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Brad

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Brad

6955

Forum Posts

9601

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174764

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Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

#1 Brad

@superfriend said:

If you're giving money to these guys, you basically say 'hey, I'm okay with you screwing up time and time again and not getting stuff done.'

They needed help from outside to finish BioShock Infinite- and the cut a lot of corners. It turned out okay, but I would not pay for anything these people do up front.

It's an incredibly naive view of game development to assume that every member of a large studio with dozens or hundreds of people is equally responsible for whatever production roadblocks and delays occurred. One bad decision on the part of management is enough for that to happen.

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Brad

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#2 Brad

@brad said:

@heyguys said:

@brad said:

@neon25 said:

@neon25 said:

While it's nicely written, I'm very disappointed how you still label GamerGate as a hate movement. It's just like saying all Muslims are jihadists. Just because they are a few shitty people in a group doesn't mean all people are shitty. I think you should definitely take a note of that, especially as a lot of people in this "hate movement" are your primary demographic, whether you like it or not.

Still, it was nice to finally get an official statement.

To add to that, it's really sad that Giant Bomb did nothing, while sites like the Escapist actually reevaluated their ethics standards and now if there's any chance that some personal connection might have influenced something in the review, it's simply mentioned in bold font in the header. It's that easy.

We've been proactively calling out any potential conflicts of interest since the day this site launched, as evidenced at the bottom of this review from more than six years ago:

http://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/rock-band-2-review/1900-56/

I promise you it's something we've always attempted to be extremely aware of. The idea that we "did nothing" seems kind of silly in this respect.

What about providing a platform or coverage, not just reviews? The media are the king makers of the smallest out there and the worry about "indies" I think comes from the fact that all games journalists are aware when they're at a press diner, when they get nice hotel rooms, when they get early access they know that's supposed to affect them and they are intentionally distancing those relationships from their jobs when it comes to AAA. However, people do not have their guard up when they are dealing with friends, even when those friends might not be actively pushing a self-interested dilemma those relationships can no-the-less influence how they are covered. Publicity is the equivalent of money as much as reviews are but publications do not have that same kind of vigilance regarding it. This makes having close relationships to the press an possible career booster while others without that privilege work without getting similar exposure.

You make a good point, and there's an even bigger conversation to have that includes discoverability on lucrative storefronts like Steam. I'll just say we try to be mindful of our friendships with people who make games, and for better or worse, our solution has been to try to make the audience aware of those relationships and let them make up their own mind. Hopefully that's working.

For my own part, I do my best to separate my acquaintance with a person from my feelings on the game they may have worked on. I can't in good conscience promote a game I don't sincerely think is cool, which is why I never, ever want to work in video game PR. All I can ask is that you trust me on that.

Once again the point has been made that critics of other media have the exact same issues, Roger Ebert, which is pretty much everyones golden standard of criticism had friends in the movie industry. Reviewed his friends movies, and there were no issues.

Games are not unique in this case.

Ebert didn't just have a lot of friends in the business, he wrote a screenplay that was produced and released as a finished film. Think about how it would go over if one of us at GB made and indie game and released it while continuing to review all the other games that were on sale right next to it.

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Brad

6955

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#3 Brad

@heyguys said:

@brad said:

@neon25 said:

@neon25 said:

While it's nicely written, I'm very disappointed how you still label GamerGate as a hate movement. It's just like saying all Muslims are jihadists. Just because they are a few shitty people in a group doesn't mean all people are shitty. I think you should definitely take a note of that, especially as a lot of people in this "hate movement" are your primary demographic, whether you like it or not.

Still, it was nice to finally get an official statement.

To add to that, it's really sad that Giant Bomb did nothing, while sites like the Escapist actually reevaluated their ethics standards and now if there's any chance that some personal connection might have influenced something in the review, it's simply mentioned in bold font in the header. It's that easy.

We've been proactively calling out any potential conflicts of interest since the day this site launched, as evidenced at the bottom of this review from more than six years ago:

http://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/rock-band-2-review/1900-56/

I promise you it's something we've always attempted to be extremely aware of. The idea that we "did nothing" seems kind of silly in this respect.

What about providing a platform or coverage, not just reviews? The media are the king makers of the smallest out there and the worry about "indies" I think comes from the fact that all games journalists are aware when they're at a press diner, when they get nice hotel rooms, when they get early access they know that's supposed to affect them and they are intentionally distancing those relationships from their jobs when it comes to AAA. However, people do not have their guard up when they are dealing with friends, even when those friends might not be actively pushing a self-interested dilemma those relationships can no-the-less influence how they are covered. Publicity is the equivalent of money as much as reviews are but publications do not have that same kind of vigilance regarding it. This makes having close relationships to the press an possible career booster while others without that privilege work without getting similar exposure.

You make a good point, and there's an even bigger conversation to have that includes discoverability on lucrative storefronts like Steam. I'll just say we try to be mindful of our friendships with people who make games, and for better or worse, our solution has been to try to make the audience aware of those relationships and let them make up their own mind. Hopefully that's working.

For my own part, I do my best to separate my acquaintance with a person from my feelings on the game they may have worked on. I can't in good conscience promote a game I don't sincerely think is cool, which is why I never, ever want to work in video game PR. All I can ask is that you trust me on that.

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Brad

6955

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9601

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Reviews: 0

User Lists: 4

#4 Brad

@neon25 said:

@neon25 said:

While it's nicely written, I'm very disappointed how you still label GamerGate as a hate movement. It's just like saying all Muslims are jihadists. Just because they are a few shitty people in a group doesn't mean all people are shitty. I think you should definitely take a note of that, especially as a lot of people in this "hate movement" are your primary demographic, whether you like it or not.

Still, it was nice to finally get an official statement.

To add to that, it's really sad that Giant Bomb did nothing, while sites like the Escapist actually reevaluated their ethics standards and now if there's any chance that some personal connection might have influenced something in the review, it's simply mentioned in bold font in the header. It's that easy.

We've been proactively calling out any potential conflicts of interest since the day this site launched, as evidenced at the bottom of this review from more than six years ago:

http://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/rock-band-2-review/1900-56/

I promise you it's something we've always attempted to be extremely aware of. The idea that we "did nothing" seems kind of silly in this respect.

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Brad

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#5 Brad

Excellent header image on the front page for this. Well done. That's how I imagine gg to be.

You wouldn't believe how much time I spent getting just the right screenshot for that. (You probably would, it was about 90 minutes.)

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Brad

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#6  Edited By Brad

Hello! I'm J Allard, here to take your questions. Ask Me Anything!

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Brad

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#7 Brad

Pascual and I are gonna roll on Warbringer as soon as we wait through the queue. Any classes the guild is looking for? I'll probably play a warrior unless there's a big surplus.

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Brad

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#8 Brad

@buemba said:

It's a time for change, so I believe this is a good opportunity to kill the Bombcast. Kill it and replace with The Bombcast Tapes: Side A (West coast team, releases on Tuesday) and Side B (East coast team, releases on Friday).

Getting a new Jeff hosted podcast and a new Vinny hosted podcast every week would be pretty sweet.

If our site had favorites, I would favorite this.

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Brad

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#9 Brad
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Brad

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#10 Brad

Exact same thing happened to me (down to the Kentucky Saddler being the horse I whistled for). Didn't stop this from becoming one of my all-time favorite games.