as Alan Vancouvering and Steve Danuser got their start in the industry using this position. If you manage not to get fired, you can usually advance within the company. Vancouvering is the top design dog at Daybreak Games now. Let that sink in.
In addition, the role these days is reserved for females so that game studios can check off their female inclusion diversity box.
Since most young females are typically woke these days, you have a situation were purple haired radical feminists are infiltrating the industry. Then they leverage their “dev” status to get promoted to production or design roles. Tami Sigmund AKA Cuppycake is a prime example of this. SOE’s John Smedley has been opening doors for her, pretty much her entire career.
Every time a woke women with no talent is employed in the industry, it’s one more position that a qualified person is being denied. This is why video games are: 1) getting worse and 2) full of wokeness.
I agree. Scheurle should have had her visa revoked and been immediately deported based on her involvement with RIOT KITCHEN.