Dave Lang is an example of corruption in games journalism.
Examples of Corruption in Games Journalism
@wilshere: Can you provide any evidence from the leaked mailing list of people deciding as a group not to cover x or to cover z?
@pinner458 said:
Dave Lang is an example of corruption in games journalism.
In a way, being as big and boisterous and as much of a public (albeit lovable) trainwreck as Dave Lang is its own form of disclosure. It's hard to avoid noticing the influence of such a strong Lang Field Generator when one is near the epicenter.
@president_barackbar: Serious question: If I gave you 10 bucks a month on patreon, what incentive would I have to rate your game favorably or give it coverage? The only one I can see is you start making enough money that you don't have to subsist through donations. Since no one is forcing me to support you, supporting you in order to eventually not support you isnt a good motivation
There are an awful, awful lot of really shitty websites out there covering games. Top ten lists, click bait, places that you click an article title which opens another window which then prompts you to click the article title again which then opens another window and so on. Anyone with a whit of sense and over the age of 14 can tell those places are garbage, but someone's clicking them. It's not exactly corruption, but it's not exactly objective or honest games coverage either.
I feel bad sometimes for being an absolute sucker for top whatever lists (outside of GOTY lists, which I have no qualms about reading). I know they're click bait but it's stinky cheese to this rat.
Did I just compare myself to a rodent? Uh, yeah, long day.
Anyways, I don't necessarily think top whatever lists are inherently morally wrong, just kind of douchey ways of doing business, especially if you seperate them out into way more pages than necessary. That said, I'd really like to see sites move away from them into more organic unnumbered lists without the extra, unnecessary pages.
From 1994 and on I have had second-hand and first-hand time in games journalism in Scandinavia, mainland Europe, and Latvia. I never saw corruption, but I have seen weak-willed individuals who if they were restaurant reviewers would have called ahead to a restaurant and just to get served the absolute best and then give them a great rating, demonstrating dishonesty and playing favourites in very ugly ways that ruined publications, sites, friendships and jobs and I eventually quit because of those kinds of people.
We got five permanent subscription codes for the WoW launch coverage and dealt them out among the staff, we gave it a 5/5 because by god it was a 5/5. We did not care much for a heavy NDA filled champagne & stripper review event because the game was shit, but other publications who happened to have people of questionable qualities rated it far above average compared to other publications. This still happens, but that may just be a Swedish event tradition.
We made friends in the industry but we did not publicize only their side of any given story in the news, nor did we censor comments or forum posts questioning them or posting negative no matter how justified. Sites who do that are the true corruption along with the ones who cannot ever see things from the eyes of the reader, the random person out there who wonders if this game is going to be worth the money and not the kinds of writers who haven't cooled down from a mental fellation and can't help but faff on about games they have a connection to, things they win financially from, writers who turn it into an "us" vs "them" if they get questioned even the slightest.
Dog bless the good souls in games journalism. It has changed massively since I left it in 2006. I would write a few bible-pages worth about it if I could remember more from that time.
@sparky_buzzsaw said:
I feel bad sometimes for being an absolute sucker for top whatever lists (outside of GOTY lists, which I have no qualms about reading). I know they're click bait but it's stinky cheese to this rat.
Did I just compare myself to a rodent? Uh, yeah, long day.
Anyways, I don't necessarily think top whatever lists are inherently morally wrong, just kind of douchey ways of doing business, especially if you seperate them out into way more pages than necessary. That said, I'd really like to see sites move away from them into more organic unnumbered lists without the extra, unnecessary pages.
Oh, I love me some top lists. Long-time Cracked reader even. But when a site spreads each item out onto its own page? Then they can go directly to hell.
@amyggen said:
@jimbo said:
@amafi said:
@jimbo said:
@akraftwerkorange said:
I agree with Jeff's statement that people complaining about ethics in journalism is largely farcical.
When people are saying it's about ethics, really they are politely saying "it's shit"
People are tired of clickbait, hype, fanboys, shills, astro turfing, circle jerks.
and of this, there is no shortage of examples.
Nah, plenty are also tired of how casually the concerns over the media being in the industry's pocket are just dismissed outright, as though even the suggestion of a conflict of interest in how the press/industry relationship works is absurd. Meanwhile the Giant Bomb front page looks more like the Elite website than the Elite website itself does. Which is by no means an extreme case; that's the standard appearance of game websites across the board.
Corruption doesn't come in brown envelopes, it comes in everyone involved implicitly understanding which side their bread is buttered. The problem is with the fundamental structure of the industry/press relationship, not with the individuals involved. That's why the standard defence of 'Well everyone I know is A-OK!' doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Unless the press is populated exclusively by paragons of virtue then it's impossible that everyone you know is actually consciously and subconsciously immune to the corrupting nature of the structure.
Jeff is literally the only person in the entire industry I would be happy to say I 100% trust not to be corrupted by how the current industry/press relationship operates, and that's only because he's borderline obsessive about his role and identifies with it in a way which goes far beyond what you could reasonably expect from your average game reviewer. I do genuinely believe that he would put the role before his own financial security (as he has proven before), but I think it's insane to believe that applies to all game journos, or even to a majority of them. If push came to shove, most would put themselves first (especially those with a family to provide for - I know I certainly would in that position), which is why the structure itself needs to change if the press ever hopes to be taken remotely seriously. If it's happy just to be half marketing, half light entertainment, then it's fine as it is.
Most of the major outlets have safeguards in place though. It's the reason ad sales people don't sit next to the editorial staff.
That's the safeguard? The staff not sitting next to each other? That should do the trick.
In reality, everyone involved has a vested interest in pulling their punches when it comes to the people paying the bills. It's not like the traffic can just up sticks and go somewhere else when every other major outlet is operating in exactly the same conditions with exactly the same outcome (You want a 9? You want a 9? 9s for everyone!)
A better safeguard would be if the people who consume the coverage paid for it. Crazy I know. To have the coverage funded by the subject of that coverage is plainly not 'safe' at all and never can be.
You're talking nonsense here, Jimbo. The "church and state" divide between sales and editorial is the safeguard that has been used in every journalistic field for over a century. That's what the NY Times has in place to secure that their reporting on Chevron isn't impacted by there maybe being ads for Chevron in the paper, that's what The Economist, The Guardian, The Washington Post etc. all do to secure that editorial is not impacted by the business of running a newspaper. You are literally asking games media to be more "ethical" than the political press here, do you realize how insane and unreasonable that sounds? Very few question if the "church and state" divide works in the political press because it clearly does. And yes, if you removed ads from all those newspapers/magazines, they would die a quick death; subscription is not enough for any of them.
Bigger sites like Giant Bomb and Gamespot practice that same divide between business and editorial. It's what broke down when Jeff was fired, but generally we have no reason to believe that editorial is ever impacted by the business side. And virtually no site could survive on a subscription model alone; Giant Bomb is the closest because of the personality-driven aspect of it, but it clearly needs ads on top of that.
Stuff like this makes it sound like you do not know how journalism works, and when I hear ethical demands like yours that are so out of proportion and not needed I ask myself if what you really want is for all of games media to just disappear.
What you should be looking at is Youtubers who handle their own business. THEN you have a reason for concern. That goes for small sites too, but all of the medium-sized to big sites that we're talking about here have a church and state solution in place.
I would agree with your comparison if Giant Bomb were covered in Chevron ads, or if the NY Times was predominantly a motoring magazine. As it is, neither of those things are true so there is no direct comparison.
The conflict of interest issue may be more important in the general media --they are covering things that actually matter after all-- but it's not the permanent elephant in the room there that it is for gaming sites and other specialist media, because of the difference in how they operate. The general media can call on a far more diverse range of advertisers if it comes to it, and isn't in a position where everything it writes is concerning one of those advertisers. The NY Times has far less to fear from losing the goodwill of Chevron or Coca Cola than any gaming site has to fear from losing the goodwill of EA or Activision, thus the reader has less reason to be concerned about it.
Whatever safeguards are in place they plainly aren't working. That's how we're in this absurd position where we all have to apply some bullshit 'Review Score divided by Hype' equation to try and decipher whether an 8/10 still means good anymore or is just an advertister-acceptable way of saying it's shit. Maybe seperation of church and state doesn't work so well if Jesus is president for life.
I believe you are right that there is no other business model which can realistically work for gaming coverage though, and I have frequently said on these forums that the responsibility for that rests primarily with the readers for not being prepared to fund the content they consume. I don't believe that I have demanded change, merely pointed out that the only two options are for gaming coverage to either, a) change or b) remain a bit of a joke. I believed the former was possible in the early Giant Bomb days --and unless we are going to start revising history, so did the staff-- but now I'm resigned to the latter. There's no magical third option where everything can remain as it is and the significant minority with concerns (/any critical thinking at all) will just suddenly choose to disregard the blatant conflict of interest issue.
This is why --setting aside the harassment issue for a moment, which is a seperate thing entirely-- I can't help but laugh at the GamerGate crowd. They are right in their opinion of games 'journalism', but they are so spectacularly wrong in thinking they can change it. If they are going to campaign for change though, it's readers they need to be trying to convince, not sites or journos. There's really no need for them to be engaging journalists directly at all. It's impossible to eliminate the ethics issues while content is being funded by the subject of that content. Until they come up with a plan for addressing that they are wasting their time with anything else.
When I was, like, 8, I copied a cheat code for Driver from a book I got with a magazine and sent it to the games column of 'The Mirror' newspaper. It was printed and I got £5.
I am games journalism.
@jimbo said:
The conflict of interest issue may be more important in the general media --they are covering things that actually matter after all-- but it's not the permanent elephant in the room there that it is for gaming sites and other specialist media, because of the difference in how they operate. The general media can call on a far more diverse range of advertisers if it comes to it, and isn't in a position where everything it writes is concerning one of those advertisers. The NY Times has far less to fear from losing the goodwill of Chevron or Coca Cola than any gaming site has to fear from losing the goodwill of EA or Activision, thus the reader has less reason to be concerned about it.
As someone who works at a company that regularly deals with high-rolling investors, I'd just like to point out that the fear of upsetting big names like Chevron or Coca Cola is very much real. Good will from big names is worth way more than dozens of employees. Make of that what you will...and follow the money.
@dark_lord_spam: I heard he's doing well for himself now. :) Seems like an upstanding dude!
I'm surprised more of you don't seem to think atleast "something" fishy is going on with the games media these days, but I suppose if you don't dig much, or at all, I guess, then you wouldn't think anything is going on. And don't get me wrong, I don't see GiantBomb as being corrupt or colluding with anyone as I'm well aware when your friends with people.
But currently, video game media as a whole? Come on... I'm not going to get to deep into details here, but what about the day 12 video games media sites all released similar story's that essentially said the same thing (the term gamer is dead), in a 24 hour period, all pointing to the exact same blog post? Is that not collusion? or atleast really, really fishy? Again I'm not implicated GiantBomb in this as I don't think they released an article that day, just saying this as games media as a whole.
There was that whole thing where for a while the dude in charge of IGN's Nintendo coverage was the husband of the woman in charge of Nintendo's PR.
This was before the great feminist conspiracy to destroy gaming, so nobody used it as the starting point for a crusade for ethics and transparency in games journalism. Actually nobody really cared at all. Funny how that works.
@hunter5024 said:
@juno500 said:
@exfate said:
I fail to see how anyone can honestly read that thread and not see collusion. Editorial decisions, which include whether a news report is ethical and whether to fire a journalist over any such ethical concerns, should not be discussed with competing outlets in private, ever.
If a bunch of Biologists from competing universities field got together in a private conference to exchange ideas about current and future research, is that collusion?
What if there was a biologist that made a discovery, and he told everybody about it. Then his university had to fire him because the fallout of his discovery made them look really bad. Then what if they went and told all the other universities not to talk to him, and that made it impossible for the biologist to get a new job. What if there was a law against that?
What if Dr Tracksuit was real and he had a plan to zap all alligators in the US to increase their intelligence to create the perfect sugar cereal? And in this cereal there was a chance to get a prize? And what if that prize could be a video game? And what if that video game was more addictive than Words with Friends? Where is the law against that? Why is no one protecting us against hyper intelligent alligators from Florida?
@corygignac said:
I'm surprised more of you don't seem to think atleast "something" fishy is going on with the games media these days, but I suppose if you don't dig much, or at all, I guess, then you wouldn't think anything is going on. And don't get me wrong, I don't see GiantBomb as being corrupt or colluding with anyone as I'm well aware when your friends with people.
But currently, video game media as a whole? Come on... I'm not going to get to deep into details here, but what about the day 12 video games media sites all released similar story's that essentially said the same thing (the term gamer is dead), in a 24 hour period, all pointing to the exact same blog post? Is that not collusion? or atleast really, really fishy? Again I'm not implicated GiantBomb in this as I don't think they released an article that day, just saying this as games media as a whole.
Like everyone got together after this blew up and said, "Let's bash gamers?" I don't think so...more so people in the industry defending friends being attacked, or sick of dealing with the underbelly of the gaming culture that's been rising for years, and the ZQ stuff was the last straw. Debate on whether the games' media is too close to those they're covering is perhaps worth discussion, but suggesting some kind of overarching, concocted movement to crush their userbase does not make sense. It's coincidence, not conspiracy.
@corygignac said:
... but what about the day 12 video games media sites all released similar story's that essentially said the same thing (the term gamer is dead), in a 24 hour period, all pointing to the exact same blog post? Is that not collusion? or atleast really, really fishy? Again I'm not implicated GiantBomb in this as I don't think they released an article that day, just saying this as games media as a whole.
That's only weird or suspicious if you don't read a lot of other news outlets where this happens all the time when something controversial happens. The guy behind Dilbert says something misogynistic and everybody scrambles to write an article. A group decides to boycott Ender's Game in theaters because of Orson Scott Card and everybody scrambles to write an article. You've got people writing about Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby and guess what? A whole bunch of those articles make a lot of the same points, at about the same time.
There have been a couple of pretty good breakdowns of the "gamers are over" articles, a detailed one here and a more simplistic breakdown here. Not only are there not actually 12 articles in a 24 hour period (Edit: I guess you could say there are if you lump in even more non-game outlets like Jezebel), but not all of them were on "gaming" sites and one (the first one, actually) was actually a Tumblr post by a non-journalist.
On some level I can understand reading one or several of those and disagreeing with the points made -- even getting a little upset if you think the "gamer" being referenced is you (which it might not have been). But as much as I've looked at this particular GG grievance I simply cannot understand why these articles generated the reaction they did. Would I have personally written them differently? Yeah, probably. There's some language in a few of them that I think is too strong, and that paints with too broad a brush. But welcome to the world of opinion writing. This 'aint new.
As for the "collusion" angle: What would be the point? Seriously. Why would a bunch of writers get together and say, "Let's all bash gamers together on the same day! That will show 'em!" I don't understand what on earth would be accomplished by planning such a thing.
Disclosure, I'm someone who writes for gaming websites sometimes, so you can dismiss me as someone who's just trying to defend other games writers, but this particular GG issue tends to bug me.
@pinner458 said:
Dave Lang is an example of collusion in games journalism.
fixed..
@stryker1121: Wow... are you serious? Coincidence would be a couple man, but 12? Think about it, you're telling me 12 completely different people all decided, on their own, to essentially write the exact same article, the exact same day linking to the exact same blog post? Some of the leaked JournoGamePros emails showed a lot of them (not GiantBomb) talking about how to pissed they were about ZQ's personal life being exposed and how to deal with it and how to respond. Look, you're entitled to your own opinion, but I'm entitled to mine as well. I'm just saying look a little deeper. Am I connecting dots that really aren't there? Some might say that, but if it turns out I'm wrong someday I'm more then willing to admit it.
@defaultprophet said:
@president_barackbar: Serious question: If I gave you 10 bucks a month on patreon, what incentive would I have to rate your game favorably or give it coverage? The only one I can see is you start making enough money that you don't have to subsist through donations. Since no one is forcing me to support you, supporting you in order to eventually not support you isnt a good motivation
Well, if you are giving someone funding through Patreon you are essentially supporting their career and ability to make games, in a much more general way than Kickstarter. Giving someone Patreon funds is similar to an investment except you make no money. I don't like games media supporting indie dev Patreons without disclosure because there is a potential for someone to give a developer they like more access and favorable coverage because they are invested in seeing them succeed. Of course, games media already uses their influence to promote games they want to see do well, but the whole thing just gets weird to me when you start introducing money into the equation.
@corygignac said:
@stryker1121: Wow... are you serious? Coincidence would be a couple man, but 12? Think about it, you're telling me 12 completely different people all decided, on their own, to essentially write the exact same article, the exact same day linking to the exact same blog post? Some of the leaked JournoGamePros emails showed a lot of them (not GiantBomb) talking about how to pissed they were about ZQ's personal life being exposed and how to deal with it and how to respond. Look, you're entitled to your own opinion, but I'm entitled to mine as well. I'm just saying look a little deeper. Am I connecting dots that really aren't there? Some might say that, but if it turns out I'm wrong someday I'm more then willing to admit it.
Can't believe you're so surprised i'm serious about this. If the 'collusion' were real, what would be the end-game for scheming to bash the userbase? To neuter 'real' gamers to bring in the new, larger wave of "SJW" gamers that are overtaking the old guard?(Yes, I've seen this theory floated). What dots are you trying to connect?
@corygignac said:
@stryker1121: Wow... are you serious? Coincidence would be a couple man, but 12? Think about it, you're telling me 12 completely different people all decided, on their own, to essentially write the exact same article, the exact same day linking to the exact same blog post? Some of the leaked JournoGamePros emails showed a lot of them (not GiantBomb) talking about how to pissed they were about ZQ's personal life being exposed and how to deal with it and how to respond. Look, you're entitled to your own opinion, but I'm entitled to mine as well. I'm just saying look a little deeper. Am I connecting dots that really aren't there? Some might say that, but if it turns out I'm wrong someday I'm more then willing to admit it.
It was major news in gaming circles and on social media, once Twitter got ahold of it and the story started to take off, of course a bunch of people are going to fire off articles and blogs about it as quickly as possible. That sounds a hell of a lot more reasonable and likely to me than all of these people colluding and deciding to steer the story in one particular direction. The evidence to support your position is purely circumstantial.
If there is something else more concrete then by all means, I would love to hear it.
@corygignac said:
But currently, video game media as a whole? Come on... I'm not going to get to deep into details here, but what about the day 12 video games media sites all released similar story's that essentially said the same thing (the term gamer is dead), in a 24 hour period, all pointing to the exact same blog post? Is that not collusion? or atleast really, really fishy? Again I'm not implicated GiantBomb in this as I don't think they released an article that day, just saying this as games media as a whole.
That's not really unusual. When one article comes out making a statement, it's not uncommon for other writers to respond to that article with their own thoughts. It's just what writers do, they write about things that people are talking about.
Like, a while back, Chris Kohler wrote an article proclaiming that Final Fantasy was dead, and Jeremy Parish and other members of USGamer all wrote their own thoughts on the subject.
Also, many of the people who wrote the articles were not on the GJP list.
@corygignac said:
@stryker1121: Wow... are you serious? Coincidence would be a couple man, but 12? Think about it, you're telling me 12 completely different people all decided, on their own, to essentially write the exact same article, the exact same day linking to the exact same blog post? Some of the leaked JournoGamePros emails showed a lot of them (not GiantBomb) talking about how to pissed they were about ZQ's personal life being exposed and how to deal with it and how to respond. Look, you're entitled to your own opinion, but I'm entitled to mine as well. I'm just saying look a little deeper. Am I connecting dots that really aren't there? Some might say that, but if it turns out I'm wrong someday I'm more then willing to admit it.
That's not corruption. Even if they did all get together and decide to publish similar articles that in it of itself is not corruption. Also stuff like that happens all the time in other media industries. Become a sports fan and see how similar articles come out around a controversy. Become a music fan and see how all the journalists start talking about the same thing. Look at celebrity magazines. All of them have the same people on rotation on their covers. Either everyone is corrupt or it could just be the way things in media works.
@corygignac: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=134977360&postcount=16153
That has been debunked, thoroughly, for a long time. Leigh's is the only article, and it was not even targeted towards gamers, but developers. The rest are reaction pieces about that article.
@sargus: @corygignac: I'm going to refer to this excellent post by Mike Williams over at NeoGAF:
8/28
The End of Gamers by Dan Golding (Personal Tumblr) [...] This is on his personal Tumblr, not a website.
'Gamers' don't have to be your audience. 'Gamers' are over by Leigh Alexander (Gamasutra) [...] The one everyone cites. Not surprising coming from Alexander.
The death of the “gamers” and the women who “killed” them by Casey Johnston (Ars Technica) [...] An also-ran response, citing Golding and Alexander's articles. Also, not that bad.
Gaming Is Leaving “Gamers” Behind by Joseph Bernstein (BuzzFeed) [...] Cites Golding.
We Might Be Witnessing The 'Death of An Identity' by Luke Plunkett (Kotaku) [...] That last one is merely links to Alexander and Golding's article with a few words.
8/29
THIS GUY'S EMBARRASSING RELATIONSHIP DRAMA IS KILLING THE 'GAMER' IDENTITY by Mike Pearl (Vice) [...] Again, cites Alexander's article. Probably as incendiary as that article, because Vice stepped in it when they wrote an article about the /v/ mascot. The rest of the article is basically an interview with Eron Gjoni.
8/31
Why does the term 'gamer' feel important? by Jonathan Holmes (Destructoid)
9/1
The Monday Papers by Graham Smith [...] Again, simple links to the Alexander and Golding articles alongside their normal writing collections.
And to drive the point home about the GameJournoPro list...
So let's move beyond the fact that the Slate article just randomly picked incendiary phrases from these larger articles to make a point and most of the them were certainly more even-handed.
Let's see how many are on the list. Dan Golding, Leigh Alexander, Joseph Bernstein, Luke Plunkett, Mike Pearl, Jonathan Holmes, and Graham Smith are... not in the Google Group. Casey Johnston and Luke Plunkett. Of those, Plunkett just linked to it and Johnston's article is more about "gamers" not being able to handle criticism.
So... where's the collusion and groupthink?
I've edited some quotes and sentences to save some space, but feel free to check out the post in its entirety.
EDIT: Full disclosure, I'm not in contact with any other GB forum members in any way and the fact that three of us linked to the same thread on NeoGAF is purely coincidental.
If you want a prime example of corruption at its absolute most heinous, look no further than mister BRAD SHOECRAFTER.
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@corygignac said:
@stryker1121: Wow... are you serious? Coincidence would be a couple man, but 12? Think about it, you're telling me 12 completely different people all decided, on their own, to essentially write the exact same article, the exact same day linking to the exact same blog post? Some of the leaked JournoGamePros emails showed a lot of them (not GiantBomb) talking about how to pissed they were about ZQ's personal life being exposed and how to deal with it and how to respond. Look, you're entitled to your own opinion, but I'm entitled to mine as well. I'm just saying look a little deeper. Am I connecting dots that really aren't there? Some might say that, but if it turns out I'm wrong someday I'm more then willing to admit it.
Besides what everyone else has already said, the idea that all these games sites wrote the same "gamers are dead" articles isn't even true.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=132616610&postcount=7856
As far as I know, none of the reviews for The Beatles: Rock Band ever mentioned the fact that Paul's been dead for years. It's time to let the truth out, you guys. We know he's been gone for decades, the clues are in the songs and the album covers!
Is it normal for enthusiast press to have some sort of ethics policy to follow? I'm a journalist, been in the business for 15 years (freelancing now), and my old newspaper adopted an ethics policy about six years after I was hired. It followed SPJ guidelines, with addendums concentrating on conflicts of interest, like having a political sign in your yard. We weren't even allowed to sign petitions of any sort, which twisted some knickers. Has GB ever put a stance out there on this topic, officially or otherwise?
It's fine, look, you guys have your opinions, I have mine, whether you consider that a flimsy, poor evidence for collusion or not. If you really think there's NOTHING weird at all going on in the games media, well then...never mind. I'm not going to make this thread about GamerGate and I also won't post more in regards to this. I'm just saying there's more out there.
I think it's hard to say, really. The problem is that there's suspicion that's been bubbling for ages. The problem is that, while there's been very few smoking guns, there's always things that smell "off." Like the Battlefield 4 review Gamespot gave, despite the game being clearly broken, or the extremely chummy relationships we're seeing between media outlets and indie devs, which is the one good thing that's been spot-lighted by the chaos of the last few weeks.
Fact is that reporters in this corner of media either need to stop using the term "journalist" so loosely, or they need to start acting in the manner that label implies. People need to realize that they can't just call themselves journalists when they want to be taken seriously and ignore journalistic integrity the rest of the time; you either are or you're not.
There are few examples of people being on the take, but there's lots of things that smell funny, and it's been happening for years. The recent trend of lecturing the audience has only added to the distrust gamers feel toward the industry, but for people to say that people only care about it when the issue is women in gaming is disingenuous.
@corygignac: And I believe people are just asking for examples and in general it's coming up quite short.
If you want corruption, check out @jeff mixlr feed. I'm sure he must be getting some pretty good payola from BK for pushing those chicken parmesan sandwiches.
@corygignac said:
It's fine, look, you guys have your opinions, I have mine, whether you consider that a flimsy, poor evidence for collusion or not. If you really think there's NOTHING weird at all going on in the games media, well then...never mind. I'm not going to make this thread about GamerGate and I also won't post more in regards to this. I'm just saying there's more out there.
I fully agree there are problems with the games media, but I believe GG has been barking up the wrong tree. I think that Journos relationships with AAA publishers is a much bigger deal. Hell, as the years have gone on and on, I've paid less and less attention to gaming sites (including GB) because it's hard not to get cynical about that entire process.
But that doesn't mean I think there are problems absolutely everywhere. It doesn't mean I believe that a bunch of writers talking about the supposed "death of the gamer" constitutes some sort of conspiracy. I also don't think discussion of topics like feminism and LGBT issues is a bad thing. Yes, there are problems. But lately, many people seem to be focusing on the wrong ones.
@stryker1121 said:
Is it normal for enthusiast press to have some sort of ethics policy to follow? I'm a journalist, been in the business for 15 years (freelancing now), and my old newspaper adopted an ethics policy about six or years after I was hired. It followed SPJ guidelines, with addendums concentrating on conflicts of interest, like having a political sign in your yard. We weren't even allowed to sign petitions of any sort, which twisted some knickers. Has GB ever put a stance out there on this topic, officially or otherwise?
Every site I've written for has had a policy (which mostly mimics SPJ guidelines). Not all of them are public. I've actually seen a lot of people saying GG might go away if sites would "post an ethics policy and stick to it," but Polygon has a link to their ethics policy at the bottom of every review and they've remained one of GG's primary targets regardless. (Joystiq is another site that comes to mind with a detailed policy that's online.)
Funny, I was just listening to this old bombcast http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/giant-bombcast-11-10-2009/1600-119/ and at about 1 hour 3 minutes in they start talking about a German site that accused Ubisoft of not sending them AC2 unless they guarantee a good review score. They then talk about other cases of stuff like this happening.
@sargus said:
@stryker1121 said:
Is it normal for enthusiast press to have some sort of ethics policy to follow? I'm a journalist, been in the business for 15 years (freelancing now), and my old newspaper adopted an ethics policy about six or years after I was hired. It followed SPJ guidelines, with addendums concentrating on conflicts of interest, like having a political sign in your yard. We weren't even allowed to sign petitions of any sort, which twisted some knickers. Has GB ever put a stance out there on this topic, officially or otherwise?
Every site I've written for has had a policy (which mostly mimics SPJ guidelines). Not all of them are public. I've actually seen a lot of people saying GG might go away if sites would "post an ethics policy and stick to it," but Polygon has a link to their ethics policy at the bottom of every review and they've remained one of GG's primary targets regardless. (Joystiq is another site that comes to mind with a detailed policy that's online.)
Did polygon have that before Ben Kuchera covered depression quest without saying anything about supporting her through Patreon? Was Kotaku's in place before Patricia wrote about a bunch of Anna Enthropy's stuff without mentioning they were roommates?
@amafi said:
@sargus said:
@stryker1121 said:
Is it normal for enthusiast press to have some sort of ethics policy to follow? I'm a journalist, been in the business for 15 years (freelancing now), and my old newspaper adopted an ethics policy about six or years after I was hired. It followed SPJ guidelines, with addendums concentrating on conflicts of interest, like having a political sign in your yard. We weren't even allowed to sign petitions of any sort, which twisted some knickers. Has GB ever put a stance out there on this topic, officially or otherwise?
Every site I've written for has had a policy (which mostly mimics SPJ guidelines). Not all of them are public. I've actually seen a lot of people saying GG might go away if sites would "post an ethics policy and stick to it," but Polygon has a link to their ethics policy at the bottom of every review and they've remained one of GG's primary targets regardless. (Joystiq is another site that comes to mind with a detailed policy that's online.)
Did polygon have that before Ben Kuchera covered depression quest without saying anything about supporting her through Patreon? Was Kotaku's in place before Patricia wrote about a bunch of Anna Enthropy's stuff without mentioning they were roommates?
I know someone will tell me that it doesn't matter but let's look at this realistically. Depression Quest (and all of Zoe Quinn's games) are free. All of Anna Anthropy's games are free. 99% of people who play games have never heard of, much less played, any of these games. I can not fathom why anyone would get worked about these games receiving allegedly "corrupt" promotion. It's insane. Who cares?
@milkman said:
@amafi said:
@sargus said:
@stryker1121 said:
Is it normal for enthusiast press to have some sort of ethics policy to follow? I'm a journalist, been in the business for 15 years (freelancing now), and my old newspaper adopted an ethics policy about six or years after I was hired. It followed SPJ guidelines, with addendums concentrating on conflicts of interest, like having a political sign in your yard. We weren't even allowed to sign petitions of any sort, which twisted some knickers. Has GB ever put a stance out there on this topic, officially or otherwise?
Every site I've written for has had a policy (which mostly mimics SPJ guidelines). Not all of them are public. I've actually seen a lot of people saying GG might go away if sites would "post an ethics policy and stick to it," but Polygon has a link to their ethics policy at the bottom of every review and they've remained one of GG's primary targets regardless. (Joystiq is another site that comes to mind with a detailed policy that's online.)
Did polygon have that before Ben Kuchera covered depression quest without saying anything about supporting her through Patreon? Was Kotaku's in place before Patricia wrote about a bunch of Anna Enthropy's stuff without mentioning they were roommates?
I know someone will tell me that it doesn't matter but let's look at this realistically. Depression Quest (and all of Zoe Quinn's games) are free. All of Anna Anthropy's games are free. 99% of people who play games have never heard of, much less played, any of these games. I can not fathom why anyone would get worked about these games receiving allegedly "corrupt" promotion. It's insane. Who cares?
Escapist's story regarding "on message" coverage of Shadow of Mordor seems much more up the street of anyone trying to weed out corruption within the industry.
@stryker1121: Exactly. And look at that, it's one of the members of the corrupt games press pointing out actual corruption. Not GamerGate. Surprise, surprise.
@milkman said:
@amafi said:
@sargus said:
@stryker1121 said:
Is it normal for enthusiast press to have some sort of ethics policy to follow? I'm a journalist, been in the business for 15 years (freelancing now), and my old newspaper adopted an ethics policy about six or years after I was hired. It followed SPJ guidelines, with addendums concentrating on conflicts of interest, like having a political sign in your yard. We weren't even allowed to sign petitions of any sort, which twisted some knickers. Has GB ever put a stance out there on this topic, officially or otherwise?
Every site I've written for has had a policy (which mostly mimics SPJ guidelines). Not all of them are public. I've actually seen a lot of people saying GG might go away if sites would "post an ethics policy and stick to it," but Polygon has a link to their ethics policy at the bottom of every review and they've remained one of GG's primary targets regardless. (Joystiq is another site that comes to mind with a detailed policy that's online.)
Did polygon have that before Ben Kuchera covered depression quest without saying anything about supporting her through Patreon? Was Kotaku's in place before Patricia wrote about a bunch of Anna Enthropy's stuff without mentioning they were roommates?
I know someone will tell me that it doesn't matter but let's look at this realistically. Depression Quest (and all of Zoe Quinn's games) are free. All of Anna Anthropy's games are free. 99% of people who play games have never heard of, much less played, any of these games. I can not fathom why anyone would get worked about these games receiving allegedly "corrupt" promotion. It's insane. Who cares?
I absolutely agree. I haven't played any of the anna enthropy stuff, but I played DQ and liked it well enough.
And it wasn't a rhetorical question by the way, I genuinely don't know. I know about those things because it turned up on another forum I frequent in a totally unrelated thread, and I couldn't bear wade through the gg sewage to find out for myself. I just think that if the guidelines were there before they were disregarded that might go some way towards explaining why people still hassle them over it, is all.
@amafi said:
@sargus said:
@stryker1121 said:
Is it normal for enthusiast press to have some sort of ethics policy to follow? I'm a journalist, been in the business for 15 years (freelancing now), and my old newspaper adopted an ethics policy about six or years after I was hired. It followed SPJ guidelines, with addendums concentrating on conflicts of interest, like having a political sign in your yard. We weren't even allowed to sign petitions of any sort, which twisted some knickers. Has GB ever put a stance out there on this topic, officially or otherwise?
Every site I've written for has had a policy (which mostly mimics SPJ guidelines). Not all of them are public. I've actually seen a lot of people saying GG might go away if sites would "post an ethics policy and stick to it," but Polygon has a link to their ethics policy at the bottom of every review and they've remained one of GG's primary targets regardless. (Joystiq is another site that comes to mind with a detailed policy that's online.)
Did polygon have that before Ben Kuchera covered depression quest without saying anything about supporting her through Patreon? Was Kotaku's in place before Patricia wrote about a bunch of Anna Enthropy's stuff without mentioning they were roommates?
A writer supporting a developer through Patreon isn't particularly bad. A developer supporting a writer's Patreon however is questionable. A writer writing about a roommate's obscure project is pretty plainly skeezy, sure.
The "corruption" that "GamerGate" was opposed to as I understood it was essentially just a whole bunch of potential conflicts of interest. It's really not a huge deal for writers and developers to be friends, but professionalism is stretched real thin with cases like the Patricia Hernandez situation, or when donations are made to a writer from those who are ostensibly their subjects.
Games writing is such a weird thing. Coverage in general is getting even weirder with all these incredibly shady YouTube dealings. A conversation about the standards for professional writers and the landscape of current games coverage (including YouTube, blogs, Patreon etc.) is a good thing for everyone.
Integrity should be seen as sacrosanct. Avoid conflicts of interest, and if something veers to close to the line, disclose it. A writer or establishment having a good sense of their own standards and principles and expressing that to the reader with a code of conduct or whatever is a really simple way to make sure everyone is on the same page.
From really early on, and consistently throughout, Giant Bomb's been great at having those conversations when relationships get too close, or new things like Kickstarter pop up. I certainly don't have much doubts about their integrity. Their communication was central to that.
Not being an asshole about it is also integral to communicating well.
@stryker1121: They don't necessarily have 'guidelines' that they follow for every single game but they do decide what specific games they want to cover. And if they cover games too closely, like Bastion for instance, then they won't put out a formal review for it. Plus they make any bias really obvious since most of their content is video/ audio
@theht said:
@amafi said:
@sargus said:
@stryker1121 said:
Is it normal for enthusiast press to have some sort of ethics policy to follow? I'm a journalist, been in the business for 15 years (freelancing now), and my old newspaper adopted an ethics policy about six or years after I was hired. It followed SPJ guidelines, with addendums concentrating on conflicts of interest, like having a political sign in your yard. We weren't even allowed to sign petitions of any sort, which twisted some knickers. Has GB ever put a stance out there on this topic, officially or otherwise?
Every site I've written for has had a policy (which mostly mimics SPJ guidelines). Not all of them are public. I've actually seen a lot of people saying GG might go away if sites would "post an ethics policy and stick to it," but Polygon has a link to their ethics policy at the bottom of every review and they've remained one of GG's primary targets regardless. (Joystiq is another site that comes to mind with a detailed policy that's online.)
Did polygon have that before Ben Kuchera covered depression quest without saying anything about supporting her through Patreon? Was Kotaku's in place before Patricia wrote about a bunch of Anna Enthropy's stuff without mentioning they were roommates?
A writer supporting a developer through Patreon isn't particularly bad. A developer supporting a writer's Patreon however is questionable. A writer writing about a roommate's obscure project is pretty plainly skeezy, sure.
The "corruption" that "GamerGate" was opposed to as I understood it was essentially just a whole bunch of potential conflicts of interest. It's really not a huge deal for writers and developers to be friends, but professionalism is stretched real thin with cases like the Patricia Hernandez situation, or when donations are made to a writer from those who are ostensibly their subjects.
Games writing is such a weird thing. Coverage in general is getting even weirder with all these incredibly shady YouTube dealings. A conversation about the standards for professional writers and the landscape of current games coverage (including YouTube, blogs, Patreon etc.) is a good thing for everyone.
Integrity should be seen as sacrosanct. Avoid conflicts of interest, and if something veers to close to the line, disclose it. A writer or establishment having a good sense of their own standards and principles and expressing that to the reader with a code of conduct or whatever is a really simple way to make sure everyone is on the same page.
From really early on, and consistently throughout, Giant Bomb's been great at having those conversations when relationships get too close, or new things like Kickstarter pop up. I certainly don't have much doubts about their integrity. Their communication was central to that.
Not being an asshole about it is also integral to communicating well.
Yeah, GB editorial has been very good about that stuff. And I for one appreciated the building the Bastion video series a great deal and it was certainly a lot more interesting than another review.
And if some writer's best friend makes a fantastic thing, I WANT them to tell me about it. Just maybe tell me it's by a friend and not just something you found on the internet. It really ought to be pretty easy.
Of course, the conspiracy theorists are never going to be happy, people are still out there yelling about wanting Obama's birth certificate, you just can't win against a certain type of person, you can just hope they find something else to attach to or get on medication that works for them.
@pinner458 said:
Dave Lang is an example of corruption in games journalism.
Dave Lang is an example of corruption in humanity. But I value his contribution to all these hype games.
@amafi: That's the most frustrating part! It is easy!
Conspiracy theorists are another thing. I don't think every person who raises their eyebrow at a strange coincidence is a conspiracy theorist though. Sometimes things totally look weird, but those who aren't overwhelmed by paranoia can still see reason in spite of that weirdness.
@theht said:
@amafi: That's the most frustrating part! It is easy!
Conspiracy theorists are another thing. I don't think every person who raises their eyebrow at a strange coincidence is a conspiracy theorist though. Sometimes things totally look weird, but those who aren't overwhelmed by paranoia can still see reason in spite of that weirdness.
Of course. Most people can be reasoned with. But a lot of the stuff I've seen is either super far out conspiracy theorist tinfoil hat stuff, not unlike the kind of "reasoning" you might see if you check out David Icke's or antivaxxer forums etc, or just very clearly politically motivated (using words like cultural marxists, leftists, social justice warriors, all that shit). Just a lot of anomaly digging and then drawing incredibly far fetched conclusions or partisan moaning. I find that stuff as offputting as I do people on the other side trying to bring bullying back and things like that. Just a whole lot of unreasonableness all around.
Game journalists, even those who just consider themselves bloggers (kotaku, polygon, etc) need to come clear on their relations to industry people if they want to look better. I'm just stating the obvious again: People can and should learn from Jeff!
Hell, people can learn from Dan, and should.
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