Totally Not Corrupt Professional Objective Gaming Journalism DRAMA

[Angthoron]

Yeah, we've never killed a debate on this forum.

 

[Brinko]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...e-call-people-who-complain-about-video-games/

 

[Menckenstein]

Someone with less to lose than myself should build a website for International Murder A Games Journalist (with a hammer) Day*


*THIS IS A JOKE, NOT SERIOUS, HI FBI

 

[Dexter]

Someone should collect all the articles from some of these Kotaku threads and make one juicy big image summary full of the stupidest things human beings have ever written:
http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/172717780

 

[LundB]

I still find it hilarious that Forbes of all places has had more monocled gaming articles than 99.9999% of the 'games media'. Getting beaten in the field you specialise in by a business magazine that gives very few shits about the subject area?

Sucks to suck, games journos.

 

[Zewp]

I've pretty much moved over to Forbes entirely for gaming news lately. I rarely get the feeling that I'm reading something that was paid for by publishers when I read their articles.

 

[LundB]

Well of course, Forbes deals with companies that actually matter and make money, while to a games journo, EA and Activision seem like financial juggernauts because they can supply a few hotel rooms and free drinks.

That and I figure Forbes pretty much just decided to have a games section, found a guy who's not completely retarded (Erik Kain), and told him to write what he felt like about games. Hell, just looking at his Facebook friendlist shows he's better than most games journos. Instead of PR reps, hipsters, 'us gamers' gamer culture enthusiast types, and hair-dyed internet social justice warrior blog crusaders, you see a fairly normal group of people, even some women that aren't absolute dogs.

 

[Angthoron]

Oh hi guys, I heard you said that Forbes is like totally awesome source for gaming articles? Yessiree bob:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesw...women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

Here's a little gem from the EA spokeswoman:

The first secret: Women need to start by recognizing that we are, in fact, gamers. Maybe you don’t want to admit it, but more often than not, women today are playing video games – whether it’s on our phones, online, on our Facebook accounts or on a console. Who takes on their friends in SCRABBLE? Have you played Rock Band on the Wii with your kids? What about a round of Bejeweled on your phone? Nearly half of all gamers are female and yet I still continue to hear on a weekly basis that “the only people playing games are boys in their basements”. It’s just not true. So if you like to play games, wouldn’t it be fun to make them?

You heard that lads? Your mom is a hardcore gamer after that game of Microsoft Solitaire she played in '98 in the office. Also, it is a well-known fact that people that like to eat are great at cooking, and also that all meat packing plant employees love eating sausages.

Because fuck reality, says EA.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh hi guys, I heard you said that Forbes is like totally awesome source for gaming articles? Yessiree bob:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesw...women-and-video-gamings-dirty-little-secrets/

Here's a little gem from the EA spokeswoman:

The first secret: Women need to start by recognizing that we are, in fact, gamers. Maybe you don’t want to admit it, but more often than not, women today are playing video games – whether it’s on our phones, online, on our Facebook accounts or on a console. Who takes on their friends in SCRABBLE? Have you played Rock Band on the Wii with your kids? What about a round of Bejeweled on your phone? Nearly half of all gamers are female and yet I still continue to hear on a weekly basis that “the only people playing games are boys in their basements”. It’s just not true. So if you like to play games, wouldn’t it be fun to make them?

You heard that lads? Your mom is a hardcore gamer after that game of Microsoft Solitaire she played in '98 in the office. Also, it is a well-known fact that people that like to eat are great at cooking, and also that all meat packing plant employees love eating sausages.

Because fuck reality, says EA.

It's really just Erik Kain who is decent there. Paul Tassi is passable as well.

 

[Angthoron]

It's really just Erik Kain who is decent there. Paul Tassi is passable as well.

Yeah, just killing the Forbes circlejerk before it takes off. It's better than most, but there's still promo articles like that on it.

 

[LundB]

Oh hi guys, I heard you said that Forbes is like totally awesome source for gaming articles? Yessiree bob:

The article you have is actually from the 'ForbesWoman' section, not the proper games one, but your point still stands since there's plenty of shit to be found. However, I still stand by what I said, not that Forbes was amazing, but that it "has had more monocled gaming articles" than most games-focused sites. I meant there were more articles that were monocle there (higher than 0 pretty much), not that all of their articles are more monocle. Easily misinterpreted wording I guess, my bad.

Think of me less as a Forbes circlejerker and more as an Erik Kain cocksucker, though I'm sure he's written something derp at some point. I've only read the articles linked to me on the Codex. In fact, the only game site I go to without being linked to is the Codex. Well, RPS too, but that's for laughing at their earnest social justice crusade, not actual game news.

Also I've decided to look at the Facebook friendlist of any games writer before reading their shit, since it actually seems like a decent derp detector. Oh man, getting to judge people based on their social circle without having to interact with them first, I love this next-gen cliquishness.

 

[Angthoron]

Oh hi guys, I heard you said that Forbes is like totally awesome source for gaming articles? Yessiree bob:

The article you have is actually from the 'ForbesWoman' section, not the proper games one, but your point still stands since there's plenty of shit to be found. However, I still stand by what I said, not that Forbes was amazing, but that it "has had more monocled gaming articles" than most games-focused sites. I meant there were more articles that were monocle there (higher than 0 pretty much), not that all of their articles are more monocle.

Ah well yeah, it definitely has more good articles on it than more or less the rest of the mainstream combined. Still, it's sort of amusing, they simply offer a point of view that is reasonable, it's not groundbreaking controversial journalism, it's not super-contrarian, it's really very much stating the obvious. And yet, compared to the rest of gamejourno scene, it's actually almost ground-breaking. Amazing stuff really.

And yeah, it's good to have people write about the industry that don't soil their panties as soon as someone from a company they adore pats them on the head. In fact I wonder why more people like that don't work in the industry, but then again, I think they know better than to do so. Of course, the EA spokeswoman article is also fairly enlightening in that respect - like games? How about reviewing them? Oh, you review games? How about some free games and peripherals, maybe a signed t-shirt? Wheeeeee! Everyone's a gamer! Wheeee!

 

[evdk]

And yeah, it's good to have people write about the industry that don't soil their panties as soon as someone from a company they adore pats them on the head. In fact I wonder why more people like that don't work in the industry, but then again, I think they know better than to do so.

Who would give them work? There is no demand for actual critical opinions in gaming PR press.

 

[Angthoron]

And yeah, it's good to have people write about the industry that don't soil their panties as soon as someone from a company they adore pats them on the head. In fact I wonder why more people like that don't work in the industry, but then again, I think they know better than to do so.

Who would give them work? There is no demand for actual critical opinions in gaming PR press.

Critical opinions in general are not very welcomed. Remember, when criticizing, you are offending important, respected people!

 

[evdk]

Small, niche sites ran by people with similar tastes to yours are the only way to look for new media content these days.

 

[LundB]

And yeah, it's good to have people write about the industry that don't soil their panties as soon as someone from a company they adore pats them on the head. In fact I wonder why more people like that don't work in the industry, but then again, I think they know better than to do so.

Well they say old people need a hobby to keep the brain active... Ideal games journalist is someone doing it to pass the time after they retire from a real career. Preferably one where they've gone on plenty of business trips and various activities that ensure they won't be impressed by publisher bribes. Bonus is that they'll have seen years of the decline and will be a cynical bastard as a result.

...Any Codexers retiring soon?

 

[evdk]

Most Codexers have already retired... from society.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Fatties stay on the couch, playing games. These things also don't kill you until you're like 40, and by then you'll be probably trying to save your kids from suffering your fate by refusing to buy games for them. Masterful plan.

Worse. They've found that obesity in men actually passes on health problems to their kids (as in it affects the genetic material during conception - not just a matter of being a crap social influence on your kids diet).

 

[Azrael the cat]

You actually believe that?

Actually, I do. Non-gaming media is shrinking, and a lot of well-trained, motivated and university qualified journalists are either getting downsized or jumping ship. Their number one destination is PR, as they get paid a fuckload more for doing much easier work (if you want an analysis of that, there's an excellent website by an ex-radio-journalist-turned-PR-exec called The Failed Estate).

It won't be long - if it hasn't happened already - that the average PR flak is a far more qualified/experienced journalist than the wannabe writers in the gaming media. At that point, the PR folk simply won't need gaming journos: the sites and magazines will still be there, but it will be a collation of dressed up press releases. Just the corporate PR folk and a token editor or two to put them together and wack a forum up next to them.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Oh hi guys, I heard you said that Forbes is like totally awesome source for gaming articles? Yessiree bob:

The article you have is actually from the 'ForbesWoman' section, not the proper games one, but your point still stands since there's plenty of shit to be found. However, I still stand by what I said, not that Forbes was amazing, but that it "has had more monocled gaming articles" than most games-focused sites. I meant there were more articles that were monocle there (higher than 0 pretty much), not that all of their articles are more monocle.

Ah well yeah, it definitely has more good articles on it than more or less the rest of the mainstream combined. Still, it's sort of amusing, they simply offer a point of view that is reasonable, it's not groundbreaking controversial journalism, it's not super-contrarian, it's really very much stating the obvious. And yet, compared to the rest of gamejourno scene, it's actually almost ground-breaking. Amazing stuff really.

And yeah, it's good to have people write about the industry that don't soil their panties as soon as someone from a company they adore pats them on the head. In fact I wonder why more people like that don't work in the industry, but then again, I think they know better than to do so. Of course, the EA spokeswoman article is also fairly enlightening in that respect - like games? How about reviewing them? Oh, you review games? How about some free games and peripherals, maybe a signed t-shirt? Wheeeeee! Everyone's a gamer! Wheeee!

Brofist on the praise for Forbes game reviews. I find that the further removed a publication is for the game industry, the more likely it is to give well-researched and critical game reviews. NY Times is another one that's aware of how how games have declined - it's useless when reviewing traditional rpgs, but they've got a guy who's a full bottle on UO, Thief, SS, Deus Ex etc.

 

[Jick Magger]

There's always horrific circular logic when it comes to criticism these days, my favourite of course being the Catch 22 of You can only criticize it if you've played the whole game/Well if you played the whole game then you must've enjoyed it. It's too easy for gaming 'journalists' bottleneck the critics down and try to pass them off as a vocal and/or unpleasable minority (the recent and aforementioned "People only hate DmC because they changed the hair" debacle comes to mind), and they can get outright hostile to anyone who doesn't march in tune with them. Seriously, the amount of venom I've seen these people spew at whomever they don't like is unprofessional to say the very fucking least.

Really, it all leads back to my earlier criticism of the internet as a public sphere. There is no room for objectivity, people go to Kotaku, read whatever article they find about how whichever game of the month they should buy, get it, then circlejerk in whatever Reddit or Gamespot or whatever threads they have about how great it is while constantly going back to Kotaku to make sure that, yes, they are correct in thinking that this game is great any everyone who says otherwise is an entitled troll who hates the main character's change in hairdressers. At least places like /v/ maintain some self-awareness on just how shit everything is while the codex is a similar sort of shit, just on the opposite end of the spectrum with a healthy dose of cynicism and awareness of just how bad things are declining.

 

[DwarvenFood]

The thing is that they can afford objective opinion because their income is not in any way dependent on publishers buying ad-space in their publications - now if you can combine that with having a writer that knows his stuff as well, you got a good formula. Too bad the unwashed masses do not recognize it, but it's nice to have some other sources to read up on besides the 'Dex.

edit: talking about Forbes.

 

[Jigawatt]

JURNALOSM

http://x-surface.tumblr.com/post/41282771026/x-surface-dont-believe-everything-you-read

At 1:41am GMT today I sent out an email to a bunch of gaming sites claiming to be a Microsoft employee working on the new Xbox.

I made up every single word of it along with a couple of specs copied from other rumours that have been appearing on the Internet.

This was a bit of an experiment to see just how easy it is to get a fake story taken seriously. And it is shockingly easy in the games industry.

...

By 9:58am GMT, it was already ‘in the news’.

At the time of writing, my fake news is appearing on major sites such as:
Yahoo
CNET
Gizmodo
Venturebeat
Tech Digest
VG247
NowGamer

Many games ‘journalists’ have no right calling themselves such things. The vast majority do nothing but copy & paste from other sites, and will willingly publish information without fact checking a single thing or attempting to verify the source.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

That's hardly a "game journalism only" thing. A few examples from potatoland from the top my head:

1. A newspaper printing a picture with pedobear and claiming it's one of the mascots for the winter olympics.
2. One of the biggest daily papers naming various NS black metal bands as a concert setlist for the festival of Jewish culture (on the front page too).
3. The biggest daily paper printing pictures of "Russian pirate edition dvd" covers in their movie reviews section.

Mass media journalism is dead.

 

[Kitako]

A newspaper printing a picture with pedobear and claiming it's one of the mascots for the inter olympics.