Editorial RPG Codex Editorial: Games Journalism Scandal

[Angthoron]

I'm willing to forgive the "-gate" suffix garbage just this once, because "Doritosgate" is so bad it's good.

Perhaps "Waterdew" would be a better name for this?

No, Mtn Dew usually pays more money, so the industry decided that Doritos will take the bad name. I'm not sure if I'm joking.

It's all a Dewish conspiracy.

Seriously though, that does sound like a fairly plausible reason.

 

[The Bishop]

Close working relationships are an *essential* part of this job.

Not to mention the most lucrative one...

 

[7hm]

But people still buy / read the content, so there is no incentive to do anything different.

The incentive is to not be a lying, hypocritical piece of shit with no ethics or integrity; to have some real friends instead of just those you suck off and those who return the favor; to be able to review your life's work on your death bed and not feel compelled to pull the plug yourself.

Integrity in the gaming press hasn't been shown to pay the bills or keep the lights on. Until it does, the readers are as to blame as well.

I hope my initial post makes clear that I'm not defending games writing as journalists, but the one point I would make on the behalf of people who work in the games press is that the job pays utter shit and doesn't engender the same type of respect / future work opportunities that real journalism does. The perks are a part of their compensation. And further to that, a lot of these people don't need integrity to do the jobs they're doing. Reporting on press releases doesnt demand integrity.

 

[DragoFireheart]

And further to that, a lot of these people don't need integrity to do the jobs they're doing. Reporting on press releases doesnt demand integrity.

- Catch 22.

If they want respect, they need to earn it. FFS, I've seen the Huffington Post do a better job than assholes like Eurogamer.

 

[laclongquan]

First thing they do for love. Then they can ask for the compensation.

 

[Grimlorn]

As a result, I’ve decided to put the following rules in place for our staff, effective immediately. I’m ashamed I didn’t do this last year. I would encourage other websites to follow suit. Several of the US games publications adhere to similar guidelines, but VG247 will be, as far as I’m aware, the first UK games site to adopt anything like this.

• • No flights or hotels. We’ll no longer accept flights and payment for hotels from third-parties.
  • No hospitality. No more free bars. I mean, I’m sure there’ll be free bars. But our employees won’t be drinking at them. This rule also includes food. As of now, VG247 staff will buy their own vittles when they’re “in the field” wherever possible. If, for whatever reason, a VG247 staffer eats or drinks at the expense of a publisher, it’ll be disclosed.
  • Any gift over £50 disclosed. We regularly get sent promotional materials by games publishers. From now on, all “swag” will be either given away on the site or through social media, or donated to charity. This doesn’t include games, or at least it doesn’t include all of them. We need to play games a lot, and the only way we can keep up is through promos.
  • No engagement in publisher-held competitions. VG247 staff will never again enter a competition hosted by a publisher or platform-holder.
  • Any coverage resulting from press trips to be disclosed. Self-explanatory. If we do decide that we’re going to pay our own way to attend a publisher promo event, we’ll clearly say so in any resulting copy.
  • Writers will never report on companies or products in which they have financial interest, or on companies which employ family members or close friends. Most games journalists have friendly relationships with some publisher PR. As of now, those friendships will prevent staff members from writing about any related company’s products. Similarly, our staff will now not write about products and companies in which they have a vested interest: this includes any crowd-sourced projects they may have backed.
  • We will always protect the identity of our sources. VG247′s sources will never be disclosed it they speak to us under condition of anonymity. It’s normal that VG247 journalists’ sources aren’t even divulged internally.
  • A note on advertising. VG247 is always likely to be primarily funded by video games advertising, for reasons I hope are blatantly obvious. We will never carry advertorial. Our ads our sold by Eurogamer Network’s sales team, which is based in Brighton, UK, and is independent to VG247′s editorial staff.

What they need to do is return any gifts sent to them. If they receive games to review. They can review them then give those to charity. No trading them in for other games or giving them to friends and family. Anything else should be returned back to the publishers. No gifts should be accepted. If it's promotional stuff, take a few pictures or shoot a video and then send that shit right back to the publishers.

They should also change the stupid scoring system while they're at it, so a 5 is mediocre or average instead of an 8.

The crowd sourced thing doesn't make sense to me. That's like not playing and reviewing a genre of games because you're a fan of it. You get no money back from the kickstarter and I'd rather a fan of RPGs review W2 and PE rather than some asshole who's into FPS games who'll just complain about the game the whole review. Most donors are just basically preordering the game. How is paying for a game a conflict of interest?

These guys have no idea how to set up rules for themselves so there is no ethics violations. That just shows how unobjective they already are.

Also, I don't believe for a minute there isn't some coordination between editors, the ads sales team, and publishers. At least on the big websites. I'm sure the publishers tell the ads team what they want to see score wise and then they tell the editor what score they need to see to get paid for ads. Setting up a separate company to sell ad space just sounds like an attempt to create a middle man between the publishers and editors so there is nothing technically illegal going on.

 

[Balor]

Unfortunately, the utopia of objective jounalism would be marred somewhat by total lack of any possibility of 'objectivity' in principle. After all, for popamole crowd Oblivion IS a second coming, especially after a nude mod or two.
We would need some profiles on journos, for instance a list of games they played (and actually completed), their previous scores on those games, etc. Also I suggest going away from numerical markings - because they PRETEND to be objective. They are not. Something like 'an affront to humanity', 'really bad', 'poor', 'meh', 'good', 'exteremely good', 'a shining beacon every other game in the genre should aspire to'.
I would suggest, however, stating a min/average FPS for a range of typical (and reasonable) hardware configurations and game settings - like those in Video card testing reviews.
But, of course, removing obviously corrupting influences would be a start.

 

[A user named cat]

Astounding, unbeatable, impeccable, endless and unmatched. Oh my!

 

[Excidium]

They ran out of adjectives so they had to make one up.

 

[RK47]

Goddamn that article, what a waste of epic space. Where's the Master Chef's ad? RED AND WHITE? REALLY?

 

[Minttunator]

I didn't know Halo 4 was coming out so I had to check whether that picture was from an actual article.

Spoiler

It is.

Holy fuckmothering shit. Glad to see IGN providing more proof for what we're saying (as if we needed any) - but still, it's depressing to see what passes for a review on one of the biggest gaming sites. Are there any superlatives they missed?

 

[DwarvenFood]

I like that google search you put there.

Also, the single greatest line of dialogue in Halo history comes down to "I won't"

 

[Blaine]

If I were able to ask these "journalists" one question, it would be: "What motivates the PR departments of major publishers to provide you with fancy tchotchkes, free hotel stays, lavish dinners, and so on?"

The publishers are absolutely confident their payola has an affect on these underpaid chumps, and surprise surprise, the "journalists" go on believing and insisting they're unimpeachable and incorruptible.

 

[asper]

Hm, why is this un-stickied already?

What are the criteria for stickying posts on the main Codex page anyway?

 

[ghostdog]

Due to massive threats of litigation DU caved in and removed it from the sticky.













Or it could be because a new codex interview was stickied and we can have only one sticky...

 

[Jasede]

A triumph

You know, that's a phrase you expect to hear once in the life-time of some grizzled movie critic who has finally beheld the best movie ever made by man. What a joke they have rendered the word into.

 

[A user named cat]

Wait, almost forgot the other big boys.

Thrilling, moving, intense, engrossing, emotional, stellar, charismatic, exceptional.... OHHHH FUCK PERFECT PLACE FOR NEW EMOTICON

 

[Jaesun]

The bad..... is one mission?

THAT is some fucking excellent quality journalism.

MAJESTIC!

 

[DragoFireheart]

The bad..... is one mission?

THAT is some fucking excellent quality journalism.

MAJESTIC!

- You should work in the video game industry as a gaming journalist. Considering how much cock they have to suck, you'd be hailed as the greatest gaming journalist of all time.

Oh, and that review is expected.

 

[felipepepe]

The only downside is one missionm, yet the game got only a 9? What, he hated the game but his orders allowed him to only bash one thing?

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Unfortunately, the utopia of objective jounalism would be marred somewhat by total lack of any possibility of 'objectivity' in principle. After all, for popamole crowd Oblivion IS a second coming, especially after a nude mod or two.
We would need some profiles on journos, for instance a list of games they played (and actually completed), their previous scores on those games, etc. Also I suggest going away from numerical markings - because they PRETEND to be objective. They are not. Something like 'an affront to humanity', 'really bad', 'poor', 'meh', 'good', 'exteremely good', 'a shining beacon every other game in the genre should aspire to'.
I would suggest, however, stating a min/average FPS for a range of typical (and reasonable) hardware configurations and game settings - like those in Video card testing reviews.
But, of course, removing obviously corrupting influences would be a start.

I agree that objectivity in journalism is more of an aspiration than an expectation (and I think your suggestions are good ones) . I would also add that I think the issue of corruption is distinguishable from objectivity, albeit related in a really interesting way.

You can fail completely at objectivity for purely honorable reasons (for example, by being insufficiently skeptical when reporting on a politician with whom you agree) or be completely objective and utterly corrupt (such as giving a game that you find to be total shit a good rating to curry favor with the publisher). People will rarely want to see themselves as the type of person willing to explicitly compromise themselves for a quid pro quo, so those who wish to influence you must be a bit trickier - they give you gifts, so you feel that you owe them. That's why strict guidelines on gift acceptance are important. The point at which you have been corrupted is not when you write the excessively positive review, its when you accept the gift and the sense of obligation is created.

At the end of the day, that's why the soft corruption you see in the game industry is the most effective form, as it relies on inherent human traits which we generally view as positive; the journalist feels grateful to the publicist for their generosity or feels a warm regard for someone they view as a colleague, and, consequently, they will feel disloyal or ungrateful if they are "too harsh". So their review is mealy-mouthed for the same reason you tell your friend their hair looks better a different way, rather than just saying they look like shit; their capacity for objectivity has been sabotaged by their virtues.

 

[tuluse]

I like that google search you put there.

Also, the single greatest line of dialogue in Halo history comes down to "I won't"

This is what 11 year olds actually think.

 

[felipepepe]

From Kotaku:

Some aspects of the storyline were very thick and confusing.

"I told you guys to dumb down the game! FFS, I bet you left DIALOG in!"

 

[Jaesun]

MAJESTIC!

 

[Machocruz]

From Kotaku:

The Microsoft facial we received was very thick and confusing.