An ex accuses his ex of being a whore and sleeping around for good reviews on games she doesn't even make money from.

The crazy-ex manifesto gets posted on a bunch of sites and then a bunch of people proactively start abusing this girl online and in real life based on this flimsy evidence under the pretense that games journalism is inherently corrupt. Again, a no name critic and a no name developer. It isn't like EA and Ubisoft created a honey pot for game review editors. One reviewer gave a good review to a small free game and then the vindictive ex of the creator of that game started shouting like a child.

The crazy ex and abuse get enough notoriety it becomes a story that was reported on, inside the gaming press and outside.

The gamergate side proceed to escalate abusing people (in almost all cases female. Both Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day both spoke out about the abuse but only Day got doxxed and according to Wheaton he didn't get nearly the same amount of abuse) claiming it was about ethics in game journalism. Again, the ethics violation was because a no name critic gave a no name game a good review, then an ex, who is obviously not taking the break up well accuses them of sleeping together. Fuck, maybe they did sleep together, but at the stakes are ridiculously low.

Spin it how you like, the gaming press refusing to report on personal matters versus the ridiculous torrents of abuse almost entirely given, the GamerGate side did not come out looking good in the matter.