strikeAG

@oldirtybearon more or less immediately made the point I would make at the start: My biggest problem with the games press is that they posture as journalists, they claim to want to be seen and treated as journalists, and yet are only willing to claim the responsibilities of a YouTuber. If you want to be a journalist, full disclosure, even about things you don't even personally see as a conflict of interests, but some in your readership might, should be a top priority.

There was a Reddit post on /Games that talked about Patricia Hernandez living with an indie dev and covering and mentioning that dev in her work on multiple occasions. In Patrick's tumblr a few days ago, he linked to a Forbes piece that included this line:

We’re trying, though it may be some time yet. We want to be more New York Times and less TMZ as we continue to grow and learn, another reason we avoid stories like the one above.

If someone who worked for The New York Times had a conflict of interest on that level and repeatedly did not disclose that in her work, they would be out on their ass. If this field wants to aspire to be actual journalists, they need to start conducting themselves like actual journalists. You can't have the cachet, the authority, the influence of a journalist, but deny any of the responsibilities and conduct that come with it if you want to be taken seriously. Which is why there has been widespread mistrust between the enthusiast press and their readership going back for years now.

I remember back when the Mass Effect 3 ending debacle was raging, and most of the press was acting as the press does; denying the ending was a major problem, mischaracterizing why people were upset with it, refusing to even entertain any opinion other than their own. It made people bitterly angry, and only a select few in the press (Erik Kain, Jim Sterling) dared to try and lend credence to the complaints. I remember that debacle and thinking "this sort of widespread rivalry between the press and their audience isn't sustainable, something's going to give at some point unless things change." Here we are, about two and ahalf years later. Zoe Quinn isn't actually important, herself, to all that many people. She's just the straw that broke the camel's back, the spark that ignited what was already sitting there, or whatever other equivalent cliche you can imagine.

The mistrust either needs to be healed, or more and more people will just bleed to YouTube or Twitch and leave sites like Polygon in the dust. It isn't a coincidence that Giant Bomb, a site least like their "journalisty" contemporaries, probably has the healthiest future.

And to adress the people saying season four is bad just because Harmon is gone; have you forgotten all the terrible episodes he made? Video game episode, Troy's birthday, D&D, first christmas episode, and basically the entire back half of season three. The Chang empire stuff was so fucking stupid.

It doesn't seem like it's generating any buzz (aside from a paid Kevin Smith ad on the fatman on batman podcast) anybody else looking forward to it or are you guys just going to pass on it?

Aw, really? I watched both seasons for the first time recently and really liked them, even if they did seem a little forced and absurdist at the end. I was hoping to keep plodding on. Does it really get that lame to just stop?