Totally Not Corrupt Professional Objective Gaming Journalism DRAMA

[Ninjerk]

Really annoying voice, and, this being the first I've seen of Ni No Kuni, I can say that it is most assuredly not a beautiful game. Looks like fuckin' hamtaro.

 

[PlanHex]

Really annoying voice

Gets even more annoying when he's just reciting numbers. Why the hell didn't he just show the numbers on screen? Why not just write a blog post if you're not using the visual part of your video at all?

 

[Disgruntled]

http://www.spike.com/vgx/best-pc-game

I wonder who's gonna win. I really do.

Didnt expect it to be that bad. Battlefield 4 cant even get stable servers, the others are meh indies.
Tells you how bad CA fucked up that Rome 2 didnt make the list among that crowd.

 

[Taxnomore]

Rockpapershotgun never had much of it. But what they had, they completely lost it.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/11/25/take-a-bow-ms-male-character-explored/

The latest episode in Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes Vs Women In Video Games series focuses on that most daft element of gaming: what Sarkeesian calls the Ms. Male Character. You know the ones – the pink version, or especially, the one with a bow on top. I confess to finding the “put a bow on it” meme to be very funny. The sheer absurdity of drawing a bow on the head of something to make it into a girl strikes me as comical. As a prolific doodler, it pleases me greatly to explain to someone that “this is a female teapot because it wears a bow.” Of course, realising that this is the depth to which so many games go when realising a female character rather brings that down. As ever, Sarkeesian explores the subject intricately. You can watch it below.


What I find most interesting about this discussion is the key point that in gaming, women require “marks”. If a character is plain, it is by default, male. Whether it’s a plumber, hedgehog, alien or ball of rock, simply by being unmarked it’s a boy. Want a girl version? Colour it pink, add some long eyelashes, and put a bow on top. That reveals an absolutely intrinsic and inherent gender bias – a default assumption of maleness, with femaleness requiring a smothering of stereotyped decorations. Which of course says, “Boys are normal, girls are exceptions.” And yes, it’s just as true of cartoons, comics, and so on. But it remains true of games, and hey, we’re discussing games today.

I still think putting a bow on a rock to make it into a female rock is very funny. It strikes me more as a commentary on the ridiculous trope, rather than a participant. But you can see how when placed in the wider concept of the recurring pattern, it loses some of its charm. And it certainly does play into the trope, the reinforcing of the notion that default = male. This is, of course, an example of the nuance that is often missed in these critiques: something can remain individually interesting or humorous, and still play a part in a wider issue.

This is already fucking stupid and I do not even need to elaborate. But CAN YOU ? CAN YOU ?!

NO: FUCK YOUR MOM

ve switched comments off on this post, because the hosting for RPS cost us a fortune, and I’m naffed if I’m going to pay for the usual Sarkeesian-haters to spew bile at our expense. Yes, this has the consequence that people who want to make counter-arguments, or rationally challenge assertions, and indeed those who want to voice support or agreement, are unable to at the bottom of this post, and I’m sorry about that. Thankfully my freedom-of-speech-destroying censorship powers only extend to the boundaries of this single website.
Meanwhile, here are a few responses to what could have been posted by some, and some handy replies:

But I am a guy and I don’t care about this.

I don’t care about your mum, but you may. You can extrapolate this theory outward.

I am a woman/know a woman who doesn’t care about this stuff, so it doesn’t matter.

See above.

I know of exceptions to these examples!

Me too. And yet these extremely prolific examples still remain, in the majority, across gaming.

But these games are good despite these criticisms.

Yes, they are.

Anita Sarkeesian forced people to give her millions of dollars and has spent it all on feminism things and never makes any videos.

Good point. We’re sorry.

But Anita Sarkeesian is wearing make-up in this video!!!

You’re too stupid for a keyboard, and you have to hand it in at the nearest police station.

There’s already equality, feminists are fighting for imbalance.

Have a read.

Jesus fucking christ.

 

[Rahdulan]

RPS really went to the dogs in the last year or so. Are they really riding the misogyny wave so hard?

 

[Delterius]

The people who made that poll have apparently never heard of middle ground, pitting three indies against the very definition of an AAA popamole cinematic game.

Hoping Papers, Please wins it. I haven't played the Stanley Parable: is it actually good or just pretentious nonsense in the vein of Dear Esther?

Mostly pretentious. It is definetely not nonsense, since it has some very clear points and some clever ways to deliver them, but overall it's still "look I can tell a clever story by having you press WASD."

If the points are adequate and if they are effectively delievered wouldn't that make the game the very opposite of pretentious? I think a better word here would be 'artsy' which, in this context, translates to either Youtube; play the free mod or only buy at outrageous discounting.

 

[sser]

Huh. I was just reading an RPS interview about the upcoming Blizzard MOBA. It was a pretty good interview until the interviewer completely derails it with bizarre gender questions toward the end.

RPS's decline kind of upsets me. Along with early-days PC Gamer, it was one of the few places where I enjoyed reading articles about gaming. But now - like PCG - a litany of poor editor/writer choices is sinking that ship.

 

[Esquilax]

RPS really went to the dogs in the last year or so. Are they really riding the misogyny wave so hard?

I love how they posted a provocative and sensational article with confrontational language in it (clearly meant as clickbait), then they closed the comments section at the end, ostensibly to avoid legions of nasty Internet trolls, despite the fact that the whole point of the article was to invite trolls in the first fucking place. Fuck RPS, I'm glad that taxalot copy-pasted the article so that nobody gives them any more clicks.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

That site is now indistinguishable from Jezebel, in fact it might be even more stupid now which I'd never thought I'd say one day.

 

[J_C]

Really annoying voice, and, this being the first I've seen of Ni No Kuni, I can say that it is most assuredly not a beautiful game. Looks like fuckin' hamtaro.

Ni No Kuni is a beautiful game. Stop the liez!

 

[Delterius]

Used to think the guy from p4rgaming was getting a bit too obsessed with making fun of Game Journalists and the paid review drama. But its amazing how those click chasers just keep giving new material to work with (Source).

GameSpot: There is No Paid Reviews Conspiracy, Sponsored by Killzone: Shadow Fall
News
GameSpot recently released a video, brought to you by Killzone: Shadow Fall, calling out people for so easily jumping on the paid reviews conspiracy that does not exist.

Video producer Cameron Robinson sets the record straight in this video, sponsored by Battlefield 4 for the Xbox One, saying that anybody who believes in these conspiracies are actually normal, functioning humans. Using scientific articles to back his theory up, he says that some level of distrust among gamers is actually a healthy response to these reviews. He then clarifies his point saying that it’s okay to believe in these conspiracies, but you have to look at them from a logical standpoint.

 

[Boleskine]

Used to think the guy from p4rgaming was getting a bit too obsessed with making fun of Game Journalists and the paid review drama. But its amazing how those click chasers just keep giving new material to work with (Source).

GameSpot: There is No Paid Reviews Conspiracy, Sponsored by Killzone: Shadow Fall

 

[80Maxwell08]

Used to think the guy from p4rgaming was getting a bit too obsessed with making fun of Game Journalists and the paid review drama. But its amazing how those click chasers just keep giving new material to work with (Source).

GameSpot: There is No Paid Reviews Conspiracy, Sponsored by Killzone: Shadow Fall
News
GameSpot recently released a video, brought to you by Killzone: Shadow Fall, calling out people for so easily jumping on the paid reviews conspiracy that does not exist.

Video producer Cameron Robinson sets the record straight in this video, sponsored by Battlefield 4 for the Xbox One, saying that anybody who believes in these conspiracies are actually normal, functioning humans. Using scientific articles to back his theory up, he says that some level of distrust among gamers is actually a healthy response to these reviews. He then clarifies his point saying that it’s okay to believe in these conspiracies, but you have to look at them from a logical standpoint.

I really hope anyone looking at this article looks at the names of the images they use.

 

[CSM]

Used to think the guy from p4rgaming was getting a bit too obsessed with making fun of Game Journalists and the paid review drama. But its amazing how those click chasers just keep giving new material to work with (Source).

GameSpot: There is No Paid Reviews Conspiracy, Sponsored by Killzone: Shadow Fall
News
GameSpot recently released a video, brought to you by Killzone: Shadow Fall, calling out people for so easily jumping on the paid reviews conspiracy that does not exist.

Video producer Cameron Robinson sets the record straight in this video, sponsored by Battlefield 4 for the Xbox One, saying that anybody who believes in these conspiracies are actually normal, functioning humans. Using scientific articles to back his theory up, he says that some level of distrust among gamers is actually a healthy response to these reviews. He then clarifies his point saying that it’s okay to believe in these conspiracies, but you have to look at them from a logical standpoint.

Check it out and it's true.

I got a Dew/Doritos/Xbox ad though. Which is even funnier!

 

[Infinitron]

Uh, wtf? http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/it-was-a-great-two-years-but-now-its-time-to-say-goodbye

Bye!

 

[Coyote]

Uh, wtf? http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/it-was-a-great-two-years-but-now-its-time-to-say-goodbye

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/12/06/changes

Looks like the Penny Arcade Report wasn't...



...up to PAR.

 

[Ninjerk]

We didn’t fix game journalism, but the whole idea of it being broken and needing a white knight to run in and make everything better was arrogant and more than a little pigheaded. There was good game writing before PAR, and there’s going to be good game writing after we go away.

Sounds like someone's getting hired by Polygon/IGN/etc.

 

[Dexter]

That's great, PAR was one of those shitty sites like Polygon, Kotaku or The Escapist that not many should miss.
The less of them, the better.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Uh, wtf? http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/it-was-a-great-two-years-but-now-its-time-to-say-goodbye

Bye!

Fantastic thing. Good riddance, please never come back.

 

[felipepepe]

PAR's original idea was actually interesting, but indeed it turned into "Ben Kuchera's Kotaku" after a very short while... no surprise that PA guys have no interest in paying Kuchera to blog about stuff and post news.

 

[Xor]

Uh, wtf? http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/it-was-a-great-two-years-but-now-its-time-to-say-goodbye

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/12/06/changes

Looks like the Penny Arcade Report wasn't...



...up to PAR.

 

[Dexter]

http://www.p4rgaming.com/the-penny-...cal-video-game-journalism-website-shuts-down/



I guess this must also be satire:

 

[Western]

http://www.p4rgaming.com/the-penny-...cal-video-game-journalism-website-shuts-down/

Truly a beautiful tribute, it brought tears to my eyes.

 

[Rahdulan]

Oh man, Polygon. Initially give the game a high score so as to reap the benefits of ad marketing campaigns and not get on publisher shit list, and THEN knock down the score couple of weeks later in order to appear legit. Freaking A.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/10/29/5040656/battlefield-4-review

 

[Zewp]

How do people not see what shills PAR and Polygon are? I mean, they can recognise that all the others are shills, but somehow they don't recognise the shilling when PAR and Polygon do the exact same fucking thing?