Opinion - Essay & Statement
By J-dawg The Brotherhood maintains a cautious, restrained and skeptical approach to questions or claims of abusive practices in the social media space vis-à-vis gamers. As collectively we have witnessed for a dozen years running the misrepresentation, maligning and suppression of our voices and viewpoints from much “mainstream” media discourse. On ourselves and our beloved pastimes, it is clear that we cannot take for granted that good-faith engagement or equanimity will come from the industry side, or from those we find to be deeply apologetic for it. There have been many notable incidences in the larger culture of false claims snowballing into worldwide dramas tried, and summarily made–at media cajoling–into verdicts then broadly adopted by many members of the global general public. It is hard to miss that many of these mega-controversies seem to have one curious element in common: Of being matters intersecting with, or shown in the press to be illustrative of what broadly may be described as 'Womens' Issues.' IYKYK
The Brotherhood offers no comment on that category of topics. As a gaming culture & arts group with a decidedly male-interest and fraternal focus we feel it is not essentially our place, our memberships' strong obligation, or even of great appropriateness for us to presume to speak on subjects extending well outside our mission/scope. Or to degrees on matters beyond those of our lived-experience or expertise. Our first interest is to rep our culture and interests -- we defend who and what matters to us! From time to time that will entail getting up from our gaming focus and conversations to address bad actors ruining someone's good time, or just mishandling themselves in a way that reflects deeply negatively on the gamer community. Will we seek out this role? Not purposefully. Can it become our main focus? Absolutely not!
That said, we are more than willing to call out interlopers in our midst who consistently show and demonstrate to us that they are acting in bad faith. The same is true of abusers that that cause real harm to others, including to women or girls. If people in the greater gaming community are behaving that way, our members and affiliates have the discretion to call them out on it. Those who become persistent nuisances to subsets of gamers or to non-gamers become all of our problem in time.
We don't appreciate it!
We find we have to do that ourselves. Right here and now.
While basically everyone who reads about videos games online knows who the person with the mic is in the picture below, and some number of them are well aware of why her example is one not to follow, fewer know who Jon del Arroz is. And why his conduct is an even greater cautionary tale on how not to attract or keep a respectable journalistic following!
This woman's name is Alyssa Mercante. She's a gamer. Formerly of Kotaku.
Now to be clear, we are drawing comparison—Alyssa is not the subject of our call-out today. She's just a much better-known example of lackluster professionalism in her comportment as a journalist. She has offended the sensibilities of many in the gamer community. Yet we must concede one truth: Alyssa Mercante is a gamer.
While her role as a journalist (others have less flattering characterizations. We acknowledge this and do not reprint them here,) quite clearly has taken priority in her life's focus over gaming itself, she, in the opinion of this author, quite clearly loves video games. And that is something we can all understand!
Many in our community and virtually all of our membership in the Brotherhood have deep misgivings about who this person is,... her distasteful treatment of well, people. We do not get more specific here. It is not necessary to make our point. Jdawg believes that people ought to pursue what makes them happy, essentially, without causing great harm to come to others. For whatever her many faults, among them–I say, being a poor journalist–there are many which she does not share with the individual we now highlight, Mr. del Arroz.
Let's start with the basics: Arroz is a urnalist
with no meaningful connection to video games
We have to be clear: This individual is not-with-us. Never was, never will be... and we're talking about the whole video game culture here, not just GBAMFS as an organization.
Originally, while writing this piece, Jdawg had intended to address this with a somewhat more good-humored approach in mind. In video game culture, it really is better to not take anything too serious. You roll with your L's; that's how you get better. Jon is not from our culture, and that explains some of the difference.
What we will get to below is serious. It cannot be overlooked. We will start with the easier-to-address issue: On account of being a particularly obnoxious sore on the gaming commentary-sphere, we recommend against following or even interacting with the account of Jon del Arroz on X. You ought to and will see why, too. Read on; you can scroll back up and block that account once you've satisfied yourself that it is the right thing to do.
Let's cut right to the chase—What kind of guy is Jon del Arroz? We'll let him speak for himself-
This is not the exception. This is Jon's everyday routine type of commentary. Good company? We'll let you decide—moving along:
The New Kotaku?
Let's start with the fact that he founded and is a sometime contributor to the entertainment-centered blog FandomPulse. Everyone in the gaming world has heard of Kotaku, infamous for peddling exaggerated, sensationalized and sometimes false headlines–for well over a decade. Some in the gaming community have pointed to FandomPulse as being the new contender for the worst-of-the-worst in the gaming information space:
While the main contributor at this time appears to be a man by the name of John F. Trent, Jon still actively participates in the dissemination of sensational, false stories from that outlet, the most recent one being on the new release title Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. These headlines drew rebukes from a wide cross-section of the gaming community who saw through the vulgar and extreme narrative being pushed by the blog-
There were notions held by many that the purpose of these articles was nothing more than to damage the makers of the game and destroy its marketability based on moral-panic inducing headlines like the one featured below:
Although most of the articles in question are authored and published by John F. Trent, the narratives Mr.Trent promulgates, Mr.Arroz will often commit to virally-spreading on social media with an enthusiasm and fervor probably unmatched since the decline of the orphan newsies. The nature of this promotion is as vulgar and disgusting as some of the X posts shown above, over and above the tonal depths of the articles themselves. GBAMFS rebukes this publication and its irresponsible, deeply flawed, and obnoxious false coverage on this story, as well as others before it.
As sensational as many of FandomPulse's articles are, we see fit to recommend against bothering with clicking on anything published through that site. The question is one of maintaining Ethics in Journalism. We must all do our part if we wish to enjoy an information ecosystem not polluted by false and damaging stories like the one seen above. [Note: Our site that you are presently reading this on is paid for out-of-pocket by the organization's founder, at a loss, and our group is structured as a not-for-profit public information resource.] Instructions on how to evaluate its contents critically and non-commercially are provided here. Like Kotaku, the site effects plain ideological bias and reports claims of poor and dubious substance on a variety of topics across several categories of entertainment. Essentially a clearinghouse for trash-talk... this is not the work of well-balanced reporters. Or one you should take as credible to get your news from! About Kingdom Come: Deliverance II's cast—
Do these look like children to you? In spite of information indicating to the contrary being available from day one, casting doubt on the validity of their claim, that outlet has yet to retract its false coverage on this game. For anyone who may be visually impaired, the characters shown are not children. Whether they are sodomites or not we leave for Biblical scholars to determine.
As gamers we're so starved for any publication actually willing to report harshly on games, many are willing to accept that coverage even if it is false and those criticisms turn out to be invalid. Even it is shithouse rat-crazy, at least they aren't simply promoting it like most do. Whether they've been bribed, bullied or blundered into it or not!
It is necessary to have higher standards if we are not to fall back into the same trap as the community struggled with with Kotaku for so many years. Avoiding it until it became grossly apparent to even those fond of its headlines that it had deep issues with integrity. Even its run-of-the-mill coverage suffered from the stigma. (The glorified blog entered a vicious cycle of clickbait roulette until it closed.) Some of the prominent voices in the YouTube gaming commentary community have spoken out against these intrusion into gamers' space. As well as criticizing the patently false stories the likes of FandomPulse have been promoting. Another myth they promoted was that post-release, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a commercial failure. This turned out to be false with it selling over 2 million copies.
One of those calling out the "anti-woke" activists like Arroz is Vee:
It has become common knowledge that this belligerent, partisan and (some would say) right-wing social activist [Arroz] has been in our midst for a while now. Among any number of other fandoms he makes habit of serially inserting himself into before being customarily drummed out! Our present position is that there are bad actors, and bad-faith actions being undertaken on multiple fronts by several, (or a multitude of different parties) which are acting adversely to gamers', and the market's best interests. We oppose this.
After large outlets like Kotaku etc, the ones doing the most to inflame and disrupt gamers' opinions in real terms are the likes of Trent and del Arroz, in the opinion of this author. There are a handful of large YouTube video personalities who act opportunistically to seize upon hot-button social issues like this to capitalize off of the negative attention the headlines this pair release-and we reject their influence the same!
It gets worse
This is not our typical coverage here, but as stated in the introductory paragraphs, there is an urgent necessity to address this. It is not only an ongoing problem, but Jon's conduct poses real harms: It may have already contributed to the death of one comic book artist who took his own life after being dogged by allegations that he was a pedophile from Jon and his associates. Ed Piskor aka Kayfabe was the target of a series of hit-pieces, memes and smears in other social media produced by Arroz & company. Only a few days ago, he began attacking the host of a small YouTube gaming community channel, with the same type of smears. This time absent anything like corroborating detail. It appears only to be yet another instance of offhand, careless libel/slanders Arroz is prone to issue reflexively when he is challenged.
GBAMFS condemns this behavior in the strongest terms.
This message preceded the suicide of the last creative he tarnished with similar allegations:
A few further examples of this can be seen here:
So it is not the first time Aaroz's apparent preoccupation with pedophilia has led him to bully a man he accused and did not seem to know well enough to understand what the outcome would be. Except as we saw just above and I reproduce zoomed in below, as recently as last week Jon not only acknowledges the incident but appears to tacitly accept responsibility for it as well. Whether this indicates ownership of intent after the fact or not is an open question we won't try to answer. He is evidently proud of himself, however.
Mr Arroz's conduct, then, lends itself distinctly to the impression that he employs a personal strategy of profiting from the damage to/or destruction of whatever he happens to be in involved for the price of forfeiting any notion of retaining his personal dignity. Failing forward, he seems reliant on his infamous renown as a smear-merchant and teller of tall tales. Also falling back on residual incomes he has sourced from the sale of pseudonymously-published light erotic fiction novels penned under women's names.
This last point, the author, Jdawg, deeply wishes he was joking about, exaggerating, or mistaken on! It is not so! That is a self-admitted significant source of Arroz's income!
If you need to take a moment to be sick; it is understandable. The authorship of this piece was – and is – quite disturbing to research and complete.
There is still more information out there, but at this point, it is important to highlight the outcome of the first chain of events like this in order to move on to the final point of this article.
His associate's post preceding the suicide of Piskor-
In Jon's own words–
Some community reactions to the outcome:
A more nuanced take evaluating the aftermath, wherein Jon & co portrayed themselves as victims of a smear campaign:–
In summary–
For those curious to understand the deceased's own thoughts on this matter, his note is partly viewable here. An unknown user also typed up this synopsis on the events that led up to the scandal, as well as purported remarks from the young woman involved, herself, which may be seen here.
Source thread: https://x.com/IM_Ramble/status/1775068431576183171
Conclusion–
This is not the end of the examples that could be featured of the appalling and anti-social (if not worse) conduct on the part of Mr.Arroz. Many too vulgar to share. If you really care to dig in, this X post serves as a signpost directing you to sites in the demented hellscape that is del Arroz's mind.
If it seems like he's a man obsessed with every manner of scandal and degenerate behavior; that is what it seems like, doesn't it? One mightn't have to venture big guesses as to why that may be. This is not the work of a well-balanced individual or someone you should take as credible to get your news from!
It is the opinion of this author that this is the behavior of a bomb-thrower; migrating from fandom to fandom, convention to convention, effecting the role of an agent provocateur, except one with such dim-witted and chaotic impulses as would likely preclude him from finding any regular work doing so. We haven't highlighted the bans he's faced or communities in which Arroz is no longer welcome.
While we as an organization are reluctant to engage in topics of this nature, as we have noted, a pattern of abuses exist. Some that now interfere with gamers' ability to enjoy our pastime and burden the output of our community's creators to continue to well serve us, courtesy of Mr.del Arroz. That deserves some address, so we present this to you for your consideration and better understanding of what we are dealing with. There are further issues, and we extend notice of these because they imperil the well-being of others outside the gaming community, but suffer from the same cause-Jon del Arroz. It is a factual matter that this report is in reference to this Jon del Arroz (& his ex:) Past-
This may be seen to be consistent with a pattern of abusive conduct, with the next and last example being the other most egregious of late:
Present:
Anabel of Hispanish Online posted this- we let her speak for herself but feature it here:
Context | Comparison
Not unique - One of Jon's pen-named, woman-faced author profiles for his light erotic fiction novels, marketed towards women:
Needless to say we find this too to be unacceptable, appalling, and absolutely disgusting. To date, that profile is still up in spite of being reported by those interested in the wellbeing of Ms.Anabel, regardless of whether she is a gamer-we have a common problem we are dealing with in the form of del Arroz!
There are hardly words for how dismaying this entire course of events was to learn about, record, and recount here. When I, Jdawg, tells you I just wanted to play video games, --- we have some real problems in this community, many of which come from outside of it to tell you the truth. He's one.
We denounce in the strongest terms this patent and gross misappropriation of Ms.Marquez's (Anabel's) identity for what amounts to nothing less than profiteering off of her likeness.
It is this author's view that it would not be a difficult case to make that this man is a menace to society at large, not just the gaming community. Although there are others in the gaming space that pose their own problems to our community (and beyond,) we believe it is hard to find a clearer example of someone who does not belong here, or having the ears of gamers, than Jon del Arroz.
We repudiate this non-gamer and nuisance individual about our gaming spaces. We encourage the removal of the profile noted above, and demand action on the part of appropriate authorities to do what they can to address to ongoing pattern of misconduct and abuses by del Arroz. To those in our midst who up to now were unaware or chose to ignore this, we invite you to reconsider your association with this person.
This article is part of an ongoing series, the last being 'Our statement on grifters in the gaming space...' A simplified version of this same article is here: 'Abusers in the gaming space...'
J-Dawg is a die-hard gamer, devoted fan of traditional 2D animation, GBAMFS' founder, CEO and spokesman. You may follow the GBAMFS X account from this link: https://x.com/gbamfs
Copyright GBAMFS 2025. All Rights Reserved.
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