Valve made a post about updating the curator system this fall. The update was posted on October 26th, 2017, discussing why Valve thinks the curator system is important and how it helps with game discovery and giving developers a more pronounced platform on Steam. Well, SJWs became incensed because the post originally had an image of the Techraptor curation page in the background, and so they went and fulminated TechRaptor online for being pro-#GamerGate.

Anti-#GamerGate Journalists from Kotaku, Gamasutra, Rock Paper Shotgun, and Savvy Gamer alerted Valve and their Twitter followers about the image after they saw it on the update. It was a concentrated effort to denigrate Techraptor in the eyes of Valve. Valve did change the image in the background of the post, as spotted by Kotaku in Action.

New curator update coming to Steam, and first thing your see is a grumblegorp curator being featured https://t.co/GJmywf5Z9w — Spewy Docter (@LewieP) October 26, 2017

The image first changed to IGN, as indicated in the follow-up post below, where Valve swapped out the background image showing Techraptor to a background image showing IGN.

Valve changed the image on their blog post. It now shows IGN instead of TechRaptor https://t.co/GJmywf5Z9w pic.twitter.com/qz0OiBJW6E — Spewy Docter (@LewieP) October 26, 2017

According to Kotaku in Action – or if you visit the news page right now – the background image shows Rock, Paper, Shotgun, one of the affiliate sites that Valve uses to syndicate their news feed to Steam gamers.

Techraptor owner Rutledge Daugette was at first disappointed, but also amended his thoughts to state that maybe Valve was just rotating images around for the different curators on Steam.

Actually – I should amend this: We don’t fully know if we’ve been removed. It’s possible there’s a rotation. Timing was just weird. — Rutledge Daugette (@TheRealRutledge) October 26, 2017

This whole thing started when Kotaku writer Nathan Grayson brought it to the attention of his audience, given that Techraptor was one of the only few sites back in 2014 to give proper coverage to #GamerGate and the concerns surrounding the corrupt practices happening within the game industry. It was also one of the few sites that didn’t peddle the narrative that #GamerGate was a harassment campaign.

in case you were wondering about valve’s internal culture, first image on their steam curator update post is of a gamergate sympathizer site pic.twitter.com/dQRqpXfL4M — na’thun gravestone (@Vahn16) October 26, 2017

This is despite the fact that TechRaptor only has a fraction of followers as a curator compared to Kotaku on Steam.

Nevertheless, simply seeing the image containing Techraptor on Valve’s news update was enough to trigger Social Justice Warriors to dogpile Techraptor and its founder, Rutledge Daugette. It was led by none other than Nathan Grayson and his former lover Zoe Quinn.

Steam is literally featuring a gamergate website in its blogpost about who is gonna help decide visibility issues for devs. pic.twitter.com/yViFS6ZgdF — 💀zombië queen💀 (@UnburntWitch) October 26, 2017

by flooding my mentions with trash & talking about my vagina you’re doing a great job of proving that gamergate is not about harassment lol — 💀zombië queen💀 (@UnburntWitch) October 26, 2017

no idea what techraptor is up to these days, but they sure were a hoot when gamergate was at its peak https://t.co/ReF3jKR3Ib — na’thun gravestone (@Vahn16) October 26, 2017

Dominic Tarason from Rock,Paper, Shotgun joined in on the fray, rallying his followers against Valve for featuring Techraptor on the site, and even going so far as to encourage indie developers to blacklist the site.

LRTs: Seriously, fuck Valve for featuring Techraptor of all sites front-and-center like that. Techraptor are very bad and very stupid. — Dominic Tarason (@dominictarason) October 26, 2017

Indie devs, please stop interacting with Techraptor. They were 'neutral' on Gamergate. i.e. they endorsed the abuse at every opportunity. — Dominic Tarason (@DominicTarason) October 26, 2017

Techraptor founder Rutledge Daugette posted up an image containing Techraptor’s stance on #GamerGate, and the site’s goal of being an ethical outlet.

I’ll just go ahead and post this here, because what Alex said is correct, but there’s more detail to our “involvement” you should read. pic.twitter.com/LaUCrI3KVE — Rutledge Daugette (@TheRealRutledge) October 26, 2017

If you can’t read it, the image basically states…

“[…] The site itself is actually neutral in the GG/aGG debate, although we’ve [had] writers that leaned on either side over time, I can’t name a time we’ve ever openly been [pro-GamerGate] – the values that I put in place in 2013 when I started the site just aligned with the type of journalism that #GamerGate wants to see. “[…] I should clarify -0 none of this is talk against GamerGate or the people within it. I merely wanted to make a note that while GG has supported TechRaptor, the site itself is not a “Pro-GG” outlet. Our content, and our staff’s thoughts and feelings surrounding the gaming industry are just heavily focused on quality, ethical conduct, and growing the amazing industry that brings us great games.”

Even after posting the message and explaining where the site stands, Gamasutra contributor and GDC community manager, Bryant Francis, dismissed the explanation, continuing with the anti-#GamerGate rhetoric about the site enabling harassment.

calling yourselves the kind of journalism that gamergate wants to see means you support a culture of harassment. — Skeleton☠️Warrior☠️ (@RBryant2012) October 26, 2017

Others continued to criticize and attack Techraptor as well, claiming that having any association with #GamerGate at all wasn’t a good look for the site.

That is a very unconvincing attempt to paint yourself as being in the middle ground when your actions say otherwise. — Spewy Docter (@LewieP) October 26, 2017

Hey the fact that you’re posting a defense of your site right now rather than an unconditional apology for harm you caused looks really bad — Dead Tom (@SoulofTwhit) October 26, 2017

Techraptor claiming to be neutral on the matter and Valve rotating out the image from the news update still wasn’t enough for some people. They wanted Daugette to apologize to Zoe Quinn, and to denounce #GamerGate. Others were still willing to hold a grudge over the matter, regardless of what was said, as noted by admitted and self-proclaimed SJW Samuel J. Crypt-ford.

Being neutral regarding assholes makes you complicit. — Samuel J Crypt-ford (@Scrawful) October 26, 2017

These kind of blanket attacks from Social Justice Warriors on anyone who isn’t anti-#GamerGate is what forced some people to ally with #GamerGate even if they didn’t care about the consumer revolt against corruption in the media industry and attempting to bring about better ethics in journalism.

(Thanks for the news tip Lyle)