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Zoë Quinn

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Zoe Quinn
Born1986 or 1987 (age 37–38)
United States
OccupationVideo game developer
Known forDepression Quest

Zoe Quinn (born 1986 or 1987) is an American independent video game developer and 2D artist. Quinn developed the interactive fiction Depression Quest, co-created with Patrick Lindsey and Isaac Schankler, a Twine game released on Steam.

Early life

Quinn spent her childhood in a small town near the Adirondack Mountains in New York, United States. She often played video games as she was growing up. One of her favorites was Commander Keen, an MS-DOS game featuring an eight-year-old protagonist who travels the galaxy to defend the earth after building a spaceship with items he finds around his house. As a teenager, Quinn suffered from depression, and she was diagnosed with the affliction at the age of 14. She did not receive much sympathy about her situation from school-district officials, who she says "were less than understanding about teens with depression and suicide issues".

Career

At the age of 24, Quinn moved to Canada, where she made her first forays into video game programming. Her first game was the result of a six-week course on video-game creation that she attended after seeing an advertisement in a newspaper. In a later interview for The New Yorker, she said of this experience, "I felt like I’d found my calling."

Depression Quest

Main article: Depression Quest

Through her early game-development work, Quinn met Patrick Lindsey, a writer and fellow depression sufferer. Lindsay felt that existing video games that dealt with the subject of depression did not adequately depict the emotions felt by sufferers, instead dealing with the subject through metaphor and symbolism. To address this balance, and to help others understand their experiences, he suggested to Quinn that they write a new video game. Quinn thought that a game would be a good way to depict depression, as it could impose a set of rules on the player that they may not have in everyday life. Quinn and Lindsay teamed up with Isaac Schankler to provide music for the game, and the result was Depression Quest, released in February 2013.

Depression Quest details the troubled life of a person suffering from depression. Quinn attempted to publish the game on Steam Greenlight service twice - in December 2013 and later in August 2014, when it was accepted and released by Steam.

Harassment and GamerGate

In December 2013, while attempting to publish Depression Quest, Quinn reported that she became the target of harassment, both online and through sexually explicit phone calls. Shortly after the game was released on Steam, in August 2014, Quinn's ex-boyfriend published a post on his blog accusing Quinn of infidelity. After the posting, Quinn was targeted by "a disturbing harassment campaign", including publication of sensitive personal information online and hacking of her Tumblr account by someone claiming to be from "/v/", a gaming forum on the 4chan website, events which formed the genesis of the video game controversy GamerGate which eventually influenced both the wider video game culture and discussions on the sociology of the Internet with regards to feminism. Part of the controversy centered on a dispute she had with the group The Fine Young Capitalists over its women in video games project.

Quinn described her experience being harassed in a blog post on Cracked.com:

I watched every avenue of social media suddenly blow up with messages of abject hatred from thousands of strangers. For the first five days, I couldn't sleep. Every time I would start to doze off, I'd be shocked awake from half-asleep nightmares about everyone I love buying into the mob's bullshit and abandoning me. The ceaseless barrage of random people sending you disgusting shit is initially impossible to drown out -- it was constant, loud, and it became my life. Of course I know that this is just a small minority of the angry and disenfranchised, but I felt like it was the entire world. That's how it works -- they use sheer volume and repetition to make their numbers seem overwhelming.

Other projects

In addition to her own game development projects, Quinn is also known for creating the Game Developer Help List designed to bring experienced game developers and novice developers into contact with one another. In 2014, Quinn was to be part of the cancelled YouTube reality television show GAME_JAM, which was intended to bring together a number of prominent indie game developers.

Quinn has joined Loveshack Entertainment as Narrative Designer for the upcoming iOS game FRAMED. Quinn is also working on a full motion video game starring Greg Sestero.

Personal life

Quinn is interested in body modification, and has implanted a chip in the back of her hand that can be programmed to perform various functions. Her first use of the chip was to load it with a download code for the game Deus Ex. She also has a magnetic implant in her left ring finger.

References

  1. ^ Parkin, Simon (September 9, 2014). "Zoe Quinn's Depression Quest". The New Yorker. Retrieved September 15, 2014.
  2. "'Depression Quest' Now Available on Steam". Game Politics. August 13, 2014. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
  3. ^ "Why the co-creator of Depression Quest is fighting back against Internet trolls". Edge. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
  4. ^ "Depression Quest Now Available on Steam for Free". AusGamers. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  5. Carly Smith (14 December 2013). "Depression Quest Dev Faces Harassment after Steam Submission". The Escapist. Retrieved 30 May 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  6. Kuchera, Ben (19 March 2014). "Developer Zoe Quinn offers real-world advice, support for dealing with online harassment". Polygon. Retrieved 27 Aug 2014.
  7. Polo, Susana (13 December 2013). "The Two Most Inexplicable Examples of Video Game Community Harassment This Week". The Mary Sue. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
  8. Wooley, Emma M. (27 August 2014). "Don't believe the 'conspiracy,' gaming has bigger problems than 'corruption'". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
  9. ^ Marcotte, Amanda (22 August 2014). "Gaming Misogyny Gets Infinite Lives: Zoe Quinn, Virtual Rape, and Sexism". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
  10. Auerbach, David (27 August 2014). "Letter to a Young Male Gamer - Some ground rules to keep in mind in the wake of an ugly, sexist scandal". Slate. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
  11. Romano, Aja (20 August 2014). "The sexist crusade to destroy game developer Zoe Quinn". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
  12. Kaplan, Sarah (12 September 2014). "With #GamerGate, the video-game industry's growing pains go viral". Washington Post. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  13. Sanghani, Radhika (10 September 2014). "Misogyny, death threats and a mob of trolls: Inside the dark world of video games with Zoe Quinn - target of #GamerGate". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  14. Hern, Alex (12 September 2014). "Zoe Quinn on Gamergate: 'We need a proper discussion about online hate mobs'". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  15. Ringo, Allegra (28 August 2014). "Meet the Female Gamer Mascot Born of Anti-Feminist Internet Drama". Vice. Retrieved 16 September 2014. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  16. Quinn, Zoe (16 September 2014). "5 Things I Learned as the Internet's Most Hated Person". Cracked.com. Retrieved 16 September 2014.
  17. Wawro, Alex (18 December 2013). "Game Developer Help List rallies industry vets to aid rookie devs". Gamasutra. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  18. Matulef, Jeffrey (1 April 2014). "Game jam reality show cancelled as indies wouldn't put up with its s***". Eurogamer. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  19. Griffiths, Daniel Nye (30 April 2014). "Quest Love - 'Depression Quest' Creator Zoe Quinn Joins Hot Indie 'Framed'". Retrieved 17 September 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  20. Donaldson, Ricky (18 April 2014). "Zoe Quinn's Follow Up To Depression Quest is a FMV Game". Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  21. ^ Hernandez, Patricia (7 May 2014). "Woman puts Deus Ex on computer chip in her hand". Kotaku. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  22. Kleppek, Patrick (2014). "Zoe Quinn has embraced our cybernetic future". Giant Bomb. Retrieved 8 May 2014.

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