Giant Bomb Presents: The Ethics of Freedom Cry

This ought to be interesting.

Is it just spoilers everywhere or are there specific points? Can anyone get some timestamps on this?

Also, make it possible to have timestamps on the search bar.

I'll be real shocked if this isn't just one giant spoiler.

I'm way excited about this!

Fantastic. Because I think we can all agree the one thing Giant Bomb needed was more Kotaku.

Is this the "There's too many n-words on Django Unchained" of video games?

There are plenty of good people at Kotaku, it's just the "we have to post something new every minute of every day" business model that's fucked. Seeing that a guy writes for Kotaku and immediately jumping to a negative conclusion is dumb.

Evan is good people. Trust me.

This. It may not be the best website at times but there are some great people there.

Kotaku has some good writers working for them. The problem is that they are forced to post articles at regular intervals which makes for bad content (Top 10 lists). Their horrible website design buries some of their better articles also.

Evan is one of the first writers to make me go "Oh, right. Kotaku had a regime change and that means they got better writers." I've really dug his psuedo-ongoing series about black people in video games that aren't just bad stereotypes.

Scoops is also good people.

Kotaku isn't a human being. It's comprised of multiple human beings -- some not worth reading or following, others definitely worth reading or following. Perhaps Evan is the latter or perhaps the former, but if you simply define him by whatever bug you have up your butt about his employer, you sound ignorant.

What are ethics?

A really great listen. Thanks Patrick and Evan.

@bbk:

Totally. You shouldn't define people by their employer...that's what the description does. Notice how the blurb up top reads. When Patrick had Jim Sterling on, he got "games critic" even though he works for the Escapist. Evan (the poor guy) gets "Kotaku writer". See, even the editorial staff implies there's a difference.

You might be wrong.

Agreed

@algebratwo: That's probably because what Sterling does can only farcically be referred to as "writing".

Wow, excellent discussion right here.

As a half Trinidadian half Haitian dude I can't wait to listen to this interview. Gotta beat the dlc first though!

Is this just me or is this missing from the Dumptruck RSS feed?

So because a description was worded a certain way, you're powerless to understand the difference between a person and his employer? You're kidding, right? You're really doing yourself no favors here.

Jim Sterling is more famous than Evan Narcisse and was introduced as such. Much like how LeBron James probably would just be introduced as LeBron James while Norris Cole likely would be introduced as Norris Cole of the Miami Heat on the account that people may be less familiar with his name alone. That doesn't make Norris Cole less of a human being with individual personality traits and merit, does it? Do you understand yet?

I think the point on the Kotaku comment is that sites like them, such as RPS and polygon, are Social Justice Warrior central.

Much of Patricks work is Social Justice Warrior material...

Well this should be self-fellating.

STAY WOKE YALL

Find a better way to phrase your objection. I'm done with the SWJ moniker. It won't be tolerated anymore.

You make cool podcasts Patrick, I rarely, if ever, agree with any of your social justice warrior light articles, but I do enjoy your scooping with wolfs and the occasional article here and there (I much prefer podcasts as a source for gaming news).

But I have no interest in supporting a website or it's employers for claiming to be a gaming website, but is in reality a social justice warrior site that affects gaming in a negative way. Clickbaiting and almost always twist a story to fit their agenda (of course this doesn't apply to all the "journalists", but you can obviously see what articles gets the most attention from that site).

You have talked a lot Patrick about being better on the internet, and I would consider my comment to be honest and in a non-flaming manner.

Looking forward to this week's podcast with the wolf.

Did some of you even LISTEN to this before making a comment? Or do I expect too much from the internet

@bbk: My underlying point is that I think someone like Patrick, or Sterling, can pretty easily be regarded as "game journalist" or "critic", while someone who recently wrote an article clarifying Ice-Ts opinion of Dungeons and Dragons (whether it was his choice or assigned by his employers) would be more accurately described as a "Kotaku writer." I cannot be the the only one who shares this opinion. I don't care for most of Kotaku's content and I'd rather not see that seep into Giant Bomb.

You can debate the relative popularity of people who write things on the internet with someone else.

It's not an objection, I was elaborating on what someone said about Kotaku like material showing up on the site and everyone debating what that means.

You just tend to be aggressively politically correct as a Social Justice Warrior would.

It's an observation, not criticism or praise.

@declanusaur: The phrase "Social Justice Warrior" carries inherent judgement. It's not an "observation."

Maybe my understanding of the term is incorrect then. Social justice warrior to me is aggressive political correctness, political correctness to a fault, ect.

@bbk said:

Well 'famous' within the sphere of gaming journalism being key here.

@patrickklepek: But I thought you wanted to tolerate people. I wont tolerate those that hate those who hate.

It's not your understanding of the definition so much as your understanding of the tone. When you use blanket terminology to refer to a person, whether it be "social justice warrior," "sensationalist," or even "troll," you imply that you've evaluated the worth of their argument before even hearing it. You're telling them that they're part of a faceless amalgam of incorrectness, and that their efforts to clarify a point are utterly lost on you. It's frustrating to serious participants in a conversation, and it makes you seem wilfully ignorant.

Call him passionate, call him overbearing, call him whatever as long as you don't use an obvious brush-off to seem superior.

Does Patrick have to make a podcast for everything?

I really enjoyed this podcast. Keep up the great work, Patrick, and if you talk to Evan in the near future let him know that there are definitely people who frequent Giant Bomb who are interested in the types of things he tackles.

He'll let you know in the next podcast.

It's not an obvious brush off, I listen to and read his work. It's been a pattern that has existed for a long time and I see no reason why it would change.

If a topic comes up which involves a politically correct subject, it's very easy to assume his position on it, before hearing it. Even if you're someone that always agree's I still think it 's predictable. That doesn't mean I won't listen because I'm curious, just that I usually know what I'm going to get.

It's super easy to be a social justice warrior in the gaming journalism realm. Those who agree circlejerk about it, those who disagree get shouted down as bigots. Game companies agree, even if they do nothing about it, because from a PR standpoint it's the best route, you can say you're going to do something and don't. It also seems to be what sites like polygon, kotaku, and increasingly on RPS, rely on because it's a great traffic draw.

"How the gaming industry oppresses woman" that as a headline will get traffic. It bring's in the SJW and those in the middle, and those who think it's all baby BS. The SJW's want to circlejerk, the middles are kinda curious, and the latter thinks "Oh, one of these, this should be good."

I mean think about it, Patrick almost always interviews people that will agree with him on that stuff, he never wants the opposing view point on social justice topics. Those that would and are friends won't, why get in an argument with your friend when you can easily agree and move on.

Social justice stuff is just an easy get out of jail free card these days. I'm not saying that's wrong, it's just ripe for use and abuse.

It's a shame that a reasonable and interesting conversation gets slapped with the same bullshit "SWJ" label without much consideration. It seems like with the precedent set in some people's minds, anything similar will get written off; this is a shame because if anything one of my favorite traits about Patrick is his tendency to dynamically evolve his approach in spite of the noise amidst the feedback.

And it was something he chose to do, I think for the better, but which wasn't guaranteed nor should it have been. That's what makes it unfortunate to see it get dismissed all the same. I genuinely appreciate his work and what he's done with the site over time and I don't see any good reason to have detractors exclusively own the conversation.

@bacongames: This is what upsets me

I wouldn't blame anyone for playing through Freedom Cry and killing all the slave owners and slave merchants. Those people were extreme hypocrites. "Our country is founded on freedom...except for y'all. I need y'all for free labor."

Anybody who uses the term social justice warrior as a derogatory term does not deserve your attention. "How DARE you advocate that people be treated equally!" Get out of here with that mess.

I really don't think that the ones who used the term SJW in this post were simply "slapping with the same bullshit label without much consideration" or "Evaluating the comment without hearing". Its just their opinion on the social engagement on Patrick's posts. this line of thought is becoming common, and obviously some people wont like. Some people will find the discussion on sexism on Bravely Default, or racism on Assassins Creed interesting. some will find it boring.

"advocate that people be treated equally!"

If that's all they did, it wouldn't be the problem is.

If like the black panthers blew up a school bus in the name of equality, you can't say "How dare they fight for equality." An extreme example, but I assume you get the point.

Actually, that example still works. If the Black Panthers blew up a school bus they probably would have been arrested and executed. If a white extremist group blew up a school bus they might not have been (in the mid 1900s that is). All the Black Panthers would be trying to prove is that they get arrested while Caucasian people did not. If the Black Panthers were going to get arrested while fighting for equality, they were going to take people down with them.

Kotaku was my favorite site way back when before they did the format change to all their sites. That was years ago though. :(

Wow you took this completely somewhere else. It was a side point about someone doing something bad in the name of good and then condoning the bad act for it's intentions. Where did I say black panthers were trying to do this to say they would go to jail while white's wouldn't?

I can see you are the type that will spin it to fit your message regardless.

I wish you luck.