17
Coverage of the Horizon event, without disclosing his ties to organizer Brandon Boyer — Grayson financed his crowfounded medical treatment and received free admission tickets via GameJournoPros.
Positive coverage of Zoe Quinn in three articles, without disclosing their friendship and eventual affair. Later covered Quinn again, disclosing they "dated briefly", but not that he had previously financially supported her.
Wrote about Butt Sniffing Pugs without disclosing his personal relationship with Maya Kramer, the game's logistics coordinator.
Covered games that were represented by public relations agency TriplePoint in at least eight occasions without disclosing his friendship with Stephanie Palermo, who at the time was working for TriplePoint and involved in said games PR work. After Palermo joined Capcom’s PR department Grayson covered that company and its games four times.
Positive coverage of his friend Robin Arnott in six articles published through three months.
Positive coverage of White Whale games, with no disclosure of his personal relationship with both members of White Whale.
Coverage of Riot Games and League of Legends in at least seven articles, without disclosing his relationship with several Riot Games employees, especially Taylor Cocke.
Wrote two times about Christine Love for Kotaku, partially disclosing a rather apparent personal relationship only in the first. Grayson also wrote a third previous article mentioning Love, but it was published before any public interactions between the two.
Covered Robert Yang in three articles for Kotaku. Grayson disclosed that Yang worked at Rock, Paper, Shotgun (Grayson’s previous outlet) in the first and third article but not in the second. Shortly after the publication of the second article Kotaku’s Editor-in-Chief Stephen Totilo was approached about the lack of disclosure. Totilo replied that Grayson and Yang did not work together and were not close.
Agenda driven non-interview of Ubisoft’s Mark Thompson, titled “Ubisoft refused to talk to me about women”, spent entirely offering his proofless, subjective prospective on things his subject allegedly didn't say. This piece followed another controversy-chasing article—over a nonissue—by Grayson, who had also previously engaged in a discussed, interrupted interview with Blizzard. By its timing, the Ubisoft interview may have been the cause of Kotaku’s claimed blacklisting.
Contributed to the moral panic started by Cara Ellison about a 4-second scene in Hotline Miami 2. Often called a “rape scene”, the scene not only cuts before anything happens, but is immediately shown to be fictional in-universe. His very heavily opinionated interview is credited with escalating this controversy, which may have contributed to instigating Hotline Miami 2’s Australian ban.
Infamous interview with Blizzard which he concluded by accusing the developer of sexism for the presence of sexy costumes in the game Heroes of the Storm. His questions and preachy followup caused a large amount of controversy and criticism, marking one of the most-often quoted examples of agenda-driven game journalism.
Member of GameJournoPros. Not proven to have been active in the list, although there is circumstantial evidence he might have been active.
Often accused of plagiarism because one article of his directly copies text from a French one. However, the original plagiarism was by the author of the Imgur post that Grayson quoted as source.
GameJournoPros membership isn’t an impropriety by itself. Read why DeepFreeze finds it notable.
This journalist’s career means they might be subject to slight asymmetric scrutiny.
Sensationalism emblems may be based on subjective criteria.
Readers are encouraged to take entries critically, and form their opinion independently.
Related articles
Unfair advantage
Some journalists give privileged access to the gaming industry based on friendship rather than on merits
The monster to silence
Media's dehumanizing portrayal of those calling them out for their corruption may be that corruption's most irrefutable proof
Secrets of GameJournoPros
Some of the most incriminating stories uncovered this far about the secret mailing list of the game journalism elite