Nebraska Dave News and Reviews

Hey guys, my name is Vito Gesualdi. I’m a former game journalist who has worked at a number of outlets before getting blacklisted by the SocJus clique. I’ve debated whether to post my story for a long time but I figured: fuck it. Every bridge has been burned, might as well get it all out in the open.

This is going to be long. Sorry.

Let me start at the beginning:

When I was in High School, I had a singular dream. I wanted to be a game journalist. Games were my obsession, and not just the titles themselves. I loved the people behind the games, the stories of how those games were made, and learning about the different creative decisions that went into forming my favorite titles.

I got started in the industry as soon as I could, lying about my age so I could become the daily letters columnist of the long dead Gameforms.com (previously TheGIA.com) at just sixteen years of age. I would half-ass my nightly homework assignments, then pour my every ounce of energy into answering as many reader letters as I possibly could. It was a thrill, even though I devoted probably hundreds of hours to it without ever seeing a single dime (or even a game to review!).

Once out of college I managed to get a job making video content for a site called GameZone.com. When I got the job I was screaming with excitement. I was going to get paid to talk about video games. My boss was a minor psychopath who eventually fired me because my Xbox broke down the night I was supposed to be capturing Halo 4 footage for the front page, but it was a hell of a ride.

Thing is, at GameZone I had failed to really integrate myself into the gaming journalist clique. The guys at the top outlets were largely elitist types, who looked down on a guy like me who focused more on the games themselves rather than the social issues surrounding them. I also didn’t buy into the SJW mentality which was slowly becoming the industry norm, where these outlets thought it was their god-given duty to preach politics above anything else.

Honestly, I would venture to say that gaming journalism is perhaps the most SocJus sphere in the world. I want to say it's tied with academia, but at least in the realm of higher education you have some learned individuals who are able to push back against complete nonsense. But in game journalism you have a ragtag collection of barely competent bloggers, who at best have some minor degree in journalism. They’ve excused their lack of education and ethics by again, asserting that they work for some greater good, pretending that getting Team Ninja to reduce DOA’s jiggle physics is a crucial step to shattering the glass ceiling.

Many of the game journalists I’ve met over the years give me the impression of having been the soft-spoken kids at the lunch table in the corner, the outcasts and freaks, and assuredly the victims of bullying. To be fair to them, that sort of mistreatment can be a bitch to overcome. Some of you are younger and never really experienced the anti-nerd stigma that some people now want to pretend never existed, but it was very real. It’s crazy how some now want to claim that the nerds were the real bullies all along. Tell that to the kids who got bullied to tears because somebody found Pokemon cards in their backpack.

Point is, a lot of these guys internalized the feeling of being a victim, and are now incapable of adequately applying that label. Anyone who claims to be a victim automatically qualifies for their unyielding sympathy, regardless of the circumstance. Someone called you a bitch on Call of Duty? This is an end of the world scenario that must be rectified by these emotionally undeveloped nerds, who are so clearly desperate to be seen as the crusaders of justice they worshiped in the games of their youth. They are the Lv. 20 paladins now, and their fight takes the form of… attacking Cyberpunk 2077 for not having enough pronouns.

Anyway, the moment I knew the industry was too far gone was the firing of Allistair Pinsof from Destructoid. Allistair was a good friend of mine, the guy who helped me get a foot in the door at Destructoid, and one of the few guys who seemed dedicated to game journalism as actual journalism, and not just hobbyist fansite garbage. In the course of doing that type of rare actual journalism, he discovered the indie developer Chloe Segal had lied on IndieGogo, collecting money to supposedly fund cancer treatment when it was actually for a sex change operation.

This is what we call actual news. Not some meaningless developer-led preview through a smoke-and-mirrors demo, and not some pointless spit-take about a fighting game character’s boobs being too big. This was an individual who had blatantly scammed the gaming community.

Destructoid, being one of those spineless hobbyist fan sites, refused to touch the story with a 10ft pole. So Allistair, being a man with actual journalistic integrity, broke the story on his own accord.

And what happened? Did the game community commend this man for doing true journalism and uncovering this scam? No, they focused on the fact that he outed a transgender person and cast him as the actual villain of this story. Not the person who stole thousands of dollars from the community, but the one who dared to point it out. Allistair, who had literally been preparing to move to SF that week to assume responsibilities as second in command, was instantly fired for daring to do his job as an actual journalist.

Now look, if Destructoid didn’t have the courage to keep a real journalist employed, that would be one thing entirely. But they took it ten steps beyond, making sure he was permanently blacklisted from the industry. On the notorious “GameJournalPros” list, Dtoid editor-in-chief Dale North posted this:

“Ugh. I can’t tell you what to do, fell EiCs, but I can advise on what you shouldn’t do. Industry friends have informed me that a certain problem child has been reaching out to some of you.”

The rest of the list laughed in response, openly mocking Alistair in numerous threads. It’s the most fucked up, clearly unethical shit I’ve ever seen.

That’s the real problem with the game journalism industry. It’s a close knit dicksucking circle and anybody who can’t keep the load in their mouth is cast out onto the street. Pinsof got tired of guzzling the SocJuc jizm, and had his career ruined for it. Me, as one of his loudest defenders, also found myself on the way out. After Dtoid stopped assigning me review material and ignored my requests to be paid for the past three months of work, I got the picture and headed off.

For a brief moment I still believed that there was a chance to follow the dreams of 16-year-old me, and applied to every outlet in the industry a half-dozen times. Eventually a good friend broke the news to me that I had also made the hit list. I even found out my application was literally laughed out of Polygon. I had a writing portfolio five pages long, video content with hundreds of thousands of views, etc. None of it mattered, because I wouldn’t play the SocJus game.

I love writing and I love games, and I’m still a bit disappointed there was no way for me to continue in that industry. But I just couldn’t manage to keep my mouth shut any longer. Every outlet had fully began to morph into some bizarre moralistic committee which not only stopped caring about games, but actively started to despise them. As someone who thinks that the game community is an often wonderful place, I just couldn’t go along with their constant demonization of every new title and the people who dared to play them.

The few journalists I saw around only ever had one topic on their mind: “gamers.” They talked about how stupid the gamers were, how much they hated their audience, and how excited they were at the prospect of the industry leaving those losers in the dust. They honestly thought smartphones and titles like Telltale’s Walking Dead were going to usher in some grand gaming renaissance, making gamers an irrelevant sector of the market. It was crazy talk.

They really did hate that label though, and still do. The thought of being called a gamer made them recoil: they wanted to be called “game enthusiasts” or some dumb shit. I remember pointing out how great the gaming communities were, how I saw people of all creeds and colors hanging out at conventions like PAX, giving money to charity, games really bringing people together. All they could think about was that Dickwolves comic and how PAX was really just a haven for rape culture (lol).

Luckily, after a lot of struggle, I finally found my niche in the industry. I currently make a living by editing game trailers and other promotional videos for a variety of clients (I actually did a trailer for Gone Home at one point, which is ironic). I'm also the lead graphic designer for one of the best selling tabletop games on the market. I won't name it since I don't want to drag the company into my ranting (you can look it up), but chances are that if you're a dedicated tabletop gamer, you've played it.

More excitingly, I accomplished the ultimate in revenge: personal success. Just last month I got my 100,000th YouTube subscriber (youtube.com/vito), giving me more subs than most of the outlets which refused to return my emails. (I’m definitely going to surpass Dtoid’s shitty 128k subs at some point. How the fuck can you have 5+ straight years of content and only 128k subs?). I’m making content again, and I’m making it for me, not for some shitty outlet who would prefer I waste my time on videos about how Call of Duty makes men into rapists.

Best of all, I'm actually fulfilling my dream of making games rather than just talking about them. My first game, Enemy Weapon, is now on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1333558111/enemy-weapon-a-card-game-for-sexy-billionaires). While it might miss its funding goal, it’s gotten me some new contacts in the tabletop industry. I may very well be getting contracted to design some new products in the near future.

In conclusion, I guess what I want to say is that gamers have proven themselves to be a community that isn’t willing to take shit, and from what I’ve seen within the industry – that message has been heard loud and clear. Certain jerks are going to keep trying to push the “gamers are scum” narrative, but how can they possibly succeed when anyone with eyes can see how great the community truly is? When I stop by my local game shop and have an awesome thirty minute conversation about PS1 RPGs with a female clerk I’ve never met before, does that not prove that the constant cries of misogyny are bullshit? Games are our common language, and that language doesn’t care about your color / creed / gender. You bring a fight stick to the Soul Calibur tournament and you’re in the club, no questions asked.

Unlike most of the journalists I’ve met, I’ll never be ashamed to call myself a gamer. Despite their protests, I wear it proudly.

Peace and love in 2018.

• Vito Gesualdi