Rock Paper Shotgun

Rock, Paper, Shotgun (commonly abbreviated as RPS) is a UK-based PC gaming blog, written by Alec Meer, Jim Rossignol, Adam Smith, and John Walker. Former writers include Kieron Gillen and Quintin Smith. It was launched in July 2007. In 2010 the website partnered with Eurogamer.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun participated in the Gamers are Dead campaign.

Background
Max Temkin, co-creator of the tabletop game Cards Against Humanity, was accused of rape by a woman who he had a brief relationship with while studying at college. The accusation was initially made to a third party on Facebook, and was followed up by the alleged victim, who identified herself as 'Magz', posting her story on Tumblr. Temkin's response was to post on his own blog in his own defence, denying that any rape or sexual assault occurred. The alleged crime was never reported and Temkin was never charged. No evidence has ever been produced to indicate the alleged assault took place. Temkin took no action against Magz. No tabletop game sites reported on this incident.

Controversial issue
In July 15, 2014, Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Robert Florence wrote an article reporting on a rape accusation against Cards Against Humanity creator Max Temkin.

Similarly to Patricia Hernandez's article on Kotaku, Florence explicitly remained non-committed regarding Temkin's guilt, except to say that he believed in "the old innocent until proven guilty thing" and that "Witness testimony is, in fact, evidence." His article focused on the fact that this incident appeared to be under-reported in the gaming media, and more significantly, and that Temkin had misrepresented the element of consent in sexual interactions. Specifically, Florence stated that Temkin's response contained "irresponsible language" which "needs to be called out when we see it." This was in response to a short section from Temkin's post where Temkin suggested that the alleged victim "read something completely different [into the relationship] than I did into an awkward college hookup."

Articles Attacking Gamers

 * The Monday Papers - Graham Smith (1st Sep)

Mitu Khandaker-Kokoris & Christine Love
On the 10th of October 2014, Cara Ellison mentioned Mitu Khandaker-Kokoris’s game, Redshirt, in an article while Khandaker-Kokoris donates to Ellison via Patreon with no disclaimer. In the same article, Ellison referenced multiple of Christina Love's games, stating: "(which I really should write about, though RPS cover her work enthusiastically)" while Love also donates to her Patreon (again with no disclaimer).

Alec Meer, Rock, Paper, Shotgun's directer and editor since 2007, published a short article about Redshit on November 13th, 2013. The article included links to webpages from which the game can be purchased and it's tone was generally positive. No disclsoure was included regarding any relationship Meer had with Khandaker, even though she and Meer appear to have been friends prior to when the article was published. The two had been facebook friends since July 2010 and had gone together to see Uncaged Monkeys, a a science/comedy tour, on May 16th, 2011. On April 27th, 2011, Meer invited a group of people to a BBQ. Khandaker in response invited herself to the BBQ with Meer approving.

Terry Cavanagh
Numerous tweets between May and November 2013 show a close personal relationship between Philippa Warr and Terry Cavanagh, including details of meet-ups and going to restaurants together. Two favourable articles were written by Warr about Cavanagh and his games; one on Wired on 27 January 2014 and another on Rock, Paper, Shotgun on 27 February 2015. Warr failed to disclose a this conflict or interest in both articles.